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dyhayc · 2 years

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Every Single One Of Us

Pairing: Eddie Munson x fem!Reader (Angst, Slight Fluff)

Summary: It’s the next day, and there’s a lot to discuss.

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: Fighting, Very Mild Gore? There’s A Sentence About Ripping A Heart Out & A Sentence About Suffocating

A/N: My dramatic side came out while writing this. Can you tell I love similes and metaphors? This fic is dialogue-centric since there’s a lot to say. This doesn’t follow canon, because the timeline of Steve's relationships is off.

Sorry it’s a little late, I had to babysit my parents’ puppy, Evie, for a few hours ^^ There’s two pictures of her at the end as consolation for reading all this angst haha

Part One | Masterlist

You cried for twenty minutes in Eddie’s arms until your eyes burned, your throat scratched, and your face was sticky with a mix of fresh and old tears. He was a saint, blessing you silence in your moment of heartbreak. Every few minutes, you’d tried to push away your feelings and calm down, yet your crying would start again. Your heart is hard to ignore when it’s been violently ripped from your chest and stapled to your sleeve.

Finally done, you pull back and swallow thickly. You feel naked before him, bearing every mistake for him to see. In a vain attempt to shield yourself from his gaze, you cross your arms, folding in on yourself.

“I’m a terrible person, Eddie.”

“No, you’re not,” he replies instantly, without thought. That’s a problem. He isn’t thinking, isn’t processing all the issues that have been building for the past six months. Hell, the past years. These things can’t be erased by some sweet words, a few empty comforts in the face of adversity. No– he can’t be blind to it anymore.

“Yes, I am. We’re all terrible people. Every single one of us.” You sigh, shaking your head. Sure, you could feign innocence, pretend that this is all Steve’s fault, but it’s not. This complicated spider’s web of a mess is the unfortunate result of the mistakes of three.

“I’ve been living a lie. I lied to myself, I lied to Steve, I lied to you.” Admitting the fact out loud is cathartic, and now you know you can never go back– not to Steve, or to the pretend happiness, or the escapism. “Tomorrow, I’m done. I don’t know what I’m going to say, I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but it has to be done.”

Eddie seems confused and concerned, not really following what you’re trying to say. You can feel the hesitance when he asks, “What do you mean?”

For someone who can usually read between the lines, he’s just skipped over the whole damn paragraph. You love him, but God, how clueless can he be? “What do you mean ‘what do I mean’? I’m breaking up with Steve. I can’t stay with him. You love me, and I love you. Why would we suffer when we can resolve this now?”

“Won’t he think we’ve been sneaking around behind his back the entire time?”

“Do you think he’ll suddenly believe we weren’t together if we wait a few weeks? Trust me, I have years of experience,” you sigh in anguish at the flood of memories, “If we push this away, it’ll come back even stronger.”

He nods in understanding, finally on the same page. “Yea…” he begins, instantly trailing off. He takes a moment before stumbling through his words, “Do you– do you want me there?”

A breakup is an incredibly intimate moment, but Eddie plays such a huge part in everything that it would be a disservice to leave him out of the conversation. Not to mention the pang that goes through your heart at the thought of facing Steve alone. “Yes,” you nod, adding a small “please.”

“Okay,” he mumbles as he gives a little smile and rubs your arm comfortingly, but you both know how awkward tomorrow will be. Sliding off the counter, you’re a little unsteady on your feet. Eddie helps you keep your balance as you wash your face off and finally leave the bathroom. Silently, he lays you down and ensures you’re okay before lying down himself.

The room is quiet. Too quiet. It’s too hot with the blanket on, but too cold with it off. The lines of moonlight morph and twist on the ceiling above your head as you lie still. Sleep is unobtainable, your senses on overdrive. It seems Eddie can’t sleep either because he reaches over and intertwines your fingers together under the covers. Focusing on the feeling of his thumb rubbing circles on the back of your hand, you drift into a fitful sleep.

Opening your eyes with a gasp, your brain takes a second to adjust to your surroundings. In a split second, all the memories of last night flood your mind. Groggy and confused, you wonder if any of it was real, but Eddie’s hand clasped in yours gives you all the answers you need.

Swiftly, you untangle yourself from him and rub your face with your hands. You feel terrible like you’d only slept for a few seconds. Your eyes are so dry, your cheeks are irritated from the salt of your tears, and you’re definitely dehydrated. Last night you were right. The second you move to stand up, you feel the uncomfortable soreness between your legs. Stumbling a little, you head to the bathroom and do your business while avoiding your reflection, afraid of what you’ll see. Still tired, you decide to lie down again.

Eddie is the next to wake up, groaning as he sits up. Unsteadily, he makes his way to the bathroom and comes back a few minutes later, wearing different clothes. “You want anything?” he asks, motioning to the kitchen. You shake your head no, but he still delivers a glass of water, returning to the kitchen to make something for himself.

Finally, Steve gets up after sleeping like the dead. It’s a wonder he’s still alive. You were worried he’d keeled over and died after his lack of a response to your late-night escapades. He doesn’t say anything as he stands up, eerily silent while walking to and from the bathroom. The tension is quick to build, even if Steve appears to be oblivious to it.

Sitting up again, you ignore the ache. Your physical discomfort is pennies next to the emotional turmoil you’re experiencing. Maybe the pain is your punishment, a necessary evil to repent for the things you’ve done.

Steve is in the kitchen, grabbing a cup of water. Honestly, you’re still not sure what you’re going to say. Last night you’d spent a while planning out a speech, but you feel it isn’t enough. You wish you had the strength to wait a little bit before breaking up with him, but the guilt is already pouring out of your heart like a broken faucet.

It’s overwhelming, the emotions that are building in your gut. You’d wanted to at least get through the first few sentences without crying, but you aren’t strong enough. Six months of pain and pretend are all bubbling to the surface. Tears you thought you didn’t have are falling as you whisper a broken, emotional plea, “Steve.”

He knows.

You didn’t even say anything, but he knows. He knows the paranoia screaming at him from the depths of his mind. He knows the uncomfortable feeling he gets when he sees Eddie. He knows a truth. Yes– he knows the truth.

“God, I knew it,” he spits furiously, slamming his glass onto the table behind him, “I fucking knew it!” Your tears are falling harder now, despite all you do to hold them back. In the background, Eddie’s attention is grabbed.

He abandons his task instantly, snapping back, “You don’t know shit!” And now he’s stomping over to the two of you. Steve looks like he’s getting ready to stand up and follow through on the fight that’s been building for months. The second Eddie’s in your reach, you grab his arm and pull him down, forcing him to sit.

They don’t get up, but it’s still possible to clash viciously without their fists. Steve starts their usual bullshit, hissing, “Yea? You two were sneaking around my back the entire time, huh? I knew there was something wrong with you, freak.”

“Nobody was sneaking around! You’d know that if you actually listened to your girlfriend.”

“She’s capable of lying, and obviously, she did.”

“No, she never lied. You just jump to crazy fuckin’ conclusions and think they’re right.”

“It wasn’t a crazy conclusion. We wouldn’t even be having this fight if I was crazy!”

“Stop!” you shout over them. They both falter, freezing as they had last night. To get rid of nerves, you inhale deeply and speak as calmly as possible, “You’re right. It wasn’t a crazy conclusion.”

Eddie starts, “But–”

“No,” you cut him off, “No, he’s right. In fact, you’re both right, and you’re both wrong.”

Steve scrunches up his nose, still pissed. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Yea,” Eddie agrees with Steve, for once in their lives, “What are you talking about?”

“I love Eddie. I’ve always loved Eddie. You were suspicious, and you had every right to be. We don’t act like friends because we’ve always known in our hearts that we were more, even if we’d never said anything out loud. I shouldn’t have been in a relationship when I was deeply in love with someone else. I sincerely apologize. I led you on even though I had feelings for Eddie.”

Steve doesn’t even look like he’s absorbing your words, focusing on the wrong things. So, you attempt a different way to reach him, “Last night, after everything you said, we just… had a revelation. Eddie confessed, and it dawned on me that I’d been holding back for a long time. I’ve been pretending for a long time, just like you. I just want to be happy. You deserve happiness, too, and I think you’ll only find it with the woman you love, not me.”

Steve repeats, “The woman I love?”

Your heart sinks. Does he really think you’re that oblivious? “Steve, don’t act like you don’t know. You broke up two weeks before we got together.”

“Nancy?”

“Yes, Nancy. We spent our entire relationship in love with other people!” Frustration is starting to seep through your words now. How could you all have let this get so far? “We danced around the elephant in the room, and even when it got so big we couldn’t move, we didn’t want to address it. We’d rather suffocate to death than face the truth.”

“I don’t— God, I mean,” Steve fumbles for a moment through his words, “My feelings for Nancy have nothing to do with this; I’m with you.”

You laugh humourlessly, “Steve, they have everything to do with this. Did you not hear what I just said?”

“No, I heard it,” he huffs, “I just think it’s bullshit–”

Eddie, who had been sitting quietly for a while, cuts in, “Y’know what? Shut the fuck up and imagine this: you’re Nancy’s best friend. She’s dating some selfish prick who acts like he’s got a stick up his ass all the time, but you don’t wanna say anything because she says she’s happy. How would you feel?”

You turn to Eddie and smack his shoulder. Aggravating Steve won’t do anything except take away from your points. He’s gonna get angrier, and you’re gonna have to find a way to calm him down and—

And Steve looks like he’s genuinely considering his words.

So, you try one last time with another perspective. Your voice is soft, not wanting him to think you’re being bitter, “I was yearning for something I felt like I could never have, something far out of my reach, like you are with her. She’s your dream girl. The one who you’re supposed to marry, have six kids with, and love happily ever after in your perfect white-picket-fence life.”

You fiddle with your fingers, knowing what you’re about to admit will hurt both of you, but it must be said. “Nancy shattered those dreams and broke your heart. My heart was already crushed with, what I assumed was, unrequited love. We met in a time of need. We were hurting and thought we needed each other, but we didn’t. We never have. We wanted companionship, the illusion of love. But, an escape is just a temporary solution to a far greater problem.”

Steve looks like you’ve just trampled him. He asks, with no real malice, “So, you get a happy ending, and I get a broken heart? I loved you.”

You hope your sad smile conveys your sympathy. “No, you didn’t. You loved the idea of me, of a future where you’ve moved on and are okay without Nancy. Honestly, I loved the idea too. And I used you. I used you because I didn’t want Eddie to hate me. Our ‘love’ was infatuation, but infatuation is never love. We’ll grow to hate each other if we stay.”

He’s got his hand on his face, shaking his head. Reality is hard, it hits fast, and he wasn’t prepared for the punch, so he got knocked on his ass. With a sigh, you finish your speech, “We were always supposed to be friends, Steve.” He sighs, too, finally admitting what he’s been so adamantly denying.

“I know.”

Standing up, he sniffles, “I’m gonna grab my stuff and take a walk.” You and Eddie both make sounds of affirmation. You get up, too, and help him with his things.

At the door, you send him off, knowing Eddie would probably make a smug remark. He takes a few steps before turning around, “Don't expect me back. Goodbye, and… sorry and thank you. I just—” He sighs, cutting himself short, “For everything.”

You give him a weak smile, “Sorry, and thank you, too. For everything.” You watch him go from your spot in the doorframe, not moving until he disappears down the bend of the road.

Turning around, you see Eddie standing where he had been sitting. He opens his arms, and you run into them, tumbling onto the floor together. You end up on top of him, squeezing tight, afraid he’ll disappear if you loosen your grip. You stay that way for the rest of the morning until the afternoon when you somehow shift, so Eddie’s the one on top of you.

His head is lying on your chest when he breaks the hours of silence, and you wonder if he spent all that time thinking about what he was going to say. “We’ll start over. I’ll take you to a movie– whatever you choose, and we’ll get dinner after. You can order anything you want, and I’ll pay for everything. I’ll be a gentleman, I’ll bring you gifts, and I’ll hold all the doors open for you-”

“And they say chivalry is dead,” you murmur, bringing back his little comment from yesterday. But, really, you just want to stop him from his rambling. He should know by now that you didn’t choose him because of the money he spends or the grand gestures he makes.

“Love is in the little things, Eddie,” you speak louder than before, running your hands through his hair, “You don’t have to do all that. I know you love me when you pick my favourite out of your candy bowl instead of grabbing randomly like you always do. I know you love me when you remember the things I tell you, no matter how inconsequential they may seem. I know you love me when you compromise with me instead of fighting for your way. Our love runs deeper than you paying for my food and holding open doors.”

He chuckles, “I didn’t know you thought of me like that. I guess we can just stay home all the time then, huh?” He’s teasing, you know he’s teasing, but you can’t help yourself.

Sheepishly, you mumble, “Well, of course… if you maybe wanna do all that… That’s cool too.”

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The love of my life <3 She's so great

People who asked to be tagged, sorry if I messed up! I've never tagged anyone before 💔

@user3628929292 @mermaids-are-realll @slutfor-munson @shenevertricks1831 @daddysfavoritesexkitten @vulcrum332 @kellysimagines @bgolightly @toxishock @shyfireoperatorbasketball

#stranger things #eddie munson #eddie stranger things #eddie x reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x fem!reader #angst #fluff #my writing

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retrieve-the-kraken · 8 months

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9 favourite books

Thank you @gwiazdziarka for tagging me (and thanks for all those book recs, I’m adding all of them to my list, except for the ones that I’ve already read), and I agree, maybe all of these won’t be my absolute favorite books, but they’re either books that I think about a lot, or books that have a special place in my heart, but not necessarily something that I go back to over and over.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exúpery

This one is definitely a favorite. It’s a book that I’ve reread many times, because I feel that it has a different feel every time, depending on what I’m going through at that moment. Also a classic. Love it so much that I’ve started to collect editions in different languages; so far I have Spanish (of course), French, Italian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Euskera (possibly one of the rarest), and Swedish (of course, because I intend to be able to read it by next year).

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Also an absolute favorite, classic down-the-rabbit-hole type story that takes place in London Below. Fell in love with it, with the world-building within an already existing world. If i actually had to list 9 of my favorite books, pretty sure the whole list would be Neil Gaiman, but this book is both entertaining and comforting, so I pick this one. The BBC radio drama adaptation starring James McAvoy and Natalie Dormer is also excellent. Still waiting for the book sequel, though…

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

The most charming book in history, composed entirely of letters between an aspiring writer and rare books collector in New York and the manager of a rare books bookshop in London. Their relationship is platonic, and yet one of the most romantic things I have ever read. The movie adaptation is equally charming and it has Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench in it. Read the book first, then watch the movie, then cry endlessly. Rinse and repeat.

Like a Hole in the Head by Jen Banbury

You should know that I get a lot of book recommendations from TV shows, so I decided to hunt down this book when Monica was reading it in more than one episode of Friends (felt like a subliminal message). And it was fucking worth it. Also a book about a book. A dwarf comes into a bookshop where the protagonist works, to sell a first edition of Jack London’s White Fang, and only after he’s gone she finds out just how rare it is. Heist plot ensues. It’s equally strange and exciting, mind-blowing and cathartic.

The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan

Very melancholy, this book is a collection of essays, poems and short stories published posthumously, as Keegan died in an accident at 21. She was very talented and could write convincingly about many things. Can’t even pick a favorite one out of the collection, because they’re all very good in very different ways. Very bittersweet.

Los Caballos Estornudan en la Lluvia by Dimas Lidio Pitty

Another short story collection (the title literally translates as “Horses Sneeze in the Rain”), from a Panamanian author, from the region where I spent my childhood summers, which still holds a very special place in my heart, and which has a mysticism about it that he helps preserve in these stories. Dimas Lidio Pitty was very good at magical realism. One of the stories in particular is so brief, but it’s incredible how good it is in such a short narration.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I’m a huge fan of classic dystopic science fiction, and this one has got to be my favorite. The narrative is interesting, moves along at an excellent pace, and it covers everything. Another book about books too. If you haven’t read Fahrenheit 451, the premise is simple: in this dystopic society, firemen don’t put out fires, they start them… to burn books. Book banning to the extreme. What happens next? You need to read it to find out.

El Misterio del Solitario by Jostein Gaarder

I have been obsessed with this book (The Solitaire Mystery in English) by Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder since I started reading all his books when I was a teen (I don’t even know how I came across him, I just picked one up one day and went with it, it wasn’t even Sophy’s World, it was Through a Glass, Darkly). Of course Sophy’s World is probably the most famous, and it was very good, but this one is so strange and magical that I read it several times ages ago, and it was such a comforting book, and now I would like to reread. Maybe one day soon I’ll read it in Norwegian!

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Another classic and favorite, which I have also read many times. Some people like Alice in Wonderland, some like Peter Pan, I like the Wizard of Oz. I like anything Oz related, the movie, the musical, Wicked (the musical, not the book, tho), everything. But the source material is still where it’s at.

No pressure tags: @makingupachangingmind , @voldiebeth , @raincitygirl76 and @phoebenpiperx .

#booksbooksbooks #booklove #book recs #i love learning about what people are reading or have read or love to read #give me all the book recs #i wish i could have a book club with everyone here

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oddball-in-the-scarf · 1 year

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that post on about uncomfortable media makes me think a lot of about things

Honestly, some of my favourite films are ones that have made me cry and feel something for a long time, even as someone who is very mentally unwell and with such specific triggers and troubles, it ends up being more cathartic to me to watch them especially if they adhere to said troubles, because it feels like I am then able to confront them in a way after feeling ‘seen’. When I see something that distresses me, I often think about why it distresses me, and how it makes me feel, I’m often not able to articulate it, but I end up appreciating any media thats able to make me feel emotions of a kind, good or bad.

Even if I can’t reccommend any of such media as a casual viewing, if you can prepare yourself and are willing to try them out, I do say they are worth watching once.

One film I mentioned in the tags, Kill It And Leave This Town, is not a film I can reccommend to a lot of people, not only for its really uncomfortable subject matters, but also due to it being very slow and disjointed as a film with a very unclear narrative, theres a long scene of one character muttering to himself as he does crossword puzzles for example, yet its themes of death, seeing loved ones die and realising your memories with them weren’t all that great, and trying to make amends your own way in your own mind, was something that touched me in a way that no other media about death and mortality made me feel, and its a massive comfort film that way despite its uncomfortable subjects. Due to how disjointed my mind works the disjointment of the film and its narrative felt more suitable to me as well, but I understand when someone says they can’t get through the film either because its too much in its themes or is just too slow for them to get through.

Another film I mentioned, ‘Threads’, is something I can’t reccommend either, its a brutal film that tries to be as accurate as it can be on nuclear warfare, it also hits a little personal to me, as a lot of the characters being working class northeners in England remind me of northerners I’ve known and a lot of them feel like people I know (even if I’m more southern), which makes it all the more painful for me. But the way it brutally yet realistically depicts everything honestly ruined a lot of ‘post-nuclear-apocalypse’ media for me like Fallout, because now I can only think ‘please, it wouldn’t be nearly as optimistic!’ and I mean that in a good way! It really is a film that puts into perspective on how nuclear warfare is a very VERY bad idea (to put it lightly) and just how everything will collapse as a result. It’s to the point its a film that actively discouraged a lot of ‘pro-nuke’ sentiment at the time. It’s a film to definitely watch once and even if I did not ‘enjoy’ or was ‘entertained’ by it, I am glad I watched it, and I appreciate it for not pulling any punches, but hopefully I won’t see it again.

Last I mentioned was Birdboy: The Forgotten Children, its a bit more ‘mild’ compared to these other ones but still incredibly brutal, it dabbles into drugs, mental health, and wanting to escape a dying and oppressive community when there’s barely any chance of surviving in the first place. I can’t explain how this film makes me feel, mostly because I haven’t watched it in so long despite it being a film that has come to mean a lot to me, but also because theres so much emotion that the little animal kids make me feel and how they all try and survive and escape their island as you see all their individual struggles. The film like Kill It And Leave This Town is animated, bleak, and very metaphorical, and it portrays them all in ways where they have as much impact as things that are ‘real’, though this ends on a more hopeful note than Kill It. I feel if you are trying to get into upsetting films, this one is a good start.

#a post of mine #infodump #personal

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thoughts-feelings-musings · 1 year

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21.6.23

I wrote on here like 40 minutes ago. It’s 11 mins past midnight now.

I think, right now in this moment, I want to die. My chest feels a bit strange.

I think it’s because everything is so big. Mum and my relationship or lack thereof. Nan and grandad. I can’t even think about any of it.

I can’t even think about me. And my place in the world any more.

Maybe I’m making up everything I feel and all that’s happened. I just want to be someone else, somewhere else. Some other life.

I’m not going to do anything. We have too much going on. And I don’t want to fuck up my future if I survive it.

I used to feel like this constantly. But now it usually passes. Im being dramatic.

I wish I could call someone I could be honest with. I might just cry nonstop tonight. I want that real cathartic sob but I’m just doing small crying and that’s all that seems possible.

It’s summer so I don’t want to hurt myself and leave a mark. Im scared of pain too.

Life is hard.

I think A+I have gone off me. I think everyone has. I’m tolerated by them because we are colleagues.

I want something terrible to happen to me so I have a reason to feel so crap. An excuse for my being.

I don’t want to see anyone or do anything. I want to rot. I want to walk into the sea. I want to be hospitalised and have no one know.

I’d like someone to hit me round the head with a baseball bat and be done with it.

Life is hard because I am bad. I am ugly. I am boring. I am average. I am not special. My heart stopped racing when I typed that. The fluttery feeling in my chest went. Maybe that’s because I know it’s true. And that honesty with myself is freeing. Or maybe it’s because it isn’t true. I don’t know and I don’t care and it doesn’t matter.

I hate my name. I love it. I want to change it. It’s so recognisable. That’s why I love and hate it. People use it to perceive me. It means something to them and they have pictures and sounds and feelings in them when they hear it. I hate it. I hate that.

Shall I just stop existing? Shall I just allow the universe to take me? Take me rather than dad.

Can I be bothered to exist? Endless washing up and meal cooking and clothes washing and bed making and floor mopping and bin changing and fridge organising and shoe tying.

Nothing exceptional is going to happen to me. There I said it. I’m going to work a job until I die. I’ll be mediocre at it. Better than some, worse than others.

I won’t realise talent. I won’t actualise anything. I won’t be rich or famous or adored or revered. I am not destined for greatness.

Nothing exceptional happens to most people. Most people live boring, monochrome lives with a smattering of paint here and there. They marry someone who is good enough. Their house is good enough. Their bodies are good enough. Their clothes are good enough. Their lifestyle is good enough. Their sex is good enough. Their friendship is good enough. Their job is good enough. Good enough. Not in a good way. In a huh ok way. That’s life. That’s all I’m destined for. The exact same thing everyone else has. Nothing exceptional is ever going to happen to me.

Because I am not exceptional.

Fine. Fuck you. Fuck this. I am angry because it’s true. I am disappointed because it’s true.

Nothing great is coming my way. I will live a complacent, uneventful life. Like everyone else. Fuck life. I don’t want that. I want more.

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sweetcoello · 1 year

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On Forgiveness

March 28th 2023

Being raised in a Christian family, I’ve always been taught that one must forgive others. Doesn’t matter what they’ve done to you. You have to forgive. The idea behind this is God forgives everything you’ve done and if a holy and perfect being won’t hold your mistakes against you, then what’s your excuse? “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Such a transactional God.

I asked my mom about this yesterday on our way to church. I was interested in the idea of praying for people who hurt you in the past. Now my mind’s itching to ramble on about prayer, but I’ll save that for another day—one borderline sacrilege at a time.

She said that forgiving people is more so for herself than others. Because she can let go of all the heaviness and bitterness about the situation. “Someone who hurt me the most can become my best friend in prayer” she said. I think that’s a very her answer to give.

I don’t want to be one of those people who pretends to be well read. Or worse reads a little and pretends they understand the subject enough to be an expert.

But I will say that from I understand, Fredrick “God is Dead” Neichze didn’t care very much for the idea of forgiveness. Or any Christian virtues for that matter. He believed that Christianity provided an out for people who wanted to take revenge but were too weak for one reason or another. Now that weakness something to celebrate and aspire to.

I’m not quite sure I agree with that. Even though one can’t take revenge they’ll still imagine doing so. They’ll wince in pain as rage boils in their chest. They’ll cry, and scream, and slam their face on the ground until their skull splits open—on the inside of course.

I know because I’m like that. I like to think I’m gentle enough of a person to not go through with a revenge plot—even if I had the means to do so. Still that doesn’t stop a profound unrest from welling up in my heart and mind because i know whoever wronged me did so and got away with it.

Recently, there was a person who did something rather awful to me. At first, I thought I’d forgive them like I had everyone else. But I’ve come to realize I can’t do that. Maybe years of forcing a smile and saying “it’s okay” to every half assed apology, and accepting apologies I never got gave me some kind of weird forgiveness fatigue. Maybe it’s just not in me anymore. Maybe I’m not as gentle as I thought. Or maybe this person simply doesn’t deserve it.

Which is true they don’t. But not forgiving them has left my inner self screaming, crying, and splitting her skull open. I have thought of what

I would like to say to them I’ve given the chance. Honestly, just writing all of that down was cathartic in and of itself, and part of me is satisfied with just writing out my thoughts into the void.

Another side of me, however knows how euphoric it would feel to tell them all of that and never speak to them again.

But I knowing what I know about this person, the greatest revenge I could take is simply being happy and successful. That alone would make them scream and cry and slam their empty skull against the ground until it breaks—an empty pumpkin hitting the concrete on the day after Halloween.

Of course, I wanted to be happy and successful anyway, but it’s always nice to have something to fuel my passion to fulfill my dreams.

I started writing this feeling a little confused about forgiveness. Now I think I understand it a little more. It’s a virtue, not a weakness. And I appreciate and envy those will souls so loving and gentle they can forgive those who hurt them and then go on and pray for them the same way they do for themselves and loved ones—like mom.

Having said that I think there’s probably an endless list of things only God can forgive. And for me, I think from now on I’ll reserve my forgiveness for those who go deserve and are willing to accept it. That of course means I don’t forgive that person. But I’m willing to live with the unrest in my soul until I’ve become so happy and successful it makes them seethe. Although by the time I do that I might have forgotten all about them.

-snailtea 🌸

#personal blog #thoughts

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honeyviscera · 3 years

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Some headcanons for Hunter's dynamic with the rest of the Bad Girl Coven when he joins because OF COURSE he will:

(he's going to join the found family. he's going to. he will. he is going to be loved and cherished and valued and shown real affection and *starts crying*) - He has a very brother-and-sister vibe with Luz. They love each other, he's eternally grateful to her, they love studying wild magic together, and he loves learning about glyphs, but they ALWAYS do the most to bug the other. Luz teases Hunter and playfully pokes him to get a reaction and she's always successful, but THEN he sees how Luz is around Amity and. hehe. Suddenly he has fodder for playful teasing revenge.

- Also hugs. He needs hugs and Luz loves giving hugs and yes. them. hugging. (please let him be hugged.) - He and Amity. just. Understand each other. They will sit in the living room of the Owl House in silence and just Vibe for hours, Amity reading Azura and Hunter reading texts on wild magic, and occasionally they will make Understanding Eye Contact. On the flip side, they also love to gush about their respective interests to the other, and they always listen to what the other has to say.

- Amity also helps Hunter do his research in the library and they make up some bs about Important Emperor's Coven Business in order to access all those Restricted Books on Things The Emperor Doesn't Want You To Know, and it becomes an inside joke with them, where they act out more and more outlandish reasons in order to get to the books to each other, while everyone else looks on with varying degrees of amusement, confusion, and concern.

- They also talk about family issues. It's cathartic. Amity realises that Hunter never got Supportive Older Siblings and decides (maybe? ill-advisedly) to introduce him to Emira and Edric. This goes about as well as you would expect. But at the end of that meet up, Hunter just. can't stop smiling. Amity thinks that maybe this wasn't such a bad decision after all. - Gus can't stop draping himself all over Hunter. With finger guns, side hugs, etc, and Gus' endless stream-of-consciousness talking style, Gus just. drags Hunter everywhere because "Oh wow! It's another guy in the Bad Girl Coven! We're bros now. We are officially bros."

- Gus tries to act all cool around Hunter in order to impress him, which fools nobody, but Hunter is just kinda overwhelmed by Gus' enthusiasm and also he's once again amazed he has Yet Another Friend that he just. goes along with it. - He and Willow are besties. yes. At first, he's kinda terrified of her because of her power and Pure Feral Energy, but quickly realises she's really warm the rest of the time.

- Willow is very affectionate around Hunter and Hunter is just. internally sobbing like "oh my god you're so sweet what did I do to deserve this"

- Hunter always listens to Willow gush about her plants and he takes Very Detailed Notes because this stuff is helpful to his research (and also he thinks Willow is Very Cool) - Eda is soo incredibly nice to him and supportive of his rebellion and at first he's kinda afraid of her because he has Trauma but quickly realises Eda is absolutely awesome

- She encourages him to embrace his inner desire to Disobey The Emperor and do Illegal Things and after a while she is 100% successful

- She gives him the love and affection he has so desperately been lacking and the first time she praises him he bursts into tears. This is followed by a hug from Eda. It's very sweet.

- Hunter is worried Eda will kick him out when she finds out who he is but she's like. "Kid. You're fine. I literally housed and cared for my estranged sister who cursed me as children. What matters is that you've rebelled, and you deserve to be cared for because Belos is an abusive asshole."

- Cue Hunter crying once again

- Yeah Eda just adopts Hunter as one of her children. Hunter is shocked but incredibly grateful and there are a lot of tears.

- When he meets Lilith again, at first Lilith is like. "Ugh. It's the young whippersnapper. Little brat." but very quickly she realizes "Oh wow. This is a literal child. This is a literal actual child who is heavily traumatized. I am so sorry, I am so glad you're safe, come on let's do some illegal research together I have soooo much info on what you're looking for, you won't even begin to believe it" Anyways please let this poor child be loved he needs it

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pineapple-lover-boy · 3 years

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Can- can I just talk about the Victuuri relationship? Pretty please?

I just…. I’ve never seen a healthy relationship that starts from idolization and a need to get out that has ended in a satisfying way.

Let me elaborate:

We all know that Yuri idolized Victor. It’s why he was so nervous in the beginning and why it took time for them to build on their relationship, he saw Victor as a god.

Victor? He was depressed. He loved the ice so much but he longer found excitement in competitions. He didn’t have any worthy opponents that had a chance of beating him (sorry Chris).

I believe Victor “fell in love” at the banquet. He was attracted to Yuri but, even though he lost, he also saw potential in him. That night was probably the most exciting night for him in a long time. I think he felt genuine affection for Yuri but also saw a way to get out of his predicament.

Then, of course, Yuri didn’t show up the following season (a year had passed before the present timeline). He was most likely annoyed that someone who had gave him excitement didn’t show up. Did he think Yuri had a chance of beating him at first? Probably not. Did he see potential or at least someone he could have fun with during the season? Hell yes!

And then when he saw the video of Yuri skating Stay Close To Me, something that awarded him a gold medal. That’s all he needed. He saw how Yuri not only skated it perfectly but I bet he thought Yuri skated it better. Let’s not forget that emotion is a huge part of skating. If you don’t skate with the passion your supposed to hold for whatever theme you have, your performance can almost seem futile. Victor obviously won because he perfected it but if it was based on how he presented it alone, he would’ve lost. He saw someone worthy of skating an gold medal piece while also having the heart to do it. That’s talent.

Anyways, because of this, their relationship doesn’t hold well in the beginning. He’s passive aggressive towards Yuri because he doesn’t see his own talent and Yuri is just going along for the ride because holy shit it’s Victor fucking Nikiforov.

As they get to know each other and Yuri opens up more (plus Victor getting info on Yuri from the others) Victor starts to see Yuri as an actual person and not someone he can use to project himself onto and then later skate against. And Yuri starts to see him as an actual person too.

I saw on another post talking about how we didn’t see them during the summer and how the end credits of every episode suggest they got to know each other better as both in the credits and in the show they (Yuri) are able to touch each other more. I 100% believe this.

I also believe they might’ve had an argument or two on this topic. It’s not easy to switch from inadvertently seeing someone as anything but a person to an actual person with emotions and feelings. I believe Victor would’ve tried to back away from this subject but Yuri wouldn’t let him. It wasn’t big arguments like in episode 7. It was probably little quarrels that annoyed them both but after having a long conversation they finally started to become more comfortable with each other.

Yuri started letting go of the notion that Victor was a god like creature and Victor saw him as something other than a pawn. Yuri stopped getting as embarrassed with Victor touching him and Victor stopped trying to seduce him as much just so he could see the man from the banquet.

This most definitely leads the way towards a healthier relationship but episode 7 was inevitable. Yuri’s anxiety was at an all time high when he comes out on top. The fact that he needs to stay on top and not mess up is getting to him. As a person with anxiety, it’s pure hell. The thoughts of failing won’t get out of his head and even as he turns off all the monitors he can still hear everything.

Victor takes him away from prying eyes and has no idea what to do. Despite an obvious change that would’ve had to include some emotions from both occurring over the summer, he still has no idea how to help someone in distress.

Then he makes his first mistake. Yuri is visibly shaken by someone’s scores (can’t remember who) and Victor, who is at his wits end, yells at him to stop listening and puts his hands over Yuri’s ears. This tells Yuri how nervous Victor is too and despite knowing that Victor wouldn’t leave him now it shows to him that Victor doesn’t have faith in him (even if he does).

Victor tried to shatter Yuri’s heart. He must’ve expected Yuri to maybe sign heavily but tell him that he’ll do everything in his power to win (probably something that’s happened with him and Yakov). Instead he see’s the consequences of his carelessness. Yuri rightfully lashes out at him and even through all that Victor stills says “should I kiss you?”. Idk what Yuri was thinking but if I were him I would be extremely offended that Victor would try and use me like some doll he can play with and can assume that physical affection and love can fix everything, which was probably what Yuri was thinking.

There’s something off about Yuri and Victor when they emerge but Yuri is surprisingly better now. Cathartic crying can do wonders, kids. There’s also my favorite part of the entire show (couldn’t find a gif):

*head jab* “Hey, fuck you.”

*more head jabs* “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I know you don’t like this you unempathetic dicknip.”

*head pat* “You’re forgiven.”

We all know what happens next: Yuri ends his love story with Victor’s signature move and Victor kisses him out of joy and the need to one up him (with love, of course).

I’m gonna get a little sloppy here with the timeline because I have the memory of a female protagonist that needs to go back to work to get something only to accidentally bump into the jerk CEO of which she will develop a toxic relationship for fan service, so forgive me.

Gonna skip ahead to the scene where Yuri tells Victor that he’s leaving skating, and basically Victor too. (At this moment I realized I’ve been spelling Viktor with a c and not a k which is really fucking with my brain but it’s too late to go back). Victor starts crying and realizes just how Yuri felt when he was rejecting him.

I believe Yuri found some light in the situation because of that fact, which Victor was not having. They’ve been closer than ever now. They’ve kissed, they’ve also announced they they’re getting married, so what the hell?!

Yuri, as we know, feels he’s keeping Victor from the ice. Victor, while he misses the ice and wouldn’t mind being competitive again, has found meaning and if he’s going to be Yuri’s coach to stay where he is than so be it.

He wanted to coach Yuri because he wanted a worthy competitor and while he still wants that, what matters most now is his relationship with Yuri. If he stops being Yuri’s coach and Yuri goes off the ice he knows it will be the end. Yuri loves the ice too and I’d bet he’d try to distance himself from Victor as to not feel regret from leaving without actually knowing that he’s doing it.

They’ve grown so much at this point. But that doesn’t mean it’s over. After all they’ve been through Yuri doesn’t realize that consequences of parting from one another. While being too dependent on your spouse isn’t good, it’s what they both need right now. They are what caused the other person to be happy again and while I hate those types of storylines this one executed it perfectly.

I find Victor’s silent plea to Yurio absolutely heartbreaking. He knows it’s bad to put pressure on people but now he’s doing that to a 15 year old boy. He’s putting his relationship and his life into this child’s hands because he knows there’s nothing else he can do.

I do think Yurio had a crush on Yuri but even if he didn’t: Yuri has taught him so much. He, although being an ass most of the time, has really come to love Yuri as family. It’s clear that Yurio was always lonely (Otabek being his first friend and all) but once he came to Japan and lived, truly lived there, he wasn’t lonely anymore.

Yurio wins, Yuri gets silver and all’s well that ends well.

I guess my point of this was to show how well the relationship in YOI was. I could’ve included some more detail on some points but I usually write stuff in one take (it’s very hard to revise without my mind shutting on itself).

I just love how an implicitly toxic relationship can come out so healthy. They don’t do any of that miscommunication bullshit and when they do it’s because the characters don’t know what to do or how to handle something. Like humans do!

They could’ve easily made this the hot famous guy thinks the kawai girl boy is just so adorable and the kawai girl boy is absolutely infatuated with the hot guy. Hijinks ensue which includes the kawai girl boy thinking the hot guy is in love with someone else. She He gets pushed into thinking that she’s he’s more independent in the end and happily ever after for the couple that will divorce in less than five years! Yay!

Seriously, I thought that was what was going to happen but YOI subverted my expectations so much. They are people that grew from their bad mindsets. And you know what? Yuri still has anxiety! Victor is still bad with handling emotions! And that’s ok! We don’t change that quickly. It takes time and hopefully another season.

I’m definitely using this show as a template for healthy relationships. It’s so hard for me to properly write them when I’ve never been in one and I’m not given the chance to see it happen in different environments (when searching it up all I get is “they trust each other. They blame each other. They’re compassionate.” Like ok but can you show me how?)

Yuri!!! On ice…. I love you so much. You have done so much for my mental health and my writing. Thank you.

#yuri on ice #yuri katsuki #katsuki yuri #victor nikiforov #viktor nikirofov #please tell me if you want me to elaborate on some sections #long post #yurio plisetsky #yuri plisetsky #healthy relationships

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characteroulette · 3 years

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well all rightie then, it’s time to analyse how DGS1 handles grief really well in my opinion

(once again, spoilers for all of DGS1)

(also some spoilers for the original trilogy games) (and a little of DGS2)

okay So my thesis statement here is that Asougi’s character in DGS1 is the vessel through which Ryuunosuke and Susato’s grief is explained. Everything about how they relate to Asougi is their dealing with their grief in a simple message: Loss hits hard, but you have to continue to live and love. Life Goes On, shaping that grief into yourself if you allow it.

We start off with Case 1 as our baseline. The set-up. It’s a routine to show what life is like for Ryuunosuke before tragedy. (Fitting for an AA protagonist to have their baseline of normal being accused of murder.) This case does a really, really good job of setting up Asougi as our friend, our partner, whom we might spend the rest of the game with.

(I mean, the death flag’s kinda obvious if you’re genre-savvy; the mentor must die so that the student may grow into their own. But Asougi’s so likeable! He’s confident, genuine with Ryuunosuke, comfortably teasing, and looks at you with the same eyes as Klavier. What’s not to love? Also that small hint of something deeper is so tantalising that for it to go unresolved is pretty unthinkable.)

It’s important for us to see how much Asougi means to Ryuunosuke, how much the two really are best friends. This set-up is pivotal to what happens next in Case 2: the drop.

The way Ryuunosuke reacts to learning about Asougi’s death is real. He tries to deny it at first, can’t bring himself to believe it. Especially since he’s been accused of the crime! But the moment he sees that photo of Asougi that Sherlock took, that’s where the truth of it hits and he can’t run from it anymore. All he can do is try to push past that biting grief to at least solve his friend’s murder and set things right.

Susato’s own grief is portrayed really well here, too. She’s so angered and clouded by it that she totally ignores the fact that Asougi and Ryuunosuke are best friends and believes Ryuunosuke to be the murderer. Really, she just blames Ryuunosuke because it’s easier that way, since the wound cuts just as deep for her.

What really strikes me, though, is how the whole case isn’t just a one-note misery. Like real life, the two slip into sadness when they remember their dear friend, but they’re still able to joke around. They still get upset or sarcastic or excited. Because, though their grief affects them immensely, the message is that life continues. It can’t just stop for them like it did for their friend; life goes on. Not out of malice, but out of necessity.

Also, the way Sherlock acknowledges their grief is pretty great. That felt hugely validating to me, how he tells them that their mourning is important and how his jovial, joking tone was never properly taking that into account. The way he continues breaking in at the end to lighten the mood, too, is his own genuine way of trying to help, exhausting though he may be. It’s appreciated, at the least, to keep us the players from breaking down into tears as the conclusion rolls with no real satisfaction at the mystery being solved.

That final conversation between Susato and Ryuunosuke, at least, is hugely cathartic to make up for that. It sounds like it should feel rushed, honestly, dealing with the majority of the grieving process in just Case 2, but it doesn’t at all. It seems properly healthy, like the two are doing their best by confiding and taking comfort in one another in order to celebrate Asougi’s goals, to keep going where he can’t. Ryuunosuke and Susato both form their resolve here to continue to live, not just for Asougi, but for themselves as well. For life’s sake.

Because, again, life goes on.

(A brief tangent: Seeing the contrast of this story versus the original trilogy is also a really neat sort of view into Shu Takumi’s growth as a writer. Or the AA series’ growth as a whole. How Edgeworth handled his grief by never really acknowledging it in AA1, how he basically ran away from it by refusing to live as a sort of punishment against himself, is really sad. Then Phoenix handling his grief in JFA by turning to anger and resentment is just as heartbreaking. Phoenix disavows himself from it, trying to spare himself the pain by denying it, which only hurt him more and he had to have everyone around him break him out of that awful mindset. Then in T&T it’s Godot’s grief which drives the plot, as he turns his anger on Phoenix unjustly. He blames Phoenix for Mia’s death and lashes out at everyone instead of allowing himself the time to properly grieve.

And then DGS1 comes along to say that maybe the answer is just that life goes on and we have healthier ways to reconcile with our grief and it’s just real neat to see!)

In Case 3 and 4, we can see through Ryuunosuke’s discussion with Lord Vortex (/Stronghart) the continuation of his handling this grief. It’s a burden, one Ryuunosuke doesn’t fully understand, but he fervently takes upon himself because we want to live for those we’ve lost. (It is the Wright way, the Naruhodou way, to take on the aspirations of the friends you’ve lost. To mimic their mannerisms, their ambitions, in order to keep them close to your heart.)

(That’s a whole other can of worms I could dive into, honestly, how their decision to give Ryuunosuke all of Phoenix’s poses for the whole ancestor vibe while ALSO making it clear that Ryuunosuke took them from Asougi to begin with, it’s just. It’s good, it’s perfect, it’s the same brand of gay the series is known for and I’m love it.)

You also see, as the trial of Case 3 progresses, how Ryuunosuke is basically just living off of ‘what would Asougi do?’ as Susato coaches him along and it’s fun and bittersweet all the way through. Case 4 is where he gains more confidence in himself, but he still defaults to thinking of Asougi’s unwavering trust in him to help him and every time it’s handled with tenderness and shows just how much Ryuunosuke loved his friend.

And, if you’re like me and take every opportunity to examine Asougi’s badge and present it to Susato (/others), you see how they continue to grow with their grief. It starts off with both of them being unable to say much, still weighed down heavily by Asougi’s loss. Though they are continuing and life goes on, it’s still a wound too fresh to approach and hard for them to properly explain.

By Case 5, though, the two of them are more conversational. They’ve found their words, they’ve mended that wound as much as possible so that life won’t leave without them. It still hurts, of course, but it’s easier to think about. It’s easier to reconcile when they’ve been working hard and making friends and continuing to live. It’s small, but the progression is there and I really appreciate it.

Speaking of Case 5, though, everything about this one, in regards to Asougi, is pure catharsis. It really is like they’re looking their grief right in the face and accepting it as a part of themselves. Ryuunosuke looks back on his friend not just with fondness, but with gratefulness that Asougi could make such a big impact on his life.

(This is similar to the whole Phoenix and Mia thing, I feel, since Phoenix often thought of his mentor with the same sort of tone. At least, I think so. Remarkable how Phoenix’s grief can mirror the finalised version of Ryuunosuke’s with the help of spirit channeling! /joke)

Ryuunosuke and Susato have etched Asougi into their hearts and their persons and it’s just really, very good I like it a lot.

(okay time for a few paragraphs on DGS2 and Asougi)

Case 1 one DGS2 is a neat look into Susato’s mind and thought process. You can definitely tell she’s still just a 16-year-old with the mistakes she makes and how she tries to handle her own arguments, which is very cute. We also get to see her actually talking to Asougi’s grave and then see how her own relationship with Asougi has influenced her style (/poses) and aspirations. (Ryuunosuke, too. It’s cute to see how she’s ended up a mixture of both of them.) And it’s a great rug pull moment for the player, since the way that the grief is handled in DGS1 is so good and (almost) final that hearing Asougi might not actually be dead is a bit like digging up old wounds. I mean, we went the entirety of the first game coming to terms with his death, what do you mean his body went missing??

(Case 2 serves as a reminder. Like haha remember how Susato and Ryuunosuke both love Asougi and are sad about his death? Here’s the baseline again, get ready to have it wrecked!)

And Case 3 is phenomenal, too. The way Van Zieks is so understanding in his response to showing him Asougi’s badge is just. It’s perfect, he’s so gentle and empathetic that it shocks Ryuunosuke (even though Ryuunosuke did the same understanding and concern for Van Ziek’s situation Ryuunosuke please). Then the way that Ryuunosuke sees Asougi, disguised in a cloak and mask, and immediately recognises him. To me, that really shows how much he loved his friend. He knew Asougi for about a year and it’s been about nine months since Asougi’s death, yet Ryuunosuke recognises him just by the way he carries himself.

But, to him, Asougi is dead. He’s made peace with that. So, even if it plays on his mind, he can’t allow himself to think that. He puts it out of his mind completely and doesn’t think on it again.

At least, until Susato (who reacted very realistically by shutting down the possibility that Asougi might still be alive because that means Sherlock lied and she couldn’t take having that hope break her worse than before) sees the exact same thing just as immediately and shouts after him. The fact that they both see this disguised man and know it can be no one besides Asougi is insane. It’s love. It makes me cry, I wish they could’ve hugged him during the big reveal (though I know Japanese culture’s just not like that).

Anyway, DGS2 diatribe over. Back to the conclusion.

The whole of DGS1 is just a masterful example of how grief doesn’t have to destroy you, of how life can go on and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, and how channeling that grief into motivation to keep their memories alive can be powerful. That it’s okay to still feel grief even as you heal, that it’s okay to have fun and keep living even as you mourn. Life is a mixture of levity and tragedy and, to me, DGS1 nails that mixture with perfection.

Absolutely legendary. Join me next time when I dive into the main theme of DGS2, which is literally ‘the dead will come back to life to haunt you’ thanks for coming to my essay talk

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jilytoberfest · 3 years

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Author - @thequibblah

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this, Suze! You can find her on ao3!

1. What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

All of my writing quirks are insane, not interesting, and one of the ones I hate (and love to mention) the most is that I am super, super neurotic about numbers and love keeping track of my timed sessions. I have been known to have Excel spreadsheets for my writing…

2. What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your stories?

Hmm...probably the exact balance I strike between juggling things in my head vs. being super organised. I think when I came back to fic I thought I could handle a lot with minimal organisation, but I have proven myself very, very wrong.

3. Do you have any suggestions to help others become a better writer? If so, what are they?

Read. A lot! I know people dish out that advice a ton, but it can’t be understated — and read widely. Try to read published books as well as fanfiction. You’ll learn a lot about developing your own style by sampling the breadth that’s out there. And read about writing, not because everyone’s methods will work for you, but because it’s both interesting and helpful to see what other writers find helpful. Plenty of well-known authors have blog posts or even memoirs about writing, so go find what your faves say about their approach!Everything else, I think, is subjective. But these two are essential.

4. What do you think makes a good story?

For me personally, a good story is immersive. It sucks me into its world totally, and makes me feel along with the characters. It makes me not want to put it down — and when I do put it down, I feel like the world around me has changed with the experience I’ve had in reading.

5. What is the first book that made you cry?

Oh, geez. Charlotte’s Web for sure, ha, but I basically spent all my teen years crying into my pillow over young adult fiction, so there’s a long, long list after that.

6. Does writing energize or exhaust you?

Energise, for the most part. I won’t lie and say i’ve never been stressed or tired even writing the most exciting parts of my fic, but by and large the experience of writing is cathartic.

7. Have you ever gotten reader’s block? If so, what are your tips to overcome it?

Oh, often! I usually change format or genre when I'm bored of reading — or I watch something or listen to a podcast instead. Usually it’s just that I'm forcing myself to read something I'm not that excited by, or not in the right headspace for. So taking a step back is what helps best.

8. Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly?

Honestly, I think anyone could be a writer. All it takes is reading, and practising expressing yourself — a.k.a., practising writing. It has less to do with actually feeling emotions yourself, and more to do with being able to imagine and express emotions. So, yeah, that might be easier if you feel things strongly, but it’s not a requirement. You could be the most repressed person in the world (LOL) and be a successful writer.

9. If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

Oooh — I think to stick to my guns and treasure every idea. In young-me’s defence, I do still have tons and tons of notes with discarded plots and concepts, but there’s no such thing as hearing that piece of advice too much. Being able to tap into creativity — and being able to come up with concepts that are uniquely you — is special!

10. What was your hardest scene to write?

Like, ever? I think, keeping things vague in the interest of avoiding spoilers, there’s always a lot riding on big relationship beats — fights, shippy moments, etc. — that stresses me out as much as it excites me, ha. And the fights tend to be the harder ones for me, because it’s hard to parse the emotion I feel the characters are feeling and sell it so that the reader can believe an argument would escalate the way it does. (I love writing arguments, though, so it’s totally a love-hate scenario!)

11. What is your favorite childhood book?

Ah, I have about nine million answers to this, but I’m going to pick a maybe lesser-known answer — I adore the Old Kingdom books by Garth Nix, and haven’t found anything that makes me feel the same way those books did.

12. How long on average does it take you to write a one shot or a chapter of a fic?

I’m a pretty fast drafter once I sit down to write, and I usually manage about 1000 words every 30 minutes, but it takes weeks of pre-planning to get there. Maybe it’s just that I'm a fast typist, lol.

13. A fic that inspires you?

Gosh, what fic doesn’t? I feel like if i answered this honestly i’d list out dozens, and Joy would be furious at me for exceeding the character limit or something. But I'll choose one at random — I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Burn Easy”by efk_girldetective since I first read it. Warning, it’s mature, but what I love about it is that it’s a Muggle AU that still manages to immerse me in the magic of its setting. I feel just as transported reading it as I would reading something set in Hogwarts — and I want all my fics to feel like they’re their own little universes!

14. How do you edit your work?

Bold of you to assume I “edit”... No, haha, seriously, I just reread my own writing a lot. Like… I can’t overstate how much. I tend not to do big-picture edits, because usually (with a multichap like Come Together at least) I’ve done enough planning before I draft that I don’t need to do massive restructuring once words are already on the page. So I just line-edit my way to posting, and miss plenty of typos in the process.

15. Where does inspiration come from?

Art of all kinds! I read and watch a lot of things that I cherry-pick fic ideas from, and of course music factors into my writing process so heavily, playlist-making is a step of its own.

16. Who has been helpful for you as you write for the fandom?

Well. WELL. I think it is a well-known fact that I would languish without the support and friendship of Clare ( @clare-with-no-i ) and Senem ( @keepingupwithpotters ). I worry that I’ll miss someone if I continue to name names, but there have been loads of people sprinting with me on Discord of late or just direct-messaging me on Tumblr and I appreciate all of them so, so much!

17. What is your fav POV to write from?

I said recently that while I find it easier to write from Lily’s POV, James is fun because he surprises me more!

18. What is a fic you would love to write but are worried you won’t be able to accomplish it/nervous it wouldn’t work out?

I’m not necessarily nervous it won’t work out...but I’m writing a loose Edwardian era AU with magic that is...basically a novel and I’m not entirely sure there’s a target audience for this...but there’s ME and I know I can’t wait to read it LOL.

19. Do you ever self insert in fics?

Well, I think there’s a little of me in pretty much every main character in my stories — it makes it easier to grapple with their emotions, their quirks, and their flaws when I have a direct reference point. And there are other characters who are, say, aggressive Jily shippers who exist in the background that I relate to for obvious reasons LOL. But I’ve never straight-up dropped myself into a story — though I could do it and find a way to make it hilarious, I think.

20. What is the story you are proudest of?

This is so hard because my answer changes so often! But I will give the easiest one here: Come Together has taken so much of my time and has been such a labour of love, and I sometimes forget how far I’ve come with it. And I’m really proud at having done that.

21. Do you prefer writing canon jily or muggle au?

I wouldn’t say Muggle AU, but I think I like canon vs. AU for different reasons — the former because the wartime pressure offers the kind of stakes you can’t really get in other universes, the latter because of the flexibility and range. Which I know is such a non-answer, but I do like both equally and I just switch between my WIPs when I get tired of one or the other, ha.

Thank you for doing this!

#thequibblah #jilyinterview #jilytober fest #jilytober 2021

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fruitcoops · 3 years

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I usually don't like angsty stuff but I love it with a happy ending and I've been THINKING....

O'Knutzy... one of the boys, let's say Logan, has a nightmare where Finn tells him he doesn't love him anymore and because of that the relationship between the three doesn't work anymore and he loses both of them.

But than he wakes up they cuddle and kiss and everything is fine

This was a rough one to write, but very cathartic. O’Knutzy credit goes to @lumosinlove!

TW for night terrors, crying, and insecurity

Logan wakes up in a bed, and he is alone. Once upon a time, this would not have been unusual, but for the past five months—six? Seven? Leo always teases me for forgetting our anniversary—he has greeted the morning with two warm bodies next to him, their steady breaths easing his mind.

Logan is…cold, this time. He hates being cold. “Peanut?” he calls when he hears sounds from outside the bedroom. “Finn?”

The rustling doesn’t stop; nobody responds. He frowns and clambers out of bed, stretching his back and reaching for one of the many, many hoodies that usually lay crumpled on the chair in their room. Logan stops dead in his tracks when he sees only two there, and both are his own. Panic spikes in his chest. “Mes amours? Where are you?”

“I told you not to wake him up,” Finn whispers harshly. Logan frowns and walks out, nearly tripping over the multitude of cardboard boxes lining the hall. His boys are in the living room, packing the blanket Leo’s mother made for them for Christmas.

“What’s going on?” Logan asks warily as he steps over a box labeled ‘clothes—Finn’. “Why are you packing our things?”

“We’re leaving,” Finn says. His voice is devoid of emotion and he looks at Logan with utter contempt. He feels as if he has been doused in ice water and then set aflame.

“What?” He glances at Leo, who shuffles awkwardly. “Where are we going?”

“Not you.” Leo looks up at him, and his beautiful blue eyes are like chips of ice. “Just us.”

Logan is drowning, he’s sure of it. He is suffocating on the dark cloud of fear and agony that billows from the place his lungs used to be. “No.”

“Yes.” Finn rips a piece of packing tape off the roll and Logan flinches.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t love you anymore.”

Logan’s legs give out and he sits down hard on the floor, barely registering the flash of pain. “But—”

“No.” Finn’s face is twisted and furious all of a sudden, and Logan is almost grateful—at least there is something left of the passionate, bleeding-heart boy that he loves with everything in his fucking body instead of that mask from before. “No, Logan, you don’t get to keep us here. I don’t love you.”

“But you do.” His voice is feeble even to his own ears. “You said it when you kissed me goodnight. Peanut-“

“Don’t call me that,” Leo says quietly. Logan’s heart snaps in half.

“Please.” He doesn’t know what he’s begging for anymore. An explanation, maybe, or just for them to stay. “Please.”

“This is your fault,” Finn continues as he opens a new box. “If you had just talked about your feelings, we wouldn’t have to do this.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Logan chokes out as the first tears start to fall. “You hate being told what to do.”

“You don’t know me—”

“I do know you!” Logan shouts. It rings throughout the apartment, along with his ragged breaths. “I know you better than anyone. You’re Finn O’Hara, Harzy, my best friend, my Finn—”

“I’m not your anything.”

“Leo, please tell me what’s going on.” Logan turns to Leo and sees almost nothing on his face. For the first time he can remember, that shining sunlight is dim.

“Finn doesn’t love you. I’m going with him.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t stand being around you.” Exasperation laces Leo’s tone, as if he’s speaking to a child. “The only reason I was with you is because Finn was there.”

Some horrible, strangled noise rips out of Logan’s throat and he covers his mouth with his hands. This is what dying feels like, he thinks. This is it. “Don’t do this,” he pleads, little more than a whisper. “Please don’t.”

Finn opens his mouth, looking straight at him with those hard brown eyes, and Logan knows what he’s about to say. “Good—”

Logan wakes up in a bed, and he’s not alone. A cut-off shout escapes him as he scrambles out of the blankets that threaten to drag him back under and his foot connects with something warm that grunts, reaching out toward him. “No!”

The floor is unforgiving as he falls onto it and shoves himself back against the wall, shaking from head to toe as the beginnings of a scream accompany every shallow breath. “Logan?”

A sob, clogged and gross, tears from his throat and he puts his forehead on his knees. “I’m so sorry,” he blubbers.

“Holy fuck, Lo. Leo, wake up.” More shuffling sounds come from the bed and a sleepy voice murmurs something, confused. “Leo, wake up.”

Two gentle hands rest on his shoulders and Logan thrashes away. “Get off me!”

“Hey, shhhh, it’s me.” The voice is terrified, he can tell. But it is so achingly soft. “Lo baby, it’s just me.”

“F—F—” He can’t even get the name out as more tears pour down his face. Someone slides off the bed and kneels next to him, a dark shadow.

“It’s me,” Finn says again, running his hands down Logan’s arms. “It’s your Finn. Leo’s here, too.”

“Oh my god I’m so sorry.” He balls up tighter, digging his fingers into his thighs. “I’m so sorry, just please don’t leave.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Leo murmurs, still accented from sleep. Logan makes a noise like a wounded animal and a third hand comes to brush the sweat-damp hair off his forehead. “What’s wrong, Lo?”

“You’re leaving.”

“What?”

“You’re leaving,” he repeats, voice cracking with grief. “You’re leaving and I’m sorry.”

“We’re not leaving,” Finn says. A solid weight presses against the length of his side and an arm comes to rest over his back. “See? We’re both right here for you. You had a nightmare, baby.”

Logan only sobs harder; in his mind’s eye, Finn is still glaring at him with that stonelike distaste as Leo watches him weep with no reaction. “Can you tell us what it was about?” Leo’s hands are broad and warm on the sides of his legs, even through the fabric of his sweatpants.

“You—you don’t—” Logan takes a few gulping breaths. “You don’t love me anymore.”

There is a small, punched-out exhale from Leo and a shuddering gasp from Finn. “That’s not true.” Finn sounds like he’s crying. “That is not true, Logan.”

He shakes his head. “You said it so many times. So many.”

“Look at me, Lo,” Leo says, smoothing Logan’s hair back. “Please look at me.”

Come on, Tremblay, you can do it. He sniffles and raises his head just enough to see over his knees; Leo’s got heartbreak written all over his face as he carefully wipes Logan’s cheeks dry with the heels of his hands. Logan can’t bear to look at Finn right now. His chest still hurts too much. “Please don’t go.”

“I won’t,” Leo promises. Even in the low light of the streetlamps through their window, he glows. “I love you too much to do that. It was just a nightmare, okay? None of that was real.”

A shiver rolls through Logan again and Finn’s arm tightens around him. “It felt real, and it hurt.”

“I’m sorry.” Leo kisses his forehead. “You’re cold. Do you want to go back to bed?”

A slender hand comes into Logan’s periphery and touches Leo on the arm, light as a feather. “Logan, please look at me,” Finn says. Logan squeezes his eyes shut. I can’t. “Please.”

“I asked you to stay.” His voice is broken glass, each word tearing his throat. “I asked you to stay and you looked me in the eyes and told me you didn’t love me. You hated me.”

“Logan, please.” Finn sounds miserable and Logan can hear the tears in his voice as he finally turns. His eyes are so bright, so wide, so Finn as two small rivers form on his cheeks. Bambi, he thinks. “I love you so much, Logan. I would never, ever say that to you.”

Logan’s lower lip wobbles and he leans his head against Finn’s shoulder, prying one hand off his leg to pull Leo close as well. “I know. I know. It wasn’t you.”

That is one thing he is sure of, one thing he would swear in front of God and every angel. Those cold caricatures in his nightmare were wrong on a deep, deep level—Leo radiates kindness. Finn looks at him with nothing but love. Their other selves were the exact opposite of everything Logan adores about his boys.

“Are you going to be alright?” Leo asks as he places a light kiss to Logan’s temple. “We don’t have to go to sleep if you don’t want to.”

“I’m so tired.”

“Okay.” None of them make an effort to stand.

He knows Finn and Leo are having a silent conversation and nuzzles against Finn’s warm collarbone, pulling Leo’s arm up to kiss his wrist. “Can I be in the middle?”

That draws a light laugh from both of them. “Yeah, Lo, you can be in the middle,” Finn says, getting to his feet on wobbly legs and hauling them both up with him. They collapse into bed again, dragging the covers up to their shoulders.

“I feel like a panini,” Logan mutters as they squish him between their chests. There is a moment of silence before they break down laughing and a series of kisses find their homes on his face and back; he wraps an arm around Finn’s chest and presses into Leo’s steady warmth. “Goodnight. I love you.”

“Love you, too, Lo.”

“Love you, baby.” Finn shifts closer and sighs against him. “And that will never change.”

#leo knut #finn o'hara #logan tremblay #o'knutzy #lumosinlove #coast to coast #my fic #fanfic #nightmares

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bleulone · 3 years

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Can we talk about about how Colin looked in ep 1 when he first saw Marina compared to how he looked when he saw Pen in ep 8. Almost the exact same look! Of course his look to Penelope is probably more about his guilt because he brushed her off when she tried to warn him but still..progress! Lol and then when he's getting ready to leave for Greece, he glanced towards Penelope's home. I think they're having Colin's feelings for her grow gradually in the show instead of all of a sudden like in the books.

Hey! Thank you for this insightful ask of yours :) Sorry for the late answer, I took a long time to write this— without further ado, here we go!

Indeed, Polin is first and foremost a story of gazes, those gazes being of many natures. Whether they are love ones, friendly ones, admirative ones or lustful ones, looking imposes itself to be a huge parameter in Penelope and Colin’s love story.

In order to understand that on screen, film-making has at its disposal a very rich and smart langage of its own. Sometimes, comparision helps to underlines the differences between one character’s relationship with person A mirorring person B. I feel like Shondaland and Chris Van Dussen wanted to introduce the audience to the evolution of our Bridgerton men’s perception of Love. For instance, while Anthony views attachement— to Siena— as a way to escape his responsibilities before becoming his villain (...until our queen ma’am Kate Sheffield comes to the picture), Benedict doesn’t comprehend this universal concept and prefers to enjoy the many physical pleasures life can offer. In other words, the older brothers already explored their sexuality here and there, making them the infamous rakes that they are. As for Colin, it’s a complete other thing.

Colin is young. Very young. At 21, he’s just left Eton College and barely knows anything of the world nor women. Like Anthony said in 1x06, Colin hasn’t been taken to brothels which is a very important step in the building of young men’s sentimental and sexual education during that time period. Since he missed this essential step, our sweet/immature boy has no clue about how to deal sagaciously with his feelings and his “foolish” impulses, baring his naivety. At this point of the story, we can easily come to the conclusion that Colin is a virgin who can’t drive XD. He’s just a child overcame by his passions, a hopelessly romantic who rushes things without taking the time to properly court or know his significant other. And his off-screen flirtation with those supposed numerous girls in London isn’t of any help to justify his (oh so little) experience. So when he sees Marina, he’s so struck by her... mainly by her alluring appearance. And he doesn’t seem to let his eyes nor mind go beyond her exquisite beauty.

In this perspective, the whole Colin/Marina storyline can be perceived as a parallelism to the Pen/Colin’s one. In 1x01, he is immediatley smitten with a dancing Miss Thompson, which happens to be ironically the same case with a 17 year-old Pen but with him. We got to see her, a few moments ago, dreamily looking at him from the back of the dancefloor (echoeing the episode where she fell madly in love with him after he fell off his horse at Hyde Park). She’s charmed by his dashing look and his kindness, yet she doesn’t seem to know anything else about him considering the rare conversations they share. Her burning gaze fits the original story from Julia Quinn’s books because in Romancing Mister Bridgerton, the 28 year-old spinster Penelope do realize later on that Colin is more than a good looking man : he’s a human who possesses a temper and flaws.

Either way, both of our boos are portrayed as hopelessly young people in love who childishly idealize the objects of their affection.

In 1x08, it’s the other way around. It’s Colin who sees Pen first, her who appears to wear the yellow dress’ lookalike from the pilot—what an interesting call back ^^. With his mouth slightly agape and his eyes wide open, we can catch sight of the timid spark of a change in his gaze : Colin Bridgerton notices Penelope Featherington. He‘s touched by the realization that she cares about him. It would be rather inappropriate of me to say that Colin is already in love with her. However, in the finale, I do believe that he’s more struck by her high level of deep care for him than her beauty.

We are thus able to spot two big differences in Colin’s relationship with women in this season : when his attraction to Marina was purely physical and rushed, his attraction with Penelope is more emotional and slow. And for now, he comes to cherish his special bond with her, especially after she tried to warn him of the dangerous trap he was about to fall into. Even if he just sees her as his younger sister’s best friend right now, Pen matters in his life. And it’s still a little yet important progress for sure.

Speaking of which, I agree with you that this look of awe as well as realization is mostly mixed up with guilt. Since he didn’t take into account her words, he felt the strong need to apologize. But bear in mind that guilt formulates a considerable part in Colin’s feelings for Pen... and it’s only the very beginning. In the future, he’ll blame himself for not seeing her as the beautiful goddess and siren that she is in the first place. He’ll blame himself for not reciprocating the feelings for her.... Though at the moment, due to his lack of experience with women, Colin is oblivious to Pen’s obvious signs of sorrow when he told her he’s leaving for Greece/Cyprus. Next time, he’ll detect her sadness and won’t let her go, I’m sure of it (if he doesn’t I’ll riot).

Furthermore, I’m so glad you brought up the scene where Colin glances at the Featherington house. I had the same thought as well. When you put this still and the one where Pen is crying while looking at her window side by side, it even seems like they’re looking at each other. In a way, it implicitly confirms Pen’s key role in his final decision... After all, she’s the one who inadvertently inspired him right ?

The act of traveling has always been seen as cathartic since leaving home to discover yourself allows you to heal your broken heart and soul. It’s natural for Colin to do this. To make his first real steps into the world. His choice is quite relatable more than it is essential for his arc in the series. I can’t wait for him to come back all changed, hot ^^ and mature. I think, like you said, they are planning on making him progressively falling in love with her. Colin’s feelings will gradually leave the platonic zone to explore and officially stay in the intimate zone throughout the seasons.

Overall, the Colin/Marina and Colin/Penelope parallel in s1 mostly helps viewers to compare the way Colin evolves from being a stubborn naive boy to a heartbroken young man who’s aware of his crutial need for Experience. His coming of age, just like Pen’s, has just begun. And they will surely lead to our boy changing himself into the true charming rake that he’s meant to be and our girl into a more confident woman. Consequently, I think their story won’t take 10 years but rather at the very least 5 years perhaps to fit the TV timeline. Once Polin will finally be able to discuss, we’ll hopefully get to see more interesting nuances and shades added to the portrait they painted of one another over the years. They’re indispensable to the slow build up of their emotions/attraction as well as the shattering of their childish idealization/perception of each other.

All in all, I’m so loving the fact that season 1 beautifully sets up the importance of the gaze in Polin’s love story. This first installment is like an expository scene of a play. It leaves a trail of clues and pieces of information here and there at the reach every viewers who can pick them up and analyze what can be the main themes which will determine one character’s story arc/romance. With Polin we have : admiration, wit, love and friendship, desillusionment. (I know they are more but it’s all I can think of rn lol).

If we’re already emotional messes just with the mere power of them looking at each other, imagine when they’ll actually talk and share real conversations. It’s going to be a long way to canon but luv me some good fluffy angsty steamy slow burn :) ✨ I hope this long of mine answers your ask ahah, even if I talked about many things other than just Polin’s looks. Also, sorry if you spot some grammatical mistakes, English is not my first language.

#bleulone answers #anon #ask #meta and gush #polin #polin meta #colin x penelope #colin bridgerton #penelope featherington #julia quinn #romancing mister bridgerton #bridgerton #shondaland #chris van dusen

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inomios · 3 years

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Beauty behind the madness || levi ackerman x reader || PART I

Summary: “You knew that under all of his layers of grief and rage there was something worth loving; he knew that under your easy smiles and sweet words there was something dark lurking. He wanted all of you and you wanted all of him.”

Genre: Fluff, Angst

Words: 7,4K

TG: Brief allusion to soldiers’ suicides; little description of a panic attack on the seventh part (I can’t feel my face); brief talk about death and addiction; and even though I wrote it all using gender neutral terms, at some point I used the term girlfriend because partner sounded too cold for the situation.

- If you are triggered by some content that I haven’t mentioned, please tell me so I can add it to the list and prevent it from happening again.

Author’s note: Mushing my favorite album with my comfort character is being so much fun. I’m enjoying so much this process you wouldn’t believe it. The second part will be up next Tuesday, and it’ll be the ending. Please, share, comment and like if you enjoyed, it would mean the world to see your reactions and impressions. As always, English is not my mother language, so sorry for the mistakes.

. . .

1. REAL LIFE

He had carved on his soul, heart and mind the words that Kenny had once told him, back when he was a scared and weak kid under his wing in the Underground, back when Kenny had caught him crying in the dead of night over his mother.

‘Boy, you won’t survive a day with that attitude. Your mother was a whore and now she’s a dead whore, get over it. You don’t have time to mop over her, crying is for people who have nothing more important to worry about.’

Kenny, for better or for worse, had taught him many lessons that became the key to his survival, advices he would never forget, and this was one of them: ‘Grieving is a waste of time.’

Every second he cried over his mother was time he could have spent granting his sorrowful existence. He couldn’t let his grief control him, because missing his mother wouldn’t make him last another day, she couldn’t protect him now that she was gone. So, for better or for worse, he let his sadness and rage aside and started focusing on what was important: survival.

Grieve is a tricky feeling, it makes you think you can control it, while it just keeps bottling up until it explodes, and you better be ready for when that happens, because you may not be able to fix the mess it’s going to leave behind.

Levi thought he had masqueraded his feelings pretty well, he tried to shrug everything off, as if nothing mattered to him, but it did, and Kenny knew it and he loved to tease him about it, he loved to press his buttons, Levi had learned that pretty soon in the relationship, but he was trying to handle his feelings, he wanted to prove Kenny he was worthy of his time, that he was strong, that he wasn’t weak, not anymore. So, whenever Kenny tried to get a reaction out of him, he kept his mouth shut, but he couldn’t water down the fire in his grey eyes and Kenny could see it, he always could.

‘You are as worthless as your mother, maybe I should leave you in a brothel too, then you would be useful for something.’

A loud howling laughter.

Levi’s brow twitched.

‘Did your mom have time to teach you how to read or was she too busy fucking half the Underground?’

He thought he had said something hilarious. He bent over his back.

Levi had a little knife clutched in his hand. He was starting to see red.

‘You’re as worthless as your mother.’

He was pushing him to his limits.

Levi had already passed them.

He liked to think that there was a dark abyss inside of him, a bottomless place where he could hide all his emotions and thoughts, they were useless, so he ignored them, he kept them away, far from the surface. Levi thought that he could detach from his pain, but it was a part of him, and if you stare into the abyss for too long, the abyss stares back at you. The Levi who grieved was still there, looking at him, the Levi who felt too much but said nothing wanted to get out, so he did, he escaped from the abyss and took control.

He run towards Kenny, eyes gleaming with unshed tears, knife in his hand, aiming for his heart, but Kenny was faster, quicker on his feet, he moved just in time. However, Levi still managed to scratch his shoulder, he teared his shirt and he could see the blood slipping, tainting the white fabric.

Kenny got mad. Levi had never seen him that furious. He grabbed his scrawny body and gave him the beating of his life. When he ended, Levi couldn’t even move, he was lying on the floor on a puddle of his own blood.

‘Listen kid, I don’t give a fuck about your shitty problems. You think you’re special? Guess what, you are a piece of shit, just like everyone else. Everyone here has issues, solve them or do whatever you want to do with them, but don’t you ever dare to pull a stunt like that again, because I’ll will leave you here to die, boy.’

That was the second lesson Kenny had told him: ‘Control is vital.’

He thought that by ignoring his feelings he was controlling them, but he was wrong, he realized that when those bottled emotions caused him to be bed ridden a few days.

Instead, he decided to let his feelings out in really calculated moments, he started to canalize all his rage into more productive stuff, like cleaning. He liked to think that by cleaning he had control over something, there was something cathartic to him in scrubbing floors, doing the laundry, and mopping floors. It was the Underground, it was filthy no matter how much effort he put into it, but it gave him something he could focus on, something he could use to let his frustrations out.

So, he cleaned, for his mother who deserved a better live.

For the innocent child that he once was, who had been stripped from everything he loved.

For Kenny, who he despised and was cruel and ruthless.

For all the things he had to do to survive.

He cleaned and cleaned, and he never had an outburst again. He was in control.

Looking back, he is sure that part of Kenny’s fury that day was that a kid made him bleed. You see, Kenny liked to think of himself as some kind of god, a ruler, someone who could control everybody, someone who was holding your fate between his calloused hands. And when he hurt Kenny, both of them realized two things, especially Levi, who discovered this: ‘Gods bleed to.’

Levi learnt his third lesson that day. No one could control him, the same way he couldn’t control anyone. You are the one who makes the decisions, just be sure to choose one you won’t regret. Kenny had no power over him, he wasn’t a god and if he was, Levi wouldn’t bow down to him.

Kenny learnt that Levi, that child, had a fire within he couldn’t tame, Levi wasn’t going to be a submissive, brainless follower. He had potential, he had willpower, he didn’t really need him, but the boy didn’t know it yet. So, when the moment came, he left. He had grown to care about his nephew, at least a little, but Levi was a survivor and Kenny knew he would fight with teeth and claws until the very end. Therefore, Kenny left him with the only person who could protect him: Levi himself.

When Kenny left him at his own, alone again in the Underground, he learnt his fourth lesson: ‘Love is a risk he wasn’t going to take again.’

2. LOSERS

Stupid is next to ‘I love you.’ He was pretty fucking sure of that.

He made a bow to himself: he wasn’t going to love anyone ever again, people are bound to leave, and whenever they left, they took away a part of him, and he was already too broken for that. However, life happens, and it turns everything upside down, it doesn’t ask for consent, so his plan of never loving again was ruined sooner than he would’ve liked.

Furlan came first. He wasn’t looking for a companion, at all. A companion meant more people to care about, a distraction, and he didn’t need any of that. However, Furlan managed to convince him that he could be useful to him. Whenever he looks back, he thinks that both of them knew that Levi didn’t need anyone, he could survive on his own, he was tougher than anyone else in the Underground, but he was alone, so alone, and a part of him yearned so much for someone that he let Furlan come with him.

Their relationship was weird at first, not sure where the boundaries of the other laid, what they could do or don’t. Furlan didn’t want to overstep and piss off Levi and Levi didn’t want to overshare with him, he didn’t want to show him his weaknesses, but at the same time he wanted to spend time with him.

He remembers that there were moments when Levi desired to say something, talk about pointless stuff, but he never did, after Kenny he was deprived of human contact that he even thought that he had lost his voice. However, as time passed them by, they fell into some type of routine, boundaries became clearer. Furlan started to get Levi, how he would never start a conversation no matter how bad he wanted; how his mind was always plotting something; how he always had an ace upon his sleeve… Furlan grew fond on him, he knew that there was a lot Levi wasn’t telling him, but from time to time he got to see a glimpse of all the man he was under his façade and layers of secrets, and he wanted to learn about him, he wanted to be his friend, he wanted to have someone to help and he wanted someone to take care of him, he wanted to stay.

On the other hand, Levi liked how Furlan seemed to know when he could talk and joke around and when he had to stay silent, it was like he understood him, Furlan was prudent and chill, thinking before acting, and he knew when to fight and when to give up. Levi started to care about him, a lot, against his better judgement, he just hoped he wouldn’t regret his choice.

Then, Isabel appeared on scene. Levi was happy enough with Furlan, he didn’t need someone else to worry about, that was more trouble, more chances to get hurt. However, he soon found he had a soft spot for the girl. She was so energetic, so bubbly, eyes always gleaming with hope, she was a ray of light in the darkest place. She was messy, reckless and wild, she balanced them out. When she asked to join them, Levi wanted to let out one of his characteristic ‘Tch’ and turn his back on her, there was no room for compassion in the Underground, but he couldn’t, he was weaker than he thought. He couldn’t leave her at her own knowing she could get herself killed, he didn’t want to be like Kenny, he wasn’t going to be like him.

The three of them became a gang, well, not just a gang, a family too. They looked after each other, they looked after Levi, just like his mother did. They were the best criminals in the Underground, and sometimes Levi felt like a god with the world at his feet. He shouldn’t have forgotten his third lesson: ‘Gods bleed too.’ He thought they were invincible, they weren’t, they were no gods, life wouldn’t bend at their will.

When Isabel and Furlan died, he didn’t even have proper bodies to bury, he just did two little makeshift graves and carved their name on the gray stone. He was the only person who would remember them, so he visited them at least once a week (he still does), mainly during his sleepless nights, when no one would ever question or notice his absence. Talking with them was the only reason why he hadn’t given up long time ago, he was their leader, he told them to always keep going, to never back down.

So, he kept going, for his mother, for Isabel and for Furlan. For the only people who ever loved him.

Maybe he didn’t really keep going, maybe he just let life pass by, what mattered was that he was alive and fighting for a purpose, he owed them that, their deaths wouldn’t be in vain.

Why did he always have to lose everything?

Why there was nothing good in store for him?

He was bound to lose to lose everything.

Stupid is next to I love you.

He was so fucking foolish.

3. TELL YOUR FRIENDS

The mission had been a carnage, a lot of fallen soldiers. He could still hear their screams and see the fear in their eyes, more images to haunt him while he was sleeping, as if they weren’t already enough. He couldn’t save anyone, he never could, he was human after all, even if some people thought about him like a god.

He had had a problem with his ODM gear during the mission, the gas cylinders were failing and wasting too much gas, so he ran out of it pretty quickly, which costed him a seven meters fall, breaking his right leg, his left arm, a few ribs and a concussion in the process. He could have died and a part of him wished he had, then, the pain would have ended. Luckily, Hange arrived just in time to help him, he still thinks that maybe they knew what was going on in his head, that he had thought about giving up right there, and that’s why as soon as they arrived back home, they sent him to the infirmary, not wanting to leave him alone. Hange still says it was because he couldn’t take proper care of his injuries by himself. They both knew he had had it way worse than that.

The infirmary was clean, and that meant a lot according to his standards, but your desk wasn’t, not at all and it was driving him crazy, if he could, he would get up and clean it himself. However, you seemed unphased by it, every day you would drop more documents on your table (but no document ever left, they just kept piling up); he had seen you drop coffee on some paper and not giving a fuck a single fuck about it; you had seven books on your table, none of them related with medicine, you just had them there because you wanted; and if you asked him what irked him the most, he would say the brush, you had a brush in your desk and it was full of hair. He couldn’t get his eyes of your desk, and if you ever noticed, you never did anything about it; or maybe you did notice and since you are a little shit, you just wanted to see how far you could go before he went feral. We will never know.

If you had been any other person, like one of the members of his squad, he would have said something way earlier, but you weren’t his subordinate, you were a medic and as far as he knew, he didn’t have the right to scold you at your own workplace.

You were competent, you just talked when necessary and you would always ask him if he wanted something, no matter how many times he had said ‘no’ and whenever Hange came to visit, you would always talk with them and ask them about their experiments and research. Hence, Hange thought you were the sweetest person ever, they had even told him that he better not be giving you any trouble.

You both had an easy routine. You would come in first hour in the morning, trying to be silent with no success at all, you were so noisy, luckily for him, he never sleeps more than four hours. You would sit on your desk and write a letter, every day, who the fuck had so many people to talk to or how many things worth telling did happen in your life? Then, you would go out to get him breakfast and you brought more documents with yourself, his breakfast always came with a cup of tea, a shitty cup of tea, but at least it wasn’t coffee or juice, he didn’t know if you were the one behind the tea, but if you were, he was glad you didn’t work on the kitchen. After breakfast, Hange would pay him a visit and talk with him, his squad would often visit him after training and Erwin once or twice a week, whenever his work let him a little free. At midday you would water the plants on the window, you had once called them ‘Asphodels’ and after watering them you disappeared, at the beginning he thought you just went to eat, later on, he would find why you did that. The rest of the day was the same, you wrote and read documents and he would either look annoyed at your desk or he would vert his gaze at the window to distract himself.

This routine changed the second week, because you asked him two questions that made him be more comfortable around you.

‘Why do you look at my desk as if it were making you sick?’

‘Tch, because is making me sick, it’s dirty as fuck.’

Okay, not the best words, but you asked, and he answered. He would be lying if he said he didn’t feel better after telling you. You blushed a little and scratched your neck bashfully.

‘Sorry, I can be a little messy sometimes.’

‘I can see.’

That day you spent the evening emptying your desk, any other person would have asked you not to bother, but Levi couldn’t care, after all, his last thread of sanity depended on that desk. When you finished cleaning, you asked the second question.

‘You hate my tea, but you drink it anyways, why?’

He felt his ears getting a little red, and he just shrugged and looked away.

‘You are taking care of me, didn’t wanna be a bitch about it.’

You smiled, a smile brighter than the morning star, and for a fraction of second he forgot how the breath, but he obviously didn’t say a thing about it.

‘I promise you that tomorrow you’ll have the best tea ever.’

‘Tch, if you say so.’

He appreciated your gesture, kindness wasn’t something he was used to, it felt weird and strange to have someone to do good things just for the sake of doing them, it made him wary, he would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought that maybe you wanted to get something from him and that’s why you acted so nicely around him.

The next day, after writing your daily letter, at your then clean desk, you brought him breakfast with a steaming cup of tea. He drank the beverage under your expecting gaze and to his surprise it was nice, not the best tea ever made, but definitely not the worst.

‘It tastes better.’

‘Thanks, this time I followed the recipe.’ You admitted proudly.

‘How the fuck were you even making tea before?’

‘Instinct?’

He looked at you astonished, how come you were a doctor, but you couldn’t follow a three-step recipe? At that moment he thought his health was in the hands of dumbest medic in the area, however, he didn’t really care, well, at least not as much as he would have expected. You had something, an aura around your persona, that was soothing and endearing, rather than infuriating.

At the crack of dusk on that same day, he was the one who asked a question.

‘Who are you always writing?’

For a moment he swears he saw your happy demeanor quivering, as if he had opened a cage that should have remained closed, but you quickly fixed, the funny glint coming back at your eyes as fast as it had left. It was in that moment when he knew that you weren’t as shallow as he may have deemed you to be.

‘I’m just telling my friends about this annoying patient I have. Do you know he made me clean my office desk?’

Your voice was laced with amusement, you were trying to divert his attention to another topic, and he knew, but he was no one to press you about it.

‘Well, as soon as I’m free, I’m telling my friends about how my medic is a fucking shitshow.’ Too blunt, but you brushed it off.

‘They sound like a nightmare.’

‘They are.’

You smiled, yet again as blinding as the sun.

He didn’t smile, he didn’t even grimace, his face was as stoic as always, but for a split of second, a smile nearly slipped in.

To his surprise, he actually talked about you to his friends. When he had the medical lease, the first thing he did was visit Isabel and Furlan’s impromptu graves and talk about you. It wasn’t a lot, he just mentioned you a few times. It didn’t mean a thing, and at the same time, it meant everything.

4. OFTEN

It didn’t mean a thing.

Not a single thing.

It was unimportant.

He was like that with everyone.

Except he wasn’t and he knew it.

What the hell was wrong with him?

He would always find himself at your door, not because he was sick or harmed, he just felt the need to see you. He didn’t even talk with you that much, he wasn’t good at opening up or even small talk. He was foul-mouthed, snarky and his words could cut deeper than a knife. You were soft, kind, funny and there weren’t uncomfortable silences with you, your presence was comforting. Levi didn’t get why he felt that way about you, he barely knew you, but you had something that drew him in, maybe it was the normalcy you brought him. You were a doctor, you healed people, you tended their injuries; you hadn’t seen the titans, you hadn’t seen comrades die at their merciless hands, you didn’t know what was outside the walls and he liked that. You were an escape. It was as if his life was only centered around Titans and his existence had no other point but to kill or think about to kill Titans: Hange were always babbling about Titans; his paperwork was always a painful reminder of fallen mates; Erwin was always tracing missions and plans; and the whole point of his squad was training to defeat those beasts. He never had a break, but visiting you felt like it.

He knocked at your door and it opened, you were at your desk, which was an unorganized mess then again, humming some song he didn’t know while you were reading some medical reports. And the asphodels in the window looked beautiful as always.

‘Hi, Levi.’ You looked up and gave him a smile.

Your smiles.

Oh man, he took them in like a dehydrated man would savor the first droplets of rain.

He just nodded as a salute and walked towards the window to see the asphodels.

‘Why asphodels?’ he asked, you loved those flowers, and they weren’t necessary the most beautiful.

To him you were more like yellow lilies, he had read somewhere that yellow lilies meant joy and happiness. They always brought a simile to one’s face because they are the true depiction of the sun, just like you were.

‘I don’t know, they are special’ you said with a small voice, the same haunted look in your eyes, the same that appeared when he asked about your letters.

‘I guess they are.’

A comfortable silence fell in the room. He was getting used to these havens of peace.

That night at dinner, he was sitting next to Erwin, Hange in front of him, looking at him quizzically.

‘What’s going between you and y/n? You’re always at their place.’ They ask.

‘Tch, nothing, I just visit them often.’

Lies

‘So, there is no ulterior motive, like, I don’t know, our Short king having a crush?’ Levi sometimes forgot how punchable Hange’s face was.

‘No.’

More lies.

Something was going on, they both knew, but he was too scared to think about what it was.

5. THE HILLS

Another fight. More deaths. What was the point of it? He felt like he was fighting for a pointless cause, the more deaths, the less they knew. He would have to send more letters to the families, telling them that their sons and daughters fought bravely until their last breath and sacrificed their lives for the sake of humanity. However, broken families would come to him and ask him if it was worth it, if the death of their children, cousins, brothers and parents brought them answers, if their deaths meant that humanity was closer to taste the freedom they longed for. He had always said that no death was in vain, but he was starting to question that.

He had barely seen you after the mission, he retreated to his quarters, drowning himself in reports and regrets, if he had been better, he could have saved more lives, but he wasn’t enough, he was no hero, he was a human. He had been fighting his whole life and he just wanted it to stop, he wanted peace and tranquility, not more deaths at his shoulders, no more ghosts to haunt him at the end of the day.

He never slept, at least not for more than a few hours. However, after a mission he didn’t sleep at all, the images of his comrades’ deaths still fresh on his mind, their screams still piercing his ears, his sanity vanished a little bit more every time he tried to close his eyes, so he just laid awake looking at the roof, thinking about all the things he could have done to save them, repeating their names as if he was asking for their forgiveness.

Sometimes it all got too much, and he needed to walk to clear his mind, there were nights when he walked for hours with no direction at all, but that night he did have a direction: your office. He didn’t really know why he was doing it, but he was too tired to turn back and ask himself why you. He thought that you would probably be asleep, but to his surprise there was a dim light coming from your office, so he knocked, just like all of those times before, and your soft voice told him to come in.

He had never seen you so disheveled and tired, dark bags under your eyes, traces of tears on your face and bloodshot eyes. He also noticed four new asphodels on your desk. He looked at them and then he looked at you. He wanted to ask, but he couldn’t, so you spoke.

‘My regrets follow you to the grave.’ He barely heard you.

‘What?’

‘That’s what asphodels mean, you asked me about them once, you remember?’

He nodded, that’s all he could do.

‘I couldn’t save them, I tried, but I wasn’t good enough.’ You broke down to tears.

He wasn’t good at processing his own emotions, let alone other people’s. What was he supposed to do? He knew that people hugged to show support, but as he would say, he was ‘emotionally constipated’, so he just stayed there, looking at you.

Do something.

But he remained stiff, it was like watching the scene happen in third person.

‘I’m sorry, I know this is making you uncomfortable, it’s just that it’s been a long day.’

‘It’s been a long day for me to.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘You told me that asphodels mean ‘my regrets follow you to the grave’, that’s why you have them? Because you feel guilty?’

‘I plant one for every soldier that dies on my watch.’ That was the first time you opened up with him.

‘I keep the badges of their uniforms.’ That was the first time he opened up with you.

Right then everything shifted.

‘It wasn’t your fault.’ He knew those feelings, the remorse and the guilt, he was so painfully familiar with them that they had become a part of his being.

‘It wasn’t your fault either, Levi.’

It wasn’t your fault either.

Your words echoed in his mind like a drum and for a moment he believed them.

You came closer and you wrapped your arms around him, he tried to respond, embracing you in strangely, you laughed at his antics and in that moment, he wanted to disappear. You smiled and you readjusted his arms around your waist. He brought you closer, slowly, not wanting to scare you away and break the moment. You laid your head in his chest, right above his heart, and he hoped you couldn’t hear his heart beating wildly. He hid his face in the crook of your neck, his breath tickling your skin and your smell intoxicating him. For a moment he felt like home, even though he didn’t understand what ‘being home’ meant, but it had to be very similar to that: comforting, reassuring, peaceful, safe.

That night, he spent what felt like hours holding you, until you had to part separate ways, the only witnesses were the asphodels and the hills at the distance.

6. ACQUAINTED

What are we?

Levi couldn’t stop asking himself that question.

Friends didn’t have what you two had. Maybe he wasn’t the most amicable person, but he had had some friends in his life: he once had Isabel and Furlan when he was younger, and now he had Hange and Erwin, and maybe he could even consider his squad friends. And none of what he felt for them was like what he felt for you.

He tried to make sense of his thoughts by writing them, but words weren’t his forte and he just ended more and more confused.

You were nice.

You were beautiful.

You made him laugh, well, not laugh, but close enough.

You were kind.

He appreciated you, he cared for you and he wanted to protect you, but he also felt the same towards Erwin, Hange and his squad. Then, if it was the same, why it was completely different.

He kept visiting you, everything looked like it was the same, but everything had changed. It felt like the calm before the storm, as if something was about to happen, the tides were shifting, he could feel it. There were words unsaid lingering in the atmosphere and sooner or later, someone would have to utter them. But who? And if you spoke them, what would he say?

He also spent a lot of his time thinking about that too, if you happened to confess your feelings for him, if you had them, would he be able to respond them? Normal people would try, give it a shot and see what would happen, what the relationship had in store, let things flow; but he wasn’t normal, he was far from normal, he knew he wasn’t the easiest to love. He was rude, mean, a control freak, he wasn’t the one for big displays of affection, he was the last person someone would want as a partner. People yearned for epic love stories, something that could take your breath away and he wouldn’t be able to do that, he wouldn’t be able to give you the bare minimum.

Also, after all the people he had lost, he didn’t want your name to be added to that list. He preferred the uncertainty of your relationship than the possibility of losing you. If he left more people in, more people he could lose. He wasn’t stupid, he knew you were already in, but there were still boundaries between both of you.

He had also fantasized about laying himself bare in front of someone, share all of his trauma and memories, share the burden with someone, but who would love all of him? If he couldn’t even stand himself most of the days, how could he expect that someone would do it?

‘If you were a flower, I think you would be a gladiolus.’ You would always blurt nonsense out of the blue, but for some reason, he found it endearing instead of annoying.

‘Tch, what’s even that supposed to mean?’

‘I don’t know, it’s just, gladius symbolize strength, generosity, faithfulness and I guess those are things I associate with you.’ Your cheeks were tainted with the softest tones of red and you weren’t looking at him, your gaze was fixed on your paperwork.

Those words had a way deeper meaning, he knew it and you knew it, it was as if you were testing the water by putting the tips of your feet in it. As per usual he didn’t know what to say, what was he supposed to say to that? Thanks? I think I may be falling for you?

‘Sorry, I made things weird, I should just-’ you couldn’t finish because he had started talking.

‘I think you would be a yarrow flower.’ Amazing, now he was the one talking nonsense.

Not so long ago he pictured you as yellow lilies, joy and happiness, but after getting to know you better, he realized that that description was too shallow for what you meant to him. He didn’t know a lot about flowers, he wasn’t really into botany, but he had heard about yarrow before, he had heard merchants inside Sina call them ‘plant doctor’, since they would be often placed near other plants to keep the pests away, he had also heard that it was considered invasive too, because how easily it spread. Therefore, the association came quickly to him, you were healing, a solace from the cruelty of his world; and you were invasive, because he couldn’t be away from you, you consumed him.

‘That means a lot.’ Your blush was now more pronounced now and he wondered what you had made out of his words.

He felt a wave of panic travel through his body, maybe that statement was too deep, maybe he screwed it all, so he decided to excuse himself and ran away from the situation he had created. He had told you he was going to his room, he lied, he was going to the library, he needed to see what his words had meant. He wasted all his evening looking for books about the meaning of flowers, he sure looked like a madman, he hadn’t even gone to the Mess Hall to have dinner, he needed to found answers, and he found them at two a.m.

“The secret language of flowers” said the title, he opened the book and he started looking for the yarrow’s meaning.

Healing and Good Health

Courage and War

Everlasting Love

When he read the last symbolism of the flower, his heart stopped for a whole minute, did he just declare his feelings, that he wasn’t ever sure of, to you? He wanted to disappear in the spot, just vanish into the air.

He went to his room, holding the book close to his chest. He spent the rest of the night reading the book, he wouldn’t mess up again, if he ever wanted to talk about flowers with you, he would be informed. When the sun rose, his head was buzzing with flower meanings, and he would be lying if he said that he hadn’t thought about you while reading some of them.

At breakfast he did go to the Mess Hall and took his usual place.

‘Where were you yesterday at dinner?’ asked Erwin.

‘With his girlfriend.’ Replied Hange with a big smile.

‘She’s not my girlfriend.’ He said with a grunt.

‘What are they then?’ Hange was using the tone, the one which meant “I know you’re hiding something, and I won’t stop pestering you until I discover it.”

‘We are just acquainted.’

‘Liar.’

7. CAN’T FEEL MY FACE

He remembered how there were days when Kenny would drink himself to oblivion, Levi didn’t understand why he did it. He didn’t see the point of passing out in the floor, and when he asked, Kenny answered that ‘his vices kept him sane’. It still made no sense to him, how a man could be so cunning and sharp, while he wasted his nights and days with alcohol, women and many other things that Levi wasn’t interested on trying. He had seen Kenny drunk and it was far from having control. The first lesson Kenny had told him was that control is vital, then, how come he was powerless in his own life, letting alcohol take control of him.

‘You’re old enough to try it, boy. Take some if you want.’

The first time Kenny offered him alcohol, he had declined, he had said no, and Kenny had shrugged it off, as if saying: ‘more for me.’ He wouldn’t get it, it didn’t make sense, Kenny, who prided himself on his cold-blood and his steel nerves, would renounce to that control so easily, he didn’t want to be like that, never in a million years, he would never give up his self-control.

Until he did.

He had lost control. And he now understood Kenny.

He knew he should distance himself from you, he didn’t want more Furlan’s and Isabel’s, he was getting dangerously close to you and he didn’t want that. He should run away, disappear. You were kind and sweet, you would find someone else to feel the void he would inevitably leave. He had always been the one being left behind, and he survived, you would too. Also, it’s not as if he contributed a lot to your life. He was sure you both would be better with the other far away, I mean, the facts were there. Actually, they had been spiraling in his head for a while.

Then, if he knew all of that, why was he helping you cut clean bandages, especially so close to you that he could smell your shampoo? Oh yeah, because you asked him to, as easy as that, all his conviction melted away from every fiber of his body.

Why did he do that? Why was he so helpless around you? Oh yeah, because you made him feel so damn good. You had him wrapped around your finger and you didn’t seem to notice, you acted as if it was nothing, you had power over him, you had Humanity’s Strongest at his knees.

‘My family died a long time ago, I couldn’t save them, I moved in with my aunt and I decided that I’d study medicine for them.’ You said out of the blue.

You cut one bandage.

‘The letters I write are for them. It’s stupid, but it makes me feel closer to them.’

You cut another bandage.

He didn’t say a thing.

He hated himself, any other person would have hugged you or said something, he just stayed there, frozen and acting as cold as always. Why did you confide in him something so personal? He wasn’t the one to go when you are sad, he didn’t even know how to process his own trauma and baggage most of the time. What was he supposed to do?

On the other hand, you trusted Levi more than anyone in your life. He brought you peace and solace, something you thought you would never have.

You lost your family when you were really young, always feeling guilty for being the one who survived, and you promised to yourself you would vow your life to help the others, never putting your needs first. When you joined the military, you watched many soldiers die on your hands, you could still hear their last words, how scare they were, how they didn’t want to die like that, alone and far away from their family; you could also recall their mutilated bodies; and you could also remember how many of them would survive the Titans but lose the fights against their own mind and end up being another fallen soldier that died for nothing. You loved your job, but it also killed a part of you every day, there were no victories on a war, and you knew it. That’s why you picked up gardening, you planted a flower for every soldier who died, something to remember them.

When you met Levi, you admired him, you had heard the stories about him, his courage, mood changes, sharp tongue, skills, intelligence… You would be lying if you said he didn’t make you curious, you were used to soldiers haunted by the horrors they had faced, but something about him was different, maybe because you saw yourself in those grey eyes. You two were similar, you both had so much pent up that you could not talk about, you had an image to keep, and it was exhausting. He had a name to uphold, people looked up to him, if he failed, if he crumbled, everyone else would; you were a doctor, and no matter how hard things were, you had to be strong for your patients, never showing how much their pain took a toll on you. You could let your mask down, because even though he didn’t talk too much or overall understand why you were sharing that, it felt good, liberating.

Sometimes, he would also talk about him, not a lot, but enough to make you feel understood, and those moments, when he showed the man underneath the façade, glimpses of his true persona, those few minutes, sometimes even seconds, were responsible for your growing feelings for the captain.

‘It’s not stupid, I talk to my dead friends’ graves.’ He said nonchalantly, as if he wasn’t baring a piece of him in front of you.

Those kind of flashes of the man he was underneath took your breath away every single time.

You came close to him, slowly, testing the waters, not wanting to scare him away. Maybe it was too forward, too reckless, too much at a time, but he didn’t move. You brought your hand to his cheek. He didn’t jump away. You looked into his eyes, pools of mercury. He held your gaze, expecting your next move. You could feel the tension. He could too.

‘They would be really proud of you.’ You said, voice thin and trembling.

He was silent. Your words caught him of guard.

He was feeling too much. His heartbeat was erratic, beating wildly, he could hear it. He felt the blood boiling under his skin, he was so hot, he was sweating. He couldn’t move, but he felt his body trembling. He could feel the room closing on him, trapping him. He wasn’t in control.

It was a too familiar feeling, one he had experienced a thousand times before.

‘Levi, are you okay? I’m sorry I’ve made you uncomfortable.’ You said worriedly.

He didn’t know what to do, he just wanted the pain in his chest to end.

You were too close. You were trapping him too. So, he pushed you away from you and run from the infirmary. You couldn’t see him like that, no one could.

Why did he share that with you? Why did you get too close? Were you going to kiss him?

Why?

Why was he like that?

Why did he ruin things?

Why did he lose control of himself? He couldn’t even feel his face when you touched it.

He felt pathetic. He felt like the little kid he once was.

Control is vital.

If he was with you, he wasn’t in control. And if he lost his control, then he would have nothing.

He had to get away from you, because you were stripping him from the only thing he had: his control.

#levi ackerman #levi attack on titan #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman imagine #attack on titan #aot fanfiction #levi ackerman headcanons #levi ackerman oneshot #snk #snk fanfiction #shingeki no kyoujin levi #captain levi #levi ackerman fanfiction #levi x reader #aot x reader #snk x reader #levi fanfiction #shingeki no kyojin

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battlinghurricanes · 3 years

Text

DEIPHOBUS TIME!

I'm honestly not entirely sure how I got such a deeply involved concept for his character and motivations, but I definitely did. I just feel like he fits into an especially interesting place in everything and that there's a lot of great potential with him.

Shout out to @petalveinedwarrior for enabling me and also I'm very sorry for being incredibly long winded. My bad.

Also DISCLAIMER! I am NOT an expert on the Trojan War and all its surrounding mythology lol. This is just for fun, based on my own fairly limited knowledge of the myths (though I think I pretty much cover everything that’s relevant to this). These are just my headcanons woven with some details from various myths. Sorry if anything’s missing or inaccurate!

SO!

First and foremost, I headcanon Deiphobus as the oldest of Priam and Hecuba’s children after Hektor.

Hektor calls Deiphobus the dearest of his brothers, and to me, this is why. They are the closest in age and they were the closest growing up, best friends when they were young. They also get the closest to being on equal footing which means a lot to Hektor, who often feels distance between him and his other siblings because of being heir to Troy.

Despite the relatively equal ground and Deiphobus treating Hektor with a very casual familiarity, deep down, he idolizes him. Deiphobus adores and admires Hektor, ever a younger brother in how he looks up to his strength and intelligence and reliability but close enough in age to not feel the same envy as so many of their younger siblings.

Deiphobus is aware that he is next in line to inherit the throne of Troy after Hektor, and the possibility of that is more real to him than to the rest. He doesn’t envy or want the responsibilities Hektor has to bear being the first son and admires him for it rather than resenting him. He never wants the weight of Troy on his shoulders.

Additionally, as close as they are, Hektor confides more openly in Deiphobus than the rest of their siblings. Consequently, he has a more realistic idea of both the burden he bears and also the ways he struggles to manage it like any human would.

Deiphobus holds Hektor in the highest regard- he means the world to him. It is a strange and unique combination of relating to and understanding Hektor exactly as he is and then loving him so dearly for how remarkably he seems to do in all of it, all that Deiphobus adores and strives to be like.

Hektor calls Deiphobus the dearest of his brothers, but Deiphobus would never need to say the same of Hektor, that much has always been obvious.

Deiphobus himself is ferociously loyal, boastful and fiery proud, wild and energetic, and always quick to smile and laugh with a sharp sense of humor. He’ll defend his own with tooth and nail, Hektor first and foremost, and they make a well balanced pair. Hektor’s level headed sense of responsibility softens many of Deiphobus’s rough edges, and Deiphobus’s enthusiasm breaks through many of Hektor’s more anxiously formed reservations.

Deiphobus would do near anything for Hektor, to a concerning degree in the eyes of some, but Hektor, by his nature, isn't overly controlling. He doesn't want Deiphobus to change how he is. Mostly, the only place Hektor truly pushes him is on moral grounds, for better rather than for worse.

Deiphobus hates to spend time overthinking anything, which benefits him in some ways, but also frequently has him following the example of those around him without considering what might lean towards cruelty. Hektor never tolerates hurtful and needless rudeness or otherwise, and their friendship doesn’t spare Deiphobus his reprimands.

Hektor's needling, though, has him step back and reexamine his actions and the second look is generally what he needs to correct his missteps. Admittedly, he’ll sometimes act better in some way solely to please Hektor, but far more often than not, he’ll come to recognize why it’s best with time and continue that way from his own compulsion.

(He grows and his conscience sounds irritatingly like Hektor.)

Deiphobus is actually one of the best of his siblings at not holding a grudge. He might for drama or humor’s sake, but once a squabble is past, he’ll easily set it aside in favor of having fun with whoever he fought with.

Regardless of his flaws, Deiphobus is amiable and of the opinion that it’s never worth passing up a good time over some pettiness. He’s never one to ignore the value of little joys, no matter how fleeting they are.

Before the war, when he is still younger, there is Antheus. He’s the pretty son of Antenor, and both Deiphobus and Paris are quite taken with him. Paris’s involvement rubs him the wrong way, but he elects to ignore it as best he can. It doesn’t sit right to consider policing Antheus’s actions. He can hardly demand he stop seeing Paris while still insisting on his company, after all.

Besides, he can’t really complain. Antheus favors him with his presence often, laughing at his jokes, stealing off his plate when they share meals, tumbling with him when they wrestle. And when Antheus lifts his hand to idly toy with his lower lip as he smiles slyly at him, Paris is the last thing on Deiphobus’s mind.

Hektor teases him sometimes when he turns up ruffled from some exchange turned overzealous, but his flustered frustration pales in comparison to his excitement, so Hektor gets away with it. Oh, he loves Antheus and the feeling is so heady, better than the most potent wine.

Then it all shatters when some men rush into the palace with Antheus’s limp body carried between them. He was in the gymnasium with Paris, they learn. One throw from Paris with a warped discus and Antheus was gone. Deiphobus stares at the blood soaked in his lovely hair.

Deiphobus is ready to rip Paris apart, but when his brother is guided in after, there’s just no room for it. He’s in complete hysterics, shaking all over as he hyperventilates, and screaming would have gotten through to him no more than their family’s vain attempts to calm him down.

Paris is inconsolable afterwards. He retreats in on himself, though without any attempt to defend himself, first to give himself the blame. He makes for a pitiful sight, and at first, Deiphobus can’t stand being in his presence at all, to take his anger and grief out on him or otherwise.

It doesn’t take that long for Deiphobus’s anger to grow more painful than cathartic anyway and, well, it is hard to lash out at someone acting exactly how he feels. He feels the same heartbreak and pain he sees in Paris and he can’t find it in himself to rage against him when he’d rather just sit and cry himself.

Paris does take it upon himself to face Deiphobus after a time and claim responsibility for what happened that day. Deiphobus doesn’t forgive him, doing that feels... off, but he manages to convey that he won’t turn on him for the accident with Antheus. He thinks that might make Paris feel better but he can’t truly tell.

It all still hurts then, even as they try to get things to settle. Nothing but more time can do anything more to heal those wounds.

And time passes and then Paris returns from Sparta with Helen, and, well.

The brewing war doesn’t drive a rift between Deiphobus and Hektor, but it does force a new distance between them. The pressure on Hektor spikes and never eases, and the time he has to spare becomes exceedingly rare.

Much of the time the two would have spent for themselves together now shifts to working together to manage the complications that come with this new conflict; Deiphobus has new responsibilities to shoulder himself. More work, less play, but the mutual affection and respect between them remains just as strong as before.

Deiphobus can’t help but feel a certain bitterness over having the casual companionship of his brother taken away from him, but he does all he can to set it aside. He refuses to let it be another source of stress for Hektor, so often too caring for his own good, and he doesn’t hold it against him anyway.

As always, Deiphobus remains aware that these tasks could easily have been his and, privately, he feels woefully inadequate in the face of that possibility. And truly, it just serves to make Hektor even greater in his eyes, handling it all with grace he can’t imagine. He knows he’s not perfect, yet still, it’s hard to imagine that anything could ever truly bring Hektor down.

And so, Deiphobus helps his brother in the ways he can and loves him as ever, always ready and eager to fight at his side.

Deiphobus leads a contingent himself, and does it well. It comes easier to him to manage a smaller group like that. He does as directed and guides his men through the fighting. One can say what they will about his ability to lead, but his capability as a warrior is undeniable.

Things shift between Deiphobus and Paris as well. Much of Troy turns on Paris, some faster than others. Deiphobus ignores the greater dramatics which, in his opinion, help nothing. Still, it is often tempting to berate him for his flippant disregard of the battles so he does, which is, admittedly, not entirely unwarranted.

However, Deiphobus and Paris share a mutual, unspoken understanding that they simply cannot focus on the war at all times. Sometimes it must be set aside. This is more often true to Paris than to Deiphobus, but that invites Deiphobus to keep Paris’s company when he can no longer bear all the stress.

In turn, when Deiphobus approaches him like that, Paris can trust not to be reprimanded as he so often is, as that gets ignored along with the rest of it. So there are times during the war where the two can be found together affably, chatting about nothing important. Their personalities can still mesh in such moments.

And, well, it’s shocking how steady things can stay over nine years of war, but they do. Death and loss become far too familiar companions, but they can do nothing but keep fighting through that, and things proceed much as they have been.

Until, of course, Achilles.

With all the cruelty of fate, it of course follows after they get the closest to driving away the Achaeans as they ever have. Such a brief, amazing hope. In his unmatched fury, Achilles slaughters their soldiers, butchers many of his brothers, escapes Scamander’s rage through the grace of the gods, and drives the army behind Troy’s wall with his advance, except for-

Then-

Hektor is dead.

Deiphobus tastes blood in his throat screaming at the sight behind the chariot.

In a way, it’s a blessing that it takes twelve days to get Hektor’s body and another twelve to bury it. With his death, command of Troy and her allies has passed to Deiphobus, and he could barely lead his own horse after losing Hektor, much less an army.

Deiphobus falls to pieces. He can barely process it, losing the one he held in the highest regard, held every confidence in, believed in to his core. Hektor was the best of all of them and now he’s dead, leaving him shattered. Deiphobus is hysterical, wildly heartbroken.

In this time is when Priam first turns on his remaining sons. He lashes out at them as he prepares to ransom Hektor’s corpse, degrading them as the most worthless of his sons. Still half blind with tears of grief he can’t hold back, he thinks that it’s true in the same moment he thinks of how he will now have to take Hektor’s place, worthless ruin though he is.

Most often, Priam refrains from speaking of his remaining sons after that, and in rare, fleeting heartbeats he almost seems contrite over cursing them. Neither is enough though to keep him from savagely reproaching them in unpredictable instances as Troy continues to spiral towards its doom. Deiphobus shakily chokes down his father’s abuse without a word.

Of course, he returns to the battlefield once Hektor is buried, coming to truly learn the crushing weight of his new role. How did his brother bear this? Every day feels like one failure after another; he’s not strong enough, not smart enough to do this. He tries anyway, each day more taxing than the last.

Deiphobus can hardly bear Paris after Hektor’s death. A large part of him hates him for it, desperate to pin the blame on someone despite knowing deep down that he’s not responsible. Though, even then, part of him is drawn to Paris, broken same as him, shaped by a sort of desperation to grieve for their brother with him. Misery loves company.

His anger burns hotter, but now he can’t bring himself to berate him even in the way he did sometimes before all this. He never confronts him with his hatred, such that it is. He simply avoids Paris entirely, knowing that if he indulges in the impulse to curse him for what happened to Hektor, he would fall apart at the seams.

Even now he can’t face the truth of what happened and keep going. It is all he can do to try never to think about it.

And then, with the aid of Lord Apollo, Paris kills Achilles.

The undecided limbo of Deiphobus’s feelings towards Paris topples into something like affection the moment he hears of it, connecting them once more. Paris has destroyed Hektor’s murderer, avenging him, and that matters to Deiphobus more than anything else.

That night, the two of them drink together until it half kills them, close enough to keep knocking shoulders as they revile Achilles with the worst profanities they know. It’s the only celebration they can muster after everything, but they’re both laughing for the first time since they lost him.

(When the night grows damnably late, Deiphobus’s attempt to laugh turns into retching and Paris collapses to the ground when he tries to get up to help. They suffer the agonizing morning together.)

They make a strange pair from then on. Friendship would be a generous word given the still unavoidable tension between them, but they somehow manage to maneuver around that and share a certain closeness. They maintain it despite differences that grind against each other. Sad as it is, it’s one of the only things either of them have left.

Paris and Deiphobus also weather Priam’s spontaneous tirades together. Usually wordlessly, but there is something to be said for the company of someone enduring the same pain you are. It is a quiet solidarity, but a significant one.

They talk of the war far more often now. Every day it devours more and more of their lives, always harder and harder to ignore or set aside. On rare occasions, they do still manage it. Those conversations make for a breath of fresh air, though that does little to stave off the feeling of drowning.

And then Paris takes a poisoned arrow and dies.

Deiphobus doesn’t wail and sob in the same way he did for Hektor. He’s too numb for it now. It hurts in an unnatural, distant sort of way. All he can muster is a ugly, stilted feeling of shame for letting himself come to care for him in the first place. Of course he would die like the rest, he should know this by now. He crumbles further.

After Paris’s loss, there's only two reasonable options for what to do with Helen. Either they need to return her to Menelaus or arrange a new marriage and keep her in Troy.

Helen pleads to be returned to her first husband but Deiphobus competes with Helenus to be the one who weds her. Troy does not stop them. There is a quiet but tangible tension to the city and he doesn’t think their people would tolerate Helen departing. He competes with everything he has left and he wins. And they marry.

That first night, Helen stares at his back while sitting in her new place on his bed. She expected to be treated like a piece of meat, a feeling she's grown well used to through living her life under the eyes of men, but he's barely even looking at her. He fought for her hand with an undeniable, feral sort of desperation. What was it for if he doesn't even want her?

"Why?" she asks him. "Why bother going through every effort to marry me only to be so cold now? What do you want?" Her voice would cut razor sharp if only she wasn't so tired.

He turns to face her with bloodshot eyes narrowed in a glare, riddled with barely restrained anger and grief. "I'm not letting you leave," he forces out and Helen pushes down the urge to scoff because that much is obvious.

"It has to be worth something," he continues. "There has to be something we fought for. If we just let you go back, then it won't have been worth jack shit." He paces, not looking at her again. "I won't allow that. Don't think you can avoid all this so easily now that Paris is gone. There has to be a point. My brother is dead because of this shit! If you're gone, then what would be the fucking point?!"

His brother. He means Hektor. He means Paris. He means every last one of them, so many dead. He means Hektor.

Helen doesn't reply. There is nothing she can say to that. For all that it doesn't make a difference, what he's laid before her is something she knows well. She's spent so long now berating herself and blaming herself for all that's come to pass and she understands. She hates this, all she wants is to go home, but she understands him.

She knows that they both hate each other and themselves all in equal measure. What a wretched pair they make, Helen thinks.

Not that they make much of a pair at all. They're rarely ever together. Deiphobus camps outside whenever he can, and when he can’t, he goes out of his way to avoid her. Helen accepts it as the best she can expect from the truly miserable situation this has become. The war drags on, but the truth hangs in the air that Troy is losing.

Then the horse.

The people, starving so desperately for peace, bring it inside the walls. Deiphobus tries to be cautious. He tries to think of what Hektor would have done. He commands Helen to walk around the horse, calling out in the voices of the Achaeans' wives. If there's some wretched spy or invader, let them show themselves. He'll kill them.

No one answers. Deep down just as desperate for peace as them all, he breathes a sigh of relief and leaves the damn horse.

He hopes the Achaeans filled their mouths with blood, biting their tongues as hard as they must have.

Troy is burning. The Achaeans fill the streets with slaughter; they are everywhere. Reunited with her husband after so, so long, Helen tells Menelaus where Deiphobus is. And so, Deiphobus dies alongside Troy.

(Deiphobus and Hektor meet again in the Underworld and Deiphobus tries to apologize for his failure to keep Troy safe. Hektor will hear none of it, refusing any of the anger he has every right to put on him. Still, a long time passes where Deiphobus silently and anxiously wonders if that was a lie, if Hektor truly does hate him for what happened.

Hektor keeps throwing him tense, unsettled glances sometimes when he thinks he’s not looking, even though he never says a thing. Each one worms further and further underneath his skin and he starts to squirm under the conviction that he’s done something wrong. Something Hektor holds against him.

When it finally grows so unbearable that Deiphobus confronts him about it at last, Hektor flinches and doesn’t disguise his fear and upset. Deiphobus braces himself. But then, mangled in with confusing, ashamed apologies, Hektor recounts for the first time how he died.

Athena luring him to his death in Deiphobus’s shape, speaking in his voice. How he turned to face Achilles believing he had support. When he called for a spear from his brother, he was alone.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I think of it at all, I’m so sorry I let you believe I was angry with you because of it. I’m not, it had nothing to do with you, you shouldn’t have to know of it at all. I just- remember it sometimes. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Deiphobus feels nauseous. Hektor looks even more so.

“If I had actually been there-”

“No! Don’t do this. Achilles would have just killed you too.”

“We wouldn’t have died alone, then.”

They clutch at each other, these battered remnants of their souls, carrying with them the wounds of their lives.)

#the iliad #deiphobus #hektor #hector of troy #paris of troy #and misc others i wont tag lol #trojan war #greek mythology #my writing #goal: make everyone else have thoughts and feelings about deiphobus too #hes my randomly selected emotional support child of priam #and hes perfect for my favorite thing #weird little character studies #hopefully this was at least somewhat interesting to read #its been a long time since ive done a post like this #an unsurprisingly it is way too long lol #sometimes it really is just all or nothing with my headcanons #i also think about the version where achilles is going to marry polyxena and deiphobus grabs him while paris stabs him in the back #inchresting

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tedturneriscrazy · 3 years

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Another Saturday, another episode! Let's take a look at Keeping Up A-fear-ances!

(Good lord I'm starting to make myself sound like some sort of content creator)

Oh, okay, we're just starting at that level of intensity, huh?

Chest gem origins

Gwendolyn not being satisfied with managing the curse and determined to cure it? I'm sure this won't be a real world allegory in the slightest.

Oh, so Eda literally just stumbles upon the portal? I could call that contrived, but honestly it's not dissimilar to how Dipper found Journal 3. For that matter, the entirety of Lord of the Rings is predicated on an accidental discovery like this and nobody gave Tolkien shit about it.

Was the eye on the portal cracked in previous episodes? I don't remember.

Seems like Gwen is the "well-meaning but ultimately misguided" flavor of mom.

As an aside, I am now quite curious about how Eda's first trip to the human realm went. Maybe a future episode will cover it? At any rate, I smell a new favorite fic prompt.

The screaming alarms in the Demon Realm will never not be funny to me.

Also, that is a worrying number of hearts. Eda is straight up murdering these poor creatures.

For some reason the gold fang being removable never occurred to me as a possibility, and now I feel like a kid who's discovered that Santa isn't real.

Oh hey, the new outfit! I'm also impressed how close to symmetrical that tearing was.

I need to get a screencap of Luz sleeping on that stack of books because she is adorable.

Also, staying up all night researching? This season seems determined to completely eradicate the notion of Luz being dumb, and I am here for it.

I have a feeling the Hexside mug will be making its way to The Mystery Shack in the near future.

Lilith's first experience with transformation and she seems understandably horrified.

The curse acting stronger when stressed? That seems...important.

Ah, so the dismemberment is from the curse! A surprisingly useful side effect from what we've seen so far.

Can I just say that I appreciate how Eda's reaction to Lilith's first taste of transformation is immediate remedy, explanation, and reassurance? And doesn't make any snarky comments along the lines of "now you know what it's like?" Whatever happened in that week and a half must have been cathartic as hell.

"Always. Always curious." Luz is the TOH fandom.

(Also, Eda, you know she is, considering how much she went on about your "mysterious past" at the Covention)

"Magic bird tornado?!" Luz has a way with words that's just *chef's kiss*.

"Gwendolyn." Eda is already just fucking done.

"MOM?!?!" Jeez, Lilith, you're just now hearing all this?

I was charmed by how motherly Gwen was acting toward Eda, but then she kinda just...dismissed Lilith, and now I'm somehwat less charmed.

(Sweet flea as a term of endearment is kinda cute, though might have some unfortunate implications depending on how you want to interpret it)

"Who knows what they put in those nasty concoctions?" OH WE GOING FOR THE ANTI-VAXXERS NOW YESSSS

Luz and Lilith's reaction to that whole exchange is priceless.

Everyone's perspective here makes perfect sense for who they are and what they've been through.

Poor Lilith. Her cursing Eda is beginning to make more sense.

Ah, thus begins the collaboration.

"We'll be consulting someone very special." Why does that seem so...ominous?

Is there anyone who watched this episode for the first time whose bullshit detector didn't go off immediately when Gwen mentioned finding someone who promised a cure?

Heh, Palm Stings.

Nonbelievers will be blinded by the power of the tome? I'm sure they will be, Wartlop.

I must say, as something of a scientist myself (okay that's not true, I'm a QA tech for a food manufacturer, but I do have a chemistry degree), I am 100% here for the swings being taken at faith healing/"miracle" cures/anti-vaxxers in this episode

Oh, we Wile E. Coyote now, huh?

Also, interesting how much apple blood is being played up in this episode.

Lilith please you're projecting your mommy issues on a literal child

OH WE REALLY JUST WILE E. COYOTE HUH?

You're right, Luz, Gwen's bicep game is goals.

(Somewhat disappointed the scars are from questing and not beastkeeping, but eh)

Why do I get the feeling there's gonna be a future episode where everybody stages an intervention for Eda's apple blood problem?

"Those feathers mean we're driving the beast out" Gwen no

Hooty is holding the brain cell? Oh no...

If that ice cream came from the Night Market it would explain why Lilith sounds drunk.

(Side note: I can't be the only one getting flashbacks to Mermista's ice cream binge, right? Different context, but still)

"Abomi-berry" "Franken fruit" "Key slime pie" These are A+ flavor names.

Oh, there's the transformation...

I must say that whole segment kinda rubbed me the wrong way. The way King's opinion on his dad was changed seemed...I don't know how to describe it. I get that they needed a trigger for Lilith's transformation, but honestly if any part of the episode is contrived it's this.

"¡It really is that good!" So that's what an accent slip in written form looks like. (The upside down exclamation point is used in Spanish, in case anyone didn't know)

I keep half expecting Eda to say "Beep! Beep!" at this point.

Luz is finally asking questions. Took long enough.

Ah, the classic "moving the goal posts to extract more money from a desparate family member" technique.

Luz channeling Scorpion, we love to see it.

There is an exquisite irony in Eda's mom being scammed, I must say.

Ah, so that's where the elixirs went. Dammit, Gwen.

Luz is definitely thinking "Are you fucking kidding me right now?!"

Beast!Lilith is massive.

"Sweet flea?" Gwen just realized she done goofed.

"I can see you still need a little time." God Luz is so fucking smart.

The con revealed.

OH DAMN SCARY MAMA

(Also I am terrified of bees/wasps, so extra scary mama in my book)

The scam is revealed, goblins, getting back into the Wartlop disguise is kinda pointless.

She joined the Beast Keeping coven entirely to cure the curse? That's dedication. A shame you couldn't have spared some of that for Lilith.

Still, I do like badass scary mama Gwen. I'd be down to see more of that.

Owl Beast fight!

I am slayed by the fact that the portraits are now officially a recurring gag 😂

Aw, here's The Moment™️

"My turn to drive" Does this imply cars are a thing on the Boiling Isles after all?

Lilith crying almost immediately💔 She was holding onto a lot of pain.

Yes, King, she was trying to do her best. I mean, road to hell or whatever, but at least Gwen got there in the end.

WHAT?! YOU'RE BREAKING UP LULU AND HOOTCIFER?!?!?!?

Terrace, that's just cruel. (Worthless brownie points for whoever understands that reference)

No, seriously, you can't just give me my favorite inter-character relationship in the series after Lumity and just...take it away like that, come on! 😭😭😭😭😭😭

I know I should remark on how Lilith told Gwen about the circumstances of the curse, how Gwen rightfully accepted responsibility for the whole situation, and how Luz finds the big hair aspirational, but...NOOOO DON'T END THE ADVENTURES OF LULU AND HOOTCIFER WHYYYYYYYYY💔😭💔😭💔😭

"BUT I CAN'T HOLD A PEN!"

I will never emotionally recover from this.

Okay, I think I got that out of my system. Anyway...

Not the only human, huh? Cue the "Belos is a human" theorists going into maximum overdrive.

That said, a tantalizing lore dump.

We certainly do have a lot of garbage. Some of it even holds office. HEY-O!

Setting up the next episode, too. Continuity!

Camp's over, huh? That means it's been three months.

Way to misdirect with Camila, guys. That said, we have now seen Camila cry and I HATE it. (In the right way, I think)

WHAT THE FUCK

HOLY SHIT

CREEPY LUZ IS REAL WHAT

OWJEIWHQGIWWOPQ

(It's hard to keysmash on a phone, even with autocorrect off)

That wraps it up! The flaws in this episode seem more pronounced than any others in the season so far, but the good stuff was really good! Overall a solid episode! I know everybody's looking forward to library Lumity in the next one (so am I), but I'm personally eager to see what they do with Gus. His part is the A plot, after all.

Anyway, I'll be back at this next week! Still hard to believe this is a thing, but that's life, I guess.

#the owl house #eda clawthorne #gwendolyn clawthorne #luz noceda #lilith clawthorne #king of demons #toh king #toh s2 spoilers #the owl house s2 spoilers #the owl house season 2 spoilers #toh spoilers #the owl house spoilers

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