#...but...ONE FAMILY MEMBER OF MINE IN PARTICULAR CLEARLY HAS NOT

[margridarnauds]

There is a very, very small chance, if you live in the States and deal with people from, say Oklahoma, Illinois, Texas, etc., you might hear of what are called "Mineral Rights". You might think "Oh, grandma just died, and so I just inherited a bunch of land." Before you, idk, start harassing family friends because you're convinced they're hiding the Truth™ from you, here is a short, convenient guide to mineral rights:

They are not rights to the land, they are rights to the minerals. Hence "Mineral Rights".

You only own what's beneath the surface and any income you get from the oil companies (derogatory). You cannot build a barn on top of it. You cannot sell it to anyone so that THEY can build a barn on top of it. Because you do not own the land. You own the rights to the minerals. The Mineral Rights, if you will.

You do not even always have the right to decide who drills, because, if you don't lease to anyone, they will often decide to pool you in with the neighboring plots, because they are *just that considerate*. (There is no universe where that mineral is not getting drilled.) Or "horizontal drilling" which means that they just take your oil while they're getting your neighbors'. Isn't that fun? Doesn't it make you want to chew glass?

Because the oil companies control the degree of oil drilling, measure the output, AND write the check, if you had any hopes and dreams of becoming a wealthy oil baron, good luck.

Also please make sure that you are actually on the trust that you are trying to get access to so that, idk, you don't harass family friends before you realize that your family member disinherited you a couple of years back, because that would be *really* embarrassing.

[skyrim-forever]

Mini mental health rant under the cut

I've fallen down a rabbit hole recently as I've long suspected I am somewhere on the autism spectrum and I'm diagnosed with BPD. I know it's common for women in particular to be misdiagnosed with BPD when it's actually autism with trauma but I do not think that is the case for me. I developed BPD after experiencing repeated abandonment trauma.

So I went looking around on reddit (where else is there to go for people's experiences) for people with the two as a co-morbidity. But all I found was autism people saying "no you developed BPD do the trauma of growing up autistic" or "BPD isn't real, it's all autism with trauma." This is so incredibly frustrating because not only are there plenty of people who fit the criteria for BPD but not autism and BPD is not the only trauma disorder! Core parts of BPD are unstable moods and view of self, fear of abandonment, emotional intense relationships often with idealization (having a Favourite Person that you place your emotional wellbeing on). these are very core differences that if you have autism and experience these, you could be experiencing BPD as well.

Then when people started explaining why they think they have both they were hit with "hmm, that also sounds like your autism". I know there is trauma associated with growing up undiagnosed autistic especially and I'm glad there is more awareness on autism, as well as a large community. But no, not all trauma someone with autism could have is related to autism. Mine specifically is do to unstable family dynamic brought on by generational trauma do to child abuse. I had family members dislike me not because I wasn't neurotypical, but because my mom was on welfare and has schizophernia. It was not about me at all.

And if I do have both, they feel very different, which is why I suspect both as there are things BPD cannot fully explain. In moments I can distinctly tell it's BPD, such as I don't receive a response from a loved one, I spiral into thinking they hate me because why else wouldn't they message me back? Clearly they hate me and are never going to talk to me again because I'm terrible and I overestimated my importance in their life and then quickly spiraling into splitting behaviour; they are actually the bad person.

Where as when I miss a social cue, I'm thinking "oh no I got the social norm wrong and ruined everything." This spirals into self-hate because I'm mad at myself for not understanding how interaction works and wondering what is wrong with me. I find I go into different types of social interaction thinking "yes, this is how people interact." I often feel like an alien mimicking human behaviour, especially in professional settings. Growing up I used TV and movies to figure out how people worked for lack of a better word.

And i know the opinion of redditors is just that of randos on the internet, but it's particularly rough to hear this as misdiagnosis is a big issue. But this isn't the way to talk about things. It's already hard enough having a personality disorder.

~Nobody likes you when you're Cluster B~

[anxiousdreamcore]

hey I saw that lovely art you posted of an alternate first meeting between Superboy and Superman in Young Justice. I watched YJ as a teen and loved it, but I've also heard people say that they dislike how much it mischaracterized Superman for the sake of giving Superboy drama and daddy issues. I don't know much about Superman outside of YJ, but from what I know about the character, the complaint seems legit.

If you could rewrite S1 of Young Justice, how would you change Superman and Superboy's relationship? And how would it effect the rest of the plot, especially the subplot with Lex Luthor?

Oh boy I am SO GLAD you asked

First of all yes, the complaints are legit as I have just binged all of season one and…Clark was bad. The writers fumbled his character big time and underutilized all of his personality traits. I have complaints about Conner too, as I will forever be more of a fan of his punk look and his “born to be a product” character version, but we have what we have and I think DC cooked when they made him pine for Clark’s affection for once. I think it could have been a genuinely touching found family story if it was written properly.

I’ve talked to a friend of mine about this and I feel like, if I had the reigns, it’d make more sense for me to write Clark taking on the role of Young Justice’s housefather (or den mother, as the characters themselves call it😂) instead of Red Tornado. If we refer to his canonical personality, Clark would have been much more present in the team’s lives as well compared to Tornado. I can see him cooking dinners for the kids, comforting them when the world weights too heavily on their shoulders, giving out advice or a shoulder to cry on. Perhaps even following them on some more dangerous missions and when drama calls for kids to be alone, he can just be at the JL headquarters or busy with his life as a civilian.

If it was up to me and I had to add more drama to the show, I’d take on the slowburn route. Clark, although clearly shocked and definitely on some level disturbed, would’ve been excited to get to know Conner and spend time with him; teach him about his powers, about the world, and help him find his place in it. That is just the kind of character he is outside of Young Justice. He’d understand that DNA relations make them a family, but wouldn’t want to push Conner’s boundaries as he is notoriously snappy, distrusting and at times aggressive with people, even if Superman sees none of that aggression or distrust directed at him in particular.

If he only knew that it is because Conner wants his approval more than anything in the world.

Clark gives Conner the same love and care as he does other children of the team, but it’s not enough. Perhaps Conner feels like he isn’t special; rejected even, as he is no different to Superman than any other member of Young Justice.

Both sides grow to want to be a family, to be a father and son and care for each other, but they don’t know how to approach the subject in fear of pushing the other away, however their dynamic slowly progresses throughout the first season and ends in the two fully accepting each other.

In terms of the Lex subplot, I definitely see Clark getting protective and hella pissed that a man who never gave a damn about his alleged son has suddenly showed up in his life, trying to manipulate him. As my friend had said, he cold have sat Conner down for a conversation, assured him that family is not only blood, but bonds. Sure, Superman and Superboy share blood, but they have also chosen each other, and that makes all the difference.

THIS might have been A tier stuff, in my humble opinion.

[the-gateway-to-madness]

Mad's Akiridion Analyses: Nobility

and we're BACK

okay so i can't be the only one who's bothered by the massive disparity between royal akiridion anatomy and common akiridion anatomy, and also the fact that the monarchy has pretty much no sign of a noble class, which is kinda a Thing in monarchies usually

SO I KILLED TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE OBVIOUSLY- *ahem* Akiridion nobility, I think, would have more or less human anatomy, sporting five fingers similar to Royals, smaller but individualized core shapes, and two arms.

I also think rare members of each family would have particular, hereditary abilities to control Akiridion energy- sort of a counterpoint to Earth's magic, since I'm pretty much certain Akiridions were once magic-based and have since mostly lost any trace of that origin.

The Noble Houses would fall into three categories/guilds, called Anvrakyn, led by House Foremosts, generally an accomplished, respected, trusted member of the family and the one to represent the family on the Council.

Houses of the Peacekeepers' Anvrak: The people of these houses possess skills and powers that contribute to the diplomatic atmosphere of the Akiridion council. Houses of the Services Anvrak: The people of these houses possess skills and powers that contribute to the unity and function of the Akiridion council as a whole. Houses of the Combat Anvrak: The people of these houses possess skills and powers that contribute to the protection and strength of the Akiridion council. Fallen Houses: These houses temporarily or permanently lost their status by siding with Val Morando during his coup on Akiridion. The people of these houses are viewed with high suspicion.

I've come up with a number of Noble Houses to fill out the Akiridion court and Royal Council, a couple of which I gifted to friends to develop (Stroitel and Vysmatrivat, as y'all will see), so y'all can use any of the others (save for Okhrana, which is my own focal House) for whatever you want, but those three are only on this public list to balance out the number of Houses in each Anvrak, and are not open for use.

Tselitel: One of the oldest of the Akiridion noble families, rare members of this family have an ability to channel Akiridion energy in such a way that they can heal the wounds of others. 

Council member: Ovuran Tselitel; post-coup, Isila Tselitel

Healing: Cannot, of course, revive the dead, though they can sustain intact cores for a short time. If they heal too much, they will pass out (to prevent them from giving so much energy as to kill themselves).

Stroitel, Not for Public Use: Inventors and architects of legendary skill. 

Council member: Kyrus Stroitel

(Further development of this house done by a friend of mine, rather than by me- @crescentroseart on Instagram, I believe. All credit for these ideas goes to her.)

Groupthink: 

Some members in House Stroitel have a strange ability to share ideas with one another without verbal or physical means. Those with this ability can be found heading the design and engineering aspects of large projects. The ability does not work over large distances, since the individuals need to touch to share the connection. However, there have been instances where two Stroitels have the same inspiration come to them via vision, usually around the same time, though this has not been researched thoroughly.

Okhotnik: Trackers and hunters, often called upon to find criminals.

Council member: Iloris Okhotnik; post-coup, Zenila Okhotnik

Tracking: Rare individuals have enhanced senses and can detect nearby life beings' precise location, no matter how they are hidden. This ability grows less and less precise the further away the life being is, and it works most clearly with other Akiridions.

Kryl'ya: Pilots that have been flying Akiridion's finest, fastest ships for generations. 

Council member: Agura Kryl'ya; post-coup, Tirza Kryl'ya

Perevodchik: Gifted with languages, they've been top diplomats for Akiridion-5 for as long as anyone can remember.

Council member: Luvinia Perevodchik; post-coup Rekalos Perevodchik

Linguistics: Certain individuals have the ability to consciously allow themselves to understand any language they hear or read without learning it prior to exposure. This will wear them out much faster than simply translating languages learned over time.

† Okhrana, Not for Public Use: Skilled with strategy and combat, this house was wiped out by bounty hunters looking for sensitive information on the royals. Certain individuals had an ability to summon tools, weapons, and various other objects attached to their hands and wrists, referred to as "Summoners". They had been bound by blood and birth to protect the Royals as long as anyone could remember. 

Last Council member: Korin Okhrana

Summoning: Certain Okhrana individuals can summon items attached to their wrists, such as grappling hooks and small knives or small artistic sculptures (though, the use of Summoning for trivial entertainment was greatly discouraged). However, they can only summon one thing a wrist at a time. They can summon on both wrists at once, but the rule above applies in that both wrists will manifest the same tool. There are no real limits on what the tool can be, but it can't be big, or sustained for too long, or they'll pass out. These individuals are marked by green hair and skin and a thin, human-like hair consistency rather than the usual clumping of other Akiridions; both traits appear to be a natural way of reserving energy for Summoning, as green light takes less energy to produce than blue.

Oath: Okhranas hold all members of their house to an oath made to the Royals centuries ago, and over time it shifted from a pledge of loyalty to a more and more unachievable standard that all members had to uphold. More and more rules were added as the oath was reinterpreted by various leaders; by the time of the Massacre, members of House Okhrana were not allowed to have romantic relationships with members of the Royal Houses, and even close friendship was somewhat discouraged.

The words of the Oath go as follows: 'By the light of my core and the right of my birth, I am bound to the protection and upholding of the righteous and rightful rulers of Akiridion-5, to set aside personal attachments for the sake of the throne, and to give myself entirely, in life, in sickness, in injury, and in death, to my Royals. I will live, walk, and breathe as a sacrifice upon the altar of the Royals' future.  Let my bones be broken, my coreslick spilled, and my core splintered for the sake of their call; let my body, my mind, and my soul be torn from me in service to the upholding of Akiridion. Such is my vow and such shall I be.'

The Okhrana Massacre: A group of bounty hunters with a strange ship that phases in and out of our plane of existence, known as the A'dar-ahk Auvon, or Talons of the Void, learned of the existence of Gaylen's Core. Knowing that House Okhrana was highly trusted, they gave the option for the Okhranas to hand over the location of Gaylen's Core or be killed. The Okhranas chose the latter… though, either way the House leaders had chosen not to learn anything about Gaylen's Core in an attempt to further protect the Royals.

Ispolnitel: Dancers, singers, artisans, and charismatic entertainers of all kinds.

Council member: Piyuvon Ispolnitel; post-coup, Zekkier Ispolnitel

Mirotvorets: Diplomats and negotiators that possess a natural flair for calming others and creating peace. 

Council member: Tugar Mirotvorets; post-coup, Denar Mirotvorets (Not for Public Use)

Persuasion: Very rarely, individuals will have an enhanced ability to persuade others to do their will--it doesn't work on everyone, a bit like hypnosis, and it does not grant outright control over anyone.

Bronya: Widely considered the least intelligent of the Noble Houses (though this is more rumor and slander than truth), members of House Bronya are blessed with incredible strength and size, and many members even develop thick, calloused areas on the surface of their bodies- or, much more rarely, full-on bony, protective plates. They claim descent from Ingylth, the first councilor chosen by Seklos herself. The House Foremost takes the name Ingylth to honor that legacy for as long as they serve as leader of the House.

Council member: Vinlea “Ingylth” Bronya; post-coup, Kurmyr “Ingylth” Bronya

Armor: A handful of Bronyas develop bony plates on their bodies that can stop physical blades and lower-level serrator blasts, at the cost of tactile sensitivity in the armored regions.

Kuznets (Fallen): Another of Akiridion’s older houses, the people of this house are skilled in the craftsmanship of tools and weapons; they have played this role since before Akiridion-5 was spacefaring. 

Post-coup council member: Velas Kuznets

Vysmatrivat (Fallen), Not for Public Use: The people of this house are highly intelligent and have a knack for collecting information. They are mainly researchers– though rumors persist that Vysmatrivats are also trained as spies.

Post-coup council member: Lumeya Vysmatrivat

(This is another house handed off to and developed by a friend, not by me, and for the life of me i cannot remember her instagram or any other social media i am so sorry to her and to everyone else but here:)

Most of the Vysmatrivat have a hard outer pair of incisor mandibles, the shell beginning at the bottom of the cheekbone and extending down.  They have put this to their advantage.  Vysmatrivat scholars’ odd habit of biting things has come in handy, as the vibrations produced in their upper teeth are fine tuned in the mandible/incisors and transfer the exact vibrational pattern of the object to their minds.  

Strelok (Fallen): The people of House Strelok are renowned for their skill with serrators, particularly ranged weapons. Their skills as snipers are feared throughout the galaxy.

Post-coup council member: Ixana Strelok

***

Anyway, the council gets changed out with each new generation of Royals on the throne and new House Foremosts are chosen accordingly.

[disaster-on-the-horizon]

Feedback Fest let's gooo!

Here's 10 recommendations from me, in no particular order

1] More Than A Sidekick, by Jason_Todds_Thigh_Holster (Henry Danger)

Oh, the classic "I have to pretend I don't care about you at all to save you, meanwhile I would give the whole word to you"-trope (totally official name). Mixed with the character in danger having relatively low self-worth and a usual "rough around the edges"-caretaker/mentor, it's just HMMMM (/pos)! I'm already a sucker for characters in hostage situations, so pairing these together is Such Good Soup. I personally didn't even keep up much with Henry Danger after my childhood, but the characters are already so nicely characterized within the fic itself, that you truly don't feel like you miss anything.

2] [injury] of a salesman, by becki (Deltarune)

It's only a one shot, but everything that happens is so well organized and shown that I keep forgetting. "basically just lots of spamton getting the love and care he needs" (author's tag) describes it well, and I am HERE for it. Especially the part where the two eat together tugs at my heartstrings, I love characters with some form of food-insecurity being allowed to eat freely. Swatch as a character is also such a delight.

3] URL not found, by Aster269 (@aster269) (Deltarune)

Quite a long one, this time; I read it while it was still going, and it was worth waiting for every update! The Addisons have very clearly established personalities and beliefs that are explained through their backstory. It's also very interesting to see every facet of their life, from childhood, to Big Shot Era to reunion. And personally, I can't get enough of the Addison Family unconditionally loving and supporting each other <3

4] The Wake-Up Call, by cookiescrumbles (Wander Over Yonder)

Wander. Has. Issues. And they are very well acknowledged here.

His personality really shines through here, both in the way he acts and talks. The entire concept is also very sweet; and I love Sylvia's and Wander's relationship. Shout out to the Hat, for getting Wander what he needs!

5] Tiny Reverberations, by Sylphidine_Gallimaufry (@sylphidine) (Deltarune)

SO! CUTE! Very short, but that just contributes to how fun of a read it is. It's pure fluff, and that mixed with Spam's reaction due to his low self-worth is balm for the soul <3 It's just so adorable; love the kitty <3

6] Mourning Dove, by LynnCanigula15 (@moonbeam-dragon) (Darkwing Duck)

I must say, I'm always a fan of people talking about the kinda messed-up stuff that happens in DW sometimes. And I think how the other three members of the F4 react to this - relatively complicated - situation is very much in character for who they are. Big fan of angst, and Bushroot's state of mind is especially interestingly described and established in chapter 2.

7] Back Alley Beatdown, by SwoodMaxProductions (@swoodthis) (Deltarune)

I love seeing Spamton fighting tooth and nail, knowing his own advantages. Sweet Cap'n Cakes are also very sweet and considered to the Spam Man here; making sure to reassure him when necessary. The description of the parts carefully placed beside him is a personal favourite of mine here! It also has a very nice conclusion.

8] Last of your Kind, by Vanyel (@boonbeenblade) (Cult of the Lamb)

It manages to say what it wants so clearly and concisely, seeing the length that it is. The use of language is truly phenomenal, and it shows a very cool outlook on the relationship between the Lamb and TOWW. Even though the fic depicts events that you literally play yourself, it manages to give an interesting outlook on them, making one able to experience them again as if from fresh eyes, from the perspective of the character. The second-person writing comes off as very natural.

9] Ever so slightly, by Pancakes_for_Dragons (Deltarune)

Sometimes I need a story that is just unapologetic angst. The fic gives Rouxls a very clear persona that reflects on his literal state as the "Rules Card" very well. How his relationship with Lancer grows is really sweet; and especially "I’m thoust Lesser father, surely that musteth count for something." and the whole event around it, still has a space in my mind, since the first time I read it!

10] breathe, breathe, by SteveSmackdown2014 (School for Vampires)

Again, just a very sweet story. It's very easy to see it both from Oskar's (with all the knowledge we have as viewers) and from Sunshine's (with a more 'normal', human outlook) perspective; and why they both react the way they do. Oskar's fear is shown as so very real, but the actual moment is just as sweet.

(Deviders by yizaicons)

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

I'm really contemplating whether or not I can in good conscience keep thinking of myself as queer, which is kind of painful for me, because I have a lot of attachment to what it means to me. But it really does clearly mean something very different to most people, and I don't want to ignore that reality. It bothers me that when I say it, people might reasonably believe I'm talking about a particular type of ideology and political agenda that can be separated from the Normie Gays and the Hateful Assimilationists, that a person could learn about then choose to agree with and support or not agree with and support, because I've always felt strongly that being queer isn't a type of politics you can have, it's an experience of existing in a politicized way.

I'm well aware that 90% of the people in my Tumblr orbit perceive me (or would if they knew me) as one of the Hateful Assimilationists, which in some sense I agree that I am. I think it's actually a reasonably psychologically healthy goal to want to be a participating member of one's community and culture, although that's not the only thing I think a reasonably psychologically healthy person should care about. And it's not the only thing I care about, but I do want to just -- go about my business in life, and do my job and shop and socialize and deal with bureaucracy and attend events and never have to navigate feeling anxious or unwelcome or unsafe simply because I exist in public and other people have feelings about that. To myself, I feel -- normal, I'm just a person, I'm not doing anything that I feel like should be all that bothersome or intrusive to other people. It's other people who are intrusive when I I just am here, looking like they don't think I should look, having a family they don't think I should have.

So, like -- I'm not queer because that's some kind of mission statement for me, I know other queer people like the idea of having a Disruptive Agenda, but my agenda is and has always been trying to convince other people to be less rude and weird about me, because I'm just like, some person who is alive and trying to get through life like anyone else, like everyone else. As far as I'm concerned, I have never been the weird one; people who have absolutely no stake in my clothes, name, sex life, facial hair, general manner of existing, and yet feel thoroughly empowered to inflict their uninvited opinions about those things on me -- those people seem bizarre to me.

So when I've used the word queer, it's always been an acknowledgement that these are non-normative ways of being, and these are stigmatized ways of being, and there has been an ongoing experience of stigmatization and marginalization in my life that I recognize as a broadly shared experience with many other flavors of gender identity and sexuality minorities. And I need language like that to be able to say, hey, I recognize that across our diverse experiences, we've all been defined out of Normalcy whether or not we wanted to be. That's been placed on us, similar to the way that "non-white" and "people of color" are categories people are placed in by the hegemonic power of white supremacy, not because there's something inherently Other or Non about having skin darker than a Styrofoam cup, or because every other ethnic phenotype in the world shares some particular quality. The only quality they share is the way that whiteness Others them, and the quality I share with all other queer people is the way that heteronormativity Others all of us.

But it's used so often by so many other people as a signifier of some ideological commitment to an adequate level of Smashing the Patriarchy, and I'm not remotely interested in a vision of queerness that audits people's beliefs and motives and degree of radicalism, because for a lot of people, simply existing is as much radical disruption as they're able or willing to commit to, and that's frankly their business, not mine. Queer people spend our lives being judged and excluded, measured and found wanting. I'm just not up for a vision of queerness that imposes yet another external standard that people have to figure out how to meet in order to avoid hearing some version of "you're not queer, you're just a girl who likes girls" or whatever the current clever zing is about why they don't make the cut.

The world ascribes political meaning to our existence, it thinks that us merely wanting to live is "activism" and "radical leftism" and "the woke mind virus" or whatever the fuck. But we're not issues, we're fundamentally people, and presumably over the course of our lives we'll identify with any number of different issues and goals and beliefs, but we were people at birth and have always been and will always be people, and that is what I personally think should be at the center of whatever we're trying to do as a community, I think here you can be seen as the person you are is more impactful work than trying to make sure we don't accidentally embrace any Assimilationists.

I'm not saying there's nothing political about it when I call myself queer, but I am saying that the statement "gender and sexuality diversity is just part of the human experience, we are simply humans no matter what" is unfortunately already politicized. I wish it weren't. I wish that were just a thing I could believe in because it seems objectively true to me and it didn't have any particular politics attached to it. I would like my actual causes to be, like, climate change and food justice and socialized medicine! It's a bummer to me that I have to spend so much of my life asserting my own basic humanity, and I would like even more of the straight world to come around and join me in just not thinking my transness or my bisexuality are particularly fascinating aspects of my personality.

I don't know, I've just never been a "queer as in fuck you" person, and I never am going to be -- I can certainly get mad enough to be combative at times, but that's not fundamentally who I am or how I see the world. I like communities and I like getting along with people when I can, I like social safety nets and good neighbors and ethics of care, and I don't want people -- including me! -- to feel forced to the margins of their families and communities and churches and schools and jobs. I think it's good to want to belong to things and painful and often traumatic to be excluded and shunned. I know you do have to set some functional limits to your inclusion, paradox of tolerance and all that, but I also think you don't make a good life or a good world without some degree of learning to practice civility and coalition building and compromise. Those are the things that make communities, because if you can only deal with the people you easily mesh with, that's gonna end up being simply not enough people to survive.

So I want to draw boundaries wide, for practical purposes, and also because like I said, that is my core value, that people have inherent worth and dignity that doesn't depend on their actions or their ideas, but simply on the fact of their humanity. I think queer people need advocacy and need respect and need community even if I also think those people are full of shit, and my allegiance to the idea of queerness has always been about that respect -- that you don't need to justify exactly where you fit in order to fit here, that we make room for people to be themselves who have otherwise been told it's not okay to be themselves.

[mxstball]

Friede's Birthday

Clocktower, Ruined Kingdom

Heidi, Lati, Lauren, and Meridith entered the elevator of the Clocktower. Heidi had been requested to come here with a few family members, so they were the best that she could think of that were willing to come. After all, Friede was back, and not everyone was comfortable about possibly being anywhere near her at this time. Now, with the four of them inside the elevator, there was no chance for of them to reconsider now. Heidi pressed the requested floor:

28F

Heidi looked over at Lati and smiled. "Remember, Lati: Grandma said to call her Izanami while we're here. You'll do that for her, right?"

"Uh-huh. Call her 'Izanami', just like grandma." Lati glanced over at Meredith and smiled.

Meredith giggled. "Right, because your mother and auntie here calls her 'Nami'."

Heidi and Lauren nodded at each other. Hopefully, none of them had to worry about anything.

---

Eventually, the elevator made its way up and opened. There, they were presented with a long series of halls with plenty of rooms. Many of them seemed dedicated to meditation, and, while most were clearly intended for one person, some looked like they could fit two people.

Heidi has seen this before. She recalls when Friede from the past took her here. She wondered why they returned to this place in particular.

"Follow me."

Heidi walked ahead of the group, with the other three not far behind. Meredith held Lati's hand to keep track of the little one, too. The last thing that they needed was for something to happen to one of them, especially at a place like this. With how clean, generally standardized, and empty everything was, it gave Lauren the creeps. Just why would someone want to be in a place like this? It was beyond her comprehension.

Heidi led the group around the corner to another hallway. Unlike several of the other halls, this one had notably less rooms next to each other, and they weren't see-through, either. She continued on to one of the rooms and stopped. "Here. I can sense her." Heidi opened the door and walked in. Lauren, Lati, and Meredith each followed, curious as to what this was about. It was a room that was much larger than the meditation rooms from before. It seemed almost like a meeting room, with a large, round table in the middle and chairs all around it. Despite the dark colors and low lights of the rest of the hallway, this room was especially well-lit and colored a welcoming yellow. Within it rested a fairly large cake with a singular candle lit…

… and Izanami on the other side of the table.

"It looks like you all could make it!" Izanami giggled. She stood from her chair and waved at the group.

"!!! Gr—I—Izanami!" Lati struggled a little with trying to remember what to call her grandmother, but she was able to do so correctly. The little dragon flew around the table to not disturb anything and gave Izanami a hug.

"H—hey! You're eager, hm?" Izanami hugged her granddaughter back.

As Heidi and Meredith walked a little forward and smiled at the hugging duo, Lauren walked around and looked down at the cake. It was a fairly sized cake with white frosting all over. On the top, there was the Ring of Creation as well as the words "Happy Birthday" nicely written. Upon looking some more down at the table, she saw several plates and utensils, a tub of ice cream, and a scooper for it. Lauren looked up at Izanami. "I didn't know that it was your birthday today, Nami."

"That is because it is not my daughter's birthday. It is mine."

Heidi, Lauren, Meredith, and Lati all quickly turned around to the entrance of the room. Friede was there, standing straight and stiff. Each of the guests took time to look at each other in disbelief, and even Lati stopped hugging Izanami to notice just what was going on.

Was that… her?

---

After some pleasantries, some birthday wishes and singing, the six of them were eating cake and ice cream together, with Friede having the largest share of both. It turned out to be a carrot cake, too, so it was quite unique. Lati sat between Meredith and Izanami, where she was enjoying the food, but also talking to Meredith about how tasty things are and all of the things that she saw on the way. Lauren sat near Izanami. They were both a little awkward compared to the last time that they spoke here together…

… and then there were Heidi and Friede that happened to sit together.

"So, you're Izanami's mother, huh?"

"That is correct." Friede took a small bite of carrot cake and waited until she finished the bite to continue. "We both are quite young for our species, but, from the fact that you all showed today, I would say that she has matured quite well."

"Yeah. That I can agree on." Even though there was definitely more to things than that. "I wasn't expecting for her to want us to come here for your birthday, though. Maybe she wanted you to have more company to be around."

Friede nodded. "Perhaps. She is always thinking of my well-being, even when I ask her not to."

Heidi laughed and nodded at Lati. "Heh. My daughter's the same way with me sometimes. You get used to it."

"It is… nice."

The two nodded and continued eating. It was a strange day for Heidi, but it was a day that she was happy to have… and one that she was happy to share with the two most prominent Arceus in her life. Maybe things will be different this time, after all.

[turnipshepard]

My mom tried to defend her decision to give my sister 25k for a dumb foreign culinary school program with reasoning that I’m sure my sister injected right into her brain: that if my sister took out loans for this program, she’d have to pay interest! Over time that’s a lot more money for her! She’ll never get out from the burden!

This is the same logic my ex used on me when he took money from our joint account to pay for a $4000 gaming laptop. It’s cheaper than if he buys it on a payment plan because of the interest! He can just replenish our account with the money he would have spent on payments instead! Doesn’t this just make more sense? I mean, it’s simple math.

Here is why this is utter bullshit. If you are a grown up, and you want something expensive and frivolous such as a trip abroad or an overpriced laptop to play video games, the risk of acquiring that thing should be 100% on you. My ex transferred the risk to me (most of the money in that account was originally mine, then it because “ours” and then it became his with the purchase of that laptop). My sister has transferred all the risk here to my mom.

What makes me even sadder is that the transfer of risk in my sister’s case is twofold - my mom openly stated one of the reasons she felt OK giving my sister such a large sum is because her sister (my aunt) is rich. So she doesn’t have to worry about money! I mean, she is still stressing about vet bills and the mortgage when I call her, so clearly that’s not the case, but it’s a worrying thought process. She’s roping even more family members into this situation without their knowledge by assuming they’ll be able to support her if god forbid she gets sick, or has an accident, etc.

When my sister and I were young, my dad kind of fucked both of us up about money. My mom earned the money but my dad controlled it, and nothing would set him off like the feeling that we, his stupid children with our lack of dedication to the piano lessons he was paying for, and our acne medications that weren’t covered by insurance, and our desire to go to college, were wasting it. College loans in particular were emphasized to us as unambiguously life-ruining. My sister and I were both really affected by this, but there is a limit on what responses are reasonable (adjusted for circumstance) and I think she’s gone way beyond it.

[refiwrites]

Always You

Pairing: Remus Lupin x Fem! Reader

Request: "Can I request one where Lupin has a crush on the reader who is a order member (she's around Tonks' age and Snape's little sister) and he thinks she doesn't feel the same because of his age and condition. She is clearly in love with him too but thinks he only sees her as the baby sister of his childhood enemy. It would be mostly fluff maybe with a little bit of angst."

Word count: 5.3k

Warning/s: fluff mostly mixed with angst, severus being mean, crying, overthinking(?) age gap! but reader is around 20-24

Note: apologies if it took too long! i was busy with schoolworks and stuff and but i hope this is enough! please like and reblog if you enjoyed, feedbacks are most welcome.

GIF is not mine, credits to the owner!

Being used to rumors was the price that came with being Severus Snape’s younger sister. It was no secret to you that your older brother, Severus, was a death eater. You and Severus never really had a clear bond as siblings, of course being the little sibling, you cared for him. Often times you also wondered if he ever did as well.

Almost one thing was clear; you and your family had different views.

With the second wizarding war approaching, you decided it was time to stand up for yourself.

It began when you made yourself known as a member of The Order of the Phoenix. The news somehow reached your family and your older brother quite fast. Rumors started here and there that you were a death eater gaining trust from the opposing side to infiltrate their plans.

A part of you accepted that going on your own way meant your family wanted nothing to do with you as they had been following He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s ways, then so be it. You expected Severus to even try and talk to you about it but alas, he said nothing and left you.

All you’ve ever wanted was to live in the world where muggle-born witches and wizards and those who are half-bloods, like you, and even purebloods to co-exist in one world.

So here you found yourself, within the Order.

You knew they knew where you came from, however you managed to convince the others that you weren’t a spy, that you joined because you were willing to risk your life for the future witches and wizards to have a good life without fear of discrimination.

However, out of all the Order’s members, one member in particular caught your eye.

Remus John Lupin. That was his name.

Remus Lupin, the man who was probably almost a decade and a half older than you, the man that smelled like books and coffee with a hint of chocolate that he keeps in his pocket when times get rough. That Remus who has scars etched on his face caused by his werewolf tendencies and the man that you’d fallen for rather quickly from your first glance.

You later found out that Remus was the best friend of the falsely accused Sirius Black, who was Harry Potter’s godfather and the best friend of Harry’s father, the two who wanted to get revenge on their disowned friend Peter Pettigrew in exposing James and Lily’s location, which led to many events including now, that the second order was formed.

It was during meetings that your eyes would occasionally gaze at each other, yet Remus was always the first one to break away from the contact. You thought he had despised you since your brother was the same person who exposed Remus of being a werewolf throughout Hogwarts. Who were you kidding? He had every right to despise you, just because of his condition and your brother, he had lost his job as a professor at Hogwarts along with the hope of him getting a decent job was gone because of some stupid law.

Since that realization dawned on you, you tried with every fiber of your being to distance yourself from him, thinking that he wanted nothing to do with you.

“(Y/N) and Remus should do the trick easily.” You piped your head up at the mention of your name, instead of asking what the reason was, you find yourself glancing at Remus, your supposed partner for the mission.

He looked as if he had trouble processing it, furrowed eyebrows, tongue swiping at his bottom lip as he hesitantly nodded.

You were quick to glance back at Sirius, “What’s the chore?” You joked with a smirk, trying to keep yourself distracted from Remus, who was actually looking at you as of now.

Sirius propped his elbows on the table, “We have trails of a certain death eater close to You-Know-Who, Corbet Staghart. Plan is to scout him and his place for any signs of what they could be planning.” Sirius said.

You nod, spying over someone, this could be easy… right?

The meeting progressed and once everyone was dismissed, you stood up, going to get a glass of water in the kitchens.

You were about to retreat to your room but then you heard two hushed voices coming from the hallway. With the kitchen door ajar, you slowly crept up and listened in.

“What were you thinking?” You couldn’t make out who’s voice it belonged to.

“Trust me on this one, Remus, she’s perfect for this job, and besides you two could use a little chat.”

Coming to the conclusion that one person was Remus, you decide to listen in further.

“For the love of— Sirius you know that this, whatever that is going on with her, it’s not possible, mate. She’s too much.”

It was Sirius and Remus. Your heart felt like it was being clamped at his words, being squeezed until your breath thinned. Trying to find the nearest and unseen exit, you tried to rapidly wipe your tears with your sleeve. You came across Kreacher, and you hid your face, quietly asking if he could take you to your room without being noticed.

If only you had listened in longer.

“Mate, d’you think I don’t know you better than you do? What do you mean she’s too much? Is it because she’s the sister of that git Snivellus? Merlin, I’ve seen the way you stared at her all this time, she has a good heart, I know of it.” Sirius crossed his arms, leaning against the wall, chuckling at the old nickname they gave (Y/N)’s brother.

“The thing is— I don’t think I’m fit for her. Look at me Sirius!” Remus exclaimed, outstretching his arms in order to prove a point to his best friend.

“I’m old, ugly, I don’t have a job, I’m a werewolf for goodness sake do you think she’d want someone like me?!” Remus finished, chest heaving at his outburst. His best friend remained still.

Sirius shook his head, offering a pat on his shoulder. He knew Remus and he knew (Y/N), when the first time they met Sirius could already tell that Remus became enamored by her. It wasn’t that long when he spotted the way Remus’ eyes travelled to the girl whenever she had come up with an idea or a plan, often times even backing her up and he saw how (Y/N)’s eyes brightened when he did so. Sirius knew his best friend wouldn’t do that unless it somehow guaranteed a success, or unless it was a very brilliant idea.

He caught onto Remus’ feelings quite fast, but he never let it slip his mind on how (Y/N) reacted for the first time as well.

As if someone had stuck her to the wooden floor of his house, he even remembered (Y/N) staring at Remus as if she’d seen a poltergeist and that made Sirius almost laugh. But the longer they had spent in the Order the more he learned about (Y/N)’s growing love for his best friend and it was like a painful itch of a love story waiting to happen.

“All I’m saying is mate, what if things aren’t entirely over? Give it a shot might as well, hm? If you’ve figured out what you want then for Merlin’s beard decide on it already, you haven’t even talked to her any longer than one whole bloody minute!” Sirius noted.

Remus sighed, if he gave it a shot would it be worth it?

“And also, don’t lead her on, Remus.” Sirius turned serious as he pats his back, turning to finally climb up the stairs, leaving Remus to his thoughts.

Remus stood, glancing at the creak of the door only to find out it was the house elf, Kreacher.

Kreacher looked at him with his usual scowl yet he was mumbling something about a girl crying. Remus shook his head then decided to head to his room.

Climbing up the stairs, Remus came across (Y/N)’s door, which was open, his room waiting for him upstairs. Remus battled with himself again as he walked up to her door.

He was about to knock as a courtesy but found out the door was wide enough to peek in, he resisted anyway, laying a soft knock on her door, there was no response.

He debated whether to peek in, but he did, he was about to open his mouth when he saw you laying down on the bed, fast asleep huddled in blankets. He nods, feeling slightly stupid.

That’s when he decided to talk to you some other time.

Grabbing the doorknob, he slowly and effortlessly shut your door without a sound, going up to his own room for the night, contemplating.

The night passed with your puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks while Remus barely got any sleep.

A tiny bit of sunlight greeted your room’s window, almost hitting your face.

You closed your eyes shut, trying to cover the blanket above your head but its weight protested at your awakened state, dropping to the floor.

You finally opened your eyes to be welcomed with the light of day. Letting out an exasperated sigh, you sat up, feeling at your cheeks, and wiping away at your eyes. Glancing at the rickety vanity that sat against the wall from you, seeing that the redness on your cheeks began to decrease yet you eyes still held quite the puffiness.

All you had to do was get out there and plan the mission for the night.

After getting ready, you took one last glance in the mirror. Breathing out a deep breath, you stood straight as you could then walked out of the room.

Lucky for you, Remus was making his way downstairs as well, you automatically made eye contact with him as he did you, standing on one of the steps.

“Morning (Y/N).”

Your mind processed for a moment then you shook your head, offering him a small smile.

“Good morning, Remus, I’ll — catch you later.” Dismissing him quickly in hopes to not prolong the conversation, you nod and kept your head down, rushing downstairs to meet with the others, not giving him a second glance. He rarely ever referred to you with your name, getting used to the fact that he always used last names when talking to someone he wasn’t really close with so hearing your name coming from him sent your heart palpitating even though you were trying your best to ignore him.

Remus stayed staring at the spot you once were, reeling back, he never failed to see the puffiness in your eyes or the slight redness in your cheeks. He hoped what he saw was just in his imagination.

But what he saw was true now that you were face to face with him in the dining hall, sipping your own cup of coffee. He doesn’t miss the way your glance towards him lessened, he was lying if he didn’t say he enjoyed those glances.

If in the past he was the first one to break away from the eye contact, the tables seemed to have turned. You were the one shying away from him and it picked away at his heart and mind.

Remus didn’t mean to ignore your advances, its just that he put everybody else in first place instead of himself, always used to being put last. He doesn’t deserve this, he doesn’t deserve you, that’s what he ingrained in his mind.

How could you want someone like him? Was the world playing a big joke on him? (Y/N) Snape, the younger sister of his childhood enemy, Severus Snape. That very same childhood enemy of his that exposed his kind to the public, leading him to resign. Yet he knew better than to hold grudges, he realized before that Hogwarts doesn’t deserve a professor like him, a werewolf.

A bunch happened, finding a job got harder for him but the Order provided. Then one day he met (Y/N). He remembered the shock he felt knowing that she was the sibling of Severus Snape himself. Although he was clearly able to contrast your demeanor along with your brother, you were more determined, smart, kind.

A good person who wanted change for the better, all the qualities your ignorant brother seemed to lack.

Those very same qualities you had were the ones that led Remus to slowly fall for you as well. He knew he shouldn’t, telling himself that it was just a phase then you’ll find someone better later on. But then he noticed the way your gaze lingered on him whenever the two of you were in the same room, he was the first one to look away, afraid that if he looked back at you, he’d tempt himself to fall even harder for you.

Occasionally glancing at your state, something ate at him, could he be the cause of that? ‘No, don’t be stupid, Remus.’ He thought.

Sounds of shuffling came from the front door, leading you to glance at it. Other members of the Order came

“Heads up, a supposed death eater was spotted in Hogsmeade around The Three Broomsticks, if I’m correct that death eater’s Staghart, the one we agreed to spy on, yes?” The voiced belonged to Nymphadora Tonks, walking in a haste. You looked up at her and nodded.

“What on earth is he doing there?” Sirius asked, placing his mug down.

“Others don’t know yet, rumors is he’s trying to recruit more to join You-Know-Who’s army.” Alastor Moody, or Mad-Eye says, taking a seat on one of the unoccupied chairs sporting his usual scowl.

“Change of plans, (Y/N), Remus, I need you two on the job, now.” Sirius says. He stands up looking at Tonks and Mad-Eye. “We’ll be checking in other places to see where they could possibly group in. I take it you two can handle yourselves?”

You swallowed your doubts down.

“We’ll take it from here.” You said, determination now washing over you.

Sirius nods at you then at Remus, before you could even blink, they were gone. Silence filled the room as you and Remus were the only one left.

You wanted to make noise to rid of the deafening silence, once again making a millionth eye contact with another.

You couldn’t even speak, seeming to be at lost for words now that you were both left alone to start your mission.

“That leaves us together, which place should we begin?” Remus finally breaks the silence.

This mission felt like two students got paired up to make something they excelled at, yet no one wanted to initiate the first step.

“If they said they were around Hogsmeade then I reckon that’s the first place to start? Then we’ll work our way there?” You suggest, feeling a little more yourself, hoping that Remus didn’t feel uncomfortable around you.

Remus nods, seeming to get ready to apparate. You breathed in, not really used to the feeling of apparating as you only used it a few times. You were a skilled wizard, no one doubted that but you often preferred floo powder or other modes of transportation.

“See you there?” You asked Remus.

“Of course.” With a ‘whoosh’ he was gone.

You breathed in deeply, focusing your mind to your destination then you began to feel your head split and your body being stretched into different directions.

You blinked and you were in Hogsmeade, almost bumping on someone who was just passing through. You backed away, eyes searching for Remus. Walking a few steps you spotted his tall frame looking around.

You jog up at him and breathed deeply “I could never get used to that.”

Remus heart calmed as he saw you still in one piece, “It gets better.” He comforts.

“So,” you straightened your clothes. “Should we head in to The Three Broomsticks?”

He looked up to see not a lot of people around but they still had to lay low.

“Yes, let’s try and not be too obvious about it.” He said while you scrunched your face and shrugged. “Not like I’m trying to do a grand entrance, maybe I will.” Your voiced laced with sarcasm which made Remus chuckle.

“I’m sure they’ll find you lovely.”

You crane your head up at him “Then maybe you’ll find me lovely too.”

Remus smile dropped at your sentence, opening his mouth again but you were already heading inside. Truth is, you didn’t even need a grand entrance because he already found you endearing.

Meanwhile you were walking away from Remus, you smacked yourself mentally ‘Really (Y/N)? Even Merlin can’t save you from this one’

You entered the bar casually, looking around. To not be suspicious, you seated yourself in the far back where you can freely inspect everybody in the room.

“Find anything?”

You jumped at Remus’ voice as he sat himself across from you.

“No, nothing yet.” Your voice lowered, relieved he dropped the subject earlier.

“I think he must’ve left earlier…” You trailed off, you called up for two butterbeers.

“Drinking first thing in the morning?” Remus questioned as the beer was handed to the both of you.

You shrugged, holding your mug “Not like you haven’t done it before.” You took a sip.

Remus shrugs but takes a slight sip as well, tasting the sickly butterscotch on his tongue.

Placing your mug down, you sighed.

Remus discreetly looks back before turning back to you. He furrowed his eyebrows, pointing at your mouth “You have some..” making a swiping motion with his finger.

“Hm?” You raised your own hand, swiping at the wrong place.

Remus pulled out a handkerchief, “Here.”

“No, please I can just wipe it with my sleeve —"

“I insist.” Remus smiles. You smiled sheepishly, taking the handkerchief, feeling the soft fabric and the brush of his hand under yours making shivers ran up your spine.

Great, everything was going perfect. You slowly wiped at your mouth, smiling even more yet you were battling yourself in your mind for looking so stupid in front of him.

“Sorry, it’s just —” You explained but you quickly find yourself shutting up as you looked up, spotting a familiar black cloak with almost shoulder length hair with their back to you.

Your heart dropped as panic began to set in you. “Shit shit shit.” You repeated, trying to make yourself unnoticeable.

Remus tilted his head your sudden panic, not looking behind him to not be suspicious, depending on you to tell what you were seeing.

Your breaths began to quicken. “M-my brother...”

Remus found himself biting the inside of his cheek, thinking of the possibility of facing Severus again, his senses heightened when he realized you were going to be involved, if it was just him, he could deal with it just fine with a few snide comments here and there. But now that you were with him, he can’t help to feel the need to shelter you.

He propped himself up despite his usual slouch. His tall figure providing just enough width to at least cover your face.

Severus wore his usual scowl, stepping up to question Madam Rosmerta who was all smiles and wore warmth.

“You don’t happen to come across something nefarious happening around, would you Roserta?” Severus questions.

Madam Roserta decides to busy herself while answering Severus. “Hmm, not particularly, no. Though a man asked something earlier.”

Severus knit his eyebrows “And what might that question be?”

“I think he was asking something along the lines of… hmm I forgot but he really seemed interested in knowing the times when this inn was packed.” Roserta hums.

“What are they doing?” You whisper-shout almost comedically at Remus who looked at you. “I doubt they can hear us from the chattering around here,” Remus says with a slight chuckle, subtly looking back around again.

“Severus seems to be questioning Roserta.”

Its not that you didn’t trust Remus but something in you told you to check it for yourself. Slowly raising your head, you looked at them, she seemed to be busy talking with your brother, you noted. “Do you think my brother’s asking about the same thing we’re here for?” You asked Remus.

“Perhaps.” Came in his short answer, trying his best to avoid confrontation.

You inspected until Roserta’s eyes landed on you while she talked, halting.

You quickly retreated your form, almost sinking in your chair as you grabbed the butterbeer, trying to remain hidden as you sipped your beverage rather quickly, plopping it down on the table with a ‘thud’

Remus knew by your sudden body language that you just might’ve landed you both a confrontation with your brother.

“And I was pretty sure he looked troubled and — hang on I think I spot someone familiar.” Roserta looks at the crowd. Severus raised an eyebrow, wondering why on earth was it relevant to his question.

“I assure you that someone is not my concern, now —” Severus spoke but he was cut off.

“Would it be your concern if that someone happens to be a relative?” Roserta questioned him now, which astounded him, what did she mean?

After receiving no answer from Severus, she spoke again. “I think I saw (Y/N) there, isn’t that her with the tall, lanky… hold on that looks a lot like…”

Severus, feeling somewhat shocked and curious at the mention of his sister, finally turns to see a familiar figure by the back part of the inn, who looked to be hiding something in front of them. Severus felt a pang in his heart, could you really be here?

His curiosity got the best of himself as he marched towards the back in confidence.

While you dreaded the footsteps that approached, heart lurching in your throat as Remus stared at you, stuck between facing Snape or getting you out of there.

You decide to finally look up, meeting face to face with your brother. Remus went still.

“(Y/N).” Hearing your name from your brother sounded so foreign you barely remembered when was the last time he called you. Breathing deeply, your expression was neutral. “Severus.”

“Its unusual seeing you here with,” Severus turned to see Remus, almost his expression turned into a sour one as they met eye to eye.

“(Y/N) why are you here with this monstrosity?”

Remus let his words slide, hand slightly gripping at his own mug far too hard, not wanting to interrupt. You frowned at his words. “If you’ve got nothing more to say, Severus, we’ll be leaving.” You hastily stand up, going to Remus and he stands up as well. You’ve gained a few pair of eyes at the commotion you three were causing.

“Cowering again, Lupin? Instead of hiding behind (Y/N) why don’t you go back to your dear old cottage?”

“Severus, as much as I’m eager to argue about this, it’s no use.” Remus replies, you hold onto his arm in support, feeling how warm he is. Of course the action didn’t go unnoticed by Snape.

“Get your hands off this man at once (Y/N), you don’t know what he’s capable of.”

You felt anger bubble up in you, gripping tightly onto Remus. You were for sure making a scene which set an unsettling feeling in your stomach. “I’m done.” You say, tugging Remus out of The Three Broomsticks.

Severus, however, wasn’t done yet. He stormed outside to follow you, calling out while you halted, out of earshot from other people.

“You don’t have to, (Y/N).” Remus’ presence grounds you back to where you were standing, you closed your eyes shut.

“This is where you’ve been all along? Collaborating with this werewolf?” Severus had no shame now in telling who Remus was. Remus looked down while you break away from his grasp making him stare at you.

You turn to Severus, your brother. “I’ve never really got how you never see the good in people.”

“Enlighten me what could be good with this man?” Severus spat, eyeing Remus with a darkened glare. “He’s better off howling at the moon.”

Something clicked, your senses came back, finding your wand directed at your brother and your brother sent to the ground, stunned. Only then you felt Remus’ hand on your other wrists, holding you back down almost. “(Y/N).” Remus called to you.

Your hand that was holding your wand shook as your jaw clenched, eyes glassing over. “I — I’m sorry.”

Severus however, stood back up, brushing his cloak, sighing. “I see where your loyalties lie.” He mutters.

“Severus, I know what I’m fighting for, I hope you do as well,” You gulped, letting tears roll down your (s/c) cheeks. “You know I’ll always fight for the greater good. Goodbye, Severus.”

With that, you held Remus’ hand and apparated out of Hogsmeade.

You apparated back in front of 12 Grimmauld place, dropping to your knees and heaving a sob, your whole body giving up at the thought of your brother.

Remus quickly kneeled to your aid, placing a warm, comforting hand on your back. “Hey, hey… Hold onto me now, let’s take this inside, yes?”

Remus’ heart felt like it was being picked on as he saw how deeply you were affected, would the outcome be different if he stepped in? The act of you defending him greatly warmed his heart, however it left you hurt in the process. Remus shook his head, frowning.

He carefully grabbed ahold of your arm, hoisting you up and letting you lean against him, entering the Order’s headquarters.

“Calm down now, I’m here.” Remus’ comforting voice made you break down even more, throwing all out the window and wrapping your arms around him, crying onto his chest. Gripping onto his shirt you let your tears fall.

Remus staggered at the sudden embrace, reacting quickly and hugging you back, rubbing his hand on your back to ease the shaking.

“I — I didn’t mean to hurt him — Remus, I — “ You explained yet your breath gets caught with every sob.

Remus placed a soft kiss on your temple, still rubbing your back which started to ease you “I know you didn’t mean to, you’re fine, alright? I know Severus can handle a bit of a tumble himself. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“What if I had done more?” You whispered.

Remus was thankful that you were the only ones in the house as of the moment, Remus slowly pried you away from his chest, hand going to wipe your tears with his thumb as he looked down at you, eyes emitting love and sympathy. “But you didn’t, that’s what matters.” Remus assures you, his thumb stroking your cheek.

You looked up at him, your breathing slowed down as you let out occasional snuffles. You realized the situation you were in now, you pulled away, wiping at your cheek as you breathed out. “Where’s our next location?”

“I’m sure we could do with a little bit of rest first,” Remus thought for a moment before handing out something in his pocket. “Here, you’ll feel better.”

Your tear stained cheeks lifted as you smiled, laughing, seeing a chocolate bar. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, now get comfy and I’ll make ourselves some tea for the meantime.”

After doing so, you sat yourself on the sofa in front of the fireplace, chewing at the chocolate bar which relaxed your senses and even made you content.

“I was right, aren’t I?” Remus came in, holding two cups of tea, handing you one and sitting down beside you.

You hummed, wiping your mouth. “You are, it made me feel better, thank you.”

You took a sip of your tea, warming up your insides. “No worries.”

Both you drank in silence, until Remus spoke again “About earlier, why defend me?”

You set down your cup at the table, “I couldn’t just let anyone talk to you like that, he always used to make unnecessary comments on people, I can’t let him get you too.”

“I appreciate it, (Y/N), for a werewolf like me I do seem to always cower in fear.” Remus chuckles but you shook your head.

“You’re the bravest I know, Remus. A brave, clever, and adorable chocolate-carrying wizard I know.” You joked which made you both laugh and Remus’ cheeks tinting a bit red, not used to being complemented.

“(Y/N), forgive me for the question; do you currently fancy someone?” Remus blurts out.

Your mind went blank, hand fidgeting with the sofa’s fabric. Then the scenario of Remus and Sirius talking way back snuck in your mind, making you feel stupid.

“I – It’s complicated? What would you do if you heard that someone you fancy said that you’re too much?” You mumbled, looking down and not facing him.

Remus, however, didn’t get the underlying meaning of it, spoke. “You’re an amazing woman, (Y/N), I’m sure any man would be lucky to have you.”

You debated whether what he was saying was true, your mind replaying back to the same scenario over and over again.

“Then why did you say I was too much?” You blurt, Remus looked at you, clueless until he remembered the conversation that he had with Sirius.

“I heard you one night, with Sirius… When we got partnered up for this mission, I was getting a glass of water and I heard voices outside the kitchen. It was you two, you said that… whatever it is that was going on between me and you, it wasn’t possible and I was too much?” You mumbled, heart lurching at your throat.

It was Remus’ turn to explain his side after listening to yours, but he noted that you didn’t hear the whole conversation they had. “You didn’t hear us after…?” Remus looked at you as you shake your head. Maybe that’s why he found you with puffy eyes the morning after? You cried, because of him and because you didn’t hear the full thing he said of being unworthy for you.

It clicked now, Remus himself was the one you fancied, and ever the odds, he fancied you as well.

“You’ve gotten it all wrong, (Y/N), I never said that you’re too much in a hateful way, I meant it as…” Remus sighs, admitting to his insecurities. “I meant that I’m never going to be enough for you, I’m not worthy of your love, this old, poor, werewolf like me.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, slowly facing him. “You mean, you —?” You asked, making sure you weren’t hearing things.

“I do fancy you, (Y/N). Its just that everything got the hold of me, I think about a lot of stuff, I decided that you need someone better, that’s why if it seemed like I was rejecting your advances from before, I just wanted you to find someone who can provide you all.” He explains.

You shook your head, heart feeling overwhelmed at the emotions surging through you. You made a move by inching closer to him, grabbing his hand. “Remus.” Remus refused to look at you so you cupped his cheek, making him turn towards you.

“Even if you want me to find somebody else, it’s always you, Remus. I’ll always love you. I don’t care if you’re old, I don’t care if you’re poor, we’ll manage. I could care less if you’re a werewolf. It’s always you.” You said through the sudden boost of courage. You saw how a smile formed on his face which made you mirror it, you slowly leaned in and captured his lips with yours, molding perfectly in sync, your other hand going up on his cheek to pull him closer.

“I never thought someone would say that to me in the longest time.” Remus whispers after you two pull away.

“Here I am saying it now, I love you, Remus, always.” You repeated which sounded like music to Remus’ ears.

“I love you more, (Y/N).”

With that, you knew you were able to endure anything as long as Remus was by your side.

[pawsitivevibe]

Everybody has been complimenting the sweater I made 😭😭😭 Which I haven't taken pics of yet because I wanted to wait until I finished the matching dog ones. But like. I am very pleased with this sweater. I have decided to make some for my family members for Christmas to practice. Then I think I might actually offer some for sale?? But we'll see. I think they'll continue turning out so nice, and perhaps other people might like them. But making the jump from selling sweaters for dogs to selling sweaters for people seems daunting. Like, yeah, tbh most stuff I buy for my dogs is far nicer than my own clothing, but still, I feel like there's a very high bar for handmade clothing, as you just can't justify spending more unless it's perfect.

But gosh, mine is legitimately the softest, comfiest, prettiest sweater I own, and I have been pretty much wearing it constantly.

Here is a not great pic of it:

I have sourced quite nice, high quality fleece for my dog sweaters, and turns out it's a far superior material to any fleece I've seen on storebought sweaters for humans as well. I have found fleece sweaters to be a bit itchy and too warm and staticy before, but clearly this particular fleece is much better than anything I've tried for myself before. Plus I can never find anything storebought in such rich, vibrant colours as many of my fabrics.

[1-lightofjustice]

Heyyoo! Saw that you answered an ask regarding of Ground Zero, and I am very impressed of how you explained each chapters 👀

With curiosity, I want to know if you have any hcs regarding of backstories of some certain Kings, mainly Habari and Kagutsu?

Heya! Glad you enjoyed my incohorent ramble haha

Headcanon time? *rubs hands* You asked for it Anon.

I hc Habari to be a social butterfly in any stage of his life. He’s a cutest baby, charming toddler, playful kid, attractive teen, charismatic King. Like Munakata, I can imagine him having a normal family, was genius and over archiever too, but he doesn’t have Munakata’s awkwardness at human interaction. He was totally being animal and kids’ magnet, while Munakata’s aura draws them away (poor my King 😭). I know that makes Habari looks like a Gary Stu, but to be fair his narrative foil is literal human nuclear. Also, he was an only child, judging by his interaction with Shiotsu and Minato twins, I can’t see him having a sibling before. Zenjou was kinda.. his pet? Like serious their backstory is him finding Zenjou in a mountain and like “You’re mine now” and Zenjou dutifully followed him. He also has Blue King’s classic cryptic tendencies, but weirdly only Shiotsu and some people outside Blue clan that got annoyed with him, while others like Zenjou and Minato couple are happily don’t know and don’t care what he was talking about. He would adore Kusuhara and Kusuhara would ADORE him.

Blue clan in general have sparkly hair disease but Habari washed his fabulous locks 4 times a day with Scepter 4 special blend of shampoo. Minato twins skipped this ritual and always refused to bathe, that’s why their hairs are suck.  Remember Habari’s crop top uniform? Shiotsu persuaded him to change it, with painstaking effort. And we all should be grateful for him, because that outfit is honestly horrible. Well, at least for me. Habari loves minimalistic clothes and would hate cloak, that’s for sure.

I don’t think Habari’s sword’s name is ever mentioned (cmiiw) but Chainsaw Squad is a RAD name so Habari is also gifted with Blue King’s great sense at naming.  

For Kagutsu, as I said before, it's hard for me to even see him as a person, so I can't quite imagine him as toddler, kid, or any other stage of human life except "adult and ready to erupt". But looking at how Purgatory activity and members so far weirdly attentive to women problem for a criminal organization, like freeing human trafficking women, speaking about Akio’s death highly, even one of Purgatory clansmen willingly marry a pregnant woman to help her, I kinda hc Kagutsu to have a woman he loved in the past. In this I am talking about love in broad sense, either romantic or platonic, so like mother, sister, girlfriend or else.

This segment in particular intrigued me :

Kagutsu that day was in a good mood. He took two women with him when he returned from outside, but of course, that was not the reason he was in a good mood. It always happens that Kagutsu likes women. There are a certain number of women who like dangerous men, but if it is too dangerous, some survival instinct will cause a mistake. They are happily hugged by Kagutsu and turn into corpses of joy.

LIMITED KINGSHIP, WAR STORIES: CHAPTER 5: DRUNK WITH THE KING

Yeah technically he murdered those women, but the segment clearly shows that they CONSENTED to embrace Kagutsu, Dunno if those women know that they will die in the process, but hey, Icarus amirite? It’s in their desire to like dangerous man. Also, probably just language disparities, but “hugged” is quite a weirdly innocent word to portray the last collision between a man and women? 

This is so interesting for me because, actually, the writer didn’t have to do that. Kagutsu was portrayed and designed to be Pure Evil Villain who is better died, so not very jarring if they wrote Kagutsu to forcefully drag women and kill them for his own amusement. Heck, they wrote a poor clansman was purely in terror on Kagutsu’s presence in the same chapter! Yet Gora put emphasis that those women were HAPPY on the short moments they spent with Kagutsu. So, at the very least, Kagutsu is not a rapist. Also he was totally down to raid gangs that trafficked women. This trivia pushes my headcanon button but also frustrate me because so far we never get a proper interaction between any characters with Kagutsu without the said character noting how inhuman he is and how they completely don’t understand him. Like if no one inside the story can understand him, how can I? My hands are tied here 😰

[biaswreckme]

caught in a lie | pjm

Part of the Sons of Midas Collab

Summary: As the heir of the King’s Conglomerate, sweetheart Park Jimin has been spending his time at the hospital run by his father, shadowing his footsteps. And it is where his life entangles with yours with lunch dates, caring touches, and whispered promises. But what happens when he finds himself caught in a web of lies?

Pairing: Chaebol!Jimin/Nurse!Reader

Members: Jimin, Jungkook

Length: 8.5k words

Genre: romance, angst, smut, strangers to lovers

Rating: 18+

Triggers/Warnings: explicit sexual content, oral (f and m giving and receiving), fingering (f receiving), lowkey dom!jimin, dry humping, praise kink, accusations involving drugs/meds, lying, incrimination

A/N: This fic is a two-shot part of the Sons of Midas collab. I wanted to start by thanking mars @joheunsaram so much for inviting me to be a part of this incredible collab with such beautifully talented writers ♥ and also for being my beta-reader, thank you so much bb ♥

part one | part two (June 25th)

You were sitting down having your lunch as usual, headphones on, watching a drama on your phone when you noticed someone settling opposite you. You had seen him a handful of times before around the hospital, but he was in a suit that was tailored to fit him perfectly that you could not imagine it being anything but expensive. He was always walking around, observing things, talking to people, but you did not think he was a doctor or another nurse or even anyone who worked there. Maybe he had a chance of being part of admin, but he looked too nice for that. Your train of thoughts was interrupted by his voice, so you paused what you were watching and took off your headphones.

“Hi.”

“Hi?” You were somewhat uncertain, not knowing what he wanted interrupting your lunch, but you noticed he had a tray on the table in front of him.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” His big smile and the way it made his eyes turn into small crescent moons made it impossible to say no, but you looked around and there were empty places.

“Ok?” You asked, confusion stamped across your face. “Do I know you? Did I… do something?” You couldn’t help but ask, this was not an everyday occurrence.

“No, no, I just… I’ve seen you around, you seemed nice, so I wanted to sit here to keep you company, well, if you want to, of course. Whatever it is you’re watching certainly must be more interesting than a random guy asking to sit at your table.” He started to ramble and opened his eyes in shock. “I’m coming off as a total creep, aren’t I? I’m sorry, I’ll leave you alone.”

You smiled, shaking your head in negation.

“You’re not, I've seen you around too. I’m Y/n Y/l/n”,” you extended your arm, presenting your hand for him to shake.

“Y/n,” he repeated, almost as if letting your name roll around on his tongue. But he stopped, seeming to think about what he was going to say for a moment before continuing. “I’m P… Jimin. Just Jimin.”

“Well, just Jimin, nice to meet you. If you’ve seen me, you might have figured I’m a nurse here. What about you? You don’t dress like one. Or like a doctor.”

“I’m… I’m a business student.” He hesitated, but he wasn’t sure whether you’d noticed.

“Business?” You asked, your tone clearly indicating you were not happy with his response. “Business… profits and losses are all you care about? This is a hospital, we treat people here, people who need and not always have the conditions to pay for it. This shouldn’t be a business,” you started getting up, and he did the same, hands up in the air as if trying to maintain peace.

“Please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Please let me explain myself,” he begged, surprised by your reaction. “I’m a business student, yes, but I’ve been going around, trying to get to know the people who work here, the people who are the backbone of this place. People like you, that truly care about the patients.”

You sat there quietly, still unsure about him, but you were willing to listen. And you were glad you did. The more he talked, the more you could see the passion in his eyes the same eye people had said before they saw in yours when you talked about your job. You were still uncertain as to why he was giving you his attention, but for the first time in a while you felt yourself truly seen by someone.

You hated to admit it to yourself, but you were lonely. Moving to Seoul for the nurse position at the hospital had been an impactful decision in your life; it meant leaving everyone you knew behind and moving to a large city by yourself. By then you had some acquaintances, but no one you could truly call a friend. Your tendency to be more introverted and not open up to people that easily both protected and harmed you, but there he was. Jimin - wanting to talk to you, to have lunch, to get to know you. He got you a small bouquet of daisies once, saying he saw them in the florist on the way to the hospital and upon inquiring about their meaning, he said they reminded him of you. And so he took to calling you Daisy, and you started wearing a daisy pin on your scrubs, causing him to smile whenever you crossed paths at the hospital but could not talk to each other.

And soon it turned into a routine. If you had the night shift, he’d usually come by in the morning to have breakfast with you, taking you to the small coffee shop you adored. If you had the day shift, he’d be your company during lunch time at a hidden table at the corner of the cafeteria, choosing to eat your lunch later than usual to not be in any of the gossipers’ radar, your dramas long forgotten during this hour. You would catch up on them later, but you didn’t have to hide behind your screen anymore, in fact, you wouldn’t even touch your phone in his presence. You got to know more about him, but there was still some aura of mystery around his family, with him saying he didn’t feel comfortable talking about them, and you hoped that maybe one day he would feel comfortable enough to open up. But regardless, your conversations were always enthralling and you were filled with sadness when the hour was up.

That is, until the week routine blended into weekends as well, thanks to you taking the initiative. You had taken to cooking for both you and Jimin whenever you knew he would show up, so this proved to be the perfect opportunity - and excuse - to invite him over.

“This is delicious, Y/n,” Jimin started, almost moaning at the taste, “how can you be this good?”

“I’m good at a lot of things,” you decided to be blunt, “cooking in particular, but I have a wide set of skills.”

Jimin just sat there with his mouth open in shock, then blinked rapidly as if to shake some inappropriate thoughts away, but momentarily speechless.

“How about you come to dinner at mine this Saturday?” you asked, deciding to go for it. You liked Jimin and you were pretty sure he also liked you, if all the time you had been spending together was an indication of that.

He took a moment to answer, still seemingly speechless by your forwardness, so you spoke again.

“I’d like to get to know you more outside this hospital, Jimin. We’re always rushing because my hours are crazy, I just… I just want some quiet time with you. And no beeping or smell of disinfectant and people running with a crash cart interrupting our lunch or coffee.” You expressed your tiredness at the situation, always being interrupted by an urgent call or trying to avoid people.

“Tell me when and where and I will be there. I want to be alone with you,” he said, staring into your eyes, then quickly blinked and continued, “I mean, I want some alone time with you too, away from this, not implying anything else, I’m sorry.”

You chuckled; it was rare to see Jimin get flustered over anything at all, it was surely a change, and you could not wait to see what other sides of him you would get to know once you were away and by yourselves.

You opted for a casual dinner, after all, it was at your small apartment, but Jimin’s definition of casual was definitely not the same as yours. He showed up in sinful pants, tight, showing you his muscular thighs - you had learned he was a dancer, yet the muscles that strained the fabric were still a surprise - a black shirt and a leather jacket, which you had carefully put in the hanger by the door, leaving him to roll up his sleeves. You were wearing a black dress, no shoes, and some nice underwear just in case, as you had told yourself.

You had cooked something light, prepared a simple salad, and poured your favorite white wine to accompany the food. Conversation flowed nicely, and it was a nice change in scenery to be able to talk and laugh with Jimin without having to worry about being too loud or calling too much people’s attention. But as nice and calm as the situation was, the tension between the two of you was palpable in the air throughout the dinner. Whenever your fork touched your lips, he would stare, unconsciously licking his lips and taking his own fork to his mouth, his fingers tightening around the silverware.

You had finished eating for a while, just talking at the table when your eyes locked in an intense stare, and you could feel your breath starting to quicken. Jimin licked his lips slowly, his pink tongue darting out and wetting them, and your eyes could not help but focus on the motion. He bit his luscious bottom lip, seeming to think for a second, before closing the distance between your bodies. The position was a little awkward on the sofa, having to turn your bodies, one of your legs bending to give him space to get closer to you. His soft lips pressed onto yours and you felt his tongue seeking permission to deepen the kiss, his hand going to your neck to hold you closer to him, his fingers itching to entangle in your hair. You let out a soft moan when he deepened the kiss, his hand grabbing your neck so tight you could almost feel his short nails on your skin, and you whispered ‘bedroom’ in between kisses.

You wasted no time in pulling him up and towards the bedroom, mentally thanking yourself for having left the condoms in the drawer in your bedside table. It was a small apartment, so it was only a few steps until Jimin was gently pushing you on the bed, stepping out of his socks and hoisting your body up so he could lie on top of you. You opened your legs slightly so he could fit between them, and he slowly rolled his hips into yours as he kissed your neck. You grabbed his hair, your fingers tugging on his blonde strands while you lifted your leg and put it around his hip, pressing down, needing to feel him. Your dress was hoisted up, only the barrier of your lace panties and his pants (and underwear) between your bodies. You could feel his hardness pressing deliciously against you, and you pulled his hair to kiss his lips again.

His hands freed you from your dress, leaving you in the simple pair of lace lingerie, his eyes seemingly darkening seeing your body for the first time.

“You are beautiful, Y/n, such a pretty flower, I can’t believe I’m this lucky” he said, licking his lips while slowly unbuttoning his shirt.

You sat up, helping him in the process, wanting to feel his skin under your fingertips, pushing the garment away from his body. Your fingers immediately went to the side of his body, ghosting over the letters in his tattoo, then going for the deep v on his front. He stood there kneeling on the bed in front of you with his erection straining against his dark pants, and you pressed your hand against it, not hesitating to undo the button and pull down the zipper, and he helped you push it down alongside his underwear. It was a little awkward to take his pants off from his position and both had to maneuver, softly laughing at the moment, the tension and pressure of the first time easing in the room and leaving both of you more comfortable.

He helped you out of our bra, his mouth immediately latching onto one of your nipples, sucking, teasing, biting gently, leaving you a panting mess on the bed while his hand gave attention to the other nipple, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. You could not keep your moans in, needing to let out your pleasure under his ministrations. You hoisted your hips, trying to have him press against you again when he changed his focus, but he was having none of that. He looked into your eyes while his fingers hooked on the sides of your panties, slowly pulling them down, a string of your wetness visible in the light sticking to the fabric.

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he said as if he did not believe it, but continued, “can I taste you?”

You could only nod, spreading your legs further so he could lie between them hoisted by his elbows. You adjusted yourself on the pillows so you could watch him, and his eyes did not stray from yours as he lowered his mouth, his tongue out, that first lick from bottom to top having him moaning and closing his eyes. He circled your clit once with his tongue, wrapping his lips around it to suck on it while holding your legs wide open. He let it go with a pop and looked at you.

“Grab my hair, Daisy,” he ordered, his tone leaving no room for hesitation.

You did as he demanded, your fingers entangling again in his soft hair, pulling him towards you. On a particular flick on your clit that left you breathless you tugged on his strands and he moaned, so you did it again, the vibration against your bundle of nerves increasing the pleasurable sensation that had been building up until you couldn’t stop your hips from moving, chasing the high that you were about to fall from. And just as you were about to reach that delicious edge, he stopped.

“Jimin,” you whined and pulled his hair so he would keep licking you, but he shook his head.

“I wanna feel you come when I’m inside you,” he stated, kissing up your body until he reached your lips and you could taste yourself on his tongue. “Let me…” he started, moving away from you, looking around, but you just reached your hand to the side, pointing to the drawer, understanding what he wanted. His eyes tightened into the tiny crescent moons you adored, his hooded gaze of hunger for you turning you on.

He reached into the furniture and grabbed the bottle of lube and the strip of condoms. He opened the foil packet, rolling the condom on his erection and squeezing the lubricant onto it, lathering himself up. You barely had time to appreciate it for itself; it was average in length, the pink of his bulbous head matching the color of his tongue and swollen-from-kisses lips, and you were certain that you were going to feel the girth tomorrow, already anticipating the heavenly stretch that was about to come.

No words were necessary at the moment. Your bodies joined perfectly as if you were long time lovers, no more awkward touches between the two of you. He moved his hips slowly at first, letting you feel the drag of his thickness on your walls and giving you time to adjust to it, not wanting to hurt you. When you were all but clawing at his back he quickened his hips, rolling them just right to have you clenching the pillows under your head, pleasure overtaking your body. The cadence and way in which he moved his hips showed the dancer in him - you had yet to see him dance, maybe you could convince him to do it naked just for you. You could feel the overwhelming sensation building up again, chasing that high that was approaching quickly yet not fast enough.

And it was as if Jimin knew exactly what you needed, canting his hips up at the same time he pressed on your clit, snapping that coiled band forming inside you. He swallowed your moans with a kiss, moaning into it himself, feeling you tighten around him as he wanted. It did not take long for his hips to falter and you tug on his hair and pull him to an open-mouthed kiss as he came, sweaty lithe yet muscular body shining under the bedroom light with the effort.

“So how was that for dessert?” You asked and he chuckled, his lips pressing against yours, still out of breath.

And so your dates continued, alternating between your place and cozy restaurants, never seeing his place. You had an inkling of why he had been avoiding it, but you decided not to press the issue for the time being, wanting to enjoy him and his company as it came, not wanting to complicate things and push him away if he was not ready for that yet. He was slowly opening up, mentioning his family more, making it clear to you that his last name, still a mystery to you, was linked with affluent and influential people, and you did not want to break the bubble you two were inhabiting. Not yet.

That evening, he had taken you to a small family-owned dumpling restaurant. It was the best one you had ever been to, but what certainly contributed to your high opinion of the place was Jimin. He had been looking so good in the navy blazer and tight black pants, his intense eyes staring into yours throughout the meal that all you were thinking about was rushing home and getting him out of that and under you, above you, whichever way it happened. You learned to read his body and you knew he had been thinking about the same thing, his eyes darknening and his tongue peaking out to softly lick his lips and tease you. Thankfully, the restaurant was not far from your apartment, and once you were inside, he pushed you against the wall, molding his body onto yours, his muscular thigh coming in between your thighs, pressing against your center. You moaned at the feeling and started to slightly move your hips back and forth, letting your weight drop so you could feel his thigh even more. You felt him grabbing your hair and tilting your head to the side so he could kiss your neck, biting it, soothing the sting with his soft tongue. You could barely hear him, his words so low into your ear, his breath hot on your skin.

“You wanna ride me?”

You nodded your head, your mouth opening into a moan. “Yes, please… Jimin...”

“Shh, I’ve got you, Y/n,” he whispered, his lips sucking your earlobe making your legs falter. “Remember your safeword. Use it if you need it.”

He quickly looked around your apartment, pulling you towards your couch and sitting down on it. He tugged on your hands to make you sit on his lap, his legs slightly spread, and the moment you lowered your hips, your center came into contact with his erection. You moaned, pressing down, needing to feel more of him against you. Jimin adjusted himself lower on the sofa and his hands grabbed your hips, forcing them to move back and forth on him, looking into your eyes to gauge your reaction. You closed your eyes, his look paired with the feeling between your legs proving to be too intense for you to sustain his gaze. You could feel him, big and heavy pressed against you deliciously, and you canted your hips up an inch and then he was pressing just right, enhancing your pleasure. Your arms went around his shoulders and you hid your face on his neck, your hips moving slightly faster with the aid of his hands, small whines coming out of your mouth.

“You’re so hot like this, so needy for me,” he tugged on your hair while he said this, “look at me. I wanna see your face, come on, come for me.”

You pressed down harder, your legs trembling when pleasure overtook your body, the tingling spreading from the depths of your belly to the tips of your toes and fingers, and he urged you on, not letting you stop until you the small aftershocks were hitting you and you mumbled that it was too much. He kissed you, his tongue caressing yours as you slowly stepped up from his lap and kneeled between his opened legs, hands reaching to take his pants off. You almost blushed when you saw the wet stains on the front and he smirked. Jimin raised his hips, helping you, his erection finally freed from its confines as you tugged his pants down.

There was a soft stain on the front of his underwear too from where you had humped him, showing how wet you truly were. You mouthed his cock through the fabric, your nose touching the skin above it, inhaling his sweet scent, and it turned you on even more to feel how he’d been preparing for you, how he knew pretty well by this point how much you liked to smell the soft skin starting on his neck, kissing him in trails until his scent inebriated you. You followed the outline of his erection until you reached the bulbous head, snapping down the fabric so you could engulf it with your lips. He moaned and bit his full lips, one of his hands pushing your hair back from your face. You licked the wetness from the small slit, your tongue circling its head while you pulled down the underwear just enough so you could have access to his entire erection and balls. You let some spit dribble out, using your hand to stroke him up and down a couple of times before sucking him into your mouth, slowly moving and fitting more of him.

You felt his breath falter for a second before he inhaled deeply, soft high-pitched moans starting to leave his lips, almost as if he was trying to hide them from you for now but was not able to, the intensity of your touch too much for him to be quiet and not to react. You took deep breaths through your nose as you did it preparing to take his full length inside your mouth, pausing when your nose touched his skin, feeling him at the back of your throat, while you felt his left hand following the trace of your face lightly, caressing your cheek, and moaning very low ‘yes, just like this, please’. You choked once, twice, and then backed up, showing him the tears gathering on your eyes and the string of spit not breaking the connection between you and his member, knowing he liked seeing you getting messy like this - and this evening you had gone light on your makeup, thinking you should have used some more mascara to have it running down your cheeks so he could praise you and look more ruined, but alas, he praised you anyways, those words soft and warm coming from his lips as he pressed your head down again. You wiggled your tongue to lick at his base while going down, his hands tightening on your hair, his balls starting to draw up from the pleasure and you used your hands to give them some attention, caressing them softly as you tasted him.

“If you keep this up I’m not gonna last,” he let out in between moans.

You nodded; it was exactly what you wanted, because as much as he loved seeing you being wrecked, you loved watching him fall apart under your ministrations, knowing you were the one making him lose control and feel this good. You intensified your movements and sucked harder, tightening your mouth around him, getting him deeper into your mouth each time until your lips were pressed directly on his skin, the trimmed hairs tickling you.

“Let me take care of you, Chim,” you said as you let him go with a pop, your voice hoarse. You pressed your mouth on him again, this time more sloppy as you got him closer to the edge, loud slurping sounds coming from you as you focused entirely on his pleasure. You felt his balls tightening under your hands, and you increased the suction, going down fast and choking on him, constricting your throat. His voice was beautiful moaning out your name into the room, thick spurts hitting the back of your throat as you swallow. You let him go, licking him clean, out of breath and throat feeling rough. You could barely catch your breath before he was pulling you up onto his lap again, kissing you deeply and hugging you tight against his chest.

“How about we clean up and I make you some tea?” You heard him speaking, his tone low, not wanting to break too much of the daze. He looked into your eyes, smiling upon seeing you still hazy from giving him pleasure. “I…” he paused, shaking his head as if to let go of a thought and change what he was about to confess, “now let me take care of you.”

You tried to be discreet around the hospital, avoiding prying eyes and gossiping mouths the most you could, but your loving looks and soft passing touches struck the attention of one particular set of eyes.

Unbeknownst to you, Park Jimin, as the heir of his family’s conglomerate and the future chairman of the hospital, was expected to marry well and into another affluent family. More specifically, conversations were being held to reach an agreement for him to marry the beautiful heir of the Choi family, Hyuna. She was his age, went to all the same schools and frequented the same places Park Jimin did. That is, until she could not find him anymore in their usual favorite restaurants and clubs and found out he had been spending almost his entire time at the hospital.

For two people who were supposed to be getting to know each other better to make the engagement official in a few months, she surely missed him. So she took it upon herself to go to the hospital, his future hospital, and find him. It did not take her long to ask around to find he was in the cafeteria - why he would be there completely went over her mind, because he could not be actually eating there, could he?

Not only he could, but he was eating accompanied by someone. It must have been just any nurse, all part of his plan on getting to know the people at the hospital - for what reason she could not fathom, after all, he was going to basically own the place, there were other people who should care for the people. He needed to focus on the business, put his heart into it or else he would get too soft, even softer than he already was for someone who was supposed to inherit the entire conglomerate.

So she let it slide. Until she saw him again with her. And again. And once more that same week, the same month. The pattern became too obvious to her, and it was a sure explanation on why he had been avoiding her texts and invitations for dinners and parties they had an obligation to attend.

So a plan started forming into her mind. She had to get that girl out of the equation, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t done that before - albeit it didn’t work exactly in her favor as she planned when she was much younger and had her eyes on Kim Namjoon. And now Choi Hyuna got what she wanted when she wanted. Nobody, certainly not a no-name little nurse would come in between Jimin and her, not after all the planning and work she did to convince both of their families they would be the perfect match.

You were doing your rounds, visiting the patients on the floor that were under your care, going into one room after the other, checking the monitors and their stats, and comforting the family members that were anxiously waiting for updates. So you entered the room absentmindedly, and abruptly halted, surprised upon seeing who was sitting beside your patient’s son, Jeon Jungkook was his name, if you were not mistaken. Ms. Jeon was one of the most recent patients that fell in your route, and when you saw the familiar blonde man that made your heart flutter every time you even thought of his name you had to pause to collect yourself momentarily.

“Oh, hi,” you stopped, chart in hand, looking at Jimin, a little confused.

“Hello, nurse Y/l/n.” Jimin answered, trying to hide his smile.

“You two know each other?” Jungkook asked, pretending not to know, watching your reactions.

“Yes, uh, we’ve seen each other around the hospital,” you were quick to answer. “he’s been making his rounds as a business student, right?”

“Ah,” Jungkook nods his head. “Right, Jimin is finishing his business grad.”

“I told you, I’ve been getting to know people here. But don’t let us disturb your work. Go ahead.” Jimin gestured with his hands, sitting down to give you space.

You felt shy under his intense gaze, as this was the first time he was watching you work, but you shook your head and focused on the task at hand.

“I think she is mom’s favorite,” Jungkook commented to Jimin, looking carefully at both of you. “Not all the nurses talk to their patients like that.”

“It’s always good to talk to them, explain what you’re doing and what’s going on, even if they can’t respond to it,” you explained, going over the numbers on the monitor. “Alright, Ms. Jeon, everything looks good today. Did your son tell you he has someone with him today?” You lower your body so you can whisper in her ear in a way that they can’t hear, “His companion is quite handsome. I like him a lot. That’s our secret, okay?”

You did not notice, but Jimin was looking at you with such fondness in his eyes that alerted Jungkook, who mouthed a “we need to talk” to him.

“Mr. Jeon,” you said, with a normal tone in your voice, trying not to look at Jimin, telling yourself mentally to be professional. “Your mother seems to be recovering quite well, and from what the doctors have been discussing it seems she might be ready to wake up soon. Good day, excuse me.” You said, leaving the room.

As soon as you stepped out and closed the door, Jungkook looked at Jimin with seriousness stamped across his face.

“What are you doing, hyung?” Jungkook asked.

“What do you mean, Jungkook?” Jimin seemed confused at the question.

“Does she even know who you are? Who you truly are?”

“Not yet.”

“You have to tell her. If you love her you have to tell her the truth. You can’t keep lying.”

“Okay, wait a minute. One, I’m not lying per se. I’m just… omitting some information that could be bad for us. And two, I don’t love her. We’re not there yet. I don’t think so. I… I don’t know.” Jimin sighed, letting his head drop into his hands, running his fingers through his hair nervously.

“I’ve seen the way you look at her, the way you talk about her. You can’t just choose and say that you don't love her, that’s now how it works. You just fall in love.” Jungkook said, his eyes shining. “And that’s why you need to tell her you’re Park Jimin. The Park Jimin. It will only get worse if you wait more.”

“I’m scared, Jungkook,” he confessed, shaking his head with his eyes cast down. “I’m scared she’ll run away after learning the truth.”

“The longer you wait the worse it will be, hyung. Does she even have any idea how much money your family has?”

“Not really… I was thinking about inviting her to your birthday as my plus one, could I?”

“You’re not thinking about telling her the truth at the party, are you? Hyung, no! I mean, you can invite her but please tell her before that. She needs to know at least what to expect.”

“I… I’ll see. I’ll invite her and see what I’m going to say…”

“She seems good. And she seems good for you, too. Don’t fuck this up, Mr. Park.”

“I’ll try not to. I like her, Jungkook. I like her a lot,” Jimin sighed again, confessing, “Help me not fuck this up, please.”

Now, you see, Choi Hyuna did not believe herself to be lying about this particular information. She had been introducing herself as Mr. Park’s soon-to-be daughter-in-law, and whenever she got the question of “Oh, Mr. Park Jimin’s girlfriend?”, she corrected them to fiancee (well, soon enough anyways).

Using this, it was easy to learn what she needed about you. It took her a few weeks to gather all the information so as not to arouse too much suspicion, talking to different people around the hospital, to the point in which she had access to your hand-signed charts. Hyuna was particularly proud of her handwriting and signature forging skills, which only helped solidify the plan in her head.

She just needed some copies to show Jimin at the right moment. Until then, she could wait, getting to know her acquaintance at the hospital a little better so he would help her with exactly what she needed to get Y/n away from her man.

He brought up the subject of Jungkook’s birthday party when you were both lying down, sweaty bodies snuggled close, your head resting on his chest, still trying to catch your breaths after the intense and vigorous activities of the night, your body still high strung sensitive from the three orgasms in a short time and sequence, Jimin always trying to do more than the previous times to completely wreck you.

“It’s nothing fancy, just a get together to celebrate his birthday.”

“Yeah, sure, I’d love to go with you. Where is it going to be?”

“At the yacht,” he says nonchalantly.

“Yacht?” You got up onto your elbows, looking at him with disbelief stamped across your face. “Jimin, that’s not nothing fancy, that is probably one of the definitions of fancy if you look it up in the dictionary.” You shook your head, a chuckle almost in a mocking tone coming from your mouth. “I know we are not in the same financial range, but… what should I expect? I’ve tried not to pressure you to talk about your family or friends, but I need to know what I’m getting into. Because if I’m there, I’m going to meet them, aren’t I?”

He nodded in response, affirmatively.

“So I need to know some. I know the topic is uncomfortable and we don’t need to make it an issue, but I’m not going in blind.”

He sighed, pulling up your covers seeing the goosebumps starting to cover your skin at the sweat drying, and turned his body to face you.

“My family is… comfortable.” He opened his eyes wide in surprise at your laugh.

“Jimin, I am comfortable. It’s a small apartment but I earn enough to rent it, get groceries, and have some fun… Are you scared?” He nodded. “Of what? My reaction?” He nodded again in answer to your question, and you were rendered speechless.

“Yes and no? I’m afraid our bubble will no longer exist. It has been good. There has been no pressure to attend parties and pretend to enjoy conversations with people I despise with you by my side. I like being Jimin, your Jimin, not my family or money’s Jimin.”

“If you’re scared of what I’m going to think, this is not going to change what I think about you. I’ve gotten to know you pretty well, and I lov…” you paused, biting your lip, but decided to continue. “I love who you are, Jimin. You care about me, you care about everyone in that hospital, differently from any other man in a suit that has been around. You are thoughtful, kind, and sensitive. I… I love you, Jimin. Even if I don’t know your last name because it comes attached with pressure and probably an insane amount of money, I still love the person that you’ve shown me.”

For what seemed like an eternity, he just stared at you. In his mind, he was taken back to the conversation with Jungkook, reminding how he said he did not love you, that you were not there yet. But looking at you like this, the soft moonlight sneaking in through the partially open window shutters, what seemed like a glow around your body enhanced by the dimmed reading lamp by the bedside table, your cheeks still flushed with pleasure, your hair in disarray, he realized he would not want to be anywhere nor with anyone else but you. His heart pounded in his chest and it was almost as if he could feel it enlarge upon the realization of what he truly felt for you. He brought you closer to his body, kissing you deeply, leaving you out of breath once more.

“I love you, my Daisy.” He confessed in between small kisses on your cheeks, on your forehead, tip of the nose and eyelids, hugging you tight against him. “I’m scared of losing this, of losing you. But you are right, you need to know. I come from money, a lot of money. And when I say a lot, it’s probably more than what you’re imagining. As in this yacht party is nothing, one yacht is nothing really financially speaking, for both my family and my friends’.”

You nod, understanding some; he was sure, you could probably not imagine, but all you cared about was that this would not change what you had and how you felt for each other. You felt warm in his embrace, both body and heart.

“So… Now that I know, can I finally see your place? I’m pretty sure my neighbors are about to start a petition to evict me for all the noises at night…”

He chuckled, lighthearted and feeling free from some of the things that he had been hiding. There were still some details that he chose to omit, but he did not think they were so relevant at the moment. The way your bodies moved with the laughter started to have an effect on him and that he was not able to hide from you.

“How about we give them a true reason to complain?” He asked, pressing his hips against yours, and your laughter died with a moan.

You could barely wait until your shift was over to get home and relax before getting yourself ready for Jungkook’s party. You had come to know him a bit from the time he spent in his mother’s room at the hospital, especially after you found out he was a friend of Jimin’s. But now you were finally going to meet Jimin’s other friends, the ones he mentioned only by name, get to know more about his life and who he was when he was not with you and at the hospital.

You were nervous, knowing the party was in a yacht, and deep down you were scared that the people around him would judge you and him for being with you. He had told you not to worry, that he would be by your side the entire time, and that he was proud to be dating you. You only had to get to the yacht and meet him, and then everything would be alright with him by your side.

“What are you doing?” Your colleague asked upon seeing you looking at Jimin. She had sat down by your table at the cafeteria and you quickly made eye contact with Jimin, trying to signal to him before he came by your table, as you were still keeping your relationship under wraps at the hospital.

“What? Nothing. Just eating my lunch.” You shifted your gaze to your food, avoiding looking in his direction again.

“Girl, get out of your mind. He’s hot, but he is way out of your league. Don’t even dream about it,” she laughed, as if the idea was absurd. “You do know who he is, don’t you?”

You shook your head, pretending not to know, as if you were just admiring him from afar with a crush.

“That’s Park Jimin. From the Parks, you know, owners of the King’s Conglomerate and owners of this fucking hospital.”

To say shock came across your face would not have been enough. Park Jimin?

“You mean as in Mr. Park, the chairman Mr. Park?” You felt a tremor run through your body, a foreign feeling taking over as you learned the entire truth. So that was what he had been hiding from you.

“Yeah, that is his son. He’s been going around the hospital, shadowing his dad and looking at how everything works. I’m pretty sure he might take over soon, the man is surely getting old.”

“I… I had no idea.” You raised your head to look at him, but he was nowhere to be found.

This would not change things. You understood why he had omitted this information, and you had to admit to yourself that although this had the potential to change your relationship, you would fight to not let it happen. Everything had been working out fine. Everything would work out fine.

Jimin was anxious. The party had started, people mingling, drinking, not so subtle glances as the night started to progress. Daisy was about to arrive and he could not wait until he introduced her to the other guys. He kept looking at his phone and around the entrance, her text saying she was waiting for the transportation to the yacht still open. When he looked around again, he was met with Choi Hyuna, smiling and waving discreetly before approaching him. He sighed, thinking that he had been stalling for too long, he needed to tell her about Daisy and end the arrangement, no matter what his parents thought.

“Hi, Jimin,” she said with a wide smile still on her lips, hand clutching her purse tightly.

He nodded with a polite smile, and averted his gaze to search for Daisy again, and Hyuna could not help but notice the motion.

“Expecting someone?” She asked, a soft voice pretending confusion.

“Ah, yes… you’re probably going to meet her tonight, and you and I will have to discuss some things regarding our parents’ wishes.” He began, looking at Hyuna, but missing the way she tightened her fingers around her bag.

“Is everything okay? Who am I going to meet, Jimin? It’s not that nurse you've been seen around the hospital with, is it?” Her voice expressed her surprise and discontent, not being able to hide everything from him.

It was Jimin’s turn to be shocked; he thought he had been careful enough, avoiding people’s eyes, but he should have figured they were not as discreet as he thought. Well, he was one to strike other people’s attention, being who he was, so of course someone had seen him with Daisy.

“That’s her, her name is Y/n.”

“I didn’t want to be the one to break the news to you and here of all places, but I found some shady stuff about her, and if she really is coming, I think it’s for the best that you know this now, let’s go somewhere quieter.” Her acting was on point, convincing Jimin to go with her to a room. When they got there, she continued. “I was at the hospital earlier today looking for you, I know how much time you’ve been spending there, when I noticed something and talked to this other nurse who works there. He let me know some things have been missing, Jimin, meds.” She paused and opened her purse, taking some folded pieces of paper and handing it to him.

He grabbed them, unfolding, and it took him a moment to understand what he was seeing. They were copies of ID logs, schedules, reports on missing meds on carts. He was confused, your signature on some of the documents were not out of place, but he had to gather his strength not to crumple the papers when Hyuna continued.

“Look at the reports and her schedule. It’s too much of a coincidence that those meds suddenly disappeared just when she had her shift on that floor, is it not? And she even dared sign some of those herself! I’m sorry, but she must not be that smart, huh? That’s a crime, Jimin, and you as the future chairman of the hospital need to do something about it. Her colleague will probably make a formal complaint soon enough, he said he would try to talk to her, maybe she has an addiction no one knows about and can get her help…”

Jimin closed his eyes, his heart shattering into innumerous pieces inside his chest. He started shaking with heavy breaths, as pulling air into his lungs seemed like a herculean task. He let the papers fall onto the floor, not caring about them, clutching his hand to his chest, trying to dig into his skin to cradle his fragile heart.

“She must have known she could get more access and get away with it being with you for who you are.” Hyuna’s voice was muffled in his ears, and he signaled for her to leave him alone, not sure if words came out of his mouth, but he heard the door closing.

He didn’t know how long he was there, at some point he dropped to his knees, hands on the floor and hair in disarray; his entire body shaking as if he was cold, a foreign sensation dominating his body. He could have sworn he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket a handful of times, but he didn’t have the strength to look at it.

He heard his name being called, a familiar voice entering the room and closing the door, and he had to clench his teeth to gather whatever energy he had in him to deal with the situation. To deal with you and your betrayal.

You entered the room and saw him on his knees, closing the door quickly to get to him, worried about his state. Someone had let you know where he was, and you went straight into the room.

“How long have you known who I am?” It was the first thing he asked, not looking at you, when you lowered your body in front of him.

“What? I know you’re Jimin, just Jimin, remember? You told me that, but someone told me at the hospital today and I was going to talk to you about it soon but...”

“Today? How can you lie to me after I told you I loved you?” He shook his head, disbelief in his voice.

“I only knew what you told me, another nurse saw me looking at you at the cafeteria, remember the woman who was with me during lunch?”

“What are you on right now?” He finally looked at you, his eyes squinting with anger.

“What are you talking about? Jimin…” You were confused, as if you were having two different conversations.

“Or maybe you’re not on anything, you just sell it, is that it?” He got up slowly, grabbing your arm and taking you with him in the process, making you get up as well.

“I’m confused…” You tried to talk, but he interrupted you abruptly, letting your arm go as if your skin was burning his.

“When did you decide to use me and my family to get away with your problems?”

“I…”

“You know what, I don’t want to know. You broke my heart and my trust with this, I never should have trusted someone whose money…”

“Whose money what, Jimin? You told me it didn’t matter. I certainly don’t care nor want your or your family money. What did I do? I don’t understand!” You exclaimed, frustrated, confused, tears starting to fall from your eyes, his words piercing you.

He silently grabbed the scattered papers from the floor, thrusting them into your hands with force, and you looked at them. How did he have a copy of your schedule? And those signatures, they looked similar, but you did not remember touching any of those documents before. And the missing meds reports… and it suddenly started to dawn on you, but what he said next still shocked you to your core.

“Don’t you dream about stepping foot into the hospital again. If you dare show up next shift, I’ll have you arrested and sued for so much money your little mind can’t even begin to wrap around it,” he spit out, venom in his words, so different from the kind man you knew. “Now get out of here. I don’t want to ever see you again.”

You stood there without any reaction, the impact of his words freezing your body into place while you tried to fully understand the situation. You had nothing to do with those papers, but when you opened your mouth to attempt an explanation, he interrupted you again.

“Don’t worry, I’ll have someone drop whatever you have in your locker. Tell me, will we find shit there too? Or are you too smart to risk it? And how the fuck did you hide this from me?”

“Jimin, I…” you started, shaking your head, but he didn’t let you continue. He opened the door abruptly, turned his back on you and walked towards a security guard, pointing to you inside the room.

You let your tears fall free as you ran towards the same corner from which you entered the yacht, ready to leave, still confused as to who would do this to you. But it didn’t matter, did it? Jimin chose his side, and it was certainly not yours.

As you were getting ready to exit the boat, you were leaving him behind. You were leaving your hope. You were leaving your job. You were leaving your sweet memories with him on the water. You were leaving all the past months, buried in a pile of lies and you had no idea how far they went, how far someone was going to get you away from Jimin. You were leaving your heart, destroyed, stepped on, bleeding, in that room alongside those papers.

And somewhere on that yacht the love of your life was seeking that someone, also leaving behind memories of you.

“Hyuna,” Jimin started, looking at the woman when he finally found her again. He took a deep breath, resigning himself to accept his family plans for him. “We should announce our engagement soon.”

--

taglist: @veronawrites @oftenderweapons-a-companion

Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it ♥

[bigskydreaming]

I am looking (disrespectfully) at the trope of Bruce and other family members only seeming to respect Dick’s wishes when doing so aligns with what they already wanted to do.

Let’s go to the examples!

1) Bruce not broaching adoption with Dick because he wants to respect Dick’s first parents and feels like he would be taking their place or overstepping or putting himself in between Dick and his memories of his parents. Sometimes its cited that Dick himself expressed this wish early on after his parents died, sometimes its not and this is still just upheld as Bruce’s reasoning for not adopting Dick before he was already well into adulthood.

THE FATAL FLAW (in mine own personal opinion, natch. Personal mileage may vary, check your speedometer to be safe):

This particular plot point or tangle is in my experience ALWAYS paired with Bruce’s own insecurities about his role in Dick’s life, or not wanting to push that or receive an answer he doesn’t want to or is afraid to hear. Sometimes its about his fears of unworthiness to be Dick’s actual parent, etc, etc. But the bottom line is, there is always the presence of SOME element (and not a small one) in which Bruce’s own self-interest or feelings are protected by him NOT broaching the adoption conversation with Dick and having to confront these fears head on.

This is additionally juxtaposed with the problem that although there’s a lot of variance in regards to stories where Bruce fired Dick versus stories where Dick gave up being Robin and moved on to Nightwing voluntarily....there’s NOT a lot of stories where Dick makes Jason Robin himself or is asked by Bruce first. The part where Bruce takes this initiative on his own, without thinking through its repercussions on Dick emotionally.....this is practically always present.

Now, the problem here is that......Dick became or began becoming Robin well into his time with Bruce. Its frequently cited as the thing that began allowing them to truly connect, their time training and acting as Batman and Robin.

Meaning no matter WHAT interpretation you go with as to why specifically Dick chose the name Robin, whether it was a family nickname or an homage to Robin Hood.....the fact remains, NOTHING of Robin, THEMATICALLY, nothing that spoke to Dick in regards to what he wanted Robin to be - specifically in honor of his parents because avenging his parents and making sure what happened to them didn’t happen to others like, this was literally a key part of what bonded Dick and Bruce, the fact that Bruce was TRYING to help Dick specifically BECAUSE they shared this particular overlap of purpose - like the bottom line is, nothing about Robin CAME from Bruce. Or Dick’s feelings about Bruce. That....didn’t really even exist yet, at the time he created Robin. Everything about Robin, other than the physical costume itself, not even the design just the actual creation of it....all of that came from BEFORE he met Bruce. None of it was thoughts or feelings derived from BRUCE. Its the whole reason Dick was never Batkid or Batlad, or any derivative of Batman.

It all, ALL came from what Dick came to the manor WITH. Remnants of his life with his first family.

So the fatal flaw of Bruce’s reasoning that by not broaching the subject of adoption with Dick before well into adulthood, he was actually just respecting Dick’s relationship with his first parents and not trying to come between them and Dick’s memories and feelings about them....

All of this is inherently undermined by Bruce’s own actions.....when by repurposing Robin to ANY degree, even just to give the mantle to Jason.....this meant that he was inherently viewing Robin as being more about being Batman’s partner, HIS partner....then it was about being Dick’s heritage, his last intangible keepsake of his first family and life BEFORE Bruce.

In effect....Bruce making Jason Robin or firing Dick as Robin, either way....both betray Bruce’s OWN alleged intentions for only wanting to respect Dick’s relationship with his parents, and that being why he didn’t want to overstep by trying to impose or even ask for his own official parent/child relationship with Dick. Because that’s exactly what appropriating the Robin mantle was. It was Bruce ignoring the relationship Dick had with his parents and their memory and the fact that Robin was directly born of that....and making Robin entirely about Bruce’s OWN relationship with Dick, heedless of any other factors.

And the second Bruce did that.....his entire justification for not raising the adoption issue....disappears. It goes away. Because you can’t claim inaction being just a result of not wanting to disrespect something you’ve already voided respect for. No matter whether Bruce INTENDED it or not.....by crossing this boundary, Bruce already acted against Dick’s feelings in this regard and well, disregarded them....which makes claims of Bruce not raising the adoption issue pretty much JUST self-serving at that point. Its an alleged viewpoint of Dick’s that Bruce largely just ASSUMES....and only ultimately respects - in direct contrast to how he didn’t respect the associations Dick had with Robin - because it aligns with something Bruce ALREADY wanted to do, rather than what Dick actually wanted. It provided justification for Bruce to just....not have a conversation he was afraid to have. And that’s about Bruce at that point. Its not about Dick. Its just like...not.

2) Another example of this that is not unique to just Bruce, but recurs frequently in both canon and fanfics in Dick’s dynamics with other characters he’s close with.....is characters not apologizing for things they’ve done to Dick or raising the issue of things they did a long time ago but never apologized for....while claiming to do so because they thought DICK didn’t want to talk about it.

THE FATAL FLAW (in my own personal opinion. Nuances and variations may not be identical at all store locations, please see your local branch for details):

The particular problem I have here is that....Dick never ever ever in the history of ever and also the before ever time.....has EVER expressed a desire to avoid confrontation.

Like. That’s what he DOES. That’s his JAM. That’s literally CITED time and time again as one of the reasons he’s viewed as more of a people person and natural team leader than Bruce and other Batfam members....because he’s not afraid to cut straight (or bi) to the heart of the matter and air out a dispute.

In fact, this very character trait is one of the ones most commonly utilized AGAINST Dick in various depictions of him, as he’s often cited as TOO confrontational, TOO eager for a fight or conflict especially when his temper is engaged, such as when he’s well....personally hurt or offended.

So how does it follow, then, that avoiding tough conversations ONLY when its on the OTHER person to INITIATE, because they were the ones who DID the wrong-doing and Dick the subject of that rather than the instigator....how does it work, exactly, that these are the only times in which we DON’T tend to see a direct conversation about the harms done and the fallout that resulted? With it being claimed that this is solely for Dick’s benefit, out of a desire to avoid pulling him into an allegedly unnecessary (but really just unpleasant) confrontation?

When the concurrent reality is that whether stated or acknowledged or not.....avoiding these specific conversations and ONLY these conversations (as there never seems to be a problem finding canon or fanfic stories in which Dick apologizes for harm HE’S caused to others or is clearly expected to).....this avoidance also carries the side benefit of allowing the character who DID something wrong to Dick to....not ever have to have that super uncomfortable conversation in which they actually verbally acknowledge the thing they did to him and the effects it had on him, and apologize for that.....and then render themselves vulnerable to actually hearing whether or not he accepts their apology or is still upset with them regardless.

While - as long as they DON’T ever have this conversation, for whatever reason - they can look to the clear and consistent precedent of Dick continuing to work with people who have done things like oh, I don’t know....punched him in the face cuz they’re mad at him (and this isn’t a Bruce critical point, this is a whole damn family critical point as the only one who HASN’T actually done this is Duke. Well, Cass technically just threw him out a window, but I mean, tomato toh-mah-to). Writers and characters both can lean on the fact that actually Dick has a pretty clear track record of ultimately giving up a grudge or at least showing a willingness to look past those grudges enough that it doesn’t prevent him from still maintaining or resuming some kind of relationship with the person who hurt him.

And thus, like Example Numero Uno......this ultimately just lets other characters off the hook while claiming to do Dick a favor, but actually Dick receives no real benefit from it and instead now just has another instance of characters saying “see we respect your wishes” when ultimately their inaction is MORE in service to their own wishes and self-interests.

2b) See also the variation of this in which characters such as Bruce, Jason, Tim and assorted others like....are written specifically determining that they’re not going to apologize to Dick or beg his forgiveness because they feel they don’t DESERVE to be forgiven, and once again....its in HIS best interests that they not even give him the opportunity to say he forgives them....because they know Dick Grayson of course, and they know he’s too forgiving for his own good, so its better to like....not make it ever a possibility in this particular instance.

With the problem here being like.....Dick can’t and shouldn’t be expected to KNOW that’s their logic? So....all he’s going to actually SEE is loved ones just....not expressing remorse for hurting him or acknowledgment it even happened? Which....hurts?

So......hurting your loved one MORE after already hurting them....because you don’t feel you deserve to be forgiven for hurting them in the first place and are actually PROTECTING them from being hurt more when mistakenly forgiving you.....by.....hurting and continuing to hurt them with your silence and lack of evident remorse....

Mmmm.....

Its not the best approach, y’know?

Flaws are detected.

3) Dick’s friends and family manipulating situations in order to get the end result THEY desire, while claiming to do so for his benefit only. Dick being willing to manipulate people to achieve his own ends comes up a LOT actually....but there’s relatively little examination of how often people do this to him, claiming his best interests but really just circumventing his clearly stated desires for independence and the right to make his own choices about what HE needs....or when this is brought up, its usually limited to JUST Bruce doing it, but uh....no that ain’t it.

Specific examples of this are like when Wally joins the 1999 version of the Titans specifically to get Dick to join up, because in his estimation Dick needs more of a social life and is drowning himself with his responsibilities....and then quits not long after Dick is finally officially invested in staying with the team. Another example is when Roy gets Dick to join the Outsiders based entirely on his pitch of NOT treating the team like a family, like they did with the Titans, so that Dick could keep emotional distance and not be as worried about losing them like he suffered from losses like Donna....with his claim again being that he worried about Dick in the aftermath of that loss, etc.

And to be clear! Its not that I think Wally and Roy and others who do similar things have NEGATIVE intentions in mind for Dick. That’s the whole point of this post.....like the other examples, I fully believe THEY believe (or writers believe when writing them this way) that they have Dick’s best interests in mind and not their own. I just....disagree.

THE FATAL FLAW (at least as I see it here):

Is that I view this and Batfam members who do similar stuff as like.....falling into the trap of the savior friend complex. Its that thing when you see a friend hurting, and over time get FRUSTRATED by seeing this when a solution seems obvious to you but think they won’t take it because they’re too stubborn or don’t know what’s best for them....with this specifically recurring a LOT with Dick in particular, due to his core characterization of wanting to be the one to make his own choices. The problem here, same as the problem with the savior friend complex....is that it treats the subject of these views as like....incapable of determining what they need. Its a tacit condemnation that they actually don’t know how to cope with things and are doing it wrong - even though the ones making this assessment will never be the ones actually having to LIVE with the outcome of their meddling. Its the conviction that someone like Dick needs to be HANDLED, for his own good....because he can’t be trusted to KNOW what he needs, not as well as them at least.....and so they jump to manipulation rather than just....ASK him what he needs, or HOW they can best support him, or even just WHY he’s making the choices he is.

For instance, the problem with what Wally did was never that Dick wasn’t struggling. He was. He was drowning in his responsibilities, he had very little to no life outside of them.....Wally is not remotely in the wrong for WANTING to do something to change this situation. The problem is Wally basically defaulted to just...HANDLING his friend by restarting the Titans just to give Dick a social life again, which is pretty much a line straight out of the comics...and basically railroaded right over Dick’s initial ‘no’ when he first heard the proposal. And kept pushing things until Dick eventually joined up in order to get Wally to commit to the team too, because Wally spun it as though Dick was helping Wally by getting Wally to commit to the team for the very same reasons Wally wanted Dick to. And then....right after that, Wally quit to go back to just focusing on the Justice League, which was part of what Dick predicted would happen all along.

The thing was.....at no point along the way did Wally actually ask WHY Dick initially said no....he jumped straight to assuming his own view of the problem, that Dick just COULDN’T be made to ever see the reason to take a break occasionally and put his mental and emotional health as a priority. If he’d done this, Wally could have had dozens of other options to achieve his desired end result....he could’ve like....set up regular hangouts with Dick. 

But Wally jumped to assuming he knew the answer, he knew what was best for Dick, and that Dick’s logic was inherently self-destructive and self-flagellating.....and he felt the solution was to bring back the Titans, as he recalled their earlier times as Titans together as a time when Dick was better able to balance his social life and responsibilities.

But by not ever stopping to LISTEN to why Dick felt the way he did and was initially opposed to rejoining the Titans....Wally overlooked one crucial fact: He isn’t Dick.

And more important, his view of the past wasn’t Dick’s view of the past.

Wally was a lot more capable of viewing the Titans as not just a family, but an inherent social life, a hangout, a kind of club....because that’s what it had always been to him.

But he’d never been the leader.

Throughout all their childhoods, the whole time the Titans WERE all of the above, and relatively light-hearted in comparison to their older selves....Dick STILL had the weight of responsibilities that none of the others had by virtue of just...not being the leader. Ultimately, all of their lives were in HIS hands. He was the one calling the shots. The buck stopped with him.

And this is precisely WHY Dick had gotten to the point he had in adulthood. It wasn’t because he’d changed. It wasn’t because he’d stopped figuring out what he needed and how to take care of himself. Its because the position he’d ALWAYS been in as leader....has WEIGHT. That eventually added up more and more and weighed him down. A huge part of the reason Dick had ended up leaving the Titans in the first place, before they disbanded prior to the 1999 revival....is because of the sheer WEIGHT of all the deaths and misfortunes that had befallen the Titans....and how much he and he alone struggled with it in ways the others didn’t....because they didn’t have to. It hadn’t been their plans, their calls, their RESPONSIBILITY to find a way the others could have all made it out alive or at least less traumatized.

So.....of COURSE Dick said no when Wally first proposed restarting the Titans, before Wally defaulted to using his own membership as a lure to get Dick to agree.....because......nothing about the above paragraph had changed, via Wally’s ‘plan.’ It wasn’t because Dick just didn’t KNOW how to be a fully rounded person....it was because nobody was helping him find actual OPTIONS for doing that....that didn’t just double as MORE responsibilities! Because that’s exactly what ended up happening! Dick wound up the leader of the Titans again, just as responsible and just as invested as always.....just like he always knew he would....and also as he knew would happen...Wally ended up quitting not long into it and persuading Jessie Quick to step in as his replacement....aka just one more person for Dick to worry about when it wasn’t like he was going to be worrying any less about Wally, just now he wasn’t going to have Wally there to even POTENTIALLY be able to support him when tragedy inevitably struck because they’re freaking superheroes....and instead he’d just have another person looking to him for the answers but with no reason or chance of being the support Dick could ACTUALLY use at times like that!

Wally’s manipulations circumvented Dick’s opinion that no, actually he knew what was best for him and it wasn’t what Wally was suggesting....without actually accounting for the fact that hey, Dick might actually know that. And in the end, Wally got the result he was after, he got to feel that he’d HELPED his friend....which again, this isn’t WRONG to WANT to....but Dick didn’t...exactly....benefit from this. It wasn’t actually in his best interests ultimately.

I mean...see Donna’s death for details.

And in the aftermath of THAT....Roy essentially did exactly what Wally did....just in REVERSE! Roy got Dick to agree to lead the Outsiders, to shoulder responsibility once again....by promising that Dick WOULDN’T have to view them as family. And did Dick go too far and end up TOO uncaring about their welfare? Yup! No disagreements there! Problem is though....he only ended UP in that situation because yet again a friend thought they KNEW the solution to what Dick needed.....only for Dick to end up essentially punished and further self-blaming....just for doing exactly what Roy had told him TO do, with this particular team. Again - Roy hadn’t EXPECTED Dick to take it this far. But that’s the whole point! Roy had expectations about what Dick would ACTUALLY end up doing, that didn’t match up to the pitch Roy actually gave Dick to GET his agreement.....because Roy all along was of the assumption that by virtue of being Dick Grayson, he wouldn’t be ABLE to avoid connecting with these new teammates and viewing them as family, and thus he’d end up ‘snapping out of it’ with it being the funk he’d been in since Donna’s death.

Roy’s intentions might have been noble, once again.....but his methods stuck to the same pattern of people around Dick believing they knew what he needed or knew who he was or knew what it meant to BE Dick Grayson....better than Dick actually did...particularly when Dick said no, this isn’t what I need or this isn’t a good idea or just...I don’t want to do this.

And in the end....its Dick who ended up paying the price for it, as well as the people who got hurt because of his INTENTIONAL emotional distance.....because the ‘view all surrounding people as new surrogate family’ aspect of the Dick Grayson Experience hadn’t kicked in as Roy thought inevitably would....but the ‘view all this as directly my fault and suffer guilt for it forevermore’ aspect of the Dick Grayson Experience most certainly did! Not at all actually helped along by the fact that like....Roy also expressed frustration with Dick that like.....Dick hadn’t actually responded to Roy’s intended manipulation of his emotions the way Roy had expected him to when he EXPRESSLY TOLD DICK TO BEHAVE THE WAY THAT DICK ULTIMATELY BEHAVED. (Just, he didn’t tell Dick to dial that all the way up to Extra, but given that’s the only setting Dick does ANYTHING at, I feel its a possible outcome Roy should have at least considered. I mean, wasn’t the whole point that you know Dick Grayson better than he knows himself?)

But lo, I am salty.

LMAO, but I mean, you get it right? Obviously, I LIKE Wally and Roy. I LIKE Jason, etc. I’m not saying all of this to be like ugh how dare these characters do all this to Dick....I’m saying it because like.....they all keep falling into the same patterns of making a big fuss and acknowledgment of how much Dick prioritizes being able and free to make his own choices and decide what’s best for him and what HE wants.....

But without ever like....actively asking him AT THE RELEVANT TIME....what he thinks and feels about all this. What he thinks and feels he needs. What he ACTUALLY wants from them, or why he’s ACTUALLY saying no to something and maybe it being for reasons that aren’t just him inherently being stubborn and self-destructive.

And instead just defaulting to falling back on whatever he might have said or expressed in an entirely different context at an entirely different time.....and saying okay, by doing so, we are abiding by his wishes and thus doing what he wants and respecting his right to make his own choices.....

But ONLY when doing all of the above just so happens to align with these other characters then getting to do the thing or take the approach they’re already predisposed towards wanting to take because of their OWN self-interests at the same time.

With this never actually coming into play when respecting Dick’s wishes aligns with them taking actions they DON’T personally want to undertake, because it makes them uncomfy or they think its a bad call, even if it is something that should be his call to make.

Like....the pattern. It very much exists. And abounds. Like I could cite examples allllllllllll the way up to Ric Grayson, where Bruce respected RIC’S wishes to be left alone and not interfere in his life no matter what.....in ways Bruce almost never respects Dick’s actual expressed wish for Bruce to butt out of matters when Bruce is actually quite keen on meddling and would very much like to....

But notice how the other thing about the Ric Grayson storyline is that Ric’s expressed desire to stay the fuck out of vigilantism and superhero work, like.....just so happens to align with Bruce’s longstanding desire for Dick to like...get out of the vigilantism and superhero work? With butting out of Ric’s life and respecting his privacy in ways Dick has to FIGHT him for, like......absolutely the optimal action to take in order to allow this expressed desire of Ric’s to flourish in the ways Bruce always wished would kick in for Dick?

.....just saying. 

The pattern. It abounds.

And the key to breaking any pattern, of course, is to first recognize....and acknowledge....that it exists.

Otherwise you tend to fall into the trap of repeating and perpetuating it over and over without even realizing it, simply because its what’s familiar.

This has been A Post by Me. Thank you and have a nice day. Or don’t. Idk. I’m not the boss of you. Whatever.

[delusion-of-negation]

thanks to your post i discovered that nightmare disorder is a thing and i can now give my experiences a name (yay!), i thought i was the only one haunted by visions and demons.

yee, chronic nightmare disorder is a bitch, it can be co-morbid with ptsd but also a thing on its own or with other disorders, and it's the bane of my existence. the universe said "fuck your entire waking life", and chronic nightmare disorder said "and ye shall know no peace". I've had it my entire life - some of my earliest memories are nightmares, not my very earliest memory but I've been having them for as long as I remember and my family also remember me having them my whole life. I met a kid on the bus recently who told me he also doesn't sleep because his dreams always are horrible. it's a lot more common (and a lot more serious) than people think. it always pisses me off when shows want to make a character's nightmare sound serious so they call it a night terror, because nightmares are "just what kids get" and thus aren't serious (spoiler alert but they're serious for kids too, and night terrors are serious too), but nightmares and night terrors are different things - in a night terror you scream and flail and thrash about and stuff, but you wake up with no memory of doing so or of what you were thinking/dreaming at all, or very occasionally almost no memory of it (contrary to the misunderstandings of the writers of a particular show, that doesn't mean "some people always remember them clearly", because if you remember them consistently then you're having nightmares and just happen to also move in your sleep, what it means is anybody might occasionally have an individual night terror that they remember a teeny snippet of, the reason for this difference is that they happen in different sleep phases where memory is stored differently iirc), while nightmares are much less likely to result in as much movement while you're asleep, a little if you're prone to that otherwise, but nightmares are usually very vivid and you usually remember a lot more of them and clearly, in fact relatively often people struggle to "come back to reality" for a while (hence things like spending periods of time paranoid you're still asleep, or the time a family member of mine who also has it spent a while convinced their spouse had eaten our pet, because it happened in their nightmare). so when shows depict what is very clearly a nightmare, then call it a night terror to make it sound Grown Up and Serious, it bugs the hell out of me on every level, especially when they outright demean nightmares explicitly as "just scared kids" or whatever - it's wrong, it hurts kids struggling with this, it leads to adults with it not using the right language with doctors and/or shaming themselves and/or not even knowing it's A Thing, etc. so I am glad to have helped you find a name for the Visions and Demons, and I'm sorry to rant about the dumb people who don't have this issue and think it's silly childish shit and that we should just Grow Up and realise It's Just A Dream (gee whiz I wonder why the "vivid horrifying dreams, filled with agony, preying on your weaknesses" disorder makes "just a dream" not as comforting as it is to someone with "normal" dreams), so much so that they'll also misinform people on this and an equally serious disorder. then again, at least nightmares didn't become a meme like sleep paralysis, every time I'm lying awake frozen solid with my teeth crumbling painfully to bits in my mouth I'm like "damn sure is great that people know how serious and painful this condition is". sorry. I haven't taken my meds properly and I'm angry about everything. I'm as haunted by people not understanding that actually going through hell almost every time you fall asleep has Psychological Downsides, as I am by going through hell when I fall asleep, so us fucked up bitches gotta stick together and support each other, okay? your brain is a fucky bastard who is mean to you in ways you don't deserve, and anybody who acts like you're a pussy for being freaked out by the meat sack that knows all your weaknesses creating a torture universe for you can catch these hands. I'd fight the meat sack but that would hurt you so I can't.

[captnjacksparrow]

if you had to rank your fav naruto characters how would it go? love your blog btw!!

Hmmm... Complicated ask, anon.😂

[My personal life would be splashed here and there. Please bear with me]

Before 5 months, if you asked me about Naruto, my response would be ‘What the fuck is that?’. I absolutely had no idea such a treasure existed. For me, it started out like a blockbuster movie for the sheer variety of fights and the resulting emotions it brought within me. 

However, there was a point I stopped and thought, ‘Wait a fucking second. This resembles my family dynamics. This person is speaking the exact same lines I spoke to my parents few years ago. This person’s situation resembles mine. Did this creator a time traveler?’. Naruto is the only piece of media that gave me such feel. Am not even exaggerating, believe me. 

I really liked so many characters very much but am going to try my best to list just 10. 

The only characters I hate in this series are Danzo, Sakura and Hinata in no particular order. Meaning, I absolutely cannot see any positives in them. They are crassy, cringey and completely detestable.

FAVOURITE NARUTO CHARACTERS

10. Killer Bee

HaHaHa :-) Just seeing this character makes me smile and light-hearted.

It’s a pity that he is the only character who don’t belong to Konoha in my Top 10 rankings who was developed well apart from Gaara.

I loved him from Frame 1 onwards and I sincerely wished Team Taka should be packed up with their ass beaten up mercilessly. And that’s what happened.

Despite being a Jinchurikki, he never bothered to mind his surroundings and filled his heart with love from his over protective Brother alone was nice to watch.

He makes a great Tag Partner with Naruto next to Sasuke. No doubt.

The way Killer Bee treated Team Taka like some annoying flies and his cool and don’t care attitude was top notch. It’s not just with Sasuke, Bee treated Naruto with the same IDGAF attitude at first.

Best Moments:

Lariat punch to Sasuke (TBH, Sasuke deserved it. LOL)

Blasted off every member of Team Taka like a doll

His entire conversation and fight sequence with Kisame (Their banters and exchanges are way too hilarious)

His dynamics with his Elder Brother (God!!!! Whenever Raikage gives him an Iron Claw.... What a hilarious duo!!!!)

9. Hatake Kakashi

Kakashi was my most favourite character when I started the series for simply being ultra-cool with the way he conducted the Bell-Test and taught a valuable lesson for those bratty kids in Team 7 called ‘Team Work’. 

Best Moments:

Kakashi vs Obito Hand-to-Hand Combat (the best in the series)

Kakashi in the Gaara retrieval arc (His fight with Itachi & Deidara gave a good start to the shippuden series. His Mangekyou reveal was surprising).

Kakashi & Guy teaming up with Naruto to reveal Obito in a twisty and tragic way. (Kakashi couldn’t handle the truth at all and neither did I)

Kakashi vs Zabuza (That’s when I realized that the series was getting real serious)

8. Jiraiya

Jiraiya was my next favourite to Kakashi during my Part 1 days. His open perversion and his entire dynamics with Naruto was one of the best things during the Chunin Exams arc. Taught Naruto about Chakra Control and about the way of a shinobi by just enduring. Naruto follows this even today.

Best Moments: 

Kuchiyose No Jutsu training (Man, I never expected him to push Naruto off the cliff)

Rasengan Training (One of the best arcs in part 1 and it was soo satisfying to see Naruto punching his first Rasengan on Kabuto, He also acted like a quasi parent to Naruto... heartwarming)

Jiraiya Vs Six paths of Pain ( 6 vs 1 was always doomed but still he had the guts of a shinobi and plunged ahead)

7. Uchiha Madara

Geez. What is there to not like him?? 

Everything he did was absolutely wrong ever since he broke up with Hashirama in a romantic way much similar to how couples break up in my country.

I am an Uchiha. You are a Senju. I wish it had been different.

This roughly translates to how 75% of lovers break up and marry someone else from their own clan in my state. (Duh!!!)

I am from XXX clan, you are from XXX clan. So we can’t love each other and my parents won’t accept this relationship. So let’s break up.

Alright, my first shipping couple in this series is HashiMada for this exact reason. (I started shipping SNS only after episode 478). 

Just like Hashirama, Madara had an extensive build up right from episode 1 where Kurama compares Sasuke with Madara. And flashbacks from Itachi and Tobi spiked my curiosity and I wanted to see his face so badly ever since.

But the moment he landed gracefully like a diva in episode 321.... Woaahhhh!!!! He literally danced in the battlefield and ate up 100′s of guys with just a fucking Sharingan. 

Best Moments:

Going Shirtless before 1000′s of people with Hashirama’s face, no less (Well, I literally went heart-eyed for 5 minutes. Sorry Sasuke, your ancester was way much sexier than you in the Orochimaru hideout and beats you by a million points).

Screaming Hashirama’s name like a cockatoo for 300 times even till the very end (Sorry Naruto, your obsession towards Sasuke for about 6 arcs is pale in comparison to Madara’s obsession which was established in just 6 or 7 episodes.)

I have 25 clones now. Do you want me to put Susanoo or not? You can’t answer. The answer is yes. (Man, his I don’t give a fuck attitude is just an alien level thing)

Openly admitting Only Hashirama Can Beat Me (Say what you will about Sasuke, Madara has no qualms about accepting his inferiority in terms of power. An absolute Straight Forward diva-queen)

Awakening Sharingan for breaking up with his ‘friend’ rather than for his 3 dead brothers. (Geez, Poor Soul. He is the forefather of a Romantic Uchiha. That romantic blood still flows in Sasuke)

6. Senju Hashirama

Man, I would have placed him somewhere in top 5 if only he was introduced early or had more scenes. I started watching Naruto only because of this very name. There is a local podcaster in my state who goes under the alias of Senju Hashirama and in his podcasts, he hinted about this character and how he was inspired by his ideals. I just googled and saw that this character belonged to Naruto series and I considered watching it. Here I am, making analysis on that very series.

There was this excellent build up for him right when we got introduced to Captain Yamato. He was constantly referred in flashbacks from Itachi and Tobi especially.

But the moment he was reanimated again..... Geez..... It was an hilarious ride all throughout. Out of all the flashbacks we got from this series, Founders Era flashback was my absolute favourite.

From where I come from, we are still under the stupid influence of Clan infrastructure and are not growing up in many aspects like people in western countries do. For me, I hope, one day, someone like Senju Hashirama appears in our state and change our lives for better by uniting all clans as one and treats everyone equally without the shitty favouritism for their own children, friends, parents, siblings.

That’s why this dialogue struck a thunder in my heart

“Be they a friend.... Be they a sibling.... Be it even my own child. I will not forgive anyone who threatens the village.”

Because the clan leaders in our place are absolutely selfish, trash bastards who serves their own needs with no regards for other people from other clans. For a person like me, Hashirama is not just a fictional hero, he is someone who many aspires to become. No wonder that podcaster chose this name as his alias.

He rightfully deserved the title ‘God of Shinobi’. And no one can surpass him, not even Naruto.

Best Moments:

Wood Style vs Eternal Mangekyou sharingan + Kurama powered Madara (He just beats Madara’s ass by a wide margin. This shows he was a whole fucking different level than Naruto + Sasuke combined. In terms of strength, nobody surpassed him YET. Sorry Naruto and Sasuke, you guys are no match even now with your Rinnegan and Kurama lost forever).

His entire banters with Madara (ROFLLLL. Without him, it would have been just another lifeless arc.)

5. Senju Tobirama

Hmmm, let me tell you something about him.

First off, he is not a racist or fascist as many hardcore Sasuke fanatics claims. He is one of the best hokages according to me. He is abso-fucking-lutely practical, rational, logical and holds no grudge. And Sasuke resembles Tobirama with all these characteristics as compared to soft and naive Naruto. If only he had more screen time, he would be easily in my top 3. 

Just because he didn’t lick the boots of Uchiha (many people’s favorite clan or may I say the only clan that was given any shit about in this series), it doesn’t make him a racist or fascist.

No, he never persecuted the Uchihas. Danzo, the crass bastard, driven off the Uchihas only after the Kyuubi incident. It was explicitly mentioned in the databook and was clearly explained in the series. 

He literally gave the highest position in the village for the entire clan. That is, a military power inside a military village. ‘Shinobi who can cause crimes can only be stopped by shinobi who are even better’. In my state, if a powerful clan decided to persecute another clan, they simply start by cutting off basic amenities like Water and Electricity. Compared to what I’ve seen, Tobirama did nothing but given the Uchihas, the highest position in their village. 

Orochimaru only said giving such a power made them conceited (arrogant). Tobirama had a trusted subordinate called Kagami, an Uchiha in his team. He suggested Kabuto to help Sasuke and even teleported him on his request. He even spited Madara for killing Sasuke, an Uchiha. He openly claimed Uchiha clan exceeds Senju in terms of Love. He openly appreciated Itachi and Kagami as someone who sees beyond their clan. In what world, would a racist or fascist do all this for a clan he hates??? 

Yes, he was cautious of Sasuke at first because he saw him with Orochimaru and even went full-on battle mode because of Sasuke’s carefree threat to destroy the village. But once he decided to go to the battlefield to fight Madara, he simply forgot everything that happened before and started to work with him as a comrade, and even helped him twice. In which world, a racist or fascist behave this way?

Believe me, a person like me who was grown with these clan politics surely can say who is a fascist. He was not. He was just cautious of them because of their ability to attain superpowers with just emotions alone. Let me ask you all this, ‘Would you be okay with people getting crazy powers whenever they are depressed?’. Being cautious is not racism. It really disrespects people who faced real oppression under fascism.

What Madara and Danzo did was a classical example of fascism. 

And No, Izuna didn’t die only because of Tobirama. He died because Madara was too arrogant to instigate war with Senju clan. And this was way before forming Konoha. If Tobirama killed Izuna after the alliance between Uchiha and Senju, I would agree that he was a racist. Izuna lost his life just like any other Uchiha and Senju soldiers in that battlefield. 

Just because he shitted your beloved ‘Sasuke-Kun’ doesn’t mean he is a racist too. Tobirama saw Sasuke along with that scoundrel Orochimaru who once used this very two hokages to destroy the very village they strived hard to create and protect. What will you do, if you were in his place?? Please don’t lie and say ‘I wouldn’t be judgemental’. 

And Imagine you are Tobirama, Sasuke is threatening to commit genocide against the entire village who had no idea about this coup detat instead of going against those old hags. Will you sit quiet as a Hokage?? 

He was the first person to suggest his brother, Itama, that Revenge against Uchihas are futile. All we need is an agreement to make truce. That gave the idea for Hashirama to pursue his dream. And Tobirama was happy to follow that dream and very supportive. 

It’s because of all these reasons I placed him above Senju Hashirama.

Best Moments:

Amazing power display against Sasuke & Co with just an index finger (It was a pleasure to see everyone’s face trembling with mild sweat including Sasuke).

Acted as a decoy to save his young subordinates. (The way he sacrificed his life saying young wills of fire must be protected is just Woow!! I wish his subordinates listened to his words and passed the mantle to the younger ones rather than playing game at such an old age and screwed up many lives. Pfft!!!)

Any time he says ‘Shut Up’ to Hashirama (ROFL)

His absolute ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude to Naruto, Sasuke, Hashirama, Minato and Madara (He trolled them all mercilessly and I love it)

4. Senju Tsunade

It hurts me to say that Tsunade is the only female character in my list because every other female characters were written in a much more piss poorly way. Only Konan came close to Tsunade but her role was very short. 

Despite her character’s purpose revolved around another male character (Dan) and a blatant objectification of her breasts, I liked everything about her other than those mentioned above. 

She is the Second Best Hokage who took Konoha right after the destruction made by Orochimaru, excellently handled the aftermath by making friendly relations with Suna (Sand village), provided her best medical support to Konoha in the Pain Arc and successfully handled the fourth Shinobi world war. 

She is such a badass who developed her own original jutsu called Byakugou no Jutsu, which can heal herself. 

She is just way too amazing and it’s a pity that we got very less scenes in Shippuden.

Best Moments:

Took 25+ stabs from Madara’s Susanoo like a piece of cake (Man, I simply couldn’t describe that scene. All the other Kages were shocked and even Madara too)

Lifted her advisors like a cabbage sack (Those fucking old hags deserved it. Those shits should’ve died)

Her index finger flick assault on Naruto (Aww, Naruto was definitely bratty in his first meeting and Tsunade didn’t hold back at all)

Played Orochimaru like a basketball (In that same arc, she fought Orochimaru mercilessly like a devil left and right. Someone who claimed to have surpassed Tsunade never even dared to fight Orochimaru’s student and crying for his attention after just receiving one stab from Madara. Just saying)

3. Uzumaki Naruto

Naruto is the titular character and your emotions evolve along with him. He surely deserves a spot in Top 3. The only reason I didn’t place Naruto even more higher is because he didn’t experience something very important which many characters in this list faced. That is, Losing a loved one before his eyes. Every villain in this series became what they are because they lost someone important before their eyes like Nagato, Obito. (Nope, I don’t count Neji as his loved one). I think this tests the mettle of any character and Naruto failed to experience this. The only person he ever lost was Jiraiya and that too from off-screen. That’s why I felt his journey to his dreams seemed little easier compared to the rest of the characters.

His best block of episodes will always be the part 1 Episode 1, 2, 3. Episode 1 is the character defining episode for Naruto and what he learned there will be applied everywhere till the very end of the series. He learned 3 things

Forgiveness, Empathy and Acceptance

Talk-No-Jutsu

Kage Bunshin no Jutsu

From then on, this boy wins many friends to his side, not only from Konoha but from other villages too and even made them to acknowledge his strength only through his sheer hard work. 

However, there is this person, whose acknowledgement he wants the most.  That person is his most important bond along with Iruka Sensei. He is none other than Sasuke. One day, Sasuke left him alone for some unavoidable reason at the end of part 1 which left a huge scar in him and he vows to bring him back to the place where he belongs. That becomes his ultimate goal rather than becoming an Hokage.

The way he goes to any extent to protect the people he cares about is just simply entertaining to watch.

Every time he makes an heroic entry to save the day was never boring, not once. 

Best Moments:

Sobbing from his heart after hearing Iruka Sensei acknowledging him (It just makes me feel heavy for no reason. The anime team did an awesome job to capture his emotions convincingly)

Awakening Kyuubi Mode for the first time after seeing Sasuke die in his arms (Man, out of all the collective hatred he got from the villagers, this moment affected him a lot speaks volumes)

Punching Neji from the underground to win the Chunin exams (God, I honestly believed Naruto lost but he just surprised us heavily from nowhere. And that failure speech was just pure bliss to watch even today)

Pain Vs Naruto (One of the best arc for Naruto. Because unlike other arcs, where Naruto fought with a team, this arc he was all alone fighting a person with Rinnegan. Be it the exuberant landing from the frogs with a dramatic kabuki music, creating multi-step attacks, coming up with novel solution in that difficult situation, finally ending the conflict without killing the enemy, becoming an hero. Superb journey. The only thing I didn’t like in that arc is some shitty selfish proposal. PUKE!!)

Bearing the burdens of his most important person and die along with him (This boy always shouts he will never die until he becomes an Hokage. But for Sasuke, he was ready to die along with him in order to not leave him alone proves how much he loves him. This shows his emotional maturity rather than shouting at Sasuke like he always did before which never reached his ears. This time it did)

Final Good Bye to Minato (Honestly, I was bawling just like Naruto in that scene no matter how many times I watch it. It started out slow but as he speaks more and more, he simply couldn’t hold back and wept a sea of tears 😭😭😭)

2. Uchiha Sasuke

One of the well written characters in this series, with all the flaws and positive stuffs which makes him more of an Anti-Hero. He always subverts my preformed opinions and never ceased to surprise me.

Despite being aloof and cold, his warmer side will always be exposed towards Naruto. This is evident by many things he had done for Naruto which he don’t have to or no reason to. Starting right from roasting Sakura, offering lunch, asking for tips, enquiring about breakfast, protecting him many times and dying for Naruto. 

Why I placed him above Naruto is because of his unavoidable decision to tread in a complicated dark path primarily due to the trauma he carried and was stirred up again by collective factors such as Orochimaru’s cursed seal, Itachi’s arrival and Naruto’s growth. Compared to Sasuke, Naruto had an easier path because he never saw anyone die before his eyes and hence he don’t carry any trauma which can divert his path.

Even after watching his entire clan and family members murdered before his eyes at an age 8, he managed to pull himself and never snapped out like many other good characters does. But the moment when he found out that Itachi was good all along, he simply couldn’t tolerate the truth and gave himself to Vengeance. Because, he loved his brother more than he hated him all these years. This shows he loved his brother more than his parents. His resolve to destroy Konoha was perfectly understandable. But is it good? Nope. He can kill Danzo and those old hags but killing other people was never justifiable.

But still, his resolve to have his vengeance was diverted by Naruto and weakened by Itachi, at some point. So, he decided to know the truth and when he heard it, he understood the Hokages also sacrificed many precious things to protect this village just like his Brother Itachi. He understood the mistakes of his clan and decided to protect the village which he swore to destroy. [Many Sasuke fanatics think that he succumbed to the Government and Kishi wrote Sasuke to bootlick them. Their idea was to tackle genocide with another genocide. What a stupid idea!!!!]

And No, I don’t consider him trying to kill Sakura, Karin and Kakashi as his bad moments (though I feel bad for Karin). For the simple reason being, he became a monster by losing himself in the darkness who lost the rationality to differentiate friends from foes. Much similar to how Naruto lost himself to Kyuubi’s hatred against Orochimaru and in Pain Arc. It’s so hypocritical to ignore Naruto and accuse Sasuke here. Plus, Sakura had no business to be there otherwise Sasuke would not have tried to kill her. 

But does it mean Sasuke did nothing wrong???

Nope.

He definitely shouldn’t have joined Akatsuki and hunted Killer Bee like an animal. Because, he knew that Tobi was the one who helped Itachi massacre the clan. When fighting Itachi he specifically vowed to kill Madara (Tobi). On top of that, Itachi passed on Amaterasu in his eyes specifically to stay away from Tobi. Why did he ally with him? Plus, Sasuke was one of the few characters who was exposed to the name ‘Akatsuki’ in part 1 itself. He clearly knew that this organization targets Naruto, his closest bond. Why did he join there? This is where the stupid part of Sasuke came out. I was grunting... ‘Oii Where did that clever Sasuke, who faced 1000 soldiers without killing any of them, went??’. 

And his plan for Revolution???? I thought it would be reasonable. But his vision was eerily similar to Danzo’s vision. Grrr..... Danzo also wanted to create his ideal village by destroying the current Hokage. He wanted to unite the Five Village and put himself on top of everyone as evident from the Kage Summit arc. 

I appreciate him that he finally adopted the Will of Fire, by wanting to protect the village at all costs just like Itachi and Hashirama did. But his methods are not very democratic. Plus, he wanted to do it alone. I was screaming at him... ‘Grrr, Sasuke, did you listen to Itachi at all???. He failed because he did everything alone. Why can’t you understand????’ This is also another instance, Sasuke’s stupidity glanced out.

I am happy Naruto knocked some sense into him by telling him not to do it alone but together.

Many fanatics also ask, ‘What did Sasuke do wrong to atone for his sins at the end?’.

I was like ‘Reallly????’

He joined Akatsuki, an organization which terrorized all the 5 villages and he hunted someone like an international criminal.

He spoiled the Kage Summit and attacked Raikage who lost his arm because of him. I know what happened over there is not Sasuke’s fault. But these are the kages who was loved by many people in their own villages. How can the world forget it and simply let him go?

It’s exactly because of all those lovely stuffs he did in Part 1 and all these mistakes he did in Part 2 but willing to correct his mistakes by sharing the burdens of his other half in the end made him more interesting, complicated and exciting and that’s why I love this character.

I also have a personal bias to love this character sooo much because of the character on top of my list.

Best Moments:

Defending Naruto before Sakura (Awww!!! Such a good boy he was. Eventhough I thought he was a typical arrogant K-Drama hero, he just subverted my opinion in that one scene. I always have a thing for people who stands up for someone even though they don’t have to. This is where I started to like Sasuke)

My body moved on its own. (Is there anything that trumps this scene in terms of emotions and love in this series?. This moment is where I understood the depth of Sasuke’s emotions towards Naruto).

What is a Clan? What is a Village? What is a Shinobi? (I was really hoping for Sasuke to question himself something similar to this. Because he was so self-absorbed in his hatred and failed to look outside him ever since he left the village. It was so gratifying that he did that)

Killing Orochimaru (I always thought Sasuke will kill him only after he tries to take over the body. Never imagined that he will strike the snake first)

Killing Danzo (Man, what an amazing battle!!!. It was so gratifying to see such a crass bastard die many times over and over).

His dramatic confession through his monologue (After the mystery of Who is this Tobi, Sasuke’s obsession towards Naruto remained a mystery for me. Why did he listen to Naruto under the bridge? Why did he protected Naruto in the War? I got the answer only after this confession. It was so heartwarming to see this mellow side of Sasuke)

1. Uchiha Itachi

I could write pages about him. The foremost reason I like Itachi and earns the top spot in my rankings is because he shockingly resembled me in many ways. As I already said, I come from a place where clan politics plays a major role and when I see Sasuke’s flashback in part 1, I was simply dumbstruck by such a detailed similarities.

Elder child of the family - ✅

Have an adorable younger sister who loves me more than my parents - ✅

Same age gap (5 years) with my sister as Itachi and Sasuke - ✅

Parents paying total attention on me while ignoring my sister completely - ✅

Parents constantly comparing my achievements with my sister - ✅

A sister who bear hugged me every time I entered the home after returning from my school - ✅

Despite my mom being a teacher, my sister always prefers me to teach her stuffs as she considers me to be way too better than my mom -  ✅

Love my sister more than my parents - ✅

Clan-Obsessed parents - ✅

Used me as a tool for the benefit of the clan - ✅

Sending another person from my clan to spy on me - ✅

Strained relationship with my parents - ✅

Disgusted with my clan - ✅

Most importantly, this dialogue from part 1 episode 129,

Clan? Clan?

Obsessed with the organization, Obsessed with the clan, Obsessed with the name, that’s merely the detestable action that restrict yourself.

I have given up all hope in this worthless clan

Because, people obsess themselves to their clan, a thing so petty, they lose sight of the things that are truly important.

A real change cannot occur under restraints and controls

I confronted my parents with the exact same dialogue (almost 98% similar) in my own native language some years ago. 

I didn’t even know the existence of Naruto series at that time. I was simply shell-shocked by all these similarities with this character. 

And Yes, The moment I heard these dialogues, I knew Itachi, was a good guy, who had a very strong reason for his actions and I instantly knew Sasuke’s revenge will not bear him any happiness. 

It is exactly because of all these striking similarities of myself with Itachi, and my lil’l sister with Sasuke, my family dynamics with the Uchiha family.... I could understand the magnitude of Sasuke’s love towards Itachi. 

And precisely because of that, I could understand Sasuke’s love towards Naruto is not fucking ‘brotherly’ one but something that leans towards Attraction. 

No wonder, Itachi left Sasuke in Naruto’s care. 

Anyways to speak objectively, 

Itachi is an extremely self-sacrificial person whose life is full of pain and miseries but never blames it on the world unlike other Uchiha members like Madara, Obito and Sasuke to an extent.

He did things considering the bigger picture which never benefitted himself in anyway and was willing to go to any extent even at the expense of his own family and his brother’s happiness. That is, Uchiha Clan Massacre and Joining Akatsuki. None of this benefitted him in anyways but he did it anyway, for the village of Konoha. 

His ideals are shockingly similar to Hashirama, Which Sasuke pointed this out and Hashirama acknowledged that Itachi was a better shinobi than he was. ❤️❤️❤️

Now, does this means I support Uchiha clan massacre?

No way. Even Itachi didn’t.

This massacre happened because of the huge clusterfuck from Hiruzen’s incompetence, Danzo’s paranoid arrogance, Uchiha clan’s devious plan to over throw the government by force rather than approaching it in a peaceful way, say, a peace talk or a protest. 

All these people acted on their own self-interest. Itachi and Shisui caught in their whirlpool, bear their burdens and paid for it with their life. Sasuke suffered for it.

But, it’s not the only reason I love this character. It’s because, the moment he decided to massacre everyone, he marked his own death by the hands of his beloved brother. I love people who owns up their mistakes and face the consequences rather than making excuses (even though it’s not entirely his mistake).

Itachi is also the only character in this series who realized his failures on his own without anyone’s interference or Naruto’s Talk-No-Jutsu. 

And he apologized for everything he did to Sasuke.

Again, some hardcore Sasuke fanatics criticize/hate him for torturing their poor ‘Sasuke-Kun’ with his Tsukuyomi. I was like ‘Hmmm...What?’. 

First off, Itachi apologized to Sasuke for not thinking out from his point of view and also for not telling him the truth earlier.

Second off, Sasuke never even blamed Itachi for anything (even he didn’t hold him for killing their parents). If Sasuke himself, forgiven Itachi... Why are his fans being so rabid?

Third off, for all of his supposed ‘crimes’, he paid for it by dying as a disgraceful Madman rather than a Hero who really saved the village. He is someone who should be celebrated like Naruto but instead died proudly as a Traitor of Konoha.

All in all, One of the wonderfully written character I have ever seen in the media. 

Best Moments:

Itachi vs Sasuke (That battle was a pure brilliance and highly emotional especially after knowing the truth. When Sasuke released his Kirin, Itachi showed off his ultimate armour Susanoo like a badass. Seeing Susanoo for the first time gave me chills. No, Sasuke didn’t kill him. Itachi died on his own)

Itachi vs Orochimaru (Man, Itachi may look mellow but when it comes to Orochimaru he is a pure Sass. He screwed that snake up both the times by a wide margin. It seems Uchiha brothers like to fuck up Orochimaru, LOL)

Talk-No-Jutsu’ing Naruto (Geez, Naruto was being completely bratty and was full of saviour complex like he was going to bear everyone’s hatred by himself. I was almost annoyed. Thanks to Itachi, he realised. Probably he is the only character to shut Naruto using his own jutsu)

Izanami’ing Kabuto (Other than Naruto, he is the only character to go out of his way to empathize with a villain and put extreme effort to change him. I think this is why Sasuke loves Naruto, for seeing these similarities??? ).

Goodbye to Sasuke (The first time when he said ‘Forgive me, Sasuke. This is the last’ by poking his forehead and finally closing the distance by butting with Sasuke’s head softly saying ‘I will love you always’.... It always evokes uncontrollable tears in me, no matter how many times I watch it 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭)

HONOURABLE MENTION

Uchiha Obito

God, Am such a sucker for Uchiha guys individually, though collectively as a clan they fucked up big time. I simply couldn’t find the place for him in the top 10. He is a classic example of What Naruto will be like if he becomes a villain?

However, all those horrible stuffs he did just for a girl whom he had a crush on which was never reciprocated seems childish. That’s why I couldn’t put him in Top 10.

And his understandable but weird obsession on Naruto was always enjoyable to watch. 

One cute thing I liked about him was, whatever criminal stuffs he may have done, he was never a cheapskate though. He had every chance to take back Kakashi’s Sharingan to activate his own Susanoo. But he never even thought of such an idea. He was a bad guy. But a good friend, no matter what. 

Pure Baby!!! But lost his way!!!

Best Moments:

Importance of Team Work (’In the ninja world, Those who break the rules are  scum. But those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum’. This very legacy he left to Kakashi came to defeat him later. And Naruto follows this motto even today)

Sacrificing his Sharingan (’I am giving you my Sharingan. No matter what the villagers say, you are a great Jonin. Please take it’. Awww!!! Obito. He left his Sharingan which helped Kakashi to complete a jutsu called ‘Chidori’, which is a go-to jutsu of Sasuke)

Thanks for the ask, anon. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this. ❤️

[tc-doherty]

TC has even MORE WIPs??? Yes.

Because you asked @magefaery

My brain is just story ideas all the way down. Anyway, here are my two brand-new ideas and one that I've been playing with for a while, as well as a tour of my brain and some of the things that I write just for fun.

Putting it under a read more because it got kind of long..........

WIP number 1: a xiania transmigration story where the main character (after dying a fairly early death) wakes up as himself as a kid, the day that he joins his cultivation sect. He’s excited to have the chance to get revenge on the people who caused his death in the first place but things start going different almost immediately. For one thing, he's taken in by a different master. He decides, on a whim, to save the life of his new senior brother who had been kind to him in his first life and had also gotten murdered. He does save him successfully! Only for both of them to die a few weeks later.

And…he wakes up as himself again, on that same first day.

So he gets really stuck in this time loop where every time his senior brother dies, he has to start over (although I might have "save points" throughout the story so he’s not always going back to day one…honestly I haven't decided which I like better yet). Until he finds a way to take down the people who have kept killing them in every lifetime, he won't be able to break them out of the time loop.

Anyway, the subgenre of transmigration where people are reliving their own lives is my absolute favorite and of course I wanted to play with that! But the actual form of the story was inspired by one particular side chapter of 我家大师兄脑子有坑. That chapter was more of an AU along the lines of "LOL wouldn't it be fucked up if this were true" and through my tears I said “yes”. I thought the idea was a lot of fun! I did take mine in a fairly different direction though.

That idea is actually probably close to a year old? These next two ideas are much newer… And by that I mean they're from last week LOL

WIP number 2: about a prince from a relatively large family. He’s actually pretty intelligent and talented at a bunch of things but knows that if his siblings know that it's only going to make them constantly suspicious of him. So he put a lot of work into appearing lazy and/or mediocre at everything that he does. He only has one real friend, who is a member of the royal guard and they hang out sometimes, and the guard also helps him avoid notice from his family. But because he is so "unimportant" he keeps getting used as a political hostage, essentially.

I want him to break out of the royal family and enter the real world, so to speak. I think he's probably going to fake his own death although I haven't decided yet, and I don't know for sure what I want him to do once he gets out. I always start with the characters first and the plot comes later hahahaha

WIP number 3: this is a war drama where the young daughter of a noble or royal family (I haven't decided yet) is given to the general of an enemy army as part of a surrender agreement and at first the general’s just like "cool, free squire" but they end up having a very mother/daughter type relationship.

And here's some older things that I've been playing with for…sometimes a long time? Unsure whether any of these will actually be novels but I do still think about them all.

Two retellings of Swan Lake, one of which is still a tragedy and one of which is extremely me on my bullshit with a lesbian relationship between Odile and Odette from the perspective of Odile. I always thought I should just choose one of them to tell, because clearly I want to tell a version of this story.

A post-apocalyptic fantasy story where the various "royal" families control protected city states while everything outside of them has gone completely to hell and is filled with monsters whose bites/scratches/sting/whatever will pump you absolutely full of twisted wild magic and you either die or turn into one of them. In this universe the main role of knights was killing monsters because they did still need to have contact with other cities and also some supplies only grew in the wild. This one was kind of fun because as much of it as I had written so far was all done without using the letter 'O'. There's no real reason for it, I just thought it sounded fun. The main characters are Elfrieda, a princess who was sent to marry into a different city, and the Knight General Tatiana.

A sort of magical boarding school story where the kids are basically being trained and used as child soldiers. Main characters were Piper and Sunehri who were teenagers at that point and were trying to escape together because Sunehri had been captured and used by the enemy and the leadership of the school was going to execute her for it.

Magical girl story that was actually a "dark" magical girl group and a "light" magical girl group who are set up to act against each other because of a prophecy but, well, a lot of things happen. I just kinda wanted to write a story where the characters associated with the dark were actually kind and welcoming whereas the characters associated with the light were fanatical and overbearing.

I had a political marriage story where the families couldn't agree which son was going to marry which daughter and the daughters got tired of it and decided to get married to each other and that was kind of fun.

And then I have a sort of political one about Lady Liliya who is on the run from political nonsense happening in her own country and ends up finding Etseho who is a "princess" (it has a totally different political situation but I'll use that for now) of the nation that she is currently hiding in. Etseho had given up her political rank after losing her husband and was mostly just really dedicated to killing bandits. The two of them certainly have some times together, Etseho ends up being sort of a mentor to Liliya, and also they fall in love.

I have multiple stories set in the Second Chances universe:

Some of them are interconnected and take place after the main story which are the stories about Bri and Jackson (which has to do with demons and the divine in the far northwest) this also includes Izare and Mahesha's adopted daughter Gailah. Also there's one about Vese and Diego which has to do with happenings in the sort of mid-northwest range. It's farther south than the one above and takes place a little bit afterwards. But the casts of characters do have some connections/interactions.

There is also a story about Yrfan and Tahrir which is the only Second Chances story to take place in the far south of the continent so it doesn't really matter where it falls in the timeline because it has no connection to any of the others. It's basically about Yrfan trying to save the entire region from falling under the control of his abusive ex-boyfriend who is power-hungry and also definitely Not Quite Human anymore.

There's a story about Aubrielle and Taylin & Arvid, Klaus, and Valkan which is just kind of hard to explain? It's basically an AU sequel to an older version of Second Chances which is no longer canon but has a relatively large cast of characters and multiple stories set within it so I still think about it sometimes hahaha

Another one connected to the above is about Daire and Asherah which is kind of very loosely a little mermaid type story? About a sea goddess who kept falling in love with the reincarnation of the same person and eventually decided to give up her divinity so that they could live one mortal lifetime together.

Moving away from Second Chances, there’s Naya's story which is a sort of endlessly repeating mythological cycle where the current incarnation of the spring goddess decides to break everything by willingly becoming the bride of the god of death.

And there's The Heart Of The Sword which was a novel I wrote that was really bad but I still like the characters a lot. The basic premise was that the souls of various heroic weapons had been set aside so that all of these magical weapons could be available again after the apocalypse happened and they were people (similar to Soul Eater). The main characters were the reincarnations of Excalibur and the three Irish lances the Gae Bolg, Gae Assail, and Gae Dearg. Cu Chulainn is my absolute favorite mythological hero after all, it's not like I'm gonna leave his weapon out of something like that LMAO

I also have a story about a knight who became a black knight. She betrayed her kingdom as part of a price she has to pay to a witch who promised to bring her dead lover back to life after the knight had worked for her for a certain amount of time. But you know…witches. Who can trust them? Things don't exactly go the way she thought they would.

I think that that might be everything I have that does not include any of my friends' characters?