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sixthwater · 1 year

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Hello! I was able to get a reading out! I've been thinking of doing this reading for a minute and it wouldn't go away so here I am. Hopefully this is helpful to those who read it. It briefly touches over scars/wounds that seem to stem from childhood, and advice on how to heal them.

Left → Right / Pile 1 → Pile 4)

Decks Used: The Luminous Spirit, The Horror Tarot, The Abandoned Oracle, Angel Tarot, Trickster's Journey, Sacred Creators Oracle, Fairies Oracle Deck, Animal Spirit Oracle

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Pile One

Cards: Ace of Pentacles Rx, Page of Wands Rx, Knight of Cups, X of Swords, III of Cups, King of Pentacles Rx, Combustion Rx, The Spider Rx

This feels like someone who is constantly let down but has to reign in their anger or have to put their desire on the backburner for others or due to external situations. So let’s see; virgo/libra/capricorn placements, saturn-moon aspects, afflicted mars? Those are a rough few off the top of my head. Either way, I get that it stems from childhood or you have a pattern with close friends that they would promise something or I hear ‘I’ll make it up to you’ but it always fell through, so in turn you just stopped hoping for things and you are a bit..shut off? It’s not that you’re cold and you still let people in, but there’s a big fear – even if it’s muted – that once you let them in they might hurt you the same way you’ve been hurt before. Or that there’s no point in hoping you’ll get what you want. We’ll see in the advice part obviously but it also seems like you’ve just started taking this behavior as well and there’s not much action against it. Page of Wands is a doll that’s slightly ruined and I get the same energy from the ten of swords as well for some reason. It doesn’t feel like bitching but it reminds me of that ‘everything is fine’ card from The Modern Witch deck. As for Combustion, I can see how that might be internally, but you smother that. Reminds me of the daydream bits from Scrubs – you going off on someone but you don’t really do it. Your escapism isn’t the typical form, it’s just that you avoid deep attachment with people or emotions in general so you won’t get hurt. From this, I’d have to assume you sacrificed or did/gave a lot for the people you cared about but felt like they didn’t care for you the same. For a select few it could also have to do with finances or a lack of due to the ace and king of pentacles, but that’s a fleeting feeling.

Advice

Cards: X of Cups Rx, Wheel of Fortune, III of Wands, Cut the Cords of Doubt, Treat Yourself, Desire, Tarantula, Panther

You have to feel. You have two Ten’s, cutting the cord, and two fire cards. There’s a lot of purging and passion – ‘extreme’ energy if you will. The advice given circles around the house of accepting that; you are upset. You’re hurt, angry, betrayed – whatever it is, you’re feeling it. So you have to sit in it and really let that shit sink in and then finally let it out. Accepting it isn’t letting bygones be bygones, it’s understanding that you’re human and you’re not always going to be forgiving of everything and your emotions aren’t always going to make sense. For example, my friend has recently gotten the cutest kitten I have ever seen and she loves her. She has also lost her grandmother recently who she was close to. That same kitten had wrecked an item that her grandmother gave her and she expressed that she felt bad for getting mad at the cat and like, that’s to be expected. Things like that, you (pile one) have to come to terms with. Once you go through this little purge, just kind of…let go and let be. By that I mean; don’t try to predict what people are going to do or what’s going to happen with the things around you. The angel on this three of wands has their eyes closed so it’s like, waiting for the effects of your purging to take place. Once you start to implement these changes into your mindset and how you interact with people, wait to see how it’ll affect your relations with others. So the main thing is, you gotta work on your mindset and you gotta allow yourself to openly access these emotions and just feel. It’s tricky, but you have to understand that not everyone is going to be ‘Rebecca’ or ‘John’, they’re new and different people who might treat you the way you deserve to be treated. Which they only know how to if you start treating yourself better too. A lot of this is just examining your relationship with yourself, the world, others, etc. Do you think you’re unworthy of something? Why? Actually work through it, the more you process it the more information comes out. We can be aware of simple things but unless we’re actively going through our memories, some things we might’ve locked away suddenly resurfaces and gives us new context that we can work on. I’m also not surprised to see that some of the cards is just feeling a new zest/passion for life. It’s about finding your purpose but I’m reading it as finding love and standing up for yourself. Not in an argumentative way but if you feel like you’re being treated unfairly, discuss it with that person. Don’t take it because you feel like you deserve it or it’s your version of the status quo. You don’t have to rest in fighter mode but right now I believe – if i have to speak in this deck’s language – you’re docile and the reflex is to flee. You need to learn the balance of fighting as well. Again, for some of you it might be that you stay with people or situations that are familiar or comfortable even if they hurt you and you need to go beyond what you know. Seek out new things once you’ve done the work on yourself, because there’s a high chance you might outgrow these things.

Pile Two

Cards: The High Priestess, V of Wands, Judgement Rx, King of Wands, Wheel of Fortune, The Lovers Rx, Tears

You guys are special because I had to read for you guys today. I checked in and they refused to let me do it. Even after saying it was a healing reading and I'm not invasive yadayadayada, they did Not want to let me do it. Moving on. . .

Now that I’m allowed to pull your cards, I understand the protection. The Priestess and King are coming up as parental figures or just – it feels weird to say this but in comparison to the rest of the piles, they’re coming up as specific figures. It stands out because usually you will get pairs (K & Q of Cups) but instead we have a figure who is seen as intuitive and in this deck a little intimidating vs a figure who is charismatic and in this deck: has a mask on. So it’s like the top row (Priestess to the King) stands for these figures in your life whereas the rest of the cards represent the effect it had on you. So it’s interesting that between them we have conflicts, possibility of them talking down to each other, lack of awareness of where/when they’re doing it (as in their surroundings). I get a feeling of them keeping the relationship for physical matters (financial, responsibility, etc) instead of breaking it off to save stress. There’s also another element here that the King has a mask and his back is turned, but he’s facing us as if we stepped in on him doing something wrong, so of course that’s combined with The High Priestess. However this card has a little ‘animal’ with her which seems to be a messenger. So it’s like getting caught but not in the act, so no grounds to attack leaving someone to just pick at them. Onto you; this leads to an unstable environment. It just sets precedent that this is the norm, but if it is you don’t want it. It doesn’t really make you feel ‘safe’, or happy, or gave you any pleasant feelings. There was a video I watched about this, but it spoke of children dealing with forms of abuse having poor health due to always being on alert. While this may not be exactly what you’re dealing with, I think you were pretty much set up in the same way because I get the feeling of someone never really wanting to relax because they’re always waiting for that next argument or picking up on tones. I’m also consistently hearing ‘if this is what love is then I don’t want it’ over and over again while I’m trying to decipher this.

Advice

Cards: Page of Pentacles, The Fool, Queen of Pentacles, Say It Out Loud, Cozy up with Risk, Celebrate Your Wins, Gazelle

Gazelle personalities are often hyper-aware of their surroundings (bordering on hyper-vigilant)

Yeah. So if you’ve seen Skinamarink it kind of reminds me of that? It’s not my movie but people describe the tension as being…well, the gazelle personality, which is why I’m bringing it up, and of course those types of fears can start to become physical pains. I really recommend watching these two videos because it’s something to think about. To start off with this spread, it’s asking you to either speak to someone, or to journal which might be preferable to a good amount of you. I did this a few years ago but when I was in a good headspace, I just started from the beginning and made it to the present so I could do my best to unravel where my issues are stemming from and try to work on them little by little. It’s like untangling hair, it’s frustrating and you might just want to chop it off but if you go slow, you can carefully get the mess undone and figure out where the core of the issue is. The rest of this? Just grounding. It’s asking you to get out of your head and get out of survival mode and to just breathe and live. Always a lot harder to practice, but you have to catch yourself when you’re doing it and step back and knock yourself into doing it haha. I’m not necessarily picking up on trust issues or problems relating to people – at least they’re not highlighting it – but it’s more about getting stuck in your head and trying to play chess with the world and how things play out. You can’t do that. That’s like trying to fight the wheel of fortune, you’re going to lose. So spirit wants you to slowly learn how to relax and get more into the physical world. If walks help while listening to podcasts to get out of that routine, go and do that! I believe the key here is to figure out what the trigger is for overthinking and anxiety so you can catch yourself. From there, it’s just a day by day process of nurturing yourself.

Pile Three

Cards: Judgement Rx, III of Pentacles Rx, Temperance, The Fool Rx, II of Pentacles Rx, Combustion Rx

Control? Which is interesting because I feel like Judgement should be upright. However. Okay it feels like self-contained chaotic energy. Not to bring my Wife Swap binging into this, but there was a relationship between a wife and her daughter where the kid would…be a kid? And the mom would call her a misbehaving brat and label her ‘The Bad Child’. That dynamic seems like you’re implementing it upon yourself. You don’t have to have these, but I’m seeing the habit of chewing at your nails and other anxious fidgeting that’s usually picking at yourself. For some actually it reminds me of children who are neurodivergent and the family doesn’t properly know how to care for them so the child has to like…’tame’ it? I hope that makes sense. Anyway, I’m getting a lot of self-control, anxiety, frustration, foot tapping/leg shaking, and self-criticism. There’s also a piece of solitude. It’s not a choice but with the three and two it’s like…it reminds me of the eight of pentacles. Working endlessly at the same thing but this ‘thing’ is yourself. It’s keeping you in check. This ‘three’ situation might’ve been that you just simply didn’t get along with a lot of people so now you’re more introverted/isolated but I don’t get that it’s who you are? Because the ‘two’ feels like someone who is constantly watching a pot boil to make sure it doesn’t spill over, like it’s a 9-5 job for them. It’s not fun. I don’t get chaos with this externally, it’s a lot of control and it doesn’t feel fun. This could honestly just be an external routine that’s inflicted upon you but it feels more like experiences that you went through and you’ve learned that ‘ok I have to be like this in order for people to like me’.

Advice

Cards: Knight of Swords Rx, X of Wands Rx, IV of Cups, Strength, The Spark of Hustle, Ambush Fear with your Ferocious Dream, Stage of Play, Firefly, Crow

Not surprised by these cards so I have to go deeper here. Also, the Barbie soundtrack started playing in my head, take that how you will. Okay so, directly interpreting these cards is just telling you: don’t be scared, be yourself, go big or go home. Basically. That’s a bit difficult knowing the energy I picked up so. Knight of Swords can be a bit brash or rude, immature, and messy. Not the most welcoming energy, but you’ve already been locked in a cage and taught to be a type of person that you never were anyway – so it’s telling you to unwind a little bit and be more comfortable with letting that out every now and again. Especially with the ten of wands to back it up. If that voice in your head tells you to mind your actions or words, think about what an unlearned Knight of Swords would do. Obviously, don’t actively hurt people’s feelings or be a dick, but you don’t have to walk around as someone else. Four of Cups is pointing towards throwing away this mindset too, but it’s more like…not minding people’s opinions? Because obviously it’s a bit difficult to just throw all this away in one swoop. So (taking into account what I said before) if there’s some whispering or side-eyes thrown your way; treat it like the four of cups. Someone wants to say ‘oh the way you’re doing that is a little…’ cool give it the four of cups treatment. Again, this advice is a little grey if this is a case of attitude behavior and having to figure out how to interact with people, it’s a bit difficult, but Intentionally messing with people is a pretty clear line so. Strength is pretty clear; it’s just inner love and care for yourself. Trust that you’re not ‘broken’ or ‘wrong’. Now the rest of these I find to be interesting. Spark & Ambush speak more to inner child energy and being most honest about yourself. It’s like being loud and proud and embracing who you once were – which I hate saying once. It’s just finding yourself again and bringing that back out. Being comfortable with it again. Stage of Play is embracing…just that haha. It’s a lot of inner child messages, I think you would benefit from seeking out that type of healing or looking into those readings currently. I also find it cute that you got two air cards for the energy to bring in? Air is mental stimulation and sociability. If you have hobbies or interests you enjoy, talk about them. Enjoy them. Don’t hide things you enjoy. Air is about engagement in a sense, but I also find it cute that these two cards in particular speak to creativity but also an inner knowing of the self. Firefly speaks to little bursts of energy and insight, meanwhile crow is worldly knowledge. I’m really picking up on neurodivergency here but it’s a general reading so (but it Does start with an A). Honestly? Go watch some kid movies you used to love, play with some colored pencils, just enjoy yourself man. You deserve to.

Pile Four

Cards: VI of Pentacles Rx, The World, III of Cups Rx, Knight of Pentacles Rx, The Sun Rx, The Spider Rx, Backstabber (Ace of Cups Rx)

Okay this pile was a bit confusing so I had to pull one more card. I’m not getting many messages, which can sometimes be a sign of major blockage. The only few things I got were ‘not enough’ ‘want it all’ and ‘consumption’. I thought the six of pentacles was the four, so there’s also a feeling of self-preservation here. I can’t pinpoint it so the theme might connect but the specifics will differ for all of you. The things I can pick up on are: themes of depression, themes of friendships, or themes of self-worth. Regardless – motivation, ego, and self-worth pops up in all these stories. It’s like…someone feels like the cup they have has a hole in it and it’s leaking. They never have enough water so they’re always trying to fill it and no matter what they do they can never manage to do so. Trying to explain it to other people makes them seem like they don’t know what they’re doing or they’re just filling their cup wrong, so they just struggle to drink from their damaged cup. It could be depression. Since we have a card speaking to betrayal and then also the ace & three of cups reversed, this could be a specific relationship that has scarred you and causes you to struggle to reach out to other people (similar to pile one but this energy is different). It’s just…not enough is the only thing being repeated in my head and I’m not getting anything else and it feels very vacant, I’m not feeling anything else which is why I keep circling back to depression despite the cards here. I mean the three of cups can speak for a lack of interacting with…life so combined with the other cards there’s a definite possibility? So there might just be a mix of you here. We’re going to move on.

Advice

Cards: Queen of Pentacles, VI of Swords, The Trickster, Fall in Love with Your Own Story, Lighting Your Path, Cobra

This is a beautiful spread. There’s a small message that I’m going to get out of the way, which is to take care of yourself. I wouldn’t be surprised if that fell to the wayside. Get small things back into your routine like having healthy eating habits, even if they’re snacks. Going to bed at a good time, going on walks, complimenting yourself daily – things like that to make yourself feel better little by little. Pamper yourself essentially. Now the rest is much deeper. It wants you to have or embrace a rebirth of yourself. My personal suggestion, since I haven't been listening to music for this reading, is to listen to Icon for Hire. They talk about these themes, but there’s always the very long era of sitting within the old shell of yourself where it’s comfortable and being scared to break out of that and move on. Where you want to be happy or feel better but that step includes letting go of everything that you’re doing now. It brings you to the trickster (fool) which is new beginnings, and it means even more with this deck because it’s about Sun Wukong (which brings another level to everything because I wanted to use the other deck and I was just told a blunt no lmao). Anyway, you’re being encouraged to find the light within yourself. Find meaning to yourself by going within – which is much easier said than done I know. It’s beautiful that the Cobra mentions being similar to a spirit guide and talks about showing up when you’re ready to be a student of life again and then it will appear. Very similar to the fool that got pulled for your reading. Plus it’s a snake? Serious about shedding that old skin of yours (Snakeskin by Rina Sawayama? This is the only pile where songs are coming up, good for you). Last but not least, this falling in love with yourself card? Very serious. It can be difficult but there is only one you. No one is going to be able to replace that. Yes, people will be share your pain, resonate with your issues or give you advice because they’ve walked that path, but they will never shine like you can. You won’t be able to replace them either. That’s why we’re all here. Using myself, I went through the worst time of my life when I was officially diagnosed with my biggest medical issue along with everything else that I already was self-conscious about. I hated myself for a good minute before I realized that did quite nothing for me and a lot of people found it quite easy to hate on my too so why should I join them? Look at everything you’ve done. It doesn’t have to be amazing. You’ve existed, you’ve helped others in your life whether you realize it or not, you’ve made an impact during your time here. Celebrate yourself. I hope the next time we see each other you can say that you’re beautiful because you guys are. (also? If you have a favorite piece of jewelry, you should wear that more)

#pick a card #pick a card reading #tarot reading #tarot readings #pac #pick a pile #tarotblr #mysticalcreations

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a-mag-a-day · 2 years

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MAG 69 - nice - Folding laundry

Of course, it's a Web episode and it starts with Martin.

MARTIN "No but she’s pretty private with that stuff. Not like Tim." - Tim going on and on about his dates and/or hook-ups is canon.

Jon immediately getting defensive when Martin mentions Tim and Martin begging Jon to just talk to Tim. I'm guessing Tim and Martin are talking about this, Martin being the caregiver and Tim being pretty open (except for his brother and his whole history with the Stranger).

JON "Ironically, I think working is all Tim and I can do together." - Meaning they also had a non-work-related relationship? I mean, we don't know, but they were both in research and Jon asked for Tim (and Sasha) as assistant, so that at least implies that Jon did know him to some extent, that he said "I wanna continue working with this dude". I really like to see them both as friends before all this shit started, even if Tim was a bit salty about Jon getting the Head Archivist position instead of Sasha.

MARTIN "Look. Jon… when was the last time we all just talked? Just talked, without all of this –" - And so they did talk non-work-related stuff before all went to hell? Did they go to the pub together? I like to think it was like that. S1 Archives Crew <3

MARTIN "He’s not wrong, you know." - Not wrong about what?

I love Jonny's way of introducing a story like "I'm gonna vaguely talk about that thing that happened without ever saying what happened or I'm giving you one horrible detail that came out of all this, just to make everyone curious"

"And when I started to see more and more spiders around the lab, I turned the very real sense of unease into the… the fun sort of fear, like I was just playing at being scared. It’s so strange, even when you’re really looking for horror, it’s impossible to actually believe it. It always feels like something you made up. Just having a bit of fun scaring yourself. Because those things don’t happen. Not in the real world." - This speaks to me very much.

"but I know ESP research when I’m mopping its floors." - Well, I don't so I'm googling it xD (Is the term generally known in native English speaking?), Let's see, what we've got there "ESP has been defined as ‘anomalous processes of information or energy transfer, processes such as telepathy… that are currently unexplained in terms of known physical or biological mechanisms’" (https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/extra-sensory-perception-controversial-debate)

"Not that I minded, of course; I love that crap." - I do love that crap too. But I actually mind it very much in the real world, especially when they want to justify it in the medical field. All this pseudoscience mumbo-jumbo like energy medicine is potentially dealing with persons who seriously need medical attention and those Charlatans gonna send them home like nothing's wrong. This is highly dangerous.

"I’m a horror nut but I generally tend toward the more sci-fi end. Demons and ghosts have never really got me but give me aliens or the sinister powers of the human mind and I am there." - Funny, I'm very much the opposite. I mean, I AM a horror nut! But I like supernatural horror the most. Sci-fi yes, but it depends. Alien (the movie, not Aliens as monsters), yes! The Thing, I mean come on, of course! Annihilation (this one has also has cosmic horror tho), Life, Underwater (Hmm… there's a pattern of inescapability). Interesting that a lot of movies, that I would count more as cosmic horror than sci-fi (Bird Box, The Endless, The Mist, Color Out of Space… ok, that got "space" in it) are categorized as sci-fi horror. Hm… Maybe I do like sci-fi horror more than I thought and it's just sci-fi-sci-fi which I don't like? I'm definitely fed up on Christian religious/demon movies for the next few years tho, that is getting old… So yeah, just my… thought for the day! XDD

"The subject’s name was Annabelle Cane." - On my first listen I couldn't focus and barely followed the plot. So naturally I totally missed Annabelle being introduced in this episode.

"I’m sure you can guess what I ended up cleaning more and more of over the course of the study. Cobwebs." - I wonder if you could kind of see this part of a subtle hint, that no cobwebs in TMA ever are a coincident.

"I can still remember her face as she told me that Annabelle had apparently reported having several unsettling dreams about spiders. Notably, at no point in the experiment had she been informed that it was spiders being used." - I wouldn't be too sure about that being a sign of "telepathy" as the statement-giver just told us, that he saw more and more cobwebs in the building and sometimes spiders scuttling away to hide. Annabelle easily could have seen them as well.

"She dressed like a vintage clothing store exploded on her" - lol

"every one of the other participants in that study, Dr. Bates’ so-called “projectors”, have also disappeared. I cannot help but wonder how many cobwebs might be found in their old homes." - Just a year ago he laughed about Carlos Vittery and now he's saying stuff like this xD S1 Jon was fun at times.

Aw man, Jon sounds so sad in the supplemental part..

"I should ask the others for help but I… I can’t. At best, they’d just try to talk me out of it. At worst… No, I… if I’m going down there, I go alone. I should just leave it." - He wants to be with the others. But he knows he burned that bridge with at least Tim and probably (Not!)Sasha as well and I'm guessing he is very much still paranoid having the Not!Them around.

"But I can’t not know." - When my spouse listened to this he laughed and said "Ha, he's just like you!" Yeah, thanks :/

I feel ESP research and experimentation is probably much more common in a reality that hosts supernatural horror, even if it's not a universally known fact, it still lurks underneath everything, making people more inclined to study it and create with it as inspiration. In the same way I feel the horror genre is probably more prevalent in that kind of world as well

#a mag a day #tma #the magnus archives #episode asks #mod ashes #tma spoilers #mag 069 #lycanlovingvampyre

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casliveblog · 11 months

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Custom Toonami Block Week 150 Rundown

Spy X Family: So yeah contrary to my theory from last time there really WAS a political rival trying to make the Desmond kids fail but it’s just a little kid buying a discount Spy from the Spy equivalent of Wish dot com, still feel like we should foreshadow stuff like that instead of bringing it up after the fact but okay. But yeah this kid looks like one of the Addams Family had a kid with one of The Oblongs and they made this weird off-model goth child. Though surprisingly enough they don’t go for the ‘he keeps trying lame attempts to get Damian expelled’ like the sabotage gets revealed pretty early thanks to Anya and Damian is way cooler to this kid for trying to get him expelled than he is to Anya for… being short. But yeah we have a pretty big swerve from a plotting hijinks plot to a Max Keeble’s Big Move plot where this kid is trying to do everything he ever wanted before he’s forced to leave the school because his family’s company was bought out, he starts out just taking advantage of the situation but genuinely starts enjoying himself when Anya genuinely comforts him about his fears and the punch line for all this should be ridiculously obvious for how they spread this joke over ten minutes but turns out his family’s only gonna be like 10% less rich and effectively nothing will change for him. The second plot is about Yor parkouring her way into Anya’s school after she believes Anya forgot her gym clothes, it’s pretty damn funny how Yor always jumps to the most extreme conclusion and thus takes the most extreme actions and the obvious punchline for this one isn’t as dragged out as the other so that’s cool, plus it ends with her and Loid going on a lunch date so that’s pretty nice, like they kinda skip over Loid explaining to Yor WHY she’s not a bad mother but I assume they discuss it at lunch so it’s fine.

Inuyasha: Naraku’s Baby-heart has just kinda nestled in at a new castle town where all the attendants died while the Lady was going into labor and the Lady’s just like ‘man that baby is sus and everyone died’ but the Lord’s just like ‘oh shit, free baby’ and assumes it’s his wife despite it being perfectly albino and them being generic feudal dudes, like even the Lady is like ‘I’m not sure that’s mine and there was a ghost girl with a mirror that was standing over me while I was giving birth but I’m sure it’s fine…’ I mean technically Kanna didn’t even need to keep the mom alive but Baby!Naraku does like snuggling some titties I guess so it’s okay, but like did they… kill the real baby she was having? Like Naraku’s up to some dark shit but that’s pretty dark for a shonen from the 90s. Anyway Kagome’s here to save Kikyo and her Shikikami are like ‘do you wanna save her?’ and Kagome’s like ‘is there literally any downside to doing so?’ and they say no so she’s like ‘well duh’ because Kagome’s character is literally built around always wanting to help people. I like to think that since the two kids are Kikyo’s Shikikami they’re projecting Kikyo’s self-esteem issues onto Kagome and asking here that like she may just want to let her die but Kagome’s a good girl so of course she will. I think the filler episode with Kikyo and Kagome in the cave kinda came and ate this one’s lunch because we’ve already had the ‘Kagome has complicated feelings about Kikyo but doesn’t want her to literally die’ moral and it always felt weird to retread it here even if this one is the canon version. Kagome dives in to save Kikyo and gets the abridged version of the two part special from a few weeks ago and gets to do her Rifftracks of ‘No Kikyo don’t go in there that’s where the demon spider is’ which is kinda funny but yeah, Kikyo gets saved and talks to Kagome again about why she saved her when all she’s ever been to her is a romantic rival and a cold-hearted zombie girl stringing along her boyfriend and Kagome’s so dense she doesn’t even get that letting her rival die was an option until after Kikyo leaves, like I hesitate to call Kagome ‘pure-hearted’ like they said when she was having her confrontation with the Baby but she’s a good girl and isn’t going to even think of doing something like that. Now we get our post-Kikyo ‘Kagome’s kinda snippy for a while and Inuyasha doesn’t know how to deal with it’ but it does get a nice resolution with Inuyasha saying he trusts Kagome that she saved Kikyo and her being alive and fine is enough for right now and he doesn’t need to see her right away because Kagome did a good job saving her and they have shit to do.

Yu Yu Hakusho: This one’s kind of a ‘Yusuke mopes around’ episode because Raizen’s three messengers give him a week to get his affairs in order and of course he waits till the last fucking day to tell anybody. Meanwhile Hiei and Kurama have become big enough demon world celebrities that they get offers from the other two Demon Kings and they both agree to each other to not actually serve their respective kings but kinda go undercover and see what they can find out, though Hiei also gives his usual ‘maybe this is the time I betray you for real’ shtick even though at this point we know it never is. Also Kuwabara’s getting ready to face the greatest Demon King of all… high school entrance exams (Always really found it fucking weird how Japan breaks up high school but I guess in the end it’s just adding one year to middle school and cutting one from High School it just always threw me off when anime characters are like ‘yeah I’m 15 in middle school). But yeah, Yusuke does finally tell Keiko that he’s going and he won’t know if he can get back and she tells him she’s sick of his shit and isn’t going to wait around for him even though she probably couldn’t help doing so anyway. Yusuke comes by her family diner and gives her a better proposal, literally, he says he’s gonna use all his shonen protagonist determination to find a way to get back before he’s 18 and he’s going to marry her, which is apparently something he used to say all the time as a kid, guess Yusuke wasn’t always a closed-off as he was at the start of the series, at least around Keiko but yeah it’s really cute and he reassures her everything will be alright and gets ready to head out.

Jujutsu Kaisen: So Megumi, Riceball Boy and Blind Dude are fighting Hanami, well sort of, they’re basically trying for a stunlock loop to run away enough to go get help and it works until Riceball Boy runs out of words to shout but Maki’s here to help so she and Megumi fight Hanami off for a bit and more importantly knock her into the forest, just when it looks like she has them dead to rights with her Kurama death seeds, Yuji gets his first Shonen Protagnist post-training badass entrance and storms in with Todo, a classic. Todo gets Panda to get the others to safety and tells Yuji he ain’t gonna do shit until he sees Yuji do the new thing they talk about. So yeah Yuji gets a new punch which I can only describe as kinda like Hit’s Time Skip punch mixed with Kakashi’s Kamui distortion but also a punch, idk if I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around the power system or if the fast pace of the anime is bad at explaining them but I don’t quite understand the full extent of some of these, but point being Yuji has a new punch and it’s a black punch so it’s automatically better than all other color punches. So yeah now that Yuji can do a thing Todo joins in and they have the weird symmetrical choreography of those High School Musical kids that can break out in dance at a moment’s notice and do some fucking up of Hanami who unleashes her second arm because no one in Shonent Anime who has an eye/appendage covered is actually injured they’re all just hiding badass shit they have on their body parts. She remembers Mahito telling her about how violence is part of a Cursed Spirit’s base nature despite how Hanami acts like a rational version of Captain Planet and she agrees that fighting people with both arms and being matched blow for blow makes her enjoy fighting. Also Todo’s gonna do his secret thing now so that’s cool.

Zom 100: Reflecting on his decision to follow his childhood dream last episode Akira decides to… become a superhero, I mean okay, guess ‘find what you wanted to do before capitalism shoved you down a money pipeline’ is kind of hard so you’re probably gonna have to go back to when you’re like six to actually get there, though the end result is pretty cool. They get a jumpsuit from the aquarium that is meant to resist shark attacks so while Akira’s wearing it it’s basically impossible for zombie bites to infect him (though it still hurts like hell). I kinda really like this idea because we run into our Risk Analyst Shizuka again and it shows how Akira with his out of the box deranged thinking came up with something safer than her boneheaded plan of getting on the teacher’s bus from Highschool of the Dead was. That being said she’s still tsundere as hell and pulls the ‘you’re just being a hero for the satisfaction of it’ card like that isn’t how good deeds universally work anyway. Like this is probably the safest Akira could be but the marginal risk he’s putting Kencho in still pisses her off despite her goal-oriented thought process not analyzing her idea of getting on a bus with the worst group of zombie survivors properly. Anyway the plot dumps a zombie shark with scuba diver spider legs on the situation and that goes about as well as you’d expect. I think what’s going on is that the shark ate zombies and the zombies ate the shark from the inside and also just so happen to have symmetrical leg holes and be working in unison with the shark despite not being able to see from inside but best not to think about it too hard. Shizuka gets thrown under the bus by one of said bus-riders and Akira has to help her out and we run through the whole ‘live versus survive’ debate again but both of them team up to electrocute the shark with flashlight batteries while Akira’s standing in water which I’m pretty sure would kill him too or not work at all but really fight a stupid problem with a stupid solution so it’s fine, Kencho’s ass even gets to help out and while Shizuka doesn’t officially join the party she at least concedes that working with a small task force is better than throwing in with any randos who own a bus and she and Akira make a pretty good team so they exchange phone numbers. Meanwhile Akira sets his next goal, to see his family who are in a rural town around where the safe zone is supposed to be, so that’ll be fun.

Ranking of Kings: We start off with Ouken stabbing right through Kage after he swallowed him which I feel like should’ve been the cliffhanger last time instead of putting weight on if Kage had some weird man-eating transformation or something. Daida!Bosse finishes telling Snake Guy the story of Miranjo’s horrible backstory and the long and the short of it is she got her hands cut off and her face flayed open like how Daida found her in the sunken place and Bosse got her fixed up but that damage was never undone and he blames himself for never being able to help her soul heal. Now Ouken has everyone dead to rights and stabs Bojji for good measure, though surprisingly Miranjo leaves her mirror and possesses one of the unconscious prisoners to heal Kage. Despa grabs her arm and is touching Bojji at the same time so they both get to watch Kage about to cross over to see his dead mom again before Miranjo reminds him of Bojji and he comes back to life. He says he shouldn’t thank her because it’s her fault she let a Dark Souls Man into the kingdom and got him stabbed but he thanks her anyway and the combination of events causes Miranjo’s wounded avatar in Daida’s body to disappear, showing those wounds in her soul and her resentment is finally starting to evaporate. Meanwhile the Big Four show up to fight Ouken and Snake Guy, Sword Guy, Shield Guy and Spear Guy all work as a team as they were presumably intended to before all the dark souls mirror Get Out bodysnatching shenanigans happened, it kind reminds me of the Furious Five vs Tai-Lung fight in Kung Fu Panda because like you know they’re gonna lose but the teamwork is cool to see. Still oddly enough Ouken is able to remember Despa’s lessons and turn the tables on them, so I guess there is part of his soul still in there after all, idk if this means he’s starting to heal too or what, still it’s a good time.

Vinland Saga: Thorfinn wakes up from his post-flight nap and finds his arms bending the wrong fucking way so Thorkell tells him a story about Thors while Askeladd sets his arm and they wait for his ears to stop ringing. So Thorkell’s Thorfinn’s mom’s uncle and as we know Thors was really good at killing people until one day he’s like ‘man I don’t wanna kill people anymore’ and fakes his own death. Apparently three months after that, Thorkell’s bumming around Thors’ house in a battleboner-induced state of depression and finds Thors and Helga and baby Ylva sneaking into the house to get some of their shit I guess before going to Iceland. Thorkell tries to convince him to come a’murdering again but Thors shuts him down and kinda doesn’t explain his new pacifist lifestyle very well and instead makes it sound like he just doesn’t think Thorkell’s hot shit and beats him down bare-handed. Meanwhile Askeladd tries being the Doc Louis to Thorfinn’s Little Mac and tells him how to beat Thorkell based on how he saw him downed in a big battle previously. So they go for round two and Thorfinn’s down an arm and in a lot of pain but thanks to some help from Askeladd he manages to land a hit to Thorkell’s jaw which if you know anything about fighting pretty much scrambles anyone’s brain for a few seconds (kinda accurate to the Little Mac analogy too) and disregarding all Askeladd’s advice to think before he fights, Thorfinn just jumps Thorkell’s body and jams his eye out with his bare hand. His men at this point are like ‘oh shit wait Thorkell wasn’t supposed to lose’ and jump Thorfinn to kill him anyway, luckily Thorkell’s a more honorable man than Askeladd is and is actually willing to honor the duel, though his men aren’t having it and still want Thorfinn dead. I mean yeah Thorkell’s men kinda interfered but so did Askeladd and Thorfinn was unconscious for a minute too so at this point they have one assist and one brief nap each so I’d make them as tied but Thorkell’s had enough and concedes defeat so it’s up to him I guess. Meanwhile Canute shows up and is just like ‘Yo my dad never loved me and I don’t fear death so I’mma go kill him so either kill me or get out of my fucking way’ and this new show of ballsiness does impress Thorkell and even Askeladd admits he killed Ragnar and offers his life to Canute which Canute takes and the whole team joins the party to go kill the king, awesome. It’s kind of funny like that whole shakeup, we find out Bjorn’s alive, the two brother guys are alive (though the one is in shock and may have amnesia) Priest dude’s alive, Askeladd’s alive, basically all the named characters are still alive and we just traded Askeladd’s mooks for Thorkell’s mooks, except… The Ear I guess? Was anyone’s favorite character The Ear? If so rip I guess but yeah for how earth-shattering that conflict was surprisingly little has changed as far as party structure goes.

#ooc #Toonami #Custom Toonami Block #Spy X Family #Inuyasha #Yu Yu Hakusho #Jujutus Kaisen #Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead #Ranking of Kings #Vinland Saga

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heysatanitsyourgirl · 2 years

Text

Thank you sm for tagging me @honeymuck !!!!

🖋 - Do you have/want any tattoos?

I do want tattoos !! But I’m indecisive and constantly changing so I’m terrified that I’ll get something and find it cringe in a year

💚 - What’s your favourite colour?

Celestial Blue !

🍕 - What’s the last food you ate?

Peri Peri chicken

🕰 - What time is it where you are rn?

7:30pm

🌟 - What is your zodiac sign?

I’m a Gemini bitch

🌍 - What’s your favourite accent?

In my country? Manchester. Over all? Probably Spanish /Italian. I have a friend from Cuba and a few Italian friends and I love just listening to them talk

⚡️ - Do you have any scars?

Like SOOOOO many. I’m clumsy af. I have one of my arm from when I tripped over MY OWN FEET and fell into my cork board and somehow managed to wedge a push pin FULLY into my arm

🌺 - What’s your MBTI type?

INFP

🥀 - Favourite animated movie?

Anastasia. I’m wearing the necklace rn.

📺 - Favourite show?

1960’s Batman. Adman west is funny as shit.

😂 - Are you ticklish?

If anyone attempts to tickle me I’d punch them

💍 - Do you ever want to get married?

Yeah but only for a massive party that I get to plan without question.

😳 - Do you like your name?

Yeah it’s chill. It used to be super uncommon but now it’s super popular so my 10 year old sister has like 4 friends with the name. I prefer to shorten it for gender reasons.

💙 - What colour is your room?

Fuxkin beige. My parents refuse to let me paint it because we don’t own the house.

🤓 - How did you get your name?

My mum has worked in childcare my whole life and she straight up stole it from this girl she looked after in nursery.

🎓 - When did/when do you graduate?

Two years left of uni after this may!

🍄 - Do you have/want any piercings?

I have two super basic lobe piercings. I want a MILLION MORE. I want a nose piecing as well. Alas I go to university and therefore am broke as fuck.

👀 - What colour are your eyes?

Some sort of a greyish version of a green/blue mix.

👱🏻‍♀️ - What’s your go to hairstyle?

I have a sort of tamed wolf cut so I just have to style that

🍻 - Have you ever drank underage?

Yeah but I’m English so that’s just expected

🍾 - Have you ever gotten drunk?

No!! Not for lack of trying tho, I get SUPER tired tipsy so I get super dizzy and pass out before I can get drunk.

😱 - What’s your biggest fear?

If I think too much about existence and the general randomness of the universe I have a panic attack. Also spiders

🥵 - Would you rather be too hot or too cold?

Too cold. I prefer heat but I want hot chocolate and cozy jumpers

🌦 - What’s your favourite weather?

Heat.

🍂 - What’s your favourite season?

I don’t really have a favourite. The one I like least is spring.

🐷 - What’s your favourite animal?

Chinchilla

🐶 - Do you have any pets?

😴 - What’s the longest you’ve gone w out sleep?

Like 28 hours

🤠 - Are you more of a country person or city person?

I was born and raised in a Small town but I have the strength of a born Londoner whilst navigating the city so probs city.

🛩 - If travelling was free, where’s the first place you’d go?

Anywhere and everywhere.

📱 - Favourite app on your phone?

Tumblr and my document app that I use to download YouTube videos so I can stream music without paying for Spotify premium lmao.

🎨 - Any hobbies?

I do a shite ton of art stuff. Either it be digital or traditional. I do a lot of cloth customisation (mostly my shirts and shoes) but I’m so consumed with coursework atm that I haven’t done it in a while.

Same rules yo !! If you wanna do this tag me !! And let me see your answers cuz idk who to tag <3

#get to know me tag

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catboyclarity · 2 years

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💥🕷️ for renato, 🙉 🔪 for rosarian and 🌏 🪤 and ✂️ for both?

💥 COLLISON - what emotions do they have trouble dealing with?

So Renato is absolutely wretched at dealing with pretty much any emotion which is a big part of why he is. Like that. He doesn’t really know how to process anything and tends to externalize most of his feelings into Self Destruction or Being A Major Asshole.

I think sadness/grief is probably his worst one though. He hates letting himself feel his feelings and he’s been through a lot of shit so it just sort of builds in him internally like plaque and fucks up his relationships.

🕷️ SPIDER - what is their biggest fear? do they have any irrational / mundane fears?

I think he’s most afraid of completing losing his humanity and becoming like Other werewolves—relishing violence, having a complete disregard for human life, losing his sense of scale and morality—and the fact that to hold the kind of position he does, that’s kind of already started, really cuts him up. If he doesn’t die violently in the next decade dude has the potential to live like 400 more years, which is inherently going to change the way he relates to humanity and to the world. This is existentially terrifying and the only way to prevent it is to die, which he has already decided not to do.

As for mundane fears. I think he is kind of wigged out by bugs and other creepy crawlies but you would never hear that from him.

🙉 HEAR-NO-EVIL - what is the worse thing your oc could hear from someone?

Rosarian has a really thick skin, a weird self image, and an incredibly low opinion of most people, so it’s pretty hard to hurt them just with words. They do have certain turns of phrase that are trauma triggers but that feels like a cop-out.

In general most of what would get under their skin would involve implying they would be better without the current power and independence they hold bc they’re more suited to a powerless or submissive role. If someone just said they were incompetent they wouldn’t care but like, you know, “you’d be happier if you were just a housewife” or whatever. That would really upset them.

🔪 KNIFE - how do they react to injury / misfortune befalling their loved ones (significant other, family, friends)? do they put themselves at blame?

So they’ve dealt with so much of this (among other traumas) that they’ve decided to deal with it by no longer having loved ones!!! They definitely blame themself for things that happened in the past, especially bc at least one time that happened was like. I mean they killed their husband very much on purpose.

The closest thing they’ve had to loved ones in the past few decades were their precious seconds, Adam and Lane, both of who got killed. In that case Rosarian just brought down an absolute world of physical harm to those responsible. I think if something happened to someone they cared about that didn’t have a really clear Person At Fault they might just invent one lol.

🌏 EARTH - will they give up the world for someone they love? is this decision easy for them?

Renato: Yes, 100%, absolutely. The list of people he actually loves is really short but he would do anything in his power for them. The world is a horrible place full of assholes he doesn’t like if he had to get rid of it for his sister to be healthy and happy it would be an easy decision.

Rosarian: I think a no, but it’d be a tougher call for them. One of the things that anchors them is a strong sense of personal responsibility toward their role in society. I don’t think they would be willing to abdicate that role for anyone, even if that would mean losing a person they loved.

🪤 MOUSE TRAP - what will always lure them into certain danger? a loved one in danger? a promise of something they are always searching for?

Renato: Either a situation that genuinely needs his help or a cute boy. He wants to do the right thing very badly. He also wants a boyfriend very badly. He’s self destructive and used to danger and life-or-death situations so he also doesn’t care that much.

Rosarian: their own poor judgement. They almost never go “I will do this thing, even though it could put me at massive risk I have no control over” and avoid those kinds of situations but due to their century and a half case of PTSD they have received no treatment for they sometimes 1. Fail to recognize something as a danger due to it still feeling normalized to them 2. Do avoidance so hard it becomes dangerous or 3. Compulsively partake in self destructive activities. If they absolutely had to put themself in direct danger to fulfill their duties as pack leader I think they would but they really try to avoid that when they can.

✂️ SCISSORS - what is the "last straw" for them to cut someone out of their life? how easily do they let go of people?

Renato: pretty much just hurting someone he cares about. He has almost no standards other than that and is much more frequently the guy who gets cut out.

Rosarian: Rosarian will cut you off for sneezing at the wrong time. Rosarian will cut you off for anything. If you have to work together in a professional capacity they will generally be able to maintain a professional relationship but anybody else? If you accidentally trigger their “This Person Is A Threat” reaction they are just going to completely remove you from their life ASAP. Literally the only reason they continue to be in contact with Renato at the start of Consumptionverse is they are coworkers and he’s politically useful.

#asks

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strawberrieas · 3 years

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Don’t know if this counts as hcs or not but sfw alphabet with Tsukasa? I love your writing :>

SFW ALPHABET // TSUKASA YUGI

# GENRE. general, fluff

# RUNDOWN. sfw alphabet with tsukasa

# WARNINGS. genderneutral reader, not proof read, lil mention of blood and gore, it’s tsukasa you know what’s up.

# NOTE. i’ve never done sfw alphabet i like this 🤔 and i enjoyed writing it, thanks anon (●’◡’●)

a - affection ;; how affectionate are they? how do they show affection?

Very. Even once you’re together and especially after you are, there won’t be a moment where he’s not clinging to you whenever the two of you are together. He usually shows it through physical touch or acts of service so be ready to have him touching you in one way or another and refusing to leave your side or let you leave his.

b - best friend ;; what are they like as a best friend?

Extremely energetic to the point where it’s appalling how much energy can be wrapped up in such a small body. Whenever you’re together he’s very talkative and always likes to pry, he’ll always want to know more and be in your business. Always manages to keep you entertained and make you feel included, beware of his possessiveness and sadistic personality though, while you’re still friends you aren’t pardoned from that side of him.

c - cuddling ;; do they like to cuddle? how and when?

Absolutely. Any time and any position, Tsukasa is one clingy mfer. He’ll insist on you carrying him on your back or sitting on your lap when the two of you are chilling, wrapping his legs around your shoulders and his arms around your head when you’re in class no matter how bothersome it might be for you, etc. He has absolutely no shame.

d - domestic ;; are they any good at cooking and/or cleaning?

Tsukasa should never be trusted around an oven or any cleaning supplies, not only because he can’t cook or clean for shit but because he’ll go out of his way to make things more difficult for everyone. He most certainly has and will try to put bleach in a food or drink and give it to someone as a “joke” because he wants to see what will happen.

e - effort ;; how much effort do they put into the relationship?

A lot, Tsukasa may always be super playful but he’s also really dedicated and willing to do anything on your behalf or for you.

f - fear ;; what do they do when their partner is scared?

He’s 100% terrible at comforting people and will probably resort to trying to get rid of whatever is scaring you, then coming back to you and proudly stating that he solved the issue and there’s no reason for you to be afraid anymore. If he can’t fix it directly then he’ll try to distract you instead. If your fear is something small and not all that serious, i.e. being afraid of bugs or spiders, scared of heights, etc. then he will joke about it when the time is right.

g - gentle ;; how gentle are they with their partner, physically and emotionally?

Not that much, he’s very over the top and loud so if you get overwhelmed easily it probably won’t work out. He still treats you with a bit more care than he does others and will occasionally stop himself if he realizes that something he’s going to say might hurt your feelings, but he won’t handle you like you’re delicate or anything since he has no filter.

h - honesty ;; would they lie to their partner?

Tsukasa will lie. Whether or not you’ll be able to catch them when he tells them is entirely up to you, but if he feels like there’s something you don’t need to know or he doesn’t want to share he’ll do it without hesitation since he believes it’s better if you’re left in the dark, especially regarding apparitions or anything supernatural. If you do catch him in a lie, he’ll play it off like it’s nothing and change the subject so he can avoid telling the truth, even if you already know by now that he’s lying. He gets irritated if you try to pry.

i - intimacy ;; do they enjoy being close to their partner?

Without a doubt. He’ll be at your side and you’ll be at his at all times, Tsukasa doesn’t understand the concept of personal space and you’ll be the first to know it.

j - jealousy ;; do they get jealous easily? how do they act?

He does, especially when anyone other than him is getting your attention for longer than he deems necessary. He’s extremely possessive and doesn’t like others getting too close to you, he trusts that you’re loyal but doesn’t have that same kind of patience for everyone else near you, and he’ll be keeping an eye out at all times so nothings getting by him. Don’t be surprised if a guy who’s been trying to subtlety flirt with you is suddenly no where to be seen and actively avoids you the next time you see him bruised and in a cast days later. If you know Tsukasa well enough to know he had something to do with it and confront him about it, he’ll act like he has no idea what you’re talking about and play dumb with an innocent yet knowing look on his face. Good luck trying to get him to fess up.

k - kisses ;; where do they like to kiss their partner? how often?

All over your face and neck and very often. Likes to pepper your face with kisses when he’s clinging to your front or on your neck when he’s on your back and resting his head on your shoulder.

l - love ;; when they say ‘i love you’ how often is it? do they prefer to say or show it?

Very often, he says it whenever you do something remotely interesting or that makes him happy, he has no preference as long as he’s getting the message across and you know he means it.

m - mornings ;; how are mornings spent with them?

Tsukasa is bombarding you the moment you step into the school and talking your ear off about the last thing he found remarkable, the latest rumor that was spread, or any antics he’s been up to with Sakura and Natsuhiko all while dragging you to the broadcasting room. You get a lot of weird looks from your friends and other students when they see you being pulled away and talking to an invisible force instead of going to your first period.

n - nicknames ;; what do they like to call their s/o? do they like nicknames?

Tsukasa prefers to just call you by your name or a shortened version of it; he doesn’t mind whatever you call him, in fact he’ll love it and insist you keep calling him it if you do give him a nickname. Will definitely brag to Sakura about it. She won’t care all that much, but she’s obligated to listen.

o - out of ordinary ;; what’s something they normally don’t do for their s/o?

Tsukasa isn’t willing to let you get involved in any matter that involves apparitions that are out of line. Whether you’re strong or not, he views you as someone that he’s obligated to protect and won’t let you get in harms way, even if that means having to manipulate or lie to you in order to keep you away from it.

p - pda ;; are they okay with showing affection in public? are they the type to brag?

He isn’t at all ashamed of showing his affection in public and will brag about you to anyone who will listen. If they won’t listen, he’ll make them listen.

q - quizzes ;; how much do they remember about their s/o?

Tsukasa might seem careless at times but he’s very observant and will remember anything about yourself that you tell him or that he picks up on his own. He also likes to watch you even when you don’t realize he’s there so there will be times when he brings up something that you eventually realize you never told him and he doesn’t give a direct answer when you ask him how he found out.

r - romance ;; are they the romantic type?

Tsukasa is affectionate and clingy but he’s not romantic. He considers anytime the two of you hang out a date and doesn’t know a thing about romance. Doesn’t see the importance of things like flowers as gifts since he finds them useless but will get you some if it’ll make you happy.

s - security ;; how protective are they?

Very. Tsukasa doesn’t take kindly to anyone threatening or hurting you in any way. I’m sending my prayers to anyone who does because the moment he finds out you’ll either never see them again or when you do they’ll be an unrecognizable monster or pile of limbs. It’s very unlikely that Tsukasa will ever let you find out what he did if he knows it’ll make you upset though, he’ll just show up later claiming that he “dealt with them”.

t - trust ;; how much do they trust their s/o?

Tsukasa respects and puts a lot of trust in you, he’s willing to hear you out and heed your advice because he trusts that you’ll make the right decisions. You are one of the very few people he’ll trust with certain tasks.

u - understanding ;; are they a good listener?

Yes and no. Tsukasa pays attention to you and everything you do nearly 24/7, like I said he is willing to hear you out, but he’s also unruly and stubborn so getting him to listen to you if it’s not important will be a task. If you actually need someone to confide in, however, then he’ll gladly sit still while you rant to him (mostly because he’s nosy and wants to help in a way that’ll probably involve more violence than necessary if it’s about a specific person).

v - vulnerable ;; how long until they allow themselves to be vulnerable around you?

I wouldn’t call it vulnerable since that wouldn’t be how he sees it. Once he starts getting more open with you (which will most certainly take a while) it’ll be him being more comfortable doing things for you and respecting you rather than looking down on you like he does to nearly everyone else.

w - wild card ;; a random head canon or story about their relationship with their s/o

Once Tsukasa barged into your classroom during school showing off a bloodied organ in his just as bloodied hands, claiming that he found it intriguing and wanted to show it off to you. You got sent out of class and to the nurses office because the teacher and students thought there was something wrong with you when you randomly started gagging and vomited in the middle of the lesson while staring at nothing (in their eyes) with a horrified look on your face. Tsukasa learned his lesson when you informed him that not everyone was okay with such gorey scenery and refused to let him touch you for the next week.

x - xray ;; what would they do if their partner was injured?

He’s out for blood and after getting the name of the culprit out of you he has Sakura help you and goes off on his own to finish whoever had the balls to lay a hand on you. If it wasn’t from anyone in particular and was your own doing, he’ll scold you for getting him worked up over nothing and make fun of you for being careless and getting yourself hurt.

y - yuck ;; what’s something they wouldn’t like?

Tsukasa hates when you ignore him. He’s tenacious and selfish and wants your undivided attention 24/7 so if you want to irk his nerves (though I would highly suggest you not do that) avoiding him or acting like he doesn’t exist is exactly the way to do it. He won’t get angry at you, but he will get very irritated and try to force or guilt trip you into focusing on him again.

z - zzz ;; what’s one of their sleeping habits?

Pretty sure apparitions don’t even need sleep, but if you’re taking a nap in the broadcasting room or something similar then he’ll gladly indulge just so he gets to cuddle with you. If he can’t or doesn’t want to then he just sits and watches you sleep instead, so when you wake up the first thing you see is a pair of mischievous amber eyes staring into your soul.

#tbhk tsukasa #tbhk manga #tbhk x reader #tbhk #toilet bound hanako kun #Tsukasa toilet bound Hanako kun #yugi tsukasa #tsukasa x reader #tsukasa yugi #yugi tsukasa x reader #tsukasa yugi x reader #jshk x reader #jshk tsukasa #tsukasa jshk #tsukasa tbhk #toilet bound Hanako kun x reader #jibaku shounen hanako kun #jibaku shonen hanako kun x reader

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lifesteal-headcanons · 2 years

Note

Something Small Part 4

except it’s probably not small bc its 1am my anxiety is wack and I’m losing the plot bc of it, anyway

So in MC universe, there’s this thing where every almost single player will always have a type of death that hurts them the most. It can be from very common deaths like anything fall damage related to somewhat specific like burning to death whilst fighting another player/mob. It does get a little bit funky when things like cave spiders, witches, withers and ect get brought into the mix though. Anyway! There is a tendency for a lot of people to claim that they don’t have “one”, and for it to immediately break out into argument. It tends to be dismissed on the claims of “it probably isn’t here yet/or happened yet” or just out right lying. It’ll also piss off the people who believe that the Painful Deaths are meant to be reminders to Players that just because they respawn, doesn’t mean they’ll respawn forever and that one day they will have a Final Death and finally meet Lady Death. It’s also believed, somewhat on the flip side(? Kinda like a branch off ig?), that the deaths are meant to be Her way of ‘telling’ Players to rest.

Painful Deaths are strenuous as HELL on Player code/data. Unlike a regular deaths, you essentially have a coin flips chance of respawning with some sort of injury from it. And if there’s still no physical injury? Still have to deal with the leftover echos of pain from it, not to mention forms of fatigue and exhaustion. It’s not uncommon for someone to experience their Painful Death and then to crash for upwards of a week after the fact. Not including if they die from it repeatedly. Oh and forgot to mention, potions will not work in repairing these injuries; You actually have to rest and actually bandage them an shit. That’s also kinda fed into the ideas of “when you experience your Final Death, it will be in the form of your Painful Deaths” and “If you experience your Painful Deaths too much, you’ll experience a Final Death”.

Now, otherwise, the way a Players code chooses its Painful Deaths is kinda unknown. For some, it will be stemmed from trauma, it’ll be based of fears, some hybrid based thing (like water and endermen), and for others it’s nonsense. A player can (unfortunately) have multiple. Also experiencing Painful Deaths too much, while having a chance of leading to Final Death, can also lead to permanent injury if you’re not careful. Whether from stressing the code out too much, or from being an idiot and not resting afterwards. Also, think of the chances of not having a Painful Death similar to that of never having a headache in your lifetime.

Okay, so back to LifeSteal because I kinda just went fucking crazy w/ the world building and lost the plot(again).

Because of how strenuous Painful Deaths are on the body and the fact that they can lead to permanent injuries and potentially disabling a person, there are rules around it, which are taken seriously. Intentionally causing Painful Deaths to another Player on the server is a BIG Fuckin No-No and will lead to consequences like a serious talking to and bans. While it will mostly be accepted as okay if something happens in the heat of battle and or on accident, it’s still an accepted policy that the two players talk it out and that the heart (generally) gets returned to the injured Player. Parrot will not mess around with things like Painful Deaths, as he tends to lean into the more ‘religious’ mindset that even one Painful Death has a chance of being someone’s Final Death. Painful Deaths will actually be talked about at the beginning of each season, to remind and let Players new and old, what someone’s Painful Death is and to also let others know if they found out mid (or outside of) season what it is.

And a small list of painful deaths, because I haven’t figured everything out quite yet:

Zam’s is things related with Withers (-minus the skeletons). While withering normally feels like hell, if Zam gets hit with it from a wither, he swears it’s 20 times worse. Whether he dies from withering away or from an actual wither blast, he’ll normally have to deal with a combination of either cold pain, numbness, or straight up no sensation in his limbs or chest, on top of any potential broken bones from the blasts. He learned this at the end of Season 2, and while managing to hold it together during the fights, ended up passing out afterwards. Even if it didn’t actually kill him, he was still out for quite a bit and in agony for awhile afterwards.

Branzy’s is just regular tnt, however he doesn’t remember it. They don’t even remember mentioning it to the other members at the beginning of Season 3. They were in for a hell of a surprise when they died to Ro’s tnt, much less when Ro apologized for it and gave the heart back later on. Branzy, while definitely having some issues with pain, had more issues with dissociation and such after the fact. Accidentally or not, cheating death still has consequences

Clown’s is dripstone. It was not happy to learn about this. And is one of the reasons why it wants to get back at Zam and Vitalasy so bad. Petty or not, it did use its time spent resting plotting how to get back at them. Per its own words: “they didn’t know, which is fair, I didn’t either; however it still hurt like hell and hey! It’s content”. It has said that the pain feels red hot and that it feels like there’s still bits of stone imbedded within its leg despite (luckily) no physical injury. It definitely still had some leg issues after the fact though.

Not so sure about Parrot, I am thinking something kinetic energy related cuz bird.

McClutch is an odd bag. I can’t decide between the death being so hyper specific that it’s almost impossible to get or him actually not having a painful death.

And for the others, I haven’t ‘found’ one yet that actually works or fits. It’ll come eventually though (… or not. I procrastinate like a mfer).

I also apologize if there’s any large gaps between the paragraphs?? I don’t know if that’s just some sorta visual bug on my end or if it’s actually still going to appear when I send this in. Also if there’s any typos. Either way. If you could please give me an anon name or something, I’d greatly appreciate,,, but uh I started writing this at 1:10 AM, it’s now 3:40AM. Imma head out-

That’s it, that’s the ask!

#whoa. /vpos #ask #headcanon #lifesteal smp #branzy #clownpierce #princezam #parrotx2 #mcclutch #nix’s faves

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youareunbearable · 3 years

Text

Headcannon that Celebrimbor and Thranduil were childhood Frenemies because I don't like how the Mirkwood Elves were left out of everything that happened so pls enjoy this fliclet

---

Once the Feanorians touched down in Hithlum, Thingol sent his younger brother's brother in law Oropher to be his ambassador. Oropher, of course, brings his son Thranduil along because this is a great chance for diplomatic training

Maedhros, this is during the time Morgoth is sending his own persistent ambassadors, thinks it would also be a great time to start Celebrimbor on diplomatic training, because before this he was just in the forge with Curufin and Feanor. And it doesn't look like the rest of the Sons of Feanor are going to have kids so he'll be inheriting the crown one day.

So Celebrimbor and Thranduil are pushed together on children "play dates"

They hate it, they always fight with each other and have competitions and as soon as they see each other they will throw down and scream new insults they learned since the last time they met. Sometimes they spent entire visits only speaking to each other in their own native tounges and mock the other for not properly understanding what they are saying. This particular game didn't last long, but Tyelpe did become the first of the Noldor to speak Sindarin fluently with no accent and Thranduil enjoys the annoyed tick in Galadriel's typical serene expression when she hears him speak flawless Quenya with a Feanorian lisp

Oropher is concerned, being the youngest of 4 he never had an antagonistic relationship with any of them. But Maglor (the new depressed Noldor High King) just gives a small smile and shrugs. He grew up with 6 brothers and even more half cousins. Little Tyelpe and Thrandy are just playing like boys and future best friends do

And they keep up this frenenimes relationship even after Curufin moves them to Himland. When it gets sacked during Dagor Bragollach and Curufin, Celegorm, and Celebrimbor all flee south to their cousins home, Thranduil sends them some relief supplies. When Celebrimbor disown his father, Thranduil comes to visit and generally be annoying until Celebrimbor can stop feeling like shit

When Thranduil, his parents, and their people leave eastward after Thingol's death but before the second Kinslaying (for Oropher is older then the Sun and Moon, he is not about to be led by a boy not even in his 30th year, Maiar blood or not, and many Sindar agree with him) Celebrimbor travels with them and secures them safe passage through the Blue Mountains.

They both grieve when they hear of the Second Kinslaying, then the Third, and then when the East sinks under the waves. Not many in Lindon support Celebrimbor wearing the eight pointed star again, but Thranduil just rolls his eyes and tells him red looks dreadful with his complexion

During the Second Age when Thranduil gets married, Celebrimbor is invited to the wedding and vis versa when Celebrimbor marries Narvi

(Both marriages involve lots of teasing over their partners of choice. Thranduil laughs over the fact that of course a Noldor would marry a Dwarf, they are basically the same, what with their love of rocks and metal work. Celebrimbor rolls his eyes and snorts that he's surprised Thranduil didn't end up marrying an Ent, what with his love of trees, but he supposes that marrying a lady named "tree maid" is close enough. What next? Will he name his children "sapling" or "twig" or "leaf"? Thranduil shoves him off his chair, spilling wine all over the table and floor and growls that at least his children will have original names, and not share a name with two of his forefathers like Men)

They visit each other a lot during the second age, and Thranduil tries to help him as best he can during the fallout of Narvi's death, and when Celebrimbor is designing his rings of Power with that suspicious Maiar of his (who Celebrimbor SWEARS is helping him craft to work through the grief he has no other intentions) he had Thranduil (or Oropher) in mind when he created Vilya

When Thranduil heard about what happened to his friend and his land during the War of Elves and Sauron he grieved deeply. The only thing he had to remember his friend by was some forgotten blueprints of unfinished jewelry, an Age worth of letters (mostly written in Quenya, he of course had replied in proper Sindarin), a clumsy eight pointed star he laughingly embroidered onto the breast of Thranduil's favourite robe, a set of Sindarin long knives overly embellished with Noldorian swirls, and a box of white gems Celebrimbor hand crafted and left with a promise to come back once he finished his rings and use them to make a matching crown set for Thranduil and his wife to wear whenever he inherited the crown

("There may be even enough left over for a third crown. For your 'little leaf' to grow into whenever you two get around making one." Thranduil's wife laughed with Celebrimbor and sent her husband a leer that set his ears ablaze and Tyelpe's laughter began anew)

And enough regrets to haunt him for Ages. It seemed like bad things always came in three. Celebrimbor, his father, his new homeland. Thranduil led his people north, away from everything he had loved, and kept what remained close to his chest. After his wife was slain shortly after the birth of his son, he refused to lose anyone else. Greenwood the Great began to mirror his grief and became Mirkwood

It was almost another another Age before he decided to commission the Dwarves of Erebor to turn those precious white gems into the crowns Celebrimbor intended. Not for him and his now dead wife, but maybe for Legolas and his future partner. (His little leaf, he could hear Celebrimbor's laughter every time Legolas calls himself "Legolas Greenleaf" with that cheeky grin of his) And if Celebrimbor couldn't make them himself, he would be happy to let his Dwarven friends do the job for him

Thranduil almost burned down the mountain himself when they withheld those gems and one of the last pieces of his dear friend from him

Under the bone deep fear of watching a dragon from his nightmares sack the kingdom, he was a little pleased. Jewel thieves get their due

(He knows that Celebrimbor never swore his grandfather's Oath, but sometimes late at night he wonders if he still carried the curse of it. If that Oath and the Curse of Feanor are the reason his dearest friend died that awful way he did)

It was the beginning of a forth age when those sparking white gems were finally turned into the crowns they were destined to be. And Thranduil could almost hear Celebrimbor's delighted laughter as he watched his only son and heir, his little leaf, marry a dwarf.

When it came time to sail, Thranduil stayed with his people, he has coveted them for so long he now refused to leave unless he was forced too. Legolas, who had somehow made a small boat that could barely withhold the waves of the Western Sea, was greeted with a welcoming and joyful embrace by the Elf he only heard stories about

"Hail Celebrimbor, Lord of Eregion, Crafter of the Rings Of Power, Husband of Narvi son of Vilarvi of Durin's Folk, and most importantly, the dearest friend of my father!" Legolas greeted in flawless Quenya with a very noticeable Feanorian lisp. The gathered crowd twitched a little and Elrond (who was hoping of news of his sons) gave a sigh. "I have much to say, and so does my husband Gimli, but first I must give you my father's message!"

Legolas cleared his throat, and then with mock superior expression, one that made him look just like Thranduil, he said: "Celebrimbor you Spider Spawn of the Shadow, if you worked on my crown instead of those thrice damned Rings like you said, my son would never have married a Dwarf. Once I am reborn you better start running because I am going to burry you in my forest and chop down the tree you become with my anger alone!"

There was a startled gasp of silence on the shores of Valinor, before Celebrimbor burst into peels of joyful laughter. Legolas smiled at his honorary uncle and laughed with him

"As you can see, father missed you very much"

#celebrimbor #thranduil #legolas #lotr #silmarillion #tolkien #gigolas #oropher #while i was writing this i looked up Diors age and homie was 22 when he married his wife and died at 30 #how did any of the elves take him seriously??? he was an infant!!!! Who let this Infant Elf have kids???#absolutely wild i can see oropher being like This is my new king?? I think not and peacing out with most of their people #which is why the second kinslaying went the way it did #anyways enough about dior he was just a bad PR move #I think Thrandy and Tyelpe were best friends your honour #Celebrimbor would have loved legolas and been his biggest supporter in marrying Gimli #if he was let out of Mandos Halls by the time the two of them sailed he would have laughed and adopted Legolas on the spot #Celebrimbor for Best Uncle

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fruitcoops · 3 years

Note

I have a request. :) What if coops were watching a scary movie together and Sirius is getting actually scared so he is just trying not to watch and cuddle into Remus instead. But he is too embarrassed to ask Remus to turn it off so he just tries to suffer through it. You can decide if you want Remus to notice and turn it off and comfort him or not. Thank you for all of your amazing writing!

This is such a cute ask, and lots of fun to write! Thanks for suggesting it <3 Coops credit goes to @lumosinlove, but Hattie is mine!

TW for mentioned blood and gore (in the movie) and general fear

“That’s a lot of blood,” Remus remarked.

Personally, Sirius thought that was a bit of an understatement considering the gorefest happening on the screen, but he had been terrified into silence twenty minutes before and simply nodded in response.

The shrieking, wailing, and rending of various body parts continued. Hattie whined and buried her nose further into the small of his back. Smart girl, Sirius thought, cuddling just slightly closer to Remus’ side. The horror movie had been a last-minute, pick something or we’ll both be frustrated decision—now, an hour into the worst television experience of his life, he regretted every choice he had made that led them to this spot.

He turned to place a kiss just below Remus’ ear. If it also served to hide his face from the literal demonic entity that just popped out of nowhere…well, that was nobody’s business but his own. “Hey, I’m kinda tired,” he mumbled, though every nerve was alight with fear and he wasn’t sure his eyelids would ever shut again.

“Oh?” Remus kept his gaze on the screen. I love you, but you confuse and terrify me.

“Mhmm. How much is left?”

Remus picked up the remote; half a second before he paused, one of the lead characters got fucking stabbed in the back by something that had not been there mere moments earlier. Sirius jolted, stifling a shout of surprise. Remus remained absolutely still. “Whew, that was a good one,” he said mildly as Sirius struggled to regain control of his stuttering heartbeat. “Just under fifty minutes left.”

Why am I doing this? Sirius wondered internally. I have nothing to prove.

“The effects are pretty impressive, huh?”

Sirius hummed vague assent.

“No CGI or anything. Pretty cool.”

“No, yeah, definitely.”

Bones weren’t supposed to do that. Kids certainly weren’t supposed to bend like that. Sirius’ mouth was drier than desert sand and he gave up on dignity, squishing himself as close as possible under the safe haven of Remus’ arm. “The, uh—” Remus was interrupted by a blood-curdling scream that froze Sirius from the inside out. He cleared his throat. “The—I heard the director has been trying to make this for ages. It was in the newspaper last week and everything.”

“Was it?” Sirius’ voice sounded weak even to his own ears.

“Uh-huh.” Please keep talking, please keep talking, please keep talking. “Sorry, I’m probably ruining this for you.”

“No, you’re all good.” You are the only thing keeping me from crawling under the blankets with the dog.

They lapsed back into silence and Sirius squeezed his eyes shut as what was left of the main group turned their backs to the basement. The creepy-ass door was going to open—yep, there’s the creak—and then they were going to go down the rickety staircase, and then everyone was either going to die or be traumatized for life. No matter how formulaic it was, Sirius still felt ice trickle down his spine.

The next forty-five minutes passed at a glacial pace. More blood than Sirius could have imagined spattered the set, and he had stopped trying to follow the plot entirely so he could zone out instead. “Ready for bed?” Remus asked as the credits rolled, sounding entirely unfazed. Hattie crawled into their laps with a soft snuffle. “Oh, lovey, were you scared?”

Yes. “Poor thing,” Sirius cooed with as much control as he could muster, lifting her up to hide his shaky arms. Remus ducked into the kitchen to put away the popcorn bowl; as soon as he was out of earshot, Sirius leaned down and kissed her forehead. “You and me both, ma petite. You’re sleeping on the bed with us tonight.”

“What?” Remus called from the kitchen.

“Oh, nothing.” He set Hattie down. “I’ll be upstairs when you’re done.”

Sirius made it to the base of the staircase, then paused. The hallway at the top was dark; fear prickled the back of his neck. There’s no such thing as demons, he told himself, grabbing the bannister. His palms were sweating. Nothing to be afraid of. “Honey?”

“Merde!” he yelped, letting go as if it had burned him.

Remus gave him a look of alarm. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just—” He flailed a hand around, pulse pounding in his throat. “Just thought I saw a spider. Startled me.”

“…alright.”

He turned the lights on as soon as they reached the landing. Sirius had never been so grateful for the power of modern electricity. The hall was just as they had left it, looking ridiculously normal and unthreatening—embarrassment reddened his cheeks as he changed into his pajamas. Scared of your own house? Really?

Well, that wasn’t quite true—he wasn’t scared of the house itself, just the murderous entities that may or may not be living in the dryer vents. That was all.

He was feeling better until Remus turned the lights off and slipped into bed beside him, leaning over for a ‘goodnight’ kiss. “Sleep well, baby,” he said, resting his temple on Sirius’ shoulder.

“Love you.”

The trees swaying outside looked like long, bony fingers; if he concentrated, he could hear low weeping in the wind. Sirius felt an irrational fear rise when he tried to close his eyes and focus on Remus’ slow breaths—what if he woke up and there was something in the doorway? What if he had nightmares? What if his fear wasn’t irrational at all, and there was an omen he was missing—

“Sirius?”

“Yeah?” he whispered back.

Remus hesitated, then exhaled through his nose. “Can we turn the light on?”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Sirius said around a sigh of relief. “Yes. Also, please never suggest a horror movie ever again.”

“I hate them,” Remus confessed as they sat up. “I saw a commercial for The Conjuring in seventh grade and had nightmares for two full months.”

“Why did you recommend it?”

“I thought you liked them!”

“I was about to hide under the couch!” Sirius laughed, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “Mon dieu, that was the w—holy shit!”

The fuzzy thing under his foot made a high-pitched noise and moved; Sirius scrambled back with a strangled shout, nearly toppling them both over the other side. Remus clung to him as they both shrieked in sheer panic until the only sound was their heavy breathing. The shadow by the edge of the bed shifted again, then whined.

Sirius groaned, releasing his death grip. “Really, Hat Trick?”

“You’re kidding.”

“Viens ici.” He patted the side of the bed and the blob of inky black hopped up, then settled at the foot of the bed with an indignant huff. “Did I step on you?”

Hattie grumbled and stretched her long body across the mattress. Remus turned the bedside lamp on, pinching the bridge of his nose as he shook his head. “Well, that was mortifying.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep, but I don’t really want to go back downstairs.”

Remus laid on his back and held out his arms. “Cuddles?”

“You read my mind.”

They snuggled up to each other as tight as they could, leaving only a sliver of space between their bodies as Hattie warmed their feet. Sirius kissed the top of Remus’ head once before closing his eyes once more; they laid in silence for a moment longer, then let out twin sighs as he pulled the covers all the way up to their necks to create a cocoon of warmth and safety. The soft glow of the lamp chased away the shadows, and within a few minutes he fell into a dreamless sleep.

#fanfic #my fic #sirius black #remus lupin #lumosinlove #sweater weather #coops #wolfstar #scary movie #horror #hattie

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sunlitmcgee · 2 years

Text

teaser 2/? for HWHBH chapter 95!

TWS: Physical/mental/emotional abuse, nonconsensual underaged drug use(it’s a potion, so that’s how I’m counting it), threats of abuse/violence, themes of loneliness/fear of abandonment, intrusive thoughts, parental anxiety, vaguely described gore, implied consumption of raw meat. Themes of dissociation plus psychological horror. Manipulation, memory issues. Generally just exile-typical warnings across the whole board. Also descriptions of spider/insectoid traits for Shroud, but not in a horror context, so hopefully that’s okay!

Please let me know if I missed any! @proudfreakmetarusonniku I have you more of your boys. They damage me emotionally but well, that’s how we get catharsis sometimes. Teaser is below the cut!

“Mah?” Shroud asked, tilting his head curiously.

“Hi,” Tommy smiled.

Shroud’s eyes were eight ruby orbs that sparkled like the rippling blue sea.

“Mah…” He chittered. His mandibles poked out while he blinked but didn’t look away. His face was completely focused.

You trust me, Tommy thought, horrified by what should’ve been a warm, tender revelation. You trust me. You love me because I’m your father. Because I’m your parent. You come to me for all the things you need and for help whenever you start to struggle. I love you, really, and I know that I would never do anything on purpose that could hurt you in any way…

…but…

Tommy swallowed. Shroud continued to stare as the water touched his little foot. He gasped. “Wah?”

His eyes all turned to look down at the source of the sudden cold sensation. He looked very surprised. His eyes were all big and it was clear he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to think. Tommy imagined that he’d be very afraid to do this with anybody that wasn’t him.

“Is it nice?” He asked into the ocean’s windy silence. “Does that feel good?”

Shroud stopped and took a second to decide. “Mmmm….wah!”

He kicked and sent up a tiny spray. He stopped. He considered. He lifted his foot and looked at it, took it all in, tracing the lines that marked the bits of fur that covered its wrinkled underside as he blinked and squinted into the blinding, bright sun.

The fur was actually a bunch of tiny, silvery-colored hooks that could be used whenever he wanted to climb around and be a little goofball. His go-to method involved climbing onto the ceiling late at night before he let go and dropped right onto Tommy’s head. Oh, his boy…

It wasn’t long before Shroud gave another kick. “Wah-ah! Wah-ah!”

“Water?”

Shroud nodded and tapped his mandibles with a pointed click. “Wah-er! Wahhhhh….er!”

The next splash he sent up was a dazzling spray of iridescent silver. It peppered the sea that danced against Tommy’s waist, and he laughed, because really now.

Why am I still so damn afraid of being anything like him?

Turns out that the answer came rather easily.

Because he ruined me.

The sun was hot. Tommy’s skin started to itch.

~~~~~~

“Are they really not coming?”

“No, it doesn't look like it.”

“Buh…but why? How?”

“I guess they just decided not to show because they don’t care or whatever. They’d show up if they cared, Tommy. If they were your friends, they’d be here so we could have a bunch of fun. But they aren’t. So…guess that means that you’re stuck with me since I’m your only real friend ‘cause I’m the only one that’s here!”

Tommy didn’t know what to say.

Well…actually, he did.

He wanted to say bitch, cunt, fuck, shut up, be quiet, don’t say that shit, you’re a liar, you’re lying, that’s all you ever do is lie and lie and lie and lie. He knew that all of that was what he wanted to shout out…but was it worth it, anymore?

Was it ever worth it?

Was he ever worth it?

Tommy’s breath shook as he seized and looked towards the nearest patch of forest. “They…they didn’t come…”

It sounded like a confession. Like surrender. Like finally giving in.

Dream hummed a low, hollow drone. “Well, it’s not like they care about you anyway, Tommy…”

That hurt.

That made him get upset.

“Sh-” he stopped, eyes already lowered to the sand that surrounded his feet as Dream’s head cocked with a barely interested tilt. “......I’m done….”

He said it, and then he turned to mark back up towards the small white tent because he was done with today. He stopped when Dream called out.

“Tommy!”

He froze midstep.

“W…what…?” He asked, vision blurring. He turned his head and felt his muscles wind up tightly at the sight of a hulking, deep green blur.

“Stay here,” Dream’s voice ordered. It was said like a suggestion, but Tommy knew it was an order. “Don’t get all pouty just ‘cause you didn’t get your way. C’mere.”

He beckoned.

Tommy followed like a dog. Head bowed, shoulders hunched, legs weak as his knees began to wobble and limped his way over. He felt like a dog with a limp that had gone all lame. Useless. Better off dead.

“Dream…” he started in a familiar, high-pitched creak. He whined. He was in the mood to whine, what with it being a proper blood awful day. “Dream, I just wanted them to come…”

Dream snapped and shut him up with a single pointed glare. “And they didn’t,” he hissed, the words dark and dreadfully sharp. “They didn’t come. They clearly don’t give a shit. If they cared about you at all, Tommy, then I think they’d probably be here everyday instead of coming by one-by-one once a week to give you some junk or some shit. And you know they don’t give it to you because they want you to take it. You’re a trash can for them. You’re the trash can, this is your dump, and they’re a bunch a fucking losers who think they’re too good for you since you’ve gone and gotten yourself all dirty! Ya get all of that? Need me to spell it out, need me to hammer it all in?”

He reached for his axe as his voice hitched with something horrific. Tommy scrambled to comply by shaking his head so hard he was sure he gave himself a week’s worth of whiplash. He shouted, words thin as he drew away his fully exposed neck. “N-NO!”

“Then stop….bitching…”

Dream relaxed and led Tommy away from the shore.

They headed back towards the beach party set-up and took their respective spots. Tommy at the front as the table’s lead head, and Dream right next to him across the chair that was meant for…for…for whoever.

He doesn’t care.

He didn’t come.

His breath caught when he remembered something from before. “Di…didn’t you…didn’t you say…Dream, didn’t you say, earlier, when I first gave you all the invites. Didn’t you say you didn’t give Tubbo’s to Ghostbur a-and that you gave it to him yourself? Like…like in person…?”

Dream nodded. He seemed completely unaware of how Tommy’s entire world shattered.

“Yeah. I gave it to him at the end of my last visit.”

Tommy’s fingers twitched as his eyes began to glaze. He couldn't see with the world phasing out of focus. It was all just a blur. Just an off-set mix of gray and emerald green. And white…gods. He fucking hated that stupid mask.

“And…did he……”

Dream shrugged, already uninterested. “He said that he looked forward to it. But welp. Guess not.”

Tommy felt sick. He wanted to go back to bed. He didn’t want to eat cake or deal with any stupid balloons. Not anymore.

But Dream shrugged, unbothered by any of it. He scooted his chair back to get up so he stood at his full height. He looked at Tommy as the boy shrank and doubled in, knees drawn up as his hands drifted to grip at his thin, boney legs. He studied him for what Tommy swore was barely a full minute, but by the time he returned after he left to go back to the ender chest, his body was so cold and his fingers so numb. He couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel any of it.

It only got worse when Dream handed him an oddly colored potion.

“Drink this.”

Tommy blinked.

“Why?”

The bottle was rammed into his chest so hard it was a miracle it didn’t break. Something did break, however, inside of Tommy as his hair was once again gripped and harshly yanked by a metal-gloved hand.

“Drink it,” Dream hissed. “Drink it, and I promise you’ll feel better once it kicks in. If you don’t, you’re not gonna get your cake. Alright? Here.”

Tommy took it. It tasted weird. Bitter, bad, sour. Like raw medicine, but somehow even worse. He swallowed it down in pained, forced gulps. Once it was finished, his face started to feel weirdly numb. Tingly. Like bugs, crawling all over. And inside.

Dream didn’t comment on the way he began to go limp. He just took the bottle and tossed it lazily over, and when it smashed, Tommy jumped up with a sudden jolt and looked at him with wide, stormy-blue pools.

“Dream…?”

“Here!” Dream’s voice was as light as a bright summer’s dawn as he handed him a shiny white plate with a big, chocolate cake slice on top.

It looked really good!

Had lots of icing and a shiny red cherry!

There was…something there? Something reddish and a little bit pink? It was crammed inside the middle of the giant, dark brown cake where it peeked out from among the richly colored crumbs. The cake smelled fresh and like thick milk cream plus rich, dark chocolate. The red thing had a smell, too. It was weird. Kind of meaty.

But Tommy ignored it.

He was so hungry.

The potion still tasted a little bitter. It tasted like swiftness from the faintly sugary aftertaste. There was something else there. Something sour. Maybe a bit of strength that’d been sprinkled in to give it that extra kick. It tasted horrible, but oh, it could’ve been worse.

Today hadn’t been as good as he’d hoped it would’ve gone. No one came. Nobody but Dream.

But…that was fine, wasn’t it? Yeah. In hindsight, he should’ve expected to be left alone and out in the rain. His friends back in L’manburg didn’t need him. They didn’t care. He wasn’t wanted. Not by them, assholes and wrongins’. They didn’t want him now that he was all weird and sick. The only one who did was Dream, and Dream was right here!

He took a plastic fork and felt his numb face spread.

“Thank you!” His voice was slightly hoarse. But that didn’t matter. Dream didn’t care, and just nodded as Tommy smiled.

“You’re welcome, birthday boy.”

Tommy liked that. He liked being the birthday boy.

He loved to eat his special cake. He loved his party. He loved his best friend.

He loved Dream.

#tw abuse #tw violence #tw manipulation #tw implied gore #tw drug use #IT'S THE CLOSEST THING AND I SUPPOSE IT DOES COUNT #AA #tw intrusive thoughts #tw dissociation #HWHBH #tw spiders #ask to tag #I got the big ones!

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arielsojourner · 2 years

Text

Moon Knight Ep 4 Thoughts

Spoilers below the cut

1. Did Harrow shoot Marc twice in the heart - one bullet for Marc and one bullet for Steven? If so, bitch you miscounted! There is at least one more alter so jokes on you Harrow! Ha HA!

2. The Alexander the Great was Ammit’s last Avatar and betrayed her was EPIC AND AWESOME! Love it! Great history tie in to a fictive narrative. Love it.

3. The last 10 minutes of the episode once Marc and Steven were shot were just . . . wild. Absolutely bonkers. And make no mistake: I loved every moment of it. The hippo goddess. The hug. They didn’t let Jake (?) out (poor stabby alter!) The Tomb Buster movie. Especially the Tomb Buster movie. You can totally tell Marc (or the system?) watched and watched and watched that movie over and over again and probably totally identified not only with the hero but also his plucky side kick. Like he/they watched and watched it and imagined themselves in all the roles and that . . . I am not a system but I really felt that. I have consumed media like that. Watching something and loving the main character but also loving the sidekick and wanting to be them.

4. Steven being a genius and geeking out over seeing a tomb. Genius! Also practically deciding “let’s NOT follow the trail of blood.”

5. Marc realizing that his whole “lone wolf” thing pushing Layla away . . . yeah, that is going to have consequences besides just being an ass to a great woman like Layla. If you aren’t going to treat her decently, guess what? Steven WILL! And Layla will be FINE with that! She tried to kiss him first! She thinks he is complementing her when he gushes about the tomb. She is digging Steven! Jealous much, Marc? (that punch! And throwing him “off a cliff”/down a shaft). Don’t like Layla looking at your alter? Then being honesty is the key here! We love you too! So does Layla! Get your shit together!

6. Layla. Just Layla. Especially her scream after she survives nearly being mummified alive. FINALLY, a realistic portrayal of dealing with something terrifying. I mean in general, from the beginning of trying to drag Steven’s body somewhere safe, and thinking Steven is flirting with her when he arrives in the tomb, and then her tears and her fears while she is kicking ass and how she handles Harrow’s shit . . . just FINALLY. Fabulous acting.

7. How many gods have been encased in stone? WTF? Why? Not all of them are Ammit levels are they? I hope they all get free in the end. Like Marc and Steven (and Jake?) find them and they rescue Khonshu and then one or all of them with Layla decide, you know what? Enough of this stone nonsense. Free ALL the gods. Ah, chaos. Loki and Dr. Strange and Spider-Man and Scarlet Which, you will not be the only ones making a wonderful mess. I can’t wait.

p.s. just because I didn’t do a post like this about Ep 1 and Ep 3 doesn’t mean I didn’t think they weren’t awesome. I did love them insanely! Just, thoughts fresh in my mind for this and Ep 2 which is why this post.

#moon knight #steven grant #marc spector #layla #alexander the great #this is reigniting my love for ancient Egypt from my 7th grade self

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happyandticklish · 4 years

Note

I just read your recent post about Percy and Jason being compared and stuff, and was wondering if you have any headcanons about the big three kids when it comes to tickling? <3

I would love to!

Percy:

. Alright, so Percy is like... unreasonably ticklish. His mom used to tickle him all the time when he was a kid, but as he grew older he managed to convince her his sensitivity had worn off. Of course that brief respite only lasted so long before he came to Camp Half-Blood and everyone discovered his secret.

. His worst spots are his armpits, ribs, and feet. I also believe that his lower back is unfairly ticklish ever since the River Styx, and even after the curse wore off the spot remained hyper sensitive. Annabeth likes to trace her nails softly over it while they’re cuddling until he collapses until a giggly puddle in her arms.

. He loves being tickled, as it makes him feel loved and wanted, but he has a difficult time admitting it. Annabeth is the only person he’s told before, but the others have put in their guesses by this point. His go-to method is just provoking people into tickle fights until they wreck his shit (which, you know, same).

. As a ler he’s super playful and teasy. He’s one of those people that uses baby talk when he’s tickling others and it flusters the shit out of people. Overall, he’s the biggest switch out of all of them.

Jason:

. So Jason’s not super ticklish actually.

. At first.

. He’s really good at hiding his sensitivity because Thalia used to tickle him all the time as a kid and so he’s used to defending against it. The only people who know are Piper, Leo, Percy, and Nico. Piper, because his neck is deathly ticklish and it makes making very giggly. Leo, because he’s a persistent little shit and wouldn’t stop trying until Jason finally broke. Percy only found out after play wrestling took a right wrong turn. Jason actually ended up confessing that he didn’t mind tickling to Nico, and whenever the former was stressed about something then Nico will softly tickle his sides until he forgets about it.

. His worst spots are his sides and neck, as well as the backs of his knees. He will kick you if you get him there (luckily Piper knows how to defend herself and uses this information to her advantage often). His laugh starts off as these huffed, breathy chuckles, but once he really gets going he starts letting out these deep belly-laughs that rock his whole body. Nico says it only adds to his Superman aesthetic. Jason got him back mercilessly for that comment.

. He’s a fairly gentle ler, not liking to push people’s boundaries too much and always worrying that he’s going to far. He loves seeing his friend’s smile however, and he finds Piper’s laugh adorable, so he has been known to ler on occasion. His most often victim is Nico, and possibly the only person he doesn’t hold back on. He knows Nico loves it though and needs to laugh, so he’s happy to engage him.

. He and Percy can get into the occasional competitive tickle fight and everyone backs off when they’re in that mode, afraid of getting pulled in.

Hazel:

. God help this girl...

. She’s basically a walking tickle spot. A single poke to the side will get her to jump and squeak, and she’s one of those people who will start giggling before you even touch her.

. She’s ticklish everywhere, but her worst spot is her stomach and knees. One time Percy tried to show her the spider-knee trick and she near lost her mind.

. Has the cutest fucking giggles man, like, it is not even fair how adorable she is while being tickled. Will double over and turn into a squirmy puddle in your arms, but cannot fight back to save the life of her. Almost everyone on the Argo II tickles her just because her reactions are too great not to. Frank is the most often provoker of these moments, as he loves making her smile, though he’s a fairly shy ler himself.

. Contrary to popular belief, Hazel is a vicious ler. She knows everyone’s death spots, though no one is sure how she does, and she will exploit them if needed. Don’t get me wrong, she can’t defend herself for the life of her while being tickled, but after? You better start running.

. Sometimes she’ll team up with Nico and have him use his skeletons to hold the victim down. Together they make an unstoppable combo.

Thalia:

. Like Jason, everyone assumes she’s not ticklish. But whereas Jason was good at hiding it, no one ever tried with Thalia; they were all too scared of retaliation. Not even Jason knows, as he was almost always the victim of their fights.

. One day when Reyna and Thalia are hanging out (which a lot of the time translates to making out with the two), Reyna’s fingers brush against her sides and she accidentally giggles into her mouth. Reyna’s eyes widen and Thalia freezes up in her arms. She narrows her eyes and does the whole “Don’t you dare-” spiel, but it’s too late and soon she’s squealing and pleading underneath Reyna’s skilled hands.

. So now every time Thalia is trying to act tough and all high and mighty in front of the others, Reyna will squeeze her sides in passing and let the others sort out the accompanying squeak for themselves (to this day Reyna is the only one who’s gotten away with tickling Thalia successfully).

. Her worst spots are sides, like her brother, and her hips. Has this adorable, girly squeal that she’s super embarrassed about though Reyna assures her it’s cute.

. Doesn’t like to be tickled that much, and will tell everyone she knows that she hates it. She doesn’t mind really soft, gentle tickles though, if it’s from people she trusts (i.e. Jason and Reyna).

. The cruelest fucking ler, she will wreck her victim until they are a shrieking, begging mess. A merciless demon who cannot be stopped, she’s struck fear in the hearts of many. Jason used to be her most common victim, though now it’s usually Reyna. Percy once pissed her off and he was giggling for several minutes after she stopped he may or may not have tried to provoke her into it again later whaaaat

Nico:

. BABY.

. Literally so ticklish, how is he still alive??? Maybe it just runs in Hades children.

. Will insist he’s not ticklish and that he’s grown above “such childish nonsense”. Percy, of course, knows this is bullshit as he used to tickle him all the time as a kid and remembers that he used to love it. Sometimes he’ll bring it up when he’s denying it to others and Nico will turn this bright, cherry red and snap at Percy to shut up.

. He can’t even admit it while he’s being tickled. In the same way that he could be dying and insist he’s fine, he could be curled up on the ground and giggling like a child and still wheeze out that he’s “not ticklish”.

. His worst spots are his hips, feet, and thighs, as well as his shoulder blades (Will is the only one who knows about that last one and loves to torment him with it).

. He has these adorable high-pitched giggles that are interspersed with hiccups and squeaks when it gets to be too much for him. He flails a lot when tickled, and generally has to be restrained for fear of injuring someone.

. Contrary to his adamant denials, he loves being tickled. My boy is super touch-starved and loves the physical closeness that tickling brings. I also think there’s something about that fluttery, desperate quality to it that he loves and is flustered by all at the same time.

. Will, Jason, and Percy all tickle him constantly, and he loves/hates it.

. Loves to be a ler almost as much as he likes being a lee. He’ll smirk and taunt his victim while holding them down with skeletons and wiggling his fingers right above their death spots until they can’t help but break down laughing before he’s even touched them. He tickles Will and Jason the most (he’s gets too flustered to even try tickling Percy), though he will tickle Hazel on occasion because he likes seeing her happy.

Thank you for the ask!

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writefightandflightclub · 4 years

Text

Calm after the storm (dad!Nathan x fem!reader)

Summary: dad!Nathan / ex-husband!Nathan and angst. He comforts your son during a storm. You were always better at dishing out comfort, but Nathan is trying his best to learn how. He’s had to, since you left him. If only he could get you to come home, after he pushed you so far away.

Author’s note: my 1st go at writing something emotional / angsty with Nathan. Different to my other Nathan stuff, so won;t be offended if you don’t like it! No-one asked for this but this popped into my head and ended me and I figured I’d drag you down with me. Will add taglists tomorrow :o) (If you DO happen to like it, please let me know! Writing has been so slow for me lately and honestly I’m just pleased to have finished something.)

Warnings: language, themes of children, divorce / separation, angst, alcohol abuse / misuse, parent!reader.

Warning that there is zero smut in this. Nathan is literally a father when I say daddy here. Just to be clear. Some may feel this is ooc (I may have used a bit of license with his character to achieve angst, but actually, I don’t think it’s too far from a potential truth?)? Mistakes etc. maybe, but I can’t look at this a second longer so here it is.

Word count: 8.8k (sorry!)

Nathan’s head whips up from his computer screen as he sees a tiny, shadowed figure appear in the doorway to his lab. He pauses his frenzied typing, but retains the frown weighing on his brow.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed, buddy,” he says sternly, bathed in a pool of blue light and looking at the child from beneath his lenses. Hell, when did it get so dark?

“I’m scared,” a tearful little voice says, and Nathan sighs, pushing back his chair with a small, thin-lipped smile as he regards the boy. His soft, dinosaur-adorned pyjamas have been twisted by sleep, and he is rubbing his balled-up fists into his cheeks, a pet lip trembling beneath. Nathan never did understand the kid’s obsession with dinosaurs.

Unlike father, unlike son.

Things long dead and gone? Nathan didn’t like to look back, after all. He looked ahead. Moved forward. There’s nothing for me over my shoulder.

With his headspace out of his work, Nathan suddenly notices the rain drumming down against the skylight. The rumble of thunder and flash of lightning carving the sky open.

“The storm?” he asks, rising to meet the boy as his little feet pad with trepidation across the cold lab floor to his father. The boy nods. He looks slightly uncertain, since he’s not allowed in the lab, but enters and sticks his arms up into the air all the same. He does that tentatively too, since Nathan hasn’t historically been generous with affection; and yet, this time, Nathan wordlessly scoops him up on to his hip, his heart clenching as the boy’s wet, grabby little hands fist into his Henley. His severe gaze softens instantly; though not all the way. The gesture is still a little rusty.

“That’s illogical, bud - it’s not gonna hurt you. Let’s get you back to bed.”

Irrational. Emotional. Unlike father, unlike son.

You were always better at the comfort stuff. Of course you were. Still, Nathan thinks he’s learning, without you. He’s had to learn.

Nathan quietly carries the little spider-monkeyed bundle back to his bed. He offers no words of comfort, but he does offer a firm and reassuring pat on his back as he walks. The boy smells of bath bubbles and baby oil, mixed-in with fresh detergent and that indescribable kid smell, and Nathan feels alarmingly soothed as he inhales the scent.

A flood of memories comes back, but he pushes them down. There is nothing for him over his shoulder, after all. Nothing in the past he would care to resurrect.

Carefully balancing the boy with one strong arm, Nathan peels back the covers and slots him back into his soft bed, the glow of the nightlight illuminating the boy in a blue halo.

Like father, like son.

The man securely tucks him in and smooths the covers, his eyes alarmingly gentle now, even amidst his stony face; however, the boy is still not entirely placated. His eyes are still wide. His bottom lip is still trembling.

Nathan sighs and lowers himself on to the edge of the bed, his genius brain struggling with this problem. Apparently, simply telling a 4-year-old they’re being illogical doesn’t cut it. Children; so inefficient. So tiny and fragile and…

The best thing I ever created.

Let’s hope he doesn’t grow up to stab me in the chest.

“Okay,” he begins, with a sweep of his hand over that buzzed head of his. “Do you know what static electricity is, buddy? One of the forces which attracts or repels things? Remember?”

“Repels. Pushes things away?” the small voice asks him.

I pushed her away. I’m a force. A force of nature. A storm.

Fear is often based on lack of knowledge. Nathan imagines if he explains the storm, he can demystify it. Take its power away. Still, the 4-year-old looks up at him in confusion, little fingers tightly gripping the edge of the bed covers. His mess of curls splaying over the pillow like a rolling black cloud.

Maybe you did get your mother’s average brain.

We can hope you got fuck all from me, kid.

“Come on, champ, we talked about this...” Nathan sighs, with mild impatience, and then he thinks some more – just like he’s always thinking, except algorithms make sense to him, and how could he hope to solve this?

Nathan shuffles up on to the bed until his back is against the wall, perpendicular to the boy. “Okay,” he says, slapping his palms gently against his thighs. “Remember when we were at Ankita’s party, and you rubbed that balloon on your head, huh? And then all of your hairs stood-up and it kinda tickled?”

The child giggles – a sound that punches Nathan in the gut. “Yeah, Daddy, and it didn’t work on your bald head.”

Nathan exhales through a small smile which doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“So, you remember,” he nods, waving his hand in the air as he tries to find simple language to continue his explanation. “Well. It’s like the sky is having a party, and the clouds are rubbin’ up against each other, making all this static. Understand?” Nathan continues, and the child is rapt, listening to his father’s deep, steady, sandy voice. “But clouds don’t have hair-“ there is another giggle, and this time Nathan’s eyes do crease with his smile, “-so instead they send their lightning forking out in all directions. You got it?”

“A party?” the boy enquires, still unsure. His hands gripping more tightly to the covers and his face inching further below them as a particularly loud rumble of thunder sounds overhead.

“Right. A party.” Nathan runs with it, pleased that he’s getting somewhere. Moving forward. Making progress. “And parties can be noisy, right? All that dancing and singing and scraping chairs around?”

The kid briefly looks at his father as if he’s stupid -a trait you’d always had nailed- but in the next heartbeat he seems to accept the explanation given, the fear in his eyes beginning to ease, though not entirely gone.

He’s still afraid.

Like father, like son.

It’s evident that Nathan needs to devise something even more soothing. He vaguely considers trying to explain the unparalleled lightning and surge protection in-built into this facility, but he thinks better of it. He instead plumps for something he dearly hopes the kid will understand somewhat better than he comprehends static electricity. “You’re safe here and nothing can hurt you,” he says, raising his eyebrows up from beneath his frames and delivering an intent stare, smoothing a broad hand on the boy’s chest and shoulder. “I promise, kid. Would Daddy let anything hurt you?”

“No,” the boy answers, peeking up at Nathan with big eyes, shaking his little head and rustling his curls against the pillow. It breaks Nathan’s heart that his voice wavers, as if he’s a little unsure of his answer.

“Exactly. Not in a million fuckin’ years.” Nathan says adamantly, his deep, dark eyes intense with conviction to emphasise his point.

“Daddy!” The boy gasps when Nathan curses, little palms rising to clamp down over the shocked “o” of his mouth.

“Ah, shit. Don’t tell your Mama I said a naughty word, okay?” Nathan sucks air through his teeth and delivers a sheepish half-grin.

“I miss Mommy.”

The boy blinks. His eyes sad, his emotions constantly unmasked. Feeling. Always feeling.

Unlike father, unlike son.

Nathan’s chest tightens. He scoops up the plush dog, Crunchy, from on top of the duvet and settles her in the boy’s arms, buying him some time to arrange his busy thoughts.

Thinking. Always thinking.

The dog is so named since it spent the boy’s early years crusted with dried-in food and mud and whatever else. Nathan had dubbed it Crunchy Mutt, and the name had stuck. Memories nip at his heels, but he doesn’t let you creep back in. Doesn’t fill the gaps.

Nathan emits a shallow sigh. He misses you too.

Like father, like son.

His eyes are almost soft, almost apologetic as they meet the boy’s again. He is sorry, in that moment, for depriving the boy of you for half of his time. He shouldn’t have to miss out on you. You shouldn’t have to miss out on your son. Nathan knew all this was because of him.

Nathan had sworn never to let anything hurt you, either. To look after you, and yet...

I pushed her away.

I’m a force. A force of nature.

A storm.

“Mommy’ll be here to get you in the morning.” Nathan says in a taut, gruff voice, his beard bobbing as his throat wrestles around a hard swallow. “To take you… home.” At that, finally the boy finally looks content and sleepy, stretching his little face into a big yawn. Still, selfishly, Nathan no longer wants to be alone in this storm - alone with himself - and so, he keeps talking. “You know, your Mommy loves storms like this.”

“Really? Mommy doesn’t get scared?”

“No.” Nathan shakes his head, eyes becoming burdened with memories. “We would sit out on the deck, wrapped in blankets, and watch the lightning. Listen to the rain.”

“It’s science 101, genius. You can’t work in the lab during a storm. You might create Frankenstein.”

“Fuckin’… how many times? It’s Frankenstein’s monster, sweet cheeks. Frankenstein is the doctor.”

“I know, asshole. At this point I just say it to rile you. Never fails. You stay here then, and play at creating life. If you want to play at living one, I’ll be out on the decking.”

“How about I do both?”

“What are you saying, Nathan?”

“What about we make something together, while the sky is fucking rife with creation?”

The boy springs up in bed, capturing Crunchy in a choke-hold in excitement.

Nathan raises himself to standing - beginning to backtrack, and snapping back to the present day. Compartmentalising you. Putting long dead things to rest. He knows better than to look over his shoulder for too long.

“Can we go outside and watch it, Daddy?”

“Nuh uh. I don’t think so, buddy. It’s way past your bedtime. Go to sleep now, okay?” His voice is sterner again - his gaze back to being more severe.

Still, he guides the boy back down to the mattress and plants a soft kiss on to his forehead, brushing his dark curls back. He kisses Crunchy on the head too, as he is routinely instructed to do.

“Night, kid. Night, mutt. Come on, off to sleep.”

His hands move to his hips, elbows cutting a sharp shape in the near-dark. The boy, however, looks wide awake, a smile playing at the corners of his lips, and an excited glow on his face.

“Please, Daddy?” the boy pleads, with big, puppy dog eyes. So closely resembling your eyes, which Nathan always was a sucker for.

Yep. He’s definitely your son.

Nathan is about to use his stern voice, and his finger is moments away from wagging. And yet…

“Fine. Quickly then,” he concedes. “Get your coat and shoes on. And find your little red hat with the Pom-Pom that you look fuckin’ adorable in.”

“Daddy! No bad words!” the kid scolds, even as a smile of glee bursts on to his face and he wriggles out from beneath the covers.

“Yep, sorry! Don’t tell Mommy,” Nathan repeats on autopilot.

The boy springs out of bed and zooms with enthusiasm to his little closet, while Nathan gathers up some blankets from a neighbouring chest.

Sure - it was past the boy’s bedtime. Yes, Nathan had a lot of coding to rehash. But Nathan had lost you. He had let work consume him until there was nothing left for you. He was always looking ahead to what could be, and he didn’t pay enough attention to what he had, when he had it. He wasn’t going to make the same mistakes again. Not with his son. This time, at least, work could wait.

Once the pair are both dressed in their outerwear, Nathan hoists the boy up on to his hip again, and carries him out to the decking, on the side of the house with the best view of the storm churning over the miserable valley. He clings on to his son tightly as the pulse of lightning illuminates his awed little face, a perfect mixture of your features and his, and yet someone entirely his own. The boy gasps and shrinks back from the vast, roaring sky, nuzzling closer into Nathan’s chest, grabby hands fisting in his clothes again.

“It’s okay, buddy. It can’t hurt you, understand?” Nathan reassures.

The child visibly relaxes, absentmindedly tangling his fingers into the soft texture of Nathan’s beard.

He does that when he’s nervous. Seems to calm him down, Nathan notes, and files for later.

“Look, Daddy!” the kid points as forks of lightning raze through the blackened sky, sparkling eyes following the display.

“I saw it, champ,” Nathan confirms, as the storm lights up his child’s face in more ways than one. However, Nathan is more awed by his boy than the storm. By the boy you and he created, on a night not unlike this one.

He fixes his eyes on him as he grows in confidence, facing his fear of the braying wind and rumbling thunder. Being a parent is everything Nathan anticipated he would hate. Full of things you can’t control, and yet, he loves every way this boy surprises him.

Shit, he’s braver than me, Nathan thinks, as he cradles the boy in his arms, holding him just a little bit closer – a little bit tighter.

Nathan isn’t afraid often. In fact, in his adult life, he’s only been truly afraid a handful of times. On those occasions, he didn’t face it like the boy did. He tended to bury his fear, in a landslide of work and drunkenness and insults and excuses. To cocoon himself in his own self-interest.

Nathan was afraid when he fell in love with you, even despite his best efforts not to. He was terrified he didn’t deserve you.

He was afraid when you told him you were pregnant; he was terrified of creating another thing that hated him.

But Nathan has never been as afraid as when you left him, and took the boy with you. He was terrified that you would never come back.

You were brave. You were so brave that you never ran away from a storm, and yet you had fled from him.

What kind of storm am I, if even you ran from me?

Despite his fears though, Nathan was learning to be brave. He’s had to, since you’ve been gone. For his son, for you, he would fight off any foe or threat. Turns out, he would even do the hardest thing of all, and fight his own demons.

Yes, Nathan knew he was a stern man. Serious. Flawed. Unyielding. An asshole, a lot of the time.

He hadn’t been ready. To be humbled. By you. By the boy. Hadn’t been ready to face his shortcomings and his demons and look them in the eye.

He was afraid of creating something that hated him, but he hadn’t been prepared to create something better than himself. A child who was open, and kind, and brave, and loving. Who wasn’t afraid to feel, and to be kind.

Unlike father, unlike son.

The boy made him strong. The boy was just like you.

“Wow!” the boy gasps at another display of lightning, even though he jumps slightly as a loud rumble of thunder sounds. The shock makes him laugh - a sweet, musical, innocent noise that makes Nathan’s chest tear in half like the sky. The boy watches for a while longer as the storm tires itself out and the boy with it, the rain dying off to a pleasant lulling noise.

Nathan looks up at the sky too and he feels almost complete, until he looks to the other side of him; where you should be. Until he looks over his shoulder. To where long-dead things still haunt him.

“Mommy will be sad she’s missing the storm, won’t she Daddy? Can we send her a selfie?”

No tech after 5pm. Bed by 7pm. One of the co-parenting rules rings in his head.

It’s 2:30am, and he worries you will ride him for this, but surely this is an exception, right?

“Sure we can, bud,” Nathan responds, and he fishes his phone out of his pants pocket. The boy nuzzles into his chest in that adorable red hat, and gives a thumbs-up as Nathan extends his arm to grab a quick selfie. “Great photo. She’ll love it. What shall we tell her?”

“Hmm...” the boy thinks, and then he lands on the perfect words. “Say… I wish you were here,” he says with a toothy grin, unaware of the emotional sucker punch of his words.

Nathan’s chest tightens again, and he attempts to school the frown from his face.

I wish you were here.

Like father, like son.

Smoothing himself, he types out a message.

“Storm watching with Papa bear. Kid says: I wish you were here.”

“Ok,” he says softly, pinging the message away to you. “Done.”

The boy beams at his father.

“Will she type back?”

“Dunno, kid, she might be asleep.”

Tiredness hitting him, the boy nuzzles closer and Nathan gently rocks him on his hip, the boy’s eyes gradually closing.

When Nathan feels his phone vibrate, he lifts it back up, bathing the pair in a halo of blue once again. He is surprised to see a photo. There you are, wrapped up in a chunky cardigan and blanket on your new porch.

You’re watching the storm too, and god, you look so beautiful that it hurts him.

Beneath the picture, you have typed out: “Storm-watching, Mama bear edition. Wish I was there too, baby bear. I’ll see you in the morning. xxx”

He knows the smile and the wave and the words are solely for your son’s benefit, and not for him, but oh, how he wishes.

“Mommy’s watching the storm too!” the boy says sleepily, barely able to keep his eyes open in the comfort of Nathan’s warm, strong arms, as his soporific movements rock him back to sleep.

“Yeah, bud, she is.”

And Nathan tugs the boy into his chest, bouncing him on his hip and stroking his hair -as much for his own comfort as anything- until he is soothed too.

***

After the boy is safely back in bed, Nathan plods sullenly back down to his workshop, bathing himself once again in a blue halo. His fingers gravitate naturally towards the keys, and though he should work, his mind is very much elsewhere. His mind is wrapped up with long-dead things.

With a heavy sigh, he fishes his phone out of his pocket again, and spends a wistful moment staring at the picture you had sent him.

“Fuck it,” he says, and he lifts up the photo frame he’s had face down on his desk for some time now. For months.

Longer.

It’s a picture of you and him and the boy, out on a hike a few years ago. Nathan is carrying your son in a harness on his front, and you are side by side with them, clasping the baby’s hand in yours, and your head leaning on Nathan’s shoulders. You’re all smiling, though none of you had managed to look at the camera, only at each other.

The sight of it makes Nathan’s throat constrict. Lights a fire of yearning in the pit of him. A fire he’s tried to quell and resist for so long – hasn’t let himself feel, because he’s afraid of the power of it.

He stares at his phone again, so many things he wishes to say, but all he has the courage to type is:

“Just letting you know. Byron’s back to bed now, before you ride me for keeping him up. Woke up scared.”

Your reply pings back almost immediately, as if you were expecting him.

“Come on, Nathan. I’m not a monster. It’s a sweet picture. He looks happy.”

Nathan scratches the top of his buzzed head, and he sees the tell-tale dots disappear and reappear, signalling you are considering typing something further.

“Say it,” he types out to you, blunt and demanding as ever, and although the dots disappear for a moment, you come back - finding some courage yourself, perhaps?

“I wish I was there too.” He wonders if you held your breath while typing it, like he did when reading it.

This time, it is Nathan’s turn to convey nothing but dots to you, as he struggles to respond. As his pulse thrums in his ears.

“Say it,” you echo, just as plainly.

He takes a deep breath, knowing he’s going to curse himself for his stupidity even as he types the message. He has been earning your trust back. He has been rebuilding. He hasn’t pushed you too far yet, and yet he can’t help but plead with you now.

He says what he most needs to say.

“Come home.”

He stares at the phone, his heart hammering in his mouth.

But there’s nothing. No message. No dots. He throws the phone down on the desk.

Fucking idiot, he chides himself, launching himself out of his seat with a surge of nervous energy, and coming to rest his forehead and elbow against the cool window pane as he tries to steady his nerves. This is why he doesn’t let himself feel. Because when he does, it’s too much.

Nathan’s best quality is also his worst. He isn’t a man of moderation. He doesn’t know how to stop. When to stop. He never has.

Doesn’t know when to stop working, drinking, striving, fighting.

Loving.

He loved you enough to split the sky open, and god damnit, he doesn’t know how to stop loving you. How can he solve this problem?

I pushed her away and she might never come back.

He feels a tightening in his chest - worse than before - and he has thoughts of reaching for a bottle until he’s blackout drunk, or hitting the punchbag until his knuckles bleed, but he bites those urges back down.

He has to. He has to, because his kid is in the house. For him. For you. For his own good too.

Gradually, Nathan -who once naively believed he had already attained perfection, superiority- has become a lot stronger, and a lot braver. A lot better at feeling his emotions instead of pushing them down. He has learned it from the boy, who learned it from you.

Still, despite this newfound courage -or, perhaps as a result of it- he has his moments of weakness, just like anybody else. He’s not untouchable. Not a god any longer.

Nathan is weak when it comes to you. He loves you. And he doesn’t know how to stop.

Overcome by the impulsive need to hear your voice, and ignoring all reason, he tracks back to the desk and calls you.

You answer almost instantly, as if you were expecting him.

“Nathan...” you say, in your eminently familiar voice, and he can he the agitation and accusation veiled as you say his name. What are you thinking? Always thinking. He’s always thinking. Yet, no- this time, he is only feeling. Finally feeling.

Still, Nathan doesn’t respond until a taut pattern of breaths has been laid like a tightrope for him to walk across.

Then, with a deep exhale, he asks you again. A plea. His face sharp and contorted in the blue light. He is terrified of falling.

“Come home.”

“Nathan...” you say, again. What are you thinking? And the sound of his name in your mouth causes a lump to rise in his throat. He hears your discombobulated breath on the other side of the line, and it is all too familiar. You were always charged, rubbing up against one another, causing static. He was always a storm; the one storm that could drive you away.

Come home.

“I wouldn’t even know how,” you insist, your voice paper thin, syllables soft and measured and sorry like raindrops drumming against a window pane.

You were always his release. If he was the energy and commotion and anger behind the storm -the severe, withholding clouds- you were its beauty and majesty and release. Together, you created life, and you destroyed each other.

Nathan hunkers over on the desk, leaning his head in his spare arm for some morsel of comfort, his guard up over his face.

“Just walk through the door tomorrow and stay,” he says tiredly, as if it’s simple.

He hears you sigh again, exasperatedly - the sound he induced all too often, when you were together.

“It didn’t work Nathan,” you say through your teeth, like lightning might spark through them at any moment. “How would this be any different?” Still, he can hear the tell-tale break in your voice. A gentle plea. God, could you really want to come back to him? If he could find the right answers to your questions?

“I’ll be different,” he promises, all the muscles in his face pulled taut. His face and his body aching with the tension of the sky splitting open, creation or destruction imminent.

Fuck it. Fuck everything else. Enough of this. The measured conversations, the co-parenting, the negotiations. You are what he wants - his family back together; home.

True- love hadn’t come easily to him at first. He was an asshole, a misanthrope, a closed book. Sex came easily to him. Desire. Infatuation. Thoughts of you, bordering on obsession as they took over his busy mind. But love? That too came, in the end. But love as a verb- the act of loving?

Nathan had sworn he didn’t want love at all, but then, there was you. He has sworn he had no desire for the legacy of a child, and yet, then there was the boy. For all his arrogance and grandiose dreams of the ways in which the whole world might remember him, he was finally ready to admit that all he wanted was to be remembered by you as a good husband, and by the boy as a good father.

He had never wanted to create another thing that hated him.

It didn’t come naturally to him at first. He was withholding, stubborn, rigid, and self-involved. Still, when he was motivated, there were other, finer qualities Nathan possessed too. Dedication, focus, discipline. When he was motivated, he possessed those in abundance. Turns out, love is one hell of a motivator.

Turns out, sometimes it is still not enough.

“I’m doing better,” he offers as he is met with silence, clenching his fist in discomfort as he hears you sniffing intermittently through the phone.

“I know,” you enthuse, your voice almost sickly with sincerity. “I know. I’m proud of you, Nathan.”

But Nathan doesn’t want your platitudes.

“Baby, please. I love you,” he pleads, and even in his plea his voice is stern. He refuses to let it crack. He states his truth as a cold, hard fact. He loves you. It’s undeniable. It’s logical, that you should be together.

“You know…. You know that I love you too.” you say, your voice small and full of holes. A sigh billowing out of you. “Shit, Nathan…” You sniff on the other end of the line with greater frequency – definitely crying. Nathan knits his brows together, his eyes brimming with tears that he fights back.

He thinks of all the times you cried and he didn’t reach out to you. He would give anything now to wipe your tears away.

“Come home, then,” he pleads, bluntly, swirling with hurt like silt stirred up by the rains. It hurts. It hurts to feel things. “Fuck, why are you so fucking stubborn?”

You huff out air as he snaps and instantly, he knows he’s fucked it. He wishes he could retract the words but it’s too late. They’ve already become breath. Already thunder, splitting his sky in two all over again.

He throws himself back in his chair in defeat, his hand rasping over his buzzed head in some unconscious attempt to comfort himself. “Shit, look, I just-”

When your voice interrupts him, it is perfectly smoothed out. Cold. Withholding.

So that’s how it feels.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Nathan.”

There is a beat, and you soften. You always soften. “I’ll come get him later so you can have some extra time, okay?”

Nathan sighs loudly, catching a glance of his calendar on the illuminated screen.

“Fuck. I have a meeting at 11am- I thought you would collect him early so I booked a board thing-” he says tiredly.

“Fine,” you bite off.

“No. Wait, I’ll rearrange,” he backtracks. “Let me have more time,” he reasons, his voice softening. He tips up the photo frame – that blessed and cursed item- and brings it to rest on his thigh, torturing himself with your smiling face. “Please. I need more time.”

You are silent for a moment, and this time when your voice comes back, it is level, but infused with intentional warmth. He hates that tone. That tone where he knows you are placating him rather than speaking your mind, just so he doesn’t do anything stupid. He hates that it must feel like you have a guillotine hanging over your head at all times, because you feel like you can’t push him over the edge.

“Fine. Get some sleep, Nathan, okay?”

He huffs out air, a sharp, self-pitying guffaw, and he rubs his eyes underneath his glasses, the frames lifting from the bridge of his nose. “Right. I can’t even fuckin’ sleep without you.”

There is another pattern of breaths, and whatever tightrope Nathan might have tried to walk across to reach you snaps. “Don’t do that, don’t guilt me, Nathan.”

The worst thing is, you don’t even sound angry. You just sound… tired.

“I’m sorry,” he pushes out, muffled through a hand over his beard, and though this time he means it, the words come out sounding entirely insincere.

“Sure. ‘Night. Try and get some rest, okay?”

Now that -that sounded genuine. Sincere. You never stopped looking out for him. Even if you couldn’t stand to be around him any longer.

“Yep,” he says tautly, with little feeling, and he hangs up, tightening his grip on the photo frame in his lap before slamming it back down on the desk along with his phone.

He leans back in his chair for a moment and buries his face in his hands. “Fuck.”

I pushed her away. I did that. I pushed her away.

With a knot building in his chest, partly out of need and partly out of habit, Nathan drags opens the desk drawer where an ever-replenishing stash of vodka used to reside. Where instead, he has taped a picture drawn by his son. For moments like this.

It helps, but it’s not always enough.

Nathan knits his brows together, his face set with a stony resolve, and his dark, turbulent eyes awash with a storm of emotion.

The boy. He’s braver than me.

Somehow, because he has to, perhaps- because he’s had to learn how, Nathan smooths himself. He cannot solve the problem of how to bring you home, when this simply isn’t home to you anymore. So, instead, he bathes himself in blue light. He basks in the glow of algorithms he can solve, and works and works his mind until it shuts off. Feeling to thinking to nothing.

I’m a force. A force of nature. A storm.

He can do anything he sets his mind to.

And… fuck. I pushed her away.

Anything, perhaps, except bring you back.

***

The next day, you arrive to collect your son.

It is familiar by now. It is an encounter that Nathan both longs for and dreads, in equal measure. Today, especially so; especially both.

Byron runs down the hallway and leaps into your arms, the sound of your laughter scooping Nathan out from the inside as you pepper the boy with kisses, a toothy smile on his angel face.

In these encounters, the moments are always too fleeting; always slipping away too quickly. It seems to happen so fast that it’s a blur to him, his mind zoning-out and working through a million things he wants to tell you, and simultaneously hyper-focussed on every single aspect of you he’s missed desperately. He wracks his brain for the right things to do and say, as if desperately searching for the one remnant of code- the one function or command that will simply make you stay.

With effort, he tunes back in to the scene as the boy wraps his arms around his leg.

“Did you pack Crunchy?” you ask Nathan, as he hands over the kid’s weekend bag to your waiting, outstretched arm.

His mouth opens to respond, but you are already unzipping it and rooting through the bag, checking in amongst the clothes and tiny boxing gloves and dolls for the dear mutt. You find him nestled in there safely, and you smile softly at Nathan for remembering.

You shouldn’t be surprised, he thinks. He remembers things – he remembers everything. It’s forgetting he typically needs a little more assistance with. Maybe he does look over his shoulder more than he’d care to admit.

You ruffle the boy’s crow black curls as he clings to his father’s leg, snapping your hand back as if you’ve been burned when Nathan opts for the same gesture in the same moment.

You opt to fold your arms against your chest instead, casually clearing your throat. “What did you do with Daddy then, baby? Have you had a good time?”

“We watched the storm,” the boy begins animatedly, swinging around Nathan’s sturdy leg, “and we did boxing and I learned a new combo,” the boy looks up at his father who nods and smiles gently in proud confirmation, hoisting the kid up on to his hip – a gesture that is becoming increasingly less rusty- “and we did a new trail to the glacier, and, um, what else Daddy?” Byron asks, waving his up-turned palms in the air and turning to his father for guidance. Nathan dips forward to whisper a prompt in his ear. “Oh yeah! And we watched Trolls and I put lots of my dolly’s bows in daddy’s beard,” the boys giggles, and scrunches his fingers through Nathan’s wiry hairs.

The kid’s smile is infectious, even fracturing Nathan’s stony resolve, and it has the three of you joined in a smile for a moment, until Nathan sees your eyes mist subtly over with tears as you observe the father and son together. You quickly quell them, but they don’t go unnoticed.

“Oh yeah?” you ask, voice expertly smoothed, and a masking smile on your face. The strength of you. “Did he look pretty?”

“Yeah, I guess he looked pretty,” the boy giggles. “And this morning Daddy taught me about static electric.... um-” the boys stumbles over his words for a second, and again looks to Nathan for guidance.

“You got it -go ahead,” Nathan encourages firmly.

The boy gains confidence, brushing his black curls out of his face with a little hand before continuing. “Static electricity, right?”

“Right, champ,” Nathan says, and as the boy barrels happily through his recital of events, Nathan barely realises that he’s holding him a little tighter, because with each moment that passes, so fleetingly, he feels it’s getting increasingly harder to think about letting him go.

“And Mommy, did you know this whole valley was made by a glacier that crawled all the way along and carved out all the shapes of the hills and then melted, like, a super long time ago?”

“You know, I did know that, but that’s smart of you to know too, baby,” you say fondly, a tremble at the corner of your lips that the kid doesn’t see, but Nathan is sharp enough to catch.

And then, suddenly, Nathan has no trouble contemplating passing the boy over into your arms, because you look like you need someone to hold too. However, as he motions to do so, Nathan can see tears threatening to spill out of the corner of your eyes. You shake your head subtly at Nathan in apology as you brush away a stray tear, in a moment you hope the boy won’t see, so, instead, Nathan sets your son down on the ground. He crouches and pulls the boy’s shoulders squarely to face him, providing you with a discreet moment to compose yourself.

“Hey, buddy,” he says softly. “I remembered I need to talk to your Mommy about boring grown-up stuff. Gas prices and 401ks and… major yawn. So, hot tip, you might wanna go and play in your room for 5. That okay, champ?”

“Okay,” the kid says, unphased, and skips off down the hall.

That leaves Nathan and you in the hallway. He hover-hands his palm against your lower back and gestures, with his other arm, towards the living space, guiding you towards the seating area.

You sit on opposite sofas, positions stiff and formal, hands clasped on laps. Your gaze looking just past Nathan because you can’t seem to meet his eyes.

“Wanna talk about it?” he asks gently, feeling a lump grow in his throat. He hates this- how tense it is, when you used to be so intimate and relaxed around each other. “Why are you crying?”

Unlike Nathan, you were usually an open book, yet this time, you decline the invitation to share. You pinch your lips in between your teeth.

You’re so strong, and so brave that it breaks Nathan to see you succumb to tears like this. Plus, you’ve given so much already- so much love, and so much heart, and he hasn’t given you nearly enough back.

Still, he looks at you from beneath his lenses, gently encouraging, waiting until you are ready to share. Your gaze fixes on a spot in your lap. “I… It’s just. Seeing you and Byron together. Why in the hell couldn’t you have been this man while we were together, Nathan?”

Nathan’s heart aches at your words. Years ago, even months ago, he would have bristled. He would have snapped back at the insinuation that he was ever in the wrong. Ever less than godly.

This time though, he lets the sad truth settle over him like a dark cloud. And, as much as he wants to pull you towards him, he also- and he can’t believe he’s going to do this- he realises he needs to push you away from him one more time. There is only one way to solve this. To let you go. To realise it’s your choice. You are out of his control. Unsolvable.

He shifts his position, until he is perched on the coffee table in front of you, his palms resting on your knees and smoothing circles there. His dark, calculating eyes intent on yours, and for once unobscured by agendas. For once, he has things to say to you that aren’t intended to provoke a particular response, or establish a particular gain. He has things to say that he simply needs you to hear.

He needs to show you his fear. He needs to face the storm he was never too afraid to create, but was always quick to flee the wake of. Nathan imagines if he explains the storm, he can demystify it. Take its power away. Then, even if you don’t come home, at least there can be calm. Calm after the storm. Both of you able to move on, with all the cards laid out on the table.

With effort, he begins.

“I’m sorry,” Nathan says gently, and even with those two words a gentle sob wracks your chest, perhaps with the relief of a weight you didn’t know you were carrying. “Honestly, I don’t think I told you that and meant it yet. So, I’m sorry. About last night, by the way. But, shit, about everything that I did, and didn’t do…” Your hands come to clasp his in your lap, fingers gripping fingers tightly as his face contorts with regret. His dark eyes wander over your face as tears stream freely down your cheeks. Where once he would have shied away from you, in a state like this, now he has courage enough to be present.

“I missed you,” he continues, his voice tattered by emotion. “I miss you. I didn’t want to tell you that. Didn’t want to admit that I’m scared either. But I am. Of losing you. Scared that the best thing for us… the best thing for you, might be being without me. To get out of the black hole I suck everything in to.” Nathan tears his eyes away from yours as his vision becomes blurry with tears, his voice cracking. “I’m scared because I love you, and I love that fucking kid and I... I’m scared that I might get better, and be better… but that you, and him… that you still might deserve better. Better than me. So, I’m sorry. Actually fuckin’ sorry, for all the ways I’ve been a dick. Shut you out. Put you last. Made you hurt.”

“Nathan,” you breathe through tears, as if you can’t fathom this onslaught- this emotion tearing your chest in two, like the sky on that night.

He reaches up to fumble some tears away from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I need you to know that I finally see it, even if it is too late,” Nathan nods to himself, eyes fixed down at your hands clasped in his. “I see that if had to lose you to realise what I had; I never did deserve you. You’re so… fuckin’ unreal. And he’s just like you. And,” Nathan presses on, despite the mortifying ordeal of baring his heart to you. Despite the tears which finally spike out of the corners of his eyes too. “I need you to know. Even if it didn’t last forever… This fuckin’ family? It will always be the best thing I ever created. And if there’s one thing I want to be remembered for- any fuckin’ legacy I wanna have, I just… I need it to be known that I love you, and I love that fuckin’ kid. I want you to be happy, and I’ll always regret that I didn’t make you happy while I had the chance to.” He huffs out another small, self-pitying laugh “Guess in the end, I’m an idiot; not a genius. Guess I should have realised that when I got stabbed by my own AI…”

He drags his big brown eyes back up to meet yours from beneath his lenses, and your eyes are shining softly at him, brimming with bittersweet pain, and you tug him into you for a hug, holding him close and your tears wetting each other’s shoulder.

After a moment he pulls away and settles himself back on the edge of the coffee table, already missing your embrace.

“You did. You made me happy, Nathan,” you promise. “So, so happy, and so, so miserable,” you let out a small, self-pitying laugh too, and then suddenly you are both laughing, as bizarre at that seems, as you palm the tears away from your puffed cheeks.

When the laughter fades, you reach out and place your palm fondly on the side of his face. Nathan knew that even in all his years of marriage, he had never been so vulnerable with you as he had been just now. He knew that had been precisely part of the problem. He had thought it would feel horrible to open up, but he finds that he feels fresh, like ground after nourishing rain.

Your gaze flicks back to him, and he swears he can read the look in your eyes.

Why couldn’t I have been this man when we were together?

Then, it is as if you remember you are touching him. You snap your hand back from him, and back from the brink as if you have been burned. It would be so easy, Nathan thinks. So easy to just fall back into you. As if wrestling with the exact same thought, you surge up from your seat, wiping the remainder of your tears away and immediately putting some distance between the two of you. You track to the nearby mirror, leaning forward to fix your appearance a little, before the boy returns.

Nathan watches you fondly. Longingly.

You turn back to him again, a little more composed, and retake your seat opposite him – in the same spot, but feeling much further away this time.

You bite your lips between your teeth, gazing at that same spot on your lap again.

He wishes he could reach out to you. Take in the textures and scents and feel of you in all your glory. But he does not want you to jump away as if you’ve been struck by lightning.

“I miss you too, you know? I miss our family. When it was good it was…” your voice is small and you trail off, perhaps not wanting to look too far over your shoulder. With a visible effort, you seem to drag yourself back to the present. “Byron adores you, you know that? I don’t think I’ve told you this since we… but you’re a good father, Nathan.”

A pride ignites in Nathan unlike anything he’s felt before.

He opens his mouth as if to speak, and instantly closes it again, his throat bobbing around a hard swallow before he can push his words out.

“Just a terrible husband?”

You shake your head. “No,” you say, with a wistful expression on your face, and Nathan is surprised that you sound sincere. “No, not terrible at all.”

Nathan knew his flaws well enough, but you always reminded him of his attributes. You never poisoned the boy against him, even though the split was largely on him – a fact he had denied for a long time, because it was your decision. And, because of your strength and commitment to that, the three of you -oddly- had never made a better team than you do now.

He examines your face. Your beautiful face.

Come home. Please.

For your sake, he makes an effort to lift his thin smile up until it creases the corner of his eyes.

“I think you’re forgetting what an asshole I can be,” he smiles lopsidedly at you and succeeds in lightening the air. Lightening it a little too much. Enough that there is an alarming hint in your eyes of what used to be there for him. He hopes it is not the shining of false hope.

It would be so easy. So easy to kiss you.

You chew some words over in your mouth, and Nathan can see their failure to launch on a couple of breaths as you wring your hands in front of you.

“You, um. Last night… you asked me to come home.”

Nathan’s breath stalls in his chest.

“Did you mean it?”

Nathan can’t speak suddenly. He can only nod, slowly, tears sparkling in his eyes as he looks at you.

“I could… I could never just move back in. It didn’t work, Nathan. But… maybe…”

Nathan holds his breath, like a latent storm, the hint of a new energy buzzing in the space between you.

“Maybe,” you continue tentatively. “We could start over again. See if we can build something new. Not the same old patterns. No looking over our shoulders or trying to resurrect what’s long-dead. Instead, maybe we – I don’t know- try to create something… new?”

While the sky is rife with creation.

“You’re good at that. Building things,” you finish, fondly, everything about you tentative yet somehow hopeful, and Nathan’s chest constricts, his blood thrumming nervously through his body in a blind panic.

Just shut up, Nathan, and don’t fuck this. Just refrain from being a dick for five fuckin’ minutes.

The muscles in his jaw twitch. The vein on his forehead pops, yet his whole body is still. Breath bated.

“Like, fresh code?” he asks, with shining, hopeful eyes.

You nod, and it is the tiniest gesture, but one that means the absolute world to him.

A new way of doing things. Moving forward. Looking ahead.

“Sure, I guess - fresh code.”

Don’t fuck it up, Bateman, you fucking shithead.

“Yeah,” he agrees weakly, yet with all the conviction in the world. “How?”

Anything.

You nibble on your lower lip, thinking things through as you go. “Take me out for dinner. A first date. Somewhere away from this goddamn house. From everything that happened. All the… mistakes.” As Nathan’s eyes swim with guilt and regret, you squeeze his hand, dipping your head towards his to catch his gaze. “Yours and mine.”

“Yeah. Yeah, ok,” Nathan responds, his eyes glowing as they meet yours.

He immediately feels you withdraw from his burning hope, and so he consciously tries to reel his natural intensity in.

“No promises, Nathan,” you caution, firmly.

He nods, slowly. Outwardly disciplined and measured.

Don’t fuck it. Do not fuck this, you mother fucker.

“And please, don’t get his hopes up?” you say as a quick aside before delivering a broad smile over Nathan’s shoulder, signalling that the kid had arrived back in the vicinity.

The boy runs over and starts happily wheeling a toy news truck over Nathan’s thigh. The man unconsciously, automatically, winds his arm around his son and dips a kiss into his black curls, causing your eyes to shine softly in admiration. “I love you, champ,” Nathan says, the words heavy with the weight of his feeling even as he reaches to tickle the boy’s tummy, earning a chaotic giggle.

“Love you too, Daddy,” the boy replies, but Nathan pats him gently on the back.

“Time to go though, bud.”

“Yeah, baby. We should… go,” you announce, and yet there is a tug of hesitation in your voice. A rope binding you to Nathan which he is desperate to reel in; however, he pushed you so far away, and he knows that if you do come back to him, it must be on your terms. In your own time. He understands now.

Nathan leads the two of you to the door and helps pile all of the bags into the trunk of your truck. You strap Byron into his car seat, and Nathan dips to bid him farewell. “Ok, get out of here, kid. Look after your Mommy, you hear me? She’s special.”

There is a moment, before you open the door to slot into the driver’s side that Nathan comes to face you, his hands stuffed into his pockets, a familiar furrow in his brow and tight-lipped expression on his stony, impassive face. “When was the last time you had your tyres checked?” he wonders idly, shifting forward to poke at the tread on the front wheel and finding them satisfactorily safe.

He is surprised to find you smiling softly at him when he looks back at you. You seem like you can’t help yourself, but you lean forward and press a kiss into Nathan’s cheek, your face lingering against his as he closes his eyes and leans in to it, just a little.

You pull back from him, your hand clasped around his upper arm. “We love you, Nathan. Will you be okay?”

His eyes grow overcast. “Uh, don’t like it when you go,” he states plainly, his brow pulled down and cloaking his big, brown eyes with shadow.

You nod in understanding.

“Text me later. About dinner,” you add casually before you slot yourself into the truck. Still, he can see you tearing up, just a little.

“You mean it?” he asks, his stare intense.

“Dinner and we’ll see, okay? No promises.”

He had made you so many promises that were broken.

Nathan nods his agreement and you clasp the door shut. Reluctantly, Nathan steps aside as you swing the truck around, and he doesn’t stick around to wave you off, aside from a quick hand in the air for the boy.

He doesn’t like it when you leave.

He knew he had pushed you away, and now, just maybe you would come back to him. He feels hopeful- ecstatic even- at the prospect, but he can’t help but feel a little guilty. A little selfish too. He feels as though he’s sucking you in to a black hole all over again. He thinks maybe it would be better for you if you could escape him.

But, as Nathan settles back in his chair down in the lab, and gazes at the framed picture of his family, he knows that as much as he has grown and changed - because he’s had to, with you gone- that he will never quite be selfless enough to let you go.

I’m a force. A force of nature. A storm.

You had always revelled in storms. You were always happiest when it rained. Maybe this time, he could make you so, so happy, without the miserable.

Oh, how he hopes.

Don’t fuck it up, Bateman, he thinks, glancing at the picture one more time. Don’t you ever fuckin’ push her away.

This time, he pledges to stop looking over his shoulder, and looks ahead to something new.

That’s what he’s best at.

Fresh code.

He types away, and his chest feels lighter than it has in a long time.

The calm after the storm, perhaps.

#nathan bateman x reader #nathan bateman #ex machina fanfiction #oscar isaac #nathan bateman angst

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