#(assuming he dies normally and gets a grave)

[valiant-typhoon]

Slow progress on the Both Feel the Same When Your Eyes Are Closed AU fic. I love bad guy dialogue when they know a bunch of info. I hate the timline fuckery in naruto so much

Their kunai scraped against each other, their eyes meeting over the locked blades.

“Your death will convince Tsunade-sama to heal my master’s arms all the more,” he hissed with a tight smile, “don’t worry Shizune-san you’ll be revived with Edo-Tensei.”

Her eyes widened, a bolt of horror went through her at the name of the jutsu. “Edo-tensei?”

“Orochimaru-sama decoded the Second Hokage’s notes, it’s quite the accompli—” He was cut off, having to dodge the knife that would have gone through his eye. He continued speaking as if the interruption hadn’t happened.

“Don’t you want to see Dan Kato again?” He asked with a pleasant smile, it would have been indulging if it weren’t so empty. “He raised you, more of a father than an uncle. Don't you want your master happy with her love? See them together again? Your family?” He punctuated his words with a strike aiming for her throat, she dodged, the air brushed over her skin with a deadly warning. Fear and anger were burning inside her chest.

“He died so pointlessly, so young,” he continued, stabbing forward with a chakra scalpel. Shizune retaliated, her own chakra blade coated hand aiming for the femoral artery. He dodged, she sliced through flesh and muscle but the satisfying burst of arterial blood was absent.

“And what will your master do when it’s you who dies and he has no way to bring you back?” Shizune snarled, pushing her advantage, not allowing him to heal the damage.

@moldy-flowers

[astorianyxkings]

Dick Grayson is a hyperfixation I'll never get over and him being prepared to be the next Batman is something I physically can't get over. Let's get into it.

Dick's filled in for Batman before, whenever Bruce needed to make a public appearance or when Vicki Vale starts her whole "never seen Mr Wayne and Batman at the same time" thing. And you know he's pretty good at filling in for Batman, criminals and villains can't really tell the difference when he does, but the Bats can, because Dick is Dick and they know him.

But this was different. Bruce was gone (dead, maimed, lost to the world, take your pick) and Dick picked up the mantle. And at first no one really batted and eye, he's been in the suit hundreds of times by now, this isn't gonna be very different.

Except it is. Because even in the cave, there's no smiles, no quips, puns or jokes to make them groan, no stories about things he remembers doing as Robin when dealing with a certain villain. There's none of the Nightwing left in him. There's just Batman now. And you know they thought things wouldn't be so bad, they thought they could laugh with him, talk about how he's "like the old man now, huh Goldie?" but they can't.

Because seeing him in the Batsuit looks right and that feels so damn wrong. This isn't who he is, this isn't what he wants. Nightwing may be like Batman in theory but ask anyone who's fought them both, they're different entities. One of them still has hope.

And it's borderline freaky because he even acts like him. The JLA and their teams love to tease the Bats about how they all have the same mannerisms, like a creepy bat cult. But this is weird because Dick's acting exactly like Bruce, like he's freaking possesses by him.

He sits the way Bruce would, he stands in the shadows the way he would, he fires his weapons the way Bruce would. He has the goddam gravelly bat-voice down the way Bruce perfected it. He is Batman, and it's so wrong.

It's also a moment of realization for them, because even though they're all fast learners, they can't perfect being Bruce the way he does. This isn't something he perfected over weeks or months, this had to be in practice for years.

For years Dick Grayson trained himself to not only embody his own persona as Robin and then Nightwing, but to also be the ultimate clone of Batman. It makes their skin crawl, Dick was the eldest, he was the first Robin. Jason liked to say that Bruce may have been the ring leader but Dick started the cult. But this? His ability to be Batman, to turn himself into Bruce? Into their father so easily? It's a transition that sets them all on edge.

The Bats are quite that first night on patrol. Damian's with Dick because duh Batman and Robin. But the baby bat keeps shifting, his eyes darting back from the streets they're watching to Batman's shadow in the corner of his eyes. Because he feels like throwing up. He's partnered with Nightwing before, and secretly he loves it because Nightwing in Blüdhaven is like breathing in fresh air after Batman in Gotham. But now Nightwing is Batman and like always, Batman dominates all. So he remains silent, silently wishing and praying Dick will crack a joke once they're alone, make him laugh the way only his eldest brother could.

The rest of the Bats are shocked when Dick's voice comes across the comms. Because he sounds just like Bruce and he isn't asking for help or suggesting what they do, he's telling them where to go, how to handle something and where he wants them to reconvene. And yeah Dick's a great leader, by now they've all either seen him with The Titans or worked with them before. But this is different, he's a hasn't got that Nightwing charm on.

Oracle's hands shake as she types back at the cave. She knows better than anyone how much Dick hates this. He's prepared for it since he was like nine when Bruce took him in but he still hates it. No son ever wants to truly be his father, and Dick never wanted to be Bruce and he's long since stopped wanting to be Batman. The cowl comes with a price he hated to bear.

When they return to the cave, everyone kind of lingers. Usually, once they've given their reports, everyone goes their separate ways. Tim and Steoh have to get back to college, Duke and Damian head upstairs, Cass and Babs leave to help Cass pack for wherever she's going, Jason and Dick head back out, one to Park Row, the other to Blüdhaven. But instead of that they all kind of linger in the cave, they're expecting Dick to break character by now, to say something so unbelievably ridiculous that they can't all help but laugh along with him. He does no such thing.

Instead he takes off the cowl, confirming that he's not their dad but rather their brother, and sits at the computer to work through the open cases Bruce left. When he dismisses them and they all leave, Kate and Luke hang back. They too, know how much he hates this. How much he wants nothing more that to scream and break down. They linger for about a half an hour, finally leaving when Dick says he's going back to Blüdhaven. Thank the gods he isn't staying here, they don't think they could leave him alone if he did.

When Dick gets back to Blüdhaven, he scrubs himself down after the Gotham patrol and finally puts on his suit. Its the later half of 4am almost 5, but he doesn't care. He needs this. So he goes on patrol, he flips and flies in the sky, as the gods had always intended for him and he makes stupid jokes when he takes down the criminals who thought they got away when he didn't patrol around 2am as usual.

The next morning, the Bats all let out sighs of relief when they see Nightwing's blurry figure on the online news articles. They never wanted him to give up who he was for Batman. Bruce, emotionally constipated as he is, never wanted them to give up themselves for his mantle.

When Bruce is either revived, wakes us or returns from whatever hell he's been in, the Bats hug him a little tighter, but its his second eldest who lingers. Jason stays in the cave when the rest of them filters out, Dick tried to stay, but eventually left when Jason promised not to cause an argument. "You can't do this again, Old Man." Jason says, he sounds so exhausted so hurt that Bruce wants to hug him. But that action would result in him getting shot so he refrains. "I don't plan to," Bruce responds, "But even without me, you all managed to keep your heads on straight."

"Because of him." Jason responds, he doesn't need to clarify who, they all know who's the one aside from Alfred making sure they stay in touch, stay a family. "You can't do this to him ever again." Jason finishes and Bruce nods, placing a hand on his son's shoulder, "I won't."

And if Bruce does managed to catch a stray tear falling from Jason's blue-green eyes, that's no one's business but his.

“The Batkids probably gave Dick so much shit when he first put on the Batsuit.” No. The Batkids all saw Dick in Bruce’s suit and all secretly felt nauseous about how wrong it looked. How wrong it felt.

[feefivefoe]

My little spinoff of the neglected Batfam idea.

Rather than being the 2nd youngest, reader is actually the same age as Jason, just a few months apart. Brought into the family years before him, being the 2nd child Bruce took in.

A bio child, and while I have my own ideas as to how it occurred, I'll leave those aside for this post.

Do keep in mind I'm not a huge DC fan, so I only have baseline knowledge of the Batfam and literally nothing else lol

Dick and Bruce aren't too interested in reader, as the troupe goes. But Jason is! There's a bit of tension at first as he assumes they're going to be a prissy spoiled brat, as Bruce's bio kid.

They don't get to be the closest of siblings, given he's busy with being the newest crime fighting vigilante. But it's the most reader has had in a long time, and at least Jason TRIES to be there for the occasional big life event, despite being a teenager like them. It's more than the adult family members of theirs do.

Then he dies. And neither Bruce or Dick even remember to tell reader when his funeral is. Even Alfred didn't mention it, assuming the death of their family member would be the one thing they speak about, even if it's just to mourn.

Years later and the butler still curses himself for assuming. He knew better, and yet still tried to have faith in the two.

That's the final straw. They missed the funeral of their only family. They had to ask Alfred where his grave was in order to say their goodbyes.

Perhaps due to low self esteem, they don't hate Bruce, or Dick, or later Tim. Of course Gotham is more important than the feelings of one child.

But they aren't family. They're just housemates.

Which is perhaps why, the first chance they get at 18 (technically 17, but nobody in the city cared enough about legalities to actually follow through with checking their ID) they get the hell out of that manor.

Discarding every connection they had to that family. Phone tossed aside, new one with a new number obtained. Even throwing out any contact with Alfred.

And as a result, they miss that Jason is revived just a year or two later.

Not that his first thought is finding them. He was just brought back from the dead, the man has other things on his mind, okay?

But once his thoughts of vengeance have settled down, he starts settling in to the new normal, only to look around and see a sibling is missing.

[lxvvie]

@art-herog, you have called and I have answered. I think. And then I went and tweaked it so the scenario is as follows: your lovely babies are doing their own thing and ignoring you. how would they respond to you calling them someone by else's name as a prank?

Capt. John Price - It doesn't register because he's lost count of how many pet names you have for him and he assumes this is the latest one. Your prank dies a solemn, cigar-ridden death.

Gaz - "WHO?!" It's funny watching Gaz get all jealous and shit with his nostrils flaring. Yeah, that's what you get for the last prank (said prank woke you up from a good-ass nap).

Alex Keller - Has a delayed reaction. You think he didn't hear you until you hear, "The hell you say?" And thus he close shut the jaws... of Sweet Keller Lovin'. By refusing to manspread. Yeah, you wanna play that game? Good luck getting another glimpse at his sweet thighs, babe.

Soap - Is devastated in Golden Retriever. Was busy watching the latest football (soccer) game when you... when you broke his heart. How could you do this to him? Is willing to find and fight the bastard for his (his as in Soap's) honor because he gave himself to you mind, body, and spirit... after he sulks some more because his team just had to lose the game.

Ghost - A total Petty Betty 'cause you got him fucked up lmao. Doesn't really respond to it aside from a heated glance initially. And then he gets you back. You ask him a question: "Mm. Ask the knobhead, he'll have 'n answer for ya." You try to flirt with him: "Sorry. Simon is spoken for." You can practically see the smirk in his eyes. Touché, you bastard. Touché.

Alejandro - Was sifting through paperwork. Called him handsome to get his attention. No response. Okay, then. You then called him gorgeous. Still no response. Then: "You hear me, Rudy?" Alejandro stops mid-sift and stares. Hard. Bonus points because Rudy was in the vicinity and poked his head in all, "You called?" You're smirking, Alejandro narrows his eyes and turns to stare at Rudy, and poor baby doesn't even know what the fuck is going on.

Rudy - His whole reaction can be summed up as '??????????'. When it hits him it turns into '?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?'. Wait, who the hell is Dasher—?

König - König's inner Eldritch Horror Call of Köthulu Yandere comes out in full force and oh wow, did the air change all of a sudden? What's that tension? You turn and he's staring at you. Calmly. Evenly. He doesn't even blink. And then, "Who is Prinz, Schatz?" Turns out the person he lost that sniper position to took the callsign Prinz and König decided to one-up his ass. Once assured it was all a prank, he's back to his... normal self again? A Shadow over KorTac, indeed. It's on sight, PRINZ!

Horangi - Turns out one of the names you used is an alias he tried to use to get into a game but he got found out. He tells you the whole story and everything. It was riveting as shit, so much so that you forget you were even trying to prank him.

Graves - Doesn't even bother to react. Not really except for this one line: "Mm. He fuck you as good as I do, darlin'?" PHILLIP, PLEASE—

Valeria - Hits you with another Uno Reverse and calls you by the name of one of her exes. Thought you were being fucking cute with that prank, eh?

Roach - Wait, when did he receive a new callsign?

Keegan - Wasn't quite outwardly reactive but was mentally drafting a plan to find the bastard if only because they had an incredibly shitty name compared to his. Or something like that.

[space-snake]

Danny Phantom headcannon:

The Infinite Realms connects every part of the multiverse, so what happens when two versions of someone dies? Are there two practically identical ghosts?

No!

For a ghost to form, all versions of the person they used to be need to be dead. This is why it’s so hard to contact loved ones from beyond the grave; they’re not actually done getting dead

Of course, there’s multiple types of dead things and it’s not even guaranteed you become a dead thing after you kick the bucket, you might just stop existing entirely. But assuming your eventual destination is ‘ghost’, here’s the process:

You die. Your essence appears in the infinite realms, but it’s not enough to form a core yet. You have no consciousness during this process. Other versions of you die and coalesce, slowly forming a core. Eventually, the last version of you left alive dies as well and a proper core is formed. From there, all your memories of different versions of events get sorted out as you develop a form. This form depends on a lot of factors, including most common cause of death between all the versions of you. Your mind probably doesn’t break because your new ghostly nature allows you to comprehend the process you just went through and form a somewhat linear narrative of your time before being a ghost. Mind breaks aren’t unheard of though, especially for ghosts from more chaotic multiversal clusters (clusters of relatively similar multiverses) but health care is free in the Realms, assuming you know that the Far Frozen exists and are capable of getting there. You probably do know this because there are ghosts dedicated to finding developing cores and protocores and bringing them to a ‘nursery’ so nothing goes wrong during the ghosts formation*

What about Danny?

Every natural universe (that is, a universe that formed ‘naturally’ through incomprehensible infinite realms eldritch stuff instead of like, through magic or timeline stuff) where Danny got zapped by the portal instantly combined into one. Everyone in that universe started experiencing weird mandela effects, Deja vu, glitch in the matrix moments, weird mental health problems, etc. but it never got brought up in the show because it happened before, when Vlad become the first halfa. So their multiversal cluster is a minuscule fraction of what it once was, significantly smaller than the average cluster. And you know how Danny keeps getting stronger? That’s another version of Danny, one who never became a halfa, dying and becoming part of the Danny we’re familiar with. Vlad never really gets stronger because he’s ‘complete’ now.

Normally, when a timeline shift happens and creates a new universe, it will atrophy and die on its own, getting subsumed back into the Realms. However, Clockwork made it so that our Danny’s timeline, instead of remaining an offshoot and eventually decaying, became the prime timeline, causing the ‘original’ timeline to begin decaying. A few things could happen to Dan because of this:

1.) he simply stops existing

2.) he becomes a part of Vlad or Danny

3.) his essence separates and the appropriate parts go back to Vlad and Danny

4.) he is allowed to continue existing, as his own separate being, assuming he faces punishment/gets redeemed/whatever with the understanding that nothing like him has ever existed before so he might end up merging with someone anyway completely against the will or wishes of anyone involved

Dani is a clone, so she’s technically a version of Danny, but according to the laws of the multiverse is actually her own being with her own multiversal variants out there, so no angst about her potentially merging with Danny at some point

*surprise dc crossover: What happens if, in the middle of forming into a ghost, your protocore is suddenly ripped into pieces as you’re brought back to life across multiple universes? Well it depends on how you were brought back. Rotten pools of ectoplasm might surround your core shard for example, creating a strange mixture of revenant and pseudo-halfa….

[inky125]

Mary Linton and Jack Marston meeting in 1922

Okay but these are just my headcanons for the very improbable scenario that they end up bumping into each other in the future. / My headcanons for what they would do with their lives after the events of rdr/rdr2

(I'm going to explain them under the cut)

Okay so, starting with Jack:

I want to believe Jack lived a more or less normal life after killing Ross, successfully getting away with this one (1) murder, and having that as a skeleton in his closet. Not finding peace really, so the whole revenge thing doesn't fix his miserable life but he can go on to try to do something with his life. Gunslinging doesn't really have a place anymore here.

When the US joined WWI I know that boy DID NOT join the US Army, he would NEVER join the group that killed his dad, or make the same mistake as him and make a deal with the government. He would rather be jailed for dodging the draft, what will they do, threaten him with what? He has nothing to live for really, so they can't make him. I don't think he cares much if he gets shot (he has a like saying as much in rdr when he duels Ross).

After the whole jail thing he'd go back to a more or less normal life, I'd guess he would have to have a regular job and write whenever he's able (I want to believe that one Easter egg in GTA is canon...it is to me...), but I don't think he'd be able to make a living just from writing.

As for Mary, I always wondered why Mary was dressed the way she was during the credits cut scene in Rdr2. Because I'm guessing it takes place in 1907 (given that most cut scenes appear to happen at the same time more or less than the epilogue). But I wondered why Mary was dressing in black; I mean, during the Victorian era there were very specific mourning traditions, especially for women. Wearing black was pretty much a part of a social thing, you'd publicly mourn. The extension of your mourning would depend on who died and what was your relationship with them.

And here is the thing, Arthur had died 8 years ago by then, we could assume Mary had found out shortly after of his dead because newspapers in the Rdr2 universe love to brag whenever law enforcement/Pinkertons kill renown outlaws. (Even Arthur and Hosea get mentioned years later in some sort of article in 1907 too). And additionally, we know that Mary kept up with how the gang, especially Arthur, was doing through the news on the newspapers. So again, it wouldn't be crazy to assume she knew about Arthur's death back in 1899.

So then, why is she wearing a black dress to visit his grave in 1907?. Black is the color of mourning, but as far as I am aware (and correct me if I'm wrong) it was not required to visit a grave back in the day. So I like to headcanon Mary mourning Arthur like a widow, because widows would have to wear their black weeds for 2 years (there were different periods of mourning, for instance Mary's clothes could be classified under the 'half-mourning' type, meaning there has been at least 6 months since her loved one passed away, meaning she could now wear some jewelry, other colours, ect.

But here is a little extra, Queen Victoria popularized among some women the practice to never abandon their period of half mourning, and especially, keep wearing black the rest of their lives even if they move on, as a sign of love for their dead husband.

Mary and Arthur never got married, but I like to think Mary lived as a widow for him. Continuing with her life as normal, of course, but always having that bittersweet ache in her heart, dressing in black out of respect and love for him and the life they couldn't have. Even if she had wanted to move on from him after she realized they couldn't be together as Arthur wouldn't leave the gang, I think she would have folded if Arthur had gone after her (I mean she did re-initiate contact after they were supposed to never speak again), and I think she was still preparing herself emotionally when she heard the news that Arthur was dead, ironically not moving on from him.

She didn't remarry, Jamie made good money and maintained her, Mary knew the kind of life she didn't want and she could be respectable and old as a widow. Plus marrying someone new at her age would be a titanic task.

I think Mary kept her mother's brooch Arthur returned for her as her reminder of him, given that she returned the picture and the ring. In fact she's wearing it when she visits Arthur's grave in-game!. So I kept that

It just warms my heart to think of the very few people left who knew about the gang finding each other in usual ways. Maybe next time I'd do Sadie or Charles. I'm just a sucker for this kind of things

[teklarn]

devoted little thing, pt 1. - j. todd

masterlist!

jason todd x fem!reader

link to the fic on AO3 -> here

genre: angst (series)

summary: After the death of your boyfriend, Jason Todd, your life has never been the same. You abandon everything you've ever known: your job working for Batman as a detective, your home, your friends. That is until three years after his death, your life is saved by a mysterious vigilante calling himself the Red Hood.

You assume it was a one-off; that the infamous anti-hero just happened to be in the right place at the right time. But you're finding his calling card everywhere. He's around every single corner―you can't seem to get rid of him. The mystery of his identity brings you back to Bruce in hopes of finding out who he is. But as intimidating as the Red Hood is, with his blurry morals and all, you can't help but find yourself falling for him.

Your devotion to your late lover, Jason, is strong, but it feels so nice to be touched again―how could you say no to the man who saved your life?

warnings: non canon compliant, heavy themes of depression and anxiety, slight yandere themes to come, slight stalking, suicidal thoughts, heavy angst, death, unedited.

-

He had always been angry. So damn angry. At you, at the world, at Bruce. 

And you knew, dammit. You had known deep down that his anger would cost him dearly one day. 

You just didn't think it would put him in the ground. 

Tears erupted from your eyes like a waterfall, Bruce and Alfred the only other people present as they dropped your beloved into the ground, his youthful face illuminated by the silver moonlight spilling over the graveyard. The three of you stayed silent. What was there to say? At any other funeral, people would say the usual: He died too young. His life still has meaning. He's looking down on us right now. He'll guide you. 

Damn it all. Damn everything. As you stared at that coffin, the dark wood splattered with raindrops violently crashing down, you couldn't help the anger boiling in your veins. Sad as you were, you couldn't help but think to yourself: Was I not enough? Not enough to stop him from chasing his anger down into a well. A pit of darkness so deep and inescapable even you couldn't pull him out of it. 

Bruce rests a hand on your shoulder, lifting the umbrella higher to further shelter you from the violent downpour. You pretend not to notice the way his cheeks are rosy from the cold, or how his eyes are watering the longer he stares at the grave. 

Death curls its bony fingers around your throat―it whispers sweet nothings in your ear. Once upon a time, you'd been just like Jason. Alone on the streets, an orphan with no direction in life. But cursed with a talent for solving any mystery you could get your hand on, Bruce welcomed you into his family, where you had met Jason. Someone who knew what it was like to be alone. Someone with the same resentment towards the world. The only person who understood you was in the ground now. And, just hours before his death, you had fought. 

Jason was no easy-going boy. There were some days where you pondered that perhaps Jason liked to bicker with you. He liked the thrill of fighting, of winning. Your relationship was perfect by no means, but it wasn't toxic. Not until his anger got the best of him, like it had hours before his death. The fight had started like many others and had ended the same way: with him storming out the door, cheeks reddened with fury, hints of tears glinting in his eyes. 

On any normal day, you would have chased after him. Told him not to run away from his problems. He would have returned with a scowl on his face, but at least he would still be home. It was the one time you didn't chase after him. The one time you let him slip away. 

And dammit, the guilt was stabbing your gut like rusty knives. 

You resisted the urge to shove Bruce's hand off your shoulder, instead opting for the respectful option of turning away, claiming you just needed space. Which wasn't entirely a lie. You didn't want to be near Bruce, nor Alfred, but if they hadn't been standing at Jason's grave, you would have stayed there and cried all night. Until your eyes were puffy, until the rain left you a shivering, soaking mess. Until Death came to claim you itself. 

Back inside, when Bruce and Alfred finally rejoined you, you'd already showered and changed into a dry pair of clothes. It had taken all the strength left inside your soul to take care of yourself. To not throw yourself onto your bed and drown beneath the plush sheets. 

You couldn't look Bruce in the eye. The fire flickered, casting shadows on his harsh features, the flames dancing across the walls. His eyes were angry. His eyes looked like Jason's. 

On long, hard days, Jason would rant about Bruce. About his antics, his supposed cowardice, his lack of courage when it came to doing the hard thing over the right thing. On those days, you yearned to tell Jason that he looked just like Bruce. That the only real difference between them was that Bruce would choose his morals over everything. 

Now, Bruce's eyes darkened. There was hate behind them. Thoughts swarming, filled with white-hot anger that mirrored your own. That same anger that mirrored Jason's. You couldn't do it. You could barely keep yourself on your feet. 

"Is everything all right?" Alfred asked, his gaze averting from his master to you. The wrinkles in his face made you sick. It felt wrong to see someone so old, so wise, someone who had lived life to the fullest of years. In fifty years, Jason should look just like Alfred. With wrinkles and smile lines pressed deep into his features. Crows feet should crinkle at the edges of his eyes and his smile should reflect accomplishment. 

You tried to shove the image from your head, but staring at Bruce and Alfred was like looking at future versions of the man you loved. The man you'd just buried underground mere hours ago. 

Blinking away tears, you waved off the poor butler. "I have to go. I'm sorry." 

Weeks later, you felt entirely, hopelessly useless. And Bruce had allowed you to rot. Your bed was your only comfort aside from your imagination. You'd pull your pillows close, running your hands over the smooth cases, digging your fingers into the wrinkles the same way you'd fist Jason's shirt when he'd hold you. Bruce's disciplined antics hadn't ceased, but he was shockingly understanding. 

Well, maybe not shockingly. To him, he'd lost a son. To you, you'd lost a best friend, a lover, a soulmate. Whatever your naive little mind could conjure up. Jason was everything. 

As the days dragged on, your anger subsided. All you wanted was him, now. One more minute to apologize for your attitude, one more second just to run your fingers over his olive-toned skin. Just a moment. One fleeting, desperate moment to say three words: "I love you." 

Your mind was a prison of grief, your body was a shell housing a half-dead soul. Periodically, Alfred came in to set plates of food on your nightstand. Your mouth watered, but the food remained untouched for the most part. Guilt prodded at your stomach. Bruce should find a way to drag you out of bed. He should force you to stop mourning; to find a distraction. Perhaps a new case for you to dive into. 

You felt like throwing up. 

Just the image of Bruce's face brought back the image of Jason's. An older, colder version of Jason hardened by the vices of the world. And Alfred, sweet Alfred could place a reason as to why you refused to look at him, too. 

It was all because of Jason. Because he deserved to live, to be old and die old. He deserved to be ninety and to rot away in some hospice, waiting for death to greet him like an old friend. His hairline would be receded and his face would be marred with age spots and freckles from years of baking under the sun. 

"Miss?" A knock at your door sounded, and the familiar voice of Bruce's friendly butler flooded your ears. 

A quiet sob slipped past your lips. Loneliness was consuming you like a disease, but who could you talk to that would be worth your time? Who would understand you, who would bring you back to life the way he always knew how to? 

A soft, "Mhm?" was all you could manage. 

You heard Alfred peel the door open with a creak, and the smell of steaming hot food invaded your nostrils, the mouth-watering spices wafting into your room and filling the space with warmth and love. He set the plate down on your nightstand, exchanging it for your un-touched dinner from the night before. 

"Master Wayne is requesting your presence. Would you...care to join him after breakfast?" The hesitance in Alfred's voice made your guilt ten times worse. You were bloated with regret and sadness―it was spilling through your mouth, your eyes. Your very being was drenched with remorse. 

"I can join him now," you say weakly. You didn't care much to make yourself presentable. Bruce had known both you and Jason's since you were children. You'd both been welcomed into the family under the same circumstances. Jason, being only a few years older than you, had been the first to make you feel truly at home. Everything seemed to revolve around Jason and it made you so...so angry. 

"He insists you take your time getting ready." The gentleness in Alfred's tone told you everything he meant to portray. Take all the time you need. There's something important he needs to tell you. 

When the door clicks shut, you don't know how, but you manage to crawl out of bed. The feeling of your feet on the scratchy carpet is foreign, even the hot water running down your body feels like a new sensation when you're able to drag your ass into the shower. Damn, how long had it been since you last washed up? 

The depression had a chokehold on you. It had sunk its teeth and nails bone-deep, slowly slurping the life from your veins. Your body obeyed nothing but sloth. It was a shock even to yourself that you had offered to meet Bruce downstairs. 

By the time you wipe the steam off the mirror and see yourself, you look the same as you had the day you buried Jason. Your eyes are still painfully puffy, your skin dry from tears dragging down your cheeks. You throw on suitable but casual clothing, and you have to admit, it feels nice to put yourself together after spending weeks sinking into your mattress, practically binding your body to it. 

Downstairs, Bruce is already waiting. Alfred has your coat ready. Your footsteps halt on the stairs as hesitance builds its way through your body. You can still barely look at Bruce without seeing Jason. You train your eyes on Alfred instead, hoping that you'll find his wrinkled face easier to bear. 

"What's going on?" Your voice cuts through the silence, echoing painfully along the empty walls of the manor. 

Bruce sighs, but you keep your eyes down or on Alfred. You can't look at him. You really can't. He takes your jacket from Alfred and holds the arms out for you. "We're relocating you." 

"What? Relocating me? What does that mean?" Confusion ebbs its way into your mind. 

"Both Alfred and I have concluded that it isn't healthy for you to stay here anymore. You need something new. Something―" 

You cut Bruce off. "What the hell do you mean by relocating me?" 

Alfred straightened. "There's an apartment Master Wayne has purchased within the city. We thought it might be better for you to be surrounded by people. There might be an opportunity for you to―" 

"To what? I don't need to be moved, I'm fine where I am. What about all the cases I've solved in the past? You don't think I'm fit to do it anymore?" You knew they were only trying to help. That this was the only way they knew how after you'd completely shut down. But your anger couldn't be snuffed out. This outburst was new. It wasn't you. "What? Are you trying to get rid of me? Am I too much of a reminder of him? Don't try to run away from your issues again, Bruce." 

You didn't want to say this. You didn't want to be so...mean. But dammit, your mouth was moving too fast for you to think. Even when Alfred and Bruce's faces flickered with sympathy and a strange sense of understanding, you didn't stop your insults. 

"I don't need to move. I don't need to run away." Your brows knit together in anger. 

"Then what do you need?" Bruce dared to ask. 

"I..." Your voice caught in your throat. I want Jason, I want his comfort. I want his words, his arms, his love and unconditional understanding. 

Bruce's stern features tightened. Instead of the father-figure you'd come to know, he was just a businessman right now. Cold, calculating, demanding. The strength it took you to meet his gaze was all you needed to snatch your coat and toss yourself into his vehicle.

The apartment wasn't shaggy, but it was homey. It felt much warmer than the emptiness you'd been accustomed to back at the estate. The ride here had been riddled with painful silence, you nor Bruce or Alfred daring to speak. A part of you wanted to apologize for your outburst. It wasn't their fault, they were just trying to help. You knew damn well that was the truth. 

One bathroom, one bedroom, a generous kitchen, and a balcony three stories up, overlooking the trash-littered street below. Gotham wasn't a beautiful place, but maybe it was just what you needed. To be around people, surrounded by the environment of people just as lost and as broken as you. 

The lack of elegance made you appreciate the apartment that much more. Bruce knew you didn't need anymore empty space to fill. And this...this was what you needed. 

Still, some wretched part of you couldn't stand the thought of decisions being made for you. You wanted someone to blame, someone to yell at. Something to take out your anger on. 

"We'd like to keep in touch." Bruce handed you a transmitter. One of his high-tech ones made just for you. It was an order, not a request. You snatched the transmitter from his calloused hands and stuffed it away. 

"How do you know I'm not going to kill myself now that no one is watching me?" You snickered. Your chuckle was humorless. It was a painful truth they hadn't thought of. Or...they had, judging by the tension pulling on their features. 

You didn't want to ask how or why. 

Don't make this about you, you scolded yourself. Gray emotions swirled within you. 

"We'll deliver your things tomorrow morning. Just allow yourself to get settled in." Alfred nodded to the transmitter. "If you need anything―anything at all―don't hesitate to reach out. This will be good for you." 

You must have pushed the awkward farewells from your mind, because somehow you ended up on the floor of your new apartment, sobbing at the emptiness. The void of your new home felt like a region in outer space that even an alien wouldn't belong to. Your mixed emotions, the pain running through your chest, it was all a constant reminder of what you lost, of who you were haunted by. Of the person you'd never see again. 

The emptiness inside of you was a permanent reminder of the person you had once loved the most, and how he had died thinking you were angry at him. 

This is good for me, you reminded yourself. 

Tears spilled from your eyes. 

This is good for me.

-

link to the fic on AO3 -> here

[lil-dragon-rawr]

TOH x DC Shenanigans: The Beginning of Vigilante Bingo

This is turning into a whole au oops

Part One, Part Three, Part Four

Masterlist

(Red Hood and Luz during the Batfam/Clawthorne & Co meeting, debating over who had the worst death)

Red Hood: psycho clown beat me with a crowbar

Luz: I raise you: eldritch blasted by a four hundred year old slime monster with a dozen eyes that once was human

Red Hood, getting competitive: died because I tried to save my bio mom

Luz, matching his energy: died to save a kid who reminded me of someone I or my little brother could have been

Red Hood: beaten with a crowbar, then blown up and asphyxiated

Luz: eldritch blasted, then slowly decayed in front of my found family I had just reunited with

Red Hood: my dad got there just barely too late to save me

Luz: dissolved into light, making me question the symbolism of my own name, then floated to the Archives and made my mother cry while she was a puppet (sorry Maman)

Red Hood, not quite sure how to respond to that:

Red Hood: kay but I wasn't even old enough to legally drive

Luz: oh how old were you?

Red Hood, thinking he's winning: fifteen

Luz: fourteen! Ha!

Red Hood: *groans loudly*

Batman, looking on in horror: there's two of them now.

Luz: okay but how'd you come back

Red Hood: well first I dug myself out of my own grave

Luz, immediately accepting defeat: ohhh snap, that sucks dude

Red Hood: yeah, then I got kinda-sorta kidnapped by assassins and dunked in a revival goo pit

Luz: that's the smoothie extravaganza you were talking about??

Red Hood: yeah, but anyways how'd you come back?

Luz: well I almost drowned in between dimensions but the Titan saved me and sent me back with a powerup!

Red Hood: okay literally chosen by a god, pop off

Luz: he revived me with the sole purpose of killing that moldy onion of an emperor

Red Hood, delighted: you killed a guy? An emperor, no less?

Luz, trained by her mom to not accidentally incriminate herself: technically, the rain killed him

Eda, offended: excuse you, I helped!

Robin, still surrounded by palisman: I assume your familiars are magic, given they can turn into wood. How did you acquire them?

Hunter, smiling and kneeling down to Waffle: that's the thing. Palisman and witches have to form a mutual bond.

Robin: ...and how does one do that?

Hunter: well first you have to carve a palisman!

Robin: so they're originally wood?

Hunter: yeah, it's tradition! There used to be a bunch of stray palisman living in the woods, but they've all made new bonds, and the palistrom forests are recovering!

Robin: ...hm.

Hunter: once you carve a palisman, you have to tell it your deepest wish. That's how the bond is formed

Robin, scoffing: sounds childish.

Hunter, smiling softly: it's a lot more difficult than it seems. Luz took months to bond with Stringbean

Robin, crossing his arms: perhaps because she is indecisive. I am not.

Amity, coming over to sit with Ghost: Hunter's right. I thought I knew what I wanted, but all I knew was what my parents wanted for me. My palisman wouldn't wake until I said I wanted to choose my own path, whatever it may be :)

Robin, who doesn't know what he wants no matter what he claims: *having an existential crisis but pretending he's just brooding*

(Barbara and Amity grabbing coffee after work)

Barbara, pretending she doesn't know all the lore: so how's your gf doing

Amity, completely unaware: she's great! :)

Amity: we're winning bingo :D

Barbara, sipping her latte: oh?

Amity: it's partner bingo so we're on a team! We both scored a point the other night so we're beating everyone else!

Barbara, pretending she doesn't know it's vigilante bingo: fun! What's it about?

Amity, trying not to reveal lore to her very normal coworker: it's, uh, tourist challenges

Barbara, narrowing her eyes: mhm.

(Vee, Luz, and Hunter get cornered in an alley after they accidentally wandered* into the middle of a turf war)

*It was Luz. Luz wandered.

Luz, sprinting towards the dumpster Vee and Hunter are hiding behind, bullets pinging off the walls around her: uh oh uH OH UH OH

Vee: hang on I have an idea! Hunter, get me to the roof

Hunter: aye aye! *grabs Vee and blips up the wall*

Vee: *shapeshifts into Batman* I'm gonna scare 'em

Oracle, eight minutes later: hey B, you weren't by the 7/11 in broad daylight just now, were you?

Bruce, looking around the board meeting he's in: ...no.

Oracle, running on coffee and sheer willpower: *rests her face in her hands* yeah, didn't think so

Willow, going to spend the night at Ivy's: Pam you will not beLIEVE the night I just had

Pam, who just opened the door and is so ready to hear the news: spill!

Harley, draped over the couch like she's in a Victorian painting: oh my gosh did Bats finally try to interrogate you?

Willow: no!

Willow: well yes but that's besides the point

Willow, throwing herself facedown on the couch: Luz and Amity got two more points in vigilante bingo!

Pam and Harley: *gasp*

Spoiler, crawling through the Clawthorne's window: hey Owl Lady I brought you caffeine

Eda, mildly disgruntled: uh why are you breaking into my apartment?

Spoiler: can I pay for a moment of your time with coffee?

Eda: depends, why are you breaking into my apartment?

Spoiler: sooooo I was kind of hoping to learn some magic to mess with my siblings and you said you were the most powerful witch for a while?

Eda: *deep, deep sigh*

Eda: gimme the coffee

Spoiler: :D

Eda, chugging half the coffee straight: you know, if I had a snail for every time a human with an affinity for purple wiggled their way into my living space and begged me to teach them magic, I'd have two snails

Eda: which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice

Eda, finishing the cup and tossing it in the trash: anyways, thanks for helping me get another point in vigilante bingo

Spoiler, immediately invested: oh?

Spoiler, back at the Batcave: hey did you know Clawthornes & Co are playing vigilante bingo?

Red Robin: yeah they mentioned it the other night

Spoiler: well Eda just showed me the bingo card

Red Robin: okay, and?

Spoiler: and I think we should meddle

(King, Vee, and Hunter, volunteering at an understaffed and underfunded orphanage (welcome to Gotham))

Jason, walking in for his own volunteer shift: *staring at them*

Hunter: oh hey, you must be the other guy the manager mentioned!

Vee, who can smell magic: *freezes*

Jason, who knows she can smell magic: *narrowing his eyes*

Vee, who knows he knows she can smell magic, realizing she now has to keep his secret identity from everyone: eep.

Vee, an hour later, realizing she can't even get a point for this in vigilante bingo without revealing his secret identity: oh come ON

(Gus gets a temp job as a news anchor because the last anchor left due to...conditions...)

Gus' boss (idk how tv news works lol we're just going to call him Gerald): so you're willing to be our new field anchor? (I reiterate idk how news works please forgive and correct me as needed)

Gus, unaware of the "conditions" the last anchor left because of: yep! :D

Gerald: great, kid. Here's a mic and a complimentary gas mask. Have fun

Current Standings for Vigilante Bingo:

Lumity:

Luz gained the competition point by arguing that the rules never specified the competition had to be something vigilante-related (and she beat Red Hood at trauma dumping).

Huntlow:

Though Amity joined the conversation about palisman, the council declared Hunter to be the only one responsible for defusing Stabby Robin.

Gus and King:

Gus tried to get Red Robin's autograph, but Red Robin refused.

Eda and Vee:

Upon discovering Signal was about to rescue King, the council allowed Eda to claim the "be a hero before a vigilante can" square.

[nakaira]

 . . . (🍷) ֶָ֢ 𔓘 LURE ME IN, PULL ME OUT. SAVE ME ; a osamu dazai fic. ❞

❛ ━━ ･ ❪ did i not die yet?

my heart beats and pumps,

pumps the blood which flows throughout,

though tonight i throw up this blood.

blood coats my hand red,

if i had died, why would i bled?

fleeting through my fingers,

fingers of mine tries to grasp my life,

life which i tried to grasp all this while!

blood coats the floor red,

and red it became the more i bleed.

fleeting is this life though my heart beats,

i am not dead yet, though i bleed.

soon my fate will meet death.

and i will die, won't i? ❫ ･ ━━ ❜

˗ˏˋ ꒰ 🍷 ꒱ . . . i don't really expect this one to be liked as this is an experimental fic anyway but I still want to know your opinion on it if you read it.

˗ˏˋ ꒰ 🍷 ꒱ . . . tw ; pm!dazai, fem!reader, non established relationship, suggestive themes, kissing, fluff (?), angst, somewhat gore.

the weather hasn't really been the most pleasant since the last three or four hours but you assume it to be normal due to the season it came with.

with a hazy gaze, you stare at the dark grey sky outside as you wait for the first reaction to happen, for the first drop of rain to descend from its grace and onto the hard earth ground.

was this what icarus felt too?

but then again icarus wasn't a teenager in love with a boy who looked at love as not feelings and emotions but rather as chemical reactions and hormones stimulated by the brain.

icarus burned. you do too. perhaps not in the same way but you burn too.

"are you waiting for cats too dear?" a voice so gentle yet tired spoke up and you looked up to see an elderly woman smiling kindly at you. your eyes fell down to see a group of stray cats and you pondered.

her voice felt so warm admist the coldness of the weather that clinged to your skin.

you looked back up at the old woman and nodded, smiling a bit. "yeah. a grumpy one."

the old lady laughed at your words and she approached you, sitting down on the steps of your house next to you and the stray cats followed her. there were five in total, you counted as they surrounded the old lady's feet.

one of the five cats pawed at your leg. you looked down at it and extended your hand to pet it's head before you looked up at the sky again in deep thought.

"so when does your grumpy cat come?" the old lady's voice reached your ears, her words were pure but why did it still feel like she was laughing at you?

mocking you for being so hopeless.

"whenever he wants to." you whisper out. if the old lady wasn't sitting next to you, she wouldn't have heard you. your words were too sad to her though ignorance is bliss. the old lady thought nothing much of your words as she laughed.

"dearie, that's cats for you -- especially stray ones. they come and go. not having a proper house. no owner who showers them with love and so when we give them love, they get confused. they feel weird and dislike it. they leave. and when they are away -- they realize. they want it back. and so these cute furballs come back to get confused again." her words held years of experience. they soothed you and gave you a reason behind the behavior that hurts, effortlessly brightening your mood. it almost felt unnatural how easily her words convinced you and settled within you as if she's luring you in her.

you smiled at the old lady albeit weakly but your lips were tugged upwards by genuine gratitude and hope as you smiled at her, filled with fascination towards her.

"though love is like kummatty or the pied piper of hamelin. it lures you in even when you know it's dangerous. so dearie --" the old lady's voice suddenly dropped down a few octaves as a grave expression took over her old and wrinkled features. you would've have found it a bit unsettling had it not been for the cat at your feet that had your undivided attention. " -- be careful while loving, it'll lure you in one day and . . . even if it isn't love, something else will lure you in."

you felt the old lady shifting next to you before she stood up, causing you to twist your neck to look up at her. the old woman smiled at you kindly and slowly -- as safely as her feeble legs would allow her to -- climbed down the stairs and left. she went on along the sidewalk, though you raised your eyebrows in awe as you saw the five cats following behind her, stumbling and falling over each other. the cats looked like young apprentices following their mentor in olden days where as soon as a kid was old enough to realise how poverty took a liking to his home, he was send off to fend for himself and to bring in some earnings.

you looked at the front again, placing your chin on your knees which were brought near to your chest as you looked up at the sky again, the grey clouds began to clear up a bit though it still looked like it'll rain soon.

the cold breeze made you shiver a bit. though not for long.

you look away from the sky, no longer finding it intresting enough to admire as the images of the cats -- especially the one rubbing itself against your leg -- kept repeating in your mind, making you smile.

how does one get lured?

how does one forget everything and decide to follow a particular path?

"what are you doing outside dumbass?" you hear the cold and void of emotion like voice, causing you to look up to see dazai standing there as he looked down at you with his eyebrows raised, trying to decipher the reason to sit outside during such weather as it's definitely an odd choice.

"waiting for yo --" you stop rather abruptly as you look at him from head to toe to see him covered in blood at many places -- his cheek was stained and so was his white shirt though the black coat hid it well. you looked down and alas so were his boots, stained in blood.

with a panicked urgency, you quickly stood up and grabbed his hand though this time he didn't try to subtly pull it back as he let you step closer to him and leaned in when you placed your palm on his bloodied cheek.

"how did you --"

" -- it's not mine. don't overreact." the mafioso said in a bored tone as he stared at you. he looked at you for a while before he slowly grinned and you wanted to take a step back and shrink into nothingness. that would be better then staring at his cold and empty eyes.

dazai extended his hand to grasp your other wrist, not seeming to mind your sudden stiffness. he had seen this reaction one too many times when curious minds tried to pick apart the mask of the demon but failed, finding the mask glued to the face by some super force.

he tugged at your hand to pull you closer and wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you into a hug.

dazai osamu is still a child. he does not act like it. but he is the same as you. a teenager. not even seventeen yet.

he is a child at core like you are and even if it may not seem like it, you'll pretend it does.

"you stink." you mumble as you ignore the nervous pleading of your heart, nuzzling your face against his bandaged neck.

"no i don't." dazai replied back as he left a small and quick peck to your hair before he moved back.

you roll your eyes at his denial of this topic, knowing that even he knows how he smells of a mix of cigarettes and blood, the smell lingers and hugs him like a sick stalker.

"why do you even have blood on you?" you asked as you quickly opened the door to your house and stepped aside to let him enter first. with a smug wink aimed at you, dazai entered and took of his shoes.

for being such a peculiar boy, he did have some manners as evident by the way he placed his shoes at one corner. you placed your slippers next to his and locked the door before you followed after him.

"curious kitty. aren't you?" his voice is full of mirth, he looked over his shoulder to let you see his expression which is full of amusement as if he finds it entertaining to watch you try to get some kind of information out of him.

you grumbled as you pushed his shoulder though he only chuckled, not minding the pushes at all.

dazai tried to walk towards the living room but you grabbed the back of his suit coat to pull him towards your room instead and he exclaimed in surprise, though he didn't resist or fight back, simply letting you drag him as if he didn't have enough energy or interest in pushing your hands off.

you led him to the bathroom attached in your room, dazai nearly raised his eyebrows in amusement but stopped himself since he wasn't really amused enough. this house in which only you live isn't surprising to dazai as through his connections, he had dug into your background and found out that this house and some wealth were the will of your grandfather who left it all to you. your parents were out of the picture.

"but really, why are you covered in this much blood?" you ask as you signal him to sit on the sink counter while you kneel down to open the cabinet below, getting out a few clean towel rolls and bandages.

though the bandage roll fell from your hands and rolled on the tiled floor when dazai grabbed your jaw in a quick movement, pulling you towards him as he glared at you. eyes void of emotions but that only makes him more terrifying.

"you are a good girl -- always were and always will be. don't test your luck by being a curious kitten. stay my good girl. don't ask unnecessary questions." his voice is low and calm, his words coming out in a murmur.

your eyes were open wide, you nodded quickly. the sharpness in dazai's eyes disappeared and was replaced by a sudden softness. he stopped grabbing your jaw and instead raised his hand to cup your cheek. he pulled you in closer using the gentle hold on your cheek and pecked the bridge of your nose.

once he lets go of you, you stepped back, bending down to pick the the bandage roll which you began to buy and keep ever since meeting him.

you stand again as you face him, not looking him in the eye after the sudden cold outburst while the confident and casual air around you had disappeared. and this caused dazai to heave out a sigh.

"what i did -- i did for you." he revealed only this much as if to just let you see the tip of the iceberg, to let you know of the peace lingering above the calmness.

you placed your hand on his thigh as you leaned up to gently pull on the bandage which covered one of his eyes, whispering, "why?"

dazai stopped as you tugged at the bandage and it fell down in your opened palm. he too wonders why is he even doing this?

you are of no use to the mafia.

you don't give him the same reactions as chuuya does.

yet you are still intresting.

is it the feeling of your soft palms as you cup his cheek with one hand while you softly rub the wet towel on his face with the other to clean it? could be.

dazai wrapped his legs around your waist to pull you closer, you felt your heart beating as he cupped both of your cheeks and pulled you to peck your forehead. "i just do."

you wanted to ask many things but refrain from doing so, choosing to enjoy the feeling of his hands as one of them remained cupping your jaw while the other rested near your ass, on your lower back, to keep you in place as you wrap a new bandage around his eye.

to be honest, dazai knew. he knew why he did what he did and does what he does, it's just that he doesn't see the need to tell you the answer which is being yelled by his heart and seeing how you relaxed again and lost some of your initial fear, dazai feels -- no, he knows, that you either know or have a good grasp of what most of his answer could've been anyway.

"you are weird." you decide to sigh out these words with a smile, moving your face back from his grasp as you pull down at his coat and he lets you, letting you take it off.

is the rush of happiness what icarus felt too? perhaps if icarus didn't dream too high, he would be lured into the deep forests as well.

dazai watched with curious eyes. you stepped out of the bathroom for a while, a matching set of grey sweatshirt and sweatpants. the sight makes dazai to raise his eyebrows, a silent order for you to explain.

"you need some colors in your life and wardrobe. you look so edgy wearing that." you point at his suit and dazai almost rolled his eyes, had the thought of you going out of your way to buy something for someone like him had not entered his mind and settled there.

from there on, the thought grew vines which traveled and gripped at his heart.

"did you buy this for me? you want to be my sugar mommy or something?" dazai smirked yet squealed as you stepped near him, grabbing a handful of his skin and pinching him on his thigh. you don't speak much, the words of the old lady repeating in your mind while you unbutton his shirt and scrub at his hands to get the blood off of him.

the way you look so quiet as you seemed to stare at nothing while cleaning the blood made dazai hesitate to break this silence. he looked at you and he felt his heart beat racing when he saw the hazy look in your eyes. behind you, the sky once again grew hazy and dazai glared at the window behind you. yet you didn't notice anything it seemed, too busy in unbuttoning dazai's shirt button by button.

the cat who sat outside at the windowsill snarled in return.

"you are my kitten." dazai began quietly and you looked up at him with puzzlement dancing all over your features. a confused smile takes over your lips and dazai leans near you, you feel your heartbeat racing as he leans his head till his lips hovered above your's. "you are mine and i'll protect you against everything."

dazai closed the distance between you and him, his hand came to hold your waist and pull you towards him. you closed your eyes as you let your feelings overtake you, wrapping your arms around the neck of the boy who still sat on the sink counter.

his eyes remained open, a blue light eliminated from his palm -- of the hand that was wrapped around your waist -- felt like the first drop of rain of despair for the cat whose fur raised and it glared at dazai.

"you don't need to know what i do and why i do it. just stay as you are now." dazai whispered as soon as he pulled back from the kiss, he hopped down from the counter and removed his unbuttoned shirt. he tossed it on your face, not paying heed to the way you groaned.

"stay as i am now? what's that supposed to mean cryptic bastard?" you ask as you slowly walked behind him, stopping as he sits in the bathtub and his feet nearly dangled off the small bathtub. dazai shooted a finger gun at you which made you scoff while you reached for the water faucet, he isn't going to answer, is he?

the cat blinked, like a stalker it's eyes remained even when dazai leaned up and grabbed your forearm to pull you on top of him. your squeals and his laughs were like poison to the cat. the same cat who affectionately rubbed itself against your leg in the morning is the same cat who now watched with great disgust.

icarus flew. if he didn't, he would've drowned.

the pied piper would've lured him in with masks of interests in his dreams. or perhaps kummatty would've made him think to never stop believing in his dreams, he would've have turned him into a bird and icarus would've flew away and never returned.

"stay as you are -- meaning stay as my little kitty cat. can you meow or purr for me?" dazai raised his eyebrows, it always brought him entertaining joy to see your reactions and even if they aren't as loud or amusing as chuuya's, the way you purse your lips and look away after replying with something snarky always stayed at the back of dazai's mind. it repeated whenever he smoked in the loneliness of the shipping container he calls his shelter.

you know better then to take this moment for granted. you look back at dazai and smile tiredly, resting your head against his shoulder as you wrap your arms around his waist and do not mind the flowing water soak your clothes and make you wet for you feel yourself nearly giggling at the way your legs are on either sides of dazai's waist and his hands wrapped around you. when you leaned your body on him, his arms around you tightened their hold.

he raised one of his hands to pat and comb through your hair while he smirked, tilting his head at the cat. said cat snarled at him again before it hopped down your windowsill and left.

the cat walked for a while before it jumped into a drain and immediately found itself sitting on the lap of the old woman who hummed. the old woman moved back and forth on her rocking chair, humming a tune which enchanted many and it was evident by the way children sat by her feet and mimicked her motions of rocking back and forth. their lips sealed tight by threads being sewed yet they tried to hum along with the old woman, causing blood to flow down their chins yet they didn't mind as theu stared at the old lady with unnaturally wide eyes.

the old lady stopped humming and immediately the children stabbed their fingers into their eyes, blood oozing out as they curled their fingers into their eyeballs.

"you are so so cute. my belladon--" you make dazai to stop speaking, making him go speechless when you splashed a bit of water onto him after having enough of his cheesy flirting though it did get your heart to beat faster but the young age you are is one where intimate feelings such as this makes you cower and feel like hiding behind the exterior of pretend coolness. it's a defense mechanism of sorts but dazai has always broken through every defense so what is yours infront of him?

your smug grin disappeared as you saw him cough without intending to stop soon. you leaned closer to his face as you tried to grasp at the curves of his jaws so you would be able to have a better view of his face and check for any damage you may have caused yet the moment your fingers grasp his jaw, dazai grabbed both of your wrists as he leaned forwards to kiss you again. and you let him. his arms came to wrap around you again.

and once again you missed the blue glow they emitted as all you could focus on was the gentle way dazai's hands inched closer to you till one of them rested at your nape and the other at your hip while he left little pecks and kisses on your lips, not pulling or letting you pull back once.

the pied piper or kummatty may just be figures associated with children and to scare them by exaggerating (though is it a exaggeration?) abduction but the old lady you met -- the one who is currently smiling cruelly as she watches children pull out their eyeballs and see the optic nerve -- is one who will try to lure you in and dazai won't let it.

it isn't related to the mafia, the child abducting old lady isn't a concern of port mafia and neither is she a danger to dazai's life. his nullifying ability will act if she ever tries to activate her ability on him which works by the contact of her or her cats with the victim.

though you do not need to know of this or even worry as dazai will make sure you don't end up in the old lady's grasp and don't suffer the same fate as many of her previous victims. he always was a bit more protective and possessive when it came to you anyway.

after all, he is a good boy --- an angel.

[nthspecialll]

Dutch Van Der Linde as the saviour and his early crime life.

Dutch Van Der Linde and his early life beyond the fact that his father died in the war and he ran away from his mother at the age of 15 is a mystery to us as players, however due to the fact he prefered a life of petty crime we assume that his mother was a terrible person, something that might not be true.

Unlike the majority of the gang Dutch does not have evidence of a terrible childhood, he was not orphaned, he was not fleeing from the government, he did not fear for his life and we cannot say that his mother was abusive, almost quite the contrary.

In Dutch's own words, he ran away because he and his mother "did not see eye to eye," and while this can indicate abuse the fact he follows up with "I was not always an obedient child" very much makes it seem like it was his own fault. He continues to talk about how they both loved one another in their own ways, meaning he ran away not because he had to but because he wanted to, especially as the reasons he was "not an obedient child" could very well be because he was young and rebellious.

What makes this even worse is that Dutch mentions having had a price on his head for fifteen years while he actually has been on the run for 29 as he is 44, this means for 14 years he committed crimes, did not have a price on his head, and had the choice to turn back to a "regular life." Now he might just have said 15 as a "about this many years but not the exact" but you don't get it wrong by 14 years.

Dutch mentions that he did not know that his mother was burried in Blackwater but was only told a few years later by an uncle. His mother died in 1881 (her grave can be found), he met Hosea in 1876, met Arthur in 1877 and had been on the run since 1870, meaning he was still in contact with his family at least in 1884, seven years after meeting Arthur.

Milton talks about Dutch being a Messiah, a savior for the people, and Dutch keeps saying "we" this and "we" that but the truth is he is nothing like them, Dutch chose his situation and had many chances to turn back but didn't, while the others in one way or another was forced into it. He also has many advantages, such as being in contact with his family, something which a character like Javier is forced not to and we only see one other character cannonically do, Pearson. Not only that but Dutch often reinforce his role as a boss by having his own tent, having expensive clothing, telling Molly that she doesn't need to work for the mere fact that she is his girl. He does not need to do this, everyone is already loyal to him, yet he does it for nothing more than to serve his own ego.

Now some would say he ran away to make a better world, but there is something wrong with that theory.

Dutch's favorite author is Evelyn Miller who is based on the real romantic/transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. Romanticism is a philosophy that dislikes the wealthy and the industrialization and wants people to embrace a more "authentic" life, which is why Thoreau as a more wealthy man wanted to do an experiment for two years where he moved into a cabin. He wanted to, for the experience of it, live in the woods, such as Dutch did not run away from his possible rich life because he needed to but for the experience of it.

Dutch did not spoil his chance at a normal life for love, he didn't spoil it for "a better world," he didn't spoil it for necessity, he spoiled it for fun, for the experience.

Imagine being Javier, hearing the man who claimed to understand you, say that he still is in touch with his family while you don't know if your sister is even alive. Imagine being Arthur, hearing the man who claimed to understand you, say that he chose a life of crime as an experience while you were forced into it to survive and now hate yourself for it. Imagine being Charles, hearing the man who claimed to understand you, say he chose to hurt for fun while you wish you had another way.

Based on conversations I had with @werewolfarthurmorganenjoyer and @heavenlymorals.

[radioisntdead]

If I may, I kindly request a small crumb of some Rosie x Reader? Where reader is a living human talented with the arcane arts, accidentally summoning the cannibal and becoming enamoured with her? We send her genuine human meat as gifts, trinkets from the living world and all sorts of cute little letters and stuff.

Good evening my dear! I'M SO EXCITED SOMEONE REQUESTED SOMETHING WITH ROSIE, I ADORE HER [as seen by my pfp] I'm gonna go with headcanons here because I can see this going very very chaotically.

Warnings: cannibalism, demon summoning, which I should probably mention, PLEASE DON'T SUMMON ANYTHING?? Does this count as a long distance relationship??? This is shorter then my normal headcanons

No idea what you were trying to summon in the first place but you managed to summon Rosie who was in the middle of her tea break,

She went from drinking tea in her emporium to I assume your room, she's startled

It was love at first sight,

For you anyway, Rosie just wanted to finish her tea and fingers,

"Salutations?"

"YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL!"

And thus began you seducing courting Rosie,

You aquire human flesh, either by murder insuring you'll end up the same place as Rosie or I don't know the dark web? Grave robbing?

Please don't rob graves,

She quite likes the fresh meat, because human probably tastes somewhat better then Sinner? Like no added claws, flavors etc etc,

It gives her a nostalgic feeling of being alive and having her husband for supper, but better because he tasted disgusting.

With every delivery of meat you send what she can describe as a love letter, like I'm imagining you got a whole stationary kit to make the best letters ever, like if you have horrible handwriting [Like I do]

You invest in a typewriter, awesome stickers to put on the envelope, the letters are wax sealed.

You begin summoning her on a bi-weekly basis, at first you summoned her at VERY inconvenient times,

She's doing overlord stuff? Not anymore she's in your room with you on one knee holding a plate of fingers

She's giving advice? Well they better hold off on that advice because now Rosie is wherever you summoned her from with you reading her poetry or something,

She's having tea with Alastor? Poor Alastor is left alone and confused, with Susan approaching,

Alastor now knows of your existence, and Rosie gives you a schedule on when you can summon her.

Also she requests that you send her more meat because now she's sharing with Alastor.

With trinkets Rosie is more picky,

You give her cheap jewelry from Amazon? She's politely ghosting you, no offense but she's from the early 1900's according to the wiki, she has standards for courting.

Doesn't have to break the bank but at least something that's more expensive then twenty bucks.

However you give her stuff she can't get down below? She adores it, like GOOD tea? Aren't you a charmer? that good ol' expensive wine? Well if you insist! Give her fresh fruit, fresh flowers, you know how HARD THAT IS TO GET DOWN THERE???

The gift giving isn't one-sided, you want something like demon horns? Next time you summon her, she has a box of different types of horns, she'll give you little treats

You weren't a cannibal before? Well you are now.

She'll tell you about the ongoings in hell, Alastor, the townsfolk, the tea, SUSAN, you don't like Susan.

Now after you've perished and ended up below because you were fraternizing with a cannibal,

You immediately go find Rosie, you know she runs a place called Cannibal town you managed you find Rosie's Emporium,

You swing up open the doors, startling several cannibals

"ROSIE I DIED!!"

She's not the happiest that you died, or that you almost broke her doors but your there now so yay!

She shows you around cannibal town in a musical number, introducing you to the tight-knit community, you avoid Susan the best you can but she catches you and threatens you to be nice to Rosie or else.

You should fear the old lady.

Anyways you get moved into cannibal town, helping out at the Emporium, Vibing with Rosie.

You get married eventually but I hope she likes you enough not to eat you like her past spouses.

The wedding is very classy though, the whole of cannibal town was in attendance, along with a couple of overlords!

Good evening folks! Thank you for tuning in! We hope to see you again! Also ROSIE SUPREMACY

[queenoffishingandcookies]

Something I think about way too much is Asumu’s death and how quickly Rudolf remarried Kyrie (I think I have two separate drafts of posts about that somewhere).

Generally, we don’t get an exact reference as to how quickly Rudolf remarried in the VN. However, in the manga, where he is speaking to Krauss and Natsuhi on the matter of Battler leaving the family and Rudolf’s pending marriage to Kyrie, it is mentioned that the mourning period for Asumu hasn’t passed by yet.

Traditionally, there’s two stages to the mourning period in Japan - 忌中 (Kichū) and 喪中 (Mochū) - though the actual practice of mourning differs according to regions and family traditions, as well as being less heavily restricted come modern day.

忌中 is the initial period of mourning, lasting 49 days. In other words, roughly a month and a bit over a week.

In Japan, this is the period of time that the ashes of the deceased remain in the family home following cremation - up until internment of the ashes in their grave in the chosen cemetery when the 49 days are at an end.

(Cremation is the most common type of funerary ceremony in Japan, and we don’t ever learn if Asumu was cremated following Japanese tradition or if, instead, she had a western-style funeral in line with the Ushiromiya family.

The reason cremation is so popular in Japan is due to its small size, a lack of space for physical burials. Burial plots for bodies - or urns carrying ashes - are extremely expensive).

Usually, the bereaved also retreat from public life and social engagements while in mourning (though in modern day, I think this is usually just a week at the most?).

After the 49 days are up, 喪中 begins.

This mourning period lasts for the following year after the death of a loved one, and depending on how strictly tradition is followed, while the family gets back to life and work as normal - this usually means no ceremony or holiday is celebrated, at least not for the sake of having fun.

Weddings, birthday parties, etc aren’t thrown or attended, and instead of sending out New Years’ Cards, the family will instead send mourning cards that tell others not to send anything.

(Again this isn’t always strictly adhered to. Depends on where you live, family tradition, the times, etc).

It can be assumed that they’re referring to the later mourning period (a year) following Asumu’s death - however, he still would have married very shortly after 49/50 days I think.

Since Asumu died in 1980, limiting her life from January to April/May at the latest as she died before Ange was born, I find it extremely unlikely that they were referring to 喪中 when, depending on when she died, the closer you get to Ange’s birth, the more likely it is that the twelve-month mourning period hadn’t started yet.

Asumu was dead before the remarriage and Ange’s birth, meaning her lifespan was under nine months - under a year.

This implies that at the very latest (April/May-Ish), Rudolf had to have married Kyrie during the initial mourning period, 忌中 - under the 49 days following Asumu’s death or somewhat shortly over it. Otherwise, Ange would have been born out of wedlock.

Even if Asumu had died earlier in the year, say January or February, Rudolf still could have married Kyrie before the 忌中 period passed -we just don’t have enough information to know for sure though.

[coff-in]

COFF-IN ITS ME AGAIN DEVIOUS ANON IS JUMPING BACK INTO THE GRAVE :D I missed you and I come offering new food (mostly bc I thirst for Andrew lord help me)

Childhood friend reader who is basically a third sibling (maybe even the oldest) to the Graves siblings! She's a literal girl-next-door, about 2 when Andrew was born, and due to being in the same neighborhood/Reader and her parents being relatively sociable, Andrew and reader were kinda mashed together from a young age and just told to play. Maybe Mrs. Graves dumped Andrew off at reader's house often bc she didn't want to handle him and hey, since he gets along so well with the neighbor's daughter, may as well use them like free babysitters. Reader is super sweet to Andy from early on and takes care of him like an older sister would. When Ashley joins the team, even better! It's not just his baby sister, it's *their* baby sister. Reader ends up being their closest and basically only friend through childhood and middle school and just about calls Andrew/Ashley her siblings-in-honor. Hell, her parents are probably more parental to Andrew/Ashley than their actual parents. I just think this is fun because I think this is a dynamic where I can potentially see Andrew floundering about in the friendzone/siblingzone because reader kinda considers him her brother and not a dating option but he wants to date her and seeing her find other guys drives him up the wall. Man probably casually walks reader around school to class and keeps his fingers in her belt loops and glares at any guy within a 20 ft radius when reader isn't looking. This is also one dynamic where I can potentially see Ashley *encouraging* Andrew to date a girl, because she wants them to be reader's priority just like in childhood and that won't work out if she gets a man, so if Andrew can snag her, she'll never leave them. This can be fluffy, but I can also see this going darker if Andrew and Ashley after escaping quarantine kind of show up at the reader's door and she's so happy to see them until she realizes that her childhood friends kinda...yk, are cannibals and murderers and will be going after their parents soon (assuming they didn't tell her about Nina). It's a reasonable reaction, but also they're like "...so you still love us, right?" and if reader hesitates even a second, she's kinda taken hostage in her own house. They wouldn't hurt her, they just...well, she looked like she was thinking about leaving, you know? The dynamic skews so toxic because they would absolutely guilt-trip the hell out of her and tell her that she's their last hope of continuing on and is she really going to condemn her siblings-in-honor/maybe boyfriend and sister-in-law to death?

notes from coff-in: DEVIOUS ANON I MISSED YOU!!! i hope you've been doing well and good :3 i'm so happy and honored that you missed me (i'm honored whenever anyone here gives me praise tbh). i also understand your need for andrew, haha! i'll let you in on a thought of mine: i've been thinking of a (relatively) normal younger sister/twin sister that seems to look up to ashley than andrew because ashley's a girl like [reader], so she's able to help her with girl issues like periods, bra/underwear shopping, soothing her mommy issues, etc and andrew is a bit jealous that baby sis likes or hangs out with ashley more than him but he's also embarrassed about this jealousy because he knows (subconsciously or consciously) that it stems from a want to be the person baby sis relies on more... but that's just an idea for later :3 welcome back to the coffin, devious anon, we're happy to have you here!

[fem] reader-insert, pseudo-incest

teehee :3 andrew's in love :3 he loves [reader] :3 he loves you :3 andrew loves you sooo much :3 he wants to kiss you so badly :3 andrew thinks about you every time he jerks his di--

sorry i had to get that out of me... know that renee graves (or should i keep calling her mrs graves??) would take the chance to dump andy onto [reader]'s family. she would STILL have the AUDACITY to say "oh raising you was so easy, i thought i could handle another one..." knowing damn well that it was a DIFFERENT FAMILY raising andrew. to be "fair", renee is 15 years old when she had andrew, she's bound to make dipshit decisions and take them for granted (like how tf do you ask your "disappointment" son for money then call him a freeloader, like what???)

i think being raised by [reader]'s family would highlight the abuse andrew and ashley face even more to them. also having [reader]'s family raise andy as one of their own children next to [reader] just barely manages to fulfill that taboo aspect of their relationship, you know? it's wonderful! like yeah, they're from two different families but andy sometimes slips and and refers to [reader] as his big sis (ashley does it on purpose) and when they take care of leyley, andy can't help but to think how leyley is their baby sister and they're like... mommy and daddy, you know?

i honestly can't really add more to this, the meal you cooked. THE MEAL YOU HAVE BLESSED US WITH, DEVIOUS ANON!!! IT'S SUPERB, IT'S DIVINE!! i'm riding your meat right now, get over here

ashley is doing that thing where she whispers in andrew's ear while he sleeps "you want to date [reader]. you want to keep here forever. you want her to never leave us." she's so silly, i love her. it would be so fucking sweet to if [reader] also saw andrew and ashley as her siblings also. ashley is being neglected/left out by her friends and [reader]'s like "hey guys, we should let ashley have a turn" or "hey ashley, do you have anything to add to the conversation?" and ashley's just, AUGH SHE'S SO SHOCKED, and like... i'm holding her gently in my hands i love her (THEY SHOULD KISS!!! RIGHT NOW!!!)

and the darker route... teehee :3c like... how would she ever find out? for all she should know, her psuedo-sibs/friends have returned from their awful quarantine and wanted to come over to say hi and stay with her for a bit! yippee!! but also the angst is so yummy, having [reader] tied in the back of their stolen car when they go to the new graves' residence and [reader] really thinking "do i turn them in? what if they come back to hurt me? would they hurt me either way?? maybe this is their last murder... yeah! they're just going to kill their parents and then everything will go back to normal!" poor poor [reader]... nothing is going to be normal again... AAAH HEHEHEHEH >:3c

thank you thank you thank you!

----

coff-in

[nemastraea]

Doormat extraordinaire: Andrew Graves is down horrendous for his own sister | Part 1

Or as I like to call it, actual literal word vomit attempting a proper character analysis!

Here's a link to the AO3 version for archive purposes: The doormat extraordinaire has a bit of a romantic streak,

Content warning: This will heavily feature spoilers from Episodes 1 & 2 of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. Trigger warning: Abuse, cannibalism, child neglect, codependency, harassment, incest, murder, self-harm, and suicide. Disclaimer: I will occasionally reference an extremely normal essay from Sufficient Velocity commenter Leyleyfication (here). It would be a lot easier to read this essay first as Leyleyfication does a pretty good job establishing the following: - Ashley is dependent on Andrew to assure and validate her of her own insecurities, and - The game heavily implies that Andrew wants to fuck his own sister.

Anyway: The Coffin of Andy and Leyley! A game in early access where a pair of siblings are stuck through a seemingly never-ending quarantine together, desperate not to starve to death. When their cultist neighbor dies in a ritual gone wrong, they rationally resort to cannibalism. Fun!

I am definitely going to assume that you read Leyleyfication's extremely normal essay (I am on my knees, begging you to read that). Which is why this essay immediately starts with, "yeah, Andrew definitely wants to fuck his sister" as its baseline.

What I will be adding to that funny little cauldron of fucked up sibling dynamics in a horror visual novel are the following: Andrew's fixation and sexual attraction manifests as his desire to control, dominate, and possess Ashley. And it is framed as a fatalist attraction and the totality of his existence (for worse or even worse).

Because of Tumblr's limit for 30 images per post, though, I'm going to have to split this extremely normal and reasonably lengthy essay into... multiple posts! Yeah! I have no idea how long this will fucking go!

So first things first: how can we tell that Andrew is even attracted to Ashley in the first place?

Nemlei (Devlog 05). Note the hickeys above and below Ashley's choker and her left inner thigh, and Andrew's left hand creeping into her right thigh.

As Leyleyfication points out, the game primes us to believe that Andrew is a pushover and Ashley is his abuser. This occurs in the Steam page as it explicitly says Ashley is "in fact, very bad" and Andrew is a "doormat extraordinaire." Moreover, it's very easy to tell that Ashley is, on some degree, obsessed with Andrew:

She's happy to hear that Julia broke up with Andrew over the phone;

She repeatedly accuses him of finding the Lady from Room 302 attractive and he 'tried anything with her;' and

Her flashback to wanting to punish her friend Nina ("the Bitch in the Box") for crushing on Andrew.

Episode 1, dream and memory. Leyley previously said that Nina should know better than to 'steal from another woman,' referring to herself. The implication that Andy is hers is toyed with after this moment, when she says she'd put Andy back in the box.

The game does prime us to think that Ashley is Andrew's abuser. It also suggests that Ashley projects an unrequited and incestuous love onto Andrew. Before we consider Episode 2's narrative, Episode 1 gives the initial impression that if Andrew comes to reciprocate her feelings, it's more of a reaction and subsuming to her will. That it may not be something he wants for himself and independent of Ashley's manipulation.

But again, I do believe Andrew wants to fuck Ashley. And always has been. He just frequently vacillate between 'subtle' and 'really fucking obvious' tells that completely take advantage of the game's third person limited POV.

Keep in mind that both Andrew and Ashley are extremely unreliable narrators. We aren't going to get information they personally do not care about and that is on top of our own choices as the player.

(A digressive example: you will not learn that the founder and CEO of Toxisoda's company was a former surgeon unless you interact with the television in Andrew's Episode 2 dream and memory of their blood oath. Otherwise, it neatly ties into the surgeon that Mrs. Graves conveniently says she was directed to regarding the siblings' quarantine in the main story.)

When it's really fucking obvious

When you play as Andrew in Episode 2, his post-dinner argument with Ashley carefully frames them both. They are cramped in the foreground and Andrew's left arm is conveniently blocked by Ashley and the kitchen knife, as seen here.

Episode 2, common route. Prior to this, you can interact with Mrs. Graves for her to pointedly comment on the siblings being inseparable.

At this point in the game, their physical closeness is something we're used to by now. After all, we've already seen Ashley on his lap at least twice; Andrew slept in her bed in Episode 1; and Ashley confirmed they've shared the same motel bed multiple times in the one-week interim between Episodes 1 & 2.

But the game abruptly shifts to Mrs. Graves' POV when she enters the scene and not only do we see the two as physically close, but we notice a few more details.

Episode 2, common route. The first picture transitions from Andrew's POV to Mrs. Graves as it introduces us to her entering the scene.

The contrast of how spacious the kitchen is from Mrs. Graves' POV to Andrew's cramped POV is obvious. More importantly, Andrew's fingers loop through Ashley's belt loops when the two are huddled together. When Mrs. Graves clears her throat, the two don't really separate.

Ashley pivots on her left foot so that her body is turned to their mother, not Andrew, but she doesn't step away from him. Andrew, meanwhile, recoils from Ashley and withdraws his hand. But he isn't turning his body to face their mother like Ashley does here. His attention, at least in this moment, is still towards Ashley (and, yanno, the sink).

Episode 2, common route. Two things to consider in the second picture: Andrew hides Ashley's bite mark on his cheek with his left sleeve and he conveniently moves the pillow from behind him to his front.

The 'tell' isn't so much as the two are unusually physically close. Again, we're used to that by now. But it's how the two siblings react whenever Mrs. Graves comes into the picture. Ashley doesn't really give a fuck about whether or not people assume the worst of her or even her intentions regarding Andrew. To Ashley, their proximity is normal and anyone who sees that as a problem is not worth an explanation or reason.

But Andrew is at least subconsciously aware it's 'not normal.' As far as these moments are concerned, Andrew instinctively tries to do damage control by either putting space between them or keeping his hands occupied so they aren't visibly touching Ashley. Still, he either does not mind or actively appreciates his physical closeness with Ashley.

When it's really fucking obvious (but only in hindsight)

In Episode 1, Ashley passes out after trying to clean up after the apartment. Regardless of her passing out in the living room, the bathroom, or their parents' room, she will wake up on the couch with her head pillowed by Andrew's lap.

Episode 1, Ashley's POV. Andrew's hands often hover over Ashley's head, but more than that—

I personally didn't notice this until I replayed Episode 1, when I basically have the hindsight of Andrew's fixation with hair. But yes, his fingers idly twirl through the ends of Ashley's hair as they watch TV. It's implied that Andrew can and will do this when Ashley pillows his lap, awake or asleep. He does not recoil from it when Ashley does wake up and later on, in Episode 2, even continues to brush it from her face.

Episode 2, common route. Ashley fell asleep at the passenger seat, so Andrew had to have transferred her to the back seat to pillow her head again. Though, technically, she's more cramped at the back seat than if he'd just reclined the passenger seat.

So far, we've seen that Andrew has a natural tendency to not only be physically close to Ashley, but to hover over her personal space and be in constant and direct contact with her. Whether it's by having her head on his lap, twirling her hair through his fingers, or even constantly grabbing her by the head in various states of comfort, playfulness, or outright threat (but let's put a pin on that for now).

The weight behind this candid contact shifts when Episode 2 draws a pretty explicit parallel between Julia and Ashley. Assuming that you interacted with Julia's landline and heard Ashley's voicemails, you know (and Andrew knows) that Ashley draws that connection herself:

DO YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME!? Just because you can fuck him and I can't? You think that's love?! Are you fucking delusional?? Cumdumpsters like you are just that. He will never love you. Not like he loves me. I am the only one. I am everything. I am the secrets you'll never hear. When he lies in bed at night, and when he needs someone to hold on to... It's not you he seeks out. It is me.

Episode 2, common route. Andrew's dream and vision implies that Andrew's heard these voicemails before.

That connection extends to the hair contact as well, as Andrew goes in to hug Julia, cards his hand through her hair and requests she tie her hair up.

Episode 2, common route. Andrew's dream and memory of Julia when they're older. From the use of Andrew's present-age portrait, suggests is closer to the timeline of the game's events than his and Ashley's memories as Andy and Leyley.

From this moment, we can have one of two assumptions: either Andrew wants Julia's (black) hair put up like Ashley's, or Ashley caught onto Andrew's hair kink and puts her hair up to imitate it.

Regardless, we infer the following:

Andrew teases affection through touching and even pulling on one's hair.

His fixation on ponytails and pulling on them does not exclude his own sister. It still stands and without reservation, perhaps more explicitly since he can do it so candidly, as we saw before.

The last of that Julia-Ashley parallel is self-contained within Episode 2. But only if you end up in the Burial route regardless of Ashley's platonic or incestuous vision.

Episode 2, common route (first picture) and Burial route (second picture). It's worth pointing out that Andrew is actually disinterested and moody during his conversation with Julia, and only perks up when he mentions Ashley or feigns care for Julia (since he extends his care of Ashley to her as well).

The game ends up drawing parallels on how Andrew treats Ashley, for better or for worse, with his ex (which is definitely worse, poor Julia). In doing so, the game blurs the lines between romantic affection for Julia and 'platonic and familial' affection for Ashley.

Y'all, this isn't even getting into how Andrew respectfully gives his parents space and only crowds them when he threatens them with his cleaver. In his mind, Ashley and Julia are in that same space of physical and romantic displays of affection; something he reserves only for them (only without reservation for Ashley) that does not extend to anyone else. His ex-girlfriend, and his sister. Shit's wild.

When it's obvious BUT it's violent!

That isn't to say that his hair fixation (hair kink?) is completely innocuous, though, as it rears its ugly head (pun unintended) in Decay. Which is what that previous pin was for! Yay!

You end up in the Decay route if Ashley doesn't trust Andrew with keeping an eye on their parents. Here, Ashley sleeps on their parents' bed by herself and has an alarming vision: an unknown party chases after her through the in-between and when they catch up to her, it's Andrew. Ashley has nowhere to run and Andrew eventually grabs her and threatens to kill her.

Whether or not Ashley can defend herself depends on Andrew expending all of her gun's ammo when he deals with the hitman, or not. But that outcome divergence will matter much, much later (so that's another pin for us to come back to).

The sequence of events actually mirrors the way the siblings ambush the Lady from Room 302 back in Episode 1. There, Andrew closes in on her and grabs the Lady by her wrist and uses his front to pin and restrain her. With his cleaver to her throat, the Lady is completely at his mercy.

Episode 1 & 2, common route (first picture) and Decay route (second, third, and fourth pictures). Note that Andrew restrains the Lady from Room 302 by the wrist while with Ashley, by her hair.

Andrew asserts control of the person and the situation through violence. Whether it's by killing them (the wardens) or by threatening physical violence (the Lady from Room 302 and Ashley). It's always on the table for him. As Leyleyfication puts it, "He's so calculated in how he approaches his use of violence [here]."

That violence includes Ashley. It's always on the table where Ashley's concerned. The game even juxtaposes when Andrew threatens violence and physical assault 'playfully' versus when he's seriously out for blood:

When you interact with the wall of call girls' numbers and Ashley jokes about leaving her number on the wall, Andrew 'jokingly' threatens to backhand her for even thinking about it.

When you interact with their parents' latched window for a second time, Andrew 'teases' slapping Ashley if she doesn't find a way to open it. (Ashley jokingly asks if it's on her ass or at her face, and assumes it must be the face when Andrew says she'll have to find out.)

The two other times that Andrew exerts violence against Ashley are both in Episode 1 & 2. We can remember when that happens in Episode 1, when Andrew's had it with Ashley's fits and threatens to kill her:

Episode 1, common route. Y'all, Andrew was choking her hard enough for his grip to bruise.

It happens again in Decay when he confronts Ashley about repeatedly calling him Andy and therefore, breaking the promise he coerced her into from Episode 1.

Episode 2, Decay route. Another thing to keep in mind is that Andrew's outburst is preceded by Ashley prodding him about his current state and insisting that Andrew was fine with 'Andy' during their home invasion.

In Episode 1, Andrew resorts to harming Ashley because he's fucking had it with her accusing him repeatedly of trying anything with the Lady from 302 and, in her eyes, his 'infidelity.' Where she accuses Andrew of not loving her enough that if his eye catches another girl, he'd leave her behind or flip on her. In Episode 2, she's poking and prodding on his boundaries on 'Andy' and whether or not, once again, he's with her on their now-committed life of joint crime.

If I can give another example, it happens in Andrew's common route memory of Nina's death and his blood oath with Leyley.

Episode 2, common route. Prior to this, Andy expresses immense exasperation at Leyley's tantrums over him 'thinking about that bitch again.' When he goes to grab the kitchen knife, cleans it, and returns to Leyley on his bed—he's briefly considering killing her.

Andrew threatens Ashley violently whenever he intends to confront her on her perceived brattiness, for lack of a better word. And keep Leyleyfication's essay segment on Ashley's insecurities and need for Andrew's validation in mind here—when Ashley does this, she wants and even needs Andrew to comfort her. But her aggression treads Andrew's patience and really, his tolerance of her behavior.

When Ashley's anger, clinging behavior, insecurities, and possessiveness of Andrew slips his control and tolerance, he resorts to violence to coerce or even dominate her.

I think (or hope, if it's clear enough) it reinforces what Leyleyfication points out:

The truth of the matter is, Ashley can only make Andrew do anything because he lets her. I don't mean in the sense that I'm saying abuse victims let their abusers emotionally abuse them, I mean in the sense that he is clearly considering his options on the table and choosing to discard those that could stop her, or bring an end to any of this.

It also reflects on another aspect of why Andrew resorts to violence: in all three situations, Andrew remarks on Ashley's behavior and her sake. If she acts up again once they're out of the apartment, it'll cause trouble for him while they're evading authorities. If she's going to call him Andy from hereon out, what's the point of running away with her. If she expects him to leverage keeping 'her secret,' he won't because it's for her sake.

Andrew rationalizes his attempt to control of Ashley's behavior as being for her sake. But really, isn't it him confining her behavior to something he can tolerate and personally handle?

I'd also like to point out that Andrew admits that he noticed Ashley push for calling him 'Andy' during the home invasion, and he did not argue with her on it while they held their parents hostage and readied to sacrifice them. We can infer that when Andrew calculates his use of violence, that can also factor when, where, and how he exerts it.

--

Well, that's where I can reasonably end this half of my word vomit! Now, onwards, to part 2!

[knaveumineko]

Umineko Episode 4 Blog: Witch Trial

It's time to begrudgingly discuss the actual murders so I can read the Answer arcs some time this year.

Gohda and Kumasawa

Gohda and Kumasawa were seen through the window of the storehouse, apparently hanged. The only key to the room was on Gohda's person, and the storehouse was locked by Battler. When Battler returned, he realised that the ropes allowed their feet to touch the ground, and they had now been shot in the head. The key in Gohda's pocket is still there, and it's noted to be labelled.

Spinning the chessboard around, the most obvious reason to do this is to obscure when they actually died. Gohda and Kumasawa being servants makes them suspect, especially since they're telling crazy stories about magical murders, so I think they would comply with setting up a fake crime scene, and even with letting the culprit in later, leading to them getting double-crossed. It seems a little odd that the culprit would bother with this. It's not like they normally have issues with killing their accomplices. Maybe they were too busy with the test this time? The profiles also state that Gohda tied the rope around his own neck. Of course, the profiles don't have to be reliable, but why even make up that detail instead of writing nothing?

My answer is that Gohda and Kumasawa tied the ropes around their necks to give the illusion of being hanged, and then later they let the culprit into the room by passing the key through the window. The culprit then double crossed them, shooting them both in the head. The storehouse key was switched with a different key, and their labels were swapped, explaining how the key can be locked inside the storehouse.

The Show

The Rokkenjima killings usually have a theatrical element to them. The culprit is very much engineering a horror movie scenario. This time, with Battler not leaving the guesthouse, the culprit was free to invent whatever series of events they wanted, through phone calls. This makes it difficult to work out what happened from physical evidence. The best we've got is a red truth stating that Kanon died first out of Kyrie's group, and was the 9th victim overall. This actually gets us pretty far, since Battler and Maria died very late, and we're assuming that Gohda and Kumasawa died late by chessboard thinking. There are then only 8 people left to die before Kanon: George, Jessica and the 6 sacrifices. This does not necessarily mean that they died in the order,or at the time, that we're assuming. Ronove is a fantastical version of Genji, in the same way that Virgilia is Kumasawa (does this mean that Gaap is Nanjo by process of elimination? Nanjo's backstory is going to go crazy in Episode 6), and yet Genji supposedly died before he could meet Jessica.

It really seems like it was all a con. I could believe that maybe Jessica and George's tests at least happened in some form, but the rest would be fiction. The question then becomes how the culprit secures everyone's co-operation. I think the main mechanisms available are bribery (which fits some of the people involved in the con but not all of them), the culprit's unknown means of killing Battler from beyond the grave (this would work, but I have no idea how they could have the means to kill anyone from anywhere. Everyone got poisoned during dinner and they have the antidote? Tiny bombs? A really big bomb?) , or trickery (not everyone understands that they're participating in a mass murder? Seems like you'd have some sense of danger, but if Jessica walks to the mansion and sees that everyone is still alive maybe you could convince her to play along and nobody gets hurt?). George's corpse is the only reason we know that murders were actually going on at some point. Otherwise, I might posit that Beatrice just Hotline Miami's the entire mansion while Battler is grabbing the keys from the Chapel.

The Test

The test works as a way to lure the kids outside, but by now we should know that the culprit isn't some rational actor whose sole motivations are getting everyone killed. Besides, they already had hostages, so it's not like they needed any other reason for the kids to do what they were told. There's surely some other personal reason why it was done.

Battler's test is fairly straightforward: the point is to make him remember his sin. The blanked out name implies that he wronged the killer in some way. The thing that finally makes Beatrice give up is realising that Battler genuinely has no idea what she's talking about. Under the Sayo culprit theory, this is probably the "white horse" thing. In that case, giving the other kids a similar test might relate to their own failings in their relationships with her? That could contradict the red truth about the murders only happening because of Battler, though. Maybe whatever she's mad at them over wasn't as big a deal, but Sayo still wasn't satisfied with their answers.

Lock It In

At the end of the Question Arcs, I will take this opportunity to state my best guess at the truth of the mystery.

All events preceding the family conference happen the same exact way, in all episodes. These events are outside the typhoon which cut Rokkenjima off from the outside world, and so they are not subject to the witches' meddling.

Kinzo somehow obtains a large sum of gold from Beatrice I, and when his pursuit of her fails, he imprisons her on Rokkenjima, eventually fathering Beatrice II. Beatrice I commits suicide and Beatrice II is groomed into her replacement, culminating in the birth of another child, Beatrice III. Beatrice II died from falling off of a cliff, as witnessed by Rosa.

Beatrice III is Sayo. She was secretly raised in Kuwadorian, without Kinzo's knowledge, by the servants, and potentially seen to be Nanjo for her medical needs.

Sayo grew up hearing Kumasawa's stories, and magic is a big part of her worldview.

When Sayo is old enough, she becomes the servant Shannon, and the servants trick Kinzo into thinking she's from Fukuin house. It's the best they can do for her since they can't exactly hand her over to her family. This kind of secrecy from a young age might have had quite a strange effect on the way she thinks. Maybe Shannon is even something like an imaginary friend who she acts out.

Sayo does not take well to life as a servant. Since she doesn't actually have much training, she's unusually bad at her job and faces harsh criticism from the family.

During this time, she gets along well with Battler, whenever he shows up to the family conferences. Shortly before becoming estranged from the family, Battler makes his childish promise to take Sayo away from the island, and she resolves to wait.

Kinzo dies before the conference, and Krauss and Natsuhi conspire to pretend he's still alive. The servants go along with it on the surface, but they also take the opportunity to inform Sayo of her personal history, if she didn't know already, and Sayo is considered the real head of the family from then on.

Around this time, Sayo first comes up with the idea for the game around the solving of the Epitaph, and invents the Kanon character as part of the scenario. When Sayo isn't scheduled to work as Shannon, she shows up as Kanon instead. If they're scheduled at the same time, her confidants work to ensure her identity remains hidden. She also may have started writing the message bottles around this time.

Sayo secretly meets with Maria during the family conferences and plays with her in her witch guise, teaching her about magic.

Sayo finally starts the game for real when Battler shows up on the island.

The magic circles are from Kinzo's books, and were chosen so that Maria could recognise them.

Episode 1:

Sayo approaches Eva and Hideyoshi and bribes them into becoming accomplices.

Krauss, Kyrie, Rudolph, Rosa and Gohda are shot dead. Their faces are mutilated to hide that they were shot in the head. There was never a 6th body. This was a lie maintained by Kanon and Hideyoshi's false testimony.

Eva knew about Kinzo already being dead because Sayo told her. She does the receipt thing to mess with Natsuhi by calling her out on her lies, and because she's iconic like that. Afterward, she and Hideyoshi head to their room to await further instructions.

Sayo is let into Hideyoshi and Eva's room, then kills them both and inserts stakes into the bodies. The chain is then cut to create the illusion that the door was locked when the servants first found it.

Kanon runs to the Boiler Room, makes up his chest to fake stab wounds, and then drops a stake next to him. The door leading out into the courtyard is left ajar, making it seem as though the killer fled through there.

The letter in the study was placed by a servant, to create an excuse for them to leave the room.

Sayo kills the servants in the parlour and locks the door.

Natsuhi is shot, and then her gun is switched with her killer's, so it looks like she fired.

Episode 2:

Rosa is an accomplice, and is convinced to kill by leveraging her desperation for money and her grudge against her siblings.

The 6 are killed, probably by either being shot in the chest or poisoned, and then the Halloween display is created.

The Chapel locked room is solved by assuming the accomplices are lying about the Chapel being locked in the first place. All of the red truths about how the Chapel could be entered are simply irrelevant. Red herrings, even.

Kanon murders Jessica and then locks the door. The fact that Jessica had his master key doesn't matter, since Kanon has Shannon's key as well.

Gohda and Genji lie about Kumasawa and Nanjo being killed by a Kanon lookalike. This is why they aren't in the servant room. Later on, Sayo actually kills them and leaves the bodies in the courtyard.

Sayo kills Gohda and George, but it seems that Shannon's feelings for George bled through a bit too much (or maybe she's just that dedicated to the bit), and locks the door from the inside with Natsuhi's key before committing suicide.

Rosa stops Battle from investigating the crime scene too thoroughly, which stops him from finding the murder weapon.

The letter in the parlour was placed by Rosa.

With the mastermind dead, and perhaps feeling disturbed by the suicide, Genji decides he might as well go tell Battler what's going on before he dies.

Episode 3:

The locked room chain was designed in such a way that Shannon will always be found first, and Kanon last.

Nanjo lies about Shannon being dead, then Sayo opens the door with her master key, changes into Kanon, and gets ready in the chapel.

Eva killed Rosa and Maria.

Eva ambushes Kyrie and Rudolph to kill them once they figure out she's the culprit. Kyrie or Rudolph may have shot Hideyoshi during the fight. Alternatively, Eva could have killed him when he rebelled against her.

George tries to find Shannon's body and is killed by Sayo. He may have been lured out of the guesthouse by her in the first place. The window was probably locked by Nanjo.

The numbers written outside the room are the PIN for one of the deposit boxes that Sayo set up. The PIN is Battler's birthday and her own.

Rudolph and Natsuhi are killed by Eva.

Nanjo is shot by Sayo, and Eva kills Battler.

It is unclear who murders Jessica. There's even a remote possibility that Sayo takes Jessica off of the island with her somehow and she survives, although it hardly seems likely.

And of course I just got done talking about the Episode 4 murders.

I'm not entirely convinced by Sayo's motivations at all points here. I think she's the best culprit thematically, though, and when you view the story through the lens that she's the killer then a lot about how the murders are set up seems to line up conveniently for her. The first twilights in Episodes 1 and 3 are both set up with her distinguished in some way (either she's the only one we don't see, or the bodies are arranged so that she's guarenteed to be the first found). I also find it hard to imagine Battler's sin being anything else that was foreshadowed. I think I'm probably not understanding her reasons that well.

Finally, Episode 4 is done. I think the updates to this blog will remain slow for the next week or two, and then they'll probably speed up again, although not as fast as before.

While we're here, I'll drop this character tier list since it probably doesn't deserve it's own post. I will not elaborate on my opinions here. If you want to know why I placed someone somewhere, please direct your hate comments about my GOATda slander to the comments.

[apocalypseornaw]

Wanna be Yours (Pt 1/5)

Sam Winchester x Reader

After years of hunting with Dean you finally meet his younger brother

@lacilou s genius idea

Every hunter had one thing in common, tragic backstory. The one event that fucked their lives up bad enough that they not only discovered that the things that went bump in the night were very real but they decided to not sit on the sidelines and to actually do something about it.

Your event? You'd gone camping with your family, your parents along with your aunt and uncle and a couple cousins. No one had heard anything about the so called animal attacks neither did anyone know how the hell to defend themselves when the wendigo attacked.

The initial bloodbath had been hell. Your dad and uncle were first gone, going at the beast straight in an attempt to save their families. Next came your mom and aunt, a last ditch effort to distract it while you and your cousins ran. The three of you barely made it half a mile before the beast caught you.

--------------

You'd assumed that was it, you'd die just like your family had. The beast had kept the three of you for days in a cavern. You'd seen it kill your older cousin, Derek was fourteen and had fought like hell so you begged it to spare to your younger cousin, Allie his little sister who was only four not knowing if it even understood you.

The begging seemed to lure it to you. It raised its clawed hand and you prepared for a slash that never came. Instead you heard someone yell "KIDS GET DOWN!"

--------------

You nodded to Allie and you both tucked down in as small of a ball as possible. The heat that filled the cavern was unbearable mixed with the scent of burning flesh along with the sounds of the creature as it died.

When it was over you untucked and was met with a woman, she was probably around your aunts age. Her brown hair braided back, wearing jeans and a red flannel of all things. A flamethrower was in her hands "You girls ok?" You nodded numbly "Help Allie first"

That was how you met Hayley Lynols. She was a second generation hunter. When it was discovered you had no legal guardian (Allie had gone to a relative of her dad's) Hayley had stepped in to offer you a place to stay.

She'd given you three options. One was a normal life, one was the life of a hunter and the third option was what she wanted you to take "I'll train you just like my dad trained me but you go to school and get a ged at least. Any kid of mine isn't going to be dumb in any way. If you want to hunt on your own some after you're eighteen that's you but just know I'll always be here to help"

You'd taken the third option. You'd buckled down on school and studied hard. You'd gotten a ged by the time you turned fifteen and started hunting with Hayley.

That was how you met Dean. You were nineteen, on the very first solo hunt Hayley had allowed you. She deemed it simple enough, a haunting case that seemed like it'd be a simple salt and burn.

---------------

She hadn't realized another hunter was already on the case. You stood across from the guy that had to be around your age, both of you carrying a duffle and a shovel.

Neither of you blinked so you decided to go out on a limb "Anthony Rowen?" He sort of laughed "You a hunter?" You nodded then motioned towards the grave that was about three feet from where the two of you stood "I say we work this together and it goes a lot faster" he nodded "I like that idea" then offered his hand "Dean" you shook his hand "Y/N, let's get to it"

---------------

Since the two of you weren't old enough for a bar you ended up at a diner, coffee and pie in front of you both as you talked about your lives. He told you about his father and brother and you told him about Hayley. Before you went your separate way you exchanged numbers and swore to keep in touch.

You'd see Dean off and on but when you were about twenty six he fell off the map for a while until he resurfaced about a year later with a simple phone call of "Y/N, I need some help"

------------

You pulled your challenger to a stop next to Dean's impala and grabbed your phone to check the text as to what room he was in but before you could the door to room one fifteen opened and Dean walked out, shadowed by another guy. He looked a little younger than Dean with hair that borderlined shaggy but it was clear they were related. Could that be Sam?

You climbed out your car with a smile "Winchester!" Dean grinned and met you halfway pulling you into a hug "Y/N! It's good to see you" when the two of you separated he motioned to the other guy "This is my little brother Sam"

You turned your eyes towards Sam with a smile and offered your hand "I've heard about you for years, weird we're just now meeting but good to meet you" he grinned as he shook your hand "Good to meet you too" you had to admit, he was cute. Broad smile and dimples along with green hazel eyes that followed your every movement. You cut your eyes at Dean "Also, little brother? He's taller than you"

Sam laughed at your words, the sound was enough to pull a smile to your face "Oh I like her already" you winked at him "Stick around cutie, I'm a very likeable person" Dean shook his head "Let's get to work"

After that day you and the Winchesters started keeping in touch every few days. You hadn't known they lost John so you weren't able to be there for them but when you lost Hayley they'd driven straight across two states to get to your side.

--------‐--

You stood between them both, staring at the flames as they engulfed her body. You felt a shiver run through you and weren't sure if it was from the cold night air or losing the only parental figure you had left. "I'll go grab your jacket" Dean offered and headed for your challenger.

You and Sam stood silent for a few moments before he said "When dad died Dean wouldn't talk to anyone, let anyone in until he finally broke one day. Y/N I know we're not as close as you and Dean but you're my friend and if you need anything I'm here" you nodded, eyes never leaving the flames "Thanks Sam"

About that time Dean walked back over with your jacket and draped it over your shoulders "You know Y/N, I was thinking" you cut your eyes at Sam with a weak smile "Should we run?" A small smile slipped onto his face "Let's hear him out then we'll see if we need to"

"Ha ha very funny" Dean replied before continuing "Hayley always said she didn't like you hunting alone, you can always throw your hat in with me and Sam. We don't mind the company" you nodded "Maybe I will" a silence fell back over the three of you as the flames began to burn down to just embers.

@nelachu2423

@lacilou