#idk just thinking about how they all have identity issues but i feel like there’s this unresolved tension of ramuda wanting–

[puppyeared]

i feel like. theres designing a character with certain themes and motifs in mind, and then theres making a gijinka for the water bottle on my nightstand

[flingpoly]

my favorite line in stella is when ramuda says “if i had one wish, i’d like to see my hometown … but i don’t know if it still exists”

i remember pre-clone reveal when we were all debating over the nature of ramuda being non-human, this was my biggest lead towards “he’s still organic” because to me it implied memory loss; that there was a past self he doesn’t know still exists or not. and we have gotten some confirmation that he “came from” someone different who was the original, but “it’s a long story”.

i feel as though stella foreshadowed a lot obviously, but that line is one that hasn’t been resolved at all and it’s driving me mad. on the surface if you look at “fling posse’s secrets” you see that ramuda’s has been revealed; gentaro’s and dice’s haven’t been revealed to each other but we the audience know what they are. but i feel like ramuda’s secret, at least according to stella, was never that he was a clone, it’s whoever he was before. and i don’t know if even ramuda knows that.

[exosys]

unbelievable how many things are clicking into place. i can't put them into words right now though there's too many and they're slippery

[indecisivemuch]

hii first of all luv the username cause as a libra rising, samedt ;-; i'd like to make a request for a luke x f!reader fic pls!! um, so they're best friends, and luke decides to confess to r by giving her gifts, letters, trinkets, etc. with hints about his identity, but she doesn't know who they're from. so she asks for luke's help to find out about the identity of her secret admirer. but what if there's like a mistaken identity and she thinks it's someone from the hermes cabin (maybe chris? or one of the stoll brothers idk) and luke's just all pouty but nonchalant or something, but deep down he's like 'how do i even make her see' or something (while also second guessing that maybe he shouldn't confess it's him) like fluff with tiny angst :>

Message in a Bottle

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader

Summary: You got a secret admirer and recruited Luke to help you find out who they are...ignoring the most obvious option (Fluff, angst, best friends to lovers, happy ending)

Note: I'm so sorry for the six month hiatus. It wasn't by choice, I swear 😭. So many bad things kept happening that prevented me from writing (is this the writers curse people kept talking about?). Also, the request wanted only a sprinkle of angst, but I kinda got out of hand with it I think 😭 (sorry).

Word count: 4.4k (whoops)

You’ve always thought that too much of something is bad. Yet, ever since the day your life intertwined with Luke Castellan’s, you weren’t very sure about that anymore. 

The two of you arrived at camp around the same time, entering a friendship that felt like hitting the jackpot. Your early days together were something that you both treasured dearly. Every time you thought a certain time period would someday be reminisced as the golden days of your friendships, new things would come, and top it off. 

However, golden skies were soon evaded by clouds of pink hues. You found yourself noticing and appreciating small details you haven’t noticed before about your best friend. Initially, you acknowledged the growing feeling but decided that they better remain as footnotes in chapters of your life. However, fate’s design was different to your plans, because two years later, here you were: you looked at him almost in the same way a fool would look at the world with rose-colored glasses (but then again, maybe it was because you have learned to embrace and adore his flaws).

“Luke!”

The Hermes cabin counselor snapped his head towards the sound of your voice, eyes straying from his duty of the hour. A smile began forming on his face as you came to view, almost like he has always been programmed to do so. There was a certain spring in your steps. Moments like these made Luke feel like he was a minimalist because your happiness was somehow enough to guarantee his own. 

You situated yourself next to Luke on the ground, not minding the dirt.

“Hey now, I’m meant to be watching these kids train, don’t come over and distract me,” the Hermes cabin counselor warned, though he didn’t move his eyes away from you. He simply couldn’t.

Everything about you served as a distraction to him. From the soft smirk gracing your lips to the innocent tilting of your head. Every little detail about you was captivating and was equally capable of drawing his attention away from wherever it was meant to be. 

In fact, his attention issue around you was getting rather shameless because his friends have begun picking up on it and started teasing him for it. Personally, Luke doesn’t think it was his fault. His eyes just happen to draw to you in every room like second nature, while his mind short-circuited every time you were near. 

Maybe, and just maybe being rational and able to function properly has stopped being his forte…at least whenever you were around.

Your eyes moved to the group of kids that were only going to be at camp for the summer. From the looks of it, Luke has just assigned them to practice sword fighting in pairs. You then glanced back at your best friend, discreetly drinking in the sight of him. 

No doubt he did his fair share of demonstration before letting these kids go off on their own, because right now, his face was slightly flushed, veins evident on his forearm while the familiar orange shirt clung onto his body with glistening sweat.

You shook away the non-platonic thoughts and teased him, “Oh, come on, you wouldn’t pass up on talking to me. You adore me too much.” 

Damn right, he does. Luke could feel his cheeks heat up again.

“Fine. What are you here for, firecracker?”

“I got another gift,” you informed, presenting the bracelet in your hand. 

For the past month, you have been receiving small letters and gifts. This time it was a handmade bracelet with beads of your favorite colors, as well as charms that represented some of your hobbies and favorite things. It was clear that your anonymous admirer had put a lot of thought into such a small item. However, as always, there were no identities attached to it, leaving you clueless about the person behind these gestures.

Luke took your hand in his, eying the accessory that perfectly fitted your wrist. He started toying with the beads around your wrist that were shining in your favorite color.

The boy’s gaze flicked from the object to you, catching your soft and warm look. Gods, if you kept looking at him like that, he might just actually stop thinking logically. He could practically feel a confession lingering behind his lips, threatening to spew the second his ropes of restraint died.

“Anyway, I came here with an idea,” you broke the silence. “What if I try to find out who this person is? I mean, some of these gifts are quite specific. They seem to know my favorite color, flowers, and things I like. Surely, it wouldn’t be that hard to narrow it down and figure it out?”

Something shifted in your best friend’s behavior and you could feel it. There was a slight flustering look on Luke’s face as he avoided eye contact with you. It was rather strange to see the Hermes cabin counselor so fidgety. Luke has always been confident and composed, and you’d often be the one to humble down his playful cocky remarks. Half-way through looking at his behavior, you began speaking:

“You…”

Luke could feel the blood draining from his face at your facial expression, his face paling despite how flushed he was seconds ago from demonstrating sword fighting. The boy tried to regain his composure, though his attempt at seeming nonchalant failed as you touched his arm. Did you—

“You can be my inside man, talk to these guys to see if they’d slip up or something like that.” 

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Luke hastily replied, clearing his throat.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did that come across as a suggestion? I hate to break it to you but being best friends means you sorta have to participate in my schemes,” your lips curled as Luke grunted at your words. 

“Yeah, but—”

“Luke, please…it’ll be fun,” he almost scoffed at your words and unconvincing argument. Clearly, the two of you had different definitions of fun. Just as he opened his mouth to reject your idea again, his eyes caught yours. You were looking at him in such an eager and heart-warming gaze that it made him forget what he was intending to say.

Ah, there was no denying anymore. Being rational and able to function properly has truly stopped being his forte.

“Fine,” Luke uttered, the word pricking his tongue as regret started kicking in as he accepted being your accomplice. This decision could only come back to bite him in the ass. He watched as you quickly celebrated his lack of restraint.

“Ah, you gave in quite quickly,” you jabbed.

“Shut up.”

Oh, you were going to be the death of him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Two days have passed since you got Luke to agree to help you find your secret admirer. Though, the boy must say, the last forty eight hours have been slightly comedic for him, watching you trying to track down your secret admirer…

While the real sender of those gifts was right beside you, nodding along to your every word. 

Luke’s mind trailed to the origin of this “secret admirer” idea. He started it as a way to abate the urge of straight-up blurting out how love-struck he was with his own best friend, while also testing out the waters before finally confessing his feelings for you. 

Though it was slightly amusing how the idea led him to where he was right at that moment. The Hermes cabin counselor zoned out as he pretended to speak to another boy you thought was behind those sweet gifts and letters. 

Luke used to have those feelings under rein, but self-repression only caused it to grow exponentially. Initially, the Hermes cabin counselor dismissed those beyond friendly thoughts, thinking they would eventually fizzle away. However, against his predictions, this fondness towards you became a sort of companion to him for three long years. 

Not only that, years of excessively burying these feelings six feet underground also came back to bite him in the ass because instead of having his feelings under control, they now have the upper hand. 

Sometimes he felt like a puppet, while his feelings plucked the strings. His facial expressions were forever cursed to be sculpted in raw yearning whenever around you, having no choice over how he reacts to everything related to you.

But it didn’t matter, because he was going to finally confess soon.

Luke almost burst out laughing at the way you were standing in anticipation, waiting for his intel on the most recent candidate. It was entertaining, to say the least, pretending to engage in investigative conversation before heading back to you, shaking his head in feigned disappointment. 

However, it didn’t take long before the Hermes cabin counselor started feeling sour.

Just as he made it back to your side, he watched as you started talking again, already discussing the next guy you thought might have done these things that Luke himself came up with. He eyed your in sync footsteps with a heavy heart. Despite the matching movement, he somehow still felt eternally behind. Luke was so close, yet so far away, and never quite able to grasp onto your ever moving attention. 

Did you not consider him as an option at all? Did you truly not see him as anything other than a good friend? It started stinging him knowing you were considering all these other guys as potential candidates — the faces that now haunt him in his sleep, poisoning his mind with an acidic jealousy that was eating away his common senses and fueling immoral thoughts. 

Soon enough, that same jealousy seared his mind with this overwhelming self-doubt. Luke’s foot started feeling cold at the thought of confessing. Gods, he never thought the same security behind anonymity would now make him feel desperate to be seen by you. 

“Maybe I should give up,” you concluded, mindlessly staring ahead. Your attention elsewhere gave Clarisse and Chris an opportunity to send each other knowing looks. The two have been watching you run around in circles on a goose hunt, not knowing to look right behind at the sulking figure that was trailing after you. 

Your distracted state also meant you didn’t notice the moping human situated beside you. However, hearing your declaration of ending your chase, Luke saw a window of opportunity. Maybe now was finally the time to be truthful. After all, if he doesn’t tell you, then how will you know and see him? Luke’s momentary motivation carried him through waves of dejection.

“Y/N, I need to tell you something,” Luke blurted out without much more thought or preparation, and his tone made you fully turn to him. Just as words finally formed and the boy opened his mouth to tell you—

“Hey Y/N, can I talk to you privately?” Somebody interrupted. Your eyes didn’t leave Luke immediately, but when you saw your best friend’s momentum had faltered, you turned to the stranger. It was another Hermes boy, somebody who you’ve seen around. You politely agreed and left with him. 

“So, I heard you’ve been looking for the person who’s been giving you anonymous gifts. And well, it’s your lucky day, 'cause…” the boy stared you up and down while you subconsciously took a small step back when he leaned forward. “...I’ve decided to come forward and reveal myself.”

“Okay…well, prove it” you squinted. Though your skepticism didn’t make the Hermes boy in front of you falter. Clearly, he expected this.

“The first thing you were given was a note, and…the two most recent gifts were a cassette tape and a bracelet — which was made from beads of your favorite color and charms like…” you zoned out as the boy started listing out some of your favorite activities that were indeed the charms on your bracelet. You fiddled with the bracelet that you had purposefully hidden out of his view right behind your back.

There was a pinch in your heart that signaled the last bit of hope dying. 

Oh…so Luke really wasn’t your secret admirer.

You internally scoffed at yourself. You should have known right after he said yes to helping you out with finding your secret admirer — which was originally an idea used as bait to determine if Luke was the sender or not, because if it was really him then he wouldn’t have agreed to help you out with this. However, not only did your best friend agree without much convincing from you, but he had seemed so nonchalant and unaffected as you named all these boys you wanted him to talk to. 

Perhaps this secret admirer thing was something good. Somebody has shown interest and their actions have been nothing but sweet. Those letters contained words that were eternally bound to your memories, even altering the way you view yourself for the better. Maybe you could get to know this person and move on from hopelessly crushing on your best friend.  

Halfway through, you realize you were so engulfed in your thoughts that you have zoned out to half of the things the Hermes boy was saying, and merely caught onto the last bit of his speech:

“...thinking maybe we could go on a date and get to know each other more tonight?”

Your stomach churned again, yet you nodded your head.

Move on. Move on. Move on. Move on. 

Your friends gave you questioning looks when you got back to where they were, clearly curious about what you were pulled away for.

“So…that was my secret admirer, and I’m going on a date with him tonight,” you hoped you sounded more enthusiastic than you were feeling. You tried convincing yourself at least it was good knowing definitely how your best friend actually felt about you. Quickly sitting down, you kept your eyes on Clarisse, knowing if you even looked over at Luke, he’d be able to tell straight away that something was wrong.

Your lack of focus also meant you didn’t think much of the quiet murmur from your best friend: “Sorry, I just remember I need to do something.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You looked at yourself in the mirror one last time. It was now the afternoon and you just finished getting ready for your date. As you were leaving, you spotted a note at the foot of your cabin. Seeing your name written on the paper, you picked it up while eying it peculiarly.

“You could be the one that I love, 

I could be the one that you dream of,

Message in a bottle is all I can do, 

Standing here hoping it gets to you.”

Your gut feeling stirred, hitting you with waves of higher certainty over suspicions you have previously had and denied.

Those lyrics were directly associated with a memory from summer two years ago. 

Luke and you were sitting by the campfire when he asked what your favorite song was. You told him the name and mentioned you hadn’t listened to it in a while because using technology devices with signals were dangerous for Demigods. The conversation slipped your mind but clearly loitered in your best friend’s mind, because two months later while on your way back to camp from your quest together, he gifted you a tape player along with a cassette of said song along with others that you liked.

You blinked away the image of you leaning on Luke’s shoulder while the two of you listened to the song together on the train back to camp.

You re-read the note again while shaking your head. Perhaps it was a coincidence. Perhaps, that Hermes boy knew the song and it was also one of his favorites. Perhaps—

Your hand started trembling around the paper. Your eyes landed on one small detail in the note: a particular handwriting choice. The rest of it matched with previous notes, but there was one singular scribbling feature you’ve never seen used before. 

Everything came crashing down and your internal eternal cycle of excuses and denial shattered.

You ran. It didn’t matter that it was raining and your attire was getting soaked. It didn’t matter at all because you were frustrated and confused. In other instances, you would have been elated at the possibility of mutual affection, but in that moment, exasperation blinded you from sensibility.��

If what you have concluded was true, then why on Earth would he allow you to go on a date with a person who stole credit for things they didn’t do? This whole time, he made you feel like a fool — for waiting that long and having hope after all that time; for asking the person you were looking for to hunt them down with you; for sulking despite having what you thought was a good opportunity to come along; for borderline going on a date with an imposter; and for not seeing it all along that it was him. 

“It’s you, isn’t it?” you called out.

Despite the rain, you could see your best friend’s figure stiffened before turning around to face you. The boy stood with his hands behind his back, not yet daring to look at you. 

“The “th”. You connected the cross in the ‘t’ directly to the ‘h’,” you presented the note in your hand, pointing specifically at the slip up that Luke had made in the latest note, not caring of the raindrops that were hitting the paper. “It’s how I write it, and you started writing it the same way a year after we got to know each other because you liked the way it looked,” you pressed further.

The expression on Luke’s face painted your theory into the truth of the situation. You felt your hand slightly shaking at the revelation.

“Why? You left anonymous gifts and notes and watched me put on this hunt — which by the way, was for you. And didn’t even say anything when a guy lied and said he was my secret admirer? Is this one big cruel prank?”

“No—”

“Oh! Well then, surely at one point in this whole thing, you felt like you should just tell me?” 

“I was going to.”

“Then where were you when I was just about to head out with that fraud? Maybe if you really liked me and really cared for me, like all those damn notes say, you would have fought for m—”

“I did,” Luke finally raised his voice, his face briefly hardened in an attempt to convey his desperation. His chest heaved, and the way it did almost made you think the anger radiating off every inch of his skin right then was directed towards you. But it wasn’t, and he knew you knew. 

“I confronted him right after he claimed that he was the one who gave you all those things.” 

Invisible ivies rooted your foot to the ground. You gulped, trying to digest the information you were given. However, it finally sunk in when Luke’s hands appeared from behind his back. It was then that you could see the bandage wrapped around his knuckles. Your breath hiccuped in both flattery and worry at the implication of what he had done. The darkness behind those deep hazel-brown orbs reflected a certain side of your best friend that you hadn’t seen before. Although, part of you felt like you wouldn’t mind it.

It made Luke’s blood boil knowing what he dedicated to you from the bottom of his heart was spoiled by ill intentions. Luke should have known better than to carelessly write all the letters and craft those gifts right on his bunk bed, rather than discreetly. 

Once again, the Hermes cabin counselor was pulled back to memories from an hour ago. The way the other boy shot remarks at Luke’s lack of precautions, boasting his wrong-doings like someone incapable of having a guilty conscience. Luke's jaw tightened as the image of the sly smirk on the other Hermes boy's face flashed in his mind, but a wave of satisfaction ran through him as he recalled how quickly that smirk was wiped away by his own fist.

They might be brothers by a fraction, but blood or not, that boy was dead to Luke the second he tried tricking you.

“And no, I wouldn’t have let you go out with a fraudster. Never,” Luke’s eyes softened. “And in case it’s not implied enough: I like you…a lot. I was going to confess but then this guy came along lying,” Luke could feel that tremor returning once more to his fist. He hated that something he built, from scratch, on the foundation of sincerity was momentarily tainted by the hands of a spineless liar. Not only that, he hated witnessing somebody so dear to him getting deceived in such a tasteless manner.

“I also…didn’t want to get hurt. It was starting to seem like you would ever consider me as more than just a friend with the way you were listing out all these other guys. So for a bit there I was considering just keeping quiet…forever” he confessed, eyes now straying away from you and down to his shoes.

You observed your best friend through a new perspective. So your initial suspicions were true. You had thought it was him because all the things you have received hinted to somebody who knew you so well, and who else at camp but Luke knew this many things about you. But ultimately, another part of you — the proclaimed “logical” side — has hyper-analyzed every split second you two have shared and deemed that Luke has not given any true signs of interest in you beyond as a friend. Thus, you dismissed the thought of Luke being your secret admirer.

You know now to trust your gut feelings more.

“Oh, Luke Castellan, you dumb ass…” you spoke softly underneath your breath, but you knew he heard you perfectly clearly from the way he slightly peered up. Your heart almost shattered at the dejected look on your best friend’s face and the thought of him burying his feelings eternally. You sure as hell would not allow that to be this timeline.

“I’ve liked you ever since the day you went out of your way and gave me that first cassette tape,” the marveled look on Luke’s face over your confession made you continue, “I guess I should have known it was you…cause gift giving has always been your love language.” It seemed like the boy was too stunned and struck frozen. However, his shell-shock state didn’t last long, because soon, your best friend’s gaze reverted back to the way he has always looked at you, only slightly more intense.

Your eyes fluttered at the sight of Luke Castellan in front of you at that moment. You were finally able to see the effect you’ve always had on him. The way his lips hung slightly agape, eyes dilated in such a way you were no longer able to see their usual color anymore, chest slightly heaving despite lack of physical reasons for such a reaction. You almost wanted to hit yourself for being such a fool and not spotting these details sooner. 

“Now, Castellan…you have two options,” you stepped closer to him, leaving an appropriate amount of personal space in between. “You either kiss me or—”

Luke grabbed your wrist with his uninjured hand and pulled you in. The same hand-guided your arms around his neck while also effectively eliminating the remaining distance between you two. 

Without hesitation, he kissed you.

Likewise, you returned the action without a second thought. You frankly didn’t care about the rain that was soaking the both of you. Kissing Luke felt like such a natural act that it felt simply like diving home. The way he held you made you feel like you were a national treasure he was so afraid of losing. Gods, you don’t think you mind doing this ever so often.

Though, there was a certain urgency in the way Luke kissed you, as if afraid you’d either vanish or you’d change your mind. You pressed your lips harder against his, hoping he’d understand you didn’t intend on leaving or having a change of heart.

A grunt escaped his throat as you kissed him harder. Oh, Luke Castellan already knew he was in immense trouble. He knew almost immediately that the concerning number of thoughts he had about you each day would only increase tenfold from this day on. He wondered if you could taste all of his unspoken words. If kissing you felt like this, he might as well sign away his heart, body, and mind to you. In fact, he’d sign anything you put in front of him without even considering the fine prints. 

Luke slowly backed you against a tree, giving you a bit of support to lean against whilst shielding the both of you from the heavy rain. He smiled into the kiss as you hummed at his action, feeling it echo against his lips. His heart tugged, almost leaping out of his chest when your hands made their way to both sides of his face, cupping it intently like holding something yours. Yours. Fuck, he loved the sound of that. 

You were the first to break the kiss. The both of you gasped for air while maintaining eye contact. The close-up view of his intense gaze drove your cheeks rosy. You could not help but admire the way his locks of wet curly hair clung onto his forehead, while raindrops fell from his face, some following the length of his eyelashes before falling — Oh, the way he glanced down at your lips at that second made you feel almost like you had the power to convince him into anything at the moment. 

“You’re my best friend…” he broke the silence.

“Mhm.”

“...but what if I want you to be more than that?”

“I can be both,” Luke’s lips broke out into a smile, and you mirrored his facial expression. He leaned his forehead against yours whilst softly rubbing his thumb soothingly against your waist.

“I’m not against that.” 

As a larger grin broke out on your lips, Luke’s eyes further softened. He realized right there and then that anything you wanted, he would not be against it. A breath of relief quietly escaped beneath Luke’s breath. He could not wait for whatever was in store for the both of you in the future.

Good thing his messages in a bottle did get to you.

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

masterlist

join my Luke Castellan taglist (or to remove yourself from)

[primofate]

About boycotting Genshin Impact: Natlan skin colour issue and McDonalds.

(Read if you care about these issues and care about what I'm doing.)

If you are only here for a TLDR and want to know if I'm still writing Genshin fanfiction here's the short story: (I appreciate all the encouraging messages and all the love, but I may need to find another platform if things aren't working out here. If that day comes I will surely post over here and let you know where I've gone, but for now, though it is quite unpleasant, I do like and am used to the tumblr format. )

Long post starts here:

Decided to finally say something about this, because I feel like I've read up adequately about things.

First off, to the anon who claimed that I didn't care (who revealed their real identity in my inbox and apologized) I appreciate your bravery and also appreciate the apology. But I'm not going to lie to you, I don't really care for your presence around here, specially after what happened.

About the Natlan issue and the lack of tan/brown/dark skinned colour characters,

I understand why people are upset. I had a conversation with someone about this on tumblr, on how me, myself, I get upset when there is a lack of FEMALE main characters in games (I am mostly talking about the Persona Franchise, the main characters are always MALE, time and time again I always wait for a FEMALE MC, but am always disappointed that it hasn't happened EXCEPT of course, for P3 Portable and P2EP. Finally you had the option to play as Female, but that was it. I mean, it's 2024. WHY is there a lack of FEMALE MC in Persona? Anyhow, that is a different topic altogether.) so I can see how it could be disappointing for POC to see less or even NO characters that are POC.

That part, I totally understand.

All of your actions, boycotting, not rolling, not playing the game, being free to play, I UNDERSTAND all of that.

Now, recently there has been a big issue with Genshin Impact collaborating with McDonalds, because the chain supports Israel (but McDonalds is a franchise... and different owners have different ways of using their ownership of the chain/profit they make off it, so idk how that equals to all McDonalds support Israel. Educate me on this if I'm wrong.) People are saying that they are uninstalling the game because of it.

Again, I UNDERSTAND why you would do that.

I think what I need to address is what I am going to do.

And I'm not gunna lie to you, I don't think I'm going to stop playing the game (and I don't spend much money in game in the first place).

Does it mean that I support the bad situations they've put themselves in or the bad choices they've made? No, but of course there will be people who will say I play the game = I support their thoughts. Can it not just be simply I play the game = I enjoy the game/story?

I am being transparent and I think that's better than some of the people online who keep saying they won't play anymore but you KNOW some of them still do. Like, come on. Don't lie.

If that makes me a bad person according to you judgers out there, then so be it. Who really are you to claim I'm a bad person just because I play a game? Do you know what kinds of things I do in real life? What groups I help out and what organizations I donate to? What really do you know about what I do in real life? Maybe think about that before pointing your finger at someone online, and maybe think about what YOU are doing in real life too, instead of just being keyboard fighters, have you done anything to enhance the lives of other people?

Am I still going to write Genshin fanfiction?

Honestly if I stop doing it, it's because the interaction here on tumblr has been so toxic. LESS people commenting and interacting, I don't really mind much because I enjoy writing in general, I don't do it for you, I do it for me.

I am STILL writing, but at a slower pace because of my real life plus everything that's surrounding the game and the toxicity at the moment. I am even considering not posting on tumblr and just releasing stories like Ruthless Prince, stories that would be available through physical copy or ebooks that you have to pay for (that way I don't get nasty interactions and messages and those who really want to read my stuff can just pay and enjoy it) but as you all know, I'm not money hungry, I still post a lot of free stuff over here, but again, I'm not going to lie, there isn't much reason for me to post on tumblr anymore, specially with all the controversies and attacking going on.

I appreciate all the encouraging messages and all the love, but I may need to find another platform if things aren't working out here. If that day comes I will surely post over here and let you know where I've gone, but for now, though it is quite unpleasant, I do like and am used to the tumblr format.

The End.

[heartpascal]

or is it loneliness?

▹— (eventual) spiderverse found family x platonic!reader

▹— summary: you need closure, and information. two visits kind of give you that.

▹— a/n: guys idk what im DOING. i have things planned for atsv but not how we’re gonna get there … rn im just yolo-ing. im not a big fan of this one but im gonna start writing the next one asap, which will hide fully be more found family-ish lmao arachnid is gonna start warming up to them all some day i swear

▹— warnings: angst, injuries, not good thoughts, dead parents, sensory issues, explosions, violence, fighting, blood?, damaged hearing for a good minute, peter b parker eating burgers deserves its own warning, food, mention of throwing up / nausea, insecurities about being good enough, refusing help, idk what else, if ive missed anything let me know!!!

▹— taglist: @rhymingtree (everything taglist) @justmare @uniquemonstrosity @lacunaanonymoused @erensbbg @dulceteris @noxxing @escherichiacolli @ray-rook @i-3at-kidz @miwagila @stoneforests (is it freedom’verse) — also i only tagged those who explicitly asked to be tagged!

MASTERLIST , part one

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

You spend a long time sat on the edge of the open window, staring out at the traffic below after getting back from Spider Society HQ. There’s a tangible relief that comes with returning to your dimension, like a weight being removed, a tension that is finally released from where it had been pulled taut. Your shoulders feel just as heavy as they did when you left, but you try not to think about it. You try to be happy that you’re back.

While you wouldn’t say it aloud, and you hate to even have the thought, you don’t think anybody had noticed you were gone. But then again, who would? You have no reason to be so upset about such a thing.

Time slips by as you diligently sew up the tears in your suit, frowning as you hold it up once you’re finished. It looks nothing like it used to, but then again, neither do you. Things have changed, it only makes sense that your suit would, too. You wonder if travelling through alternate dimensions can alter your perception of things. You’d swear that your suit had been a different shade before you left, lighter, maybe, but you have nothing to compare it to.

At least now, this time, when you put on your suit there is evidence of damage that Gwen Stacy had caused. The stitching along your the material where she had tore into you is a tangible thing, physical, and you run your fingers across it as if it might disappear. It’s almost a relief, to be able to feel where she had caused you pain, as opposed to the invisible ache she had left within you after fighting her the first time around.

Alongside the scar raised on your body, the fight with Gwen had left you with a sort of paranoia. An uncertainty in the back of your mind that has you glancing over your shoulder, has you messing up simple manoeuvres as you panic, thinking you hear her voice.

It must have been your third day back from the HQ that you come to the conclusion that you have to visit Gwen Stacy in her prison.

The decision doesn’t come easily. It comes slowly, torturously so, a realisation that deafens you as you glare through squinted lenses at the city around you. You won’t be able to go on like this, getting yourself hurt in stupid ways all because you’re not certain that she’s back in her prison. You’re meant to be a hero, which means that messing up, despite whatever paranoia that lingers in the back of your head, is unacceptable. It has consequences.

Seeing her in the flesh will likely be the hardest thing you’ll ever do. Except, maybe, not killing her when you caught her in that other dimension. You keep your mind on the fact that she won’t be able to touch you, that she’ll be walled away, to reassure yourself that there is no risk of either of you hurting the other — at least, physically.

But seeing her isn’t the only difficult part.

No, the hardest part is stepping back into an identity that you had lost your grasp on, long ago. You wear your old clothes, clothes that you hadn’t put on in months, and try to remember how it felt to be you, rather than Arachnid.

“Hi, Mrs. Stacy.” You say, when the door to an all too familiar apartment opens just a slither, and you catch sight of her wrinkled eyes. There’s a noticeable change to them when she realises who you are, and she’s slamming the door shut, undoing the chain, and reopening it before you can say another word.

She whispers your name like she can’t believe it’s you — and you can’t blame her.

You had disappeared, months ago, after the death of your father. Going missing was far easier than being placed in a foster system that would only hold you back. It had been so much easier, not having to face anyone, not having to speak at his funeral.

“Hi.” You repeat, when her stare lingers in the silence for far too long. The sound of your voice once again breaks her out of her trance, and she’s rushing forward to pull you into her arms as if you were her child. You suppose, in some ways, it was quite a lot like that. At the very least, your presence will remind her of the daughter she had lost.

“Where have you been? Oh, honey, I was so worried.” Mrs. Stacy says, her voice trembling by your ear as she squeezes you tight, unfazed by your lack of reciprocation. “Come inside, please.”

You follow her through the doorway, closing the door behind you as you had done so many times before. Not looking around at the apartment is near impossible, but you’re not sure how much familiarity you can take. Even just seeing Mrs. Stacey’s aged face makes your chest ache, your legs feeling shaky.

“Sit down, honey, let me get you a warm drink.” She says, a tremor to her voice as she bustles towards the kitchen which is adjoined to the living room. The news plays on the television, and you’re glad to hear a weather report, rather than some city-wide attack. Mrs. Stacy is quiet as she goes through the process of making your favourite drink, but with your enhanced hearing you listen to the telltale clink of a spoon against ceramic. You listen closely to her hitched breathing as her footsteps pad back into the room. “Here.” She hands you the warm mug, and you don’t comment on the way her hand shakes.

“Thank you.” You say, though it feels stilted, wrong, too formal. It’s hard to be normal in this setting, to be whoever you used to be, especially as she stares at you like she’s seen a ghost.

Mrs. Stacy stares at you for a long while before she speaks again, as if she’s still not sure that you’re real. “Where have you been? After—After your dad… we didn’t know what happened to you. Are you safe? Do you need help?” She asks, frantic once she’s gotten started on her questions.

“Mrs. Stacy, I’m fine, really.” You lie, smiling tightly over the rim of the mug as you hold it towards your face. Before, you would’ve burnt your tongue drinking it too fast, but you’re hesitant to drink it at all. The last thing you want is to become too familiar to your old life. “I’ve been staying with some friends, downtown. It’s been good.”

She raises a brow at you, and stares for a moment longer. “Honey… you don’t look well.” She tells you, and raises the back of her hand to press it against your forehead. Her frown only deepens when you flinch away from the touch. You try not to curse yourself too much, but can’t help reprimanding the way you hadn’t anticipated such an action.

The skin on your forehead is clammy, but that’s just the anxiety, the nerves at being back here. Arachnid can’t get sick.

“Listen, I… I was hoping I could ask a favour from you.” You say, hesitantly, gripping the warm mug tight between your hands, but loosen your fingertips against the ceramic when you hear a minute crack.

Mrs. Stacy furrows her brows, looking more concerned by the second, but nods. “Of course, anything.” She tells you, and places one of her hands against yours on the mug.

“I was hoping I could visit Gwen.” You voice, after one last moment of hesitation. The way her face immediately crumples at the request doesn’t give you much hope, especially as her hand withdraws from your own. “I—I know you don’t get to see her very often, and maybe it’s selfish, but… I don’t know. I wanted some kind of closure, I guess.” You ramble on in response to her silence, glaring down at the liquid still swirling in your mug.

“Honey,” Mrs. Stacy interrupts, her voice soft in contrast to the way yours was growing in volume. You quiet immediately, your gaze drawn up to where her tearful eyes stare at you, her expression almost mourning. “I would never deny you that, but you should know… I haven’t visited Gwenny since she was put in there.” She admits, her stare dropping to her lap, almost ashamed.

“Oh,” You voice, softly, in response. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed— I—I mean, I can’t even imagine—”

“No, don’t be silly, how would you have known?” She replies, raising her eyebrows at you strictly. “Now, I can get you that visit. I’ll call my attorney first thing tomorrow, but… really, honey, do you need me to call someone for you? Who are these friends?”

Her voice is familiar, and it’s kind, which makes it all the more painful. It’s strange, seeing the resemblance between her and the Green Goblin, and it makes a part of you ache. Your life wasn’t the only one torn apart by Gwen. In fact, her mother probably faced the worst of it. With her husband being long gone, her oldest son away at college, youngest withdrawn after her daughter became a homicidal maniac, who did she really have left? Who was looking after Helen Stacy?

You smile at her, as best as you can without tearing up, and reach out to grasp her hand, which she readily accepts. “I’m okay, Mrs. Stacy, I… It’s just a few friends of my dad, from his home town. Their kids, too. It’s better than being put in the system.” You tell her, and can only hope that she believes you. You have no way to back up these lies, knowing those friends of your father don’t exist.

“You could’ve stayed here, you know?” She says, teary and squeezing your hand so tightly you can hear your bones creaking. You smile sadly at her.

“You’re a much stronger person than me, Mrs. Stacy. I couldn’t even face my dad’s funeral, let alone be around the memories of somebody I lost. This place, it—it reminds me of her.” You explain, voice shaking as you hold back your own tears, swallowing them down and trying to breathe through the ache in your throat.

The way her heart breaks is almost loud enough for you to hear it, but she nods her head understandingly, regardless. “Of course,” She says, nodding still, “But know you always have a place here, okay?”

“Okay.” You respond, heart clenching so tightly you’re not sure it can pump your blood any longer.

“Now, what’s your number? Your old phone was disconnected.” She says, shaking her tears away to pull out a pad and pen from the coffee table. She sets the notepad against her knee, looking expectantly toward you.

“Oh, right,” You stutter, teeth chattering as you comb your mind for the number of your burner phone. “There was a mixup, because it was in my dad’s name.” You explain needlessly, still searching your mind for the answer. Finally, you remember it. You listen to her ballpoint pen scrape along the paper as she writes the numbers as you say them, and then she clicks the pen off after writing your name beside it, underlining it twice.

“How about I give you a call with the details of your visit, okay, honey?” She asks, nodding with a pleased hum at your affirmative. “Good. Stay for dinner, okay? I’ve missed you.”

Who are you to deny her that?

Though, even as you try to pretend that you help to set up the table for her benefit, and as you hug Gwen’s little brother tightly when he comes home for his, you know, deep down, that it’s for you. That this is a moment of selfishness that you’ll let yourself have, because god, you deserve it, don’t you?

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

It’s thirteen days post Spider Society discovery, and you’re starting to regret the way you discarded that watch so carelessly. Not because you want to be a part of some cult of superheroes, but because you wish you had asked some more questions.

Surely Miguel O’Hara must’ve known a way to stop these villains from appearing in other universes? And if he did, had he already implemented whatever it was to stop Gwen escaping again? How exactly did she escape the first time? Was it a coincidence? Is there somebody out there, working behind the scenes, helping her get out?

You, unfortunately, have no way to answer any of the burning questions nagging at the back of your head. While a part of you hopes that you never see any of the Spider Society weirdos again, you also desperately want answers. Especially if it meant you could call off your visit to Gwen Stacy.

But the day arrives as any other does, and you spend every moment before the drive over to the prison desperately hoping that one of the Spider-people will show their face. None of them do, and you’re left to get into Mrs. Stacy’s car and simply brace for the journey ahead.

You’re pretty sure that swinging would be quicker, or easier, but you had no way to explain that way of transport to an interrogating Mrs. Stacy, and so you had to relent to her insistence on driving you. Now, you sit here, shifting in the seat of the car, uncomfortable without your suit underneath the clothes you used to wear on a daily basis. Even the knowledge that it’s stuffed into the bottom of your tattered backpack in the boot of Mrs. Stacy’s car doesn’t bring you any comfort.

Instead, the rough material of an old jacket has your skin crawling like you were being bitten by a thousand mosquitos, and the trousers on your legs itch like you’re allergic to them.

You suppose, really, that the spider bite that gave you so many powers had to have more drawbacks than just destroying your life. It only makes sense that your heightened senses would extend to the receptors on your skin. It makes every movement in these clothes torturous, and you wonder if it had always been this way, or if you were just so unused to wearing your old style of clothes. Either way, you hope that you won’t have to wear them for much longer.

If it all goes to plan, you should be in and out of the prison, just ensuring that Gwen Stacy is actually in the cell as she’s supposed to be. Then you just have to endure the fifty minute drive back to the city with Mrs. Stacy, and you’re free. You won’t have to wear these clothes again, won’t have to use your name, no — you can just sink back into the half life that is being Arachnid. It’s better that way.

“Okay, honey, here we are.” Mrs. Stacy says at last, having shifted her car into park. She pointedly avoids looking at the looming high-security prison ahead, instead focusing on you as you wipe your sweaty palms against your trousers. “Now you take as much time as you need in there, alright? I’ll be just out here, if you need me.”

You smile tightly at her, nodding with what you hope is more of a grateful expression rather than a grimace. “Thank you, Mrs. Stacy, really. I appreciate it, more than you know.”

That much was true — after all, it wasn’t like you could tell her that she was allowing the vivid paranoia you had been experiencing to be put to rest after her daughter escaped to another universe. Mrs. Stacy, from what you could gather, didn’t even know that Gwen had been missing for any amount of time. She had no idea what Gwen had done, how many more people she had hurt, but you assured yourself that it was better that way. Mrs. Stacy already had to deal with plenty, and that knowledge surely wouldn’t help.

She was already dealing with her own grief and feelings on the situation, as well as trying to support her two sons in the matter. Given what Gwen’s little brother had asked of you when he found out about you visiting her, you knew that he hadn’t been to visit Gwen, either. It seemed that he wasn’t coping with it all very well.

“Of course, you’re family. You should know that by now.” She says, smiling with teary eyes, reaching across the console to grasp your hand tightly in her own.

Her words take a stab at your chest, especially considering what had happened to everybody else who had seen you as family. Dead parents, villainous best friend — it really didn’t bode well for your loved ones. You just reassured yourself with the fact that you’d be able to disappear as soon as the two of you returned to the city. You couldn’t put her in any danger, that way, or her remaining kids.

“I’ll—I’ll see you after, okay?” You respond, squeezing her hand in return before quickly letting go and throwing open the car door, getting out and catching a slither of Mrs. Stacy’s surprised reply before you shut the car door.

There are guards waiting for you at the gates, checking you are who you say you are, scanning you for weapons before you even get in the building. They’re satisfied after their searches, content that you weren’t stupid enough to bring a weapon into a highly secure prison. You keep your focus on your breathing as they walk you in, handing you clothes to change into as well as a box to put all of your belongings in.

The scrub-like clothes they give you are even worse than your own, sending shivers up and down your spine at the feeling of each fibre scraping against your skin. You just try to breathe through it. Luckily, the rest of the security checks blur by, which means less time spent on agonising over this visit. You barely hear a word of the statement they read to you before you go in, and your hand cramps as you write your signature against a dotted line of a waiver. All of the other legal things were sorted out by Mrs. Stacy’s lawyer, which you are more than thankful for.

Instead of having to deal with that, you just have to wait.

You think that the waiting might be the worst part of it all. With the scrubs making your hairs raise and promoting uncomfortable shivers up and down your body, as well as the cold metal seat that they sat you on, you’re far too aware of everything around you. You can hear the hundreds of heartbeats in the buildings, the beeping of security doors, the footsteps heading your way. You can smell the coffee that the head guard in the adjoining room to the one you’re in is drinking, as well as the day-old sandwich in his desk. Worst of all is the way your own heartbeat is thrumming in your throat, padding harshly against your chest, so loud in your own ears that it slowly starts to drown out everything around you.

Gwen’s footsteps are heavy, accompanied by the clinking of the chains she’s shackled in. You can practically hear the maniacal laughter that had come from her whilst in that alternate dimension, even though she’s completely silent as she enters the room.

She smiles at you when you look up, and for a moment you’re fooled — it’s soft, gentle, kind. But then you see the glimmer in her eyes that was distinctly not Gwen, and you feel the scar along your side throbbing with phantom pain.

You smile tensely at the guards, who regard you with looks of gentle concern and caution, before they attach her chains to a link on the floor beside a chair three metres away from where you sit. They nod at you, which you return, and you watch as they go and take their positions beside the door before you move your eyes back to the elephant in the room — which is Gwen Stacy.

“So, you missed me?” She asks, baring her teeth in a grin that has too much teeth to be anything friendly. Gwen regards you closely as you stare at her, watch for any signs of flickering, any signs that this isn’t real. Her brows raise slowly, the longer you’re silent, but you’re in no hurry to talk. “No? Is that not it?”

“Sure, I miss you.” You respond after another stretch of silence, tilting your head to study her more closely. You don’t acknowledge the way that your voice shakes as you speak, the way it comes out in something closer to a croak before you swallow harshly against your dry throat. “Thought I’d come to check in.” You add, brows furrowing to make sure she gets your true meaning.

“Ah,” She voices, then laughs, shoulders shaking, chains clanking loudly against her metal chair. “I get it, now.”

Gwen doesn’t add anything else after that, even though you suspected that she may take this opportunity to loudly claim that you were Arachnid, outing your identity once and for all. Apparently, if she does want to out your identity, she doesn’t want to do it like this, as she stays silent until you speak.

You sit forward on your chair, ignoring the way the guards at the edges of the room shift uneasily at your movement. “Your mom arranged this for me, you know?” You say, eyebrow raised. She probably knows what you’re doing, or what you’re trying to do, but she doesn’t voice it. Instead, she just shifts to lean backwards in her own chair, sighing as if relaxing.

“Hmm, so she can visit.” Gwen says, nodding her head as if it’s all making sense now.

“She can, she just doesn’t want to. Neither does Georgie.” You respond, and find satisfaction in the way her eyes flash at the mention of her little brother, the nickname that the two of you both used to call him. She recovers quickly, but you can tell that she knows it wasn’t quick enough. The Green Goblin cracked, right in front of your very eyes. It’s proof that, if anything, her little brother has some meaning. “He wanted me to tell you something.”

Her head tilts across from you, though she doesn’t move from her laid back position.

You clear your throat, and look at the words you’d written on your skin. She tilts her head forwards the slightest amount, and you shift uncomfortably in your seat, glancing at the guards who look just as uncomfortable as you feel. “He said that he misses his Gwenny, but he doesn’t want you coming home.” You stare at her as you repeat his message, the one he had told you nervously, as if he was truly afraid that Gwen would escape and come back. Her eyes twitch as she focuses on keeping her expression cool, but you know that the words have hit something in her, even if it’s part of the Green Goblin. “Looks like you even ruined your own family.”

You’re up on your feet as she lurches forwards, flung backward from where she tried to go against her chains to rush toward you. The guards are in front of you in mere moments, but you weren’t in any danger. Not as long as she stayed in here.

It’s almost satisfying, to see her chained up. It’s so different to seeing the Green Goblin on the outside, where she could be your Gwen Stacy. Whereas in here, bound by chains of heavy metal, clothed in uncomfortable looking prisoner scrubs, she was nothing but the Green Goblin. It was reassuring, almost, to be able to pick apart something physical between the two.

She bares her teeth at you, animalistic in a way that Gwen never was, and glares at you as you follow one of the guards out of the room, the others closing in on her, ready to take her back to whatever cell she came from.

The clothes you wear become less overbearing as you keep your focus on the guards taking Gwen away the whole way back through security, only switching back to your surroundings when they hand you the tray of your own belongings to change back into. You’re relieved for many reasons, and you try to focus on that feeling as you approach Mrs. Stacy’s car rather than the way your jacket itches.

Mrs. Stacy looks as if she wants to speak as you get in the car, as if she wants to ask about your visit, but she seemingly can’t bring herself to do it. You keep your mouth shut.

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

Not a month later, your daily activities are back to normal, uninhibited by the daunting idea of Gwen being free. Still, though, you think about her more often, as much as you did in the time after she was put away the first time.

Mrs. Stacy had tried to call you more than once since, and at the two week mark you’d had to invest in a new burner phone. You just couldn’t risk anybody getting a hold of it and seeing her contact, or the ringer going off and exposing your position in a fight. No, it was better for her not to have your number. Besides, you had hers memorised if you needed to call her.

It was better if you tried to reduce any connections to Gwen Stacy. You’d be much better off, the less you thought about her.

Despite knowing that, you couldn’t help it. And despite seeing that crack in the Green Goblin exterior at her little brother’s words, you didn’t have much hope for her. You don’t think they’d let her out of prison even if you could find a cure, somehow. The fact of it was that Gwen Stacy’s life was over. She had no hope of a future in this world, the Goblin had destroyed that. All you could do was remember her and hope beyond anything that in one of those alternate dimensions, you and Gwen were happy together.

The thought of it played on your mind every day, a lingering pain that stung at your eyes. You thought about it so much that you had even imagined the world where Gwen had never become the Goblin, where you and your Gwen were happy. It was a suffocating image, one without any hope of being true, but you couldn’t help thinking about it.

Even as you fought villain after villain, petty criminal after petty criminal, you thought about it. Even now, as you were swinging around a bridge, dodging all the debris this villain was throwing your way, it played on your mind.

It was a distraction, and it was one you needed to get rid of.

That much became certain as the villain you were facing, Tombstone, managed to get a hit on you, sending you flying across the bridge. You landed on a car with a groan, the windshield cracking below you, and you rolled your eyes as the person in the car held a hand on their horn until you managed to climb off, a distinct Arachnid-shaped dent left in the bonnet.

Well, that would be aching tomorrow, that much was for sure.

He grinned where he was stood across the bridge from you, showing off his filed teeth, as if trying to intimidate you with the pointy edges of them.

“You’ve been a formidable foe, Arachnid,” Tombstone says, his voice barely a whisper above the wind, but you can hear him perfectly. You suspect he knows as much, and that only makes you nervous. “But I think it’s time for our battle to come to an end.”

“I actually agree.” You respond, stretching your aching back and feeling a bone shift when it definitely shouldn’t. You can’t help but wince, gritting your teeth and glaring over at Tombstone across the bridge.

You’re getting tired of these villains, of their constant spiel about how the world should be, about how everything should be how they wanted it to be. What was so wrong with the human population that everybody couldn’t just get along? Surely, if everybody got along, listened to each other, the world’s problems would be solved. But then again, this is New York, and it’s a city in which greed is bred.

A light press against your webshooter has you slinging high up on the bridge, staring down at Tombstone as he watches you intently. You’re planning your next move, considering all the variables, when a burst of orange manifests into the air behind him. He looks confused as you falter in your web slinging, dropping slightly before you catch yourself, and he turns around just in time to receive a curled fist to the face, courtesy of a familiar man in a red and blue suit.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” You murmur, lowering yourself to the bridge to approach this Spiderman, glaring at where Tombstone stands, straining against a red barrier that had materialised from the device Spiderman had placed at his feet.

“I hate that guy!” The familiar voice of Peter B. Parker says, shaking his fist as he hops slightly from one foot to the other, his lenses squinted before he finally turns to acknowledge you. “That guy sucks.”

Your brows are furrowed, eyes squinted behind your lenses as you stare at Peter, confused. This Tombstone guy isn’t an anomaly, is he? While you hadn’t faced him before, you knew that there had been a battle between him and another vigilante down in Hell’s Kitchen. And he knew your name, hadn’t been calling you Spiderman like the last anomaly. So why was he here?

Peter sighed, as if he was disappointed to be met with your confusion. “You got a place, kid? Or a burger joint, maybe?”

With that same amount of confusion, you nodded, brows furrowed as cops came to collect Tombstone, who was still in a fit of rage. You can just barely hear him swearing to get you back, both of you, through the barrier. Peter gestured a hand forwards for you to lead the way, and with slight hesitation, you swung off with him following.

Now, the two of you are sat in a Shake Shack, despite you wanting to head back to the offices you were set up in. Peter had ordered two burgers, one for you and one for him, though you had decidedly rejected the one he pushed towards you. He had only shrugged, and accepted it onto his own plate.

“My wife’s pregnant, can’t even stand the smell of these.” Peter groans, stuffing what must’ve been at least a quarter of the burger in his mouth. You just nod at his statement, though you had to admit you were slightly surprised that this guy was going to be a dad. But then again, you’re pretty sure you can remember your dad scoffing down his favourite food in a similar way. “Now listen,” He continues, speaking with his mouthful and paying you no mind as you cringe at the sound. “Miguel wants to strike a sort of… deal with you.”

“Okay?” You respond, brows furrowed. You look around the place, uncomfortable with all the people staring at Arachnid in a booth beside an old man stuffing his face. The lenses of your mask squint with you as you look at Peter, waiting for him to add anything on to explain his statement. “Then why’d he send you?” You ask, at last, when Peter makes no move to speak of his own free will, too engrossed in his second burger.

Peter held up a finger, gulping down a sip of his strawberry milkshake. “Said something about this being good practice for me,” Peter eventually answers, flashing you a smile. “You know, being a new dad and all.”

He seems to realise quickly that that was the wrong thing to say as your eyes narrow further, visible only through the shift of your lenses. The last thing you need is some random guy trying to father you. Even just the idea of it irritates you, makes the very blood rushing in your veins feel hot with anger. You had a dad, and look what good that did you. He’s gone.

Not to mention the implication of you being a child! You’re far from being a kid. You’ve been looking after yourself for some time now just fine. Whatever deal Miguel wants to strike with you is because they need you. Not the other way around. You knew that you shouldn’t have let that Spider-doctor fix you up.

“I’m not some kid. I don’t need you lot, you need me. Don’t get it all twisted, Peter.” You respond as he continues to look like a deer in headlights, clearly kicking himself for revealing what Miguel had said. You keep your voice low, fighting to stay unheard with the quietened air in the diner. “Now hurry up and tell me about whatever bullshit deal you want to strike with me, so I can say no and we can go our separate ways.”

“Kid,” Peter sighs, before immediately wincing as he realised he just directly disregarded your statement about not being a kid. “Sorry, Arachnid,” He corrects, settling his hands on the table in front of him, finally taking a break from his almost-finished food. “Nobody’s saying you can’t do this.”

“Sounds like that’s exactly what you’re saying.” You mutter, averting your eyes from Peter and instead narrowing your lenses at the people still staring in your direction.

“All we’re saying is that you shouldn’t have to do this alone,” He continues, ignoring your interruption with nothing but a quirked brow. “It’s a tough job. Everybody needs someone to look out for them, you know? It’s in our nature to feel responsible for everything around us, as Spider-people. But you can’t carry the whole weight of the world on your shoulders, it’s too much!”

You stare blankly at him, remaining unimpressed with his whole speech.

Peter sighs once more, looking at you with hesitant hope that you’ll come around. Unfortunately, you’re not about to let these people think that you’re incapable. If anything, Peter’s little speech was just adding fuel to your fire. You liked proving people wrong — it’s what you thrived on. You needed to prove them wrong. Because if you didn’t, what did that make you? You couldn’t let people be right about their assumptions of you. If you couldn’t prove everybody wrong, then that meant some of the things people said about you were right. And with the amount of people who accused you of being responsible for more deaths than you saved, who portrayed you as a menace rather than a vigilante, who said you weren’t worthy of your powers, who said whatever divine intervention had given them to you was wrong, you couldn’t let them be right. You wouldn’t.

“I already told you people. I’m not interested.” You spit out at him, feeling your frustration brimming over the edge. Why would nobody just trust you? Was that so much to ask? You understand that you had made mistakes, that you had cost people their lives, but you were trying. Why couldn’t that just be enough?

Peter says nothing as you slide out of the booth, stomping your way out of the Shake Shack as if you were some kind of grumpy teenager. He could only hope that his unborn child was a less grumpy teen, but then again, he was pretty sure you had every right to be miserable. Correcting himself, he could only hope that his unborn child never experienced your reasons for being so miserable.

You make your way towards your office building, swinging through the streets whilst doing your best to keep your heightened hearing down. You really didn’t want to have to deal with anything else, tonight. All you wanted was to get back, to put on the only clothes other than your suit that didn’t make you want to crawl out of your skin. Even if it was just for an hour, you’d take it.

While you had gotten used to how quiet it was in the building a long time ago, you couldn’t help but think that tonight, it felt almost… eerie. There was something tingling, buzzing at the very base of your skull, but even as you strained your hearing, your sight, everything, you couldn’t detect anything out of place. Everything seemed normal, so you couldn’t understand why you were so on edge! It couldn’t just be Peter’s presence, surely, because he posed no threat to you. So what was going on?

Picking up your backpack filled with belongings, you stared around at the empty office, the breeze that flowed through the open window sending a shiver down your spine, even though you weren’t feeling cold. Something wasn’t right. You just couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Hello? Anybody there?” You call out, straining your hearing once more, trying to listen out for even the slightest sound. A movement, a breath, anything, even as you couldn’t help but think that this was the most cliché horror movie like moment that you had experienced to date. Still, you heard nothing, but that nagging feeling didn’t dissipate, and you quickly lost all desire to change out of your suit.

The unease you felt only grew stronger as you stood there, unsure what to make of the feeling. It was quickly growing towards being overwhelming, but you didn’t know what to do.

Luckily for you, you didn’t have to make a decision.

Unfortunately, the decision was made by one of the very people you were trying to prove yourself to.

Peter B. Parker — or at least, you were pretty sure it was him — swung through the very same window you had, only to grasp a hold on your arm and pull you out of the window as he jumped straight back out of it.

Now, you had been Arachnid for a long time now. You had gotten used to the swinging, to the way your stomach dipped and your throat tightened, but you had never experienced it where you weren’t the one in control. Finally, you understand why people you brought to safety had, on occasion, thrown up immediately after you set them down on their feet again. The feeling of falling, of having no choice but to trust somebody else to catch you, it was terrifying.

But what was infinitely more terrifying was the way that the very floor of the building you had just been stood on exploded.

The blaze was blinding, even with your lenses protecting your eyes, but the noise that came moments later was much, much worse. And sure, you had been around explosions before, but never one that big, never so close. And never so unprepared for one.

Your ears were ringing, and you vaguely realised that you had become dead weight in your shock, with Peter struggling to keep his grasp on your arm firm. After a moment, you had the sense to grab his forearm in return, trying to assist him in holding you up. He didn’t seem as effected by the explosion in comparison to you, and you wondered if he’d had the time to put earbuds in his ears as you had sometimes done before a fight. Either way, you were insanely envious as the pain in your ears increased, leaving you struggling to focus on holding on to Peter.

When he set you down, which couldn’t have been more than a minute after he had grabbed you, considering you could still see the office building smouldering, you had to hold a hand over your mouth even over your mask, trying to rid yourself of nausea. Smoke was leaking into the darkening sky, and you saw the flash of sirens below, but heard nothing other than the distinctive ringing that felt like it was melting your brain.

Peter’s hand was squeezing your shoulder, and after a moment in which you didn’t acknowledge him, he was gripping your other shoulder with his spare hand, shaking you the slightest bit. You looked up at him with a groan, squinting past the floating lights in your vision to see that his mouth was moving, no sound coming out. You shook your head, trying to get rid of that incessant ringing, but it didn’t work. You dropped your chin to your chest again, hands bracing against your ears as if they could ease your pain, and you didn’t make a move as Peter removed one hand from your shoulder.

Mere moments later, the same tingling you had felt before the building you were in exploded returned, stronger, more intensely. Your head snapped up, frantically looking around, paying Peter no mind as he spoke into the orange-glowing watch on his wrist. You breathed through your nose, trying not to cough at the smoke permeating the air, and you just managed to push Peter over the edge of the roof of the building, with you diving after him, as another explosive went off.

That explosion was smaller than the last one, and the only reason you had managed to avoid it was because you knew it was coming. You knew what the alarm bells in your head were trying to tell you now, and you spotted the projectile just seconds before it reached your feet.

Part of you was glad that your senses were dulled from the first explosion — your hearing, especially, as it meant you were less effected by the close-range on this one. You saw Peter’s eyes widen as he looked up above you at where the explosion had just occurred. You just about managed to web him before shooting a web towards the next building, feeling something in your shoulder pull sharply with his extra weight and the suddenness of the move.

You squinted down at him as he gripped the web attached to his chest with one hand, his lips moving more frantically as he spoke to a hologram projected by the watch on his other hand.

“Shit, what is going on?” You asked, though mostly to yourself, but the only way you could tell you had even voiced the words was by the way they rumbled out of your throat. That explosion had messed up your hearing, for the moment, anyway, and you quickly realised that with your slow healing and the ringing in your ears, this fight was going to be majorly difficult.

You only had a moment to think that, before something snapped the web that was holding you to the building, sending both you and Peter falling through the air. Embarrassingly, you’re pretty sure that you let out a yell of some sort.

All the air was knocked out of you the next second as something hurtled into you, sending you careening towards the windows of the closest building. Peter, for a moment, had a shocked expression on his face, before he seemingly realised what was going on, smiling and letting out a string of words that you didn’t hear. You groaned as your sore back collided with the window, smashing upon your impact, and you were sent sprawling over a desk, a monitor breaking underneath your sudden weight.

Yet again, there was a hand against your shoulder, and you paid it no mind as your head dropped back, thudding against the desk. You couldn’t help but groan, the duress that your back had been under today was certainly taking its toll, leaving your whole spine throbbing with pain. On top of that, you were struggling to catch your breath, and with the sudden adrenaline provided by the spider-sense fading, the intensity of the pain in your ears was increasing.

Finally, you managed to peel your eyes open to see a concerned Peter B. Parker looking at you, with Miguel O’Hara stood beside the shattered window, staring out menacingly, as if daring whoever it was to attack again. Peter said something else, squeezing your shoulder, and all you could do in response was hold up one thumb.

Miguel seemingly barked out an order over his shoulder, and a moment later, you were squinting against the bright orange light of a portal.

Peter was hauling you to your feet, leaning to hold one of your arms over his shoulder, practically carrying your weight towards the portal looming ahead. “No, no, wait,” You said, and you felt the way your words slurred as you became slightly delirious with a mixture of pain, adrenaline, and desperation. “Stop, I gotta—”

He only shook his head, before tipping the two of you forward until you both fell into the portal.

The dizzying feeling of inter-dimensional travel definitely didn’t help the pounding in your temples, nor the nausea you had previously been feeling, and you had no choice but to try and focus on Peter’s grip on you as you squeezed your eyes shut. When the world finally stopped spinning, or feeling like it was falling away around you, you opened your eyes just enough to take note of where you were — which was back in the Infirmary of the Spider Society HQ.

You shook Peter off, standing on your own weight and waving him away when he tried to assist you as you swayed once more. You glared, eyes narrowed, and turned to head straight back through the portal you had come from, only to see it close before your very eyes.

The same Spider-Doctor from the last time you were here snapped a band around your wrist, and you squinted down at the red and blue band. It made you feel lighter, even slightly, which felt good on your aching bones and muscles. You opened your mouth to speak as the Spider-Doctor led you to sit down on an empty bed with white sheets, but you vaguely saw the way his mask shifted as he presumably spoke. You couldn’t tell what he was saying with his mask on, but a minute later, you felt a sharp prick against the inside of your elbow.

You just about had the lucidity to murmur “You fucker—” before you succumbed to the weight of your eyelids.

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

When you woke up, it was to a throbbing pain in your forehead, that only got worse when you tried to open your eyes. At the very least, you were glad to have your hearing returned to you, albeit slightly muffled, which you were only aware of because the sound of voices across the room was the reason for you waking.

“I’m just saying, maybe knocking the kid out wasn’t the greatest idea!” Peter B. Parker’s annoyingly loud voice says, slightly high pitched in the end. Who he was saying it to, however, you couldn’t say, not without opening your eyes. And that didn’t feel like a good idea, the lights even with your eyes closed feeling like too much.

Instead, you just groan, bringing your hand up to rest over both of your eyes. “It wasn’t a great idea.” You say through gritted teeth, more than annoyed over the situation you found yourself in. Honestly, what did these people have against leaving you be? Why did they think they had any right to tell you what to do, or how to handle things, or to overrule you when it came to your own treatment?

“Hey, kid!” Peter responds, drawing the letters out in that typical oh shit voice. From the snippet of the conversation you had caught, at least he was seemingly trying to advocate for your consciousness. However, that didn’t change the fact that he was there when that Spider-Doctor knocked you out. No, you were still pissed. And when you got your hands on that doctor? He was in for it.

Any other thoughts or feelings on the matter were overturned when you realised that your hand was resting over your eyes, not the lenses of your mask.

Who do these people think they are?

You open your mouth to jump into a rant on that exact subject, on the audacity that they all have, but find yourself silenced by somebody grabbing onto your free wrist, and seemingly dropping your mask into your hand. You feel it until you’ve got it the right way around, and then pull it over your face.

The lights are much more bearable with your lenses back over your eyes, but it’s still painful, and still worsens that pounding in your head. But it does mean that you can see who’s around you; Peter, Miguel and the Spider-Doctor. You have half the mind to leap at that doctor, but Miguel is raising placating hands in your direction before you can make the move to do so.

“Let’s all calm down.” Miguel says, placing his hands on his hips when your eyes only narrow at him.

“What is wrong with you? Who gave you people the right to—to take off my mask? To knock me out? Hell, to come to my universe and get in my business!” You practically yell out, swinging your legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the way your back hurts with the movement and glaring when the three of them step forward to help you.

“If Peter hadn’t gotten there when he did, you would’ve died.” Miguel responds plainly, seemingly aggravated by your irritation. One of his arms is raised in a gesture towards the man, who smiles almost guiltily, as if helping you was a crime. Which, in your mindset, it might as well have been. “There was an anomaly, a villain from another dimension targeting you.”

“I can handle myself.” You spit out, though the way the room spins when you stand is almost a direct contrast to your words. Your blood is rushing through your veins, and you realise that there’s a machine beeping next to you, increasing in frequency. As you look, you realise it’s measuring your heart rate, and you yank wires off of you that you hadn’t even noticed before, as if they were exposing you somehow. “And that doesn’t give you the right to take off my mask. Who does that?”

Spider-Doctor raises his hands, as if surrendering, though seems unintimidated by the way your glare switches to him. “It was necessary. Your hearing was severely damaged by the explosion, you needed treatment. You have dampening-buds in your ears now, while your healing catches up.” While that sounds reasonable, it only makes you angrier. Why did these people even care if some anomaly killed you? If your hearing was damaged? Why did they insist on bothering you?

Miguel sighs, pinching his nose, before he lifts his head up to speak to you again. You just about stop yourself from making a snotty comment about his attitude. You didn't even want to be here, and here he was, acting like dealing with you was such an inconvenience to him. It was frustrating. “Your universe seems to be at some sort of epicentre of anomalies, and we don’t know why. Yet.”

“We’re just trying to keep you safe. You can’t deal with all of those anomalies alone, nobody can. Sometimes, you need a team.” Peter says softly, like he could convince you of the matter. “Believe me, you don’t want to learn that the hard way.” He adds on, smiling almost hesitantly, as if there’s a memory he’s thinking of connected to his own words.

You’re sighing through your nose, your teeth gritting together as you regard them. “Okay, fine, you want to come take out your anomalies, or whatever? You do that. But anything more than that isn’t welcome.” You say, at last, your eyes narrowed towards them as you wait for their responses.

You still don’t really understand it, any of it, but it’s becoming clear that you have no choice but to deal with these people. Apparently, they were not budging on all of this stuff, which — fine, so long as they stay out of your way. The last thing you need is a bunch of Spider-people stepping on your toes, or making you seem incapable in front of the citizens of your own dimension when in the end, they’ll all up and leave.

After all, you can remember your mother telling you how important it is to do things yourself. The moment you start accepting help, you relax, and when they decide they don’t want to help you anymore? You’re screwed, your sense of independence reduced to ashes. And as Arachnid, there’s far too much at stake to risk that happening.

“Here,” Miguel says, only nodding his agreement — or at least, that’s what you assume the nod was for. He throws a watch towards you, and you catch it with some confusion. “In case you see any anomalies before we do.” He explains as he watches you fiddle witht he watch in both hands, glaring down at it as if it was offensive. He’s relatively satisfied when you relax at that explanation. While Miguel doesn’t voice what else it’s for, knowing you’d only get irritated and refuse the watch, he’s silently hoping that you’ll understand. It’s so you can come to them, if you need them. They can only hope that they’ll be able to tell you that, one day, before it’s too late, without the offer scaring you off.

“So, I’m good to go?” You ask, looking between the three Spider-Men still staring at you and the watch you hesitantly clasp around your wrist. They nod, or, Peter and Miguel do, while the Spider-Doctor throws his hands in the air, exasperated.

“That dimension is yours,” Peter says, leaning over to see the screen of your watch. “The button at the bottom will input this dimension as the destination. Just press that,” He points to another button, “To open the portal to whichever dimension has been typed in.”

You nod, still pissed that he’d let the Spider-Doctor knock you out, but at least you didn’t give him a snarky comment. Instead, you just pressed the button to go back to your own dimension, and stepped through the portal the moment it was big enough for you to go through.

You didn’t expect for him to follow you through.

“Hey, listen,” Peter says, almost reluctantly, as if he doesn’t want to upset you. When you turn to him, he raises his hands, as if to further prove that sentiment. “I am sorry that he knocked you out, I didn’t know he was going to do that.”

“Okay, fine, apology accepted.” You say, flatly, turning to survey where exactly you are. It doesn’t take you long to notice the remains of the building you had been camping out in, the building charred and the air still thick with all the smoke that had been produced.

“I wasn’t done,” Peter sighs, pinching at the bridge of his nose momentarily. “I also wanted to say that I’m sorry about your building. And I wanted to ask, well, mention about how when Doctor-Peter took off your mask, he noticed you don’t have anything protecting your ears, like other Spiders with your level of enhanced hearing do.”

You turn to stare blankly at him, while mulling through where exactly you’re going to stay in your head. If you’re being honest, you’re not paying his words much mind. So what, you don’t have anything protecting your hearing? Sure, sometimes you had stuffed earbuds into your ears when you knew you were going into a rough fight, but you didn’t know when some psycho exploded your building right in front of you. Plus, it’s not like you have unlimited resources to figure out some way of protected your ears under your mask while also letting you effectively use your hearing.

“Okay? And?” You ask, voice edging on the side of boredom. In all honesty, you just want to be left alone. You want to put on your comfy clothes, curl up into a ball and go to sleep so you can dream of a world where everything is okay. The likelihood of that happening is small, but not impossible, right?

“Well,” Peter hesitates then, which piques your interest the slightest bit. “Here, I had these made back when my hearing was crazy sensitive, but it’s not anymore, so I got no use for them!” He says, holding out two blue and red earbuds in a clear case. “You gotta wait until your ears are healed up to use ‘em, but I figured they’d do you more good than me.”

For a moment, you’re ready to deny him. To glare and insist that you don’t need his help. But then, he had said that they were originally for him, and he didn’t need them any longer, so really, would it be so bad to take them? To accept this one thing? To allow yourself to be saved of this tiniest bit of pain?

“You’re sure?” You ask, likely the least aggressive you’d spoken to him, though that’s not to say that it was asked softly. You were still firm on not accepting their help, on doing your own thing, but you could accept this much, surely? It couldn’t hurt.

Peter smiles, a short laugh leaving him, and he waves the box towards you. “I’m sure!”

“…Thanks.” You say, shortly, as you accept the earbuds offered to you. He also hands you the backpack that you had lost track of after the attack, and you accept that far more quickly. You’re glad that it feels the exact same weight as it did the last time you held it, before you shove the earbuds into the opening and zip it back up.

There’s a portal still open on the rooftop the two of you stand on, and Peter backs up to go towards it almost reluctantly. “Also, if you need somewhere to stay—”

“Don’t push it,” You respond, quickly, cutting him off before he could finish what he was saying. He doesn’t take offence to your abruptness, and smiles with a nod, before he disappears into the portal. You stare out at the city around you, looking in the direction of another building you had been very reluctant to return to. “What is my life?” You ask yourself, rhetorically, because you don’t know how you’d even answer that.

You glance behind you to ensure the portal is closed, before jumping off the rooftop, freefalling, relishing in the way the cold wind soothes the pain in your back. Before long, though, you have to shoot a web to catch yourself. You head towards the only place you know will be suitable for you, but can’t shake the way the thought of it chills you.

All you can do is hope that this multiverse stuff will be over with, and soon.

[14dayswithyou]

I was thinking over the landlord situation because a small detail stuck in my mind. Ren seemed surprised that the issues in Angel's building weren't being dealt with.

Possibly it's just that a negligent landlord would never happen to him with his fancy apartment, or he owns it, and he's out of touch with normal renting problems.

But for fun maybe he secretly is the landlord and wasn't getting the complaints because he doesn’t pay much attention to duties? Is he getting the complaints but putting himself in the position to fix them as 'Ren', impressing Angel? He already volunteered for guard dog duty against… himself.

Was it faked surprise because he's responsible for causing those issues for his own benefit? 

I feel Ren potentially did ruin the air mattress in advance hoping to be invited into the bed, blaming rats when it was discovered. Maybe it was done that day while waiting for Angel to get off work. 

Maybe he remotely jammed the elevator too because... idk why he'd do that, there should be cameras already in the lift and they should be hackable. Or maybe he just uses the stairs for stealth and only spies on Angel’s flat, so genuinely didn't know the crappy elevator wasn't working. Possible. Maybe he also wants the flat to be shitty and seem dangerous to push Angel into moving in with him.

Perhaps Ren knows who the landlord is and was surprised for that reason? It's not likely that he's installed a friend into the job if he's a loner, but I think he did once have family friends (of his parents) into some shady business. Perhaps they pivoted their legit real estate investments into a money laundering front and no longer attend to the tenants needs well. Maybe he knows the building layout from visiting them years ago as a child, and that's how he avoids being caught.

Or is Ren making a mental note to kill the bad landlord for inconveniencing Angel? and potentially take over the job

Anyway don't mind me, I like to puzzle on things.

✦゜ANSWERED: In case some folks might not know: if you make the right choices, you can actually meet the landlord in Day 3 instead of Olivia! They also address the rat complaints — though their response is kinda meme-y — and the overall scene isn't intended to be taken seriously.

Ren, however, does know the landlord’s identity already, but doesn’t do anything about it because they actively play a massive role in his plans.

⚠️ Day 3 + general lore spoilers under the cut!! ⚠️

Essentially, Ren wants Angel to move in with him — which is why he’s so adamant on giving them a key to his place. And like you picked up on; he keeps bringing up how awful it is to live in Angel’s neighbourhood in hopes of having them realise this and depend on Ren instead. After all, the only thing he wants is to be Angel's top priority and the person they go to first in any given situation.

Ren is also no stranger to rent problems while growing up. I've mentioned this before, but prior to living in a small, rundown home; Ren and his family used to live in a trailer park. There was hardly much room or privacy for everyone, and the maintenance there was awful.

I do like the theory about Ren using shady connections between his friends/family for his bidding!! Canonically though, Ren has no friends outside of Angel and River, and he hasn't been in contact with any of his blood relations in years.

Also!! I do want to restate that the rats in the demo genuinely are rats. It wasn't Ren tearing up a hole in Angel's mattress (he didn’t think you'd invite him over in Day 1 + he respects your comfort level), but it was him stealing specific items.

[justalia]

anxiety? read this

the reason why i decided to write this is because i’ve been getting the same question multiple times and i feel like there’s a need to dive deep into this issue.

anxiety in the state of the wish fulfilled

the questions i get are:

“idk why but i’m anxious when i get in the state, is it normal?”

“how do you deal with anxiety while in the state?”

“why am i anxious when i imagine my wish fulfilled?”

lucky for you i’m here to clear these doubts.

short answer:

if you’re anxious when imagining your wish fulfilled then you’re not in the state.

long answer:

now let me preface this by saying that emotions do not manifest but can arise based on which state you are in.

we all say that emotions don’t matter at all because it simply shouldn’t be your focus to feel “positive” emotions all the time, BUT with your state changing you can feel different emotions.

what is a state explained in simple words?

it is a concept of yourself, an experience, a reality you want to experience.

with this knowledge tell me why imagining yourself to be who you really want to be and believing that to be true would arise any anxiety within you.

quickly!

tell me why something you so deeply want being fulfilled, true, realized would arise anxiety within you.

it simply shouldn’t.

when you step into the state and imagine yourself to be who you want to be, believe it to be true and then anxiety starts immediately it means you haven’t actually accepted that concept of yourself to be true.

if you had you would probably feel something similar to relief, satisfaction, bliss accompanied by a confidence in knowing you now are who you want to be and have what you want to have.

anxiety and fear do not belong to the state of the wish fulfilled simply because they belong to the opposite of it: you’re anxious if you don’t know for sure if your desire is yours, you fear if you don’t know for sure your 3D is gonna reflect.

anxiety and fear are born when you don’t internalize the law and doubt it.

anxiety and fear go hand in hand with doubt.

your anxiety stems from the same place that peace comes from, you are the cause of it. you feel anxious because you think something outside is happening, something else outside of you can happen and take your desire away.

how do you deal with this “problem”?

the solution is very simple, almost so simple that your logical mind won’t allow you to accept such a thing.

the only reason why you experience anxiety is because you have not accepted your true identity.

you may think you are believing it is true but you are not accepting it as fact.

you are lying to yourself if you say you accepted it as fact but then you go and look for it, you doubt it, you feel anxious, you worry about what’s gonna happen and how you’re gonna react if the opposite shows up.

only acknowledging the opposite as a possibility is showing you which state you are in.

i feel like most of you focus on states because it looks like a method you can use to manifest but you never actually acknowledge your true identity. you don’t take your time to understand who you truly are and without acknowledging and accepting your true identity you will continue to flip flop between states.

states are not a method, you don’t choose to use states. states are all there is, states of consciousness is what the world is.

different states of consciousness are different experiences you can have within, and as within so without.

states are experiences you are consciously choosing to live in imagination. whether these experiences be good or bad you need to understand that imagination is all there is, you are always living in a world of imagination.

every single experience you have/want is just a state.

without being clear on who you really are you will continue to doubt and reason your way into manifestation and eventually you’ll be finding yourself in what seems to be a never ending cycle of trying and self-sabotaging, filled with doubt, fear, anxiety and worry.

you put your 3D world on such a high pedestal (i’m not blaming you) and you don’t believe to be who you really want to be because you are “only” imagining it.

i say that i don’t blame you because i know this new way of behaving and reacting and thinking is the exact opposite of what we have always been thought:

the physical world is reality, therefore something is real only if you physically see it

we don’t know why and how things happen to us

we need to work hard to achieve what we want

be “realistic” the world of the senses is factual

it seems so unnatural to think that WE are the CAUSE of everything, that things happen TO us and not THROUGH us.

it seems so unnatural to dismiss the physical world as basically fake and not take as fact what other people tell you.

i know it seems unbelievable but it isn’t.

it simply isn’t and you can prove it to yourself by looking back at your life experiences, you can see how everything came from imagination first, you can see how you’re always trusting your opinion over anything. you can see it so clearly and when you see it you will feel extremely dumb for not believing it.

your true identity

i ALWAYS talk about this, every answer i give you when you ask me something includes this basic information but i’m not sure you take it as seriously as i want you to take it.

there’s is no other world outside of imagination and there’s is no other self outside of imagination.

you fear because you think in terms of separation: you think theres some other cause outside of you making things happen and you think that the outer world is separate from imagination, you believe 3D and 4D to be separate.

i want this to be the only time you need something outside of you for validation, i want this to be the last post you read to check if you’re “doing it right”, i want this to be the last realization you need.

there is no inner man AND outer man, there’s only the inner man in imagination living inside of a flesh body.

you are not your flesh body (yes, this is why you can change your appearance), you are not your brain (this is why there’s no such thing as making neural pathways or convincing/reprogramming your subconscious), you are not your mind (this is why thoughts don’t manifest), you are not your state (this is why you can jump in and out of states and why you can’t be stuck in a state), you are not your emotions or feelings (this is why you NEED to let out your emotions and not be mad at yourself for whatever reaction you had).

you are pure consciousness, you are I Am.

you are all imagination and imagination is all there is, the world of the senses has no choice but to mimic imagination, it has to, there is NO OTHER CAUSE.

if you’re the inner man living in imagination always and imagination is the only creator/only reality there’s no way that what you declare to be yours isn’t fact.

whatever happens in imagination is a fact, the problem is that we have been thought to dismiss imagination as fiction and contaminate our states with the world of the senses forgetting that we created the physical experience.

the senses are mimicking imagination and unless you accept imagination as the only creator of physical experience you will not be able to let go of doubts and reasoning. you will continue to worry and wonder “is it enough?” “is it really true?” you won’t take it seriously.

unless you truly understand that you are a figment of god and all you have to do is decide that that’s yours now, that’s who you are now you will continue to go back and forth between the state of having and the state of not having.

imagination is your creator and you just need to truly internalize that you can have what you want because everything in this world is your creation whether you believe it or not.

don’t start to wonder if it’s right to just declare something as yours, if you’re worthy of it, because all that you are experiencing is your creation. everything is created by you.

by actually understanding that everything is your creation you will stop wondering about what you should or shouldn’t do based on other people’s judgment, you stop thinking things “oh maybe it’s not right to manifest my sp, why would i force anything on them? it’s not right.” because you created them not wanting to be with you in the first place.

you are not changing anyone or forcing anything on anybody. everything was created by you and if you don’t like it you have the power and the right to change it because this is your life, this is your reality, why would you choose to experience something you don’t want if you can experience something else?

there’s nobody outside of you and you don’t have to ask permission to have what you want, you give it to yourself.

you are always fulfilling yourself with something, you are always assuming things to be true so instead of perpetually being fulfilled with not having your desire why don’t you just accept it is yours now?

the concept of time doesn’t exist outside of you, future and past only exist in your mind and when you imagine you need to remove the concept of time and only worry about experiencing it now.

when you fear what’s gonna happen tomorrow it’s because you think there’s something outside of you causing things to happen.

see how just knowing your true identity solves all of your problems?

there is NOTHING other than imagination causing stuff to happen, NOTHING!!! get this inside your little head and accept that the 3D is dead and powerless. it can’t do anything to you, it’s not your enemy it’s only adjusting according to you!

you can’t be in the state and expect something opposite to happen, it means you haven’t accepted the new state as fact.

tomorrow is shaped by who you are being now!

so why worry about tomorrow if the cause of tomorrow is who you are now?

why worry about the future if the cause of it is who you are being now?

enjoy being the person who has their desire right now because that’s all you can do. enjoy being it now.

enjoy being financially stable now.

enjoy being in a relationship now.

enjoy being loved now.

enjoy being beautiful now.

enjoy being intelligent now.

because it is true, you really are it, you really have it.

don’t “pretend”, don’t think you have to trick yourself into believing it has expressed physically because that’s not your job, your job is to dismiss the 3D as not real because even your manifestation materialized won’t give you anything you didn’t give to yourself first.

you don’t have to trick yourself into believing it is physically here, you have to understand that invisible reality it’s what’s real and you don’t need to give a meaning to the 3d which is only mimicking imagination.

the 3D is only mimicking the feeling of having you are feeling.

learn to accept a new truth, new ideas of you to be true and don’t fight the old state when it tries to come back, learn to be indifferent by accepting a new truth in its place.

[whats-amata-you]

Alright y’all hear me out, but I kinda like this interpretation of the Kaiba brothers where they have to deal with the consequences of a very codependent sibling relationship. Not like in the “something happens to Mokuba and Seto has a crisis” kind way, but in the “Mokuba doesn’t know who the hell he is outside the context of being Seto’s little brother” kind of way.

Literally everything Seto ever did from the day Mokuba was born was toward the singular goal of Mokuba’s wellbeing. He sacrificed everything to give Mokuba better opportunities, a more stable home life, a better chance at happiness than Seto ever really had for himself. Seto even gave up huge swaths of who he himself was to work toward that goal. It was all for Mokuba.

But Mokuba was right there with him, the whole time, watching his brother suffer and doing everything in his power to protect him. Mokuba’s whole identity revolves just as much around Seto as Seto’s does around Mokuba.

And that’s fucked up all well and good when Seto’s a teenager and Mokuba hasn’t even hit puberty and only one of them is really taking on any serious adult responsibility. But imagine what that must be like when Mokuba grows up.

Imagine being 20 and as long as you can remember you’ve been worrying about keeping your older brother alive. Maybe he’s in late twenties or early thirties now, and life has finally forced him to either do the work of healing and moving on or else spiraling into self-destruction to the point that not even you can save him anymore. Maybe he’s married off and happy in his own life, or maybe he’s dead or missing and left you behind as his only heir to the family fortune.

And you’re just as completely, utterly lost either way because either way, he doesn’t need you the same way anymore. And on top of that, you realize you don’t really need him the same way anymore.

His routines aren’t yours anymore. His moods don’t set the tone for your whole day anymore. You don’t plan your life around him and his needs anymore.

So. What do you do when you’re suddenly cut loose and left adrift?

I imagine Mokuba floating through life a lot for his twenties, maybe into his thirties. He’s got no sense of direction or purpose without Seto being the center of it all. He realizes he doesn’t have to become a businessman like Seto and help run Kaiba Corporation, but doesn’t know what the hell else he might even want to do. Doesn’t even have a clue. He goes into business anyway because he knows he has to do something, but he doesn’t really enjoy it and it wears on him. He’s popular with women but can’t make a relationship last more than a few weeks; they keep fizzling out because he just doesn’t seem to have any ambition.

It’s super easy for Mokuba to see and acknowledge how Seto was always sort of his dad when they were kids, as well as his brother. Seto actively took up the role and wasn’t shy about saying so outright. But I don’t think either of them realizes quite as easily just how much Mokuba was parentified too, even from a very young age. Seto made Mokuba’s physical health and overall wellbeing his business on purpose, but Mokuba accidentally stumbled into providing a level of emotional support to Seto that no child should ever be responsible for. That kind of relationship would fuck anyone up.

I feel like an interpretation of them Kaiba brothers that had a Mokuba who ended up being rather directionless and having issues with his sense of who the hell he is after Seto’s inevitable Character Development one way or the other is worth exploring. People change over time, and if a fic is set a decade or more post-canon…idk, I just feel like Mokuba’s trauma deserves some serious exploration, too.

[sweeneydino]

6. No idea if you like the ghosts-haunting-the-wrong-turtle enough to keep running with it, but I think it’s a really funny.

First of all, the ghosts waiting for the nth time— which is n times too many!— to see if Ronin will live (I don’t think he’s making it out of this one, guys…) and reviewing what the welcome wagon will say (We missed you, we’re proud of you, living the longest doesn’t make you the oldest—) when his spirit just goes *pop*. Dead silence, if you will.

And thus begins a mutiversal ghost hunt. (“Hello other dead us-es, have you seen an extra Mikey ghost around?” “No, but have you seen a lost Donny?”) They bop around a few universes until— yep, Mike’s soul is definitely SOMEWHERE in this universe. Wow! Things are weird and dense here.

Mikey: Hello, ghostly apparitions that look worryingly like my brothers! How are we today?

Ghosts: *water bubbling, fire crackling, wind howling*

Mikey: …I see!

(I can’t imagine the ghosts could like… communicate verbally to the living, or it would blow the whole identity issue wide open. They open their mouths and it’s just… ambient sounds related to their death.)

If there were ghosts, I think Splinter would 100% sense them, but initially be unable to tell who/what they are. Are some sewer maintenance workers haunting his house???? (No Michelangelo, he says, while doing the spiritual equivalent of shooing the ghosts away with a broom, I don’t think these things you are seeing are cause for concern, but let me know if it continues.)

The ghosts meanwhile, are in for a bit of a ride.

(‘Daw, it’s good to see Mikey smiling again.

…hey guys, don’t you think Spike’s acting weird for a turtle?

Stop reading into things too much.

…

Shit, Spike’s in the mutagen.

Oh, that’s absolutely Slash, we need to warn Mikey!

…

Well, there he goes…

…

Did Slash, or Titan, whatever, seem familiar to you?

Well sure, that was Slash, we know him, but he’s disappeared now, so I don’t think—

No… I mean, are we sure Mike got reincarnated into a *mutant* turtle body?

…oh shit)

…Do you think that the Ronin brothers meet Tang Shen?

Titan starts seeing his brothers while he’s defending NYC during the Kraang invasion, and just mentally shrugs, because, yeah, figures that he’d start imagining things around now.

And lastly:

Splinter, after everything’s settled and he’s figured out who the ghosts are: So, what can you tell me about the spirits following you?

Titan, who thought he was hallucinating again: the w  h  a  t?

Pictured: Ghost gossip Mikey is not privy to.

Idk how but you managed to get it spot on- lol I'm not sure if I can answer all this without spoiling much .... oh well! I'll give short answers :))

They do go on a little ghostly adventure for their missing brother, mostly when they feel something pull on them when someone we know experiences a rather shattering revelation before being pushed off a building.

The ghosts do actually speak like that :O With how the 2012 universe goes, I thought it'd be nice to have the Ronin boys look/sound a little creepier. Since 2012 is so messed up lmao.

Splinter does, in fact, sense them and can't seem to put a finger on their identity, especially a certain one he feels only when he's meditating.

Truly, I haven't thought much if they could see Tang Shen, but i believe they'd only be able to sense her, really.

And lastly:

Also, love the ghost gossip 💕 I honestly think the little ghost side plot is kind of bittersweet? But I like it :))

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

1: Magic is a Metaphor < 2: Morgana is a Lesbian < 3: Merlin is Gay < 4: Arthur is Bi

Do you remember when you were bullied in middle school? Because if you're reading this, I think it's fair to assume that you were. And your parents would say to you, 'that boy is just being mean to you because he likes you'. That's what this is.

Arthur is just so repressed. He has really bad daddy issues, and he doesn't know how to express his emotions, and he's really uncomfortable with physical intimacy, especially with other men, especially with Merlin. And this isn't me trying to psychoanalyse away his heterosexuality. It is a very evident part of his character.

And another big part of his character is that he has inherited all of these bigoted ideas about magic from his father that he has to work to overcome. Because, of course, Arthur himself is born of magic, but his dad is so ashamed of it that he hides the true circumstances of his birth from Arthur. Honestly, I don't know exactly how that would fit into this whole metaphor. I do have a half-formed theory that it could be interpreted as an allegory for intersex identity, I know that a lot of people headcanon Arthur as trans, so idk there could be something there. But regardless, it is only through his relationship with Merlin that he is able to overcome this magicphobia, because he realises: how could it be wrong when everything about Merlin is so right. And I just feel like there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Of course, I have to mention this iconic quote from the audio commentary of the final episode: when the executive producer refers to Arthur taking off his royal seal to give back to Guinevere as passing over "the last vestige of his heterosexu- oh sorry, I mean his marriage." So, they knew exactly what they were doing.

I also thought I would just draw your attention to the fact that at one point Arthur says, "I only care about my men, they're more than friends, more than brothers." Now, I think we can all agree that out of context, that is a very gay thing to say, and yet somehow the context is even gayer, because Arthur is pretending to be talking about the Knights of the Round Table, but he's actually talking about Merlin, how Merlin is the only person he cares about, more than a friend. And then Merlin responds, "I understand. I wish I didn't, but I do." It's barely subtext at that point. This of course, brings me to my final argument:

Arthur risked his life to save Merlin at least eight times. It could be more than that, I genuinely lost count. And you have to keep in mind that Arthur is the King of Camelot and he doesn't have any heirs. It is quite important that he stays alive. And yet anytime that Merlin is in the slightest bit of danger, he will just drop everything to protect him.

And it's really only in those moments where he's faced with the thought of losing Merlin that he shows him genuine emotion. Such as in this scene (which was cut out of 4x02 purely because it was too gay) where Arthur is planning to sacrifice himself to protect Merlin, again, and he gives Merlin his mother's sigil, the only thing he has left of his dead mum and he wants Merlin to have it as something to remember him by. Also, apparently in medieval times giving someone your family crest was basically a marriage proposal, so that's pretty gay.

You know what else is pretty gay? Telepathically communicating with Merlin and then immediately leaving Gwen in the middle of an active war. This is literally the last time that Arthur and Gwen ever see each other. Poor Gwen.

In conclusion, Merlin is the story of gay sorcerers and bisexual knights getting into love triangles. Everyone in this show is queer and you cannot tell me otherwise.

[suzukiblu]

Five headcanons for Plot Bunny: based on “mistaken identities and interdimensional refugees”. 

Kon lived with his Jonathan and Martha Kent for about two or three years before letting his personal issues about potentially BEING an issue convince him to run off and get his own place. He was "nineteen”, he figured; that was already a year longer than he should’ve stayed on the farm anyway, even helping out with the chores and whatever. Normal people all leave home at eighteen, right? And it wasn’t ever really HIS home, anyway. ( no, Kon. no they do not. AND EVEN IF THEY DID, YOU’RE ONLY ARGUABLY “NINETEEN” ANYWAY. )

Kon and Tim have been officially/publicly dating for maybe six months, give or take, and “Conner Kent” is not exactly popular in Gotham because a) not from money and b) not from GOTHAM, and also c) what is he even doing with his life, anyway?? Kon isn’t exactly embarrassed about this, but IS slightly self-conscious about it. He’s still not good at trying to make himself seem smaller and more “normal” than he actually is, and not particularly comfortable trying to pass for a normal civilian. He swings between over-correcting and not correcting enough, and it makes him come off as kind of inconstant and weird to people not in the know. 

Aid worker Rita is kinda into this whole “meeting hot young alternate of Bruce Wayne” thing, this thing is kinda novel. Like, she knows it’s a crisis situation but she really appreciates him being a chill and supportive dude and being very helpful, actually! All the aid workers were pretty appreciate of "Baby Bruce’s" helpfulness, in fact, and mildly surprised in a couple of cases. 

Jon is from a reality where Earth-3 hasn’t happened to him, and is therefore still chronologically in step with his home reality and family. He’s still fairly new to Superboy-ing, but he’s at least met and worked with Damian and gotten slightly-antagonistically attached to him. Idk, “Annoyances To Friends” trope?? He actually doesn’t have a ton of friends in general, he gets along with a lot of people but self-isolates from getting too close to anyone. Is that because he sees his dad behaving certain ways and taking too much on himself and his mom insisting on not needing help and taking too much on HERself and just assumes that’s what he has to be like too? Who knows! ( me. I know. ) 

Kon actually has very complicated feelings about his version of Jon, and he’s currently desperately attempting to repress them because it is NOT the time. Like, at all. It is NOT. He needs to take care of this kid and do right by him and not be WEIRD about anything like how his Jon got everything he ever wanted while he was out of the reality, while everyone had FORGOTTEN him, and–that’s fine! That’s something he’s totally normal about, and always has been and always will be, and it DOES NOT MATTER! Like at all! Especially not anything he wanted from . . . CLARK, instead of just . . . Superman. Or . . . anything like that. BUT IT’S ALL FINE AND OKAY AND HE DOESN’T NEED TO THINK ABOUT IT EVER AGAIN, THANKS. 

[bau-drabbles]

haunted

emily, one of your close friends in the bau, comes back and after months of crying over her death you're not sure how to feel. it hurts the most when the deception also comes from aaron, the man you've loved for so long

a/n: idk how i feel about it. it's very rushed because half of it was deleted and i couldn't be bothered to go back and rewrite it properly.

aaron hottie angst again because his pain is so beautifully upsetting. kinda long so enjoy 🤍

part 2 :)

"everybody, have a seat" aaron's voice is more tense than usual, as if he was about to announce some bad news. your heart races but you walked in, grabbing a seat next to morgan. jj stands beside hotch and she looks almost worried, toying with her fingers. your brows knitted in confusion, wondering what was so urgent

"why, what's going on? everything all right?" spencer asked, his brow raised.

"seven months ago, i made a decision that affected this team. as you all know, emily had lost a lot of blood after her fight with doyle," hotch began

"but the doctors were able to stabilize her and she was airlifted from boston to bethesda under covert exfiltration. her identity was strictly need-to-know. and she stayed there until she was well enough to travel. she was reassigned to paris where she was given several identities, none of which we had access to for her security" he finishes but there's pin drop silence in return. his arms had folded over awaiting a response but everyone was shocked to say a thing

your heart feels like it's plummeted at the bottom of the earth, the breath completely knocked out from your lungs. you hope someone announces its a big joke but hotch looks at all of you expectantly. jj has her head slightly bowed, unable to make any eye contact and its then you realise she knew all along.

"she's alive?" you didn't even think you said it out loud but aaron looks at you, his brows in a tight frown. you see the truth spilled on his face and it stings immensely knowing how he saw you in your vulnerable moments and still decided not to say a thing

he knew all along

"but we buried her" someone else says but at that point you completely blank out, sinking further in your seat. hoping the ground would swallow you whole and remove the burden crushing your heart.

"as i said, i take full responsibility for the decision. if anyone has any issues, they should be directed toward me" aaron looks at you again but you don't bother looking in his direction.

all those times, every single tear, every second of sadness, all of it was.... fake?

"any issues?? yeah, i got issues-" morgan started, standing up towards hotch. but he doesn't go far for garcia speaks again. her eyes are brimmed with tears, walking quickly towards the door

"oh, my god" and you turn, unable to register the vision in front of you

"i am so sorry, i really am. not a day went by that i didn't want to...really, i... you didn't deserve that and i'm so sorry" the voice you thought you'd never hear again in this lifetime spoke. there she genuinely was, in the living breathing flesh. garcia grabs her in a hug and they share a tearful laugh about something you can't hear.

"there is so much i want to tell you guys and-and i will, i promise" the woman you spent crying in private about for weeks was now alive, like nothing had even happened.

garcia embraces her tight again and jj, morgan, rossi and reid followed suit.

it doesn't comprehend there she genuinely was, actually physically standing there. so many emotions had run through you, unclear of which one it was. all you can think about was her in your arms actively dying and you crying as you screamed for medics to come.

so you remained silent, while everyone had hugged her you stood just looking. unsure of what to feel, unsure over how to act. it felt foreign and you get lost in the reality of the situation, not realising she had made her way towards you

"y/n..." emily walked closer a smile on her lips but you couldn't reciprocate it. how could she so... nonchalanant about everything? those nights you spent crying, the nights your heart had felt so hollow in your chest, all of that burned in your mind.

the anguish, the pain, the guilt, all of it was an illusion.

and aaron, the man with whom you had trusted with your whole life glanced at you through the corner. he doesn't know what to say, what could be said? unintentionally he had lied to you, comforted you through pain that didn't even exist. he saw you vulnerable after her death, he was the one that pieced you back. and now it felt like all the parts he held together were coming undone.

"emily" you nod, a tight lipped smile on yours. even just being in her presence is enough to tip you over the edge so you distract yourself, holding the file. how strange, a mere seven months ago you two were the closest of friends.

and now you barely even knew her

"i-" she opens her arms slightly to embrace you but you open your hands to give her the information. touching her felt too soon, you needed some time to think.

"this is the file with doyle and everything going on with the kid. we don't have time to spare" you nod, quickly hand it to her and walk straight for the coffee. it wasn't caffeine that was going to help you tonight but it didn't hurt to try

•••

"hey..." morgan finds you staring blankly at the wall with the pictures, trying to find the next step in the kidnapping. and no matter how much you tried to regain your composure, it cracked piece by piece. exposing your facade and your true feelings behind the matter.

you were determined to keep a straight front for your team but every time you saw emily and jj and especially hotch, it felt like a challenge you weren't sure you'd win

"hey" you continue to take through the information, trying to piece the murder but there's so much on your mind it all feels like its vanishing in the air. like nothing is registering in your brain.

"hey" jj comes in and you stiffen up, quickly catching some files and exiting the room. she calls your name but you simply walk straight for the hallway. true, it was a childish thing to do but you couldn't look at any of them without the overwhelming urge to break down.

aaron, however, catches you in the hallway and you step back not wanting to even touch him, unable to look at his deceiting face.

"i know what you've been through. i understand that you're angry but i hope that you understand that this is not about you or me. this was about saving emily" his tone is sharp, firm but you see the hurricane of emotions in his eyes.

the most dominant being sorrow. but that wasn't enough for you, you almost wanted him to experience the pain you'd felt.

"why do you care about what i think hotch? it never mattered before, evidently" you match his tone in return, trying to go about him.

"y/n i know you're disappointed how we handled emily but it wasn't in our control, we couldn't say anything" he stops you and you don't even want to look at him, he knew how hard it had been on you. and he still didn't breathe a word of her survival.

"you couldn't or you wouldn't?? don't pretend to care what i've been through hotch. i came to you crying for weeks on end and not once did you have the decency to tell me the truth. not fucking once. what did you expect? i'd hug prentiss and all would be well? give me a break" you scoffed, pulling away from him. he stood stunned for a moment, his brows scrunched in a confused frown

"i know and i understand-" "i don't think you do. we have a kid that's about to die hotch, now is not the time" you utter, glaring as you walked by him.

•••

the plane ride was silent, moreso than usual. you noticed the glances your team was giving you but as long as the job was done efficiently, there wasn't really anything to say, you'd talk on your own time. just you and your book was enough for now.

all that was interrupted when a voice cut in. a voice you thought you weren't ready to hear just yet

"declan is little shaken up but the doctor said he'll be fine" she smiled at you, eyes looking at you but you refused to make any contact

"good. we got there in time" you commented, turning the page.

"yes..." she taps her fingers on the table, unsure on how to continue the conversation. part of you hopes she walks away, not ready to listen to her just yet.

"well we're going to rossi's tomorrow night. i want to see if he really can cook. are you coming?" she asked hopefully, a small smile on her lips

"i don't know, i'm not so sure i can make it" you leaned your elbow on the armrest, continuing to read the same sentence until she left.

"look, l/n, i know you're mad at us because we didn't tell you what really happened, and... i understand that. but i promise you, we had no choice" she begins and she sighs a little before looking directly at you.

"you mourned one friend, i mourned seven" she chuckled lightly, trying to make you see from her perspective. but you couldn't, the betrayal rang far too loudly in your ears.

his especially

"it's not a competition emily" you put your book down, directly looking at her eyes. everything you had been bursting to say left your lips before you could even comprehend it.

"you didn't carry my coffin, you didn't cry over someone that was presumably dead. do you know how many times i was angry at myself for not doing more? i kept replaying that moment when i held you, near enough lifeless and completely covered in blood. and all i could do was beg you to breathe and stay with me. you didn't take medications because every time you closed your damn eyes, all you could see was your dead friend in her own blood did you? don't pretend we're the same emily, you have no idea what i went through" with every word, you could feel the anger boiling deep inside of you. the annoyance coursing through your veins like wildfire.

"you could've given us a hint, a sign, anything to indicate proof of life. but i had to hold the pain over your death for months. so forgive me if i don't want to go through that again" your tone was sharp, picking up your book back to indicate the conversation was over

"y/n i'm sorry i-" she began softly but you shook your head

"look emily, i appreciate what you're trying to do. really. and i'm happy that you're back but i need time and space too. i can't do this job efficiently otherwise. so please..." you indicated for her to leave and she reluctantly stood up, wanting to say a million words. but none of them seemed quite correct

you hoped no one would come and try to talk, just wishing this plane ride would end quickly and you'd be in the safe sanctuary of your bedroom

and for once your wish is granted

•••

the precinct was empty, dark and cold. replicating how you felt on the inside.

your bag was in your office and you hoped everyone was gone, you couldn't handle seeing their faces.

it was hard, because on the one hand your friend was back. you wanted to rejoice, and hug her so tight but the way it all happened... it felt wrong.

"y/n" and there it is. the voice you definitely didn't want to hear tonight

"aaron" you reply in response, turning around to face him. he looks dishevelled, almost as if he had to run to catch you back here. on any other day before, it would've made you fawn over his adorableness but it didn't stir a thing in you now.

"i know what i did was inexcusable. i know you're hurt, i know it could've been handled better. i realise that but you have to understand that this wasn't my order. if you had known, it would've put you in a compromising position too" he comes close until he's standing a foot away. his eyes are aligt with an emotion you've never seen him use before, pleading

"i just can't get over it hotch. i'm so happy she's back and under different circumstances i would've celebrated it. but i can't because you lied to me. for months and months" you want to fall in to his arms, to forget about everything that had transpired tonight but it would solve nothing. so you stay where you are, the ache in your heart growing by the minute.

"and for that i deeply apologise" before, this would have solved your problems. but now it felt like the gasoline added to the fire.

"you don't care about me aaron and i'm fooling myself if i keep pretending that everything is okay"

"i do y/n, i just need time. i just-"

"how much time?? how much longer can i be expected to wait?? how much longer can i pretend that you actually care about me-"

"i do care!" "oh you do?? you watched me cry for months. does that sound like caring? and you never want to progress further in this. how can i be with someone who doesn't care? emily coming back was just the icing. you'd use anything and anyone to get what you want hotch. you don't care about anyone, much less me"

"is that what you think of me?" he whispers, eyes narrowing at you

"it's what i know of you. from the moment i met you to now. i thought it was fine at first. but i can't do it. do you have any idea how.... hard it is to love you?" every word was a dagger to his heart, twisting and twisting until it was difficult to breathe.

"i'm done. i need a break. from you, from the bau, from everyone" you let out a shaky sigh, hugging your bag closer to your body. the man before you was your lifeline and now it felt like you were drowning in the depths of him. the only way to save yourself would be to remove yourself from his grasp, to pretend that he, your lover, never existed. he was aaron hotchner, your boss. he would never be the man you were so desperately and hopelessly in love with.

"y/n please don't-"

"i'm taking my holidays. don't contact me, don't find me. i just really.... don't want to see you ever" with that you stormed out of the room, away from him and his presence. away from his beautiful face you came to adore, away from all the memories you would forever cherish until your last breath.

but no amount of miles between you both could ever be enough

[spaceorphan18]

THE LADY WHISTLEDOWN PAPERS : 1X01 - A DIAMOND OF THE FIRST WATER (PART 4)

Hi! Welcome back to The Lady Whistledown Papers, where I’m taking an in-depth look at Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton’s character arcs and romance within the show Bridgerton!

For previous issues, follow tag : The Lady Whistledown Papers

Alright, finally wrapping up the first episode but it ends with some really good stuff!

Dinner

I'm kind of amused that I've managed to ignore the main Simon/Daphne plot as long as I've could... But here we are at a Bridgerton family dinner where we get to see the family dynamics on brilliant display as Violet arranged all of this so Simon and Daphne could hang out.

Fascinatingly, the first subject of talk is the identity of Lady Whistledown, and it's a fun little conversation as they start guessing who it could possibly be. Colin, hilariously, suggests it could be a man -- only to rightfully be shotdown by Eloise because how dare he. Colin isn't even going to know who Lady Whistledown is when he's sleeping with her, so boy really does not have the highest of deduction skills.

Hyacinth, of all people, will get the closest when she guesses Lady Featherington. It's amusing that she's consistently used as a sort of prophet. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of role she plays throughout the show.

Most of this scene is dedicated to Simon and Daphne... falling in love? idk. What I do like about it, though is something I enjoy in general about Bridgerton as a whole -- the fact that it does rather well with sibling dynamics. There are a lot of personalities at that table, and it's kind of cool to see how they can be all similar and all different at the same time.

Colin remains chatting and laughing with Benedict. We don't really get enough of a conversation to be able to really comment but, it does look like they're having a great conversation. We don't get a whole lot of reaction from Colin as to the whole Simon/Daphne thing so -- I don't really have much to say on that front either, but it'll be interesting tracking it through the season.

Dance

I never noticed they are in a boat -- so... this is on an island? What is even going on? What ball is this again? Do I really need to watch ALL of Season 1 for this project?

You know, we don't get a ton of Colin and Benedict stuff throughout the years, but they often are having fun in the background while Anthony is brooding up front.

Alright, so, LET'S GET INTO MY FAVORITE MOMENT OF THE EPISODE!

I really should have gone back and watched the previous scenes to figure out where exactly they are but I didn't, ah well. It looks like more like a festival of sorts more than a ball, which I think is pretty cool because the actual ballrooms start to feel the same after awhile.

Anyway... we have Pen just kind of standing by herself looking lonely. Interestingly, she does look like she's looking for someone? But she says she wasn't expecting him, so I wonder if she's just glancing around in Lady Whistledown mode?

The way she jumps and immediately lights up when she sees him. She's shocked to see him, but so delighted that he has sought her out. And it's interesting to note that he goes looking for her first thing -- granted it's for information -- but still he does seek her out at every social gathering. ;) No, but this is important. In both their interactions now, he has come to her. She may be the one with the crush, but she's not following him around like a love-sick puppy.

I should have mentioned it before, but in both instances he has called her 'Pen'. Not Miss Featherington (Which would have been appropriate) not Penelope. Just Pen. It speaks to their level of familiarity and established relationship. It also isn't appropriate for an unmarried man and woman of no relation to call each other by their first names, let alone a nickname. Episode 1 and they're already breaking rules.

It's the same with the little bow they give each other. It's such an after thought, such a -- oh right, we're outside and have to adhere to society rules where men and women greet each other in a certain way, but they do so halfheartedly. They don't really care about what society wants when they're around each other.

Penelope exclaims that she didn't know he'd be there (an interesting comment - I wonder why not) and then he says 'sorry to disappoint'. And that's a telling comment. It's self deprecating humor. He's not used to anyone wanting or needing him around and/or preferring Anthony or Benedict instead. But also, he (probably) assumes that she'd probably prefer Eloise to join her over him.

But her lighting up when she sees him doesn't really go unnoticed -- subconsciously anyway. It's infectious when you have someone who is genuinely excited to see you -- especially when you're used to being the one that is not being sought after. And he is genuinely happy to see her, too -- even if he's asking about Marina, he still has a warm smile for her. They both latch on to the genuine affection they have for the other one.

Colin asks about Marina, and the way Pen's face just falls when he does so. :( She realizes that he had an ulterior motive when coming to speak to her, and that guts her a little. (as a note - it's implied a little earlier in the episode that Marina is pregnant. It's not officially said - but they get into it more in episode 2. Obviously, that's important to this plot...)

Pen explains that Marina's illness is why Portia isn't around and why Lord Featherington is chaperoning. Colin grins at this -- I can only imagine how hilarious he finds it that Lord Featherington has to be (semi-)involved in his daughters' lives. I haven't really spoken much about him yet, but at best, you could claim that Lord Featherington was a neglectful father. He doesn't really interact with any of his daughters, nor does he seem to care all that much. I have to imagine that Colin, at least a little bit understands this, hence it's so amusing that he's there now.

Pen then is excited to show off her dress. It's not yellow! It's still a girlish pink with hints of blue (foreshadowing through clothes? maybe?). She still looks like a child a bit, but she doesn't stand out so much. She can blend in a bit more, and not feel as if everyone is making fun of her for her clothes.

In a way, the 'not yellow enough' comment was a little self deprecating, too. As the two of them have that in common -- that they both feel unseen and unwanted in society.

She's also trying to get his attention -- trying to get him to check her out. It's awkward and cute and I love how excited she is in her attempt. The thing is, he does notice! We don't really see his reaction to her comment -- but if you look you can tell that he is grinning back at her as they talk.

And then Cressida comes along and spoils their moment. So. Here's the thing I've noticed already about Cressida. Lady Featherington and Lady Cowper are friends. Sorta. They mean girl together. And as we learn in season 3, Lady Cowper has instilled this kind of ruthlessness into Cressida as a way of survival.

I also wonder -- did Cressida spend time with the Featherington girls? It's interesting that Lady Cowper is always around, but we don't see Cressida at the house. I wonder where she is and what she's doing. I will say -- I don't think Cressida is friends at all with Prudence or Phillipa. All three aren't very nice -- but Cressida is much shaper and pointed with her unkindness, while Prudence and Phillipa are just kind of dumb. And I can see Cressida poking fun at them as much as she does with Penelope.

Here's the thing. I want to joke how ridiculous it is that no one seems to notice that Pen is deeply pining for Colin. She is so open about her feelings but the thing is, no one really seems to notice her and that's why no one ever calls her out on it.

Except, I like to believe that Cressida does.

There's no real reason for Cressida to interject herself into their conversation other than she wants to be mean for the sake of it. I don't think she has any real interest in Colin other than his name and the fact that dancing with him would put a mark on her dance card.

Pen interjects on Cressida's attempt and that's when Cressida's claws come out. Cressida's mother (as we'll learn) has taught her to see any other woman as a form of competition. Pen was making a comment because she and Colin are friends and in a way already more than friends. They have a solid, established relationship. Cressida is looking at Colin as a way to achieve a goal. And Pen is getting in the way of that.

So Cressida does what she has been taught and tries to eliminate any kind of competition. And some of it is trashing on someone the ton already trashes on but it's also digging the knife in a little deeper, because I do think Cressida knows that Pen isn't just talking to some guy at a party, she's talking to a guy she likes and has feelings for.

Cressida probably over heard her, too, that Penelope was happy about her dress choice. So what does she do? Dump water (?) over the front of her dress. Not only was Penelope having a moment of confidence but Cressida's cruelty takes that away as she embarrasses Pen. But also she claims to not have not even seen Penelope there. Obviously she did, but it adds to the fact that Pen is often seen as wallpaper, nothing to really take note of.

Colin's face during all of this though! Because here's the thing. Here's the THING and why I love Colin. He probably wouldn't have really entertained Cressida as a dance partner unless he had to. That's... a whole other thing. But the minute she started cutting in front of Pen. The minute she pulls this stunt on his very good friend, it's over.

Cruelty is not part of Colin's nature, and seeing other people mean is an automatic turn off for him. But more than that, Cressida just trashed someone he does care about, and that is unacceptable. Look how hard his face is in this moment - he's pissed off at her for what she did.

And then just look at the way his face softens as he turns his attention to Pen. It's caring and gentle and he's looking out for her right from the beginning!

But I mean, also, what he does is so calculated and is such a badass moment. He beats Cressida at her own game. Not only does he completely deny her a dance, he decides that Penelope is the more worthy choice and snatches her up (as a mess as she is at the moment). He doesn't spare Cressida a second look. He'd dance with Penelope anyway, he doesn't need an excuse, but to play society's games as a way to punch back at Cressida for being mean to Pen -- is just so ballsy. He may not be a huge fan of the rules, but he knows how to play them and when it matters.

I also should note that Colin has a sort of hero complex, too, that comes into play. He likes to be the one to help people, to save people, and what he's doing is saving Pen from humiliation. He does genuinely care for her. But he also won't let someone be trashed because for the sake of it.

And I mean... we should take note of this moment -- because it's going to haunt Cressida for a long, long time. You just fucked with Lady Whistledown in front of her husband, Cressida. Your days are numbered.

And, I mean, look at the utter shock on Pen's face as he reaches for her hand. His kindness is why she loves him, and this just adds another moment to that pile. No one else really looks out for her. No one else really sees her. No one else would really stand up to Cressida and put her first. It's no wonder she's gone for him.

But then here's the thing. As we get our fun, little Irish jig started, Colin just looks delighted as they get to the dance floor. Cressida is all but forgotten as the two of them settle into their dance together. Pen is still shaken a bit as they start, but Colin has no qualms about what he had just done. In fact, he's proud of himself. But more so -- now he and Pen can just have fun -- as they always do.

This is not the first time they've danced together (as will be alluded to in the next episode). They probably danced a bit and enjoyed themselves, and as Pen settles into it, they both just have fun together.

And the jig is something to notice as dance is important in this show. It's fun and lively but it's also still a little childish, a game. It's not serious courtship, not yet, but it's enjoyment and playfulness but it's purposeful! As this level of caring and understanding and joy are the basis for their friendship and therefore the basis of their eventual relationship.

I mean just look at these idiots not knowing that they're really falling in love with each other.

I love everything about this scene so much!!

Okay, I have to close out on this shot of Pen. Because this is important. As Simon and Daphne come in with their little scheme to fake dating, Penelope is watching. And in fact, if you notice (Nicola Coughlan confirmed it) Pen is always just right there, noticing the action that's going on. And therefore Lady Whistledown is right there.

In this shot its obvious that it's her, but I'll be keeping an eye out because she does this a lot if you're looking for her. She's almost like a Where's Waldo cartoon!!

And that's finally Episode 1!! Whoo we made it! :)

[thecoolerliauditore]

long post: the neck kisses playlist on joel's spotify is about jimmy (and kind of etho too a little bit)

it's not actually about jimmy it very much is not about jimmy. however I had visions when I listened to it and I know at least one person really wants me to put this into words so

"I Miss Having Sex But At Least I Don't Wanna Die Anymore" is a pretty straightforward song about Awsten Knight's post-break-up life as well as his frustrations with his fanbase.

The feelings post-break-up are described as freeing, hence the title ".. don't wanna die anymore" but the ending of the song hints at some nagging regret despite that, with the desperate repeating mantra of "but I think it's fine, it's cool"

While I don't think all of these songs signify chronology (and some I don't think are literal at all unless c!Joel has some weird daddy issue lore I'm unaware of), I do like to think the start of the playlist calls to pre-3L jimmy/joel, most specifically their relationship in x-life.

In x-life, Joel establishes a totally-not-cult religion he dubs "Jeremyism", Jimmy being his first member after he fails to trick Lizzie into joining. He later gives up his leader title, quote, "for content". Jimmy is unhappy with this development and begs Joel to stay, but Joel refuses. While their relationship in x-life would be hard to define as romantic in any sense, they were clearly fond of eachother before Joel eventually broke away.

Things get a bit hazy here since "for content" doesn't really translate to anything in-universe, but I think it's interesting to note that both the song and Joel mention an audience, specifically one that they feel the need to appease. Whether this is a metaphor or watcher lore or some secret third thing I have no idea but it sure is there 👍

In my mind, it goes like this: Jimmy and Joel meet, they hit it off, Jimmy is affectionate and Joel starts to catch feelings. Joel cuts Jimmy off for making him feel weird.

the second song in the playlist reinforces this, being a much angrier post-break-up song.

While this seems out-of-order (why does the immediate anger come after the song about life after the break-up?), I think it's interesting if you look at it from an angle of this not being fully Joel's feelings towards Jimmy, but Joel's frustration towards himself for messing it up.

with a little bit of frustration being placed on jimmy too:

pictured: joel in third life with a message from jimmy that he very much. does not answer.

personally I like to think Joel held a lot of resentment towards Jimmy in Third Life, both for homophobic reasons (i.e. you made me feel gay and now I'm gonna punish you for it) and for jealousy reasons (start of his number one scott hater arc)

this one's just in the wrong playlist first of all why does he insert this between two waterparks songs. whatever man.

anyway this song's interesting to me because it's literally just about a hot babe getting rejected by some fuck who refuses to be ball-and-chained.

there's two directions this could go imo: one is that this is, once again, evoking joel and jimmy's relationship. Joel acknowledges that he a life with Jimmy would be nice, but he refuses to settle down because it would rob him of his identity/freedom.

the other is that brandy is joel and the sailor is etho, since brandy shows an admiration for the sailor but also an awareness that he loves his job more than her

this storybook like description of how brandy saw the sailor's tales is very smalletho to me idk. very hand-in-hand with joel's child-like view of who etho is.

I don't have much for this one tbh it's pretty much just a love song and Joel really liking waterparks (king)

That being said, there's some fun imagery to play with here:

yellow = jimmy makes a lot of sense (blonde hair, canary imagery, yellow also representing people on their second life in the life series which evokes neither the assumed skillfulness of a late game green name nor the danger of a red name), as does green = joel (the green streak. shrek. yeahg. and while red joel is iconic "green like my insides" could also be read in this context as "deep down, I am safe to be around" which I think is neat)

"natural blue" is a bit harder to interpret (especially considering the original context of this being a joke about Awsten dyeing his hair) but blue is of course scott's colour. this could be read spitefully as Natural blue (was in love with jimmy first) vs scott's dyed hair or it's. joel saying that's he's gay idk man.

"at least I match your eyes" is pretty simple, with both of them having brown eyes, "jealous and hypnotized" once again alluding to some jealousy, likely towards FH again if you believe the blue line is alluding to scott.

however joel has plenty of people to be jealous of in regard to jimmy so. shrugs. hey you can even interpret this line as talking about jimmy's desirability. neat.

there's also this, which again might allude to flower husbands, implying in this fake world I've created that Joel doesn't view them as actually "married"

ok this is getting too long lmao see you guys next time i feel like writing about this stupid fucking playlist again

[ellecdc]

Mother, serious question mainly for my own self-esteem 😮‍💨😅

How do you think the boys (any of them really) would view a partner with like all sorts of facial piercings and like rat tails in their hair and funky colors(truly best describes as a queer little gremlin lol). Cause I know Marlene and Sirius have an alt rock aesthetic (I don't think I spelled that right) but as much as I love these characters I never feel like I would have fit in with them if I was really there ya know?

Idk it's kinda stupid but just curious on you're thoughts on this. They're just so cool and I would hope they would like me enough to at least be my friend if they were real 😮‍💨😖

okay first of all, love the title queer little gremlin; let's all capitalize those letters and add them to surveys when they ask you how you identify plsss??

Here's my take:

James:

I love (and follow religiously) the headcanon that James is pansexual but I believe that expands beyond just gender identity, if that makes sense?

It doesn't matter if you're male or female or anywhere in between or beyond or both or all

and I feel like it doesn't really matter what you look like to him

I feel like he loves people for their hearts, their minds, their interests, etc

I feel like he'd maybe be worried because....those had to hurt??? you do that on purpose? doesn't it hurt terribly? his poor sweet angel????

I also see him as the type of bf who would be like "oh! are we changing colours? which one's? can I help?" and will dutifully like, adorn gloves and sit in the bathroom breathing in dye fumes and chatting away with you while the two of you talk about everything and nothing - I think he'd love spending that time with you and it would be special bonding time

(also, have you seen the James fan art with him with a nose ring??? fuck me sideways)

Sirius:

you're so right re: alt-rock aesthetic etc

I think he'd find the facial piercings awesome tbh, you might even have inspired him to get one or more of his own

I think he'd make it almost a competition of who can dress the most grunge that day hahaha - but the two of you would make quite the couple

also? you look like the kind of person his posh, prissy, stuck up parents would hate seeing him with - that's totally a bonus

I see this guy as someone who loves hair care and would be horrified at how much/often you change your hair colour and would insist on helping you/buying the more expensive products/ensure you're doing it right to save your hair from too much damage

that's the only 'problem' I see him having

Remus:

idk, I kind of see him a little bit like James tbh; looks would be a little less important to him? like he doesn't care how you express yourself in terms of style and clothes

what would be important to him is that you're kind and patient, that you're openminded and considerate of others

I mean...he's littered with scars, is he not? He doesn't exactly look "normal" (derogatory) and would probably feel very similar to what you've described; like he doesn't feel he particularly 'fits in' with his friends

I see him having like, not long hair but like a decent head of curls, and he'd totally love if you braided a few little pieces of his hair like your 'rat tails'

I think he'd find the hair fun; you'd show up one day with new colours and I could see his face lighting up like 😃 "that looks great love; so fun"

Regulus:

he's tricky because he's so posh and stuck up lmfao

BUT

people also ship bartylus and I see so much Barty fan-art somewhat similar to how you've described yourself and if Reg likes Barty - he'd certainly like you too

Barty:

as mentioned above, I could totally see him having like a green streak in his hair or something

perhaps some piercings (I think he'd get piercings down below.....), tongue piercing, nose piercing, eyebrow piercing - I feel like he'd be down for it all himself, so he wouldn't mind it on you at all either

and again, as a guy with daddy issues, he'd be a lot like Sirius and think the better chance he has at dating someone who would sooooo piss of his dad - the better!

thanks for your ask babes <3