#I AM GOING ABSOLUTELY INSANE ABOUT IT

[owtenen]

life series etho is such…. an enigma to me…..

TLDR; ethos strategies in the life series are like a clock, eventually he’s bound to repeat himself. he deserves to be put in a test tube and studied under a microscope

in third life, Etho didn’t really have any true allies. Like sure, he was part of the Dogwarts alliance, and maybe he teamed with Impulse for a bit, but the wool fort was his. he built that and just let Impulse hang around. He wasn’t committed to anyone fully the entire time, and when he died, he died burning at the hands of his supposed ally who was too focused on winning to actually hold up his end of the bargain. (i could on and on about impulse and his poor decisions in third life, but this isn’t about him)

i like to think that because of this, he learned to do better in last life. making strong alliances with those he felt like he could trust, and giving all he had into his relationship (whether you interpreted it as /p or /r) with bdubs. he had team BEST, and he never ever betrayed them for anything, even when bdubs did. he survived because he was carful and he had his friends. he was safe in his fort and he did what he had to do to survive. his other alliances were fleeting, even fake in the case of scar, but he never stopped fighting for BEST, at least until he realized he had to let them go to have a chance at winning.

perhaps he learned from impulse in third life. maybe he realized that alliances really only existed until you had a better chance of winning with someone else. he was still green when the rest of BEST was red or eliminated, and he realized fast that the best way to win would be to stick with the rest of the yellows. he betrayed his true ally’s to win, and in the end it didn’t matter. he allowed Bdubs to die because of his false promises, and he couldn’t even secure the victory.

double life is when everything changed. etho was soul bound to Joel, the man that killed him in Last Life. they hadn’t ever really interacted all that much, but they knew each other by reputation alone. despite considering leaving Joel for Impulse and Bdubs, once he learned that Joel had made them a boat, he was committed to their relationship (again, either /p or /r) until the very end. he burned the entire server down for joel, and he followed him everywhere and protected him at all costs. he betrayed his ally’s in last life and it cost him not only the victory, but also his humanity (!!!!), and i wonder if he promised himself he wouldn’t allow the same thing to happen with Joel.

If the ship burns, everything burns. that’s what joel said when the red wars were raging and the server was crumbling down. etho was prepared to burn again, but this time, he would burn with his ally. it was just too bad that that blinding courage was their downfall.

now we’re on limited life, and you see him doing similar things to what he did in third life. he has ally’s similar to third life, meaning he’s not fully committed to any of them. while officially he is part of team TIES, his (cough… here we go) family commitments to the Clockers are making that quite difficult. he’s playing multiple sides again, but like in third life, he’ll eventually have to pick a side and watch as his ally’s fight for the very last second.

[bamboozled-distress]

it’s currently 2am and I’m trying to go to sleep but all I can remember is that jason todd stole the tires on the Batmobile in crime alley where Bruce’s parents died on the anniversary of their death and then proceeded to hit Bruce with his tire iron and called him a big boob while running away and Bruce laughed, jason made him laugh on the anniversary of his parents death. This is consuming my brain every minute of every day oh my fucking god.

[fallenstarzz]

Thinking many many thoughts about how Jean was Riko's partner for a YEAR and was still rooming with Goon #3. Because that was how unwilling Riko was to let go of Kevin. And how that implies that Jean was placed as his partner both because of the practicality of Kevin being gone AND as a punishment for letting him go in the first place. Being partners with Jean could actually slow Riko down depending on how often he's hurt (because I don't think Riko was all that exempt from the rules to the point where his partner's performance would completely not matter) and he was still placed there. Riko was just THAT angry at him over Kevin's escape. And all the while he was keeping Kevin's side of room like an altar, even back when he didn't even think Kevin could PLAY, because of an injury he caused.

[delta-piscium]

the real reason Steve brings a date to a high school basketball game for a high school he doesn’t even go to anymore is because the one time Nancy went with him the team won and his sports superstitions kicked in and he can’t just risk Lucas losing because of him not having a date, so he will take on the burden and ridicule of being the guy who graduated and drags new dates to games all in the name of not upsetting the delicate intricacies of rituals in sports

[terracyte]

"Crowley’s just— so free, so alive, so vibrant, and he can feel his control on his corporation slipping, can feel dozens of eyes threatening to become visible just for their chance to watch him as well."

for my beloved @smilehoneyy who wrote the sweetest, gorgeous, AMAZING fic so much left unspoken <33 this is one of my favorite moments in the entire fic and i simply. needed to draw it

[mari-lair]

Look at them!!!

Akane got a whole BASKET of videotapes so I bet they'll have a movie night maratton! And Aoi blushing in excitement about a shark movie is so dear to me!

[blazingblorbos]

Phenomenal.

Absolutely phenomenal

Web event releases and literally all it is, is Arlecchino killing 2 (3) men. Congrats. here's your rewards!

I saw a tweet earlier this morning that said

"genshin saw people mad at chiori for throwing a man out of her shop and their honest reaction was making arlecchino kill one in her teaser"

AND I CACKLED SO LOUD so seeing this now, I just had to share it with you all

[homerjacksons]

RIPPER STREET S02E04

[moeblob]

"What's cookin', good lookin'?"

AKA I love how unhinged both Alfred and Bunet are and I want to study their brains.

[trashy-greyjoy]

thinking about sansa being alone at winterfell after the war is over and most of the people she once knew are dead and her family has been scattered away from her yet again. being alone in a place as complicated as it is precious to her.

thinking about her going to the tops of the walls she once leapt from with theon or passing the hall where she had briefly clung onto him or sitting in the spot in the godswood where he drew his final breath, and just talking to him. when everyone else is gone and the nightmares creep in and she can still feel the grief of him and his understanding of that exact pain... she sits with his ghost and laughs and cries and simply talks to him like he's sat across from her listening.

and he is.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

the picnic table scene

[mutantfactor]

Immortal Samsara

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

what would megumi’s life have been if he was actually raised by the zenin from day one? like either gojo lost the custody battle or they were able to scoop him up before gojo ever reached them. i doubt they would want to keep tsumiki with them so she’s not there for little baby megs.

i think it would be really cool to see a zenin raised megumi interacting with his fellow classmates when he attends the school, not to mention the contrast between him and gojo. like on paper they both should have gotten the same treatment-being pampered and spoiled rotten but we also know that the zenin think that hurting little kids makes them stronger so it would be super interesting to see megumi realise that the stuff that happened to him wasn’t normal and for gojo to have a guilt trip bc he wasn’t able to help megumi when he needed someone to help him the most.

So I have a fanfic that I’ve half written (no idea if I’ll ever finish it—I’d love to, it’s just hard to find the time) about EXACTLY THAT that I talked about in this post for an ask game.

That being said, that entire thing happens from Tsumiki’s perspective, and I agree with you—I don’t think the Zenin would have ever actually taken her too. They don’t want her. She’s not Zenin. She’s not a sorcerer. They only bought Megumi. For the most part, Megumi is absent from that post, and you asked about Megumi. So this is what I think would happen on Megumi's side of that post I linked.

It comes down to two things:

1. He is never, ever happy with the Zenin.

2. He never lets go of his sister.

Megumi’s old enough to remember Tsumiki when the Zenin take him away. He's old enough to love her. And I think that Megumi loves very quietly, but he also loves very violently. He wouldn't let his sister hold his hand on the walk to school, but he would sacrifice himself for her future.

I think the Zenin took him from his sister, and I think he kicked and screamed and wasn't strong enough. I think they thought he would forget her eventually.

And then I think he bit most of the Zenin Clan.

At the end of the day, what Megumi wanted was the one thing the Zenin were not willing to give him. They were never like the Gojo clan, they were never going to pamper him, but there are a great many things in this world that they would give the Ten Shadows finally returned to them. But they would not give him a non-sorcerer, non-Zenin sister who would only be a weakness to him. They refused to let him have any contact with his sister, and that was the source of a lot of what soured.

Any Megumi that was taken in by the Zenin would have been taken in to Naobito's household directly. He would be announced as the one who finally inherited their most cherished technique, and he would be declared heir, and the Zenin would call him beloved for it.

They would keep him in a room that was large and empty and almost always dark, and he wouldn't be allowed to decide when he slept or woke, and the door would always be locked from the outside. They would give him a wardrobe of expensive clothes that he hated, and he would never get to pick which of them he wore.

Megumi would hate them. He would hate all of them.

He's just not the type to be comfortable with or enjoy the adoration of others--especially when it's not backed up by genuine love. Megumi is someone who very much values sincerity and depth to emotion--it's one of the reasons why he seems to respect Yuuji so much. Yuuji is a good person who follows through with what he says. He's not just going to talk about wanting to save people--he's there making the sacrifices as he does it.

The Zenin do not actually love him. And he knows it. He's experienced love before, and this isn't it.

They love the idea of him. The fantasy of him that lives in their heads. He has no interest in being their little god prince to contend with the Gojo's own. He knows who he is, and it's not this. He wants to go home. He wants to find his sister again. He doesn't want to do this anymore.

And I think that's a feeling Megumi never escape: he just didn't want to do this anymore.

Megumi would feel like a bug pinned beneath glass in the Zenin compound. He would constantly have people managing him--when he ate, what he ate, what he wore, when he slept, when he woke, when he trained, what he did. Having to become a jujutsu sorcerer signified an inherent loss of control, but it's nothing compared to the sheer objectification that he goes through when the Zenin have exclusive control over him.

He has no power of what clothes he wears. How his hair is styled. His schedule, his diet, the people he speaks too--he's suffocating and the Zenin are just increasing pressure on him.

I don't think Gojo ever thought that would be Megumi's life.

We’re gonna just have this imagining exist in the same world as the Tsumiki centric fic described in the linked post, and in that, the reason why Gojo never took him in was because he didn’t know Megumi had a sister. He showed up, saw the divine dogs, realized Megumi had the Ten Shadows, and decided he couldn’t do this. He was a mess. He was grieving Suguru and Haibara. Megumi looked just like the man who killed Riko, and apparently inherited the fucking Ten Shadows of all the goddamn things. The Zenin would lose their shit, and Gojo didn’t have the energy to fight and told himself he didn’t need to, because if Megumi was the Ten Shadows he’d be cared for like a prince with the Zenin. He turned around and left and spent the rest of his life with Megumi in the back of his mind, always nagging him with whether he made the right decision. It wasn’t until Maki got there and made a few worrisome references to Megumi's standard of living that he started to really worry that he had made the wrong one, and it wasn't until he found out about Tsumiki that he knew it was the wrong decision.

It's like this: The Zenin hurt Megumi in every world.

It would be bad no matter what, but it really gets bad because Megumi refuses to stop trying to get back to Tsumiki. She's his sister. They didn't have anyone or anything in this world, but they had each other, and he couldn't let these people just take her away. He’s feral about it. He refuses to fit the mold they keep trying to cram him in. He’s trying to scale the walls to escape. He’s increasingly desperate and angry and the Zenin are getting more and more frustrated the longer he fights them. He’s the heir to the clan, and he can’t stop trying to leave it to get back to some random girl who isn’t his real sister and isn’t someone they’ll ever allow him to have.

It gets bad.

They put him under increasingly strict levels of control. He’s constantly being trained, which means he's constantly being hurt. He’s not allowed to speak to anyone without the clan head’s approval. He is under absolutely constant guard after he manages to get over the wall and halfway to his old neighborhood before they catch him again. Tsumiki’s name is not allowed to be said aloud, or his old name. He forgets his name used to be Fushiguro, but he doesn’t forget Tsumiki. He doesn’t let himself.

I think it escalates until it hits a breaking point. Megumi becomes increasingly self-destructive and non-responsive to everything they try. They push him to extremes that start risking permanent damage.

I think Megumi would try to hurt himself, eventually.

He wouldn't be in his right mind. He's in the most shit situation possible. He's undergoing pretty severe abuse. He'd be at the end of his rope from the lack of control over his own life, and he'd be spiteful as hell towards the Zenin. And the only thing he has to hurt them with is himself.

As a character, Megumi has always considered his own sacrifice as an acceptable means to the end of getting back at someone. Mahoraga, intrinsically, requires him killing himself as a way of killing someone else. He'd hurt himself if it was the only way he had of hurting them.

Naobito would cover it up. He'd never, ever want the rest of the clan to find out that it happened. It was already bad enough that Megumi openly hated them--he couldn't have the Zenin seeing any vulnerability in what was meant to be their most powerful member. He'd put Megumi in total lockdown until he could make it all go away.

Then they'd make a deal.

A binding vow. Megumi could never purposefully hurt himself again. He could never again try to leverage his own safety against the clan.

And in exchange, Tsumiki would be taken care of.

The last time Megumi saw his sister, she was on a sinking ship. They were running out of food, money, options--he doesn't know if she even has food anymore. He doesn't know if she lost the apartment or if there's still running water.

They're not letting him see her. But they are letting him take care of her. He can sacrifice another piece of control over himself, and she'll never have to worry about money again. They'll pay for her housing, her food, her education, for her every desire for as long as she lives. The trust the Zenin set up for her will be a generous one, and it will be managed meticulously by a trustee who can make sure she'll be provided for until she's old and grey. And Naobito will vow to never hurt her or send someone else to hurt her. She'll be safe. She'll be taken care of.

Megumi makes the deal.

In the end, the deal's what sort of breaks him.

Because he doesn't promise to stop looking for her, but the Zenin manage to make it a part of the terms anyway. When they approach Tsumiki's mother with the offer to be her family's beneficiary, they include a requirement that Tsumiki be moved to another city entirely with no forwarding address given. She needs to be somewhere that Megumi can never find her again.

The Zenin keep the old apartment. They pay the rent every month. And the next time Megumi manages to make it off compound, they let him make it all the way there before dragging him home. They let him see the empty apartment with all its empty rooms.

Naobito wants him to know that Tsumiki's gone. He wants him to know that he'll never find her again.

He tries to run a few more times after that, but he never makes it very far. He doesn't have anywhere to go.

In the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki, just once. She's on a class trip. He's on one of his very few and far between allowed excursions off the compound grounds, and he sees her in the crowd and recognizes her, and he ducks away from his escort before anyone can stop him.

She remembers him. He didn't think she would do that.

She tries to save him. He didn't think she would do that either.

She still loves him. And he was always too afraid to hope she would do that.

It goes the same way it did the first time. There's a car, and the Zenin shove him in it. She's on the outside, and he's trapped within, and he wishes she didn't scream so loudly when it happens. The sound never seems to leave his dreams.

His sister still loves him. Naoya hits him in the back of the head. He wakes up, and it was like she was never there at all.

But they hit him harder, after. Like they're trying to beat the memory of her out of him. He has even less freedom, when he already had next to none at all.

But he still has a sister. He has a place to go that isn't here. He just has to figure out where that is.

He wouldn't really have anyone in the Zenin clan. Most people are just... weird about him. Naoya's violently abusive. Naobito's weird and violently abusive. Everyone wants him to be someone he's not.

Maki would be his favorite.

He doesn't care about whether she's got cursed energy--his sister didn't have any. And she's obviously strong. She doesn't treat him like a divine blessing or try to force him to act a certain way. I think they would have genuinely liked each other, but kept each other at a distance. They're both trapped in an abusive situation and keep themselves safe by keeping everyone else at arm's length.

He would have been happy to see her get out, though. He would have told her that she could have his spot as heir or head or whatever when she came back if she wanted it. She would have told him that if he ever got out... well, fuck it. They could be something then. Family. Whatever the fuck they weren't allowed to be here.

She would have told him she's sorry, and she would have meant it. The only one she she regretted more than Megumi was Maki. He would have told her not to be, that if she dared to be sorry for getting out that he would never forgive her, and he would have meant that too.

I think his relationship with his own techinque would be very different in a world where the Zenin raised him. In canon, his issue is that he doesn't view himself as someone who could be powerful or win in the long run, but in this world, all he ever hears is how powerful he is. Pride of the fucking Zenin. The most powerful of them in centuries. Meant to rival Gojo fucking Satoru himself.

I think his real issue would be controlling it.

His technique would be a source of negative associations for him. It's the reason why the Zenin took him away. Most of his interactions with it have involved getting beaten and hurt by either his family or a high-level curse they shoved him in front of. I think he'd have a lot more firepower under his belt than at the start of canon, but he'd have less of a fine tuned control over it.

He lost control over his own life because of his shadows. It think that would manifest in struggling to control his own shikigami at times. he's not as in-sync with them as he is in canon.

Eventually, he'd go to Jujutsu High. He would be the only one in the first year class at the beginning, just like in canon. And he'd finally meet Gojo Satoru, the man he's supposed to topple.

He looks at Megumi really goddamn weird.

He's... enthusiastic. About. Teaching. He guesses. And constantly asking prying questions about the Zenin, but not in the sort of way he'd expect from a rival. In the sort of way he'd expect from someone concerned about him. Which is stupid. And annoying. And weird. He keeps a distance from everyone. They've all heard about the Zenin clan heir, and he has no interest in having to fit or break whatever mold they've already cast him in. He's better off on his own.

Maki's there. She's cordial where other people can see it, and in private, she takes care of him in a way that's terrifyingly close to familial. He's not sure if he likes it. He's not Mai, and she's not Tsumiki, and they both want someone they can't have.

She isn't sorry she left. She is sorry she left him. He can hate her for it all he goddamn pleases.

Of course, if this is in the same world as the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki again. He finds her in Sendai.

He gets to keep her, this time.

Gojo Satoru, of all the goddamn people, intervenes and becomes his sister's benefactor. It's super fucking weird. He won't stop looking at Megumi strangely. He won't stop insisting that he didn't know he had a sister, like that matters.

That would sort of be the first time in a long time that life actually gets better for Megumi.

I think he would ask to go by Fushiguro again, once he asks Tsumiki what his name used to be. He'd ask her if she minded it, him taking the name again, and he'd ask the rest of the school to call him Fushiguro instead of Zenin.

Predictably enough, Naobito loses his shit when he finds out, but it's not nearly as big of a pain in the ass as he thinks it is? Because Gojo intervenes.

Gojo keeps intervening.

It drives Megumi nuts, because if anyone was supposed to hate him, it was this guy. If anyone was supposed to be against him, it was this guy. This is the guy he was supposed to rival. This is the guy who killed his shitheel bio dad.

Gojo's just... good to him. He keeps him safe. He keeps him safe from his own goddamn family, and that's--no one's ever done that. No one's ever protected him from the Zenin.

The Zenin try to remove him from the Tokyo campus and move him to Kyoto the second they find out Tsumiki's there, and Gojo just... says no. It causes an uproar, and he doesn't fucking budge. It's treading dangerously close to him kidnapping the Zenin clan heir, his refusal to let them remove him from the Tokyo campus, and he doesn't care about whatever problems it causes him.

Megumi's his student. He doesn't want to leave. So Gojo won't let them take him.

He personally goes to Kyoto and collects him, the one time the Zenin force him into a car and move him when Gojo's off on a mission. He tells the higher ups to get fucked. He changes Megumi's student I.D. to read Fushiguro, and he causes problems for Yaga and the assistants until they start calling him Fushiguro as well.

Megumi's different with the other students once his sister is there.

He's more connected with them. He becomes best friends with Kugisaki and Itadori. He gets closer with the second years. He's visibly happier, and it sort of casts in sharp contrast how unhappy he was before this.

And Gojo? Gojo's so goddamn sorry. He didn't know megumi had a sister.

The thing is that now that both Tsumiki and Megumi are on campus, it sort of haunts Gojo with what could have been. They're both fantastic kids--funny, smart, resourceful. And it's painful watching them try to rebuild what was taken from them. And it could have just. never happened. Because he could have saved them both. He could have been their family.

It's sort of painfully obvious the Zenin abused Megumi, and it fucking haunts him. He doesn't even have to read into Megumi's behavior--he sees it happen, right in front of him, with how they try to control him and push him around. He wants to kill them for it. He wants to hate himself for it. He could have saved Megumi and he just. He didn't.

He wishes he did.

[wexhappyxfew]

Also! 29 on OTP dialogue for Annie and Brady?

HI JAMIEEEE!!! thank you so much for this other prompt as well!!! sorry it took a bit to get to! :) i must say, this idea swirled in my head for a bit and then, when i felt things in writing were finally going the way i wanted them to, i felt ready to post this!! thank you again!!!! :D

a little while longer

(a/n): for the annie x brady girlies, with a mix of angst and fluff all at once!!! to say the least, these two have my whole heart and just !!!!!! there was an anon awhile back talking about brady freaking out if he ever saw annie injured or wounded in the slightest way - and well....here ya go! prompt: don't lie to me. i was there.

The soup was probably the best thing she could've had in that moment - despite what little warmth this place provided, the soup was sure to give her enough strength to keep her going. She'd been up most of the night with a nasty, wheezing cough, her nose running and her throat sore as all get-out. Now, with her stomach feeling sour, nose run red from the amount of times she'd wiped it, she felt like she'd been drug behind a truck and tried standing again. But, for now, this little bowl of soup was making her incredibly happy.

Annie looked up and towards where Brady was, sat taking up spoonful after spoonful of soup himself, getting every last bit her possibly could. She had to admit, she was worried about him more often than not - because he spent the majority of his time worrying about her, especially in the past few days. So seeing him eat his fill and focus on himself, settled her for the time being.

"Guys. Guys!" yelling started down the hallway, along with a banging all along the wooden walls of this sad excuse for barracks. Annie met Buck's eyes from beside her at the table and watched as everyone in the tiny bunk room looked towards the doorway to find Benny DeMarco racing in, eyes wide and bloodshot as he made an attempt to catch his breath.

"What is it, Benny?" Bucky said, pushing up from where he leaned against a bunk, forgetting about his soup and focused on the rather frantic nature of Benny there in front of them. Benny took a minute to catch his breath and then pointed outside.

"They got a new group comin' in. Margie may be in that group. We gotta go look." he said quickly, before disappearing again out the door. Annie watched that now-empty doorway and slowly turned to meet Kennedy and Bessie's eyes - there was something unspoken between the three of them that the boys hadn't entirely clued into or focused on. But coming in as a woman was one thing; having survived that level of interrogation was another.

Margie had to.

She had to be in that group.

She was more hopeful than half of them combined.

"Let's go." Annie said, moving to her feet, buttoning her coat and wrapped that scarf around her neck, "C'mon." She was the first out the door, hurrying down the hall, a few echoing footsteps behind her as she pushed outside and attempted to seek out Benny in the crowd. She caught sight of his beanie, and began, rather slowly, moving through the open area towards the gates.

As she got closer, she watched, as if in shaky, frantic real-time capture, as Benny moved along the fence, yelling out, over and over again, before tearing around the edge of the wiring and disappearing into the crowd.

Annie felt her face grow cold and stoic, her shoulders pressed high, her chin pointed up. Her heart pounded as she turned around the edge of the gate and found Benny there on the ground, pulling a rather fragile looking, collapsed, corpse of Margie Harlowe on the ground, her face bloodied, her clothing practically hanging off of her form, and her one shoulder looking twisted in all the wrong places. Then, standing over them, was whom she could only assume as one of the German soldiers who had been begrudgingly dragging Margie along.

This was one of her girls, her flight engineer; bright, sunny Margie, with that beautiful blonde hair that was now all haphazard angles around her shoulders, bright blue eyes that were red and filled with tears and beautiful rosy cheeks that were scarred and bloodied.

Annie slowly looked up at the German who stood silent and still, overtop where Margie was half alive in Benny's arms, her cries weak and pained, Benny's comfort only doing so much to erase the pain of reality.

Annie couldn't take it anymore.

She took three, wide steps forward right into the German's face, without much thought for her own self and stared up at him, her body rigid, her eyes narrowed.

"She's already half-dead," Annie practically spat out, "did you really have to drag her in the dirt like a dying dog!" Any sort of celebration and welcoming immediately went quiet as people turned to look at the female lieutenant who was currently losing it on one of the Germans. Annie's throat tightened.

"How can you just stand there!" Annie managed out again, but she knew she had messed up long before she even had opened her mouth. She should've stayed with her soup, let Benny handle all this. But she couldn't. This was one of her girls, this was Margie Harlowe.

Without warning, the German had grabbed her by the shoulders and swung her around him right into the dirt, her body hitting the ground with a rough whimper, her eyes closing at the pain shooting through her body.

"Annie, don't," came Margie's quiet cry.

"Don't touch her." Benny said, his voice drowned out by the sudden kick of the German's booted foot into Annie's side. She curled into a ball with a strangled cry, tears squeaking out of her eyes, her body begging for some sort of reprieve that wasn't this.

When the German had stepped away, angrily spitting down on her, she heard yelling and a commotion somewhere behind her, which was enough to make her sit up, weakly at that, looking past Benny and Margie in his arms and a few stragglers hanging about.

There, just past them, was Brady, screaming and yelling, being held back by Bucky and Murphy as best as they could hold him, Brady's eyes dead set on the German officer who walked away casually and calmly. Annie turned her quivering eyes to Brady again and watched as he broke free of the bodies holding him back and stomped across the open bit of land, taking his hands on the front of the Germans uniform and slamming him against the rusty wiring, yelling, over and over.

"Don't you dare fucking touch her again!" Brady yelled, his voice sounding like a wild animal's, guttural and raw, as the German yelled back, "Don't lie to me. I was there! I saw you hit her! Don't touch her again!" It didn't take long for the German officer to yell something in German, before swinging at Brady, sending him to the ground.

The brawl turned into a power struggle, the German kicking and punching Brady there on the ground, Brady all but weakened and defenseless. Finally, the two were separated and bodies were left behind and the few groupings that had been out were left behind by the Germans, only watched by guards in the towers. Annie watched as Bucky helped Brady to his feet, Brady struggling to find his footing, before ignoring any possible help, as he ambled over to Annie.

"Annie." he managed out, his voice sounding weak as he collapsed on the ground beside her, his hands reaching forward - he was always reaching for her, they always were with one another - and placing themselves against her cheeks, his thumbs rubbing in circles, "He should've never have hit you. I swear to fucking-"

"John." Annie whispered, slowly bringing her hands to his own cheeks, "You've gotta calm down."

"Not when they hit you, Annie. He did it because he-"

"John." she managed out again, "I'm okay. It's…..Margie." Brady watched her and some sort of realization seemed to hit him. He knew how important the women of Silver Bullets were to her, beyond anything, beyond even herself.

Slowly, the two looked over to Margie there, wrapped in Benny's arms, those tears running down her bloodied cheeks, grasping onto Benny like it was her lifeline. Annie managed to pull herself to her feet, Brady beside her, their hands linking to one another for some sort of support, before she fell to the ground in front of Benny and Margie, her hands shaking as she reached forward. Margie flinched at Annie's touch, her eyes immediately welling with tears - what could they have done to you?

"Hey, Margie, it's me." Annie whispered, reaching her hand forward and softly cupping the girl's cheek, brushing her thumb over her pink, wounded skin, "You're okay." Margie looked up at her with those water-filled blue eyes and let out a croaky cry, reaching up a free hand to lay gently against Annie's hand and nodded.

"I can't believe….I found…you all." Margie managed out, "Benny saw me first……I didn't want anyone to get hurt." Benny let out a quiet, wet laugh, as if holding in any tears he was trying not to shed. Annie looked to Brady, whose face had grown soft and gentle. Brady watched Annie, his face full of love and adoration, that same look she'd gotten the privilege of seeing anytime he watched her.

"You didn't have to go beat up any Germans, Brady." Margie managed out, her hand still grasping Annie's tightly, "You're too kind." The three of them laughed again at Margie's words, before Annie's eyes filled with tears and Margie seemed to notice.

"Don't cry, Bradshaw, I'm still here." Margie said softly, "Look at me."

"I thought you were dead," Annie managed out, her throat filled with emotion, "I should've looked for you….tried to get you to safety-"

"Don't go saying that, Bradshaw," Margie managed out, before letting out a wet, rattling cough, "I got to see Brady beat up a German for a bit. It was worth it."

"I promise it felt just as good as it looked." Brady said quietly.

"Don't give yourself that much credit." Benny offered and the group fell into small bits of laughter again.

By the time they'd gotten Margie up and in the comforting arms of Benny and Bucky who had come racing over like a bat out of hell, Annie had turned to Brady, looking at him bathed in cold sunshine, his face more stressed and sunken in these days, but still the Brady from that first day on base. They watched one another and she smiled slightly, reaching up to run a finger beside the cut near his eyebrow.

"Let me help you dress that," she whispered quietly, her hand cradling his cheek, as he watched her, "thank you for doing that." Brady clenched his jaw.

"He shouldn't have even touched you."

"I shouldn't have gotten in his face. I shouldn't have said a word-"

"You did the right thing, Annie, I know that. They gotta have a little humanity in this place."

"There's barely an ounce of that here." she whispered, voice sorrowful and sad. Brady watched her, before bringing up a hand to clasp around her one against his cheek. For a second, it looked like Brady was going to say something else, but he bit his tongue and continued to watch her instead.

"Does your chest hurt?" he whispered to her, "I'll help you wrap it. I'll scrounge some bandage."

"Only a little," she whispered back, "I'm more worried about your chest. He hit you pretty hard." Brady smiled softly at her and stepped forward, cradling her face in his hands, his beautiful eyes on her own.

"Let me take care of you." he whispered to her, "Let me hold you, just a little while longer." Annie stared up at him and flitted her eyes across his face and lips, before settling on that scar again.

"Only if you let me wrap up your chest." she whispered back to him.

"Only if I can wrap yours." he said back. She stared at him and then smiled softly, nodding, "Is it tender?"

"I'll be okay." she whispered, "You know that."

"I know." Brady whispered, "Sometimes I just….." Annie watched him, her big eyes holding him in her gaze, watching as he watched her back, their emotions hitting a head.

"What?" Annie asked quietly, her voice hidden it felt by the sweeping winds this place had. Brady couldn't get his eyes off her it felt, and like it were the most delicate thing in the world, he pulled her into his arms, probably the warmest hug she'd had since arriving here, and stayed like that. Her heart raced in his embrace and as he pulled back, she looked up into his face right in front of her and licked her lips. The corner of his mouth lifted upwards and she felt her body shiver. Something pulled her closer, she wanted to be closer than they already had been.

"Hey!" Brady and Annie seemed to bounce apart, and they turned to find Bucky walking closer, all smug, hands in his pockets, "We're gonna get Margie comfortable."

"Right." Annie said, stepping back and smoothing out her normally, crumpled clothes, catching Brady's eyes for a second and then pushing her hair behind her ears, "Let's go." She hurried away, towards where Benny was still walking with Margie, as Bucky came to Brady's side. Brady stared at Bucky, who smirked and clapped his shoulder.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing," Bucky said, "quite the dragon slayer though, huh."

"Shut up."

"You tell her yet?"

"Shut up, Bucky."

[herestoburiedsecrets]

There are so many incredible scenes in Ghosts but one that always gets to me is the scene from 3x3 when Thomas is standing with Alison in the morning and saying his whole ‘tis no fault of the sun if the eye sees not it’s beauty’ speech because it truly encapsulates this gorgeous, tender moment of acknowledging the beauty in the mundane. Being stuck in a house for centuries is obviously very difficult but there is so much beauty in watching the sun rise every morning and the leaves change colour and the birds fly about. It’s the Captain and his insects, it’s Robin and his mouse family, it’s a day of Mary’s life being Pat’s perfect holiday, and it’s Thomas being transported by a sunrise he has seen a thousand times. Life and nature is so breathtakingly beautiful and I love how much the show illustrates the value of the mundane cycles of life.

[shima-draws]

So my roommate is also into One Piece. I’m not sure if he’s watched any of the anime, I know for sure he’s watched the live action, but earlier tonight he came upstairs and watched a few episodes with me while waiting for a food delivery, and then he got hooked, and then he sat and watched MORE episodes with me without really knowing what was going on. But it was still wildly entertaining to him, esp since I’m right in the middle of one of the (arguably) best arcs rn, and now he wants to finish the arc with me LOL. NOBODY is immune to One Piece propaganda. Or Bon-chan 🥰