#he's not hiding all the time anymore! he's grown and learned to use coping mechanisms in healthier ways!

[colourstreakgryffin]

Yandere! Romantic! KNY Kyojuro Rengoku Headcanons

I sadly couldn’t find a pic that showed off his katana more but here we go anyway, Here comes the man of fire himself to traumatise all of us!🔥😍

Kyojuro as a romantic Yandere has the Yandere traits of; Overprotective, Manipulative, Loving/Clingy, Delusional, Possessive, Sadistic, Controlling and Obliviously Passive-Aggressive

In all honesty. Yandere Kyojuro is 1,000,000% one of, if not, the most scary Yandere Hashira of them all. Whilst every other Hashira are openly twisted and it is scary, Kyojuro is f**king TERRIFYING for his twisted nature fusing with that unbreaking cheerful expression of his

He smiles nonstop, even whilst gutting demons or passive-aggressively persisting that the Flame Estate is your new home with very little care over your obvious pain and a truly insane look in his flame-like eyes. He is cruel but doesn’t realise it as his vision is blurred with delusion

Kyojuro actually wasn’t Yandere straight away. He did fall in love with you in a instant, he couldn’t help it but for quite some time, Kyojuro was very normal, he treated you as he does all his fellow Hashira and he valued you as a dear friend

But, the longer he spent getting to know you, learning about the things you’d share with him. His love blossomed into an health-damaging obsession and torn apart almost everything of his perceptions. Are the people around him even his friends or are they bigger threats then demons for trying to steal away your eyes? He doesn’t know anymore. Kyojuro has grown extremely fixated on you, he became desperate to keep you at the Flame Estate for longer and eventually begun manipulating you to keep you cupped in his palms

After Kyojuro’s obsession with you has refined and been burnt into his head, he realises that he must hide it from you to ensure he wont lose his chance and he continues pretending to be the goofy, loveable Kyojuro you’re use to. But behind your back, he’s stealing your belongings, he’s going through your clothes to obsess over your scent or he’s taking peaks at your personal letters

He doesn’t want to hurt you at all, nor does he want to hurt anybody. Sharing this Yandere trait with Mitsuri, Kyojuro much prefers to intimidate, blackmail or scare away the threats(just like Mitsuri) if they’re human then raise his blade unnecessarily. However, for demons, he gladly kills and laughs hysterically at the remains turning to ash, so much that you think he’s going mad

His usually heroic mind is twisting and crumbling into pieces so quickly every second his obsession with you is enabled by you enjoying his presence

Yep. Kyojuro stalks you almost all the time, in and out of public. Though, it’s harder for him, due to his incredible but very noticeable fire-like features but he knows the way around your Estate off heart like he knows the carvings of his katana so he isn’t worried about getting caught at all

Kyojuro manipulates you very subtly in all ways to keep you in line. Emotionally, he’ll whine and cry so you feel bad. Mentally, he’ll twist your words until you believe what you know is incorrect. By the time Kyojuro is finished meddling with your head, you’ll have no choice but to trust him blindly. Though, you want to be as far as physically possible from him

As he’s very unpredictable therefore, very dangerous. He isn’t above punishing you and the way he looks at you with a deranged lovesick glare, you won’t even try test your limits with him anymore. It’s not worth losing a limb or even your life over

Like pretty much every other Yandere Hashira, Kyojuro is scarily possessive and delusional. He loves you so much that he will guard you from everybody when he sees fit and chase away all the annoyances but worse, he’s tricked himself into living in the fantasy where you also like him beyond friendship and that you’re just waiting for him to sweep you off your feet

As a coping mechanism to any lash-outs aimed at him. Kyojuro laughs, he laughs to keep himself steady, he laughs to keep himself from potentially laying his hands on you. He does have quite the powerful will but his mental health is weak to all the soft voices whispering to him. Lucky for him, nobody knows of his worsening state, nor even you for a long time as Kyojuro is extremely good at hiding his footprints

Your life has the upmost value to Kyojuro so he will gladly go down dying to protect you. Overprotective should be his new first and last name as he removes you from everyday conversations with kind strangers and even fellow Hashira. The danger of this world is off the chart and nobody can be trusted

Sharing this Yandere trait with Shinobu, Kyojuro is very split-faced and goes between his Yandere self and his normal self like a flipswitch whilst the other Hashira turn into their Yandere self permanently after a while of being their normal self. Kyojuro, however, is worse at hiding his Yandere nature than Shinobu, though, he values hiding it to better increase his chances of winning your heart naturally whilst Shinobu hides it as a means to manipulate

And when I mean he hides his Yandere self, I mean that he actively holds in rage and jealousy whilst you’re around, he doesn’t attack people unless he’s in proper privacy, he doesn’t really kidnap you but that he convinces you to stay at his Estate

Which is what he believes. Kyojuro will kidnap you eventually but also like Mitsuri, he leaves kidnapping as a last ditch effort and wants to charm you on his own. Why should he force your hand when he can win it?

Kyojuro’s quite obsessive and clingy over his beloved love interest. You belong to him and only him! He doesn’t want anybody talking to you and his blood boils when people dare to compliment you out of the blue. Yes, you are beautiful in that kimono but nobody has the right to say that but him!

On the inside, Kyojuro is like; “I swear to all the gods above, I will spill your disgusting intestines and watch your worthless life drain from your hideous eyes, how dare you lay a single filthy finger on my lovely Dokusha, you worthless flabby sack of sh—“

But on the outside, Kyojuro is like; “Excuse me. I do not mean to be rude by interrupting this important discussion but you see, Dokusha is my girlfriend and I don’t appreciate you trying to make a move on her. Please leave her be”

Going out in public post-kidnap consists of a passive-aggressive Kyojuro preventing you from communicating with anybody and clinging onto you so hard, you feel like your lungs are collapsing from how tight he hugs. He won’t break you, but he squeezes you into him every single second that it seems he wants to absorb you

Since Senjuro and Shinjuro also live in the Flame Estate, Kyojuro had to sneak you in when he finally kidnapped you and has been hiding you away from them ever since. If either his little brother or father found out about you, it’ll be all over. He won’t be able to see you again and he knows he’d snap

Would Kyojuro kill his father if the older man mistreated you and threatened you with violence upon Kyojuro bringing you to meet him? It’d be a horrible situation with Shinjuro. Kyojuro has extreme RAGE bottled up as his father screams at you to leave his house. If Kyojuro really had no self-control, he would have killed his father on the spot but he won’t, he still loves him. He just gets so furious that he must leave to vent the rising pit of fury

Kyojuro is very controlling. Not so surprisingly, he has been taking charge of your entire life by stripping you off your independence and replacing it with him in firm belief that it’ll protect you. He chooses everything for you and chimes out your protests. To him, it’s for your own good

Kyojuro is Sadistic at times… or better yet, he’s unaware of how sadistic he comes off as. Like I said before, Kyojuro is a bit cruel with his treatment of you so that combines. When he has you in his Estate against your will, he chains you up in his basement and leaves you alone at night in that cold, dark place. However, the more horrible part is when you fight back, he begins the inhumane punishments

He’s only hurting you because he loves you. You were misbehaving when you knocked him out briefly with that broom so now, he has to hit you back just as hard so you understand the pain he felt

Kyojuro is a massive affection lover. He lives off giving kisses, giving hugs and so many more gestures. His forced relationship with you is romantic, he wants you as his wife so of course, he redirects all the love his flaming heart has to you. He’ll over-take care of you and pour you in gifts, treats and his warm embraces!

Kyojuro is one of the two Yandere Hashira who strives to have children with you at the world’s current state, instead of after. The only other is Tengen. He’ll make you pregnant as soon as possible so he can begin living out his favourite fantasy; a perfect, happy little family

He’ll never get angry-angry at you nor lose his tolerance enough to be… well, overly-abusive. He loves you too much and each time he must punish you hurts him unbearably. He views the occasional half-beatings as necessary punishment and always sprinkles loving aftercare when finished

The cuts, the bruises and the fracture or two he gave you. All of them will be kissed away as if they never existed

Kyojuro carves you to enjoy your new life in his Estate, he wants you to love the peaceful atmosphere and will shape it at all causes to see you smile sincerely. Want a pet cat? Kyojuro has a box of ten kittens for you! He will bend over backwards happily so you’ll stop fighting back, stop crying

Though, it doesn’t matter how he acts or what he does to cover up his split-face. The real Kyojuro will never return, he’s gone for good and the monster in place of the sweet excitable Flame Hashira you DID have a crush on, is an obsessed psychotic beast that is twenty times worse than any demon out there.

“Good morning, my gorgeous bell! First night out of the basement! Felt wonderful to sleep in a futon again, didn’t it? I imagine you were most happy to sleep with me! I give the best hugs as Senjuro says! You enjoyed your night with me, I know you did! And trust me, there will be a lot more!”

[orandoggo]

Screw it, Asra and Muriel HCs time

Note that I played their routes like forever ago so I'm kinda going off of vibes here /lh

That and just personal HCs for them sillies. Quick warning that Muriel's might be a little sad?

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

Asra:

Probably ace/within the acespec, definitely nonbinary

Will literally not care whatever gender you identify as, they'll happily and quickly learn new pronouns for you, just know that they are extremely queer over you no matter what

Hits the zaza. Does apothecary so you can't convince me that they don't know which stuff goes best with flavored zaza. Happily shares with you

Has a tendency to runaway from things, but ever since you came back into their life, they started to not do that as much anymore because they wanna be there for you. For real this time

Super open to otherkin. If the Arcana exists, otherkin exists like seriously

Loves stargazing and astrology (haha Asralogy), can and will infodump about starts to you when given the chance

Spaces out when deep in thought, literally goes into another world but it's cute tbh. Kissing them on the cheek snaps them out of it

LOVES kisses, they also really like it when you hold their face in your hands and rub your thumbs on their cheeks

Sometimes gets anxious when you're not within sight, they tend to call out your name outside of the shop to make sure you're still nearby

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

Muriel:

Likes going on hikes

CUDDLEBUG!! Can and will cuddle you whenever you lay down for a nap or to sleep through the night, or to simply just lay down and vibe. You can and will be in his arms almost constatly, or you'd be spooning him. He won't admit he likes being spooned tho

Fairly easy to make him flustered! You tease him enough and he'll stumble on his words and hide his face behind his hands

With the stuff he went through, mans has anxiety and PTSD, can and will have panic attacks when triggered bad enough. He's learning new coping mechanisms and he thanks the world for having you with him through all of this

Has adjusted well enough that going into town to buy stuff like food and such isn't as panic inducing as it used to be. But sometimes asks you to come with and he'd hold your hand discretely throughout the entire adventure for comfort

Has had to make sure you don't touch things you know nothing about, especially when it comes to wildlife and plants. You're versed enough when it comes to fauna and flora, but Muriel's part of the woods isn't your usual place where everything seems to be tame. He's scolded and educated you softly a few times now and you can't help but find his somewhat serious face cute

Inanna is like an interpreter when it comes to Muriel's untold feelings whenever she's around. You ask Muriel if he's upset and he says it's okay? Look at Inanna, she'll probably whine softly in response to confirm with you that he's not telling the truth. He's grown to be more open with you, but some habits are hard to let go of

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Jame/Tori. 12 and 16. Happy Birthday! Wishing you a year full of understanding medical professionals.

SAME!!!  Anyway, last night I was reading God Stalk out loud to my partners, because we are all very adorable, and I almost paused the chapter to wax adoring about Jame and Tori because Jame made an idle comment about not understanding how someone could decide not to support their brother, no matter what their brother did.  So you get to go first.

12) What first changes when it starts getting serious?

The first thing that Jame notices as a change, a real change, isn’t something anyone else would notice.  Tori kissed her, and didn’t run--kissed her, and held her face between his beautiful scarred hands, and rested their foreheads together like they did when they were children, like she was safety to him again, and that was--that was new, but she didn’t really think of it as a change.  Everyone else sees it as a change, but not Jame.  She thinks that Tori might not see it that way either.  It wasn’t a change, it was a return to the right shape of things.

The first thing she notices as a change isn’t until a few nights later, when she collapses in a chair and falls asleep.  The dream is pleasantly nonsensical at first--a nightmare, but a real nightmare, which is a relief, of dancing in the Res aB’tyrr in front of the randon council, while her feet bleed and her balance slips on the slick tabletop.  She realizes she’s dreaming when she stumbles, but dances on as if a puppet on strings, until finally the dance ends, and she bows, and takes her bloodied feet and her weariness up the stairs to the loft.  

It’s her brother’s study, at the top of the stairs, and he’s there, sitting in the chair by the fire with one leg crossed over his knee and frowning in concentration, and he blinks at her as she stumbles through the mirror and lands clumsily on the floor.  She braces herself to watch horror flicker over his face--sees the moment of instinctive alarm--and then he asks, “What are you wearing?”

“What?” Jame asks, blank, and then says, “Oh.  It’s a dancer’s costume.  What are you doing?”

Tori’s lips twist briefly and he says, “Trying to sleep.”

“Are you hiding in here on purpose?”

He looks uneasy, almost--apologetic.  “I just need some rest.”  And then he hesitates, and then Tori says, “You can stay.  There’s another chair.”

“What?” Jame repeats.

“I can keep us both here for a while, I think,” Tori says.  “You look tired.”

Jame is nodding before she thinks it through, and collapses in the chair across from Tori--the dreamscape can’t manufacture pain or weariness the way the soulscape can, but she is tired.  She hasn’t slept in days, and she’s all too aware that she’s as likely to wander out the door into a disaster as she is into a restful night.  And Tori’s study--the dream he’s made for himself, a shelter from visions and souls--is warm and quiet, with the fire and the old chairs, and with her brother.  It’s--nice.

Tori offers her a faint smile, and takes his foot off his knee and stretches his legs out in front of him, mirroring her, so that their ankles cross in front of the fire.

16) When the zombie apocalypse comes, how do they cope together?

I genuinely do not think they would bat an eye at a zombie apocalypse.  They essentially grew up in one.  Honestly I think they would be THE clutch people to have in charge, because they are very good at this, before Jame and Tori were dancers or fighters or leaders or soldiers or anything, they were dealing with the undead.

The first thing Jame, in northern Tagmeth, does upon seeing the first haunt in the Riverlands is to sit down with a map and every report she can barter, beg, or borrow, and draws out the advancing line.  She gathers her people and gives them exacting instructions, on how to kill the dead, and she sends a letter to Mount Alban that simply says I need help, cousin, meet me at Gothregor, and she sends out scouts for one week.  At the end of the week, she rolls up her maps, tells everyone to pack everything they want to keep, and takes her people south.

She arrives at her brother’s doorstep unannounced, and the Knorth Kendar are getting used to the way their Highborn do things but also they hate the way their Highborn do things.  It’s not really right for their lordan to show up with every single one of her people in tow and demand to see her brother now.  But, then, most of them have served their lord for years now, and they know that hard-eyed silver stare, and no one stops her from storming out to the barracks where Torisen is going over their census with Rowan.

Tori is already looking at the door when Jame opens it, and he says, “Jame,” and Rowan says, “Lordan,” and Jame says, “I have bad news, and I think we’re the first ones to get it, so we need a plan if we’re going to save our people.”

And Jame thinks it says something kind, about her brother, that even at his worst, he cared about their people to the point of desperation.  And he’s not at his worst anymore, and so she’s not surprised when he gestures to the chair at his other side, facing Rowan, and says, “Of course, what happened?”

[stuckwith-harry]

Hide-and-seek

A/N: Oh, to be a chicken in times like these. (CW for discussion of death, nothing graphic.)

In the chicken shed it might as well still be the eighties, as though time had only gone on for the humans living in the house on the other side of the fence, but not in here, where the hens are quietly clucking and cooing and enjoying their naps, until Ginny shakes a handful of lettuce in the air like an invitation, a beckoning – then they come hurrying towards her, beaks tearing greedily at the green leaves.

When the hens have had their fill, Ginny looks over the gaggle of bickering ladies and finds her favourite amongst them, Genoveva with her warm brown feathers and clever eyes, who yells and shrieks when Ginny lifts her up by her impossibly soft belly, crouching down in the chicken shed, and pulls the disgruntled hen to her chest.

“Look, I’ll make it up to you”, Ginny tells her quietly. She fishes sweetcorn out of the front pocket of her dungarees and holds her open palm out to Genoveva, not flinching or grimacing when the sharp beak leaves little red marks on her skin as the hen gulps down her treat.

Ginny smiles.

The summer after her first year, she climbed into the chicken shed every day. She was soothed, then, by the arrhythmic clucking and the smell of fresh hay and the fact that the hens allowed her to share their company, that they did not recoil in horror at her sight.

It was her that named them, while she sat here for hours and hours with a chicken in her lap, more often than not Genoveva, who, for all her complaining, was easily the most patient of the bunch, and who nestles into her lap now, blinking slowly in the twilight while Ginny strokes her feathers, the burning inside her ribcage dull and pulsating like that of an infected wound.

Like it was her that took the damn Killing Curse to the chest.

“You’ve no idea how lucky you are”, she mutters, meeting Genoveva’s sharp eyes. “Nothing in those little heads of yours except earthworms and soft hay.”

She sits there for ages and ages like she did that summer, willing the comfort of the soft animal to sink into her like warmth. When she finally gets up to leave the chickens be, she tosses the rest of the sweetcorn into the hay (Genoveva looks utterly betrayed), fills up the grains in the feeder, and climbs out of the shed with the smell of warm feathers and wheat straw still in her nose.

“Chicken-feeding duty?”, calls a voice from near the house as she swings her bare legs over the wooden fence and strolls back towards the Burrow. When she looks for the voice’s owner, she discovers Ron, sitting on the weathered bench below the kitchen window.

“What’re you doing out here?”, she calls out as she comes closer.

“Hiding”, he says dully. “Mum’s crying again.”

Ginny feels something inside her chest take a tumble. “Is anyone with her?”

“Yeah, I’m not that much of a dickhead. Dad and Percy and Bill are all in there.”

“You’re not a dickhead”, Ginny says automatically, surprising them both. Then: “Mind if I stay?”

He shrugs. “Be my guest.”

So she sinks on the bench beside him, joining him in his grim silence. They gaze aimlessly over the soft green hills all around, the shape of the lake like a blue thumbprint in the landscape, where they whiled away so many happier, warmer days than this, and Ottery St. Catchpole’s mismatched roofs in the distance, smoke rising from the chimneys.

Ron finally looks over at her. “Were you with the chickens this whole time? I thought you’d grown out of your obsession with them.”

Ginny musters up a grin. “Never. I love those stupid hens. That was just an elaborate ruse so I could hide in the chicken coop when we used to play hide-and-seek. It never occurred to any of you to look.”

“Well, you stopped growing at about five feet, I figure you fit right in.”

Ginny whacks him in the knee. In a true testament to the severity of the situation, Ron does not retaliate.

She tells herself it’s that, not how much they aged him, the few short months that he was gone.

It’s less blatant now that Mum has shorn back the unkempt mop of hair that was falling into his eyes and growing down the back of his neck like wild weeds when he walked through the secret entrance of the Room of Requirements with Harry and Hermione; now that he’s shaved the patchy stubble on his cheeks and his face has regained a little fullness. But sometimes she still looks at him and wonders how ten years have not passed since she watched him slip away into thin air at Bill and Fleur’s wedding.

“Did anything happen?”, she asks. “With Mum?”

Ron shrugs, expression blank. “Some fool said his name again. I never noticed how rarely we actually said the twins’ individual names until we had to break the habit of saying Fred-and-George all in one go. It’s like he’s Voldemort.”

Ginny doesn’t laugh.

“I know”, she mutters. “Don’t think it’ll ever come naturally.”

He nods mechanically. “Anyway – I made a run for it. I just couldn’t do it right then, having to comfort her and everything.”

Ginny looks over at him. “Funny, you’re so good at it.”

“You just say that because I make the best tea.”

“Well, you do.”

The same way that children can recognise each of their family members by the sound of their footsteps as heard through a wall, or the rhythmic pattern with which they knocked on the door, the Weasley siblings have learned to read each other’s silences since they’ve come home. Often now, they appear at each other’s bedroom doors at all hours of the night, shaken from nightmares or too restless to sleep or, rarely, weeping.

Most nights, two or three or four of them eventually find themselves in the kitchen, where Ginny turns on the lights, and Ron puts on the kettle, and they sit there and while away the small hours in each other’s company, in silence, in quiet understanding, in murmured chatter about nothing at all.  It’s good comfort, the idea that even after everything, there’s nothing in this world that a hot cup of tea can’t fix.

Ginny shifts on the bench next to him, pulling her knees to her chest. “Remember when that fox got one of the hens? I was inconsolable, and you were so nice to me when we put her in a shoebox and buried her behind the house, you didn’t even make fun of me.”

“You lot are different, that’s easy. I just can’t take it when it’s our parents.”

Ginny hums in understanding. “I think seeing Dad cry was worse for me. At the memorial.”

“Cheers, thanks for bringing it up again.”

She snorts.

“You’re good with Harry”, she says softly. “D’you miss him at all?”

He rolls his eyes. “He just sleeps two floors below me, it’s not like he died.”

Ginny winces.

Ron does not miss the look on her face or the heaviness of her silence, as they have all learned to do, and asks in an unnaturally light tone: “How’re you coping with him waking up three times a night?”

He seems relieved, for a moment there, when she smirks.

“It’s not too bad, actually. At least he makes for a great pillow.”

Ron looks appalled. “What the hell happened to the camp bed?”

“Oh, we just keep that around for decoration now.” She grins, comforted by the opportunity to tease him. “And he doesn’t wake up as much anymore.”

His face lights up. “That’s good news, at least. Lead with that next time.”

“Oh, he’s just … stopped going to sleep altogether.”

“That really solves that problem”, he says darkly. “The idiot.”

“I don’t think it’s purposeful”, she says. “He’s always pretending to be asleep when I look at him, but I can always tell. And when he does doze off, I’ll just stir next to him, and that’s enough to wake him up again.”

“He’s a really light sleeper these days”, Ron says apologetically. “The worst camping trip in the world will do that to a person.”

Ginny grins faintly. “Yeah, he’s mentioned it.”

“He’s talking, then?”

“Hm-hm.” She wraps her arms a little tighter around her legs. “Which is good, I guess.”

He watches her for a minute, as though unsure what to make of her tone. “Anything on your mind?”

She laughs. “Anyone ever told you you’re turning into Mum?”

“Well, we’re here anyway!”, Ron says, ears flushing. “Spit it out, will you?”

“He, uhm –”

It has not occurred to her, until right now, how difficult it would be to pass the story on, even to someone who has heard it before. Harry handed it to her because she asked him to, and still it knocked into her like a wild animal, pouncing, the weight of it like a Hippogriff standing on her chest, pinning her to the earth.

“He told me about walking into the Forbidden Forest.”

“Ah”, Ron says hollowly. “No wonder you’re hiding in a chicken coop.”

She looks around at him. “It’s not Harry I’m hiding from.”

“But you are hiding”, Ron says wisely.

Ginny shrugs. “I dunno what I expected. Somehow I’d convinced myself I already knew the worst of it. Which, as it turns out, was a bit stupid of me.”

She draws in a shaky breath.

“I thought he was in on it. Ever since I watched him come back to life at Hagrid’s feet … I thought there was some sort of plan. But there wasn’t, or Dumbledore didn’t tell him, anyway. I thought he knew he was going to survive, and it turns out that, uhm – he didn’t know shit. He went there to die, for real.”

Ginny looks back at him, words coming faster now. “And I’m – I’m so angry, and I don’t know why. Or who I’m angry with. It can hardly be Harry.”

“In all fairness, I kind of felt like punching him when he told us”, Ron says quietly, and her mouth briefly twists into something like a smile. “If anything we should be angry with Voldemort, or Dumbledore, even – but they’re not within punching distance, so what are you gonna do?”

“If Dumbledore wasn’t already dead, I would kill him”, Ginny says. “I swear, I would kill him.”

“Yeah, that sounds reasonable”, Ron says good-naturedly, patting her arm.

“And Harry – Harry keeps apologising, and I don’t know what for.”

Ron’s expression is pained. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“No.”

He sighs. She handed this to him, and now he is steeling himself to hand something back to her. She can tell.

“My best guess is … for not saying goodbye.”

Ginny does not look at him. Suddenly she is blinking rapidly in the fading light, sitting there as the blow rolls over her, something blunt and violent that should have broken her ribs like the impact of a Bludger; but there is no injury, only an ache that does not abate, that sits all around her, inside her. She doesn’t think it’s ever going to go away, all that hurting, writhing and straining inside her like a second skeleton.

“How could he have? We would’ve dragged him back to the castle by the damn hair.”

“Of course we would have”, Ron says robustly.

For a moment he looks like he’s going to reach out to her, hold her, maybe. He seems to think better of it in the end, and she’s almost relieved, dreading what she’d do if someone hugged her.

It’s another thing that won’t ever come easily: showing up on someone’s doorstep, weeping.

“If it’s any consolation”, he says after a while, “I think that’s the worst of it.”

“I’ve been wondering”, she mutters. “Can’t think of very much that beats walking to your own death. No fucking wonder he doesn’t sleep.”

“It’s funny”, Ron says, “I talked to him less than an hour ago, and he seems alright, almost.”

Ginny shrugs. “Isn’t he always? Remarkably functional, considering.”

Ron makes an attempt at a smile. “It’s such a Harry thing to do, though, isn’t it? Always dying for other people. Or trying to, anyway.”

“Hardly just a Harry thing, it turns out.”

It’s all shit, she thinks when he looks at her. Being the person knocking at the door, and the one listening on the other side, opening it.

“He told me about Malfoy Manor”, she says softly.

“Ah.” Ron kicks at the dirt to his feet. “Well, then you know what keeps me up at night.”

“He said – he said you offered to swap places with Hermione. Let Bellatrix have you instead.”

“And? You would’ve done the exact same thing for him.”

Ginny almost smiles. He might as well still be the boy who stuck stubbornly by her side next to the chicken fence all night, when she couldn’t bear to head back to the house, in case the fox ever came back.

“Yeah. I would have.”

It settles on her shoulders as quickly and unnoticeably as night, rapidly falling all around them: everything she would’ve done, in a heartbeat, in an instant.

“I would’ve taken the forest, too”, she says, more to herself than to Ron. “I would’ve done it all for him.”

It seems significant, somehow, that Ron does not resist this. That maybe he knows what it felt like, to Ginny, when they walked out into the courtyard and saw Harry.

That, too, felt like a Bludger to the chest: the sight of him, a kid in Hagrid’s arms, his glasses askew. How she wished it was her lying there, dead in his place.

“Those two”, Ron says abruptly. “Some day they’re really gonna be the death of us.”

Ginny almost laughs.

“So you won’t strangle him for abandoning the camp bed?”

Ron eyes her for a moment, a sort of benevolent sternness in his expression – and Ginny was right, that’s all Mum. “Yeah, I’ll consider it.”

“I’m sorry, anyway”, she says, half-smiling. “For costing you your roommate.”

Ron sighs. “They grow up so fast.”

“And for all this, too. You were trying to hide, I didn’t mean to …”

“It’s all right. You had to find me eventually.”

[fanfalc-616]

The Rights Of A Nindroid

Chapter Twenty-Six

(Previous Chapter Here)

Yeah okay this took forever,,,, have fun with it! (;

Also it was too long for one post again so I’ll reblog this with the rest-

Cryptor struggles to find the solution to the latest puzzle they gave him, doing his best not to let frustration show on his face as he ignores Kyle and Martha talking in the background.

He hates this. He just… he wishes that there was some way out, some way to be free, some way to be okay again.

But there’s not. He’s stuck here, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

He feels tired. So tired. Nothing even seems to make sense anymore, so his only real choice is to just… keep going. Even if the only way he can do that is to follow their orders.

Exhausted, he takes a moment’s pause from the puzzle, absent-mindedly listening in on part of the conversation going on behind him.

Martha is the one speaking. “- and when Sentry is here, we’ll be able to-“

Hold on. Did he just hear what he thinks he did? Did she just- Sentry? She’s going to bring Sentry here?!

He whips around, turning to face them. “What did you just say?!” He demands, ignoring the voice screaming at him to just do what he’s told. He can’t sit there and do nothing, not while his friend is on the line!

Kyle seems to wince some, but Martha glares. “It’s nothing you need to be concerned with, General.” She snaps. “Do not speak out of turn again, and go back to your task.”

He completely disregards the order, only staring at the two of them. They- they’re going to bring him here?! No, no, Cryptor’s been behaving, he’s been following orders, why would they-

“General, calm down.” Kyle interrupts his train of thought. “You knew it would come to this eventually, right?”

Cryptor can only stare in sheer horror as he struggles to come to terms with the implications of what they’re saying. “I- no. No, I didn’t- I-“ He abruptly stands up, pushing the small bench he’s on backwards as the metal screeches, but he ignores the loud sound, barely even able to hear it over his racing thoughts.

“No!” He shakes his head rapidly, struggling to figure out what to say. “You- you can’t-“

“Sit down, General.” Martha orders, her expression one of annoyance.

Fear and anger take over him, leaving him trembling. “You can’t hurt him!” He shouts, trying to come up with something, anything he could do to stop this.

“General! There's nothing you can do about it!” Kyle snaps, an aura of almost unease around him. “Calm down or you'll get hurt yourself!”

Okay, there’s something going on here, usually he doesn’t get so many warnings, why would-

Oh, who cares about what’s going on with that?! Sentry is at stake here!

His words showcase his fear and anger, his voice trembling as he snarls the words out. “I- I can’t just sit here and follow orders when- when you’re going to-“

Martha’s voice is dark as she narrows her eyes at him. “That’s enough, General.” There’s a clear threat to her tone, and just that is enough to make him start shaking…

For a few moments, all he can do is stand there, fighting against the urge to cave, to do what she says, to hopefully avoid punishment-

It’s a struggle, but he manages to hold his ground. “No.” He gets out, making himself hold her gaze. “No, I can’t. It’s not.”

He forces the words out even as he feels his power source kicking into overdrive- he’d rather have it ripped out than let them do what they’ve done to him to the innocent nindroid back at Borg Tower.

Shifting on his feet, Kyle seems to want to say something- but after a moment, he minutely shakes his head, looking over at Martha- likely for instructions.

Every gear and wire inside him feels abuzz with the mechanical equivalent of adrenaline, but he can’t think of what to do or say. His mind is running so fast that he can’t catch up, leaving him only able to stand and stare as the fear floods through him.

“Take it to the training room.” Martha turns to some guards as she speaks, still seeming annoyed. “It appears it needs to relearn an old lesson.”

The words send their own kind of fear through him, the thought of a punishment leaving him shaking even more. But he does his best to shove the feeling down, letting himself be escorted back to the training room and tied down once again.

There still seems to be something off about the blond as he dismisses the guards, but in all honesty, he doesn’t have enough processing power to even try and think about what it might mean.

Kyle sighs, but it doesn’t seem to be out of annoyance. “Okay, use the usual method. Just shocks for an hour.”

Wait- what? That’s it? Well, he- he doesn’t want to be punished more, but usually he gets in more trouble for this kind of thing.

He starts to voice his confusion out loud, but the shock he gets serves as a reality check, reminding him of his situation.

He’s not allowed to speak unless spoken to.

There’s silence, for a while. Which is surprising in its own way- Kyle usually gives him a lecture about what he did wrong while he’s being punished, but this time he’s… oddly quiet.

After all this time, you’d think that Cryptor would have grown numb to the pain. With everything he’s gone through, some shocks are hardly the worst thing in the world.

But somehow, he never seems to be able to quite adjust to it. Every blast of pain is just as bad as the one before it- and sometimes worse, when they start accumulating.

Breathing deeply, he looks down at the floor, struggling to hide how much it hurts. It’s- it’s not really real, anyway. It’s just… just a digital reaction designed to warn him that his circuits might be in danger. But he’s not in any real life-threatening danger, so all it does is-

A particularly painful shock jolts him from his train of thought, and he grinds his teeth as he struggles to push the pain from his mind.

In all honesty, he’s lucky that he’s had the life he did. With all the abuse he suffered from before the facility, he had actually gotten the chance to learn how to cope with this kind of thing.

But Sentry, on the other hand…

No. No, he can’t think about that. He can’t- there’s nothing he can do at the moment, he just needs to keep breathing, needs to not think about it, needs to not imagine what Sentry’s screams would sound like, needs to not picture the way he would curl in on himself as he struggled to cope, needs to not even consider what he might look like after going through even half of what he and Zane had-

He’s pulled from his downward spiral by Kyle, the blond suddenly speaking- and loudly, at that.

“OKAY! Okay, that's enough! An hour is way too long for that small of a mistake, I- Stop!”

When the shocks die down, Cryptor still can’t figure out what’s going on. Something is going on here, but Cryptor honestly doesn’t have the energy to piece together what.

He knows that he’s shaking like a leaf, and it makes his gut churn thinking about how damn weak he is, but he doesn’t dare lift his gaze.

It takes a moment for him to remember what he’s supposed to do. Right, they finished a punishment, he- he needs to confirm that he learned from it.

“ ‘m sorry, Master.”

The words are choked out and pathetic, and just hearing his own voice like that makes him want to cringe.

For some reason, Kyle seems to look uncomfortable, almost regretful in a way. “It's okay, it's- here. Let me-“

He trails off in favor of taking off Cryptor’s restraints- and after he does, he turns away, looking at the far wall.

For a second, the door tempts him. No one is watching, it would be so easy to-

No. No, he can’t do that. He has to stay, to follow orders. He gets hurt if he doesn’t follow orders. And while this punishment wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, that just means that the next one will probably be worse.

A hand comes to clutch at where one of the chains had been pulled a little bit too tight- with the shocks, he actually hadn’t even noticed the way they were digging into his plating until now.

Once again, he remembers what he’s supposed to do. Kyle let him go- and early, at that. He’s supposed to acknowledge that.

There’s no pride left for him to ignore as he speaks. “Th- thank you, Master.”

Kyle doesn’t react, looking almost lost in thought. He brings a hand up to his face, and if Cryptor didn’t know any better, he’d say the blond was trembling.

Alright, something is definitely up here, but Cryptor isn’t going to risk getting punished again for asking. Whatever it is doesn’t seem to be causing any immediate harm, so he’d be better off leaving it alone.

With no orders or distractions, his mind begins to drift. And unfortunately, his stupid processer takes him back to Sentry.

He really, really doesn’t want him to get hurt, but no matter what he does, it won’t make a difference. They’ve proven time and time again that he’s too pathetic to stand a chance, and… it’s hopeless.

Well, he- he could try to, at the very least, minimize his suffering. There has to be something he can do for that, right?

He could try taking punishments for him, but they’d catch on pretty quick, and then they’d just start hurting Sentry to get to him more. He could do something worse after every mistake Sentry makes to make them put it in kind of perspective, but that would just prolong it.

He- he could… help them. Help them- help them break him. If Sentry’s not really there anymore, then he won’t be suffering. He-

A feeling of disgust wells up inside of him as he realizes what he was even considering. No, he can’t do that, he can’t do anything like that! He can’t help them do that to him, he- he just-

Cryptor forces himself to keep breathing, trying to get his shaking under control. He doesn’t want anything bad to happen to Sentry, but if push really does come to shove…

He’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

There’s an almost numb feeling spreading through him, but he’s thankfully given something else to focus on when he hears Kyle’s quiet murmur.

The blond’s voice is strained, even breaking a little as he talks. “...'m sorry, Gav…”

He seems to be trying to shove the feeling down as he clears his throat, and Cryptor could almost swear that he’s near tears.

“I'll t-take you back to your locker. You'll say you- you'll say you learned your lesson if anyone asks. This is a one-time thing, okay?” His eyes narrow as he finishes, but with how he looks, he’s hardly threatening.

The words he’s saying aren’t making any sense, but Cryptor isn’t going to turn down a break when it’s offered.

“Y- yes, Master,” he nods. The confusion is eating away at his processor, but he forces himself not to show it. If he does, he’ll be dragged right back into the training room.

Kyle starts to take him back to his locker, and Cryptor keeps his gaze on the floor as they walk, trying to keep his mind away from Sentry and what might happen to him.

He’s shaking, trembling, and he shouldn’t be- showing emotion this much isn’t a good idea, but for some reason, he’s still just being taken away from the training room.

Stepping inside the small cell, he still can’t wrench his mind away. All this time, all this sacrifice to protect Sentry…

“... all of this to protect you, and it didn’t make a difference…”

Crying.

It’s something he hated before. A sign of weakness, of something that could get in the way of a task.

But now?

Cryptor wishes he was allowed to cry.

The door is abruptly slammed shut in front of him, Kyle using much more force than necessary. There’s clearly something going on with the blond…

His confusion intensifies some, but in the end, does it really matter? Kyle was right. There is nothing he can do. Sentry is going to be brought here and broken whether he likes it or not.

He can only hope that he breaks before he has to watch the one he loves do the same.

{ { { { { { { { { { ~ } } } } } } } } } }

[randomoranges]

here we go folks, after a whole dang month working on this beast it is OVER.

33 pages and nearly 20k words later it’s DONE. idk what to do with my time now [lol what a joke] but here we go.

as they say in the vernac’ attache ta tuque a’c d’la broche à foin.

The Five Times Étienne Fell in Love

PART V

 “You know we don’t have to do this,” He says. He knows this story. It’s their story after all and thankfully, he at least knows it has a better ending, but he’s not sure he wants to hear what Étienne has to say about him.

 “We absolutely do, Murphy; you’re the one who brought this whole thing up.” Étienne teases softly and Edward groans, because, he has and he may as well grin and bear it.

 Edward makes the mistake of turning his head a fraction and catches the last of the saddest of smiles on his friend’s face. He does his best to ignore the swooping sensation in his stomach and focuses on the bird song for a moment instead. They’ve talked over some of the finer points over the last few years. There’s no need to rehash all of it just now. Yet, he’d been the one to open the proverbial door to Pandora’s box and he supposes it is only fair to listen to whatever else it is Étienne has to tell him.

 “Promise it’ll be a good ending.” Étienne ads and that at least makes him crack a smile.

 “It better,” He says and jabs Étienne’s sides gently with his elbow.

 “I still remember the day you showed up on a freaking canoe during Expo. I thought that was the most badass and coolest thing ever. I couldn’t believe it! I remember I kept on telling people that the guy on the canoe? He’s my really good friend! And I was also so psyched to see you!” He laughs and something warm settles in Edward’s stomach.

 Expo had been one of the craziest things he’d ever witnessed in a long time and he’s glad he’d been able to participate, in some way. He does remember Étienne’s look of pure shock and amazement when he’d been there to welcome them and somehow or other, despite Étienne being more than busy during the event, he still managed to find a few spare moments to catch up with him. Plus, at the time, they didn’t see each other as often, so it had really been something for Étienne to take the time to hang out with him, even if it was while they went from one pavilion to the next.

 “I always thought you were attractive, a sentiment that only grew stronger the more we saw each other throughout the twentieth century. I obviously wasn’t going to do anything – not unless you wanted me to, since you were my friend and even if you were into men, it didn’t mean you’d want to be with me.” Despite knowing this, Edward still finds his cheeks heating up at the words and he wonders if he’ll ever get used to the idea that Étienne still thinks of him as someone attractive and handsome. He likes hearing the compliments, even if he flushes furiously.  

 “Then you came to me – when we started reconnecting – and said that you needed an escapism. I could do that. I was more than happy to provide one, especially the kind you were looking for. At that time, I was done, really, with love. Especially with humans. It was too hard, too complicated, too messy and it hurt too damned much. I still wasn’t over Koffey and I vowed that it would never happen again. I had tried. Love just didn’t come as naturally to me as it did to others. It was fine. But I wasn’t about to get that close to humans anymore. Let my guard down and have these feelings creep up on me after months or years. Fuck that shit.”

 “You know,” Edward interrupts, “You could have told me about Koffey at the time.”

 Étienne lets out a bark of a laugh and looks at Edward with a quirk of his eyebrows. “Really? And told you what exactly? P.S., in case I seem more than off, it’s ‘cause the man I loved has just died and I think I’m at fault. Don’t mind me, I’m still reeling from that. Oh, and also from every shitty thing that’s happened in the last ten years, but hey, nice to see you, how’s it been?”

 Edward supposes he has a point. It’s not as if he’d given any information of what had happened to him in the last decade right off the bat either. Retrospectively, however, he would have liked to know. He’s not sure what he would have done, but he knows he wouldn’t have laughed in his friend’s face. Not then and not ever.  

 “Anyways, you wanted sex. You wanted experiences. You wanted to go out and get fucked up. And I wanted that as well. I still needed that as well. It was easy to bring you those things. It was easier still to show you how it was done. You were a very willing student and who was I to deny you? You were the perfect distraction I needed and on top of that, you were my friend.”

 “As the saying goes; misery does love company.” Edward offers.

 Étienne looks at him and laughs. It’s good that, if anything else, they can more or less laugh about it now.  That there are enough better days between those times and now. They’ve grown, changed and gotten better. Found better coping mechanisms.

 “Plus, It helped that you’re like me – that you wouldn’t die on me no matter the drugs, no matter what we did or didn’t do. It felt like – being alive. Somehow. I didn’t have to hide anything with you. We could do what we wanted and see how far our limits would take us. It was liberating – in all its messed up ways. And I knew that no matter how many blackouts we had, no matter what it was we took, I wouldn’t lose you and I didn’t have to explain anything to you. Come the following day, you’d be alive. And that was – a relief.”

 Edward takes a moment to think back to those early years as well. He’d been coming out of his own bad place and Étienne had been a – breath of fresh air, in a way. Despite the abuse of drugs and sex and everything else that had come with it, it had been liberating. He’d felt – free somehow even if he realises now that neither of them had been in a good place at the time either.

 But going off to find Étienne had been his own way to rebel. The parties had been his own way of dealing with things at the time and his way of existing. For once, he felt like he could be some part of himself. That he had control over his own narrative. He may have gone the wrong way about it, but Étienne had been his own anchor, however unsteady he had been. Étienne had been a friend when it had felt like he had no others and someone who’d expanded his horizons. He’d been his point of reference and he’d returned to the proverbial well of knowledge willingly.

 In a way, they’d found each other; from one fucked up mind to another. They’d relied on each other and had turned on each other as well.

 Yet, despite what had happened, he doesn’t regret those years. He’d learned a lot from them and in a way, it had been the cataclysm to getting closer to Étienne.

 “I never expected to fall for you. That wasn’t my plan. I was still mourning Koffey and you were my friend. At a time when it felt like I had very few of those, the last thing I wanted to do was make things complicated by falling for you. Plus, who was to say you would love someone like me? You deserved someone who’d make you happy and who could help you heal.”

 Edward opens his mouth to argue the point. In his opinion, Étienne was a very good candidate to help him – more so now than before, but still. However, Étienne shakes his head and so he keeps the thought to himself and lets him proceed.

 “You could have genuinely just thought of me as a friend only,” He counters and Edward quiets down – he has a point. “My other fear was that you would fall for me, and I wouldn’t and that you wouldn’t understand. There’d been too many people who’d gone down that path and it always ended in another ended relationship. I feared that even if I liked you, I wouldn’t develop those romantic feelings and that it would break your heart and end our friendship. I couldn’t have that. I always valued our friendship above all else.”

 Edward wonders, not for the first time, just how many other people had entered and left Étienne’s life just because he was different. It hurt and angered him to know that so many had potentially missed out on a wonderful relationship – be it friendly or otherwise, just because he worked differently. It was their loss, really, but he hated that Étienne had had to suffer because of it.

 “So I told you. Not to expect a relationship. Not to expect a romantic liaison out of it. That we were just friends having a good time. And it worked. At least, it did at first. For many years it worked. I enjoyed the time we spent together, the benders, the drugs, the parties and the sex. I liked being around you. I liked making you discover new things. I liked having you around.”

 “And then I went ahead and fell in love with you.” He says with the most dramatic of sighs. Étienne spares him a glance and they give each other a look before laughing. It’s such a ridiculous story, yet it’s their story and it makes it that much more special.

 “If it makes you feel any better, I went ahead and fell for you as well. So I guess we both didn’t heed your warning.” Edward gives Étienne’s hand a small squeeze and he smiles softly when his boyfriend laces their fingers together.

 “Yeah, I guess it turned out alright.” He pulls him in for a one-armed hug and Edward nuzzles his face in the crook of Étienne’s neck. They stay that way for a moment, enjoying the possibility and the fact that they’re back here together and even though Edward knows how the first chapter of their relationship ended, he at least knows that they make it back together.

 “It took me a while to realise that I was in love with you,” Étienne tells him gently, “But the signs were there. Those stupid signs Samuel had told me about a million years ago were all there. I felt like such a tool too – that I hadn’t realised it sooner and that of all the things my brother had told me – these were the ones I was going for.”

 “Every time you’d call, I’d feel giddy. Hell, every time the phone rang, and I was expecting your call, I’d run for it, not wanting to miss the call, hoping it was you. I remember walking around in my living room, twisting the telephone cord around my fingers, an excited mess when you’d tell me you were coming back.”

 Edward grins, imagining Étienne doing those things. It’s cute and endearing even and if he holds him a little closer, his boyfriend doesn’t comment on it.

 “I looked forward to all our chats. I couldn’t wait to see you again. I’d even count down the days. I felt – butterflies in my stomach when I would finally see you again. Every time, without fault, I’d just want to scoop you in my arms and hold you close.”

 “For your information, that’s exactly what you’ve always done, sweetheart.” He teases gently. He doesn’t remember Étienne not launching himself at him when he greets him at the airport. He likes it, deep down, even if it’s a little loud and very open – but it’s also so very Étienne and that takes precedence.

 Étienne looks down to him and rolls his eyes, but it’s fond and has no bite. “I know – that’s just the thing, I thought it was normal. We were friends after all. Of course, I was excited to see you. I still do all of those things and I still count down the days to our next visit and I still get those damned butterflies in my stomach when you call or text me or when we see each other. It never fucking stopped – and, well I don’t want it to stop…”

 He trails off for a moment and when Edward looks up at him, he’s happy to see that Étienne’s cheeks have coloured just the same as his.

 “If it makes you feel better, I feel the same way, you know.”

 Étienne presses a soft kiss to the top of his head, “Yeah, I know…”

 At the time, Edward had obviously known that Étienne – liked him, as a friend, but he’d never even started to think that he could like him beyond that, or even love him. If past him could have gotten a glimpse of this very scene, he’s sure the poor fellow would have passed out cold or convinced himself it was some drug induced fantasy worthy of the greatest production of his mind theatre.

 “But then it went beyond that, as if that wasn’t enough. It was the longing to hear your voice; wanting to snuggle up to you. A swooping feeling when you’d kiss me. I wanted to sit and just – spend time with you. Make you laugh. Spend the day together doing nothing. It was less about the drugs and the getting fucked up and more about you – being with you. Wanting to be with you.”  

 “It honest to goodness freaked me out. It felt wrong and stupid to tell you, oh by the way, guess what, I love you, d’you think we can make this work when I specifically told you not to expect a relationship?” He scoffs, annoyed. “Wish I had now.”

 “Hey, you can’t feel sorry for yourself. We’re both to blame. I could have easily done something as well and I didn’t.”

 “Yeah, but, you were going with what I told you. How were you supposed to know?”

 “I could have been bigger about it. Or even told you and laugh it off. The point is, we both didn’t do anything about it and I don’t want you to think that you’re alone in the blame.”

 Étienne lets the issue slide for the moment. He doesn’t want to argue with Edward about this, even though he feels like the bigger part of the blame rests with him. “Still, this was the last thing I wanted to happen yet, there I was completely in love with you, and I had no way of knowing if you felt the same, nor did I want to put you in that spot. In case I did decide to tell you, I didn’t want it to be some big awkward thing. Plus, there was still so much going on for both of us – at least, I know I wasn’t any better; not mentally. Not in the long-term way, anyways. And you weren’t even out to anyone back home.”

 They’ve spoken about that issue in particular. About why Étienne had kept on pestering him about it over the years. It made some sort of sense now that he knew, but at the time, it had annoyed Edward that his friend was so adamant about it. It still didn’t make it okay, but Edward had forgiven Étienne for it – they were beyond that now. (The real question was whether or not Étienne had forgiven himself.)  

 “Yet, the more time went by, the more my feelings for you grew and the more I wanted to try to – be a couple. Be together. Officially and really. I figured if you’d tell me something first – if you gave me a sign that this wasn’t all some construction I’d made in my head, I’d take the plunge – but you never did. And I never gave you an occasion to either. So the proverbial joke was on me.”

 Edward gives Étienne’s hand a squeeze. They’d both been in bad places at the time. He doesn’t regret the step back he had taken from Étienne, for it had given him the space and place to figure himself out and grow, but he had missed him something fierce. It would have been nice to have both at the time; the boyfriend and the coming into himself. He hadn’t exactly been a fan of feeling as though everyone had abandoned him and that he was alone. It would have been nice to welcome the change of the millennium with friends and a boyfriend. But, everything happened for a reason he supposes, even if he doesn’t like said reason. And at least, somehow, things had gotten better over time. It’s already much more than many people unfortunately ever get.

 “There were so many times when I nearly told you. Times when I felt you felt the same. Times when things were good. But every time, I didn’t want to ruin it and make it complicated – figured you knew and therefore, what was the point? We were good and it was all that mattered.” He sighs deeply and picks up the ball again to toss it to Mercury, who goes galloping after it.

 “Retrospectively, I should’ve said something, but I didn’t and then we drifted apart after one argument too many.”

 “Again, it takes two to tango. The blame isn’t yours only.” Edward reminds him. Étienne shrugs and wrestles the ball out of Mercury’s mouth before he throws it again.

 It’s funny how they’ve both tried, over the years, to figure out exactly what happened to their fall out and when, but even they’re fuzzy onthe details. There’d been an argument of sorts, that much they’ve agreed on, and Edward had then returned home. They’d been busy with their own lives, at least one letter had been confirmed lost in the mail and then the years had somehow or other gone by.

 It hadn’t helped that Étienne had stopped going to meetings, so running into him there had happened less frequently. No matter how many times Edward had told himself that he’d make amends at the next meeting, Étienne had never been at it. It also hadn’t helped that the more time went by, the more Edward convinced himself that Étienne had moved on and that it would be pathetic to bring up something that had happened such a long time ago.

 He’d eventually assumed that with their fallout, Étienne had realised that there was nothing to him and that he’d been shelved, just like he’d always feared. It had hurt, obviously, but Edward had been dealing with bigger issues of his own back home and he’d focused his energies elsewhere. Étienne had been a far away fantasy and now that was over.

 On the other hand, Étienne’s own unstable mental health had whispered dark nothings in his ear and had slowly but surely convinced him that Edward had realised that he was messed up and not worth his troubles. He’d then figured that the best course of action was to forget about Edward and move on quickly, before he made a bigger fool of himself. It had pained him, obviously, but it had been the only way.

 Of course, they both realise that there’d been a better option they could have taken, but at least they can say that eventually they did reconnect and had made amends.

“When we stopped hanging out together, I honestly thought it was a temporary thing. Spending that much time together was a novelty anyways, so it didn’t really bother me. We both needed to blow off some steam and I thought for sure things would pick up again soon enough.” He shrugs, “Anyways, I was angry at you as well, so I returned to my regular thing and – put space between us.”

 “I started to worry when days turned to months and then years. It was so – strange, not hearing from you. I wanted to reach out, but I was mad, hurt and petty. Too bad for you, I figured. It’s not like I needed you, I had other friends! But – it felt like I had heard more from you when you didn’t even had a proper post office than now and – it stung. A lot. I went from resenting you to thinking I had fucked up royally and that you no longer wanted anything to do with me. That messed me up even more, because now reaching out to you felt useless. You’d probably just toss me to the side and tell me to get lost.”

 Edward groans and Étienne looks at him, confused. “I think it’s a fucking miracle we managed to actually get back together. I can’t believe we both thought more or less the same thing and it took us that long to – talk.”

 Étienne chuckles, “We’re a special type of stupid.”

 The fact that Edward agrees says a lot about the both of them.

 “I thought it was better to cower away and feel sorry for myself. I tried not to dwell on it too much – tried to move on, while going through a million versions of I told you so. This is why I didn’t want to go ahead and develop feelings! Not only would I get hurt, but you would as well – one way or another, but at least, this way, you had no idea. It was better if you thought I was some heartless monster than some messed up person…”

 Edward wants to once more remind his boyfriend that he is not some monster and that everyone has their own imperfections, but there’ll be time for that later. He needs to make sure that his boyfriend leaves this conversation knowing and reassured that he is not broken.

 “And when I found out about you and Calvin, well that pretty much sealed the deal. You had moved on and I was not about to break that up, regardless of my feelings. I didn’t want to make things even more awkward and complicated, so I kept my mouth shut and just – played it cool; or at least tried to.”

 “What a success that was,” Edward chides even though Étienne had indeed kept his distances and hadn’t brought up his feelings until much later – until after they’d reconnected and after that still.

 “You know what I mean. I may have been called many things in my life, but I wasn’t about to fuck up your relationship just because I was jealous and still loved you.”

 “I know, Sweetheart, I know,” Edward takes a hold of Étienne’s hand and presses a soft kiss to it. He hopes Étienne understands that he’d never thought that about him. He’s relieved when his boyfriend gives his hand a squeeze and that the bite from his voice peters off.

 “It helped when I met new people. That was and is always fun. Building that initial connection, finding that first spark – what they like and what they want. It’s what makes it interesting, really, but of course, even when I hooked up with people just for sex – even when everyone was aware this was just a casual thing, there were still some who’d go ahead and say they loved me. They’d end up thinking that just because we’d meet up a second or third time that it was turning into a serious thing. I just liked their company or wanted to sleep with them again. But they never got it.”

 “At some point, I even faked it. Went along with it. I thought it would be easier. They’d say they loved me, and I’d return it. It – never worked, obviously. I would get tired of pretending. It always felt fake. How could I tell someone I loved them, when they were just a casual friend to me? Or a stranger I had just met? Like, yeah, maybe eventually I would’ve felt love for them – like, with Isabella. We get along great and we certainly have fun, but it’s a casual thing to me. I can’t predict the future, but I certainly do need the time to get to that whole love thing.”

 Edward had been wondering about Isabella, quite honestly. He’d heard of her, over the years, more or less, and Étienne had mentioned a few things about her, but he’d never asked. At first, afraid that his own chance with Étienne was shot and later one because he knew that Étienne loved him and therefore, that was all that mattered to him. Étienne was free to do whatever it was he wanted and if he wanted to share with him on anything, he’d be there to listen.

 Still, with this conversation, he’d been hesitant to ask, afraid Étienne would think he was accusing of something. He’s quite sure he wouldn’t have minded if his boyfriend would have told him he loved Isabella, but he’s also – for the time being – relieved. He supposes he can reflect on exactly why later. There’s enough to process as it is.

 “Yet, it seemed like everyone was after love and everyone equated sex with love, when those two things can be so diametrically different. For so long – for so fucking long there was barely even love in marriages. And now these people were finding love when it was only sex!” He shakes his head as if still in disbelief and Edward gets it, in parts. He’d gone after his fair share of sex only and had only wanted that. He can only begin to imagine how tricky it must have been for Étienne.  

 “Eventually, the other person would feel that there was something off with me. Sometimes, they confronted me about it and then would call me heartless or other such names. How could I not feel the same? They’d ask. What did I mean when I said I didn’t feel love but I didn’t mind them? I must be a monster if I only wanted sex. Christ – why the rush?! They couldn’t understand and it just made me question everything all over again. Had I ever really even loved anyone? Was I really broken? Were they right? Had I missed some great big boat where they were handing out love?”

 “I got tired of that – I’m tired of that.” He sighs and passes an agitated hand through his fringe, before he tugs on a curl that Edward watches bounce back into place. He carefully reaches out for Étienne and puts a comforting hand to his knee.

 “It took me so long to come to terms with the fact that no, I’m not broken.” He admits quietly, “I’m just fine the way I am and it’s okay if romantic feelings never appear, yet every time someone would bring it up, it felt like going back to square one – like I was still that same young man from so many years ago who was terrified I was made broken with missing parts. It honestly got discouraging at times. Like – hell, there’s even a word for it now! Can you believe it?!” He asks without really addressing Edward, “Demi-romantic, how’s that for fun, eh? How fan-fucking-tastic! I now have a shiny new word I can dangle in their faces. As if I needed that to prove my worth! I don’t need crap from others! And I certainly wish my brain could fully get on board with that as well!” He lights up another cigarette, mindful to let the ash fall into the ashtray Edward had dug out for him. He seems a little annoyed, still, - frantic – as if talking about this has brought up some pent up frustration and unprocessed emotions of his, and Edward gently nudges his shoulder and offers him a small smile.

  “You know, even if you had never told me any of this – about you being demi-romantic, I would have never thought of you as broken. I like you the way you are – always have, really.” He knows these words can’t heal all of Étienne’s wounds and he knows they certainly can’t erase the wrongdoings of the past, but he hopes they bring Étienne some comfort, if nothing else. That if Étienne thinks the whole world doesn’t get him, that he’ll always have him. That Edward will always stand in his corner, regardless of their relationship status.

 Étienne gives a sheepish sort of shrug, and takes a long drag from his smoke, before he passes it to Edward, who’s more than thankful for the hit of nicotine. “I’m sorry I went off like that – that turned into some never-ending tangent.” Étienne knows he doesn’t usually over share. In fact, it usually always takes him ages to open up, but Edward has always been his confidant and this had more or less been things he already knew. It had just been different to – verbally tell him, but if they are supposed to be more open and discuss things, he supposes this is a good way to go about it.

 “Don’t apologise – I don’t mind listening to whatever it is you have to tell me, you know that, right?”

 Étienne nods after a moment, “Yeah; thanks for sticking around through all of this, really. I know none of this changes how I acted towards you and what I said and didn’t say, but I’m glad you didn’t toss me under a bus after that whole debacle. I’m glad we got to be friends again and that we’re back together.”

 Edward chuckles and loops an arm around his boyfriend’s shoulders to pull him close, “For what it’s worth, I’m also glad we got to be friends again and that we’re back together, silly. I missed having you around.”

 For the first time since this conversation has started, Edward feels as though Étienne’s smile is genuine and it settles something in him. He presses a kiss to his boyfriend’s cheeks and holds him to his chest for a moment.

 “That’s it – really. I’m just – demi-romantic and was afraid you’d freak out on me, like so many others had. And after all the grief and loss from Gen to Charlotte, Nicholas and Koffey – I was afraid I’d lose you as well. So I kept quiet and – ended up regretting that even more...” He trails off for a moment and Edward feels him tighten his hold on him, “But here we are now,” He says, making his voice sound strong and stopping it from breaking. Despite everything, he’d made it. Despite everything, he’s here, with Edward and Edward still loves him and still wants him in his life.

 “Here we are now.” Edward parrots back. It has to mean something. It has.

 FIN

Part IV

[strangebrews]

@madam-metaphor​ asked: 69. Ventriloquist

So Eddie was still out of a job. Not an ideal state to be in, by any means, though he’d excused the situation on being busy with other, more pertinent things—diverting an alien invasion, for starters.

But it’d been 2 months since anything urgent had come up and here was Eddie during a Wednesday afternoon, on the couch with a microwave dinner in his lap. TV shows had gotten worse nowadays, he was thinking, no respect for plot anymore, just pure drama. 

His bills were piling up—the stack of envelopes was becoming painfully apparent on the island in the kitchen, giant red notices bleeding onto the paper—but it wasn’t like Eddie hadn’t tried. He had tried—at the grocery store, the pet shop, even the fucking video rental place—yet none of the leads had amounted to any promising offer. He was just unlucky, that was all, he thought and took another bite.

You’re very lucky, Eddie. I decided to live in your body. Venom regarded itself quite highly.

He was flipping through channels now, irritated with his lack of options, Venom’s head perched on his shoulder. A streaming subscription, that’s what he needed. Another bill added to the mound, but it was necessary, because, “I mean look at this shit,” he gestured towards the TV with his remote, mouth full, “You cannot expect me to want to watch this kind of crap.” It’d been some ventriloquist—third fucking episode in a row—and Eddie jammed his finger into the skip in frustration. 

Wait.

Venom pressed a tendril to the back button and slithered closer to the screen, head cocked in interest.

How did he get that little human onto his arm?

Eddie gave Vee a crooked smile. He would admit, providing Venom explanations of silly human behaviors was one of his favorite aspects of this cohabitation. “It’s not a tiny human. It’s a puppet—not alive. You stick your arm up the hole in its ass and make it do things.” He laughed, amused at his own explanation. 

Venom’s eyes glimmered. Don’t we do the same thing?

 The laughing stopped. “No, no we do not do the same thing—it’s different. It’s very fucking different. You’re supposed to make jokes, create a show, have people watch you.”

The glimmer intensified. Let’s do that.

“Do what? Become a career ventriloquist?” a slow nod was Eddie’s only answer.  

Venom’s proposal was unsurpring, actually. It had grown increasingly frustrated recently—angry that Eddie could walk the streets now without anyone suspecting anything out of the ordinary, providing no indication they knew Venom was living inside. But the issue was that Venom wanted to be seen—wanted everyone to know that Eddie was taken, that this was Venom’s Eddie. It didn’t want anyone looking at him. Considering him.

Venom had thrown a fit once or twice in public already, accidentally shoved someone out through the glass doors of a bus because they’d brushed up against Eddie a little too often. And that had been an accident—the person was fine aside from a few scratches on the nose—but Venom had been sternly warned that day to never try anything like it again. 

“I’ll rip you out of me, Vee. I promise I will.” Obviously it was an exaggeration, but the image it produced was painful enough for Venom to agree.

So this was its roundabout way of being present in public. They could star in a show together—much like the one on TV—and Venom would have an excuse to stay on the outside, make itself known. It was a perfect idea.

I would make a great puppet, Eddie.

Eddie just laughed and brushed the crumbs off the front of his shirt. He used to be an esteemed journalist. He was not going to become a fucking ventriloquist for the afternoon broadcast. It was stupid. It was ridiculous. It was not an option. It was—

+

They were standing in front of the bathroom mirror, Venom’s head bobbing out from Eddie’s right hand, while another piece wrapped around his arm before cutting off entirely before the elbow. 

A puppet. A gooey, terrifying, alien puppet.

Venom had succeeded in getting Eddie to try the idea out—there was no harm in just trying, it’d argued. And yes, fucking had been a factor in the convincing process, but there was no need to focus on silly details.

They’d been glued to the same spot for nearly an hour now, Eddie trying to mold Venom’s mass into something a bit less menacing. He’d tried giving it pointed ears, a nose, some makeshift hair strands that were supposed to cover a part of Venom’s eyes, but they resembled creepy noodles, if anything else. The attempts were useless, so with a sigh Eddie gave in and moved onto the next issue. “We’ll just be really funny, to distract from the unconventional look.” Unconventional was his way of describing it, because there was no reason to hurt Vee’s feelings. 

Mouth movements proved to be a problem too. “You have to move it based on the shape of the words I’m saying. What you’re doing is not convincing at all.” Venom was just opening and closing its maw haphazardly, disregarding any authenticity. 

I’m meant to be a puppet. They lack the same facial mechanics. 

“Yeah, but—” Eddie cut himself off, because there was a point to be made here, he just wasn’t sure what it was. He set that aside for later. 

The tongue—the tongue had to go.

“It’s just a bit unsettling, is all, when you flick it all the way out like that, you know? Some might find it suggestive, others might think it's insulting.” So Venom curled it back into its maw, with some difficulty, but it’d managed.

Then they encountered an issue with the flow of the conversation. Eddie should have expected Venom to hit a few bumps in the road when it came to witty comebacks, but it really killed the vibe when it kept answering with things like Eddie, do you really think I look like a nasty talking tar ball?

Eddie even tried feeding Venom dialogue through his thoughts, but on the fourth failed attempt he decided they were done. “We tried, we basically failed. I’ve got more important things to do.”

Staring into your empty fridge so you can ignore your real problems isn’t very important. Eddie did not entertain Venom with a response.

+

Yes, he should have been looking for a job still, but Eddie chose to write a script instead. 

They had stopped after that fourth try, but returned to the mirror an hour later. Eddie was going to get it right—he was going to squeeze at least one original, funny thing out of Venom. 

On the seventh try he decided the only way out of this was writing a script.

Recording the video, with his phone resting on the dresser and the script hiding beside it, was also, just a one-off thing. A quick hyperfixation, nothing more.

He worked on their conversation for 2 days, smoothed out all the kinks in their performance during the 10 rounds of practice recordings. Venom could now shape its mouth around the words, kept its tongue inside, and even spoke at a higher pitch to make it more convincing. The pair was ready.

+

Uploading the video to Youtube had also been Eddie’s idea. He had not given up on the project, and neither had he given up on being in denial towards the fact that he was absorbed by said project.

“It’s just—I refuse to have wasted 5 fucking hours on this and keep it private, you know?” It was a weak argument, and he suspected Venom would have raised its eyebrows in doubt if it had any, but it stayed silent. 

He’d done some minimal editing. Nothing too fancy—just an intro and an outro, simple things he’d learned during his journalism days. “It’s not gonna get any views.” he was talking to himself at this point, mouse hovering over the Publish.

“It wasn’t even that funny.” The video had successfully appeared on the recent uploads page—Eddie had checked to make sure, but he didn’t necessarily care. 

“I’ll probably delete it in a day or two, anyway, mind you.” Venom continued to hide away.

+

Venom was only ever quiet for two reasons: it was tired, or it had won a battle with Eddie and had nothing more to say. This case slotted under the latter category.

Because Eddie had not deleted the video after a day or two—it was still floating around on the Internet and Eddie’s finger was beginning to cramp up from refreshing. And refreshing. And refreshing.

The result wasn’t anything major. It was only 100,000 hits in 5 days and the title was pure bait—kinda hard to pass up a video called “Famous Ex-Journalist Stuffs Hand Up Puppet’s Bumhole, Calls It Coping” (That’s a misleading title, Venom had noted. “I know, just trust me.”)

“It’s not even that funny of a video.” Eddie said again on the 6th day, but there was a smile tugging at his lips—nearing 200,000 now. 

Cooksucker3000 said your puppet is fucking dope, Eddie. Venom hummed along Eddie’s arms in satisfaction. The comments were its favorite part, for quite obvious reasons, and Eddie was too preoccupied with his own shower of compliments to correct Venom’s reading mistakes.

this is so hilarious!! 

i love the idea! 

good to see ur doing well - i remember u from tv! 

u r really fucking hot xx

Delete that. It has nothing to do with the contents of the video. So not all of the comments were Venom’s favorite.

+

When they hit 300,000 Eddie said, “Fine—I’ll write one more script. But after that, we’re done.” Venom did not put up a fight this time either.

Because fine, Eddie could say whatever he wanted, but they shared a fucking body at the end of the day—as if Venom wouldn’t have noticed him finishing up the 4th script of a series last night.

[growingstrong-imagines]

Kissed by Fire // Chapter One

Prologue

Summary: What happens when the Queen kissed by Ice needs to turn to the Queen kissed by Fire in desperate times? Will the visit of the Dragon Queen cause unintentional anger and even unexpected feelings in the Northern Realm? People aren’t joking when they say opposites attract.

Word Count: 2k+

Warning: mentions of alcohol

A/N: okay this is a hot mess which took me way too long to write but hey after all im writing a fanfic based on grrm’s work amirite. it’s also going to flop but idc

Lyarra woke up with an awful headache attacking her temple, and it felt like her brain was about to burst out of her skull. She looked down at herself and realised she had fallen asleep in her gown which became quite wrinkled the night before. The Queen let out an annoyed sigh and she knew she was causing extra work for her servants, the thought of it making her feel ashamed of herself. 

She tried to stand up on her two feet as slowly as possible, but Lyarra still felt like her body was light as a feather and heavy as all the bricks making up Winterfell, at once. She almost collapsed back on her hard bed which was barely comfortable enough to even sit on it. 

Lyarra knew she had to get herself together, so she took a huge gulp of the glass of water sitting on her desk and she knew it would probably be for the best to call one of her servants and ask for something to treat the hangover but her thought process was cut short by her most trusted advisor, Ser Davos.

“Your brother would like to talk to you, Your Grace,” he announced, bowing slightly. Lyarra simply nodded and told the knight to let Jon inside, then wait for them outside. She recognised the worried looks Davos was giving her when he saw her uncombed hair and wrinkled gown, but she couldn’t bother thinking about it right now. However, Lyarra did start feeling uneasy once Jon closed the door behind himself and looked her up and down with slightly raised eyebrows.

“Are you here to tell me something important or to judge me again?” The Queen snapped and rubbed the bridge of her nose with eyes shut tightly. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, feeling like an actual mess.

Jon took a step closer with a worried expression on his face. He knew what it felt like to behead someone, though he had got quite used to the blood on his hands by now. However, his sister didn’t have as much experience and still wanted to appear strong, but Jon knew about her coping mechanisms and it worried him more and more, on a daily basis but every time he wanted to talk to Lyarra about it, all he got was annoyed groans and denial. His sister was definitely down on the wrong path, but he knew there was still a chance to pull her back.

Lyarra looked him in the eyes, and she couldn’t keep it anymore. All those weeks and months without touching anyone even in the most innocent way possible made her stone-cold and distant, but still starving for the feeling of a warm body against her seemingly frozen one. She knew that her title was turning her into something she had never wanted to become and that made her terrified and anxious, constantly on the edge, praying to the Gods to send someone who would help her get her real self back.

Lyarra suddenly collapsed into Jon’s strong arms and her brother held her as close as possible, reassuring his sister that she wasn’t alone in this fight. He ran his fingers through Lyarra’s hair and stroked her back gently, so she would calm down and feel at ease just again.

Once it happened, she pulled away from Jon and gave him a tiny smile.

“I’m sorry. It was harder than I thought it would be. And I can’t stop thinking about how much danger might be hiding among the walls of Winterfell. Among the walls of my home,” she said almost whispering while filling another glass with the cold water.

“We’ll work hard to secure the castle even more, Lyarra. After all that have happened, you’ll also need a guard constantly looking after you. And don’t even dare to say no. I know that you are the Queen but I’m your brother and want you safe and sound.” Jon looked at her with one of the most serious expressions Lyarra had ever seen on his face, and she knew it was no place for an argument right now. She simply lowered her eyes and tried to ignore the headache that didn’t want to go away. Eventually, she decided to change the topic. It was way too painful to talk about it right now.

“Does the Dragon Queen still want us to bend the knee?” she asked with a slightly disgusted face and Jon didn’t have to talk to answer her question; his long and deafening silence was enough.

Lyarra let out a chuckle and shook her head, taking another sip of the fresh water that she wished was a cup of great Arbor wine instead. She soon got ashamed of that thought.

“We cannot do that and she just wastes all of our time if she thinks otherwise,” Lyarra said, putting the empty cup down, all the while looking Jon dead in the eyes. Her brother lowered his head and sighed, knowing full well it would take an awful lot to convince his sister to think about other options. Jon saw the good in Daenerys, he saw the potential in her and genuinely thought it would be for the better to seek alliance with the Dragon Queen. However, Lyarra was just as stubborn as their father Ned and brother Robb, and she wasn’t convinced easily about anything, let alone such an important decision, which could influence the lives of thousands if not millions so easily.

Jon stepped closer cautiously, knowing full well how much his sister treasured her personal space. But as she stood there without her heavy crown and flawless gown, Jon realised how vulnerable Lyarra actually was. No matter what anyone said and thought, his sister was still a scared child at heart who had to grow up way too fast. And a part of Jon hated himself for not being there for her to protect her from all the harm that had reached Lyarra while they were apart, but he knew that his sister would be angry with him for saying it out loud, so he kept it all to himself.

Lyarra shook her head once again and forced herself to look the other way, so she wouldn’t see the worry in Jon’s eyes. It was the same bloody look every time they looked at each other, and she was getting tired of it. After all, she wasn’t the helpless little girl she was when her brother left for the Wall - she was the Queen in the North, a grown woman with ambition and cunning. A grown woman who had fought for survival for a big part of her life, who had already learned she was her only true ally.

So she despised that look in Jon’s eyes even though her brother meant no harm. Still, it took Lyarra back to dark places she never wanted to visit again, so it was easier to avoid eye-contact with her brother, even if it meant making him feel bad. After all, she had never learned how to confront an issue in a healthy way.

Finally, when the silence was getting too heavy for both of them, Jon sighed and pulled Lyarra into a tight hug. The girl was surprised at first, so she just stood there slightly shocked of the sudden display of affection from Jon. Then, slowly but surely, Lyarra let her muscles relax and leaned into her brother’s strong body, folding her own arms around Jon’s torso. She unconsciously buried her face in the boy’s chest and it made her feel safe and home. Oh, how dearly she had missed these feelings and finally, they were all there, lighting a fire inside of Lyarra – a fire that was ignited and kept alive by the feelings of love and safety. Just as this fire started had Lyarra realised how cold and icy she had become throughout the years spent alone or in the company of cruel people and traitors. She only needed a pair of safe arms to melt the ice and make her feel human again.

When they pulled away, Lyarra even flashed a weak smile at her brother, who was quick to return the gesture. However, their moment was soon ruined by Ser Davos, who informed Lyarra about the Dragon Queen’s desire to speak to her in private.

Lyarra took a quick glance at Jon, who lowered his eyes and was already holding his breath. He knew full well that his sister had a rather strong personality which not everyone was fond of and he had feared that Queen Daenerys would be too quick to judge Lyarra too without giving her time to warm up to her.

However, Daenerys was quite patient and understanding, some of her qualities which she only reserved for people she greatly loved or respected. As she stepped in the chambers of the Queen in the North, she had to try really hard to toughen up in front of her rival. Or, who seemed to be her rival. Daenerys had no idea what had happened to her and she tried to fool herself by telling herself it was the sweet wine she had had before visiting the Queen in the North. Of course, it was much more complicated than that and a part of her was aware of that.

Lyarra raised her eyebrows to let the Dragon Queen know that she was waiting for her response.

“I’m terribly sorry, I must have got lost in my thoughts. I simply wanted to visit you because we haven’t had the chance to get to know each other, I’m afraid. What you did yesterday- You’ve done it before, haven’t you, Lady Lyarra?” Daenerys cursed herself in her mind for letting such ramble roll off the tip of her tongue.

However, Lyarra cursed the Queen in secret for addressing her as a simple Lady instead of the Queen she was. Still, she managed to force a smile on her face and offered her a seat opposite of her by her desk before answering the Queen’s question.

“I haven’t had to behead too many people so far, if that’s what you’re curious about. But I have had my battles to fight, so I’ve learned to swing a sword the hard way.”

Daenerys suddenly didn’t know how to reply, but she was so desperate not to appear weak or ignorant in front of a possible ally, so she simply smiled and said how much she had always admired warrior queens at which Lyarra simply smirked and turned away, leaving Daenerys disappointed.

“I’m sure you’re already a legend, as well, Your Grace, so please, let’s skip the small talk to you telling me the actual reason you’re here,” Lyarra blurted out, staring deep into those violet eyes. I can’t lie, they’re beautiful, but beauty is lethal.

Daenerys couldn’t ignore the tone the Northern Queen used when saying Your Grace but she also knew she couldn’t let such petty little things get in the way. She had a goal to achieve here but it was getting difficult to keep her composure in the presence of Lyarra Stark. And it wasn’t the fact that it was her territory that intimidated Dany- it was something completely different, a feeling that she hadn’t been able to shake off since she first laid eyes on the Stark girl. As much as it annoyed her, it also made her scared. Scared that it might be the cause of her losing her place on the Iron Throne.

“You see right through me, my Lady. I am actually here to convince you to bend the knee and join forces with me to-,“ but she couldn’t continue without being cut off by Lyarra Stark.

“To help you get the Iron Throne where you could rule over my home? I’m terribly sorry, Your Grace, but I hope you can understand that I simply can’t do that. I can’t decide for thousands. And even if I could, my answer would still be no.”

Daenerys flashed a rather forced smile at the self-proclaimed Queen in the North and thought to herself she’s making it difficult for everyone, but if she wants difficult, let it be difficult.

[strawberry-skies-xx]

forget the bottle

C H A P T E R    O N E

summary: Jaskier has always felt things on a deeper level than most, and more often, and he has gone through life this way. He has coping mechanisms, of course - drinking, talking, singing, etc. He can't be overwhelmed by his emotions all the time, after all.

After the mountain, Jaskier's coping mechanism is drinking. Turns out, there's something in it, and Nilfgaard knows exactly how to break the songbird.

words: 17097

tags: geralt / jaskier, yennefer, PTSD, post-s1e6, s1e6 fix-it, a fix-it of sorts, pyschological trauma, psychological torture, magical fuckery, mind manipulation, aftermath of psychological torture, emotional/psychological abuse, torture, nilfgaard, captured by nilfgaard, fringilla, fluff and angst, protective yennefer, yennefer ships it, idiots in love, love confessions, happy ending, solitary confinement

author’s note: alright, so here is the zillionth captured-by-nilfgaard fic in this fandom. and, yes, whenever i mention valdo marx + jaskier hate-fucking, i am passive-aggressively yelling at the fandom for not having more of it. it has massive potential, but i don't write smut. (aka, please link me to any amazing top/dom valdo and bottom/sub jaskier hate-fucking, i love it)

scheduled tuesday and thursday posting.

main masterlist | story on ao3 | next chapter >>

-0-0-0-

Jaskier felt too much.

He’d always felt too much. He spent his younger years raging at his parents, raging at the world, though he didn’t know what he was raging at, only that he wanted to get away, be free.

And when he was old enough, he went to Oxenfurt and learned - learned academics, learned the arts, and he flashed through emotions quicker than he did love. The world was new, the world was bright and big and bold and Jaskier wanted nothing more than to carve himself a place in it.

And he did. He went to an inn in Posada and met a white-haired Witcher, and he learned some more. Learned of the darker emotions - not just anger, but revenge, and not just sadness, but despair, oppression. The world was new, still, the world wasn’t quite bright anymore but it was big and bold and Jaskier still wanted to carve himself a place in it, by way of one grumpy, golden-eyed, white-haired Witcher.

So Jaskier went through the world, and he felt. He felt pain lance through him, sharp as any blade - pain of heartbreak, pain of rejection, pain of actual physical wounds. He felt happiness, like warm honey falling gently over him - contentment when he sat by the fire with Geralt and sang into the shadows, joy when he roused an entire tavern into singing and stamping with him and he danced between them all, singing his heart out to the world.

He also felt love, in a more permanent sense than he’d ever felt it. Love was…. a peculiar sensation for him. He fell into love hard, and fast, and deep - both literally and metaphorically; Jaskier did enjoy the finer things in life, and he wasn’t above flirting and taking everyone he met to bed, sometimes at the same time. He adored people, like soft warmth rising in him. Lust was sharp and primal, carnal in its intensity, and Jaskier sharpened it into something intricate, turned it into pretty words and meaningful looks and determined intent.

And he loved, loved with his whole being, loved with his entire heart. Jaskier gave a piece of his heart to everyone he met, and sometimes he took it back after a fleeting infatuation, sometimes it stayed with them and he yearned. Valdo Marx was one of those people - he had loved him as he did anyone, had ended up hating him, but Valdo was not a fleeting love. Jaskier still loved him, even if it was only for their sharp back-and-forths and the truly mind-blowing hate sex they had occasionally - Valdo knew him better than anyone, except for Geralt.

Geralt was different. For Jaskier, love shot through him like a lightning bolt - or, Cupid’s arrow. Sometimes it went out the other end and left, sometimes it stuck and bled and scarred. With Geralt, it had shot through him like any other person, except it had stuck, it hadn’t bled, and it hadn’t scarred. Jaskier loved Geralt, and he was never so selfless that he never wanted more of him despite having what he already did, but if he was truly forced to choose, Jaskier would have been perfectly content with the life he led with the Witcher, would have suffered through the pain of pining after him if he got to stay.

Jaskier hadn’t chosen, though. Geralt had chosen for him, and he had decided that he didn’t need him, didn’t want him, and Jaskier had granted him his oh so desired blessing, and left.

Heartbreak felt like needles, stabbing him, over and over and over, in multiple places, and when he thought it was done, he’d see something and he’d be pricked again, it would draw blood.

Jaskier had grown very good at coping with his feelings - he couldn’t go through life being overwhelmed by all of his emotions. He did this in all manners of ways - writing songs and singing them, putting on the optimistic act to simultaneously let out emotions while hiding others, and talking, constantly. One of his better - or, well, quite unhealthy but very effective - coping mechanisms was drinking, which was what he was currently using on the heartbreak needling at him.

He stared into the tankard of ale, which tasted more like piss than actual ale, and sighed. Even the damn ale reminded him of Geralt.

Maybe the Cupid’s arrow for Geralt had started bleeding. Jaskier wasn’t sure if it would scar.

He groaned and dumped coins on the table, ignoring the flirtatious looks some women were giving him. He would have accepted it at any other time, would have lost himself in pleasure, but he felt slightly dizzy and he wanted nothing more than to find someplace to sleep, without practically selling his body for it. He didn’t have enough coin for a room, so he’d have to sleep out in the woods. Which, dammit, was just like he used to do with Geralt. Minus the Witchery protection now, of course.

Jaskier’s head was thoroughly spinning by the time he got out of the inn, and he knew something was wrong. He was drugged, he knew what it felt like to be drugged, having been enough times that Geralt actually berated him for having to rescue him. He ran through in his head what drug it could be, landed distantly on the salty taste of the ale, and cursed under his breath. Or, maybe it was a curse. Jaskier’s head was too fuzzy to figure out whether it came out as an actual word or as incoherent noises.

He saw shadows out of the corner of his eye - black, large, vaguely terrifying considering the way he stumbled and couldn’t think straight. He was caught by two strong arms, Geralt flashing quickly through his mind before a voice that was decidedly not Geralt whispered in his ear, smooth and cruel.

“Hey, little songbird,” not-Geralt said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“Fuck off,” Jaskier replied. Or didn’t. He didn’t know, his head was spinning and he felt a headache pounding and his limbs were growing slow and heavy, and the darkness dragged him down all too easily.

-0-0-0-

Jaskier woke up cold, and shivering, and very, very confused. He was laying on his side on a stone floor, feeling like he had been dunked in ice water - which, maybe he had, because his hair was dripping wet still and plastered to his face. His hands were behind his back, and at an experimental tug, they were tied together too. He wore nothing but his pants, and his bare shoulder pressed against the cold stone.

Jaskier cursed, both from his situation which had rapidly come back to him, and the very annoying strands of wet hair that had decided to plant themselves directly in his eye, and managed to roll himself onto his back with some effort. He lifted his head as much as he could and shook his hair out of his face, trying very hard to ignore the feeling of it plastered to his cheeks, his neck, just all over the place. He took the brief time to berate whoever had kidnapped him on hair care - honestly, did no one know how to dry hair? He liked to keep his hair soft and this was decidedly not the way to do it.

Of course, none of this was what he believed. He was ignoring the fear crawling up in him, feeling like spiders and making his skin itch, feeling like ice trickling down his spine and tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. If he focused on anything other than the fear, then he wouldn’t be overwhelmed. It couldn’t do anything.

Jaskier rolled himself back on his side in order not to crush his hands beneath him, and after a long, heated moment spent mentally berating whoever had kidnapped him, again, on the best positions for singing, he actually started singing. The lecture went on, still - every time his voice cracked very much not artfully, or every time he couldn’t pull in enough breath, he took a second to come up with some particularly creative insult in his head about calling him songbird and then prohibiting his ability to sing.

He ignored the feeling of spiders crawling over him and the feeling of ice trickling down his spine.

It was an undetermined amount of time, measured only by the fact that Jaskier got through eight songs verbally before he started shivering uncontrollably, and six songs mentally before the door opened and a woman in blue robes and two men in black Nilfgaardian armor strode in.

He gave a dry laugh, ignoring the spiders crawling and the ice trickling. “Nice of you to stop by,” he said. “You know, it’s a bit contradictory when you call me songbird and then put me in a position like this, which is very much not conducive to singing, let me tell you.”

The woman in blue robes smiled and walked forward. She reached behind him and tugged harshly on the ropes tying his arms, pulling him into a kneeling position, before yanking him up to stand. Jaskier met her dark eyes, sensed the crackling undercurrent of magic around her, and supposed that this was Nilfgaard’s mage. Or one of them, at least.

She held his gaze for a long moment, searching, before letting go. “Untie him,” she said, turning around and standing several paces back as the Nilfgaardian soldiers descended on him.

Jaskier stood still, finding his heart suddenly pounding and adrenaline racing through him. This was his chance - he could try to escape now.

The ropes dropped from his arms and he lashed out, landing a right hook in one of the soldier’s jaws and aiming for another in the other soldier, when the entire room popped and Jaskier found himself slammed into by a wave of magic. His back hit the stone wall hard, knocking the breath out of him, and he gasped, arching. The sorceress walked forward, cruel emptiness in her eyes, watching him like he was a bug pinned to a board. Which, he supposed he was.

He was always a bug pinned to a board, poked and prodded and seen as amusing by Geralt and Yennefer and now this damned mage. Gods, Jaskier hated being human.

“Don’t struggle,” she said, voice oddly serene. “It’ll only be worse for you.”

Jaskier scoffed, rolled his eyes and studiously ignored the fear threatening to overtake him. Sometimes feeling too much was a blessing, sometimes it was a curse. Right now, it was a curse.

“Why? So I can become your puppet and you can do whatever you’d like to me? I’d be flattered you think of me that way, if this wasn’t a kidnapping,” he retorted sharply. The mage laughed, amused, and Jaskier tugged against his invisible bonds. Something in him wanted to cry at the fact that they didn’t even deem it necessary to tie him up, he was so weak and human.

The mage didn’t respond - not to his question, anyway. Instead, she raised two fingers to trace along his jaw. “It’s better to get this over with now,” she said.

Jaskier paled, felt the fear rising in him. “Get what over with? I’d rather you don’t-“

Her fingers landed on his forehead and his sentence ended with a scream. He arched against the invisible bonds, feeling the searing heat crawl into his mind, flood it with lava, with blood and pain and misery. She dissected his memories, sharply cleaving through every defense he had, and he felt the magic ripping through his body harshly, tearing through his mind.

Jaskier slid into the wooden seat, bread shifting uncomfortably in his waistband - but that wasn’t important. What was important was the lack of a review, the golden eyes staring flatly at him and the two long, sharp, menacing swords sitting beside the man.

“Come on, you must have some review for me. Three words or less.”

“No,” he gasped. “Don’t- please don’t-“

He screamed again as she ripped through another of his memories, feeling tears start in his eyes and the feeling of fear inch up his spine, waiting for the opportunity to get past his defenses and overtake him.

“How’s my singing, Geralt?” Jaskier asked loudly, because oh he wanted to have this conversation. He was quite heartbroken from the Countess de Stael’s rude break off of their relationship, and he thought spending a good long while defending his singing with a loud, unrestrained sarcasm he hadn’t been able to use since he entered the Countess’s court would make him feel better. There was something freeing about being with Geralt, not having to tiptoe around the darker and dirtier things in life.

Jaskier gasped through the pain, shaking against the wall, mouth now opening wordlessly as he arched and the mage tore into memory after memory, pulling everything he ever felt, thought, said, did, into full view, forcing white hair and golden eyes into the forefront of his mind. She learned he felt too much, she learned he loved too much, she learned of the frankly embarrassing number of times he hate-fucked Valdo Marx.

And she learned he loved Geralt with a love more permanent than anything he’d ever felt before.

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands!”

The agony ended with that line echoing in his head and he fell limp against the magic holding him to the wall, gasping for breath and still feeling the echoes of the searing pain ripping through his head.

The mage was entirely unconcerned, standing and waiting with a blank look on her face until Jaskier caught his breath and sent her a glare. He growled - which, of course made him think of Geralt. Damn the fucking Witcher who stole his heart. “Are you done? Learned anything useful?” he snarled, truly not giving a fuck about whether he angered her and made it worse.

She traced her fingers along his jaw again, sliding them beneath his chin and raising his head, lowering herself down to look him in the eyes. “Oh, songbird. We learned so much. I'm going to enjoy breaking you.”

Jaskier felt the fear rise up in him, felt his breaths start to come shorter and tears fill his eyes, and forcefully shoved it down. He couldn’t let his emotions overwhelm him.

“Why do you want me?” he asked, uselessly. He knew why they wanted him - and he knew he couldn’t give them the answers they wanted. Geralt had discarded him.

The mage released his chin and stood up, not responding. Jaskier watched as she stepped back, flicked her fingers, and suddenly Jaskier fell hard to the floor. He gasped when the cold shocked through him, and the mage walked to the door with the soldiers. She turned back at him when he raised his head to look at her.

“The Witcher has something we want,” she replied, and turned and left. The door slammed loudly behind her and the soldiers.

Jaskier was left alone in the darkness, and the sudden drain of adrenaline from the mage ripping through his mind left him exhausted. He resisted the urge to cry; he kept up the dying hope that Geralt would save him, or he would escape, because they were the only things keeping back the flood of fear, and he knew if the fear and emotions overtook him then he would break.

For now, he curled up on the cold floor and let his eyes close, succumbing to the deep exhaustion and letting sleep take him.

-0-0-0-

The mage introduced herself as Fringilla, and the next time she came in there were the same two soldiers with her. Jaskier had searched his cell when he woke up feeling marginally better, though still freezing cold, and found nothing - it was pitch dark, so he couldn’t see, but he had felt every inch with his hands and there was absolutely nothing that would help him escape. He could barely find the door in the darkness.

The bright light blinded him and he covered his eyes as Fringilla and the soldiers walked in. He glared at them, backed away when the soldiers came up to him. They reached out and Jaskier laughed harshly, ducking out from under their arms. “Nope, no, I am not letting you touch me.”

Fringilla sighed impatiently as Jaskier kept dodging the soldiers, who did nothing more than walk steadily after him in the small space. He hated this, hated that he was trapped and couldn’t do anything other than run three feet from the soldiers and make himself look weak by prolonging it. They still hadn’t deemed him a threat enough to tie him up, for fuck’s sake.

Jaskier would have enjoyed taking apart that delusion, if he wasn’t freezing cold, half-naked, outnumbered, and with no weapon to speak of. He uselessly avoided the soldiers for several more minutes, until even he was growing bored of the game, and the only thing that Fringilla needed to do was raise her hand before Jaskier was stopping, freezing like a deer in headlights, fear flashing through him. The soldiers took that opportunity and slammed him against the wall, hands pinning his arms and legs in place.

Jaskier wondered if the display of sheer power against him was intentional, deeming him too weak for chains or ropes, but Fringilla smiled in such a way that it was instantly confirmed and Jaskier bit back his noise of annoyance. It was truly insulting, and hit something deeper in Jaskier that was still fighting, that kept up hope. He figured that was the point - if they could restrain him so easily now, what was the point of fighting? It would only be worse.

“Love,” Fringilla said, and Jaskier felt his stomach drop and his body go cold. If Nilfgaard wanted to break him, they certainly knew how to do it.

“It’s a peculiar thing, isn’t it? So volatile. It’s the only thing us mages can’t predict,” Fringilla continued, voice low.

Jaskier glared at her. “Shame. Thought you mages were all-powerful,” he snarked. Fringilla only looked amused.

“However,” she continued, ignoring his comment, “we can use it to our advantage.” And, yeah, that’s definitely not good for Jaskier, who squirmed just at the thought of what they could do to him regarding Geralt - because that was the only person he truly loved, really.

She raised her fingers, intent in her dark eyes, and Jaskier barely had time to protest, fear shooting through him, before cool magic washed over him like ice water, and he sank into darkness.

He saw the light first - saw the mountains in the distance, felt the clothes covering his back. Heard Geralt and Yennefer arguing below, saw Borch sitting on the ledge - and oh, fuck, this was the dragon hunt, he realized with a jolt of panic.

“Like fuck you didn’t,” came Geralt’s irritated voice, and Jaskier’s heart hurt just hearing it. He stood up, or, well, he tried to. There was a magical force pulling him down, forcing him to stay in the body of the Jaskier in his memories, the one who sat on the rock, and walked over, and then walked away. He wanted to cry, again, because he knew how this turned out and he could already feel the heartbreak needling at his skin, the pain of rejection lancing through him. He remembered how his dreams shattered like glass, and he cut himself on the sharp edges of them as he walked away.

He stood up, walked over once Yennefer left. Spoke without wanting to, felt the insistent magic tugging at him. “Whew,” he said. “What a day. I imagine you’re probably-“

“Dammit, Jaskier,” Geralt interrupted sharply, whirling around to face him, and Jaskier felt the needles of heartbreak start pricking him, stabbing and drawing blood. He was stuck in his memory’s body, though, so he was forced to listen, feeling the tug of Fringilla’s magic on his voice, on his body.

Geralt’s eyes were hard, burning with anger as he continued. “Why is it, whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days, it’s you shoveling it?”

“Well, that’s not fair,” Jaskier replied, voice soft. It was just as painful the second time as it was the first, and back in the dark, cold cell, Jaskier was resisting the urge to cry. He didn’t want to relive this, it was too much for him to handle.

“The Child Surprise, the djinn, all of it! ” Geralt’s voice was harsh, everything about him was harsher and sharper and Jaskier was cutting himself on it, he was practically bleeding out with the force of the heartbreak ripping through him. He sang so many songs about Geralt, about him not being a monster, and Jaskier fought against the negative things said about Geralt with everything he had, but some dark, selfish part of himself whispered that maybe Geralt really was the monster everyone thought he was. He was certainly acting the part right now, hurting Jaskier in the most efficient, effective way possible. Jaskier was wrong when he said Geralt didn’t know how to use the blade of his words as effectively as steel and silver.

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands!”

Sharp pain lanced through him and Jaskier woke up gasping, laying on the cold floor. The cell was dark; Fringilla and the soldiers were long gone. Jaskier was alone.

Jaskier shoved down the tears, shoved down the fear and heartbreak and emotions threatening to overwhelm him. Crying was not one of his coping mechanisms. Drinking was, talking was, singing was. Not crying, never crying. Jaskier would not show weakness.

Well, he couldn’t drink. He had two options. Singing or talking. There weren’t many songs to sing that weren’t about Geralt - and he had just been painfully reminded of how he felt about him, thank you very much. So he curled up in a weak defense against the cold, and in a quiet, cracking, whisper of a voice, started to talk.

-0-0-0-

Jaskier had fallen asleep in the middle of some sentence about geography, some passage he had memorized from a textbook when he was at Oxenfurt. He didn’t remember it now; didn’t need to. All he remembered now was the surge of fear as the cell door opened and Fringilla and two soldiers walked in. Jaskier looked up, too exhausted to think about physically fighting as they dragged him up from his position on the floor.

He did fight verbally, though, if only because talking to someone to fight off his emotions was better than talking to himself. “In the old stories, the knights swept the princesses off of their feet,” he said. The soldiers started pulling him towards the door - he had a vague hope of escaping, though he felt like shit because he was being starved and really had to piss. “Does that make me the princess?”

Fringilla gave her signature, idly amused smile, the one that reminded Jaskier just how much he was a bug pinned to a board and surrounded by immortals who didn’t care for him. “You’re a bard, and nothing more. The place we’re taking you is not from the old stories.”

Jaskier frowned. “Shame. Oh, speaking of being a bard, why do you even keep me here? You already rifled through my mind, you saw Geralt abandon me. You know I don’t know where he is, or what he has that you want.”

Fringilla didn’t look bothered. “You’re still useful. You know the Witcher better than anyone else, you can tell us where he would go next. His patterns of behavior, the way he thinks. The best way we can ambush him. Or, if not, you’re good for bait.”

Jaskier laughed, and the sound was harsh and mocking. “He won’t come for me,” he said bitterly. “You’re delusional if, after looking at that memory, you think he would come back for me. He doesn’t care whether I live or die.”

Fringilla smiled. “You’re right. He doesn’t care about you, and he won’t come back. Whether you help us find the Witcher or not, bard, you’re still ours.”

It came so easily, so certainly, that Jaskier deflated in the soldier’s arms, staring at Fringilla with a sort of blank horror. She had looked through his memories, had seen everything he’d seen, and she was able to say with such smooth certainty that Geralt wouldn’t come back for him, and he was Nilfgaard’s now. It hit the same part of him that it had when they had so easily restrained him, the deeper part of him that glowed gold with hope even as the rest of him withered and broke.

They stopped in front of a simple wooden door that Fringilla opened to reveal a room with a tub, toilet, and sink. Jaskier turned to the sorceress. “You’re giving me time to clean myself up?” he asked incredulously. “Doesn’t that go against, you know… everything about torture?”

Fringilla smiled again, but there was something darker in it. Jaskier resisted the urge to shiver at the dark promise hidden in her tone and smile. “You’re going to need it, bard. You won’t come back here for a long time.”

Jaskier felt the dread rise in him, like being touched by ice, and the fear. He nodded, staying quiet, and went into the room, flinching when the door slammed and locked behind him.

An hour later, the door was opened and the two soldiers came to get him, just as he finished using the bathroom. Jaskier sighed. “I’m guessing you won’t pamper me as much anymore?”

Fringilla smiled in the same dark way when the soldiers pulled Jaskier through the hallways. “No.”

They got closer, and Jaskier thought he was immune, he thought he was still strong, but he thought of the pure darkness of the cell and the cold air and the sheer loneliness, and started struggling when he saw the metal door at the end of the hallway. The fear was threatening to overtake him, his breaths came shorter and his voice rose an octave.

“Are you really sure you want to put me in there?” he asked, while pulling against the soldiers, who forcefully manhandled him down the hallway. His heart was picking up, and dammit he shouldn’t be this affected after two fucking days, but here he was. Nilfgaard had better torture tactics than they were given credit for - Jaskier had a bitter feeling that the reliving the hardest, most painful ten minutes of his life factored into the reason why he was so scared. “I’m sure there’s another option, something much less… well, dark and cold.”

“Will you answer our questions?” Fringilla asked.

“No,” Jaskier replied automatically. He wouldn’t give up that easily, no matter how terrifying the cell was.

Fringilla opened the door and the soldiers threw him in. He landed hard on the stone, still in only a pair of pants because that was all the clothes he was given in the bathroom, and he barely had time to watch the sliver of light be sliced away by the door slamming before he was left in pitch darkness, the cold air already seeping into him.

Jaskier sat up and leaned against the wall. He sighed, very firmly refusing the urge to cry, and stared into the darkness. He couldn’t even see the edges of the room, for fuck’s sake.

He let out a breath that definitely wasn’t at all shaky, tilted his head back against the wall, and started to sing - about everything and anything, because he couldn’t give a fuck about whether the songs were about Geralt if it meant he was distracted from the pain of knowing this was all he would see for gods knows how long. After all, it was just another emotion to add to the pile, wasn’t it? Nilfgaard wouldn’t care if he broke down - fuck, they wanted him to break down. Some dark part of him wondered if it would be easier to break down, stop fighting; it was only exhausting him anyway.

“When a humble bard, graced a ride along…”

[grimmjowkurosakidrake]

fic prompt: sasusaku meet during a summer camp!

HI! I’m back, and really sorry for the somewhat long hiatus on the Sasusaku prompts. It’s been a long month and I struggled with writing, working, college and the situation in my country. But I think I finally learned how to cope with everything :)! 

The first time his parents sent him to Nin’s summer camp, Sasuke didn’t want to go. 

He’s only seven, his big brother was free for the summer and just the day before, his classmate Shikamaru told him that parents only send their children to summer camp so they could be free off them while on vacations.

He didn’t talk with anyone on the bus and when Kabuto-nii, the counsellor for his group, leaned down to his level and asked for his name he turned away and ran towards his cabin.

Sasuke didn’t spoke one single word during the first day, because he decided that he hated his roommates more that even his classmates back at home who annoyed him to no end. Suigetsu was too sarcastic, Juugo was just plain weird and Karin wouldn’t leave him alone.

The rest of them were way too old an incredibly mean to him too.

Besides, there’s no way that he was going to talk to Kabuto-nii. The guy was weird. Too affectionate and he called him Sasuke-kun. Just like all the girls called him back in school.

They ended up moving him into another group.

This group was relatively big, twelve boys and girls with one counsellor for ‘teams’ of three.

His own team was conformed by; Naruto, a loudmouth, blond boy who smiled a lot and called him bastard when Sasuke didn’t smile back at him when they introduced themselves for the first time; Sakura, a shy-looking girl with the weirdest shade of pink hair he’s ever seen; Kakashi-nii, his counselor, a silver head who honestly looked too old to be twenty-four as he affirmed and he himself, a rich boy whose parents were way too busy to care off during the summer.

He actually liked this group.

Naruto was an orphan from Kirigakure who wouldn’t stop smiling and who saved him from a fox the third day of one of their hiking expeditions on the forest.

Sasuke froze like a scared cat when he heard the animal growling at him and Naruto just pushed him away and took the bite for him.

“Are you alright?” asked the blond while smirking through the pain and looking directly into his eyes, “scaredy cat.”  

That one taunt cemented their friendship. Sasuke promised to never become a victim to save in front of Naruto again and the blond decided to always be there when one of his friends needed him.

Kakashi was a lazy bum who forced them to wake up at six A.M in the morning when he himself wouldn’t be bothered to even get dressed before nine A.M. But he was also the only adult who actually listened to what he wanted to say. He allowed Sasuke to call him Kakashi instead of Kakashi-nii and he only smiled when Sasuke pouted too much or asked for more training time. Be it on martial arts of weaponry.

Sakura was a little different. She was way too shy. Always hiding behind her long bangs, never looking at him in the eye and usually running at Ino’s direction whenever she could. Sasuke liked her, though. He liked how she carried water bottles for everyone when they went out hiking, she also carried a fist-aid kit and she used it to heal little wounds for her teammates.

She kissed every wound once she finished. It was an act of kindness that her aunt Tsunade did for her every time she got hurt back at home.

It was also Sasuke’s first kiss from a girl.

From Sasuke’s six years’ old’s perspective, Sakura was the perfect girl to fall in love with for the first time. She was cute and kind, she blushed a bright red when she kissed Sasuke on his right cheek that first time, right on the corner of his mouth. She was obviously embarrassed but not regretful in any way.

It was innocent enough for Sasuke to fall in love without actually falling in love. Just a silly crush on a cute girl who treated him like a human being for a change and didn’t swoon at the very sight of him.

Four years later, though, he lost interest in her. They were both eleven and Sakura was different in every way. She was louder, bolder, her whole face, big forehead and all, was presented bare to the rest of the world without a single fear. Her hair was longer just like the hair of the other girls who tried to get his attention and she never talked to Ino anymore.

“I really like you, Sasuke-kun!” she confessed to him at the start of the fifth year of summer camp, the year Sasuke admitted to himself that there was no one in his household willing to take care of him when he wasn’t at school.

The next year Sasuke asked his parents to send him overseas for the summer. He was tired and sick of everyone.

He was sick of Sakura’s love, tired of Naruto’s competitiveness, and just plain bored of Kakashi’s friendliness. He didn’t feel any sort of attachment for them anymore, just like he didn’t feel any kind of attachment for his family.

When he left, he did it silently and without notice. He didn’t have Sakura’s or Naruto’s contact information and some friends he made for summer camp weren’t important enough to care about when he eventually never came back, anyway.

At twenty-two he came back to Nin’s summer camp with a completely new role. He was still rich, still neglected by his family but also a lot calmer and in peace with his life.

Kakashi contacted him for the summer of his fourth year of university, offering a job as a counsellor in the camp to pay off his social credits and Sasuke decided to take the offer with gusto, maybe even as a way to reconnect with some of the best memories he’s ever had, even if he wasn’t able to notice it or appreciate it at the time.

He was now a better person, a more well rounded person and Sasuke was aware and incredibly proud of this. After years of self hate, that eventually turned into hate and viciousness against everything that surrounded him as a child and a teenager the youngest of the Uchiha decided to start seeing a therapist.

Indra-san was fairly old man who threated him as an actual human being, listened to everything he had to say about his family, his friends and himself and most importantly, helped him to develop his own coping mechanisms to take manage with his self esteem problems, his anger issues and his anxiety.

When he came  back to summer camp as a counsellor, he did as someone who actually wanted to be there.

“I remember when you where an annoying kid just like these little monsters,” Kakashi smirked at him from behind his pristine, white, medical mask. Only the crinkling of his eye giving away his amusement.

“I wasn’t that bad,” Muttered Sasuke, idly watching as a young boy pushed a little girl who was only trying to hug him.

“Sakura said the same thing,” commented Kakashi pointedly watching the same pair of kids, “but we both know she was crazy about you.”

Before Sasuke could even process those words, the melodic voice he liked so much as child, but just a little deeper and a little more cheerful, reached his ears.

“Come on! Kakashi-nii, I wasn’t so bad!” Laughed Sakura. Now a grown woman just like had matured into a man.

Her baby face was completely gone, only a little roundness remaining around her cheeks, she was taller, obviously, but she was smaller than him by at least an entire head, her legs thought, seemed to never end and the small jean shorts she decided to wear under her counsellor’s shirt didn’t help any.

“I told you to just call me Kakashi, Sakura.” Smiled the silver-head despairingly “Kakashi-nii sounds weird now that you’re a little woman.”

“Sakura?” Uttered Sasuke, searching for his childhood friend’s sparkling green eyes. “Is that you Sakura?”

“Sasuke-kun” the pink haired woman, greeted him formally, for just a second before entirely breaking her mature façade, running in his direction with her arms wide open in order to hug him.

A few years before, Sasuke might have pushed her aside just as that little boy did. But now, the Uchiha takes her in his arms just as she falls on him. He even lifts her up for a moment, holding her tight, enjoying the rich Cosmos’ scent she still has even after so many years.

“I missed you so much,” she smiled against his neck.

Sasuke sighed against her hair, his arms tightening around her petite waist. “I missed you too, Sakura.”

[thelogicalroman]

A yellow tent and a broken night

Warnings: blood mention, implied murder (or a general crime with blood involved I guess), police, alcohol (being drunk), energy drink mention, bad coping in general. 

Word count: 633 

Characters: Janus and Remus, mentions of Roman (”and his friends” - you can decide if his friends are all of the others or not, it doesn’t really matter). 

I wrote this from Remus POV, so it’s in first point of view.

(Basically, Remus reflects on how life sucks while he gets thrown into prison)

(I don’t know what this is either, I wrote it in 20 minutes and wanted to share)

We sat on the floor, me and him, giggling far past the hours we should’ve even been awake. 

It was almost like when we were kids, except this time we weren’t. We weren’t sitting in that yellow tent in his backyard laughing about silly things we had done in our lives. We hadn’t blocked out Roman and his friends from hanging with us, because they didn’t care anymore, not in their new fancy beach house.

Instead we were in our shared apartment, drinking until we didn’t know our left from our right, until we couldn’t see the blood on our hands.

It had been simple as kids, when we didn’t know that society as a whole sucked, when we hadn’t worried about the government or voting. When we were simply kids too unaware of the world around us to even realize that the world was bigger than that tent.

I sometimes wish we could go back there, to that tent, to the summer heat and long nights. But it’s not possible, we wouldn’t even fit inside the tent as much as we’ve grown, maybe that was for the best, it was only a matter of time before the police would come anyway.

Janus put his arm around me, dragged me closer to him as he sang on that song we had made up as kids, about how life was so wonderful because we had each other. I remember sitting in the tent singing that, when no one else could hear it. 

In a way nothing really had changed. We had gotten older, seen the world for what it was, but we still protected ourselves from the outside world. We just had different methods now. Instead of yellow fabric we now had beige walls. Instead of energy drinks we had alcohol.

Wasn’t that what adulthood was? Finding terrible coping mechanisms and using it to keep the world at bay. How I scared people away by saying all terrible things that crossed my mind, while Janus simply lied and lied until no one trusted him or wanted him around.

We were outcasts, but we weren’t alone. We had each other, like we always had had. Janus would see my cries for help, like I could see his. We didn’t scream or cry, we had learned that we couldn’t, we shouldn’t show others the worst of ourselves. If we did, they wouldn’t like us. But if we only showed the best parts, they also wouldn’t like it. We had to be blank neutral slates for someone else to paint, and I didn’t want any of it, and neither did Janus.

We heard each other, saw every part we needed. Until we suddenly didn’t need it. Alcohol would drown our worries, as well as hide the police sirens outside the windows. 

We giggled as the police took us, said stupid things that you shouldn’t say to anyone. Janus looked me in the eyes, a tear trailing down his cheek, I smiled, knowing exactly what he meant.

Laughing as we were put into jail, laughing because we didn’t need help, we needed each other. But people never understood our misery, because if you laugh in the face of the good and the bad, then no one will believe you when you tell them the truth. We saw the bad, we just didn’t want to acknowledge it. Couldn’t for the sake of ourselves.

Janus knew this, we both did. But that didn’t mean that anyone else did. Not even Roman would understand me if I told him, which is why I trusted Janus more. A liar or a prince? Well, is the one called liar in a society really a liar? Or is the prince who tells you his tales actually the deceitful one? 

In the end it didn’t matter, when Janus and I was stuck behind bars, and Roman and his friends were out having a laugh. 

[myherorp]

THE QUIRK DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED !

incoming information on villain, red.

get to know them !

faceclaim: lee taemin 

name: jo kioh

villain name: red

gender & pronouns: male, he/him

age: 26

association: none

occupation: thief, informant

reputation: he’s not all too well known, but that’s something kioh’s tried hard to do. he doesn’t really find satisfaction in infamy. it just seems like a lot of work, but then again, it’s not like his power is incredibly useful. find the right circles, and they might have something to say about red. annoying, with a hood pulled up and half-hiding, too nosey for his own good and with a mouth on him. it’s only when he talks too much, knows too much, and that’s when it’s learned that he’s got a quirk. it doesn’t matter how much you try and rearrange him, he’ll go and put everything back in the right order. it only crosses the line into dangerous if he knows too much about you. and that’s the good part of blending in, nobody cares about telling things to someone they think is unimportant. one might liken him to a rat, and kioh would likely shrug and agree.

the quirk !

quirk name: regenerative healing

quirk description: this mutation allows for kioh to heal rapidly from any physical injury or ailment due to cellular regeneration. it allows for him to recreate lost organs or appendages (such as limbs) without leaving behind a trace of injury (scarring). due to the fact that the mutation is constantly working to regenerate itself if something is wrong or broken, it means that kioh is usually in top physical condition as he is constantly in the process of reverting back to a healthy state.

abilities:

self repair: all physical injuries are repaired through regeneration of cells. time may vary depending on the severity of the wound or injury.

inexhaustible stamina: since the body is repaired within moments of being broken down, it is near impossible for him to overexert himself or to put strain on himself in a way that would cause fatigue. however, it is possible for kioh to essentially ‘run out of fuel’ and pass out due to the body attempting to repair itself with he does not have enough in way of energy to do so while he is still physically moving.

disease immunity: due to the mutation constantly regenerating and repairing cells, a disease would not have enough time to take effect on the host.

weaknesses: 

while kioh obtains the ability to heal himself, he cannot suppress his pain and so he is still vulnerable to inflicted attacks despite being able to heal from them. though he does seem to have a somewhat amplified pain tolerance.

the larger the injury, the longer it takes for kioh to heal himself. while a cut may only take a few moments, for a limb to reattach or re-grow it would take a considerably longer amount of time.

despite immunity against diseases, drugs or poisons can still have an effect ( such as pain ) and will not be broken down due to regeneration. however, if said drugs cause damage to his organs, the damage would then be repaired.

while the regeneration keeps him in optimal physical condition, it cannot halt or slow the aging process on his body as a whole.

the regeneration applies only to physical ailments, and not to mental conditions or diseases.

since the mutation took over and replaced his own immune system, if depowered for an extended period of time he is incredibly vulnerable to infectious diseases as he has no way of dealing with them.

regeneration increases his nutrition requirements, and as a result has an incredibly fast metabolism that he has to keep tabs on in order to attempt to maintain his weight.

the history !

triggers: bullying, violence/injury, pain as a coping mechanism

january, 5 —

when he sticks his hands into the snow, they burn. cold searing in past the skin and biting sharp like mice teeth. kioh hisses, curls his fingers, retracts his hands, then repeats the motion. he’s five and doesn’t entirely understand the concept of a coldness like this, or how it can ache like fire. he just thinks it’s pretty when the sun scatters across ice fragments — wants to dip his hands in and roll it into a ball. so he withstands that pain, digs teeth into his lower lip and ignores the wind curling up and under the hem of the ill-fitting jacket sliding down one shoulder. claws out his handfuls of snow.

he’s disappointed later, when it all melts into puddles that leave him bone-soaked and shivering. ignores that gut kick of an impulse to cry over it all while his mother scolds him in the kitchen for making a mess while she tries to scrub warmth back into his hands through the pilled fabric of an old kitchen towel.

it’s the first winter kioh ever remembers.

he doesn’t like the season much anymore.

may, 13 —

his parents fight like it’s their hobby, so kioh decides he likes it too. not in the way of fists and violence, but with his mouth. antagonism pools like acid under his tongue, and it’s around the time of middle school that kioh can’t help but spit it out.

it doesn’t match him well; too gangly with colt limbs and an inability to hold his ground. but he can’t help himself. he can’t just take it with his head tipped down until boredom replaces that sadistic glee of that underdeveloped empathy of middle schoolers.

there’s no bite past his bark, and his status in the classroom matches this revelation. it tuns him into something of a pariah, circling with his sharp-toothed intentions, his classmates drifting off and away. there’s no real blame there, for not wanting to associate. for not wanting to invite that treatment on themselves. for sticking next to the kid inviting in antagonism from boys twice his size.

he was never blameless.

but he was always lonely.

august, 15 —

his house feels hollow.

his parents coexist within the walls of their cramped apartment, but that seems too understanding a term.

it’s always cold, even trapped in the humid swells of summer. they hate interacting, kioh can read it in their posture. stiff at the shoulders and something chilling in their eyes. sometimes it’s tipped out onto him, spills out across the room and drowns out whatever intentions he’d once had of fixing it.

he thinks they regret. they regret each other, they regret their lives, they likely regret him too. sometimes it feels like they’re all acting out a make-believe role to another reality. one where they’re all fractured apart, strangers dropped into the same building.

he sneaks into the kitchen at half past two and eats the rest of the cereal hunched over the sink like it’s a sin. ignores his father and the way he knows he’s drinking soju by the bottle from the smell alone. main characters of their own droll plays, and kioh doesn’t want to disrupt the pointedly settled stagnation that’s grown over their lives.

he feels like if he breaks it, it’ll topple. a ripple effect and finally everyone will pin the blame on him.

so he drifts along like a ghost instead. sneaks out and pretends like his parents might care if they find his bed empty at four in the morning. if they find the liquor stashed in his closet.

it never comes up as an issue.

september, 16 —

there’s something comforting in the way a bruise blooms across his skin. unfurls in petals of black-blue-green; like an imprint of reality. scars are similar, moments left scattered across his body that he can’t forget. proof of existence. and he’s developed this sort of dependency on it, morphed violence into this sense of satisfaction.

the reaction’s better, kioh thinks, when he’s doubled over in pain with a laugh trapped up in a wheeze, tripping over empty lungs on the way out. there’s a sort of bewilderment found there, the way they might forget to grab at his backpack, dig through it to see if he has money or smokes they can take.

he likes that sharp pull of focus, and the endorphins that fizz their way up his spine and explode white and blinding in his head.

he doesn’t really talk about it to anyone. how he intentionally walks himself into situations that leave their marks across his body. doesn’t really talk about how he’s decided it makes him feel more settled, less lost.

and anyway, who does he have to talk about it with?

march, 17 —

and then his self-made reality fades away.

kioh half hates it, his quirk. his skin is too pretty now. entirely smoothed out. can press a bruise into his shin and watch it fade before it has time to form.

it feels like a loss of control at first.

and then he turns reckless with it. like the beating of wings against this proverbial cage, but it doesn’t matter if those bones snap anymore. they just revert. he learns this too as he pushes the limits farther and farther. the sharp, blinding pain of cracked bones before they knit their way whole again. half a day later and kioh’s fine.

a split lip, a gash, landing wrong on a pipe and walking home with a limp. it didn’t seem to matter, his body would just fix itself back up again. like proving a point, that kioh couldn’t even lord over himself. at the whim of something improbable.

was it really a surprise he never grew into a hero?

november, 20 —

at first he tries. his quirk isn’t obvious, and it’s easy to skate under the surface. presumed normal in near-every situation. his family doesn’t have a lot of money, nor the care needed to push kioh into a better sort of life than they had.

he tries to study, ends up at a part time job for a while. then he moves out and into a half-basement apartment for dirt cheap, peeling wallpaper and poorly-covered mold growing near the ceiling. not that he has to worry about his lungs.

he spends too much money on cigarettes and convenience mart food and somehow remains the same despite his penchant to overeat.

it’s when he fails out of his third semester and gets his hours cut that it all starts to tremble, the threat of reality over his good intentions.

and he starts to think.

it’s not like it would matter, really, if someone hurt him on the tail end of a robbery.

it’s not like his body wouldn’t fix itself. put everything back into the right place.

he could deal with the pain. he always had.

december, 24 —

kioh considers himself to be something of a freelancer. willing to walk himself into dangerous situations for a price, and he doesn’t really care what the reason is. money or information or something stolen.

sometimes it’s his own selfish interest. wants money, mostly. isn’t that what it boils down to in the end?

he can pretend like he’s an alright person. might not target someone who looks like they’re in a similar position to himself. but what’s it matter if he lifts an expensive watch off daytrader? pulls a wallet off a man dressed head to toe in a designer fit?

he’s got a decent knack of falling under the radar. as long as the police don’t pick him up, it doesn’t matter too much. the threat of violence poses little deterrent for him. like a cockroach, kioh is able to bounce back, slide himself in through the cracks, insistent and undying.

it’s probably in his own favor. he’d never lost that inclination to use his mouth.

july, 26 —

kioh tries not to make a name for himself.

technically, he’s terrible. the antithesis of a hero, and he doesn’t want to be one. seeks out enough money to make rent on an apartment that’s not a whole lot better than his first. keep his abilities as hushed as he can.

but it’s hard so many years in, despite his best efforts.

more annoying than anything, the boy who refuses to both die and shut up.

he becomes a threat when he starts to get nosy. stows too much information in his head that they can’t knock out of him.

but what’s kioh to do other than turn it into the next best enterprise? finding intel and selling it off to whoever promises to foot the bill.

dead men tell no tales, sure. but that hasn’t been applicable to kioh now for years.

all you have to do is pay him.

the personality !

scavenging for information he can put to good use. the problem with this containment is that it leaves him lonely. residually; something that has spanned and stretched out taffy-thick throughout his life. he’s not so sure he can recall what it feels like to welcomed, wanted, some word lodged in between. everything has been left hollowed out and drafty. and with that came a peculiar sort of coldness. a desire to freeze people out; scathing and biting and bruising in order to keep himself in his hollowed out space of nothingness.

he’s vindictive, and won’t leave things well enough alone. talks too much, and he says it’s because it doesn’t matter, because if someone hits him for it everything will settle back into place. leaving him looking unaffected enough, just an off-kilter smile and red-stained teeth. he seeks it out though, that pain. even if he doesn’t really admit it to himself. uses it like a tool - a way to cope, or some sort of self-punishment. like he’s proving to the world that he doesn’t like himself all that much, either.

so what if nobody else does too?

so what if it’s left him a villain?

at the core of it all, he’s tired. but he’s twisted up so caustic and near-cruel that it’s nearly impossible to wring the admission out of him.

self-defense mechanisms at their finest, and a desperation to keep all the pieces of himself in place.

[gleedegrassi-bigfan]

Druck Season 3 and Trains: Update

Hello, it’s me, the train girl! Yup, I’m back for my train update!

A few weeks ago, I posted my train meta-analysis, which highlighted every time a train appeared on screen in Druck season 3 and laid out my theory as to what the train motif symbolically means. It only covered up to the first half of episode 9, so I am here just to complete the season. If you haven’t read the first post or need a refresher, I’ve linked it here! 

Okay, let’s get back into it!

Basically, trains are symbolic of David’s tendency to run away, and Matteo’s fears of being alone, which are exacerbated by David’s absence and Matteo’s own tendency to be closed off in relationships.

This was the last train included in the original post. This train, which is blurry, in the distance, and right in Matteo’s line of vision, and appears on the screen right after Matteo asks if he should be with David right now, and is comforted by Abdi. This specific train is symbolic of how Matteo has learned that he is not alone and that he doesn’t have to be afraid of being alone anymore. He has learned to respect David’s need for solitary, because, after all, a little bit of alone time and space can be a healthy coping mechanism. I said in my first post that this train was blurry and in the distance because the symbol behind the train motif— David’s running and Matteo’s fear— was disappearing.

What I did not know when I wrote the first post was that this would be the last train in Druck season 3.

I, along with a lot of other people, thought that we would get at least one more train scene when David arrived home on Thursday night. We thought Matteo might even pick up at the train station, which would have been perfect on so many levels. It was even foreshadowed in the infamous twirl scene, which is accompanied by the song lyrics “you meet me at the station.” (This was actually pointed out in this post by @skamprotectionsquad​.)

It would have been so perfect, really. Matteo could have picked him up, and we would see the very train that finally brought David back. But that is not what happened, 

Instead, we get David not returning home after arriving in Berlin and hiding away in the abandoned pool for 24 hours. He is missing until he sends Matteo that heart-wrenching voice memo, which prompts Matteo to go after him. I can’t help but point out that Matteo makes this trip on his bike, which definitely makes sense contextually because the pool is biking distance away, but it also fits in with the symbolism behind bikes this season. Bikes are a positive thing, a sign of better times ahead, letting go of fears and falling love. So, of crouse, Matteo rides his bike to the pool. 

I’ll admit, at first I was a bit lost as to why Druck chose to forgo the train station option, even with this nice usage of Matteo’s bike. I was a little disappointed, but then as the rest of the episode played out trainless, I put somethings together and am actually pretty pleased with the lack of trains. 

That fear in Matteo was gone by the end of episode 9 so it really wouldn’t have made sense to show a train on screen from that point on. That would have implied that Matteo was still scared of being alone. And, sure, David was still running— he went to visit his Godmother and even when he got back to Berlin, he still ran and hid. But, this is not David’s season, it is Matteo’s. Even when we saw trains that foreshadowed and symbolized David running, we were seeing them through Matteo’s POV. David may still be running at the end of episode 9, but Matteo is not haunted by it the way he used to be, and he isn’t scared of it anymore, so we have no reason to see a train.

In fact, it isn’t just that it doesn’t haunt him or scare him anymore. He won’t stand for it anymore. We got to see just how much Matteo has grown in that pool scene where he finally stands up and makes it clear that David running away so often and so severely is not a viable option. He can respect David taking some time, but Matteo has grown to a point where he knows where to draw the line. And he has also grown to a point where he isn’t afraid to stay silent. He tells David through his words, actions, and nonverbal communications that he is done watching David run away unnecessarily. He is here now, and they will do this thing together. There will be no more running.

And there isn’t any more running. There are no more trains this season. There really aren’t even clips where trains could have been, and were not. No outside shots, no wide establishing shots, nothing that would even suggest the possibility of a train. There is just no more space for trains in David and Matteo’s lives. And, that is absolutely beautiful. They have come so far. No more trains, no more running. Just happiness, love, and togetherness.  

Thank you guys for going on this Druck train journey with me! :) I am super glad I posted the first meta, and am very happy to have received such a positive response! I have more metas on the way, actually! I am planning on posting one tomorrow about Druck season 3′s use of religion. I have another meta that is almost done and will probably be posted Tuesday or Wednesday. And I have a handful that I have just started working on, too. Writing metas is how I am choosing to deal with the end of the season, and hopefully reading my metas will help fill the truck shared hole in your heart, too!

[crimsonlocks]

           Even more;        

—    BASICS.

▸     IS    YOUR    MUSE    TALL    /    SHORT    /    AVERAGE ?

Ornstein is around 2,60 m or 8′8′‘, so he is a giant. It comes from him gaining soul power and having grown to a much larger size that should humanly be possible. Also, he is kind of a demigod under the protection of the light soul, so him growing big even without soul power was a given.

Laurence is around 1,70 m or 5′57′‘, so he is on the rather short side.

▸      ARE    THEY    OKAY    WITH    THEIR    HEIGHT ?

Ornstein is. He learned to control his soul power enough to not grow expentionally GIANT, which can happen when someone absorbs a powerful soul (it happens to him in Ornstein & Smough fight when Smough falls first). He is, funnily, one of the more shorter of the knights of Gwyn, but he never had trouble with it. He finds his height just right. Laurence HATES how small he is. He grew up around Gehrman and always wanted to be as big as him. But no, both of his parents are small, their boy is small too. He measured himself until he was around twenty years old until Micolash said “Laurence, you won’t grow anymore.”

▸      WHAT’S    THEIR    HAIR    LIKE ?

Ornstein’s hair is from a crimson red, curly as hell and very long, it goes down his waist and only stops at his knees, so he usually pulls it up in a ponytail and that still goes down to his butt. Laurence hair is auburn and falls in soft waves down to his shoulders. It is as soft as it looks like. He usually just lets his hair fall loose and never ties it up.

▸     DO    THEY    SPEND    A    LOT    OF    TIME    ON    THEIR    HAIR     /    GROOMING ?

Ornstein’s hair is untameable and he HATES brushing it, so no. He washes it regularly, but brushing is a thing he doesn’t do. He just accepted that his hair won’t let itself tame, though others don’t think like this and so they go and brush his hair for him. When they can catch him. He only gets a cut when he starts to fall over it. Laurence wants his hair to look good, so he washes it regularly and brushes it so that it falls in just the right soft waves over his shoulders. He also makes sure that it isn’t too long and lets it cut down the moment it grew too long. In Byrgenwerth Micolash usually cut his hair for him.

▸      DOES   YOUR   MUSE   CARE   ABOUT   THEIR   APPEARANCE   /   WHAT    OTHERS    THINK ?

Ornstein usually is in full body armour, so not really. Most people don’t even recognize him when he is out of his armour. He likes it like this and won’t present himself as very desireable, just running around in loose clothes and with unbrushed hair, liking that for once he doesn’t have to be the dragon slayer.

Laurence needs to look presentable. He is the Vicar and people can’t see him at his worst. He has to wear clean clothes, his hair has to look good, his face has to be clean. He has to look perfect. He is the face of the Healing Church and as this, the face of Yharnam (unofficial, but everybody knows it). Laurence is at his most dangerous the better he looks actually.

—    PREFERENCES.

Ornstein

INDOORS    OR    OUTDOORS ? RAIN   OR    SUNSHINE ? FOREST    OR    BEACH ?  PRECIOUS    METALS  OR   GEMS ?   FLOWERS    OR    PERFUMES ? PERSONALITY    OR    APPEARANCE ? BEING    ALONE    OR    BEING    IN    A    CROWD ?  ORDER    OR    ANARCHY ?    PAINFUL    TRUTHS   OR  WHITE    LIES ?   SCIENCE   OR    MAGIC ? PEACE    OR    CONFLICT ?  NIGHT    OR   DAY ?   DUSK   OR    DAWN ? WARMTH   OR    COLD ? MANY   ACQUAINTANCES    OR    A    FEW    CLOSE    FRIENDS ?    READING    OR    PLAYING    A    GAME ? Laurence

INDOORS    OR    OUTDOORS ? RAIN    OR    SUNSHINE ? FOREST    OR   BEACH ?  PRECIOUS    METALS   OR   GEMS ?   FLOWERS    OR    PERFUMES ?  PERSONALITY    OR    APPEARANCE ?BEING    ALONE    OR    BEING    IN    A    CROWD ?  ORDER    OR    ANARCHY ?    PAINFUL    TRUTHS    OR   WHITE    LIES ?   SCIENCE    OR    MAGIC ? PEACE    OR    CONFLICT ?  NIGHT    OR   DAY ?   DUSK    OR    DAWN ? WARMTH    OR    COLD ? MANY   ACQUAINTANCES   OR    A    FEW    CLOSE    FRIENDS ?    READING    OR    PLAYING    A    GAME ?

—    QUESTIONNAIRE.

▸      WHAT    ARE    SOME    OF    YOUR    MUSE’S    BAD    HABITS ?

Ornstein’s most bad habit is how jealous he gets when in a romantic relationship. It is very intrusive in his brain and has to do a lot with his anxiety and abandonment issues, but it still makes him very clingy and very upset whenever he sees someone who may be interested in his SO even talk to them. One of Laurence bad habits is that he jumps to conclusion to easily. He doesn’t let the people explain themselves before he is “Oh, you are one of those people.” and narrows his eyes. That with his general disliking of  “outsiders” is one of his worst habits.

▸      HAS    YOUR    MUSE    LOST    ANYONE    CLOSE    TO    THEM ?      HOW    HAS    IT    AFFECTED    THEM ?

How shall I even being with Ornstein? It started with him practically abandoned as a newborn, often asking himself why his parents didn’t want him. It went farther when his master went traitor and Ornstein had to choose between his love and his loyalty. Ornstein chose his loyalty and had his heart broken, why did his master turn traitor? On him? Then, Gwyn left, then Gwynevere, then Artorias died and the other knights of Gwyn would never come back to the cathedral. And then Smough died. It affected Ornstein in a way that he fell into depression. He looked forward to die in the battle against the Chosen Undead, but it shouldn’t be. Ornstein had suicidial thoughts after this, but managed to channel it into going in a journey to find himself and reconcile with his master. Laurence first great loss were his parents, who both got infected by a deadly disease when they helped a patient and didn’t survive it. He was 12 years old and naturally, in that part of his life it fucked him up. He found a second family over at Byrgenwerth, with Gerhman and Micolash as his closest friends, especially Gehrman was like an older brother for him. So it fucked Laurence over a second time when Gehrman blamed him for Maria’s death and then vanished alltogether. Later in his life Laurence is extremely lonely and lowkey depressive, but he doesn’t admit it to anyone, not even to himself. Instead he uses terrible coping mechanisms like drinking too much, staying up the whole night and sometimes even degrading himself in front of his boyfriend.

▸      WHAT    ARE    SOME    FOND    MEMORIES    YOUR    MUSE    HAS ?  

Ornstein has a lot of fond memories of his friends, his master, Smough, the other knights of Gwyn. He once had a life that he loved and that was being the dragon slayer alongside the other knights and all the fun times they had. And then when they had peace, it was all he wished for. He has many fond memories of Smough because he kept him grounded whenever Ornstein broke down. Laurence has many good memories of his parents, they were good parents, as well as many fond memories of Byrgenwerth, even though nowadays he denies that it ever has been good for him there. But secretly, he wishes to go back, he was happy there. When everything was still easy and people weren’t turning into beasts and before he saw that he gained claws. Wow, that turned depressing, I am sorry.

▸     IS    IT    EASY    FOR    YOUR    MUSE    TO    KILL ?

Yes, because Ornstein is a knight. He doesn’t have a great morally about it, his lord says “kill”, then he kills.

That changed when he was on his own. When he had to think on his own if he should kill somebody. He had a lot of time musing about what killing actually meant and decided to be as respectful as possible whenever he would kill someone or something just so that he could stay alive.

Laurence never has killed someone directly, but he is responsible for the death of thousands. So while he wouldn’t be able to kill someone just because, he doesn’t have problems saying to somebody else “Kill them.” Hes is kind of a hypocrite in this regard.

▸      WHAT’S    IT    LIKE    WHEN    YOUR    MUSE    BREAKS    DOWN ?

It’s bad for Ornstein. He always tries to hide his feelings until they bubble over. Then he breaks down, shivers, cries and murmurs the phrase “keep it together” over and over again until he calmed down. He doesn’t want to see like this by anyone and usually only breaks down when he is alone. Smough and Gwyndolin are the only ones who have seen him break down as well as Artorias and Ciaran, ONCE and never again. Laurence doesn’t admit to himself that he is breaking down, so when he does, it is usually because someone tells him. He is sarcastic and ironic at first until he breaks down and cries about it and usually degrades himself HEAVILY, because he is a horrible person. It is usually Ludwig who has to get him out of it.

▸      IS    YOUR    MUSE    CAPABLE    OF    TRUSTING    SOMEONE    WITH    THEIR    LIFE ?

Ornstein had to. He fought dragons. He needed to trust his knights. He was the one who chose the other knights of Gwyn. He trusts each and everyone of them with his own life and he does the same for them. Once the Healing Church reputation suffered and Laurence felt the need to find a body guard, he settled on Ludwig to be it. So yes, Laurence completely trust Ludwig with his life.

▸      WHAT’S    YOUR    MUSE    LIKE    WHEN    THEY’RE    IN    LOVE ?

Ornstein is very cuddly and wants to spend time with the person but also gets insecure when he hasn’t confessed yet and prefers for the other to confess first. He gets dreamy and distracted and people know that something is up. The silver knights actually tried to find out who his crush is and settled on Artorias, even though it was his Master. Laurence, like usual, just denies it. Romantic feelings? I don’t have time for them. He can sleep around when he has sexual desires, no problem, there are more than enough women and a few men who share their bed with him. Hm, but why are they cute? Why do they make him feel warm? Why is he thinking about them when having sex? Oh! Oh no! He’s in love.

Tagged by: I stole it from @derjaegermond Tagging: Steal it and tag me.

[severusdefender]

With a Bunch of AUs Combined, I am CAPTAIN PLANET-W8, wrong fandom

(Askbox is too small so I guess it’s time to show my AU spewing username I guess lol 0///0 hi…)

AUs & HCs: NotaMarauder!Remus (Possible Future Snupin) + Jily Didn’t Date-Marry Drunk1NiteStand to make Harry + DiffDads Lily&Petunia + Resurrected FaeLily AU

A Post Idea So Long that it’s almost like a Fic Outline: An AU where Remus was never a Marauder could actually is super interesting, because it has a spiraling implications on canon. Remus, Severus and Lily is like the sweet trifecta of book & magic nerds. Also like, being friends with Remus would drive Sev to research Werewolf remedies and care? Also be Concerned about his friend’s life.

But like, I’m not sure that Lily and Sev would do the exact same thing that the CanonMarauders do (learn to be Animagi and leave the Shrieking Shack w/ Remus even when he’s not supposed to). Maybe Severus trying to make Wolfsbane more accessible/cheaper? Or better yet, both him and Lily approach this like ethical scientists.

But on the other hand as a frequent consumer of Werewolf fiction I don’t really like how traditional and human-centric the version of Werewolves that JKR used in her ‘verse? Like, what is a werewolf like when they’re emotionally stable, feel secure, healthy? Why would they be hostile to humans in general? Why generalized feral hostility? Is it actually ingrained or a result of underlying mishandling of socialization/emotional-social support? Because obviously, Canon!James who turned into a freaking Stag didn’t get eaten so there must be something to the state of Lycanthropy. Is it a possibly segue into being a Skinwalker? Lost or suppressed information?

Would Lupin theoretically be able to keep his mind and not attack his friends or have the choice overall with better, calmer support?

Back to the AU, something that would keep Lily from drifting out of her friendship with Severus could be Remus? I’m remembering that whole, Remus Morality post thing you referenced a while back. And intense loyalty seems like a thing Remus could bring to the table? I’m not sure how else not being a Marauder would affect his personality though. Thoughts?

But since Sirius doesn’t have a Werewolf to Prank Severus with anymore I wonder what would happen then? Would it be more James or Sirius or Peter trying to snoop into where the three go during the full moon nearly every month? How would that spiral? Sev and Lily trying to close ranks around Remus, whom they don’t quite know if Dumbledore is willing to back that horse for too long compared to those with “higher” status like, James & Sirius?

Maybe a part of Sev’s radicalization that drove a spike between his and Remus’ friendship could be Severus trying to court Remus to the Dark Lord’s party? Because they were recruiting both poor and marginalized populations after all, also I *think* Remus is a pureblood technically? I forget. And Remus would’ve gotten so PISSED because he knows that would be condoning/supporting all the bad things people say about Lily, one of his only other very close friends, plus a bunch of other bad things that DEs are doing. 

The friendship split between Lily and Severus would be longer, more protracted and hurtful, not just one big blowup and a final death knell slip of the tongue. But Lily and Remus trying to reel their friend back in on top of all their other baggage (they are destined, by social constructs and WW societal standards, for mediocrity, struggle and poverty after all) and Failing. And that hurts.

And when they all graduate, Lily shortly after joins the Order, or is invited because I guess they want skilled people, and Lily Was Exceptional. But she brings along Remus, who James, Sirius & Peter (and an 4th OC or something if we need to replace, but not really tbh) may distrust him because of the thing that happened when they followed? If James /actually/ changed (that Felix Felicis-enhanced talking thing) though he might be not be shitty about it though, but I can’t really imagine Sirius letting it go what with his terrible maladaptive coping mechanisms and all. Remus might get outed among the Order, maybe, idk. That could sow distrust of him, and why they don’t tell when they shove Lily and James into a cottage with their Bastard child together in hiding.

Then it goes like that from canon, Peter is made Secret Keeper, with Sirius as the obvious decoy keeper. Severus tries to curry favor from his grunt position as a DE and accidentally spells the death knell for his estranged friend Lily, is flipped when he finallyyyy realized he’d done super-fucked up and goes to Dumbledore.

Then James & Lily get attacked by Voldie & DEs, James takes a couple DEs down before dying via AK, Lily had been researching a bunch of dark/new magic things to protect herself and her kid (who she deliberated on and eventually decided to keep). She takes a bunch of DEs down, and gives Voldemort a run for his money, but lets down her guard when Peter shows up because up until this point, despite the bad blood in school, she’s known him as a comrade in the Order.

Peter basically cripples her in a surprise attack, and then Voldemort comes up to gloat, monologue and eventually finish the job. Lily spits in his face while dying.

The underlying new ritual/shield/magic-whatever Lily cooked up while in hiding goes on not quite as planned because it overlaps with Voldemort’s accidental-Horcrux making that basically ghostifies him. But Lily still dies the first time. 

Cue Sirius getting falsely accused and Azkaban’d, Harry going to the Dursleys because supposed Blood Wards (which actually would be fine with just Harry himself and what he considers home I guess, maybe). Remus gets cut out of the picture because of his financial and career instability, also Werewolfism and other dumb prejudice, so he’s out of the loop and isn’t told about Sev being a flipped spy either. 

Cue a few years later, turns out that Lily’s biodad is actually a Fae of some kind that she had minor contact with him through postcards and letters during her life. But eventually, he pitched in on some magical doohickery for the magical design stuff she did while in hiding in Godric’s Hollow. Then everything kicks off again a mostly Amnesiac FaeLily crawls out of her grave and gets a burning treewand branch of a Groot-Arm.

Somehow this culminates FaeLily accidentally getting the band back together and yoinking Harry. Then cue shenanigans and reconciliation and character development/interactions and possibly romantic Snupin and maybe an earned happy ending somewhere because my heart is soft and I’m a total weenie and this post got way longer than I thought it’d be lol. Overall thoughts? Impressions? Anything I missed while stringing these half-baked ideas together? X3

Thanks for reading and responding to so many of my posts. Your takes and posts are always a delight to read! <3333

Part2 of the AU Multi-fecta Thing I Sent Earlier

Some stuff I forgot:

-Tempted to name this Sweet Insane Combo of an AU: 2 Gryffindors and a Slytherin Walk into a Traincar

-Maybe add some shades of the Cons of Cokeworth AU idea (yes I sent that too, I’m literally a neverending fountain of AUs and theories for literally every fandom I get into, it’s a gift). –Lily constantly worries over money (Petunia’s biodad’s the gambler?) and is bitter over the way society is structured, leading her to grow into an excellent, Hard-working Con & Swindler-of-those-that-deserve-it (like how she’s been fleecing James, Sirius, Peter and others for all 7 of her Hogwarts years while trying to maintain good PR without being known as a money grubber or a thief bc Anonymity is Key)

-TBH i feel like she’d just cook up a plan to live with her 2 friends after school because “it’s cheaper” and she figures that they could’ve kept up the Werewolf research stuff easier by being housemates, but hilariously and sadly forgetting to tell said 2 friends about her plans before starting to work her ass off to scrape up as much money as possible. –“We all know Rems would guilt himself into living like a fucking hobo, and Cokeworth is a place where dreams go to die, so of course we’re getting a fucking house.”

-Yanno, then the AU-version of the Friendship split and Voldemort faction gains even more traction with the 1st WW Civil War going on.

-Trawling through the wiki again, Remus’ parents basically isolated him a pretty unhealthy amount I feel (like they probably thought they were doing the right thing at the time, which solved an immediate problem, but ends up compounding into a long-term host of issues)? Which I don’t think did Lupin’s socialization and emotional stabilitygrowth sloshing down into his Werewolf form any favors perhaps?

-So basically Remus refused to move back in with his dad (because he didn’t want to burden his dad I guess), despite him being alive, so Remus living in poverty-plus probably in and out of homelessess as well as the medical and security complications of being a werewolf without access to necessary resources? Also okay I forgot that Remus was a Halfblood too, whoops

-There’s an Irony in that Severus is the most human (species-wise) between the 3 AU Friends, what with Werewolf!Remus and Post-Resurrection Fae!Lily

-There’d be a whole mystery as to the intentions of Lily’s mysterious Fae Parent father(?), which may or may not be good intentions, they just don’t really know atm

…Okay I think that’s it… Whew, thoughts?

X'3

Nice to finally meet you @markala5 

ok wow this is a lot. first of all i love it and it feels whole so i don’t know what i can say. it’s the found family trope subverted a little because things fall apart but they get back together when lily is resurrected. and voldemort and his death eaters get to be the big bad. plus dumbledore as the leader of the order who is starting to realise that harry needs to end voldemort and his horcruxes but lily can’t imagine letting her child do that because she’s grown to love him after forgetting him so instead of the golden trio, it’s lily, severus and remus finding the horcruxes but harry needs to die and the three of them are frantically researching a solution but it needs to happen. they send him off in a manner similar to canon except they’re alive and later they see harry’s body and he’s so small and it’s so heartbreaking until he runs from the death eaters. 

this au has so much potential

[asgardianhammer]

*

(( Some Marvel Wank: An Essay by Mir, or, How And What Shall Be Ignored 5Ever Regarding Endgame. ( SPOILER HEAVY BEYOND THE CUT YOU DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND, SO MUCH SPOILER )

To be honest, I am rewatching both Infinity War and Endgame this weekend, but for now I need to pour some salt truths and thoughts out about mostly Endgame. Very frankly speaking, Infinity War was mostly acceptable but also sort of forgettable in a weird ‘ I like it but I kinda don’t ‘ sort of way. It’s hard to explain, I might actually better liveblog into 1 post when I watch it again so I don’t miss any... thoughts on what happened.

----

Where do I actually even begin with it? As someone who has watched Marvel start with Thor’s story, and abandon any sense and reason when it comes to his character development, I feel Endgame was honestly just a final nail in the coffin of an already deteriorated version of an otherwise glorious character. The final noose around his neck, the falling chop of the guillotine if you will. The weirdest thing is that they sort of did other characters dirty by doing Thor dirty, which is something I didn’t expect but oh well... ( sans Steve, per usual <3 )

New Asgard: I love the idea of it. I had envisioned the remaining Asgardians would be allowed to settle somewhere, and it makes sense it would be by a shore but also with mountains. Even though they would thrive in woodlands and mountains I feel the connection to the Vikings of old would give them this opportunity, and the location is fitting. Do I suspect they will resurrect Asgard properly at some point? Absolutely. They would want to rebuild much of their former home, and I feel that would be only possible off-Earth, possibly hovering above it.

Vakyrie: It warmed my heart to see her thrive, and seemingly happy. I don’t like it when trauma and PTSD, ( and gods know what else ) is glossed over by movies, but it’s understandable they couldn’t focus in depth on her character, or the Asgardians for that matter. That still doesn’t mean my greedy ass didn’t want it, or means that all is well and good, emotionally and mentally, for her ( or any of them ).

Thor: - cracks knuckles - Listen, my bias for him as a character should be clear and well known at this point. Everything about him, about the setup, intro, continuation and the overall approach was a joke, literally... 

I find it acceptable he wouldn’t be in a palace anymore, their main priority is getting their people back into the swing of normal life, coping with said life and this new world, and supporting each other. Nobody cares about glitter and gold at this point, and Thor def wouldn’t. He would NOT however live away from them. Post Infinity War, post everything, his people is what matters most to him right now, and getting revenge on Thanos. Showing him as a recluse makes no sense, and he would never, period.

Continuing on from that idea, let me make one thing very clear. I’m NOT against the loss of his physique, or whatever the hell that means, I’m not against the notion that he suffers from (suvivors) guilt, depression, and that various other issues would haunt and plague him to no end. Including poor coping mechanisms that goes with that. But painting him as someone who would wallow in self-pity, after everything he has experienced and been through, after everything he has lost? Not in a million fucking years.

These tantrums, and whining, and staying hung up on mistakes and a lost battle of all things, is going against everything he has learned over the years ( and considering both Taika and the Russo bros shat on all previous movies and everything they displayed, I shouldn’t have been surprised). Thor has grown and evolved from that brash, foolhearted boy, CHILD he was, with every step he has taken since being dropkicked in New Mexico, and with every loss and grief he had to endure since then. He was raised by a father who demanded loyalty and bravery from him since the day he was born, and raised by a mother who taught him compassion and seeing the good in others. He had friends ( AND LET’S NOT FRICKEN FORGET SIF IS STILL OUT THERE SOMEWHERE TYVM, don’t even get me started ) that have taught him how to persevere, that have encouraged him and brought him down a peg each time his head got too big. He is a MAN now, someone who doesn’t hide or run from his responsibilities, and definitely someone who will NEVER allow the woe is me to take his focus of his purpose. And speaking of purpose....

Not A King: Thor has always been reluctant to take the throne, this has been a red thread through his arc in the MCU, with waxing and waning intensity towards the issue. But judging by the comments ( mostly of the casual fans, but def some of the die hards as well ) people seem to believe he doesn’t want to be king at all. Honestly, I disagree so hard it makes my body itch. Thor is not Odin, and Thor has rarely understood, let alone agreed with how his father ruled. He didn’t want to be a king LIKE HIM. He didn’t want to be caged on a throne, and ( seemingly ) rule without a heart, without ACTIVELY doing something. That’s what he didn’t want. He is tempest made flesh, he has compassion and a heart, and he needs to DO SOMETHING. And he didn’t feel, for a very long time he was capable to be and act as a king without Loki, without someone by his side to do the ‘ hard stuff ‘, he thought he was incapable of doing what was necessary. He has believed himself unworthy often, of both his hammer and definitely of the throne, and after all this he will not cower and hide, and play Fortnite ( he would be an Overwatch or Skyrim dude anyway tyvm). This is why this... characterization if you may call it that, this story of self-pity and loss of confidence, is outright bullshit. It implies, once again, that he doesn’t learn from the past, and it’s regressing his character so much it’s painful. He would never ever run from his responsibilities, at this point in his life, and that’s why I cannot accept his renouncing of the throne, in whatever form that may be.

The Running Gag And Why It’s Gross For All Involved: I understand that contrast is funny by default, and that extremes, in characters, can be hysterical at times. I didn’t appreciate the Thor Is Fat jokes running through the movie, constantly. It made everyone participating looking like a douche in the process ( Rhodey for example, was so utterly disappointing I legit gasped...). Rocket is a character I expected cheap things from, but the OG 6 ( sans Steve, bless ) participating in it was so OOC for them it was cringe. They were there during the battle in Infinity War... they KNOW what he feels, they understand the guilt. And they would NOT act this way towards Thor.

A Moment Of Brightness: I’m happy with the closure he received with Frigga, fricken finally, but of course it had to be ruined by the ‘ eat a salad ‘ bit. Frigga would not give a rat’s ass about her child being fat, ffs. Steve wielding Mjolnir was magnificent and complies with my headcanons from years and years it makes my heart sing. Steve in general was a jewel in a sea of shit. The throwbacks to other movies were ingenious.

What We Needed But Never Received: A moment between Loki and Thor, at the very least, to offer some closure there as well. T’challa and his people being more than just canon fodder. Captain Marvel being used properly. Multiple characters just... being more than just screen filler.

In Conclusion: This topped my very disliked Ragnarok and that’s saying something. A proper synopsis will follow of course, and updates on the verses page per movie. As it stands I’ll probably be like 80 - 90 % canon divergent since the AoU era, and that’s frankly a-okay with me.