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thatsonemorbidcorvid · 5 months

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“Every year, about 25,000 (UK) women who give birth — approximately 4 per cent — are so distressed that they meet the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. That makes birth one of the biggest causes of PTSD in the UK according to the Birth Trauma Association charity – probably coming second only to sexual abuse and rape. Hundreds of thousands more women are traumatised. This is a major health crisis. And yet it is barely discussed…

According to figures from NHS Resolution, the arm of the Department of Health and Social Care that handles litigation, 62 per cent of the total clinical negligence cost of harm in 2022-23 (£6.6 billion) related to maternity.”

When my husband and I left for hospital on a Friday afternoon, we had no idea what would happen. The next few hours would change my life. For good and bad. It had all started with a cervical sweep the day before. I was 40 weeks and 4 days pregnant and, frankly, I’d had enough. My pregnancy had been uncomplicated in terms of my baby — she was healthy throughout, albeit had spent much of her time in the back-to-back position. But I had found the nine months increasingly difficult. From around 20 weeks I’d suffered from pelvic girdle pain, which, for me, meant increasingly agonising pain in my lower back. Walking and other everyday movements became difficult. The only place I felt vaguely comfortable was in water. Swimming was a relief.

Women are offered a sweep to help induce labour. A midwife inserts their finger and sweeps around your cervix. It’s about as basic as you can get. They’re trying to separate the membranes of the amniotic sac that surround the baby from your cervix. This then releases hormones, which may help start your labour. “Some women find the procedure uncomfortable or painful,” NHS guidelines say. I found it excruciating.

“Oh,” the midwife said, as I lay in a rather compromised position. “I might have broken your waters.” This didn’t make sense to me. I’d always assumed that when my waters broke, I’d know about it. Apparently not always, and I was instructed to call the hospital if contractions hadn’t begun within 24 hours as I was now potentially at risk of infection.

They didn’t start. And I did what I’d been asked. The voice on the phone was chirpy — everything sounded fine, stay at home, we’ll be seeing you soon enough. Half an hour later, my phone rang. “Where are you? You’re meant to be at the hospital,” the woman said angrily. I needed to come in immediately to be examined.

It was late Friday afternoon and it was busy. We took the last of the beds in maternity triage. And my waters broke in earnest. That solved the mystery, I suggested. No, I was told, and the water birth I’d hoped for was out of the question — too risky.

Strong and regular contractions started immediately. We were moved to a glorified cupboard that had been turned into a makeshift holding room. I was denied any pain relief because it was “too early”, and told that someone would bring me some paracetamol when they came to “examine” me.

It seems obvious when you think about it, but I had never been told what being “examined” meant. Nor thought about it. It sounds medical. But it’s literally a midwife sticking their fingers inside you. I was 3cm dilated. Plenty of time to go, apparently. It was 9.30pm. I felt sick and in enormous pain. Both were dismissed — until I vomited everywhere. And lost control of my bowels. This would happen several more times over the coming hours. I felt utterly ashamed. Again, it’s common — but I hadn’t been told.

I continued to ask for pain relief and continued to receive none. An hour later, I was 7cm dilated — in full labour — and finally received some paracetamol. There was no space on the labour ward. In just another half an hour, I was fully dilated and ready for the baby to come out. No one seemed to know what to do. The midwives were panicking. And that made me scared. This was my first baby. I didn’t know what to expect. We were rushed to the ward. Already, nothing had gone the way I wanted, or the way it had been talked about at National Childbirth Trust (NCT) classes. Eventually, I was given gas and air to ease the pain. But only for about 20 minutes. Apparently it was “distracting” me too much and I needed to push.

Two hours later there was still no baby and I was in agony. A doctor arrived, took a brief look and said cheerily, “You’re going to be fine. You’re going to get that baby out.” And then he left. My maternity notes state, “PLAN: continue pushing.” I have no idea what this refers to — like so many of my notes. There was no plan. If there was, it wasn’t one I had agreed to. Finally, after another hour the decision was made that the doctor would use a ventouse — a suction cup that sits on your baby’s head — to help deliver my baby. Apparently I consented to this, but I have no recollection of doing so. And I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know what was being asked of me. My doctor didn’t use the word ventouse. He used “Kiwi”, which is a type of ventouse. At the time, I didn’t know what either were.

I remember screaming in pain and then my daughter finally being born. She was placed on my chest for less than a minute. I was examined, told I had a fourth-degree tear that must be repaired and that I needed to sign a consent form for surgery straight away. “Look at the state of her,” my usually mild-mannered husband said. “How can she possibly sign a form?” I couldn’t. The writing on that form is barely legible, but they would not proceed without it.

I had no idea what had happened. I lay in an operating theatre in pain, silent tears rolling down my face. I was frightened. The anaesthetist was amazing and stayed with me while I was repaired. I am so grateful for that, at least. But I also feel guilty about it. It was half past three on a Saturday morning and she was the only anaesthetist on duty at the London hospital. Other women may well not have received the pain relief they needed because of me. “Will I be able to have any more children?” I asked as I stared at the ceiling.

After surgery I was moved to the high dependency unit (HDU) and reunited with my daughter. I finally held and fed her for the first time. That morning is a blur. My notes tell me we stayed in the HDU for five hours before being moved to a ward. It was there that I attempted to understand what had happened to me. I was in pain, barely able to move and soaked in blood. I asked various midwives to explain what had gone on. They repeated that I’d had a fourth-degree tear, but I didn’t know what that meant. One line, in scribbled handwriting, stands out when I look at my notes: “We don’t have any written info about fourth-degree tears.”

Eventually, a midwife appeared with some information they’d printed off after googling it. As I read it, I sobbed. I was 35 years old and thought my life was over; that I would be incontinent. And still no doctor came to explain. The medic who’d delivered my daughter was eventually marched to my bedside more than 48 hours later.

I am perhaps unusual in that I’ve always wanted children. We had done what many middle-class suburban couples did at that time and attended NCT classes. The underlying message of these was: try to avoid a caesarean section at all costs. “Natural” births were best, and even better just to breathe through it. No need for pain relief. I remember in our penultimate class bringing up the subject of tearing during labour. I had seen a TV feature on it that week and it struck me as important. “If most of us are going to tear to some degree, it would be really helpful to talk about that,” I remember saying. “It would be good to know how best to care for ourselves afterwards, that kind of thing.” The answer was no, there was no need. Instead, we proceeded to get on all fours and “moo” like cows and then practise putting nappies on a doll.

Up to nine in ten first-time mothers who have a vaginal birth will experience some sort of tear. The least invasive kind involves only the skin from the vagina and the perineum — the area between a woman’s vagina and anus. These tears usually heal quickly and without any treatment. Second-degree tears involve the muscle of the perineum and require stitches. Third and fourth-degree tears are the most serious. These involve not just tearing of the skin and muscle of the perineum but the muscle of the anus. In fourth-degree tears, the injury can extend into the lining of the bowel. These deeper tears need proper surgical repair under anaesthetic.

I don’t really have any happy memories of the first few days or weeks after we left the hospital. I was completely in love with my baby, but I felt shellshocked. I couldn’t process what had happened and there was no one who offered to help me. A different midwife was sent to our house every couple of days to weigh our daughter. I had no milk the first few days and she had lost a fair bit of weight. Even when my milk came in, I found breastfeeding painful and difficult, in large part because it hurt so much to sit down.

I cried quietly every day for several months. Often it would come completely out of nowhere. I’d be talking or watching television and I would just start to cry. Several midwives wrote in my notes in those early weeks the same phrase: “Mum is anxious.” I don’t think I was. I was traumatised. Several weeks later, I was told that I was “lucky” by the midwife examining my stitches. Apparently the doctors had done a “wonderful” job at repairing me and it looked “beautiful”. I now know that I was fortunate to be repaired properly and immediately after the birth. But the last thing I felt — then or now — was lucky.

After several months I desperately needed to have some control over my life again. I had never felt so helpless, lost and infantilised. But my overarching feeling was anger. I wrote to the chief executive and chair of the hospital to complain and was invited in for a debrief. The head of midwifery was lovely, apologised and followed through on her promise to try to prevent other women facing the appalling lack of communication I had. The hospital now has a specialist perineal health clinic too.

But the attitude of the consultant obstetrician whom I met with my husband floored us both. It was about six months after the birth, but I was still under the care of a consultant urogynaecologist. (I subsequently had two further operations: the first 14 months after giving birth to remove an undissolved stitch that was causing pain but hadn’t been spotted, and another six months after that.) My urogynaecologist had told me not even to consider giving birth vaginally again. The risk was too great, he explained. If I tore again, there was a 30 per cent chance I couldn’t be repaired and I’d be incontinent. The obstetrician said the opposite — don’t rule it out! I saw red. “How dare you,” I growled. I remember saying that he would never be so cavalier about a man’s body.

Every year, about 25,000 women who give birth — approximately 4 per cent — are so distressed that they meet the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. That makes birth one of the biggest causes of PTSD in the UK according to the Birth Trauma Association charity – probably coming second only to sexual abuse and rape. Hundreds of thousands more women are traumatised. This is a major health crisis. And yet it is barely discussed.

“Birth trauma is a broad term, but generally it’s overwhelming distress that leads to a detrimental impact on well-being,” explains Susan Ayers, professor of maternal and child health at City University in London. Estimates “range massively”, she says, but having conducted research into birth trauma for almost 30 years, Ayers puts it at about a third. “If you ask women whether they thought they or their baby was going to die or be severely injured, then it’s around 19-20 [per cent] in the UK. But if people just ask women, ‘Was your birth traumatic?’ some of those estimates are up to 50 per cent.”

“I’M BEATRICE’S MUM,” EMILY SAID, introducing herself to a committee of MPs in March. “Beatrice died during labour at full term in May 2022.” Emily is one of a number of brave women who have shared their traumatic birth stories with the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on birth trauma, during the first parliamentary inquiry into this issue.

“As soon as my labour started,” Emily explained, “I knew it wasn’t right, wasn’t normal.” The details are harrowing: a series of obvious but missed red flags and an attitude from medical professionals that can only be described as cruel. The midwife who shrugged her shoulders when Emily’s waters were meconium-stained; the consultant obstetrician who laughed at the “slimy” feel of that meconium while her hand was still inside Emily.

“The ultrasound scanning machine was brought in and showed that Beatrice’s heartbeat had stopped,” she explained. “At that point I begged, pleaded like I’ve never pleaded for anything in my life for a caesarean, and that consultant obstetrician refused. She said no. And she left.”

“It’s destroyed my life,” Emily says now. “I’m not the person I was before.”

This inquiry has been led by the APPG’s co-chairs, the Conservative MP Theo Clarke and Labour’s Rosie Duffield. They received more than 1,200 written submissions after asking women to share their experiences; that number doubles if you count the letters and emails they’ve been sent informally.

“The thing that’s really struck me is there seems to be a taboo around talking about the risk of childbirth,” Clarke tells me when I sit down with both women in Westminster. There shouldn’t be, she adds. “Something we’ve heard from a number of the mothers coming to speak to us is that there’s such a focus on the baby post-delivery, they almost forget there’s a second patient in the room, and that’s the mother.”

“I was constantly told by GPs that I had nothing wrong with me,” one mother, Sarah, told the MPs. She experienced a major tear that doctors and midwives failed to diagnose. “I was discharged two days later with [an] untreated tear, which very quickly led to enormous amounts of pain, incontinence, faecal incontinence and thinking I was going mad.”

“It’s very painful,” explained Jenny, who also experienced a serious tear that was left untreated, “but the long-term consequences of an unrepaired tear are that I had to give up my job. I’ve suffered PTSD, anxiety, depression. My activities are restricted. My life is impacted in that I have to meticulously plan my day around toilets.”

Another mother, Neera, lost three litres of blood and required more than ten hours of life-saving emergency surgery the day her daughter was born. The haemorrhage had not been picked up by staff. She said she is fortunate to have had the “means and support” to access mental healthcare over four and a half years of her five-year-old’s life. “I have personally spent over £6,000 and received more than 50 hours of mental health support,” she told parliament.

The women who have spoken to politicians as part of the inquiry had different medical experiences. But there were obvious similarities. Their concerns and their pain were dismissed. They were not treated with respect or, in some cases, like human beings. They felt helpless, angry and scared. “Nobody really cares about women,” says Kim Thomas, CEO of the Birth Trauma Association. “What we tend to find with most of these stories is there’s failure after failure after failure. Lots of things go physically wrong… and that continues afterwards in the postnatal period with really poor care.” Almost all women seeking out the charity say their experience was made much worse by the way they were treated during labour. “The number of stories we hear of women being shouted at by midwives or laughed at by midwives is quite extraordinary.”

Birth doesn’t have to be this way. And it isn’t for many women. But women, in England in particular, could — and should — be having better experiences than they are.

Let’s start with serious tears. The number one risk factor is being a first-time mum. There’s nothing much that can be done about that. But the next is having an instrumental vaginal delivery — and in particular one that uses forceps. “Data indicates that we use more forceps than other parts of Europe,” says Dr Ranee Thakar, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG). While rates in several European countries hover at around 0 per cent, a 2023 study of assisted births in 13 high-income countries found England used forceps in a higher proportion of births — about 11 per cent — than any other.

There are cases where forceps must be used. When babies are premature, suction would cause too much damage to the head. But that’s doesn’t explain the discrepancy. “It’s education,” Thakar explains. “We should be trained to do both [forceps and ventouse], so that we provide the best care to women and use the right instrument for the right baby and the right mother.”

The risk of a severe tear when forceps are used is at least twice as high as with ventouse: 8-12 per cent compared with 4 per cent. Women should be told this. The recent parliamentary inquiry heard other suggestions that might explain why forceps use in England is so high. The consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician Dr Nitish Raut explained that when poor outcomes of childbirth become part of litigation, the question, “Why were forceps not applied earlier?” will be asked. Although they can cause injury to mothers, forceps are the most effective instrument for getting a baby out. If a doctor tries and fails to deliver a baby with the less invasive ventouse first, a record will be made at the hospital trust. It was suggested by others that this might also be pushing some doctors straight to forceps use even when they might not be necessary.

“Training is a really key part of everything here,” Posy Bidwell, deputy head of midwifery at South Warwickshire Foundation Trust, told MPs. “If we can train people, we can prevent these injuries happening. Many midwifery students wouldn’t know the impact that these injuries are having on women.”

Newly qualified midwives did not know enough about perineal damage, and yet they’re providing one-to-one care to women. Current training did not seem to see it as a priority: while several aspects of maternity care are mandatory each year, suturing and perineal protection are not.

Neither doctors nor midwives appear to be taught how to routinely examine women after they have given birth either. Where this was once part of mandatory medical training, doctors are no longer encouraged to do it, Raut explained.

England is short of as many as 2,500 midwives, the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) estimates, although people are wanting to train and join the profession. Donna Ockenden, who is reviewing maternity services at Nottingham and who previously did so at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust, cautions against being too optimistic, however. The focus needs to be on retention. “Two midwives don’t equal two midwives,” she told parliament, “of we are losing midwives with 20, 30, 35 years’ experience… and they’re then being replaced by a more junior workforce, who are not being supported in those early days of their career.”

In the past decade and a half, the UK has seen several NHS maternity scandals — in Morecambe Bay, Shrewsbury and Telford, and East Kent. In all these cases, some of the poor care provided to mothers and their babies was because of a push towards “normal” or “natural” birth and a desire to keep caesarean section rates low. The RCM ended its campaign for “normal births” in 2017, but its legacy persists. Some NHS trusts still talk about them today. A culture of cover-ups and a lack of care remains in others. Just last month, the Care Quality Commission found that staff at Great Western Hospital in Swindon had been downgrading third and fourth-degree tears, “which meant they were not investigated as thoroughly as they should” have been. The c-section target was only officially dropped in 2022. Does RCOG now accept that it was a mistake? “It’s difficult for me to say years later whether it was a mistake or not,” Thakar tells me. “I think there was a general trend at the time to put figures to caesarean section rates. But now we know that, we don’t do that.” It was now right that women were offered a choice; she insists she hasn’t seen an attitude against caesareans more recently.

Aside from any physical and psychological impact, traumatic births are costing the country billions. According to figures from NHS Resolution, the arm of the Department of Health and Social Care that handles litigation, 62 per cent of the total clinical negligence cost of harm in 2022-23 (£6.6 billion) related to maternity. Of the £2.6 billion spent on clinical negligence payments that year, £1.1 billion (41 per cent) related to maternity. (As the fact-checking service Full Fact explains, the cost of harm differs from the amount actually paid out in compensation: the former includes an estimate of claims expected in the future arising from incidents in that financial year.) The year before, maternity services accounted for 60 per cent of the total clinical negligence cost of harm (£13.6 billion). NHS England spends about £3 billion a year on maternity and neonatal services.

There is such a long way to go. The government is well behind on its long-term target of halving the rates of stillbirth and neonatal mortality by 2025; the death of mothers within 42 days of the end of pregnancy is at its highest rate in almost 20 years. And while only a handful of trusts have been subject to official investigations, there are signs that poor care is happening across the country. Only half of maternity units in England are rated good or outstanding; one in ten is inadequate. That is a damning indictment of the way so many women are cared for.

One crucial area of improvement does not cost money at all. It requires a shift in attitude to one where women are treated with respect, listened to and allowed to make informed decisions about their bodies and babies.

When I first heard of parliament’s inquiry into birth trauma, it was never my intention to share my experience. Doing so has been upsetting and uncomfortable. But as I sat listening to other women talk about how giving birth had affected them so profoundly, it felt dishonest to stay quiet. Difficult births are not something we should feel ashamed of — much as I know many women will have been, myself included.

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literary-illuminati · 1 month

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2024 Book Review #40 – Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes

This was yet another book that has been on my TBR list for so long I had entirely forgotten what the actual pitch was – I went into it pretty much entirely blind, just ‘sci fi horror’ from the glanced over marketing copy on the back. Which is really the best way to go about reading(/watching/playing) horror, anyway. It was an entertaining enough read? If an uneven one – the first half was really incredibly better than the second, unfortunately.

The story follows Claire Kovalik, the ‘team lead’ of a maintenance crew repairing com relays in the ass end of the solar system – at least until they finish this last run and are officially rendered obsolete. Too psychologically fragile for her corporate masters to trust her with an actual ship, the only future she has to look forward to is a deskbound sinecure revising training manuals on Earth. She’s seriously considering killing herself instead, when their sensors detect an archaic distress signal past the edge of charted space – the Aurora, first and last space liner for the rich and famous, vanished with all hands on its maiden voyage decades ago. The finder’s fee and accumulated bounties would be enough to set everyone on the team for life (not even counting any artifacts they pocket to auction on the side), so the five of them board and reactivate the old hulk, exploring its galleries and aiming it towards Earth. Just a 60 hour burn to reliable communications with the rest of the system, totally worth it for fame and fortune. Even once they start discovering the state of all the former passengers, and figuring out what happened in those last hours aboard the ship.

So! This is Event Horizon but with the Titanic. It’s other things too, but that’s the pitch. Now, I like Event Horizon, and adore exploited corporate serfs being slowly suffocated by looming dread as they explore the gore-stained ruins of past decadence, so that’s no bad thing for me. But still, even from the outset this is not a work that tries to break any molds. This honestly becomes much more of an issue in the third act, when the book basically shifts genre and also has to come up with answers and a resolution to the whole thing and just does not land it for me.

The main twist on the formula is that Claire is the only survivor of a Martian colony that was annihilated by plague (and a missed resupply) when she was a child, the physical and emotional trauma of which left her partially deaf in one ear, terrified of emotional connections and (most pertinently) already possessed of significant experience with hallucinating the bloody corpses of people she cares about wandering around when she’s stressed. Which turns out to be a very useful life skill, when they turn the ship back on and everyone starts having to deal with that. Which is mostly pretty fun! The paranoia and terror as everything goes to shit at the end of the first act are great. Sadly, the book then decides to keep going.

The first half of the book is the story of the initial salvage crew’s discovery of the Aurora, as relayed through Claire getting debriefed/interrogated by a couple of corporate goons after being found half-dead in an escape pod. The latter half is those same corporate goons conscripting her for a return journey to the ship, now guiding three platoons of mercenaries. It’s like if you watched a double-feature of Alien and one of its bad sequels. The book slips from well-executed to paint-by-numbers, and the big reveal is basically the most boring possible answer you could imagine. This is not helped by the book’s action sequences just not being very...good.

Part of that is just the book’s complete lack of faith in its audience, or understanding of subtlety. Several twists are telegraphed so obviously that it’s hard to believe Claire is actually surprised by them, and character beats are just repeated so often you want to grab the author and scream you get it already. Claire’s tragic backstory is repeated something like half a dozen times, and the surprise villain spends half the final confrontation basically giving a monologue about how he’d drown a nursery full of babies if it topped up his 401k.

Villains aside, the supporting cast is mostly fun-if-one-note. Decently executed, but all very much walked out of sci fi central casting. Which more or less works, in that they’re all energetic and mostly fun to have on page. The unfortunate and singular exception is Claire’s love interest, the team medic. Whose...nice? Has a daughter back on Earth? Might as well be a statue carved from literal white bread? You know the cliche about hollywood action movies where the hero’s girlfriend has zero personality or arc and mostly exists to be hot and motivate him by being imperilled? Basically the gender-flip of that.

One thing the book kind of teases but absolutely never really explores or tries to resolve is the fact that in addition to all the hallucinations and madness with (boring, but) mechanistic and materialistic explanations, ghosts might also just be real? There’s several points in the book where Claire sees the body she doesn’t recognize hovering around someone, and when she describes it to them, they know who it is. It’s also a recurring thing that her visions of her dead mom are supposed to be how she even knew how to send out the SOS that got her rescued from the dead colony as a child. You might expect that this would eventually build to something, or be key to the final resolution. You would be incorrect.

So yeah, would have been a very solid horror novella if it just cut the entire second act. As is, I mean I’m not angry I read it, but not sure I’d go out of my way to recommend it either.

#book review #sff #horror #dead silence #S. A. Barnes

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infinitystoner · 1 year

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01. Mishaps

Part One of Box of Rain

AO3 | Loki Masterlist

Summary: After the universe plummets into chaos, you find yourself working alongside a merry band of misfits who’ve made a home for themselves in Tønsberg, Norway. When a harrowing incident occurs, Loki is forced to confront his feelings.

Pairing: Loki x Gender Neutral Reader

Word count: 7.4k

Content: Hurt/Comfort, Slight Angst, Humor, Mutual Pining, Eventual Fluff, Mentions of Depression/Past Trauma, Mentions of Blood, Post-Infinity War, Canon Divergence, Loki Lives, Asgardians of the Galaxy, Second Person POV, Loki POV

*header designed by the talented @tripleyeeet. and shout-out to the incredible @use-your-telescope for being a kick-ass beta.

The view looking out across the fjord was one you’d never tire of. As the sun set, heaven and earth collided, and for a brief moment, you existed within a world made only of skies, framed by towering mountains on either side. It was serene. Mystical. Otherworldly. Seemingly as if you were living on a totally different planet. And, in a way, you were. A changed planet, at least.

You let out a contented sigh as you watched the amber sun sink lower on its path across the sky, its hazy rays glistening on the water. Flashes of gold reflected across the ethereal cerulean inlet, shimmering and rippling with the last light of the day. Broad stripes of coral and lavender wrapped around you like a cozy blanket as the sun dipped slowly behind a jagged peak, kissing the distant horizon. Time slowed down, and all you felt was stillness and peace.

You almost forgot about the harsh reality of the near-dystopian state of the world. Almost. Moments like these were always as fleeting as they were unforgettable.

You inhaled, relishing the way the fresh, crisp air left a dash of salt on your lips. Your eyesight adjusted as you turned around, taking in a new view that was less than desirable. A small, plump codfish floundered at your feet, its spotted scales catching the last rays of receding daylight.

“Sustainably caught and everything,” a proud voice rang out from below. You glanced down at your furry companion and winced.

“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I asked for your assistance, Rocket,” you sighed, wrangling the poor fish into your grasp before tossing it into the waters along the jetty. The raccoon scrunched his wet face in dismay as the tail fin disappeared with a glug beneath the placid inlet.

“What the– That was gonna be dinner,” he growled, kicking at one of the jetty rocks in mock protest.

You had grown quite accustomed to the dramatics of your new friends and simply rolled your eyes as you removed your gloves, wiping your hands against the rough cotton fabric of your coveralls.

“Spare me. We’re supposed to be monitoring and mapping movements. Not doing meal prep,” you said as you climbed up onto the harbor, only pausing to retrieve your tablet off the low stone wall of the dock. “And now I’m late for a meeting.”

“How exactly is that my fault? If you hadn’t been daydreaming, sunshine…”

“You smell terrible, by the way,” you called over your shoulder, hurrying up the stone steps toward town.

“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly smellin’ like a rose yourself!” you heard Rocket call out as you turned the corner.

Despite New Asgard’s remote location, it was a bustling place. The people of Tønsberg had accepted the Aesir with open arms, and you’d witnessed firsthand how the Asgardians’ unique culture and traditions had seamlessly blended with the local Norwegian way of life.

And you were lucky to be here.

The immediate aftermath of losing half of the Earth’s population had been devastating. Three years later, the planet – the universe – was still responding to the aftermath of mass extinction.

It had been a haunting phenomenon, the collective grief of half a world wondering if those who had disappeared would ever return. You had to believe, in some way, that they would. That you’d finally obtain a resolution. But losing your entire family in the blink of an eye was still something you were coming to terms with.

Most days, it seemed there was no closure to be had. By anyone.

The assembled trauma and utter shock had gotten you through the most chaotic times. And yet, you had never been more alone in your sorrow. Everyone you loved – everyone who loved you – vanished in an instant. Your grief had eventually led you here, to Norway, to your great aunt’s abandoned cottage. You never imagined it would also lead you to a new family of sorts.

You knew that Valkyrie had led the surviving Aesir to Earth, that Thor and Loki had fought against the invaders in Wakanda, ultimately failing to stop what Rocket called the ‘Snap.’ You also knew Thor had gone on to kill the madman who inflicted his cruel interpretation of order on the entire universe. The same tyrant who had tortured Nebula. Who had tortured Loki.

And while they all bore witness to his demise, none derived satisfaction.

Still, you didn’t know the whole story and had long accepted you never would. Rocket, while he loved to yammer on about all sorts of things, never actually gave you any information you couldn’t easily seek out online. And none of the others ever spoke of it. It was as if they had chosen to exist outside of reality, weary and burdened by their experiences. Their silence was like a heavy cloak that draped over them, concealing the past and shielding you from the horrors that resided within their minds.

Nonetheless, you cherished your otherworldly friends, grateful for the moments of joy and camaraderie that you shared in the midst of persistent responsibilities. Which, for you, meant working under the guidance of Asgardian leadership, developing ethical frameworks that promoted sustainable interactions between the citizens of New Asgard and the natural world. It was a far cry from your previous profession, but one that gave you a renewed sense of purpose amidst the lingering mayhem.

You hurried along the cobbled walkway, popping in your headphones as you bypassed New Asgard’s central square, where a statue of Odin stood tall and imposing, watching over his people. Veering off the main path, you opted to take the shortcut over the hillside while there was still enough light left to guide you.

As you walked up the trail that wound through a thicket of trees, you pulled your tablet from your bag to email your daily report to Valkyrie. Lost in thought, you didn’t notice the figure approaching from the opposite direction until it was too late.

With a jolt, you crashed back to reality as you collided with someone along the narrow path, the device falling from your grip.

“Oof,” a deep voice resounded from above you. You snatched out one of your earbuds, your other hand searching for purchase against a broad chest.

“L-Loki,” you stammered as you looked up at his stoic face, framed by his perfectly groomed curls that obediently rested atop his broad shoulders. How he always managed to look so impeccably regal despite the blistering cliffside winds was a mystery you were too eager to solve.

“Hello.” The resounding timbre sent a shiver down your spine as your fingers absentmindedly lingered on the soft wool of his dark pea coat. Loki looked down his nose at you, his eyes flitting from your fingertips to your face. Then he frowned.

He was not a fan of his personal space being invaded and you knew this. However, there had been a few moments between the two of you when he almost seemed to welcome your touch. Your mind flitted back to the time your fingertips grazed his while sitting together at a council meeting. You recalled the way your shoulders often touched as you walked side-by-side along the docks, and how he never removed your hand from the crook of his elbow as you navigated through the crowds on village market days.

And then there had been the time you’d excitedly hugged him after successfully tagging your first Norwegian cod, and you swore he hugged you back. You thought about the hug a lot. Too often, perhaps. It was all strictly platonic, of course.

You felt Loki’s cool fingers wrap around yours, and you hurriedly took a step back, snatching your hand away.

“I am so sorry,” you said as you shoved your headphones into your coat pocket. Your already wind-chapped face grew even more heated under his puckish gaze. “I was– ”

“Preoccupied?” Loki mused, his eyes crinkling with mirth. The playfulness in his tone calmed your nerves a bit.

“Mmm. I’ve been down at the docks all afternoon.” You forced out a laugh in a poor attempt at regaining some semblance of composure as Loki squatted down to retrieve the forgotten datapad at your feet.

“Thank you,” you murmured as he handed it back to you. “Again, sorry for that less-than-graceful display.”

“It’s fine,” he replied, his piercing green eyes surveying your form. God, he was always so intense.

“You’ve got a lot on your mind, I’m sure. As do I,” Loki commented as he cast a knowing glance in your direction. “I just left Thor’s.”

“Oh. How is he today? Will he be joining us later?” you asked, trying to keep up with Loki’s long strides as he turned off the path in the direction of Valkyrie’s secluded lodge.

“The same, I’m afraid. His apathy for– ” Loki opened his arms and gestured down the hill “ –all this grows by the day. But I don’t imagine that surprises you,” he replied, quirking an eyebrow.

“And I’ve asked him to come tonight,” he continued as he turned to knock on the cabin’s front door. “But no promises were made.”

Valkyrie placed a steaming cup of tea in front of you as you set down your tablet and propped your head on your hand.

“This proposal is ridiculous. They’re already manufacturing synthetic food products in labs across the globe. Asking us to operate a fish farm would not only skew our ecological research, but it essentially violates New Asgard’s sustainability treaty,” you lamented, glancing across the table at Loki.

He was surrounded by an imposing tower of folders and an array of alien technological systems that rivaled the inventions of Tony Stark. He still obstinately refused to use Midgardian tech, deeming it inferior to what he could procure from elsewhere in the universe. He stopped thumbing through a stack of papers, his eyebrows slanting up as he gave you a bemused look.

“Exactly. Why is the Council giving us a hard time?” added Valkyrie, settling into a chair and pushing a holographic map out of view as she too looked to Loki for an answer. “I did not agree to come to this planet just to be controlled by another group of insane bureaucrats.”

Loki pinched the bridge of his nose, a weary sigh escaping his lips before he responded. “Because they can, I suppose. The entire universe is in chaos – and not the kind I usually revel in, mind you,” he said, casting a sly wink in your direction that immediately made your cheeks flush with heat. You quickly took a sip of your drink as Valkyrie suspiciously peered at you, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“But, by all the Nine, the governing bodies of this particular realm are so tedious. I can admit I’m at my wits end with these negotiations,” Loki continued, seemingly oblivious to your flustered state.

For the next half hour, the three of you continued to address the unremitting concerns of the new world order. As you brainstormed, the holographic map in the center of the room flashed various graphs and statistics. In any other situation, you’d find meetings like this incredibly irksome, but Loki had a way of keeping you fully engaged.

Why did you find everything about him so alluring? Your heart fluttered as you watched him reading over his notes as the conversation lulled, the urge to reach across the table and smooth the deep creases on his brow overwhelming. When he ran his thumb under his bottom lip as his eyes flitted back and forth across the page before him, you couldn’t help but imagine how his lips might feel against yours…

When you realized you’d been staring, you fumbled with your own notes, ignoring the smug expression on Valkyrie’s face.

“I believe we have a solid plan,” Loki said, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “And if all else fails, I can always use my charm to persuade them otherwise.” At his words, a flash of seidr shot from the palm of his hand as five more Lokis appeared around their commander.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Valkyrie sneered, rolling her eyes as she stood up from the table. Loki waved his duplicates away with a huff, turning around as the door creaked open behind him. Thor sauntered in, his eyes glued to his phone as his wide frame strode through the glowing data projections.

“Ah, how kind of you to join us, brother,” Loki scoffed, leaning back in his chair. “We were just discussing the most recent inane request presented to us by your friends at the Disunited Nations.”

Thor grunted in response, still mindlessly scrolling. Loki, however, was not so easily dismissed.

“Care to verbalize those rousing thoughts, your majesty?” he said sharply, his frustration palpable.

Shit. You stared at Valkyrie, eyes wide. The last thing you wanted was to be caught up in an altercation between two brooding demigods. She subtly shook her head, motioning for you to join her in the kitchen.

As you stood, the blonde Asgardian bristled, finally glancing up from the device dwarfed in his palm. “Erm, sorry. What is it you’re rambling on about?” Thor muttered, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“The prospect of a fishery…” Loki did little to hide the annoyance in his voice. “As king, I thought you might have an opinion. Clearly, I was mistaken.”

Thor shrugged, scrolling through his phone once more. “I don’t know. You seem to have everything under control. I’ll just… be over here,” he replied, drifting to a nearby chair.

Loki abruptly stood, sending his belongings to his interdimensional pocket with a flick of his wrist.

“I see. Then we will move ahead with our plan– ” he paused, giving you a knowing look across the room as he walked toward the door “ –to continue the monitoring and not risk further contamination with foolhardy farming practices.”

Thor let out another grunt as Loki exited the cabin, turning to you and Valkyrie with a look of indifference. “What’s got his cape in a twist?”

Damn it. You quickly dismissed yourself, snatching your tablet from the table and hurrying after Loki. It was dark out now, but not so dark that you couldn’t make out his stately form descending the hillside. At least three of your strides equaled one of his, and you found yourself breaking into a graceless jog as you struggled to catch up with the god.

Before you could stop yourself, you shouted out his name. Loki turned on his heel and held up his hand, conjuring an orb of glimmering light.

“S-sorry, hey,” you panted as you finally reached where he stood waiting. “I thought we could walk back together?”

He pursed his lips, glancing over your shoulder at Valkyrie’s cabin. Perhaps this wasn’t your brightest idea. After what felt like an eternity, Loki responded.

“Of course. I- I should not have made such a hasty exit. Apologies for my imprudent behavior.” He spoke with a twinge of forced formality that sent your mind reeling. He obviously wanted to be alone right now.

“Oh. No worries,” you replied almost too casually, cringing internally as you fell in step alongside him. The two of you walked in silence for a few minutes, and it took every ounce of your resolve not to gawk at the handsome god. The way the moonlight illuminated his sharp features was absolutely devastating and definitely not something you’d be thinking about as you drifted off to sleep later.

You turned your focus to the warm glow emanating from Loki’s floating orb, humming in delight as you observed the tendrils of gold light wafting through the nipping sea air. You were endlessly fascinated by his seidr, from his masterful displays of sorcery and deception on New Asgard’s training fields to simpler charms such as this. Everything about Loki was beautiful. Otherworldly. Unattainable.

He finally spoke up again, his tone guarded. “I do hope I didn’t cause any offense,” he said, his eyes darting over to you briefly before flicking away. “Thor and I… it’s complicated.”

You shook your head. “No, no, not at all,” you replied, trying to sound reassuring. “Your reaction was justified.”

There was another moment of silence before Loki let out a quiet sigh, his shoulders slumping slightly. “He’s– things are just very different now.”

He was right. Everything was different. You tried to ignore the ache in your own grief-stricken heart as you cautiously reached out to touch Loki’s arm, hoping to offer some comfort. “I know,” you said softly.

Loki glanced down at your hand on his arm, then back up at you, his expression softening a little. “You do know, don’t you?”

Your breath hitched as you regarded him, taking in the way his eyes sparked with an intensity you’d never seen before. It sent shivers down your spine, and you couldn’t help but wonder if he was thinking about you in the same way you thought of him. Perhaps it was simply a trick of the glimmering light?

“And that’s part of the problem,” he continued. “Thor blames himself for everyone’s loss. Not just our people’s.”

Oh.

Suddenly he stopped walking, and you realized you’d reached the small gate that led to your cottage. For a moment, you hesitated, reluctant to say goodnight just yet. Loki had never spoken this openly with you before, and you didn’t want the conversation to end.

“Would you like to come in for some tea?” you asked as the twinkling orb disappeared from the space between you. Had he kept it lit only for your benefit?

“Ah, I’m afraid I must prepare for my journey to Vanaheim tomorrow.” He gave you a sad smile as you opened your gate, no doubt detecting the confusion on your face. “A strictly diplomatic visit. Valkyrie is aware. And it’s probably best if I spend some time away from New Asgard.”

“Well, the offer stands. You, me, and a cup of tea. Perhaps when you return?” you asked, attempting to conceal the disappointment in your voice. Loki didn’t owe you anything, after all.

“Of course. When I return.”

The next few days were relatively uneventful, all things considered. You continued your research of now-endangered fish species, while Valkyrie prepared for a convening with neighboring republics. Loki was off-planet, as were Nebula and Rocket.

And you hadn’t seen Thor since the meeting the other night, which was why you now found yourself in the God of Thunder’s cluttered cottage. He’d hastily greeted you at the door, pulling his long unkempt hair into a half ponytail before haphazardly scooping up an assortment of dirty dishes and carrying them to his kitchen.

“Thor, about the other night,” you began, plopping down on your usual spot on the sofa – the cushion nearest the fireplace. It was the one with the least amount of stains.

“Would you like some ale?” he asked roughly, avoiding eye contact as he opened his refrigerator door. You knew he was trying to avoid the subject, as he always did when confronted like this. But you weren’t going to let up so easily this time.

“Thor…”

He continued to ignore you, the sound of glass bottles clinking together echoing through the room like tiny bells ringing out in unison.

“You could, you know, try to be a bit more involved with– ” you paused, searching for the right words. “Human affairs. The people adore you, you know.”

“Perhaps they did. In the past.” Releasing a small grunt, Thor settled down on the sofa next to you. “But I’m afraid your attempts at flattery are in vain, little mortal.”

“I may just be a mortal, Thor, but I am doing the best I can with the hand we’ve been dealt. We all are. And regardless of whatever you think, we need your help.”

He merely scoffed, handing you a bottle of beer before putting his headset on and returning to his video game. Of course you had interrupted him in the middle of some imaginary battle.

Thor Odinson, king of Asgard, ancient warrior, Avenger, god among men. Toiling his eternal days away in a too-small, too-dark cottage, drinking ale and talking shit to teenagers halfway across the globe as he numbed himself to everything around him.

He had lost his purpose.

You empathized with him, you really did. And perhaps you were out of line to address him in such a manner. But in all the time you’d known him, he’d never once displayed even the smallest flicker of sovereignty. No, that responsibility had fallen upon his younger brother’s shoulders. And you could see the toll it was taking on Loki.

When I return.

His parting words echoed in your mind like distant thunder, each rumble a reminder of the restless storm brewing in your heart. You weren’t entirely sure if Loki would actually be returning this time. Perhaps it was the way he had looked at you when he said it – the mask of his unwavering stoicism falling aside for the briefest moment to reveal a kind of hesitant sorrow.

Tension swelled within you, like charged air, ready to erupt at any moment. The deep-seated longing you had tried to suppress for so long now was overpowering any modicum of resolve that remained within you. All you could do was hope the storm would eventually pass.

Frustrated, you sat in silence for a few more minutes before the urge to speak became overwhelming.

“Loki can’t keep going on this way. Managing everything himself,” you blurted out, curling a leg under you as you shifted to face the larger-than-life Asgardian.

“Ah, and there it is. It isn’t diplomacy, or the people of New Asgard, or even me you’re worried about here. It’s my brother.”

Thor punctuated those last three words, and they hit you like bolts of lightning, electrifying every nerve in your body. You winced at the intensity of his tone, but you couldn’t deny it was the truth. Loki’s predicament weighed heavily on your mind. You knew that you needed to gather your wits and find a way to respond, but for now, all you could do was stare at Thor, a silent plea in your eyes, hoping that he would understand the depth of your concern.

“It’s all right. He’s done it before,” Thor continued, casting you a sideways glance.

“Done what before?” you asked, baffled.

“Led the people of Asgard. Without me.”

What? You’d have to address that later. Thor must have somehow noted the look of abject shock on your face because he continued to divulge as he continuously – annoyingly – tapped a button on his game controller.

“Loki has always been better at this sort of thing. Since we were mere children, he’s always had the answers to all of our problems. The problems I inevitably create.”

You straightened your back, voice resolute despite your growing nerves.

“But do you want him to leave? Forever? He’s– you’re all the other has, Thor. If you keep pushing him away– I’m afraid he feels he has no reason to stay.”

“I say this with no malice, but unlike you, I’ve known Loki for a thousand years. He is not going anywhere,” Thor replied matter-of-factly. “He cares for our people more than he’s willing to openly admit.”

“That may be true, Thor. But– ”

“And you,” he interrupted, pausing his game and looking at you, his deep blue eyes searching your own. “You are reason enough for him to stay. Certainly you’ve realized that.”

For the second time in a matter of minutes, Thor had managed to completely stun you. You were reason enough? Surely he was mistaken. Despite all the small, genial moments between you, did Loki even consider you a friend? Much less someone worth sticking around for?

You opened your mouth, but no words formed on your heavy tongue. Instead, you heard your own incredulous laugh ringing around the room. None of this made sense.

“Thor, I– ”

“You’re not gonna believe the haul we got!” Rocket interrupted, scurrying through Thor’s front door and disrupting any thoughts that had started to form in your bewildered mind.

“Well, c’mon!” the raccoon panted, beckoning you both into the yard.

It was long past dusk, but the glow of the Guardian’s ship was unmistakable along the cliffside. You waved as Nebula exited the spacecraft, rolling her eyes as Rocket excitedly pulled open a hatch revealing a collection of foreign weapons.

“Thor, you shoulda been there. I’m tellin’ ya, it was wild…”

You greeted Nebula with a teasing eye roll of your own. “Successful expedition then?”

“If you consider obtaining inferior technology successful, then yes,” she replied simply, walking over to Thor’s makeshift fire pit. A mischievous grin spread across her face, reminding you of Loki. “I would like to make a fire.”

You glanced over at Thor, who seemed quite preoccupied with Rocket’s latest collection of artillery. At least something had him excited.

“Well, then, let’s make a fire,” you responded, clapping your hands together as you searched the darkened ground for something to use as kindling. “Go grab some firewood. Thor keeps it stacked out back,” you nodded at the lean-to behind his cottage. Nebula let out a dramatic huff as she headed off to grab the wood, and you chuckled as you gathered up some dry twigs and leaves.

Minutes later, the fire crackled to life, illuminating the darkness with its warm glow. Nebula settled down next to you on one of the logs surrounding the amber blaze, looking immensely pleased with herself. Once Thor noticed the merriment happening fireside, he tore his attention away from Rocket’s collection of weapons and came over to join you. His massive frame loomed over the lapping flames, his golden hair creating an ethereal outline around his chiseled face. For a brief moment, he looked younger, raw power radiating from his being. As flickering embers rose around him, you regarded him as the impressive god he was. Yet, as he passed you a large bottle of mead, you noted the hint of weariness lingering in his eyes.

He needed to be reminded of who he used to be. Who he could still be.

“Tell us about the time you slayed the Bilgesnipe hoard,” you giddily implored, hoping to distract him by recalling one of your favorite stories. He’d told it countless times before, but it never failed to entertain.

“Bilgesnipes, eh?” murmured Rocket, curling his lip as he grabbed the mead from your clutch. “I’ve heard their teeth can fetch a pretty penny.”

“Oh, what an epic day that was!” Thor beamed, his large hand falling heavily on Rocket’s back, knocking the wind out of the raccoon. “I was in the wilds of Asgard with the great warrior Volstagg, when all of a sudden…”

You listened intently for the next ten minutes as Thor paced around the roaring fire, jovially describing the most disgusting details of the carnage he inflicted upon the mythical creatures.

“And then– ” Thor paused, eyeballing one of the discarded weapons on the ground beyond the pit. He walked over to it and picked it up, examining it with a playful snicker.

“I wielded the mighty Mjölnir, hurling it right between the antlers of the pack leader,” he said, dramatically lifting the alien artillery above his head.

“Go on then, show us how it’s done!” you shouted as you rose to your feet, feeling the effects of the Asgardian mead rush to your head. Nebula and Rocket both looked skeptical, but you egged him on, enthralled by the idea of seeing Thor wield the foreign weapon in his signature style.

He grinned, swinging the silver contraption around his head with a flourish. But just as he was about to release it toward the cliffside, the weapon malfunctioned, shooting off sparks and emitting a loud, ear-piercing screech.

Then everything went black.

It had been a long day. A long few days, Loki thought as he poured himself a cup of tea. Taking a slow sip, his keen eyes narrowed as he stared at Stormbreaker leaning against his kitchen island. It was probably time to return the axe to Thor – if he even missed it at all.

Loki was teetering on the verge of exhaustion, and hadn’t even bothered to change out of his ceremonial armor. He had spent the last three days on Vanaheim, checking in on the realm’s remaining population. He would never be able to shake the nagging responsibility he still felt to the citizens of the Nine, especially his mother’s people. Not after he had failed them on such a massive scale.

In the immediate aftermath of the Snap, Thor had joined him on these royal visits across the galaxy, but now Loki went it alone. A small part of him still felt the sting of collective disappointment from the Vanir when he arrived via the Bifrost without his brother. It wasn’t that Thor didn’t care, though, and deep down, Loki knew that. He just hoped the others understood.

You understood, at least. And even though he’d been realms away, Loki could not escape you. He didn’t want to.

Just yesterday, as he observed the Vanir children practicing seidr, one of the younglings had conjured a small orb of light, and Loki was overwhelmed with thoughts of you. How your face lit up every time he displayed even the smallest bit of magic. How your infectious wonderment was slowly chipping away at his resolve. How he felt a spark of something he thought he’d never experience again each time you touched him, always so gentle, as if you were afraid he would break…

A sudden bang made him spin around, instinctively conjuring his daggers as his mug clattered to the floor. The front door had flung open with such force that it splintered around the hinges, its agonizing creak reverberating around the cottage like a death knell.

Loki huffed, dissipating his weapons as he realized who the culprit was.

“Nebula, I have warned you– ”

“Loki.”

Something about her tone had a bitterness burning his throat – the usual monotonous cadence he’d come to expect from the humanoid had been replaced with something else. A sense of urgency? Before he could swallow down the acrid taste in his mouth and respond, all hell broke loose.

Everything happened all at once and yet Loki felt like time stopped. A guttural howl cut through the biting wind. Thor. It was a sound he’d hoped to never hear again. Loki’s heart lurched, then plummeted to the depths of the earth’s core as Nebula stepped aside, revealing his brother’s imposing form, outlined by glowing moonlight in the darkened doorway.

Thor’s shirt and forearms were smeared with a dark red substance, your slack body clutched against his chest.

No.

Loki lunged forward as Thor stumbled into the cottage. The look of sheer panic on his brother’s face sent a surge of fear into the depths of Loki’s soul.

No.

“What have you done?” Loki barked out, his hands hovering apprehensively above your body, afraid to touch you.

“They– I– I shot them, Loki,” Thor stuttered, his blue eyes conveying a portentous sorrow Loki hadn’t seen since their mother died.

NO.

This couldn’t be happening. Loki’s chest constricted as his eyes frantically darted from Thor’s stricken face to your pallid one. You looked… were you? He shook the macabre thought from his mind. No. Not you. Not if he could help it.

“Fuck! Here, put them down. Gently.” Loki quickly cleared a spot on his kitchen table with a flick of his wrist.

“Nebula,” Loki said tersely. “How did this happen? What type of weaponry did this?” He glanced at Thor, who still had not let go of your body despite it being strewn across the wooden table. Loki’s brows furrowed in earnest concentration as he returned his attention to you, magically removing your coat and sweater as his fingertips ghosted over your wound. He flicked his head to the side as he slowly, carefully began to weave his seidr around the gaping flesh.

“It was an accident. I– I swear it,” Thor sputtered, choking down a sob.

“Enough!” Loki bellowed, the intensity of his outburst causing Thor to finally release you from his grasp. “Get out of the way, you useless oaf, and let me handle this. Like I’ve always done,” Loki growled before nodding at Nebula.

“Tell me.”

“Contraxian. There was a malfunction,” Nebula answered somberly. Loki’s eyes once again focused on the laceration across your midriff, noting your breathing seemed to be a bit less labored than before.

“Accident or not, this is too much blood.” Loki’s voice was unwavering, but he could no longer conceal the anxiety creeping across his features. He just needed to stop the bleeding.

Loki steadied himself with a deep, measured breath before drawing on every bit of power he possessed. As he felt the eerily familiar surge of energy course through his veins, Loki thought back to the last time he’d been forced to access this facet of his seidr. That cursed day on the Statesman. He would not – could not – fail this time. But you’d lost so much blood already.

Far too much for a mortal.

“Can’t you do something?” his brother implored, running a hand through his wild blonde hair as he paced around the room.

“I am doing something, but I am not a healer, Thor!”

“Wake up, kid,” panted Rocket. In the brief moment Loki had taken his eyes off of you, the raccoon had hopped onto the table and was now peering down at you. A cold fury burned in Loki’s gaze as he watched the creature pat your cheek with a small paw.

Your eyes fluttered open and Loki finally exhaled the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding in.

“See? They’re fine. It’s just a flesh wound, drama queen,” Rocket commented as he leaned over your wound, examining the tendrils of seidr. They weaved around the lesion, binding together to create a bandage of pulsating, shimmering gold. “Yeah. Yeah. I’ve seen worse– ”

That fucking furry arsehole.

“Move back, you insolent rabbit,” Loki spat, giving the raccoon a malicious glare. “And better yet, leave. Now. Before I turn you into a fur stole.”

He continued to thread his seidr around your fragile body, praying to the Norns above that it would be enough.

“Loki…” you groaned, lifting your eyes to meet his. The sound of his name on your lips sent a small rush of relief through Loki. But your dazed expression let him know that you were having trouble focusing. He wondered if you even realized what had transpired. You let out a rugged sigh as you attempted to sit up, but Loki gently pressed a steady hand against your shoulder.

“No, don’t move. Please. Conserve your energy,” he implored, running his fingers along your face.

“I’m– I’m okay.” You gave him a weak smile, reaching out to him before your eyes fluttered shut again. Loki wrapped his fingers around your trembling hand in an effort to calm you both.

“Yea– yes. You’re going to be okay,” he repeated in a whisper, unsure if it was for your benefit or his. He glanced down at the lesion again, and though his vision was slightly blurred from the tears frustratingly welling in his eyes, he could see that he’d been successful this time.

“I– I think I’ve stopped the bleeding,” he said finally, looking around the room and finding no solace there.

Exasperated and drained, he grabbed his cape from a nearby chair, wrapping it around your body before lifting you into his arms as he turned to Thor and Nebula.

“But we need the healers. Now.”

Loki jolted awake at the sound of the door closing. Slivers of receding sunlight filtered through the aluminum blinds, casting long streaks of light across the modest space. It took Loki a moment to find his bearings, and he blinked slowly, watching the warm light dance across the walls.

Someone had been in your room at the clinic, and he’d slept through it. Norns, when had he dozed off?

His gaze flitted between your motionless form and the intravenous bag at your bedside. Grimacing, he wiped an embarrassing amount of dribble from his lips. Gods, I am truly losing it, he thought. He discarded the open book in his lap as he stood, stretching his aching limbs and following the attendant into the hallway.

Loki grasped the woman’s shoulder as she filed a chart, an irritated expression marring his face.

“What did you give them?” he demanded hoarsely, voice still thick with remnants of sleep.

“Something for the pain,” the nurse explained. Her voice was kind. Soft. Forgiving. It reminded Loki of his mother. It made him furious.

“While the healers were able to mend the wound and provide a sleeping spell, pain management is still necessary,” she continued.

You were in pain.

Loki huffed, warily turning back to look through the doorway at you. His brows furrowed as he regarded your current state. Was the extent of your injury so severe you needed something more than Aesir magic could provide?

He flinched when the nurse patted his shoulder. Are all Midgardian healers this bold? he wondered.

“Nothing to be concerned about,” she continued, obviously sensing his unease. “I assure you, your highness, it is a common treatment for humans.”

“Right. Of course.”

He gave a curt nod and quietly made his way back to what had to be the most wretched chair in the universe, shifting his thighs on the seat in an attempt to find a comfortable position. He glanced at you, your body lax against the meager, rigid hospital cot. At that moment, Loki made a mental note to secure funding to update the clinic’s furnishings.

By all the Nine. He never imagined this would be his life: Thinking of ways to improve the day-to-day operations of the Midgardian healthcare system. Negotiating border policies and peace treaties with diplomats. Researching patterns of pollen limitation. Reading your infuriatingly charming reports about the migration patterns of fish…

Of course, these were not things totally unfamiliar to him. He was a prince, after all. A beacon of diplomacy and guile. But Thanos had changed everything. Loki winced as he tried to shake the dark memories encroaching on his mind. He inhaled, focusing on his surroundings.

The uncomfortable chair. The fading scent of antiseptic. The acrid taste lingering on his tongue. The cool leather against his skin. The dull beeping of machines by the bed. The mortal before him.

Not just any mortal, though. You.

Your presence alone challenged the carefully measured control he held over his emotions. And, much to Loki’s chagrin, you had managed to wind your way into his heart. It had changed him in ways he had never thought possible.

Loki let out a deep sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had to get a grip. But he did not leave your side.

“Can you hear me?” he asked softly, inching closer to the bed. There was no answer, only the sound of your faint snores. The sleeping spell was working, then.

You looked so meek. So fragile. It pained him to see you this way. Part of him wondered what would happen if you suddenly awoke to find him there. Would you be pleasantly surprised? Confused? Or worse, disappointed to find that he was the one watching over you?

Would you even care? His heart constricted painfully in his chest at the thought.

He concluded that he would accept whatever outcome. Any response at all would relieve him of the incessant worry churning in the pit of his stomach. He just needed to know you were going to be okay.

Loki’s eyes burned as he blinked back tears. One large hand raked through his wild curls, and he scowled as he shifted back into the seat. How could you have been so careless?

“You infuriate me.” He felt half-mad, confessing to you this way.

“You brilliant, reckless creature. It’s no wonder Thor befriended you. You’re always too eager to go along with his half-brained schemes.”

Loki, admittedly, had been reluctant to accept your friendship. He wondered now why he’d fought against it for so long. He leaned forward, cautiously caressing your cheek with the back of his fingers.

“I’ve not been a good friend to you, have I?”

He paused, recalling all the times you’d been so infuriatingly kind to him. How he wished he had not refused your invitation for tea. Perhaps if he’d been more open with you, perhaps if he had stayed…

“The way you look at me,” he continued. “The way you see me… I don’t deserve it. None of us do.”

“Thor’s guilt is slowly consuming him. And I don’t know what to do. I realize we all have our own ways of coping. Dealing with this… immense loss. What I do know is that I cannot stand by and let you become a victim of his destructive behavior.”

Loki leaned forward, taking your hand in his. What a fool he’d been, so assured that his burgeoning infatuation would pass. A lopsided smile crossed his face as he looked at you, and he finally let the walls around his heart come crashing down.

“I– I care for you, too much to let any harm come your way. I only wish I had realized it sooner.”

With a deep sigh, he rested his head on the mattress, his raven curls fanning across your thigh as his eyes fluttered closed. He never let go of your hand.

This time, Loki heard when someone entered the room but didn’t bother moving away from your bedside.

“I’ve never seen the prince act with such concern for anyone,” a lilted voice commented.

“I have known Loki his entire life. And though he may often refuse to acknowledge his own feelings, I have no doubt he cares fiercely for those he loves.”

Loki frowned, recognizing the second voice immediately. It was Eir, Odin’s former head physician and now New Asgard’s top healer.

“I’m awake, you know,” Loki finally responded when he heard the younger healer leave the room.

“Yes, and that’s exactly why I said what I said.” Eir cast Loki a cautious glance as he righted himself, a glow of seidr washing over him, concealing any lingering signs of exhaustion.

“You cannot hide from me, boy. You’ve been sitting vigil here for nearly a full day. And don’t think I’m unaware of the toll the magicks you wielded to stabilize your friend took on your body. When was the last time you actually slept, Loki?”

The nerve. Loki stood to his full height in an attempt to regain some semblance of power. He peered down at the old healer, her keen glare meeting his own. Her silver brows furrowed, wrinkles carving an ancient map across her face. Loki sometimes wondered if she was as old as the Norns themselves.

“That is no concern of yours, Eir,” Loki responded haughtily, rolling his shoulders back and regally tossing his dark locks over his shoulder. “And I would remind you to not speak so casually when in the presence of the crowned prince of Asgard, lest you forget your place again.”

Of course, Eir was right, and he knew it. Perhaps that is what bothered him most of all.

He had to get out of here. He didn’t want to leave you, but he knew he couldn’t stay another minute. Loki bundled his cape in one large fist and strode past her.

“Your friend is going to be okay, Loki. I promise you, by Frigga’s grace.”

Loki froze at the mention of his mother’s name. He closed his eyes as his fingers curled around the doorframe, bracing himself for an impact that never came. Still, he did not turn around.

“Once the sleeping charm wears off, we’ll discharge them. Likely sometime tomorrow morning. Do you want to be informed when that happens?”

Finally, Loki glanced over his shoulder, his narrowed eyes flitting from you back to Eir.

“Ah, no. No, that won’t be necessary.” He turned and walked into the hallway before exalting a final command.

“You will alert my brother when it is time to accompany our friend back home, understood?”

He didn’t wait for the response.

#loki x reader #loki x you #loki laufeyson x reader #loki hurt/comfort #loki fluff #loki laufeyson x you #loki fanfiction

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perseephoneee · 2 years

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letters back and forth

ISAAC LAHEY X READER

requested by @gallifer

prompt: you’re a were-jaguar that left beacon hills after your parents got killed and you finally return to reconnect.

a/n: besties i’m back? mayhaps

Coming back to Beacon Hills was a bad idea, and it was even worse to be waiting outside the school for everyone to rush out as the bell rang. You felt your heartbeat thumping like an approaching army, and all you could do was wring your hands in nervousness. You haven’t seen Scott and everyone else in six years– would they even recognize you? Would they forgive you for leaving? You weren’t sure. You just had to hope.

You remember the day your family died like it was in perfect resolution. Watching the hunters shoot them down, hearing their hearts slow down until they stopped. Watching the warmth from their eyes fade until it was nothing. It’s why you left Beacon Hills in the first place, to get away from that past and that trauma.

You thought maybe it was the perfect time to finally return. You couldn’t keep running forever, though, you knew that much. It’s what caused you to come back after all these years away. That and the news that a new supposed Alpha had risen up in Beacon Hills. One by the name of Scott McCall.

The bell rang, signaling the end of the day, and already students were filing out, desperate to get away from the hellscape that is high school. Your breath caught in your throat, waiting, and right as you thought you might just turn around to leave, the familiar lopsided grin of Scott came into your view. He was talking to Stiles Stilinski, and all you could think was how time had been kind to them. They looked so much older and more sure of themselves than when they were kids. You hated that you didn’t get to grow up with them.

“Y/N?” Scott asked, stopping in his tracks the second he made eye contact with you. So he did recognize me, you thought.

“Hi,” you gave a half-hearted wave, fear clutching your heart. You were ready for him to push you away. Instead, he came over and collapsed you to his chest, giving you the most bone-crushing hug in the world. Stiles joined in, welcoming you back, and if you weren’t in public, you might’ve started crying.

“Where have you been?” Scott inquired, pulling away from you.

“That’s a long story; think we can go somewhere so I can catch you up?” you asked, smiling shyly.

“Come back to my house; my Mom will want to see you anyway,” Scott grinned. You were happy to note that his smile hadn’t changed.

You drove back to Scott’s house with Stiles, and as Scott said, Mama McCall was relieved to see you happy and safe. Apparently, intense hugs were genetic, as you felt your breath leave you as she squeezed you tight. Not too soon, all three of you were sitting in Scott’s living room with snacks and drinks, catching up on the past six years.

“You’re bullshitting me,” Stiles said after you explained what you were. “A were-jaguar? That’s not real.”

“Considering I’m sitting right in front of you, I’d say it’s pretty real,” You bit into one of the EL Fudge cookies, catching the crumbs that fell from your lips.

“I’m sorry about your family,” Scott sighed, cutting off whatever sarcastic comment Stiles was about to say.

“It’s been a while; I just….” you cut yourself off, not knowing what to say. “I thought I shouldn’t be alone anymore; I should be with a pack. Supernaturals are better in packs anyway.”

“We’re barely a pack,” Stiles said. “More like an asthmatic werewolf, hunter, banshee, and whoever decides to tolerate us that day.”

“Dude, I told you I don’t have asthma anymore,” Scott groaned.

“I can’t hear you over all your wheezing,” Stiles retorted, earning a slap from Scott that devolved rather quickly. As you were about to break it up, the front door opened, and the last person you expected walked in.

You’ve had a crush on Isaac Lahey since you were seven. He lived close to your house, so sometimes, you would play in the backyard before dinner. You would make cardboard houses and decorate them with blankets from inside or have competitions in the cul de sac. You remember falling in love when he let you ride his bike. You never had a bike, and you were jealous of everyone who did. His bike was sleek and had a bell that he would always ring. He helped you figure out how to make it go and how to dismount. All you could think was how kind he was to you and how any other kid in the neighborhood would’ve been impatient. You loved him ever since, and you didn’t forget him when you had to leave Beacon Hills. In fact, you wrote him a letter that you intended to send, but you were too scared and never got the chance.

Now he stood in the foyer of Scott’s house, wearing Chuck Taylors and a sky-blue henley. He got tall, real tall. His jaw was sharp, and his cheekbones were perfectly defined. His golden curls didn’t seem so dorky anymore; they matched his ruggedly handsome attire. The only thing that hadn’t changed was his eyes; they still were gentle.

“Hi–” you waved, but Isaac just shrugged off his backpack and went upstairs, not allowing you to finish his sentence. “-- Isaac,” you sighed, dropping your hand.

“Isaac is living with me now,” Scott coughed, obviously sensing your disappointment. “You know Isaac, he’s uh–”

“I know,” you smiled, pretending it didn’t affect you that much. “I should probably get going; help my aunt unpack–”

“You should come to the lacrosse game tonight,” Stiles exclaimed. “Good way to reconnect.”

“Okay… I can come.”

To be honest, you didn’t remember what lacrosse even was. Sports were never your favorite, and you were surprised to find it involved catching balls with sticks. You were not surprised to find Stiles on the bench the entire time. That boy had never been coordinated with anything in his life. You got an excellent chance to get to know Lydia and Allison in the stands, the latter moving to Beacon Hills later. You were surprised to find out how much you liked Lydia, as you remember her being stuck up from growing up. Still, they warmed up to you, and you were happy to share your secret-were-jaguar-ness with people who understood. As the team filtered onto the field, you clapped with the rest of them. Scott shot you a thumbs up, earning a laugh from you. Your breath caught when you saw Isaac run onto the field. You wanted to talk to him, needed to. He just needed to notice you.

That’s why you screamed his name the loudest out of everyone during the game if Isaac had the ball or scored. By the third time of being the most obnoxious attendee in the stands, he finally made eye contact with you. You held his stare, daring him to look away, and he only did when it was required. By the time the game ended, Beacon Hills had won, and you were surprised to find you actually watched a sports game without being bored. You caught up with Scott and everyone at the end, giving big hugs and congratulations. You felt a stare burning into your head and turned around to see Isaac looking as awkward as ever.

“Hey,” you smiled, shoving your hands in your jacket pockets. You pulled an eyelash out of nervousness.

“You still do that,” Isaac said, his voice deeper than you remember.

“Do what?”

“Pull out your lashes when you get nervous,” Isaac grinned, and you thought it was the best smile in the world.

“Can we talk?” you asked.

“Yeah, let me just get changed.”

You waited for Isaac outside the locker room, waving Scott off when he asked what you were doing. Eventually, Isaac came out, and you found that even after all these years, you still felt butterflies deep in your core when he looked at you.

“So, where should we go?” Isaac inquired, scratching the back of his neck.

“There’s a lovely forest behind the field,” you answer.

“You want to take me to a forest?”

“Is that wrong?”

“Feels like you’re going to kill me.”

“I can’t kill you now, but maybe later,” you smiled, earning a grin from the boy across you. You both walked out of the school to the forest behind the field. You remember hiking through that forest with your family before you left Beacon Hills. It had the most sparkly sky during nighttime, and while some might think the quiet was unnerving, for you, it made you feel perfectly at peace. And right now, next to a boy with whom your heart was enamored, you needed peace more than ever.

“Good game, you played…nice,” You mumbled, not knowing how to fill the silence between the two of you.

“I aim to play…nice,” Isaac coughed, shoving his hands in his pants pockets.

“So uh, how–”

“Why’d you leave?” Isaac pried, stopping you in your tracks. Why is he so tall? Was he always this tall?

“Isaac–”

“You were the only thing making that house bearable, and then you left, and I felt so alone,” Isaac choked. Your heart broke hearing his words.

“My family was being hunted because I’m a werejaguar,” you exclaimed. “That’s why I left. It was never because of you; it never could be because of you.”

“You’re a–”

“Were-jaguar, I know.”

“I’m a werewolf,” Isaac announced, looking like too many gears were turning in his head to catch up.

“I know.”

“You know?”

“The smell,” you explained. “You’re…musky.”

“Did you just call me musky?”

“Isaac, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for leaving. I know your Dad sucked, and I know me leaving sucked–”

“Y/N–”

“I’m so sorry,” your voice broke.

“I missed you,” Isaac mumbled, looking at the ground.

“I missed you too,” you pulled out another eyelash, feeling the butterflies become angry fabric-eating moths in your stomach. Before you could contemplate your bad decisions, you wrestled a crumpled letter out of your jacket pocket and thrust it toward him. “I wrote this for you when I first left and never had the nerve to give it to you.”

“What changed?” Isaac inquired, taking the letter from your trembling fingers and tearing it open.

“I lost everything already; what else is going to happen?”

Isaac looked at you, a mixture of sadness and other unrecognizable emotions in his eyes as he pulled the letter out of the envelope and unfolded the slightly yellow paper. You held your breath as his eyes scanned the page. Isaac was almost always an open book, never being very sly. Somehow though, he managed not to reveal anything as he read the letter. He folded the paper and put it back in the envelope. You held your breath as he wrestled with something in his back pocket, pulling out a crumpled scrap of paper from his wallet and holding it out to you.

“What is that?” you questioned, your voice caught in her throat.

“You’re not the only one who wrote letters.”

You took the paper from his hands, your fingers shaking as you opened it. You had a small smile as you took in Isaac’s elementary school messy scrawl.

Hey Y/N,

You’re gone, and it makes me sad. I don’t know where you went, but things suck at home, and I miss riding my bike with you.

Girls are weird, but you never were. Talking to you was easy, and I always knew I could trust you. Call it an instinct, but everything with you felt natural. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this, I don’t know if you’ll ever care, but I thought you should know that you are important to me. My mom talked about love at first sight, and I thought love was stupid. But with you, I think I understand what she means.

– Isaac

You wiped a tear and then ran down your cheek, looking up at Isaac. The moon highlighted him in a beautiful halo, and all you could think was life was cruel to damage this angel as so.

“One of us needs to say something before I have a heart attack,” you smile nervously, your eyes wide.

“Is your letter still true?” Isaac whispered. “Everything you wrote, is it still true?”

“Yes,” you breathed, looking at your hands. “I still love you,” you mumble.

“Fuck it,” Isaac mumbled before tilting your chin up and pressing his lips to yours. Your brain short circuits, your breath catches in your throat, and all you can think is, ohmygodheskissingme. The small voice in your head sends you a swift kick, though, and you kiss back, relishing the feeling of his lips on yours. It ends too soon, and Isaac pulls away and rests his forehead against yours. You can feel his nose tickling yours and his breath ghosting your lips. “I love you, Y/N,” Isaac whispered, his thumb brushing your jaw and his other squeezing your waist. “Don’t leave again.”

“Never; I’m never leaving again.”

#isaac lahey x reaer #isaac lahey imagine #isaac lahey #teen wolf #teen wolf imagine #teen wolf x reader #scott mccall #stiles stilinski #lydia martin #allison argent #writing #reader

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fancyfade · 1 year

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OK so the reason Knight Terrors: Ravager's resolution with Rose talking to her nightmare realm younger self worked, but Knight Terrors: Batman's resolution with Bruce talking to his younger self didn't:

The entire premise of Rose's Knight Terror's tie in was connected to her younger self. We get hints of plot (which is a lot more than the other comics give us 9_9) and that someone wants to use Rose as a bridge to get out of the Nightmare Realm*, and Rose has a clear problem to solve. But the core of her interactions are with her younger self, first thinking she's someone she has to save (in an uncomplicated manner), then the younger self turning on her, then her fighting but still trying to extend an olive branch/understanding to her younger nightmare self and eventually succeeding.

Meanwhile, half of Batman's panel time is taken up with Insomnia talking to him and pointless assurances to the reader that Bruce could Totally get out of his dream if it wasn't for deadman possessing him. When we do focus on Bruce's trauma, most of it is about the loss of his parents, with like, i think 1 or 2 panels mentioning the rest of his family and friends. but the rest of his family and friends is still used as part of the resolution, where he uses their existence to calm down his younger self. But the family and friends really are not part of the narrative that Williamson writes here, so it feels unearned. not to mention that it's allegedly a you know, terrifying even but williamson doesn't want us to believe that Bruce might be afraid even for a second. i don't remember if we saw rose being afraid, but the fact that she didn't turn to the reader and say "hey btw i'm not scared" made it feel less boring.

*also is it just me or does this like... imply the Nightmare stone is definitely in Rose's dreams? Ofc I haven't read every single tie in, just the ones with characters I care about, so I could be wrong.

#dc comics #knight terrors #tuesday spoilers #spoilers #bruce wayne #batman #rose wilson worth #ravager

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whattraintracks · 7 months

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5. Video Games - Multi

What's this? More Raphael angst? Why are we surprised.

So I was listening to Stay Down by boygenius while some prompts simmered in my brain, and when this one started boiling somewhere around verse two, I knew what I had to do.

Would Raph even like this song? Who knows, but I sure do, so I am going to close-read the heck out of it and draw so many connections.

Video Games >> I'm just steering my life in a video game >> It's a half-life, it's a fallout

before any of you wonder what this has got to do with the prompt, here it is! it's in the song. prompt satisfied

apparently, those are also references to video games

. . .

moving on

Fighting and Learned Behavior >> lean into the punch >> push me down >> hold me under >> stay down

a.k.a. physical altercations as an allegory for Raphael’s life

obsessed with the metaphor of him leaning into a punch

if he can’t avoid life's blows, he'll do what he can to make them hurt less

suffer the hit just to get it over with, or take it for someone else

on a less angsty note, I simply associate Raph with boxing

he's a skilled ninja, but sometimes he wants to sucker-punch someone

cuz this boy really loves fighting, and that ain’t a bad thing

>> wasn't a fighter 'til somebody told me I had better learn >> would you teach me I'm the villain

I think a lot about Raph and learned behavior

when I tell you Rise and '03 Splinter altered my brain chemistry

hiding their connection to the Foot/Hamato Clan

trying to spare their sons from anger, grief, trauma, vengeance, and wars that don't belong to them is fascinating to me

but in every version, he teaches Raph how to fight

and I've talked about how '87 Raphael still inherited those things from Splinter's

even the ones who don’t are still altered by growing up with him, looking at you M&M Raph

it's not a coincidence '12 Splinter sees so much of himself in his son

Defense Mechanism and Love for Enemies >> lean into the punch so it don't hurt as bad when they leave

Raph's anger often screams defense mechanism to me

if humans are going to hate him anyway, again he'll lean into it

be snarky and rude and scary and mean and give them something to really hate

sometimes, his anger is preemptive, but it's not always unfounded

I don't think even ten fingers are enough to count how many times a recurring character turned on the '87 turtles

Raphael should have been allowed to beat up Vernon as consolation

>> there you were, turning your cheek

but wait! there's more! the Christian references in this song are not subtle

Luke 6:27,29 "Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you . . . if anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also"

I'm thinking about '87 Raphael's "Yeah, I'm with ya, but I'm bitter" and helping the guys protect a city that doesn't appreciate all they do

I'm thinking about '03 Raph, who is resolute it's not their problem that the city's at war but gets involved because Leo does

I'm thinking about '07 Raph taking up the Nightwatcher mantle after Leo leaves New York

Disconnection in Personal Relationships >> I look at you and you look at a screen

this second verse, I think, is pretty open to interpretation, which works well given how many variations there are of Raph

linking "screen" to "video game" in the next line, I picture Raph reaching out and being ignored

like '03 Raph figuring his anger out on his own v. Leo getting sent away for serious/professional help

like '07 Raph missing Leo and hearing no word from him for years

or I read "screen" with the connotation of concealment

like Rise Raph keeping it together for his little brothers until he can't

like their shock when he finally breaks down

the loneliness of Raph looking at his brothers and knowing them so well but feeling like they never really see him

>> similar acts and a different name

I am always struck by how similar Raph and his brothers are

the little things they do the same because they were raised together

the ways they deliberately emulate each other

it has to sting seeing so much of them in himself and himself in them and still be reduced to "the angry one"

especially when it's them thinking this way

(side note, Google has this lyric miswritten as "similar accent," which is hilarious in this context)

Loss and Lack of Control >> I'm in the back seat of my body

canon takes great pleasure in depriving Raph of control over his body

how intensely all Raphaels experience their emotions

off-screen and childhood trauma like “Savage Raph” in Rise

on-screen trauma that must lead to dissociation, flashbacks, nightmares, etc.

the two, at least that I know of, mind control events with ‘12 and Rise Raph

even ‘87 Raphael getting de-aged

you could also interpret this as gender dysphoria and I've seen a lot of good trans Raph headcanons

>> I'm just steering my life in a video game

beyond losing control of his body, Raph never really has control of his life

“turtle luck” and all that

this often shows up when their stories shift

like ‘87 Raphael, who goes from a wise guy to a sarcastic grouch as his story drags on and takes a darker turn

as opposed to Rise Raph, who throughout the series, gets talked down from heroism and over-vigilance

but guess which behaviors get rewarded and reinforced during the Shredder arcs and Krang invasion

so as not to ignore the prompt any more than I already have, I do enjoy those episodes where “life in a video game” for Raphael is a little more on the nose

Combat Land (1987), Across the Universe (2003), Mazes and Mutants (2012)

Literally Neurodivergent and a Minor

(Shoutout to this art from @/20s-turtle-posting that inspired the name of this section) ((and, no, I did not realise this is an ironic meme and will be taking it seriously))

>> aren't I the one constantly repenting for a difficult mind? >> push me down into the water like a sinner, hold me under >> villain >> sinner >> half-life >> fallout

I warned you about the religious imagery, but it's a little off in this verse

because repentance is about change as growth

but Raph feels like he has to change his "difficult mind" this ingrained part of himself

so he's stuck in a cycle of remorse and regret, unable to gain control

I think about running fast and far and anguished cries of “what is wrong with me?” (2003)

pushed into and held under, the waters of baptism are no longer cleansing and renewing but suppressing

it's the people closest to him saying “you are seriously twisted” (2012) and “you’ve got a rage problem” (M&M)

and having to decide between hiding those parts of himself or hoping they'll love him anyway

it's Raph feeling bad and broken, feeling like he's a danger and a poison to everyone around him

>> lean into the punch so it don't hurt as bad when they leave >> it takes so long for me to settle down and when I finally do, there's no one else around

and I wonder if Raph's temper is ever tied to feeling unlovable, and one feeling sparks another in a vicious feedback loop

a teenager testing the boundaries of care and affection, more defense mechanisms

how does he get himself to believe in their steadfast love even when he feels unworthy of it

to trust he's safe enough to feel all of his ugliest emotions when his life is so out of control

he forgets, his story doesn’t let him remember, that he’s still a kid

he's got a lot of growing to do, and even if it takes a long time, he’ll settle down one day, find his balance

his family’s gonna stick it out, and they’ll still be around when he finally gets there

tl;dr I will never be able to listen to this song without crying about Raphael now, so thanks, brain.

#march for raph #cw trauma #discussed not shown #it's still the fifth somewhere right?#why did i think a pseudo-essay would be less work/time-consuming than a fic? great question #raphael splinterson #raphael hamato #tmnt #whattrainofthought

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in-search-of-motivation · 2 months

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TUA SPOILERS

You’ve been warned.

Can we all take a second to discuss how the Jennifer incident makes no sense. Reginald locked Klaus in a tomb to get over his fears and control his powers. Regardless of the trauma caused to the kids. You’re telling me he fabricated a whole existence for a girl who could 100 percent ruin his long standing plans? He would have killed her first chance! There’s no way he would have allowed her to even have a possibility of resetting his plans. I’m sure Abigail played a part in it but she was dead in the Season 1 timeline.

And how was she even created? Did have of the 40 plus kids have Marigold in their bloody and half have Darango? Or was it ALL in Jennifer?

I’m so upset and confused that we got this big reveal and then so many more questions just for no resolution.

Is Reggie still alive on his planet? In Earth? If Darango “reset” the correct timeline on Earth, what did it do on his planet?

I need answers!

#the umbrella academy #umbrella acedmy #this is my hill #and I’ll die on it #unresolved

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bentosandbox · 2 years

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better late than never amirite

i think i haven't posted july (cause I thought global would have released TBC by now...) or october (commission) on here/twitter hopefully i remember to sometime this year

bonus chen edition because well i guess she is my cringefail girlboss blorbo

bonus chenswire edition

bonus bonus extremely boring stuff

films i watched in 2022 (tragedy of macbeth out of picture because it was on the next row)

top 10 (in watched order not a 1-10 ranking)

Marketa Lazarova (1967) Friend was streaming it, liked the script so much I asked my friend for the srt file after Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) Rocks Petite Maman (2021) Personal Attack Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) :) My Life as a Zucchini (2016) Celine Sciamma truly don't miss Saturday Fiction (2019) It's not a 5/5 movie but...the soul... the period noir... Nope (2022) The Spectacle dot jpg Hands Over The City (1963) yes i watched this just before il siracusano Decision To Leave (2022) yuriyaoi straight romance can't elaborate Puss In Boots (2022) i'm so glad i didn't watch this as a kid i would have nightmares, but as an adult i got to see my traumas on the big screen yippee!!!

missed a local screening of My Broken Mariko because it only happened for ONE DAY fucking insane (I recommend reading the original manga it's so good)

Speaking of books hmm

Swordspoint yuriyaoi... Invisible Ink reread. and I think I need to reread again Fire & Blood read it after watching hotd ep 1 pretty good series btw dare i say even ...the best on-screen yaoiyuri of the year... Eagle Shooting/Condor Heroes Book 1 Not bad Water Margin Didn't I write a angry rant on this. rite of passage i guess...... How to Keep House While Drowning its funny because i WILL do chores......still good though What My Bones Know - insane how trauma can be so isolating yet universal lol A Wizard of Earthsea if only i read this instead of harry potter back then lmao wow

you can now basically psychoanalyse my issues from the last three books I think

Uhhhhhhh what else am I missing - oh yeah I did 3 gamejams this year (Art/Design and a liiiiiitle bit of trying to do the UI in Unity myself instead of giving the pngs to my friends)

my abysmal steam stats told me i only played 5 games this year so I need to get back my gamer license, backlog is like 75% VNs though what's up with that (there's only 4 games but. well)

had a really long blogpost (basically a 'look at all the things you did this year you didnt waste it' thing thus the above lists) but i think i'll just keep it to my notion notes lest this post becomes a traumadumping ground ecks dee tl;dr failed a Very Important (to me) Thing early 2022 that kind of shattered any crumb of self-esteem i had and made me question everything i did onwards (especially in regards to doujin stuff) and then basically physical health issues affecting mental health and vice versa which is fun but fuck it we ball.....(try)

don't really have any solid 'resolutions' (that i would remember to do) other than to 'live' more than just 'survive' as edgy as that sounds 🥴oh wait oc zine yea yea and go into illustration full time h-haha........... should really get around to making a patreon/fanbox but i really hate the idea of paywalling

also signed up for a AK doujin event in Nagoya in March so I now have a very heavy motivation to finish the second half of my LGD doujin and hopefully I get to table at AX too dot dot dot

#bentotexto

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mousieta · 2 years

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If I were to rewrite Love In The Air

Disclaimer: I liked the show but it drove me absolutely batty. Only read if you’re into nitpicky ramblings.

As much as I loved the actors, the writing of the show is A Mess. So, here’s how I would do it if I was doin’ it.

The stories should never have been separated. They should have been interwoven with episodes 1 thru maybe 3ish staying the same but picking back up with SkyPai sometime in ep 3, building in tandem with RainPayu culminating in ep 11ish and the last couple eps dedicated mostly to SkyPai’s resolution.

Sky’s nightmares should have continued reoccurring as his trauma was continually simmering, and while I think Pai as written does indicate some awareness of Sky’s trauma - most of it is acted, not written. It would have been reasonable to insert one after their second sex scene as it is more intimate and romantic which is Sky’s trigger.

This allows Pai to be there for a nightmare which creates a bonding moment and helps reinforce to Sky that Pai is a Safe Person. This would serve to reinforce his conviction in the last episode that Pai had nothing to do with his ex’s plot.

On top of that, Pai (and thus, the audience) can gain a deeper insight into the nature of the abuse as we can get a few quick flashback of it - the visuals revealing more to the viewer than perhaps Sky’s words of explanation to Pai. Indicating the trauma is bad but Sky is ashamed/holding back most of it but still able to open up a little. This is also a moment we can introduce explicitly the fact that Sky is unable to shed tears.

Dumping the totality of the nature of Sky’s trauma in the last episode not only felt gratuituous trauma-porn for trauma-porn’s sake, it puts the viewer through an emotional gauntlet with very little time to adequately engage with and overcome in the course of the rest of only one episode.

But Sky may not reveal everything about his trauma, crating a tension in the viewer knowing more than Pai, and within Sky feeling Pai should know all of it but feeling to ashamed to reveal it. This tension can serve to carry a lot of the plot in the last few episodes.

Then, to come back to the interweaving of the stories, this can serve to make Sky’s story one of overcoming trauma in a way that isn’t just super-sweet-and-devoted boyfriend. Having more on-screen time with Rain and their friends can show Sky developing a support network that can help him heal. Rain could actually Be A Friend through the back half of the show instead of disappearing almost completely, and his and Payu’s relationship can be a helpful model/example that dating within Pai’s world can be healthy.

In that vein, there are a lot of hints to a kinky relationship between RainPayu which is almost completely abandoned until we get to the special episode. Payu alludes to a darker nature, we see the beginnings of a dom/sub(brat) relationship but it is never fully realized and their later sexual encounters feel very vanilla.

But, had they show chosen to continue to that dynamic further, it could have provided a powerful counterpoint when juxtaposed against Sky’s past relationship by revealing the difference between kink and abuse and showing it in parallel and equally as healthy with SkyPai’s non-kinky relationship. This allows the show to become a powerful demonstration of consent, communication and balance within a relationship. (oh, what we could have had)

Rain and Sky’s friendship provides a context for them to discuss these issues which are also a path of healing for Sky. And I wouldn’t even be adverse to indications of Sky seeking therapy for his trauma. In general, seeing trauma as something that takes more than time and happy feels to move past.

So, this brings me to the end of the show. Episode 12 should have ended with Sky falling into his ex’s clutches and seeing (if necessary) the full extent of the abuse. There needs to be some distance between this and the final episode which needs to be about resolution and healing, not suffering.

Episode 13 begins with his rescue and explaining his abuse completely to Pai (add in a lot more beating up of the exes with Payu playing a larger role than just standing there looking mildly miffed). Dealing with that takes the first half of the episode, then we get a breather with a cute double date between our leads.

Then, the second half of the episode is about SkyPai tentatively moving towards meeting one another’s families not as a throw away moment in the midst of acute trauma but as an actively, consciously done choice to serve as a final reassurance that Sky is going to be loved and taken care of. Perhaps a family dinner where Sky gets to have a moment with each family member. (also if you’re going to mention the strange uncle connection that needs to be done earlier than 5 minutes before its relevant, like have Sky have a poster with an important phrase in his room they can comment on or something)

And the final moment is perhaps returning to RainPayu engaging in some actual sub/dom play perhaps interwoven with SkyPai domestic cuddling to reinforce the point of various ways of expressing a healthy relationship dynamic.

#love in the air #mousie watches bl #meta

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oak23 · 2 years

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My second new year's resolution is to stop connecting with people solely over shared trauma and instead work on building friends with common interests, goals and mindsets I want to emulate instead.

Like, I do appreciate and understand why I needed those friendships when I was younger and had no way of communicating my own experiences, but when half of your friends are teetering towards 30 with no intention of self improving or building a healthier mindset because they have grown too comfortable and have built their whole identity around being hard done by, you either can join them or instead finally live the life you want to like your other friends who have moved on from being 22.

I know now I can not fix broken people, and they will never be able to fix me, so It's time to start being a healthier person in mind and body.

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aozorasakura · 1 year

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head empty only mizuki okiura / date

so i was able to finish both games of AI: The Somnium Files last month and I REALLY just want to talk about the best character of the series (i am not biased please agree with me) Mizuki !!

im just gonna rant about mizuki's route mainly (and also date family shenanigans)

(look at my girl... LOOK AT HER !!)

spoilers beneath the cut

her character throughout the series and both games is just ... so lovable?? in the first game, she was the perfect balance of bratty and being a kid while at the same time, she had already gone through so much

i dived into the game blindly and when i was forced to make a choice in her somnium, i decided to pick the balloon option and i immediately regretted everything after seeing the results (i literally kept screaming IM SO SORRY MIZUKI FOR MAKING YOUR TRAUMA WORSE) and after finishing iris' route, i immediately went for her route right after

and mizuki's route did not disappoint (i am totally not biased) and i wished that the deepness of her relationship with date in her route and how it developed transferred over to the right half of the game's flow chart since it really did get shafted hard for the true ending no hate to the sagan family though as much as i also loved date/falco's relationship with both iris and hitomi, i think that they deserve another member of the family

back to the topic of mizuki's route, the scene where she tries to talk to an unconscious date at the hospital broke my heart since she witnesses first hand her only remaining parental figure in her life almost gets killed (another note, i accidentally did the bad end of mizuki's route first since i wanted to kill so sejima that badly) and how she tried to poke around at boss' name saying that it doesn't fit her gaahh date just wake up

doing date's somnium felt bittersweet but also it made me feel warm inside especially at the ost that played in the background and the memories that they both made in the tiny apartment where they reside together. if you consider how date never really had a true family (and because sadly all of his memories with the sagans are just poof) but he still was able to call out on the abuse and neglect that shoko and renju had done respectively and he was still able to raise her properly despite her complicated family life !!!! and in the end how mizuki reassured date that she needed him and when he woke up, she welcomed him home in her usual fashion (by giving an affectionate kick)

(the dad that stepped up literally)

moving on to nirvana initiative mizuki, i literally gave into temptation because of the steam sale that i bought the game right away even though i was not finished with the main game yet and it was a must since mizuki was protag (ryuki i love you but i kinda spedrun thru ur half so i can get to mizuki's lmfao)

(she's presenting a friend! its aiba)

I LOVED PLAYING AS MIZUKI WHILE I WAS PLAYING AINI and while i am VERY bitter that her whole relationship with date was shafted to the side once again... i can never really win but it gave me abis found family crumbs which is nice !! but this fact alone makes me biased with the outcome of the secret ending where the explosion never happened and date didn't need to lose his memory for the second fucking time and he was able to be present for most of mizuki's life BUT THEN AGAIN . his reunion with mizuki during the gen and amame route and the resolution route i feel was done in their style, not really a tearful reunion but the love is still there, especially how when he was in gen's suit at the latter route, listening to her conversation with aiba because he had the receptor on including the one time he interacted with her inside of their heads when she tried to come up with a plan to get rid of the SAT and he tells her that it was better to raise the white flag in a bittersweet tone ... concerned papa fr

cant forget her involvement in the andes and shoma route !

HONESTLY there's so much i want to say about her but i am running out of words to say so i might have to make a part two of this blog post soon

anyways... i might post my aitsf fanfics here too... i hate this detective game /h

#aitsf #aitsf spoilers #ai the somnium files #ai the somniun files nirvana initiative #mizuki date #mizuki okiura #I LOVE MIZUKI SO MUCH #PLEASE PLAY AITSF

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berenwrites · 1 year

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Whole New Us Ch3 - Stranger Things - Steddie

Whole New Us: Trauma Bonded and Beyond

Also on AO3 | Or here CH1 | CH2 | CH4 | CH5 | CH6 | CH7 | CH8 | CH9 | CH10 | CH11 | CH12 | CH13 | CH14 | CH15 | CH16 | CH17 | CH18 | CH19 | CH20 | CH21 | CH22 | CH23 | CH24 | CH25 (Mature) | CH25 (Fade to black) COMPLETE

Summary: Steve has been ignoring his own problems, he’s been busy. They’ve all been busy, preoccupied with fixing everything that was broken. Vecna has been defeated, but the Upside Down is still there, and the gates are not completely closed even though Hawkins has almost returned to normal. It’s been a couple of months and the aftereffects of Steve’s encounter with the demobats is about to come back to bite him. However, it also brings some unexpected hope.

Pairing: steddie (Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson)

Rating: Teen (with mature content in later chapters)

Chapter 3. Full Disclosure

El simply looked at Steve as he gathered his thoughts.

“I’ve been dreaming about Eddie,” he told her. “I thought it was just my subconscious dealing with the guilt of leaving him there, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t think he’s dead, I think he’s like me.”

“Why do you think that?” El asked.

“Because he looked like this,” he flashed his claws to illustrate, “before I knew I did too. And …” he wasn’t sure how to explain it. “And I think we’re connected.”

“The demobats were all connected to Vecna,” El said, her little frown back as she considered it, “it is possible, because you were both exposed before he died, that a reflection of that was passed on.”

Steve didn’t really like the idea of being a throwback to Vecna, but it made a weird kind of sense.

“What do you want to do?” El asked.

“I want to go back in and get him,” Steve said without hesitation.

“That would be dangerous,” El pointed out. “The gates are unstable.”

“I know,” he said, “and I know you didn’t know him, but Eddie sacrificed himself for Dustin, for us. He’s all alone, El, and he’s terrified. He needs our help.”

He wasn’t really expecting the curt nod to that, but almost immediately El was standing up and taking his hand.

“We need to speak to Dad,” she said and basically dragged him back towards the cabin as he internally panicked.

“El,” he said, finally refusing to go any further as they neared the door, “what are we going to tell him?”

“Everything,” was her simple and straightforward response.

El’s tone was so resolute that Steve couldn’t argue, but as he let her lead him into the house, he was terrified.

“Dad,” El said, finding Hopper sitting at the table reading the paper, “we need to go back into the Upside Down.”

Hopper’s hands tightened on the edges of his paper and Steve found himself on the end of a judgemental glare.

“Eddie’s alive,” was the best he could do to explain himself.

“He sent you a message?” Hopper asked, his glare lessening at the news.

“You could say that,” Steve said.

“What’s going on?” Hopper asked.

El looked at Steve and gave him a small supportive smile, and wasn’t that a kicker, the teenager supporting the legal adult.

“The bat creatures,” Steve said, even as his heart thudded in his chest, “there was more to them than we guessed. Eddie … I …”

He couldn’t find the words. Feeling like he was about to step off a cliff, he picked up the very solid knife from Hopper’s breakfast toast plate and bent the handle in half like it was plasticine. For a terrifying few seconds, Hopper just stared at the twisted piece of cutlery. Then his eyes flicked up to Steve’s face and Steve could barely breathe.

Jim Hopper was the closest thing he had to a father figure who gave a damn about him and if he lost that it might just break him.

When Hopper reached out and took the knife, testing it to see if it would bend back, Steve just let him.

“How did you do that?” Hopper asked.

“When the demobats tried to kill me, I bit one of them,” Steve said, still utterly terrified. “I tried to spit out all the blood, but I didn’t get it all. I think it’s been changing me ever since. That’s why I came to see El, I needed her … needed …”

“He needed me to tell him if he was dangerous,” El took over for him. “He isn’t.”

Hopper looked between the two of them.

“It’s not just the strength, is it?” he said.

Steve shook his head and El squeezed his hand, giving him another encouraging look. He so didn’t want to, but he knew he had to. Reaching down inside, he let the otherness rise to the surface.

Hopper’s eyes went wide and, like he was at that moment, Steve could smell the man’s instinctive fear. If El hadn’t been holding his hand, he might have run.

“Holy f…cow,” Hopper said.

“Yeah,” Steve said, voice cracking as he tried to speak.

He allowed Hopper to get a good look before putting the genie back in the bottle.

“Have also picked up a taste for steak, raw,” he said.

“And what happens if you don’t get it?” Hopper asked.

“Think of one of the girls with PMS, only I bite,” he replied.

Hopper just looked at him for a while longer before finally sighing.

“Shit, kid, you never catch a break, do you?” were Hopper’s surprising next words. “Both of you, sit down and tell me what this has to do with Eddie Munson.”

Steve almost cried with relief, doing as he was told before his knees betrayed him and gave out.

“Eddie was killed by the bats,” Steve said, “but I don’t think he actually died, I think he was contaminated, and he changed, like me.”

“And how can you be sure?” Hopper asked.

“I can’t,” Steve admitted, “but either I somehow knew what I was going to look like when I finally changed, or I’ve been dreaming about Eddie for weeks in exactly the same state.”

“So, he’s running around in what’s left of the Upside Down?” Hopper checked.

Steve nodded.

“It feels like he’s running on instinct,” he did his best to explain. “He’s surviving, but I don’t know for how long.”

“And how do we find him if we do go back?” was the next sensible question.

“I could find him,” El said as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

“Um,” Steve said, gaze flicking between El and Hopper, “I think so can I. Ever since, well, this,” he flicked one finger and let the claw elongate for a moment, “I have this … I guess I’d call it an instinct. It’s kind of fuzzy at the moment, but I think that’s because we’re in different dimensions. It feels like I should be able to feel him if that makes any sense.”

“Kid, nothing about any of this shit makes sense,” Hopper replied, “but either way we have a way to find him. The question is how?”

“The trailer park,” El said without hesitation, “it will be easiest to open a gate there. The fabric is still weak, not yet healed.”

“Fabric?” Steve asked, not quite keeping up, what with everything else spinning around in his head.

“The fabric of here,” El did her best to explain.

“Oh,” he replied, catching up, that made sense.

“And you can open a gate without hurting yourself?” Hopper asked, giving El a long look.

“Yes,” El said. “I learned a lot of things from Henry when I beat him, and I understand properly now. It is also not so hard with him gone. He had,” she paused for a moment, “twisted things,” was how she chose to describe it.

Steve was impressed with her confidence.

“There are still things in there,” he added, “I’ve seen them in my dreams, but they’re not like the ones we fought.”

“The Upside Down is returning to how it was when I sent Henry there,” El agreed with a nod. “He made the hivemind and it died when he died, but there were things there before, things that were changed by him and have changed back.”

“Dangerous things?” Hopper asked.

El shrugged.

“Not as dangerous as Henry’s monsters,” she said. “They do not have his purpose. They are like animals.”

“So, we’re going on safari,” Hopper commented. “Better than a monster hunt, I suppose.”

“I will protect you,” El said with a smile, reaching out and patting her adopted father’s hand.

“I don’t doubt that, Kid,” Hopper replied with a fond smile of his own, “but how about we protect each other.”

“I would like that,” El replied.

Steve didn’t mention the fact he was pretty sure he could take on a Demogorgon with his bare hands now, if there happened to be any left. Being one of the monsters now was still too raw. Pushing those ideas down, he focused on the rest of the planning.

~*~

“Okay, what’s this about?” Dustin said as he sat down.

After a long discussion at Hopper’s house, they had decided everyone who was in town needed to know what they were about to do. Steve didn’t really want the kids near the Upside Down, no matter how de-Vecna’d it was now, and Hopper was on the same page, but they had also both agreed when El had pointed out, with the way things usually went, Dustin, Mike and Lucas would probably notice anyway.

Dustin had been studying the gates ever since the pre-final battle battle, and given that the kid was a genius, the likelihood of him accidentally finding out was high. Way higher than the actual government scientists if El was to be believed.

Erica was visiting relatives with her parents, so that was at least one minor they didn’t have to worry about.

Nancy and Robin were a given, so they had a party of eight to deal with the issue. They had convened at Steve’s house.

“We think Eddie’s alive,” Steve said.

Rather than the explosion of noise he had expected, what he got was stunned silence. Dustin was staring at him as if he’d heard the words, but not comprehended them.

“For real?” Mike asked after a moment.

“Yeah, for real,” Hopper backed up.

“He is in the Upside Down,” El added. “We plan to go in and get him.”

“Son of a bitch,” Dustin said slowly and quietly.

“How do you know?” Nancy asked, ever the practical one.

“I’ve been dreaming about him,” Steve admitted. “Don’t think I really had flu.”

“And Steve came to me, and I went into his mind,” El continued with the half story they had agreed on because Steve really couldn’t cope with explaining everything and preparing to go into the Upside Down at the same time. “Eddie is alive.”

“Why you?” Lucas asked Steve.

“Bats,” he said shortly.

“You were both exposed,” Dustin said, lighting up at the titbit of information, “it could have forged a weak psychic connection.”

“It’s been months,” Mike pointed out.

“Nothing about the Upside Down makes perfect sense,” Hopper stepped in. “We don’t have all the answers, but we can’t ignore what we do know.”

“So, we’re going in then,” Dustin said.

“Some of us are,” Hopper said with the weight of authority in his voice. “Me, Steve, El and Nancy and Robin if they are willing.”

Both nodded without hesitation.

“We need you boys to guard the gate for us from the other side, make sure nothing gets through while we’re busy,” Hopper went on.

“You think we’re too young,” Mike accused. “We weren’t too young for Vecna.”

“Kid, you’re all too young for all of this,” Hopper said with exasperation in his voice, “but since we trust the government boys as far as we can throw them, this is how it’s gonna be. Are you in, or out?”

The boys all looked at each other. “We’re in,” Dustin answered for all of them.

End of Ch3

Chapter 4

#stranger things fanfiction #steddie #steve harrington/eddie munson #steve x eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #eddie lives #stranger things #st: whole new us #fanfic #post season 4 #vampires #kind of vampires #hurt/comfort

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