#maybe later in the timeline than the first fanfic on here?

[redgyl]

Hi. I was struck with Boatem Knights AU brainrot when I saw fanart for it on youtube when someone retroactively made music to go with it (Thriplerex's "Builders Of All That Extraordinary Municipality (B.O.A.T.E.M.) - V.S. Hermitcraft's Boatem Crew". I like it.), which lead me to Tumblr. Then I sawn what was on here already, saw the writing prompt "Scar injures Grian in Vex form," and a story started forming in my mind. So, I had to actually make an account just so I can share my ideas.

What Applestruda and other creators on here have made is wonderful! I don't want to step on any toes, and I do not wish to be the newbie who knows not the meaning of etiquette. I hope that some of my ideas can be canon, but if not, I hope they're still good as alternative, harmless fan-stuff while still respecting the original creators.

Anyway, here is the first chapter of my story inspired by what everyone else has already made. Enjoy!

Chaper 1

The poor ogres were dead.  They just didn’t know it yet.

Hunched over to ten feet tall, lazily holding tree logs for clubs, the two green-skinned, filthy monsters chuckled over the knight standing alone in front of them.  They laughed even harder to see the other four knights retreat back up the trail.

“Heh heh, your friends are smart,” one said.

“Heh heh, they left you to die,” said the other.

“You look delicious.”

“We’ll eat you raw.”

The knight, who wore relatively little armor, kept smiling up at them, his dark hair turning a glowing white and his tanned skin turning blue.  A cat-shaped, glowing ghost purred on his shoulder.  It mewed and rubbed on his cheek.

The knight, whose name was Sir Scar, laughed back at the ogres, putting down his crossbow and ignoring his sword.  “You know what they say,” he said, his dark eyes turning white.  The cat jumped down from his shoulder and disappeared into the brush.  The knight switched his stance into a low crouch, fingers hooked like claws and held back, ready to swing forward.

“They didn’t leave me,” he said. ”They got out of my way!”

~~~~~~~~

“And then I beat it over the head with its own arm!” Scar finished as he and his four companions rode their steeds along the road through the woods, shifting his crossbow back to its spot over his shoulder.  He was back to normal: dark hair, dark eyes, easy-going smile, scarred face.  “I always wanted to do that.”

Sir Grian giggled. “That’s so cliche’,” he teased.  “Of course you’d want to do it.”

“You really should have stuck around to see it,” Scar teased back, knowing full well that they couldn’t.

“Sure, Scar, sure,” Grian played along.  “The only time you’re not dramatically tripping over your own feet because you’re feral?  Love to see it sometime, so long as I’m out of reach.”

“You could with those wings, you know,” Scar replied.  “Why don’t you fly more?”

Grian made a face.  “You fly in Vex form, too.  Besides, armor’s heavy,” he explained, tapping his chest plate.  He was an odd-looking person, with a plain, round face and plain, brown hair and an ordinary, sensible taste of fashion, but also with bright red macaw wings sprouting from his back and another matching, silly set from the sides of his head.

The ghostly cat on Scar’s shoulder mewed with jealousy.  “Oh, sorry, Jellie,” Scar said, scratching the pretty little thing behind the head.  It went back to purring.  It was always reassuring to see the blue cat there.  The little familiar helped Scar control the Vex enchantment, keeping the monster inside soothed until it either overflows with bloodlust or is intentionally called on.  Only then does she leave, making space for the beast.  

Scar’s next words were toward Grian, even as he kept cuddling his cat.  “Maybe you should have a boob window, like me.”

Grian laughed.  “I’d sooner die.”

“You know, Grian,” Scar said in his smoothest voice, the tone he uses whenever he's trying to swindle a customer. "You're a reasonable man-bird. Do you know just how light and easy to handle a boob window is? It is like having wings, wings for your chest."

As the two of them continued their friendly banter, the pair of traveling companions behind them eavesdropped.  One was a slight man with a handsome mustache and meticulous hair, his dashing appearance comically ruined by a single clover sprouting from his head.  He carried a rocket launcher — a weapon unheard of in this age of magic.  His eyes danced with amusement at Grian and Scar’s conversation.  Beside him rode Lady Pearl, large scythe casually held in her hand, her eyes rolling at Scar’s current attempt to sell the “boob window.”  She was a beautiful woman with a couple of feather-like antenna coming from her head, her armor white and bright.  

“I’d recommend calling it something else,” Pearl said in a low tone to the man riding beside her, “because ‘boob window’ sounds so stupid, but I don’t want to help him be more convincing.”

“Me, neither,” chuckled the man, Sir Mumbo.  “But I can appreciate his persistence.”

Way up in the front, Sir Impulse smiled.  He was a big, solid man with a friendly face and yellow on his armor, a large sword bound to his back. He had found himself a bunch of good friends, he thought.  They each had a great sense of humor, and each was a good-hearted knight, which made for good company.  That was a blessing, since they would be stuck together for the next few days.

In the back of his mind, Impulse worried about the wisdom of intentionally using Scar’s Vex form.  Yes, they all knew what Scar was when they accepted him as a knight.  Sure, Scar said that the bloodlust would grow and he had to just let it out so he could stay in control, and, sure, it was handy against big monsters like ogres or trolls or minotaurs.  But Impulse wondered, were they treating this power too casually?

It would be a few hours yet before they set up camp for the night.  They won’t be out of the woods for a couple of days, at least.  Then, they could be home.

~~~~~~~

Far, far away, a good, kind, beloved king received a gift.  

That gift exploded.  When the smoke cleared, that king had been turned to stone.

[dragonagitator]

Timeline of major events during Gale Dekarios's lifetime

Here is my attempt to compile a timeline of major events that took place during Gale's lifetime, including his personal history, happenings in his hometown of Waterdeep, and major world events that would have affected him personally or affected everyone in Faerun. I hope this is useful in writing your Gale-centric fanfics!

The time period covered assumes that Gale is 40 years old during the events of BG3 and thus was born in the year 1452 DR. AFAIK there's no canon age given for Gale, but most fanons seem to peg him as being between 35 and 45, so I went with the middle of that range. Please feel free to adjust his estimated age for each event up or down depending on how old you think he is in BG3, e.g., if you think he's 38 then subtract 2 years, if you think he's 42 then add 2 years, etc.

Some of the more interesting implications of this timeline revolve around how much Mystra's powers and presence in the world significantly changed during Gale's lifetime. When Gale was a child or teen and first attracted the attention of Mystra, she was weak, not in contact with her Chosen, and assumed to be dead by most of the world. Gale was ~27 years old and already her lover by the time a "much diminished" Mystra called to Elminster for help, and Gale was ~35 years old when Mystra fully regained her powers as the Goddess of Magic. She seems to have dumped him shortly thereafter.

Detailed timeline and sources under the cut. It's long.

Most of the text that isn't specifically about Gale is copypasted from the Forgotten Realms wiki. See bottom for links. I haven't read all the novels and modules referenced by the wiki for these events yet and thus will likely need to revise this timeline as I work my way through those.

Birth to age ~27: until 1479 DR worldwide: Mystra was generally considered to be "dead"/missing during Gale's childhood and early adulthood because Mystra/Midnight was "murdered" by Cyric in 1385 DR (67 years before Gale was born).

However, Forgotten Realms canon of Mystra's timeline clashes with what Gale tells us about the timeline of his relationship with her:

Gale: "Once upon a time, not quite that long ago, there lived a wizard in a tower. The wizard was what one might call a prodigy, who from an early age could not only control the Weave, but compose it, much like a musician or a poet. Such was my skill that it earned me the attention of the mother of magic herself. The Lady of Mysteries. The goddess Mystra. She revealed herself to me and she became my teacher. In time, she became my muse, and later, even my lover." PC: "What did Mystra's attention feel like?" Gale: "Love. Perhaps it was not quite love, but you see, the wizard was but a very young man. It was most certainly love to him."

Speaking as a middle-aged person myself, while most 40-year-olds would consider 27 to be "young," the modifier of "very" suggests he that was much younger than 27 when he first became Mystra's lover. I'm older than the oldest estimates for Gale's age and I still wouldn't characterize myself at age 27 as being "but a very young woman." That description seems more fitting for someone in their late teens / early 20s.

Also, if he was "but a very young man" when they became lovers, then that means he was even younger (a child or teenager) when she first revealed herself to him and started teaching him magic.

So Gale's relationship with Mystra must have started during the period that the rest of the world believed she was dead or missing. Mystra did still have some sort of disembodied "presence" during this period, so maybe she was simply not able or interested in speaking to Elminster or her other previously established Chosen. Or perhaps she was fragmented, and Gale's relationship began with one of those fragments? Part of her "presence" ended up possessing a bear, but I'm assuming not the part that Gale was fucking.

Birth to age ~30: until 1482 DR worldwide: Gale was born and grew up during the "Era of Upheaval," which was known for widespread wild magic and dead magic zones, a lot of changes in the pantheon of deities, and a lot of wars and political conflicts amongst mortals.

Age ~16: c. 1468 DR in Waterdeep: "Dagult Neverember, the richest man in the city, became Open Lord."

Age ~27: 1479 DR in Waterdeep: "By this year, the Field Ward had been established, and Skullport was no longer inhabited."

Age ~27: 1479 DR in Waterdeep: "The 8th walking statue, the Griffon, appeared in Waterdeep and to defend Ahghairon's Tower. It eventually settled down near the Peaktop Aerie on Mount Waterdeep and eventually became a landmark of the city."

Age ~27: 1479 DR in western Cormyr [roughly 1050 miles / 1690 km southeast of Waterdeep]: "While recuperating in a cabin in the King's Forest, Elminster felt Mystra's presence calling to him. He found her much diminished, possessing the body of a bear that had guarded a cache of items Mystra's still-mortal form had collected. She asked her most trusted servant to find new candidates to become Chosen and to recruit Cormyr's War Wizards. Only a few weeks later, having been restored to his full powers as a Chosen by absorbing the silver fire of the dying Symrustar Auglamyr and then that of the Simbul and Manshoon, Elminster returned to Mystra (in agony from absorbing too much of it) and returned much of it to the Lady of Mysteries, restoring much of her power and divinity. This event became known as Mystra's Return."

I'm assuming that Elminster's acquaintance with Gale must have begun sometime after this because otherwise you'd think Gale would have mentioned "oh yeah she's not actually dead, we've been banging for a while now."

Mystra reestablishing contact Elminster, regaining some of her power, and the rest of the world learning that she was alive is pretty huge and therefore must have been a significant turning point in her relationship with Gale as well.

I'm also assuming that Gale did not become one of Mystra's official Chosen until after this, since it seems like Mystra's Chosen weren't active while she was laying low and letting the world think she was dead?

Ages ~30 to ~35: 1482 DR to 1487 DR worldwide: "The Second Sundering, also known as the Sundering of Toril and Abeir, was a great catastrophic event in the history of the worlds of Abeir and Toril."

Age ~32: 1484 DR worldwide: "Most of the gods created many Chosen among mortals, trying to gather as much power as possible to be as high in divine ranking as they could before Ao completed the new Tablets of Fate, sealing their status and portfolio. People started to claim they had been 'chosen' by the gods and granted special powers, some apparently for 'divine purposes' while others had no idea why."

It's possible that Gale was recruited to be a Chosen of Mystra by Elminster per Mystra's instructions to Elminster to find candidates, but given that the gods were also choosing people directly during this period and that Mystra had a preexisting relationship with Gale, she may have also Chosen him directly herself. Poor Elminster out there trying to find the best candidates and then Mystra surprises him by adding her boyfriend to the roster. Gale being a nepotism hire despite having otherwise been qualified would be pretty funny.

Age ~34: 1486 DR in Waterdeep: "Neverwinter and Waterdeep began to clear the rubble in their cities that had built up over a century of neglect."

Hey, remember when Gale said that he used to be able to levitate an entire tower back when he was an archmage? Maybe this is when he was doing stuff like that.

Age ~35: 1487 DR worldwide: "Stars reportedly fell from the sky, gods long thought dead walked the land and armies led by Chosen clashed everywhere. Major geological instability resulted in numerous earthquakes and volcanoes, as the worlds of Abeir and Toril were separated once again, and areas once consumed by large chasms were restored to their pre-Spellplague status. Ships arrived on the mainland continent from Evermeet, Halruaa, Lantan, and Nimbral—all realms previously thought lost to Toril."

Age ~35: 1487 DR in Candledeep [roughly 650 miles / 1050 km south of Waterdeep] : "In an attempt to fully restore the goddess Mystra and the Weave, Elminster Aumar began his search for Khelben Arunsun's writings on the Weave, heading towards Candlekeep. Laeral and Alustriel Silverhand had also been hiding within the library: the two sisters' duty was to prepare their own destruction, so that no one could use their power to gain control over the Weave." ... "The energies of the destroyed Wards were absorbed by the Shadow King, who then left for Myth Drannor, followed by the three Chosen of Mystra."

Although Gale was likely a Chosen of Mystra by this point, he wasn't one of the three mentioned here.

Age ~35: 1487 DR in Myth Drannor [roughly 1350 miles / 2170 km east of Waterdeep]: "Meanwhile in Myth Drannor, Larloch, the Netherese, and the Chosen of Mystra (allied with the elves) clashed in a catastrophic battle." ... "As Elminster defeated Tanthul in a mage duel, the Netherese enclave crashed atop Myth Drannor. Elminster himself was saved by Mystra, who gained full control over the Weave once more, stopping Shar from turning it into a new Shadow Weave."

Age ~35: 1487 DR worldwide: "As 1487 DR came to a close, the Second Sundering ended with the full return of Mystra and the Weave, the separation of the worlds Abeir and Toril."

Gale was not a character in the novel about these events so any personal involvement would have been minor, but I'm including them in his timeline because he would have been impacted by the "full return" of Mystra to the world. I imagine he would have experienced many of the same issues that spouses of someone just elected to a high-level office go through.

Gale's lack of personal involvement in Mystra's restoration despite being her Chosen AND her lover is kinda weird, which makes me wonder if things were already starting to sour between them? I really wish that I could lock Ed Greenwood and Jan Van Dosselaer in a room together until they came up with a coherent explanation for what the fuck Gale was up to while all this was going down.

Age ~35 to ~39: 1487 DR to 1491 DR: Sometime during this period must have been when Mystra dumped Gale and he went looking for a lost bit of Weave to win her back but got a Netherese orb lodged in his chest instead.

Mystra was newly back to her full power as the Goddess of Magic and laying down the law, and Gale didn't take that very well:

Gale: "We enjoyed each other's company - body, mind and soul. But even so, I desired more. You see, no matter how powerful a wizard we mortals can become, we never scratch more than the surface of the Weave. Mystra keeps us in check. There are boundaries she doesn't let us cross. Yet every time I was with her, I stood on the precipice, gazing into the wonders that lay beyond. I sought to cross her boundaries." PC: "How exactly did you try to cross those boundaries?" Gale: "I tried to convince her. I pouted, I pleaded, I swore my ambition was only to serve her better. But she only smiled and told me to be contented. As inconceivable as it seems to me now, I shared a bed with a goddess and yet I wasn't satisfied. So I sought to prove myself worthy to her instead."

Gale's description of what happened after she dumped him sounds like it took place over a multi-year period, since I'm assuming that he had to spend some time searching for the "tome of gateways":

Gale: "The goddess spurned the mortal. The veils were drawn once more, and the wizard was left behind heartbroken." ... "Poor wizard. Silly wizard too, for he wouldn't take no for an answer. Like so many of the heartbroken, he did something infinitely foolish. One has to think big if one seeks to win back a goddess. So the wizard thought big." PC: "Define big." Gale: "Here goes: Once upon a time, very long ago, a mighty lord lived in a tower. A flying tower to be precise. I'll save his story for another time, but the gist of it is that he sought to usurp the goddess of magic so that he could become a god himself. He almost managed, but not quite, and his entire empire - Netheril - came crashing down around him as he turned to stone. The magic unleashed that day was phenomenal, roiling like the prime chaos that outdates creation. A fragment of it was caught and sealed away in a book. No ordinary book, mind you: a tome of gateways that contained within it a bubble of Astral Plane. It was a fragment of primal Weave locked out of time - locked away from Mystra herself. 'What if', the silly wizard thought, 'What if after all this time, I could return this lost part of herself to the goddess?'" PC: "What was the answer to his question?" Gale: "The answer was to try, and the outcome was to fail."

Not sure how much Gale was around for the next few events, since he might have been gallivanting around the Astral Plane looking for the tome instead of spending time in Waterdeep. But one assumes he'd notice the physical changes to the city whenever he returned, and that he'd hear about local news from his mother and Tara, so he would certainly be aware that these things happened.

Age ~37: 1489 DR in Waterdeep: "In response to increasing dragon and cultist activity, the Council of Waterdeep was formed, bringing together representatives of realms from all across the Sword Coast. The threat of the Cult of the Dragon was driven home when Masked Lord Arthagast Ulbrinter was assassinated, though it inspired more resolve than fear. In the midst of these events, Open Lord Dagult Neverember was ousted by a vote of the Lords of Waterdeep, replaced by Laeral Silverhand. Although Waterdeep was largely spared due to the dragonward, the Field Ward was still burned to ashes by dragon attacks, displacing huge numbers of people."

Age ~38: 1490 DR in Waterdeep: "The cloud giant castle of Count Nimbolo and Countess Mulara appeared out of clouds and hovered over Waterdeep for a while, triggering mass panic. Heralds sent out by Lady Laeral Silverhand tried to calm citizens and promise that there was no danger. In fact, the giants wanted to research Waterdeep's history and meet its leaders, as they search for traces of the ancient giant realm of Ostoria."

Age ~39: 1491 DR in the Astral Plane (I think?): Gale finds the "tome of gateways" and becomes afflicted with the Netherese orb:

Narrator: "You see through Gale's eyes, staring down the corridors of a dread memory. A book, bound, then suddenly opened. Inside there are no pages, only a swirling mass of blackest Weave that pounces. It's teeth, it's claws, it's unstoppable as it digs through you and becomes part of you. And gods, is it ever-hungry…"

Age ~39: 1491 DR in Waterdeep: Gale begins a year-long isolation in his tower in Waterdeep and eventually stops communicating with anyone except Tara. Not sure exactly when his isolation began relative to the other events of this year, so he may or may not have been personally affected by or even aware of some of the Waterdeep events below.

Age ~39: 1491 DR in Waterdeep: "The returned Eilistraee appeared under the walls of Waterdeep causing an influx in the amount of her followers in the city. They eventually sought out Remallia Haventree and asked her for a holy forest-glade in the ruins of the Field Ward. By Mirtul, the housing crisis in Waterdeep had worsened as a mysterious sickness killed or drove out all of the inhabitants of Downshadow, the Field Ward remained desolated by dragonfire, and Mistshore was burned down by agents of Masked Lord Braethan Cazondur, rendering all three unofficial wards uninhabitable."

Age ~39: 1491 DR in Waterdeep: "Fear threatened to overtake Waterdeep once again as the cloud giant castle of Burruld hovered over the ocean near the city. After the Blackstaff Vajra Safahr panicked and threatened the giants, Open Lord Laeral Silverhand calmed the situation, negotiated with Burruld, and learned that their purpose was to search for the lost daughter of King Skyvald, Princess Irie."

Age ~39: 1491 DR in Waterdeep: "In mid-Mirtul, numerous Masked Lords and other people were gruesomely assassinated as part of Cazondur's conspiracy to seize control of the city. Open Lord Laeral Silverhand, assisted by Elminster and Mirt, worked to maintain order in the city while investigating the murders. While attempting to apprehend Cazondur, Laeral herself was killed and disintegrated by a surprisingly simple trap involving falling rocks, but recovered with Elminster's assistance. An exceedingly dramatic showdown at the Palace of Waterdeep between Laeral and Cazondur in front of assembled servants, nobles and guildmasters resulted in Cazondur's death at the hands of an unexpected third party, Xanathar agents Belvarra Bowmantle and Suthool. Including Cazondur, a total of thirteen Masked Lords and scores of others were slain, and several more Lords publicly unmasked."

Please note that our best guess for the location of Gale's tower puts it couple blocks away from Mirt's Mansion and Gale has mentioned being a patron of the Yawning Portal Tavern, so it seems likely that Gale and Mirt would have been acquainted. If Gale was already in isolation by the time all this went down, perhaps Elminster and Mirt tried dropping by Gale's tower at some point but were repelled by the wards that Gale had set up to keep everyone away? Gale seemed very certain that no one cared about him enough to check on him but I wonder how much of that was the depression talking.

Age ~39: 1491 DR in Waterdeep: "A delegation from the city of Mirabar disappeared while en route to the city, having been waylaid by cultists of the Elder Elemental Eye."

Age ~40: 1492 DR in Waterdeep: Gale abruptly departs his tower and doesn't tell anyone where he's going per Tara's line in his origin, "You left the tower in such a hurry, and you didn't leave an address."

Age ~40: 1492 DR in Yartar [roughly 310 miles / 500 km north of Waterdeep as the crow flies]: Gale is kidnapped by the nautiloid. As explained in a previous post, I believe that he was headed north to find an unpopulated area to die and explode in.

Sources:

FR wiki: Gale Dekarios

FR wiki: Era of Upheaval

FR wiki: Second Sundering

FR wiki: Mystra

FR wiki: Mystra (Midnight)

FR wiki: History of Waterdeep

FR wiki: Yartar

BG3 datamined dialogue transcripts

Map of Faerun

Sad headcanons posted to Tumblr by various people over the past few months that I unfortunately didn't save links to. If you saw something in here that you've posted about then I probably got the idea from you. Please feel free to drop links in the comments so people can read the original post(s) about it, thanks!

[many-but-one]

I used to think I was endogenic and got hate for it. Then I became exactly like the people that bullied me. Thankfully, I’m not anymore.

So I’m gonna get on here and do one of my rare syscourse posts because I have been seeing an undeniable increase of hatred on my timeline simply because I follow the did/osdd tags.

Those of you that have been around a while and have seen our posts talking about this might recall this, but we used to be very firmly anti-endo. We consider ourselves endo neutral these days mainly because we just don’t care what other people do with their lives and it’s not up to me to fake claim them or tell them how to live their life. People like to be angry at endos for spreading misinfo, when I’ve seen anti-endos do the exact same thing. Quite often, actually.

One of the biggest reasons I was anti-endo was because I was angry. I was angry at the fact that people would claim they created their system for fun when my existence as a system was full of misery and pain. Fun fact, I’m still full of misery and pain, but I was taking it out on people I didn’t even know. I was angry that I didn’t get to choose this and they did. I was angry that they got to “have fun” with it while I suffered. I hated my disorder, I hated my system. I was so angry all the time. I went on rants. I was mean. I was full of hate.

Then as I went through the therapeutic process and learned to not only tolerate but actually love my system despite all of their faults and despite all of the ways the disorder made me miserable, I realized I cared a lot less about endos. It felt less like a slap in the face that they existed. I realized that me being angry was the root of why I disliked them so much. I realized that me being angry and hateful wasn’t actually helping anyone.

However, there’s something else I want to talk about. I’ve mentioned this vaguely from time to time, but I’ve never spoken that deeply about it.

I used to think I was endo. I joined system spaces online for the first time when I was about 16-17 years old. I was the host at that time (Jules, though they have fused with like a bazillion parts since then due to therapy so now I go by Delphine) and I was having experiences of a dissociative disorder. I was dissociative, I was having amnesia gaps, I was hearing voices in my head, and it was the first time I ever had a flashback (though I didn’t really understand that’s what it was at the time.) I met the first parts I ever spoke to directly back then, parts that don’t exist the same way today thanks to healing. S, A, and “The Bad Man” (father introject) were the first three parts that spoke to me. I knew by then I had DID. But I didn’t know my trauma. All I knew was that I may have witnessed some DV when I was really young (couldn’t remember it though, I just knew my mother was severely abused by my father) and that my dad was abusive to me as a teen. I didn’t even consider the fact that I couldn’t remember most of my childhood before the age of 10-11, and everything else in my life was spotty at best. I remembered a lot of my childhood! Or so I thought. I thought my childhood was completely fine except for my dad being a bit of a dick to me when I was a teenager.

So I thought I was endogenic. I knew that I hadn’t created these parts on purpose (though A stole her name from a fanfic I had read a few years prior so I thought that maybe I did make her up) so I thought maybe birth trauma had to do with it (I was born 9 weeks premature) or maybe I had formed my parts way later in life than normal since I’d always been a “late bloomer.” I tried making friends in the system community, to try and understand what was happening to me. I had genuine traumagenic DID, but I didn’t know it. As soon as I said I was endo to anyone I would be met with such extreme vitriol that I was chased away VERY quickly. I was told I was crazy, I was told I was faking a severe disorder for attention, I was told to kill myself, I was told that I am a terrible person and stealing resources from other systems, etc. It was really bad. I never spoke about it again. I deleted my entire system-related online presence. I believed I was a horrible faker, I was crazy, everything.

Meanwhile I was actively having nightmares of witnessing extreme child torture, I was having huge gaps in my memory, I was having random bouts of extreme suicidality and was self harming almost every day. I was dissociating off my ass, I barely even got through my junior year of high school. I missed so much school due to my mental health that the public school system almost took me to court to court-order me to go to school. I didn’t even try to talk about any of this to a therapist or counselor because I was certain that I had been faking the DID and that I was actually just crazy and I didn’t want to steal resources from “actual systems.” I had multiple suicide attempts. I didn’t get help until my school ordered me to go to the mental ward and then was assigned a therapist shortly after. Then I jumped from therapist to therapist, one of which said that I must be bipolar due to my mood swings. I was misdiagnosed as bipolar I for years. Years.

Years that I could have been trying to heal from DID taken from me because I was so heavily bullied for thinking I was endogenic. I was completely convinced I had bipolar and I must have just been having a psychotic episode every time I was hearing voices or acting strangely.

I was diagnosed with DID at age 22, just a month or so shy from my 23rd birthday. I went 6 years thinking I was crazy and delusional because of the system community. The worst part? I let my anger get to me and I became exactly like them. A little less intense, definitely didn’t tell people to kts or call them names or anything, but I was angry. Angry at the fact that I’d been a system all this time, angry that it had affected my life for so long, angry that endos “made a mockery” of what the disorder actually was. Then as mentioned previously, I was able to get over that anger. It makes me incredibly sad that I used to be so vitriolic and bitter and that could have seriously impacted a system who was in the same situation I was.

This is not to say that all endos are actually systems who don’t know their trauma. Some of them are genuinely endo, and I don’t really care about that. However, there is no person on the internet who can truly decipher whether or not an endo is a traumagenic system who just doesn’t know their trauma or who is non-traumagenic. I genuinely thought with my whole chest that I had no trauma and that whatever trauma I might have had was nowhere near serious enough to cause a system, so I must be endo, right?

*Loud, incorrect buzzer noise*

Turns out I have RAMCOA related traumas and my system is made up of thousands of parts. I didn’t just have trauma, I had Trauma. Years and years of extreme and extensive child torture were hidden so well that I couldn’t have even begun to guess that’s what my trauma history was, even after I was finally diagnosed. (Though I should’ve known with how intense our gatekeeper was about never telling me Anything)

Moral of the story here is this:

Please consider that the endos you speak badly about could be traumagenic systems. And you would never know. Behind the screen they could be showing clear signs of a dissociative disorder, but you wouldn’t know unless they specifically described such experiences—and nobody is entitled to hearing about other people’s personal experiences or struggles. I didn’t get the help nor the community I desperately needed back then, a teen who felt like their life was turned upside down and shaken about at all times.

Be kind. Stop hating other people for stuff like this. It matters so, so little in the grand scheme of things. These internet dramas are so chronically online that nobody in the irl world would even begin to comprehend it. It doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. But what does matter is how you treat others, because that sticks with people forever.

That’s all I’ve got. Thank you, everyone.

[jackiequick]

— But I Like It And It’s All Because Of You | Marvel Fanfic

Before they were Stevella, they were Johnny Storm & Sophia Barbaro

Pairing: Johnny Storm x OC, Johnny Storm x Sophia Barbaro

Fic length: Short Blurb

Universe: Marvel Comics (Earth 37)

—

Summary: What happens on another timeline, where our beloved couple were AU versions of themselves in a way different universe? Or maybe they are in our tale already? In other words the half-ass nurse and her fire filled boyfriend.

~~~

It’s been a few days since the incident happened, as he felt his molecules got struck and rearranged before knock out, cold the rest of his family and friends.

But when Johnny woke up, he felt nice.

Hell, he was better than fine!

He was great. Despite the nurses and doctors who checked in on him, telling him to stay at the medical center to get rest. Yeah sure the first few moments he woke up he was groggy and a little whipped out but other than that he felt great.

He was getting himself into a red tracksuit for the snowy weather a few kilometers away, from the main medical clinic where he was staying. That was when he paused seeing the nurse who walked in.

“Woah, woah, woah, where do we think we’re going?” She asked.

Johnny held a cheeky grin towards her. Her dark hair from her light tan skin and soft brown eyes made him go hot.

God she is pretty…

“I don’t know if we noticed, babe, but the sickest runs on this side of the alps are right outside that window.” He remarked strapping on his cherry red sweater.

“Yeah I noticed but there are rules here, you can’t leave...” She explained walking over to him with a small smile but she was cuff off.

“Until we finish the test. I know but I never been good with rules. You let me know how those come out.”

She crossed her arms chuckling lightly at him.

He paused and smirked, “Wanna help me with the zipper?”

“This is not a ski resort, Mr. Storm.” She remarked.

“Ah ‘Mr. Storm’, I like the sound of that leaving your gorgeous lips.”

“Ha!”

“You can’t lie, you like the sound of it.”

“Again, not a ski resort. Sit your butt down.”

Johnny smirk tuned into grin as he sat down on the bed, “Ooh, yes ma’am. I like a woman with a commanding tone. As for your answer, it’s not a ski resort, yet! Luckily grandma still sends care packages through, you’ll be surprised for an 80 year old woman you—gah!”

Sophia stuck the thermometer in his mouth to shut him up and take his temperature. She giggled seeing his reaction before his face relaxed.

“You are trouble.” She smirked chuckling.

“Mhm, trouble is my middle name.” He remarked talking with thermometer in his mouth.

She noticed the temperature rising on the scans and said, “Oh you’re hot!”

“Why thank you, so are you.” He added, “And I’m not afraid to cry.”

“No, I mean you feel a little feverish..”

“Well I never felt better in my life. My god, you smell good, listen.”

He took her hand that was resting on his cheek and lowered it to play with her hands as he removed the thermometer from his mouth. She blushed a slight bit and raised an eyebrow, still a bit concerned about his very hot body.

“When you get off work?” He continued.

“4 but I..” She repiled.

“Tell you what, babe, you meet me at 4:01 at the mountain.”

He kept talking standing up from bed, grabbing his equipment for skiing and walked around.

“I’ll give you a minute to freshen up.” He continued, hell he took the thermometer that was in his mouth and placed it in her front pocket ever so gently, “This is yours.” Then he pressed a quick kiss to her lips, “That’s mine.”

He mumbled the word ‘nurses’ under his breath as he walked out of the room. Sophia stood there with a soft smile on her face, trying to not laugh shaking her head.

God he is cute…

She looked at the thermometer that held his temperature and the machine beating. His core temperature was 209 degrees. Oh that’s new and rather got. His energy level was hot.

———

Later on, the two of them were dressed in ski clothes riding a helicopter across the mountains. The radio was playing some 2000s punk band as the hover above one another.

Johnny dressed in fire engine red and black, meanwhile Soph was dressed in deep rosy pinks and dark browns.

The two laughed at the wildness of it all.

Once they reached the drop point, turn to the pilot and Johnny shouted, “Alright you should stay to the right. The left might give you trouble. I think we should drop like 10 more feet.”

The pilot nodded.

Sophia chuckled and shouted, “We’ll be fine. Let’s make a bet.”

Johnny smirked, “I’m listening! What we talkin’?”

“Last one down springs for room service.”

“Your on.”

Before the blonde could say anything else, she flipped her body forward and lunched into the snow below them. Her screams echoed through the sky as laughter filled the air around them. Johnny grinned at that.

He looked over his shoulder at the pilot and proudly shouted, “That’s my future wife!”

With that, he lunched forward into the snow and began sliding down the mountain on his board. She looked over her shoulder and chuckled.

“You’re pretty good at this!” Sophia yelled skiing down.

He laughed, “Not so bad yourself, babe!”

“You’ll be losing soon.”

“Ha! All right. No more kid’s stuff. Watch this!”

Johnny shouted for her to check out his smooth moves as she flipped and swung around the snow. But as he kept going, he started sparking flames across his body.

He didn’t even notice.

“Woah! You’re on fire!” Sophia shouted across from him, skiing off to the side. There was a hint of panic in her voice.

Johnny shouted, “Thanks! You’re pretty amazing too.”

“No, your on literal fire! Look!”

Johnny noticed the fire raging across him and spike up his body trying to escape the flames, but instead started sliding down the mountain even harder, and further.

Sophia wasn’t watching where she was going either as she stifled against the sight of smoke and snow in front of her. She went tumbling onto the ground.

The blonde looked over his shoulder hearing her voice but couldn’t stop his ski board from sliding down the mountain despite all his weight. It didn’t help the situation as the fire engulf him, his eyes widened flying off the cliff straight into a thick cloud of snow and dust.

He coughed and sucked in a small breath in surprise noticing a big hole around him. He was out of his element, wearing nothing but his birthday suit surrounded by the pool of steaming hot water, within the area of snow.

Soon enough, down slid Sophia coming to a stop in front of her. She removed her ski mask to get a better view of him waist deep in the water.

“Care to join me?” Johnny asked, hands above his head breathing heavily. The shock still lingered over his eyes.

She furrowed her eyebrows lightly chuckling, “You serious?”

“To be fair, this wasn’t how I planned our time in the hot tub would be.”

“Is that so?”

“I was planning wine and cheese for dinner tonight at the hotel while we cruised in the hot tub.”

Johnny smirked and shrugged, a slight sheepish expression on his face. He totally expects for her to back out on him.

“What do you say? Start our plans early?” He asked once again.

Sophia grinned and shrugged at the idea, “Why not?”

She dropped her ski poles onto the ground and removed her cap.

Let’s just say things got steamy…

——-

Omggg I had to try out this new game of AUs for couples. P. S. her father owns The Baxter Building 😉

Pls let me know what you think 💭

Tags: @gaminggirlsstuff @gcthvile @cherrysft @missstrawbs2001 @mandylove1000 @eliohasmyheart @terry-perry @sherloquestea @superspookyjanelle @starkleila @buckysteveloki-me @parisparker269 @yetanotherwells @rickb-chaos @fluffystevefest @savemewattpad @lazywolfwiccan @daughter-of-melpomene @fototingobug @ocappreciation @ximehs and etc

[strangerscallmegray]

Are we the same?

Hello guys, I hope you like this. I was out looking for Joel Miller x son!reader fics and I could find very little male reader or GN reader fics and so I impulsively decided to create this series. I hope you will like it. The first chapter is going to be exploring Joel's PoV. I'm new here so I don't understand much, hopefully I'll learn along with you.

So, the thing is I have not seen the last of us, it is just recently that I discovered the fanfics and I really liked them, I'm going to watch it soon. So, I apologize for any timeline discrepancy as well as factual errors that might be there in the story lolol.

------- x --------

Joel had a difficult relationship with his son. It was not that Joel did not love him, no, he did, he immensely loved the kid, how could he not? He was his son. You were the last remaining person from his family. The life and family he had had before everything went to shit. But there was a distance between you and Joel, one that Joel deeply lamented. It started after Sarah died. Joel felt like you blamed him for what had happened. You had always been a loving older brother to Sarah and losing her broke you too, you were never quite the same and he couldn’t say he was either.

Joel watched as you went outside the house after the latest argument you had had. Arguments were not uncommon between the two of you. It was simple, Joel still felt you were too young to be going on patrols with him. Whereas you felt you had never been more ready and to see Tess take your side had been heartbreaking for Joel. Tess would not forget the look of betrayal that had etched onto his face when she had done that. Tess had later given him a lecture saying if he wanted his son then he’d have to let him do what he wants to do even if that included danger. Joel had cried out in anger then saying that he’d rather have his son alive and hate him than dead. He and Tess had needed a lot of time to recover from that. He had already lost one child and he was not planning to lose another any time soon. Now, since Joel did not have a say in what you wanted to do, he put his everything into training you. He wanted to teach you everything he knew so that you could survive even if he is not there. He was very proud of you and how far you had come. You never complained when it came to training, even if you had arguments with your dad, sparring sessions were a must, even if it just helped in releasing pent-up frustration.

Joel was sometimes very harsh with you and he knows that. It was because maybe he got so lost when he lost Sarah that he forgot he had another person depending on him. Some days the guilt consumes him and the others he feels like you need the rigidity to make yourself better, that it is what you seek from him. Tess had told him many times that his harshness might reflect negatively on you since you were only 16. Sometimes he thought that surely Sasha must be rolling in the grave over what kind of a father he had become. A memory flashed through this head.

“This is a waste of time, they’ll have finished turning you by the time you get back up from the ground.” He said.

You were panting having fallen on the ground. “I am…..trying.” you said in between of breaths.

“Not like that you are not, the only thing you are trying to do right now is getting yourself killed, if that was your mission, congratulations, you succeeded.”

You had glared at him, still not getting up, “What the hell is your damn problem with me!?” you had shouted and stood up walking up to your dad. “You can see I’m trying, we only started practicing a week back and Tess says I’m doing good, why do you always have to be so critical of me as if I can never be any good?”

“I don’t know what Tess has been seeing, all I am seeing is that it was a mistake allowing a 14-year-old out on patrols.” Joel had said. He couldn’t understand why he was being so unnecessarily harsh.

Tears stung your eyes as you said, “I will prove you wrong Dad, I will be the best hunter you’ve ever seen.” You had said and walked away.

And you were most definitely the best that Joel had seen, he just failed to communicate it to you. He wished he had been more understanding back then.

Then, then came Ellie, the kid who reminded him too much of Sarah, the kid full of life and so opposite from both him and you. In the beginning he didn’t know how to act around her but slowly he warmed up to her. She was not replacing Sarah, nobody could replace his Sarah ever but Ellie was not Sarah, Ellie was Ellie and that was why he had grown to care for her and he knew he had grown paternal towards her. He had seen the way you interacted with Ellie too, you had never held something she didn’t even know against her. You had even taught her a couple of things and his heart swelled with happiness whenever he saw that. An emotion he was sure he would never feel again.

“Is he your son?” She had asked pointing towards you who was standing with the group explaining something to them.

“Yes.” He had said, short and crisp, he didn’t want to discuss it and he hoped she’d get the hint. She did not.

“Then why is he on patrols? He doesn’t seem that much older.” She looked curiously.

He had looked at her and glared “Why don’t you ask him the same then maybe even I will know.”

And after that, it felt the most normal than ever in Jackson, but he just wished he could mend his relationship with his son. He wished you would stop looking at everything he did for you in negative light and stop seeing him as the enemy.

Soo, I hope you liked that, let me know what you think. The next chapter will be your PoV.

[daryfromthefuture]

i'm on the train and bored and still have an hour to go, so TIME TO RANT ✨️

and i'm choosing to make a list of bttf scenes i would have done differently/things i would have added because i like disagreeing with bob gale as if i owned this franchise

this is maybe an unnecessary change, but personally, i would have preferred if there were more instances of marty trying to warn doc about his death in part 1. we see it when doc demonstrates the model and then later twice on november 12 (before he writes the letter and then before marty has to leave), but i feel like it would have been more emotionally impactful if he had tried it more than that and only at the very end given up and written that letter.

SHOW DOC PLAY SAX. LIKE BRO. they could have had a concert 😭 imagine doc crashing the dance and playing sax with marty on stage (take this bullet point with a grain of salt, i'm only half serious. but still seeing doc play sax would have been badass)

the most obvious point of all obvious points, add the goddamn lone pine mall hug. the entire fandom agrees it's canon, and i remember a post going around speculating that they did indeed record a hug and keep the secret footage somewhere at universal lmao. but all jokes aside, this hug was SO necessary. every sane person would be waiting for it when watching the movie. marty is literally on the ground, bawling his eyes out, thinking his friend is gone, and us heartbroken audience members don't even get a hug to soothe our souls. i haven't paid much mind to doc and marty's relationship when i first watched bttf, but even past me was expecting a hug. good thing bobby fixed it in the musical

MORE JENNIFER. don't knock that girl out for 75% of the movie, please. she deserved better, and i wish bttf 2 would have put more emphasis on her as a character and how she's like and stuff. i hate to see it, but she's such a surface character that we barely know anything about (in my opinion), and that's just sad. she could very well have gone to the cafe 80s with marty and kept him grounded and stuff.

honestly, i maybe even would have kept that deleted 1985a scene with dave. we don't get to see marty's siblings at all in that timeline aside from a mention from biff, and it would have been interesting to see.

this is quite a jump in time, but i wish bob gale would have expanded on the scene in bttf 3 in which doc tells marty that he wants to stay behind in 1885 because of clara. this might be my fanfic brain speaking, but i see so much conflict potential. it would have been wild to see doc and marty argue, maybe even fight for the first time in the trilogy, and picture the emotional turmoil both of them were going through. if i had been marty, i would have snapped, not gonna lie. like, yeah, i get that doc found the love of his life but after all the lectures he'd given marty and after all those times marty was willing to rip apart the fabric of time just to keep doc alive, that man just goes "sorry marty, i met a woman i fell in love with, thanks for saving my life so i can live it out HERE. you go back home and idk clean my lab" >:(. this will forever be a pet peeve hahahaha

WHY does doc just FLY OFF on that DAMN TRAIN? i have to admit, it is an epic ending and feels sort of celebratory, but how can he say that he had to get his dog BEFORE even MENTIONING marty, giving him a photo, shake his hand as if they were work colleagues and nothing more, and then LEAVE? WHAT??? at least talk to him for a bit longer, tell your best friend where you've been, whether he will see you again and that you cherish him for god's sake. if you already had to give him false hopes by getting on the train only to fly off on the hoverboard later 🙄

[katarh-mest]

7th time loop vol 5 thoughts

Just finished volume 5 of 7th Time Loop. I don't want to wait until September for the next book! Can't believe I inhaled them all already....

Anyway, stuck some heavy spoilerific thoughts below a line here.

The reveal that the current Emperor has a massive bloodlust presence and he doesn't even try to hide it... He really is being built up to be a monster, no?

What I suspect is that in every timeline, he's been the instigator of the war, and even Arnold killing him has never been enough to stop it once the gears are in motion.

He's priming the rest of the world for a takeover - doing stuff like pouring poison into Dietrich's ears to create a failed coup attempt in that kingdom as a way to knock them out of the picture, weakening Domana by killing off their last remaining priestess (not caring that she's the cousin of his oldest son, since he views his own children as political tools.) The whole counterfeit coin business too.

Every plot has been a long con designed to provoke all the other nations into either being weakened, or into holding a massive grudge against Galkhein, all for the sake of creating a world war that can't he stopped, not even by his death, and leaving the mess for his son Arnold to clean up.

Canon vs Fanon stuff

There's a bunch of things floating around in fanfics that seemed plausible considering the series has supernatural elements, but I was slightly disappointed to find weren't in Vol 5. Maybe they'll be in volume 6????? (Spoil me in comments, go ahead.)

Arnold can take off Riche's clothes with his mind (now wouldn't that be amusing!)

Arnold has super healing powers inherited from his mom (TOTALLY believable) - this one pops up and seems to definitely be in volume 6th so I'm saying this one is probably canon, but I don't know 100% for sure

Arnold is stuck in his own time loop (I'm seriously leaning toward this, it's just his loops have been stuck as a personal hell where he can't stop his dad no matter what he does.)

Wacky things that absolutely are canon:

Arnold's eyes glow sometimes

Rishe and Arnold both have super senses. Love the way the anime depicted her picking out Count Lavinne in the crowd. They're practically Force sensitive.

Rishe is a quick study and has an eidetic memory. In modern day terms, we'd call her gifted. She doesn't forget names or faces that easily. That's it's own super power.

Rishe did study a lot of her interests as a kid, so if Arnold sent Oliver to do homework on her asking "wtf how is my future wife so amazing" the mundane answer was "she actually did do stuff like archery, horseback riding, sword training, etc., but the prince of Hermity told her to stop every one of those activities because she was better than he was."

Fan Theories I've seen

Arnold in a Loop: The reason I tend to agree with the fan hypothesis that Arnold is in his own time loop is because 1. He seemed to be under the impression that she was slightly afraid of him up until the last chapter of volume 5 (I mean, he did stab her in the chest last go round) and 2. He's way too brilliant for even a determined, workaholic 19 year old. Like Rishe, he acts like got an extra few lifetimes of learning under his belt.

He's also several steps ahead of Rishe at every turn. He already knows what's happening, and he seems genuinely delighted at how fast she catches on. And he grabs her suggestions with two hands and runs with them because they're good and valid and often present the solution to the problems he himself wasn't able to find, like a way to make Coyelles an equal partner instead of his first target for invasion.

Was her 5th loop really the first time that he encountered her? He made the gesture toward his heart that she interpreted as "Shoot me if you can" but what if in a prior loop, say the 2nd or 3rd, he saw a cute scholar in Coyelles and wanted to try to encounter her again in later loops but didn't again until the 5th? What he he's bumped into her in every life before, but she only developed her own hunter's sense in the 5th life so never realized it? What it he's been crushing on a girl for 30 years and only by chance in the 7th loop did she choose a different escape route and bump into him?

Dream Vision Arnold: Another fan theory I've seen is Arnold having dream visions of all the wars started in all of Rishe's lives in the future. And that, too, would jive with him having inherited the blood of the goddess and having majority and some notion of events that haven't come to pass yet. (And also why he insists on calling Rishe his wife even though they aren't married yet. Probably saw enough visions of her that the moment he saw her jump off the balcony, he went "oh. That's the girl from my dreams I'm gonna marry. okay. get her. GET HER NOW.")

My own pet theories:

Arnold's mother and the Crusade Church - Fan theories center around the idea of Arnold getting his super powers from his mother's side. (Although his dad is a monster too.) What if the Goddess picked Arnold as her champion of revenge against his dad and that's why he's stuck in a loop (and Rishe is the one getting dragged along with him cuz she's a soulmate?)

Opposing forces: Arnold's father works for another god/goddess (maybe a war god or something) and believes it is his mission in life to bring the world war about, and that's why Arnold feels like he has to stop him

Possible prophesies: The fact that Arnold's father committed straight up infanticide and eventually killed or had all his concubines killed makes me wonder if there was some sort of oracle that told him that his death would come at the hands of his own child with hair of a different color. (Arnold kills him anyway in the six loops so far.) This opens the door for RISHE (daughter in law) being the one to get to murder him in loop 7, which frees Arnold of the sin of patricide but has her committing regicide instead.... Not that she'd care, she's already killed plenty in all of her loops, especially the last two. But since Arnold seems to be getting ideas of involving the Crusade Church, maybe having her take on the role of the champion of the goddess might absolve her of that crime. Especially if the new Emperor Arnold Hein forgives her.

Rishe actually is one of the chosen of the goddess, and Arnold is the only one that knows.

Final Thoughts

Rishe so worried about the public kiss during the wedding ceremony that she hasn't stopped to think about what comes after is kind of amusing. Granted, she trusts Arnold not to hurt her and that he won't do anything she doesn't want him to. But still.

(Also, getting kissed senseless is a pretty nice birthday present.)

Even if it's his first loop or his seventh too, Arnold is absolutely besotted with her. He's a lovesick fool and he's trying so hard to keep it together in public.

SEPTEMBER CAN'T COME FAST ENOUGH!

[allfleetingdreams]

'familiarity' - a Silent Hill fanfic

SUMMARY:

Travis Grady encounters a familiar face in the same, familiar place. It's been a long while, but their demons haven't quite let go of them yet. Maybe they never will.

ADDITIONAL TAGS / WARNINGS:

Rating: Mature Character: Travis Grady, Alex Shepherd Relationship: Travis Grady/Alex Shepherd Word Count: 5,878 (completed) Tags / Warnings: PTSD, Mental Health Issues, Referenced Child Abuse, Referenced suicide, Older Man/Younger Man, Strong Language, altered canon timeline, Good ending Travis, War veteran Alex, Canon Divergence

PREVIEW:

Faraway houses wink at him in the distance, roofs glimmering under the gentle morning glow, getting ready to face yet another day with its tenants who will be waking up a few hours later than him. For the first time after an hour he bothers to look at where the sun attempts to greet him; and not for the first and last time, he wonders what it is like to be at home—permanently at home, and not driving a giant monstrosity delivering cargo from one state line to another every damn week. Gently, like the unhurried rise of the sleepy sun, his thoughts start drifting to the what-ifs, but he never lingers too long to the point that these what-ifs start making sense. He turns away, back to the task at hand, listening to the loud roar-purring of the engine and the staticky quality of radio music. Not another lonely fucking country song. …But when did all country songs ever get happy? Seven miles. There’s only seven miles left before Brahms. He’d already passed through other quiet little towns, and whenever the outline of houses do not find him on the road, the shiny faraway waters of the massive Toluca Lake do. It waits for him like it always had, wondering when he’ll be dropping by again; and like the sun, he tries not to take notice of it too much. It’s too pretty; too inviting; too distracting; and last time he got distracted it had gotten him into a bit of trouble. All he has to do is drive, go through Brahms, then after Brahms, there’s another quaint little town to pass through. And this quaint, nice, quiet little town… Well. Shouldn’t be new to him anymore. It’s only a passageway: a bridge to get him to his point B. After that, it’ll be over, and he’ll be circling all the way back to where he’d come from, which should take him another week. He’d be waiting for new-not-so-new instructions by then, sending him back on the road once more after a couple days’ rest in his not-really-permanent home. It’ll be like nothing happened. Said quaint little town had been lenient on him for the last seventeen years, and even though he could sense its anger because he got out safe and sound, it never dared pull him back. He’s always around, anyway, observing. Like he never got away. Did he ever get away?

READ THE FULL PIECE HERE:

[evilwickedme]

Ooh, do you have any good Jason fic recs?

anon I cannot tell you how long I've been waiting to see those words!!!! yes I have good Jason fic recs in fact I have so many good Jason fic recs that after narrowing it down I still have fifteen links for you

I have read more fanfic for Jason Todd than maybe any other character ever. I do not understand the hold this man has on me but it's simply the situation we're in. anyway

Jason comes home fics

Make a Little Birdhouse In Your Soul is hands down my favorite. I'm talking favorite DC fic, top fics of all time period, not just from this list. I love this fic series. It is actively and regularly updating, thank fuck, because that little boost of serotonin is everything keeping me going I swear

The 70 Days After Groundhog Day is technically from Dick's POV, but it's about the aftermath of a timeloop that Jason was stuck in. it's. oh my god it's so good. just trust me on this one.

Emotional Motion Sickness is the "bruce goes to therapy" fic series we all want. canon get on this level

Retrograde Motion - I never used to like de-aging fics; not for any particular reason, I just never vibed with them. Recently I decided to see what all the fuss was about (bc there's so goddamn many in this fandom) and I'm glad, because I opened this fic and it's just. oh my god. the use of the de-aging trope here is truly incredible. after a whole week of dipping my feet into the trope I never need to do so again, because this fic made me fucking lose it. this is not going where you think it's going. also, for some reason there's not that much rebirth outlaws fic, and I really like what this author did with that team

matching wounds haha just gonna sneak my fic series on here and pretend that it was an accident, wait how did that get there (some jayroy later in the timeline too which can be read on its own if Jason coming home fics aren't for you)

other non-ship

Too Much Fucking Salt deals with the straw that broke the camel's back. I've read all 22k words of this in one sitting more than once. this is the anti "Jason Todd comes home" fic (this is in itself a whole genre of fic too honestly).

take his name out of your mouth (you don't deserve to mourn) is about Jason mourning himself, which he fucking deserves to. also he smokes a joint with Dick

Sown in Winter is about Jason pulling himself out of a depressive episode partially through the power of Stardew Valley. also technically jayroy, but it's honestly incidental to the story for the most part imo

JayRoy

I do read other ships for Jason but unabashedly this is my favorite, so

A Solid Resume - competency kink. that's all I have to say.

Tenderize is a series of oneshots all of which slowly build Jason and Roy's life together and coparenting lian and I just !!! could also double as a Jason coming home au but honestly that's mostly in the first fic. also a lot of discussion of various chain grocery stores in the united states that I will probably never actually step foot in

Dick Grayson and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Two to Three Weeks (But Who's Counting) is so fucking funny I die every time I reread this. there's a scene early on in a coffee shop that just. I don't even know what to say everything about this is perfect. I AM the girl sticking her nose in their business, at least spiritually.

dust devils on the horizon isn't even the only western au I've bookmarked for these two. something about jayroy and horses, man

unity of time: april 27th, 2020 is just,,,, super sad, man, idk what to tell you. it's f!jayroy, but happens after Roy died in sanctuary during the 24h of Jason's death day, so all of it is very fucking depressing. It's also fucking beautiful. I want to reread it now.

Promise After That I'll Let You Go is a poisonivory fic. I was introduced to poisonivory through the daredevil fandom earlier this year and may I tell you when I found out that this author writes for jayroy I lost my goddamn mind. this is my personal favorite, but I almost recommended at least two more aus. Their jayroy sugar daddy au is one of the only sugar daddy aus I've ever truly enjoyed. also really like the one where roy has had feelings for dick since their teen titans days but still starts a fwb thing with Jason. poisonivory can make me into kinks I'm not even into I s2g. anyway this one has lian literally dragging roy back into jason's life

finally, Reciprocation (or: Sex as Violence) shouldn't even really count as a jayroy fic but I feel weird putting it in the other category since it is sort of a jayroy fic. it's ace-aro!jason, which is one of my personal favorite interpretations of Jason (with so much textual evidence wtf), but there's still like... a lot of sex in this. Jason does not have a healthy relationship with sex in this fic. I would describe this as ending in a QPP for jayroy and lian.

honestly there's a lot of good jason and roy and lian fic out there I didn't rec cause this is already long enough

so yeah this is my very VERY pared down fic rec list for Jason Todd let me know if you want more and thank you so much for asking

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

Insinuation 2.8 Live Reactions

(This is me, writing reactions as I read, because why the fuck not. They're not complete, mature thoughts taken after I sit back and evaluate what I've read. Consider them as such)

“Call off your dogs!” Brian shouted. The largest of the dogs, an ugly Rottweiler or a mutt with strong Rottweiler blood, seized my wrist in its jaws.  My knees almost buckled in response to the pain, which only worsened when it abruptly snapped its head to one side and wrenched my arm.  I fell, and in a heartbeat, the other two dogs – a German Shepherd and a hairless terrier with a missing ear and eye – were on me.

If all the fanfic is correct, the one missing an Eye is Angelica, IIRC? And one of the others is named Brutus.

While those two were at it, the Rottweiler still had my wrist in its teeth, and it began pulling, as though it wanted to drag me somewhere.  I grit my teeth at the pain and tried to think something I could do that would amount to more than curling up into a fetal position to protect my arms, legs and face.

I would not be handling this as well as Taylor. No matter how desperate I was for friends/belonging, or however much I wanted to join a villain team undercover, etc, I definitely, definitely would run at the first sight of Rachel and her dogs.

Fuck dogs. All my homies hate dogs. (And yet, dogs refuse to understand that don't fucking leave me alone)

The girl had blood running from both of her nostrils.  I recognized her from the picture I had seen on her wiki page.  Rachel Lindt.  Hellhound.  Bitch. “I fucking hate it,” Brian growled at the girl, putting emphasis on the swear, “When you make me do that.”

Okay, so that is not what is going on here, but I admit, the first thought I had when I read this is when a husband hits his wife and goes 'look what you made me do'.

Again, I get that's not what's happening here, but that is where my brain went.

She wasn’t attractive.  An unkind person might call her butch, and I wasn’t feeling particularly kindly towards her. 

Why is calling someone butch unkind, Taylor?

Also, like, why is that the first thing (the attractiveness or lackthereof) of a woman? Back when I thought I was a straight guy (i.e. before coming out as a trans woman) my first thought on looking at a guy was not whether or not they were attractive.

I mean, there's a reason why people think Taylor is closeted. And to be fair, she's 15 right now, and what, 18 at most by the end of the story? It's not unreasonable for people to come out to themselves even later than that.

Reminds me of a fic I read yesterday, where a time travelling Amy and Taylor from another timeline end up in Canon-verse (and the older Amy and Taylor are married) and Lisa says: "We can either keep talking about your future self and her wife. Or we can start talking about your own sexuality Miss 'This-Closet-is-Nice-and-Warm.'"

(The Fic in question, Boom, is very entertaining, very nuts, and very not updated in the last four years)

Most of her features looked like they would have been better fit on a guy rather than a girl.  She had a square face, thick eyebrows, and a nose that had been broken more than once – maybe broken again just a moment ago, given the blood trickling from her nostrils.  Even as far as her physical build went, she was solidly built without being fat.  The trunk of her body alone was bigger around than mine was with my arms down at my sides, just by virtue of having a thicker, broader torso and having more meat on her bones.  She was wearing boots, black jeans with tears all over them, and a green army jacket over a gray hooded sweatshirt.  Her auburn hair was cut shortish.

A hazard of first person narration, I suppose.

She didn’t reply.  Instead, she licked her upper lip clean of blood and smiled.  It was a mean, smug sneer of a smile.  Even though she was the one lying on the ground with a bloody nose, she somehow had it in her head that she’d beat me.  Or something.

Rachel's really not making a good first impression on Taylor, or the readers. She doesn't seem to feature as much as Lisa or even Brian and Alec, in the fics I've read, so I don't really have strong fanfic-induced opinions about them (also don't really about Brian or Alec, save that Alec does get all the funny sarcastic lines)

Then, like I had done so many times over the past few days and weeks, I searched for a reason to justify why I was backing down.  It was almost reflexive.  When the bullies got on my case, I always had to take a moment to collect myself and tell myself why I couldn’t or shouldn’t retaliate.

Yeah, instincts hard won are hard to break.

For a few moments, I felt adrift.  Around the same time that I realized I couldn’t find a reason to back off, I realized I had already wrenched free of Lisa and Alec’s support and crossed half of the room at a run.  I reached for my bugs and realized I’d been using my power without thinking about it.  They were already gathering at the stairs and by the windows.  All it took was a thought, and they started flowing into the room in greater numbers.  Cockroaches, earwigs, spiders and flies.  Not as many as I might have liked, I hadn’t been using my power for long enough to gather those from further around the neighborhood, but it was enough to count. Bitch saw me approaching and raised her fingers to her mouth, but I didn’t give her a chance to signal her animals.  I kicked for her face like I might kick a soccer ball, and she aborted the whistle to cover her head with her arms.  My foot bounced off of one of her arms and her entire body recoiled as she flinched.

AYYYY! Taylor!

<Insert the 'you know what that is? Growth' Gif>

Bitch and Brian started speaking at the same time, but Brian stopped when she started coughing.  As her coughing fit subsided, Bitch looked up at me and snarled, “If I ordered them to kill you, Brutus would have torn out your throat before you could scream.  I gave them the hurt command.”

That doesn't help, Rachel. You get that, right?

(She does not, I know, get that)

Sensory deprivation.  When those two words came to my mind, I felt myself relax some.  Brian’s power mucked with your senses… Sight, hearing, touch.  I wasn’t limited to those three.  Reached out with my power, I identified where all of the bugs in the loft and the factory below were.  Using them to ground myself like a sailor might use the constellations, I figured out where the stairs should be and found the railing.  The hands hadn’t grabbed for me again, so I hurried down, down the stairs and out of the oppressive darkness.

Once again, powers are Bullshit, and Taylor's especially so. :p

“I became a-” I almost said superhero, “cape to get away from that shit, from assholes like Bitch.”  There was also the fact that Tattletale spooked me, but I couldn’t say that out loud.

To be fair, Rachel isn't actually like the Trio, but Taylor doesn't know that yet.

“Fine,” I sighed, “But just so you know, I’m only coming back because she doesn’t want me to.  I quit, she wins, and I’m not fucking having that.”

More growth from Taylor. Here, she can fight, and here, with people she isn't so used to not fighting. Plus, they're villains and also Capes, so she probably doesn't feel as many issues are there stopping her from just fighting back with her powers.

[amethystina]

Thank you so much for everything you do for The Devil Judge fandom, you've really managed to give us accurate character fanfics and analyses! I hope you manage to take care of yourself to recover well.

I was just wondering what you think Yo Han would feel and how he would internally react to finding out about Ga On's bombing attempt before rescuing him. Because we see what he shows Ga On, but that often doesn't show how he feels, especially after immediately finding out about it.

I'm happy to be of service! :D

Though, admittedly, I'm still a little disoriented by everyone's faith in my analyses and characterisation. Like, I've always had a knack for it, ever since I wrote my first fanfic over ten years ago (that whole "I can literally hear them say this, and see them move in my head" has been there since the beginning) but it somehow seems to have intensified with The Devil Judge? x'D

Which obviously isn't a bad thing by any means! It's just a little disorienting because I'm not used to being given this kind of... authority, almost? I don't feel nearly qualified enough.

But that could definitely be the imposter syndrome talking.

Anyway! To your question!

YES. I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS TOO.

Or, rather, I've been wondering how that whole thing went down. As in, what's the timeline here? Because that is the most important question, because it also changes the answer to your question.

And it starts with: How much did Lawyer Ko know? We don't actually hear what Ga On tells him about his plan, so did Lawyer Ko know what the bomb was actually for? Or was the plan not quite as drastic when Ga On first told Lawyer Ko about it, because Yo Han hadn't "died" at that point? And it was only once Yo Han was gone that Ga On changed his mind and decided to blow himself up, too, without telling Lawyer Ko about it?

Because, quite frankly, I have a hard time believing that Lawyer Ko wouldn't tell Yo Han about Ga On's plans to kill himself if he knew about them. And sure, Yo Han is a bit of a drama queen, but I don't think he would have waited to approach Ga On until literally the last couple of seconds if he'd known that there was a risk that Ga On might die.

Especially since Yo Han had hours between when he was declared dead and the final trial, which took place the day after he was smuggled out of jail. He had plenty of time to find Ga On and I can't see why he wouldn't, if he thought that Ga On was about to kill himself? Again, he's dramatic, but not reckless — especially not when it comes to the lives of those he cares about. What if he'd been too late?

Even more so since Yo Han had his own plans that were about to take place in that very same building. Which would have been completely derailed if Ga On had had time to detonate his bomb. And Yo Han simply wouldn't risk the culmination of his ten-year-long revenge plan for the drama. Not a chance.

And, finally, had he shown up literally three seconds later than he did, he would most likely have died in that blast, too. And, sure, Yo Han may seem careless about his own safety, but every risk he takes is very calculated. And he definitely didn't plan to die that day — he wouldn't do that to Elijah.

He wouldn't make such a gamble — risk leaving Elijah all alone in the world — just to make his Lazarus moment as dramatic as possible.

Not with only three seconds to spare.

So the only logical conclusion, in my opinion, is that Yo Han found out literally minutes before it was about to go down. Probably because Lawyer Ko goes: "Oh right, I forgot to mention because we've been so busy, but Kim Ga On has a bomb and I think he plans to blow up Min Jung Ho today. Maybe we should stop him?" Without realising the severity of the situation — since he doesn't know about Ga On's martyr and suicidal tendencies. Because, again, if Lawyer Ko had known about Ga On's plans, I feel like he would have mentioned it to Yo Han sooner? Because that's some pretty damn pertinent information right there. At which point Yo Han would have approached Ga On (clandestinely, of course) and talked him out of it.

Or, well, just showed up, in all honesty. I think that would have been enough to convince Ga On not to kill himself, since his decision was no doubt heavily influenced by his feelings of guilt and grief.

As for Yo Han's reaction?

WELL.

If it plays out like I've speculated here, that he and Lawyer Ko are getting ready for that last trial when Lawyer Ko mentions the bomb? And Yo Han maybe just nods along at first — kind of annoyed because this clashes with his own plans — until he remembers who they're talking about? And how reckless Ga On is? And that Ga On is under the impression that Yo Han is dead, too, so shortly after Ga On lost Soo Hyun?

Imagine the moment when Yo Han connects the dots and realises that Min Jung Ho is probably not the only person Ga On plans for to die in that explosion.

Panic is a rather apt description, I'd say.

That kind where the entire world grinds to a halt for a couple of seconds and your chest just squeezes from fear and denial.

Not a lot of it would show outwardly, of course, but internally? Yo Han would be panicking. Because unless Ga On gave Lawyer Ko an exact time — which I don't think he did — it could be happening right then, at that very moment. And he's not wrong because it probably is. But Yo Han doesn't know that, of course, and has no idea how much time he has to try and stop Ga On.

He doesn't know if he'll make it in time.

And that just makes it so, so much worse than if he'd found out earlier. Because, all of a sudden, it's a literal case of life and death, with several variables Yo Han isn't aware of and doesn't have the time to try and figure out, either.

Ga On might die.

Fortunately, Yo Han is so good at compartmentalizing that he'd probably only feel a couple of seconds of panic before he's able to shove it down and go into razor-sharp, problem-solving mode instead. Especially since Ga On's life is suddenly in danger so, clearly, there's no time to panic. It is time to act.

And even as Yo Han proceeds to do just that, I think his mind would be spinning in the background, berating himself for not considering this possibility. Because that's his thing. He's supposed to be able to predict the moves of everyone on the board. He's supposed to be several steps ahead of everyone. And he is — at least when it comes to his main goal with the chaebols. But, once again, he didn't account for Ga On. He forgot to consider what righteous and tender-hearted Ga On would do when caught up in all this guilt and grief.

He didn't think.

Yo Han has a blind spot — or a weakness, if you will — and its name is Kim Ga On.

And Yo Han would be so angry with himself for not realising this sooner. Like, if he'd only just thought about it, he could have reached this conclusion long ago — that Ga On might do something stupid now that he thinks that both Yo Han and Soo Hyun are dead, and Professor Min betrayed him — but he didn't. He was too caught up in his revenge.

(Which is a beautiful rabbit hole one can go down, if one desires. Like imagine the pain Yo Han would feel when he realises that his obsession with revenge almost cost him his new family. It turned out okay in the end, of course, but he was so close to losing it.)

But he'd show Ga On none of that, of course, when he arrives to rescue him. Because Yo Han is a showman — with perfect and masterfully executed plans — and he can't let Ga On know that there were a couple of minutes just now where Yo Han wasn't sure if he'd get there in time to stop Ga On. When he wasn't in control.

But I can imagine that's definitely something Yo Han will have nightmares about later.

... which he also doesn't tell Ga On about, naturally.

But, all of that said, I also think that Yo Han would sort of... brush it aside after that? In that way he does with things that are traumatic? Like, he wouldn't really look any deeper into it or try to ask Ga On if he's feeling less suicidal after the whole ordeal. Because he knows he's not really equipped to deal with the answer, whatever it may be.

So he'd just be grateful that he got there in time and try to put it behind himself in one of those "well, it worked out in the end so, clearly, there's no need to agonise over it" sort of deals. Which is by no means healthy, but that's Yo Han for you.

So yeah! That's what I think! :D

There is obviously some guesswork involved since, again, I can't say for sure exactly what happened in what order. But I truly can't picture both Lawyer Ko and Yo Han just shrugging off Ga On declaring that he's going to kill himself and then allowing him to get as close to it as he does. Honestly, I refuse.

Thank you so much for asking! And thank you so much for the well-wishes too 💜

[cringecompanionapologist]

Two Ideas That Would Make Good Fanfics If I Could Think of More Than the Basic Premise

I've already done a "what happened to Jamie about season 6b" fic, but I had another idea, one that's a bit more gen/ambiguous.

The Doctor knows that the Time Lords will erase Jamie's memories again when they're done with him and doesn't want that to happen. So, he decides to hide Jamie somewhere, so even if they can't be together, Jamie can still keep his memories and be himself.

The Doctor also knows that he's going to be exiled to the 20th century, to a time and place where he has a lot of friends. Victoria is in the 20th century. She's probably the only person Jamie would willingly leave the Doctor for, so he sends him off to live with her. Jamie knows about regeneration, so if the Doctor wants to check in on him later, he'll be recognized. So, Jamie is safe and the Doctor can still see him.

But, the Time Lords wipe the Doctor's memory of season 6b, so the Third Doctor doesn't know that Jamie is in the 20th century. So, he never visits like he said he would...

Until after The Two Doctors. Six regains some of his memories of season 6b, remembers where Jamie is, and that Jamie has met him as Six. Six and Peri go to visit Jamie and Victoria in a point in the timeline where it hasn't been too long since Jamie last saw Two. Maybe they all celebrate Christmas together or something like that.

When Six loses Peri, he visits Jamie, who knew Peri and had had his own troubles with the Time Lords, so he understands.

2. An AU of Time in Office. Time in Office takes place in this weird period at the end of Frontios where the Doctor and Tegan take a few extra trips in the TARDIS on the way back to where Turlough is in the far future. The TARDIS is being a bit uncooperative as it often is. (My headcanon is that it was just rebuilt by Tractators and is trying to rid itself of "Tractator vibes" or something so that Turlough won't be tormented just by being in the TARDIS. Because the TARDIS loves Five's companions)

Anyway, in Time in Office, the Time Lords catch the Doctor and Tegan and take them back to Gallifrey so the Doctor can be president. They plan to mindwipe Tegan and send her back home, but Leela intervenes and has her made an ambassador of Earth so she can stay.

I assume that the reason Turlough isn't in this story is probably scheduling issues, but it would also be a bit difficult to keep him on Gallifrey here. He's an exile and hasn't even mentioned the name of his homeworld to the Doctor, so they can't make him an ambassador of Trion. The Time Lords have actually had contact with Trion before. They'd find out. But, as much as no companion wants to be mindwiped, Turlough would put up more of a fight than normal. The Time Lords don't just send the Doctor's companions home after mindwiping them. They send them back to where they first met the Doctor. In Turlough's case, that would be Brendon. And he'd rather die than go back there. And this is just after Frontios, so Turlough's already not doing so well mentally. He'd probably snap.

So, how do we keep Turlough on Gallifrey? Well, one of the things Leela suggested to keep Tegan on Gallifrey was marrying a Gallifreyan and becoming a citizen by marriage, which is basically what Leela did. The Doctor does not approve of this idea in Tegan's case, but it might be the only way to keep Turlough on Gallifrey/sane/alive. The Doctor is the only Gallifreyan Turlough really knows. It would probably be a PR nightmare if the Lord President married an alien, but basically Turlough has to marry the Doctor to avoid getting sent back to Brendon and hilarity ensues.

[katierosefun]

Hello!

I’m rewatching BE (again) and I’m curious what you think of the timeline of jwds. Some people are like oh yeah they def did stuff/something after [insert arrest/clue/chase scene/homoerotic moment] and stuff like that. I personally think that while there was a lot of sexual tension going on, nothing really happened until the ds arrest scene which was basically a confession. If I had to add anything to what happened in that scene I would say the “missing” part is that I think ds stopped jw from full on confessing bc ds knew he was going to jail. He didn’t want anything to happen bc it would leave jw tied to him but also not really tied to him and he didn’t want jw to wait for him or feel trapped. Jw has had no one in his life to count on and be cared for by. Letting jw create that link between them only to be whisked off to prison two seconds later would exacerbate his abandonment issues. Homeboy literally cried over ds’s hands he would not have handled an acknowledgment of anything beyond “juwoon-a” well. Also I fully believe that jw did not visit him in prison and ds wouldn’t have allowed him to if he’d gone.

But yeah anyways those are my very messy thoughts lol. What do you think about the timeline? Do you think anything happened that wasn’t shown in the show and/or how things went at the end and after Nam Sang Bae’s death anniversary (I also think that was the first time they’d seen each other since ds got out of prison)?

Thanks!

hi anon!

to answer your questions: i honestly think part of my love for beyond evil is that there are some pretty ambiguous moments where it seems like dong sik and joo won hung around each other more than was seen on screen, so i personally love playing with whatever might have happened between them during that time.

that said, from a more technical perspective: i think the beauty of a lot of television shows (not just beyond evil, but especially beyond evil) is that there's always going to be an ambiguity of what happens where and what's shown on screen or not. i think true film theory professors/geeks could ramble for hours about the power of the camera in storytelling and how it completely changes the medium of what we know vs. what we don't. which is really all to say that i think since it's a show that has a camera that turns on and then turns off, beyond evil inherently is going to have scenes that probably happened but just aren't actually shown to the audience.

so just by default, i think there must have always been things happening between dong sik and joo won that just didn't happen in the show, and that's just by virtue that this is a television series that's made deliciously more ambiguous by director shim na yeon and writer kim su jin's creative choices.

but from a fan's perspective: oh yeah, i think dong sik and joo won absolutely had some closer will they-won't they moments that we didn't get on screen. not necessarily because the cast and creators cut them, but just talking about the characters themselves here--i like to think that joo won and dong sik had plenty tenser moments of just. figuring out whatever the hell is going on with their relationship.

and as a fan/fanfic writer, i definitely love playing with what could have happened in those kinds of moments. in some versions, i like the idea of one of the two of them crossing a line somewhere . . . and in other versions, i like the idea of the two of them telling themselves that what they have is enough, and neither of them will do a single thing about it until maybe a year or ten years after the events of beyond evil. but who knows! the world is our oyster when it comes to things like that. it's just always nice to see when people have different interpretations and different ideas of how joo won and dong sik might have finally gotten together :)

[leah3477sblog]

hi😊 I saw your comment on this post https://www.tumblr.com/skepticalarrie/749285800275001344/hi-allie-i-hope-your-well-we-havent-heard-from?source=share

And I wanted to ask you. How would you answer this ask? Since you have lived it. Everywhere I go I see people doubting larry only sleeping with each other because it's 'unrealistic' and because 'they are sex obsessed and in the music industry'. Their songs also allude to stuff like that, but Idk anymore. What is your opinion on all this?

I’m afraid I won’t be able to answer it either.

First of all I’m a new-ish larrie. I discovered them only 2 years ago, via fanfic, reading something from an author I loved in another fandom.

So I don’t know them and their history very well cause I wasn’t there during the 1D days and the first years, I only saw videos and timelines.

But even if I had been here during those days where they seemed a bit more free than later, I think we need to remember we only see a small part of who they are. And it’s true for every relationship you wonder about, but probably even more with this level of celebrity.

This said, I can share some thoughts of what I know, about me and my relationship, that may apply to them.

Yes, it is possible to sleep only with 1 person. That’s what I did and still do, and it doesn’t bother me, I don’t ressent my husband about that. Because I chose it. Even though it might have been hard in the beginning (we started as a long distance - 550km - relationship, only seeing each other every fortnight).

And, it might be an unpopular opinion, but maybe all that they went through (closeting, fighting against Syco, …) might have made them stronger together. Because they had each other and a “common enemy”.

If they had been allowed to be together, Syco would probably have used it as PR (I mean, I would have found it really cute 2 boybanders in love) but then, their relationship wouldn’t have been theirs only, every little step or bump would have been overshared and it couldn’t have remained their safe haven.

So maybe what happened, as horrendous as it was, was for the better in the long term for their relationship, and l chose to believe they’re still together and faithful to each other (in their own terms, which might include sleeping with other persons when they’re far from each other if that’s what they choose se and are comfortable with, faithfulness being about feelings and not bodies for them)

@skepticalarrie thought i would share this answer since the ask was yours first.

[daz4i]

ok spoilers for chapter 88 and onwards ahead for the 2 followers i have who avoid bsd manga spoilers!!!!!!!

stop reading here I'm warning you

ok so. I've seen ppl discuss whether or not akutagawa will survive post vampire apocalypse thing. and i wanna offer my 2 cents

while i do agree with the people saying his death scene was kinda perfect and super satisfying, i think that's only true when you look at it in a vacuum rather than in the context of the whole story, and mainly his 6 months deal with atsushi. and this is why i think there's no way he will perma die before this showdown happens, or at least when we get close to it in the timeline (which I'm p sure we aren't, it's been maybe 2 months at most since they made that deal i think, and that's me being generous with my calculations)

giving that exact time frame of 6 months is too specific to not have a proper payoff. akutagawa can't die yet (like. if it was some vague promise to last as long as it takes for atsushi to become stronger or smth, this would've worked. but the number has to be important. otherwise it wouldn't have been so explicitly stated and iirc even repeated later on)

so this is established. now I'm gonna get into fanfic territory bc this is what I'm thinking about instead of sleeping

i think being unvampirized - either by bram or dazai or however this'll go down - won't just make him his normal, alive self. tho, this last chapter confirmed the vampires can self heal, so maybe this is how it'll go, but i want the angst of it not counting bc it's also part of the ability or w/e, so if the ability cancels out then so will all of its effects. bc i said so. and this is the only way my idea can work.

so anyway now we've got this more corpse-like than usual akutagawa on hand. and atsushi is freaking out. i wanna say everyone has grouped back up together, ada and mafia even maybe, so they all see him freaking out, too.

some of them are confused - weren't you two enemies? yes, you worked well together, but was your bond really that deep...? - is what they think. some of them get it, tho.

in his panic, atsushi locates yosano, practically begging her to heal akutagawa, he's not dead yet, but he's very close to that, and she can help

there's this moral dilemma for the ada, remembering how some of them were directly hurt and injured by akutagawa, and how the mafia is still very much their enemy, and yosano is also having these thoughts. fukuzawa is still missing and can't deliver the final decision on the matter

but atsushi seems so distressed, over this man who tried to kill him so many times. he is mumbling about how akutagawa hasn't killed in awhile, how he tried his best not to hurt anyone, how he's atsushi's partner now.

if atsushi wants him to live, how can the ada say no? and so, yosano uses her ability to save him. the first thing he sees once he's fully conscious, is atsushi's face above his, tears in his eyes

and. this is all i have for you. they reunite - properly - and it's very sappy. love wins.

[ghostsofruefell]

Hello, followers of this account and the others I will reblog this too. I'm just gonna kinda ramble here, but I also have some important info re: when Ruefell will be completed (and Burwick)

I'm sure people have noticed I have a habit of starting projects and never getting anywhere with them:

Honey and Fire, that was my first try at IF and I was a teenager and had no idea what I was doing and it's just no longer a viable project, so that's cancelled for real.

Burwick Destination, I was still inexperienced and young, so my planning is total garbage and needs to be completely rebuilt from the ground up, perhaps the story will change a good deal when I get around to that. But I'm not ready to do that and I won't be for a while. I'm ashamed of how long it's been on hiatus, so I need to take this time to clear my plate and just not look at it for a while, that way it won't go the way of HoF and take a toll on my mental health.

Magic of Ruefell, my planning is much better and I'm still confident in this one. But it's a big project. Which brings me to my newest project.

The Book of Broken Candles. @bookofbrokencandles This one is my new and primary focus. I feel prepared to see this one to completion.

See... I have problems lol. I'm just gonna level with you guys. I struggle really, really badly with executive dysfunction and some symptoms that lead me to certain labels I can't get diagnosed, but are symptoms that frequently strangle my creative efforts. I was in a much worse place when I started those first three projects (and my not-so-secret other one on my main) so they also got this treatment as I fell into yet another pit that prevented me from working. But I feel like I'm in a better place now. It's not perfect and I'm still slower than hell at writing, but I'm also still writing. Consistently, at that, which is something that hasn't happened for me since my fanfic days in my teens. That's a good sign, to me.

I'm worried about what will happen as we get into December, because I already hate how early the sun sets where I live and I don't do well with seasonal depression. But I won't be too hard on myself, whatever happens, and I hope that will be enough to get me through this season without a great deal of pain to my writing.

But that's neither here nor there right now. I wanted to clear state what's going on in my head right now regarding my projects:

Truth be told, Burwick and Ruefell are too much right now. Burwick moreso, but that's for multiple reasons. I've already said it, but I need to return to it at a much later date and pick up the pieces of my teenage mess.

Ruefell, it's in a way better state, but it is... a big bite to chew right now, in terms of being my first completed IF. So I don't think it can be my first completed IF. Its cast and number of variables are on the large side and I don't want to burn out on it. There's also more promise in the plot that I'd really like to have the experience needed to deliver on.

Candles is... getting a bit on the big side haha. It's seeming larger than I expected when I first conceived of it. But I'm keeping it in a much tighter scope. Its focus is much narrower, I'm more confident in the decisions I'm making to keep the number of variables under control (aka not being too much of a people-pleaser) and I have a set limit on the number of chapters it will have, so I can see the timeline a lot clearer. What this means is basically just that Candles will take a little longer to complete than I initially thought, but it won't be harder to complete.

So here's the timeline: Candles completed -> Ruefell completed -> Circle back around to Burwick and complete that.

Then I'll see what ideas I've shelved in that time. I have some I've been kicking around for a long time, and one that may very well end up being my magnum opus when I get to it. And I think my dream is to one day write a VN. I have an idea, but it is also massive, so maybe I'll manage to make that dream come true with a smaller project before that one.

I think that's all I have to say right now... Thank you, everyone, who's been patient with me all this time. If you still enjoy my work, please follow me over at @bookofbrokencandles and send me asks and stuff, I need engagement to survive or I feel like I'm screaming into a void that won't echo.

Ok, bye.