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hero-deserves-to-be-happy · 23 days

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12 years after the good ending of OMORI, Hero reflects on the unexpected turns his life has taken. He wasn't the same person he used to be and knew he would never be that person again. After such a devastating loss, he had truly believed he could never be happy again, but things were different now...

OR Hero finds healing and loves again (the abridged version).

Past Hero/Mari and Current Hero/Zoey (OC) Slice of Life, Romance, and Hurt/Comfort.

Rated G. Spoilers for OMORI and some discussion of canonical character death, grief and mourning.

Word Count: 4,950. Full Text Below the Cut. Link to the Work on AO3.

A/N: Both of us creators are passionate Hero/Mari shippers, but we are also huge believers that Hero deserves to be happy and that Mari would want him to be happy. He might not ever be ready to move on and might not ever want a romantic relationship like that again, but if he did, this story is just a little glimpse into what we hope it would be like. It's a delicate situation, and we hope this little story has done justice to his grief and the kinds of struggles he would experience in moving on while also realizing it doesn't mean he has to forget.

This story includes specific references to the other stories in the "When Sun Shines Again" series (particularly "Am I Ready For Love Or Maybe Just A Best Friend?"), but this should stand alone and work as a sort of abridged version and epilogue to everything else so reading the other stories is unnecessary. The cover is Mod Sprinkles' art with the title graphics free to use from Canva. Thanks for reading! ☂️

“I missed this, you know…”

With a flick of the spatula, Hero flipped the egg he was currently frying, but he smiled—turning to Zoey with warm, affectionate eyes. “Yeah, me too. It’s been too long. Sorry…” He sighed wearily as he stirred the sauce for his chilaquiles. “We used to have brunch all the time…”

His voice trailed as he thought of the pediatric PM&R residency that had been running him ragged for the past five years leaving barely any time for anything else. Gone were the days of making brunch every Sunday for his friends like he had back in college. Most days he couldn’t even find the time to make himself a sandwich.

Zoey chuckled as she tucked a piece of short red hair behind her ear. “I meant I missed you, Hero—not brunch.” As she leaned over the counter, her light, teasing laugh wrinkled her freckled nose. “I would have been perfectly happy picking something up from that bagel place down the street and just sitting here doing nothing. You didn’t have to cook for me on your only morning off this week.”

“I know, but I wanted to,” he insisted with a gentle smile as he met her green eyes. “I feel like I never see you anymore.”

“It’s okay. You’re a medical resident,” she replied in that matter-of-fact way of hers. “I don’t expect to see you.”

Hero sighed heavily. He supposed she had a point. Residency was…a lot. Truthfully, he felt like he didn’t see anybody anymore. Something guiltily coiled in his stomach as he thought about his missed calls from Kel or Sally’s dance recital he had had to skip out on. He had rescheduled on his parents about half-a-dozen times when they had wanted him to go through some boxes of his stuff they had found in their garage, and he had missed Sunny’s daughter’s first birthday when he just couldn’t get out of work.

Despite his best efforts to be present for his loved ones, he had to develop a code system to classify emergencies. These days it was nearly impossible to get ahold of him unless someone texted him “Tea Time” indicating they needed immediate assistance that just couldn’t wait.

It was Zoey’s idea, but she had never used it.

If Hero was being honest, that made him feel particularly guilty. He couldn’t stand the fact that he felt spread so thin he didn’t have much left over to give her. She didn’t seem to mind though—usually shrugged it off with insistences that she was busy with her own career too, her dream job: building bridges as a civil engineer. Perhaps that was part of what worked for them. She was so independent—never needed what he couldn’t give her, but that didn’t mean he wanted that for her. He couldn’t help but feel she deserved so much better, so much more than what he had to offer…and not just in terms of his time and attention.

“You have to work again this afternoon, right?” asked Zoey pulling him out of his thoughts. When he nodded, she added, “Just don’t wear yourself out, okay?”

“I’ll try my best.”

As he turned to crack another egg, he caught sight of Zoey’s hard hat on the counter. “Do you have to work today too?”

She shrugged. “Technically no, but I said I’d swing by the building site.”

“In this weather?” Hero’s brow furrowed as he glanced out the window watching the violent pattering of the rain against the glass. “It’s really coming down out there.”

“It’s fine. I have an umbrella.” She waved her hand dismissively motioning to the corner where she had placed the familiar red umbrella she had let him borrow the night they officially met twelve years ago. It was hard to believe it had been that long. “Besides you know I don’t mind the rain,” she added with a smile. “And this helmet’s water resistant.”

“Nice hat,” Hero gently teased—the slightest twitch of a smile curling in the corners of his mouth as she playfully nestled the thick plastic rim into her short red hair.

“You really do love this hard hat, don’t you? You want to try it on or something?”

Hero laughed but shook his head. “I’m not sure it would look nearly as good on me.”

Zoey’s lips curved into a teasing smile. “Oh but everything looks good on you, Mr. Prince,” she quipped, and Hero couldn’t stifle his laugh at her use of the rather cheeky nickname she had given him back in their undergrad. He was honestly surprised it had stuck around this long—though these days she only used it when she was playfully teasing him. “Even those bright green scrubs. I’m going to miss them when you’re not a resident anymore, you know?”

Hero chuckled but sighed as he adjusted his shirt under his apron—medical resident green as Aubrey probably would have said. He had honestly forgotten he was wearing scrubs right now as he had been planning to change into different ones right before he left for the hospital, but they had been the only thing clean in his closet. He really needed to do laundry though he didn’t mind scrubs and definitely hadn’t minded the color. Still he conceded, “I think the lab coat will be better. Just a few more weeks of these. It’s honestly kind of hard to believe it’s almost over.”

Zoey chuckled then dryly teased, “What are you going to do with all that extra time?”

Hero tilted his head. “I have a few ideas…”

“Is one of them getting a good night’s sleep? Because I think you should bump that up to the top of the list.”

“Yeah…” he chuckled before giving the sauce another stir and flipping his eggs. That wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. Instead he felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he thought about his Mamá Alma’s engagement ring he had recently picked up from his safety deposit box at the bank. When his grandmother had given it to him years ago, he had honestly thought he would never use it, but despite his protests that he could never love again and her beautiful jewelry would waste away in a vault forever, she had just patted his cheek calling him ‘concinerito’ just like she used to do when he was a little boy and said, ‘El corazón hace espacio’—‘the heart makes room.’

For a very long time he hadn’t really believed that or at least, hadn’t really understood it, but, as unbelievable as it was, things were different now.

Zoey had been his best friend for over a decade, and he had loved her for years without realizing it or, rather, without being ready to accept it. Even though everyone they knew would have insisted it was a long time coming by the time he had finally asked her out for a cup of coffee three years ago, it still didn’t seem real. When Mari had died, Hero had genuinely believed he never would and never even could feel that way about anyone ever again, and truthfully, he had been planning to never really move on. But…there was just something about Zoey. To this day, he still couldn’t even begin to describe or explain the way he felt about her—the way she made him feel things he didn’t know he could feel anymore. The way her smile healed something in him. The way he could look into her eyes and see a future, a life he had never imagined was possible for him anymore. The way she made him believe he could be happy again—made him believe he could love again.

There was no one else in the world like her. She was brilliant, driven, and really spunky—a little rough around the edges but so empathetic, so much softer than she wanted people to know and an amazing friend. Back in college when he never would have imagined he would eventually date her, they used to stay up until all hours of the night making sandwiches and drinking tea whenever their fraternity and sorority hosted parties and they’d just talk for hours about anything, everything. She was so passionate, especially about bridges and her dreams of wanting to build them someday. Hero could have listened to her talk about it forever even though he didn’t know the first thing about engineering. Perhaps even more than that, she was easy to talk to too—had this way of seeing through him. It was vulnerable but safe. He found himself telling her things that he could never tell anyone else—things about himself, his life, his family, and his past: mistakes, regrets, fears, even his grief.

He’d never forget the first time he told her about Mari. It was the first time that he had ever told anyone who hadn’t known her about it, and he didn’t know what to expect, didn’t know what she would say. In his wildest dreams, he would have never imagined she would cry for him, hold him, tell him that she wished he had gotten to have his “forever” with her. He was so moved just thinking about it, and to this day, he could barely believe that someone could care that much, could love him that much after everything. It was more than he felt he deserved. And she deserved everything—deserved so much more than he had to give her.

He would give her anything, everything that he had to give—would do anything to make her happy, but he couldn’t help but worry it wasn’t enough. Even though he loved her in a way he had never believed he could love someone again, the truth was his heart was a lot more broken and bruised than it used to be. He was a lot more broken and bruised than he used to be. He just wasn’t the same person that he was before, but he desperately wished he could be that person for her, the kind of person she deserved—someone whole.

“Hey, you okay?” she asked with a slight tilt of her head and a kind smile. Hero nodded.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Just feeling a little sentimental, I guess.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to miss all the insane hours and marathon shifts?” she teased, and Hero chuckled, somewhat grateful she didn’t quite know what he was getting sentimental about.

“No. I’m definitely looking forward to having a normal schedule for a change and consistent days off.” Or so he hoped anyway…but he didn’t add that part. Instead he turned off the stove’s burner and poured his salsa over the plates of tortillas, then topped with fried eggs before he handed one of the dishes to Zoey.

“This is delicious,” she said between forkfuls as he took a seat across from her at the table. “Though I expected nothing less from you.”

Hero’s mouth curved into a bright but almost bashful smile as he scratched the back of his neck. “I’m sure it’s not that great. I’m kind of out of practice…”

Shaking her head, she rolled her eyes at him somewhat affectionately. “I can’t imagine what ‘in practice’ would taste like,” she quipped before she took another bite with a satisfied hum. “Do you ever think you could’ve been a chef in another life?”

Hero chuckled lightly, but he shrugged as the slightest smile twitched in the corners of his mouth. “I wanted to be—back when I was a kid…” He paused, sighed. He knew she already knew that—already knew everything about him, but she didn’t seem to mind him repeating himself. He could feel her hand reach across the table to gently cover his until their fingers intertwined, until he looked up at her and met her bright green eyes—inquisitive but kind…and knowing as if she could see right through him and understood the bittersweet weight behind those words. As she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, he squeezed her hand and added, “But I don’t want that anymore...”

“Think you’d be even more stressed as a chef?”

“Probably.” His lips twitched before he took a bite of his chilaquiles. “And you’d see even less of me.”

Hero couldn’t help but smile at the way she stifled a laugh as she caught his dry joke. Zoey tilted her head at him. “What do you want now?” she asked, as if she didn’t already know the answer.

His cheeks grew warm as he thought of that ring again, but he dryly quipped, “A good night’s sleep.”

She laughed aloud this time—her smile reaching her green eyes until she bantered, “Well don’t set the bar too high. Gotta keep those wildest dreams in perspective, you know? Make them attainable.” Despite the dryness of her delivery, she couldn’t quite hold back her smile. As Hero laughed, her expression softened. “You really do deserve some rest, Mr. Prince. Just because you can function on three hours of sleep, doesn’t mean you should. It shouldn’t be a dream—it’s pretty fixable.”

“You’re starting to sound like Kel…”

Zoey shrugged. “I’ve always said Scotty’s got a lot on the ball,” she said using the nickname she had given Kel over a decade ago on account of his penchant for fixing things. “It’s good advice, and I’m not just saying that because he agrees with me.” The tines of her fork scraped against her plate as she finished the last bite. She stared at her empty plate with a thoughtful hum. “Maybe I should head out—give you some time to take a nap before you have to work this afternoon.”

“You don’t have to stay, but I don’t think I’m going to sleep if you go so…don’t leave because of that.”

Zoey smiled but sighed. “Wishful thinking on my part, I guess.

A loud crash of thunder clanged outside the window, and she frowned. “I had better get going though—head over to the site before the weather gets any worse.”

With a brisk nod, Hero rose from his seat to help Zoey clear her dishes. “I’ve got it,” he insisted, but she somewhat playfully wrestled her plate away from him with a pointed frown.

“You cooked. I can clean up.”

As she quirked an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms, Hero sighed. He knew this look. It meant there was no point in arguing with her—not that he was much of an arguer to begin with. Still, he gently insisted, “At least let me help. It’ll be faster with both of us.”

Zoey teasingly rolled her eyes, but she shrugged. “If you insist…”

Hero nodded, grabbing his used pans and utensils and joining her at the sink. It was a little like déjà vu to be honest given how often they had done dishes together back in college—though Hero would be the first to admit it was much faster and much easier with a consistently functioning dishwasher.

As if she could somehow read his mind, she quipped, “Well this is familiar…” as she rinsed off their plates in foamy, soapy water. Chuckling, he gently nudged her with his shoulder as reached for a sponge to start scrubbing the remnants of fried eggs off his pan, and she let out a breathy laugh. “Can’t say I missed dishes too much—though they were always more fun with you.”

“Pretty sure that was you actually…” His mouth twitched into a kind smile. “You always thought of great things for us to talk about to help us pass the time.”

He could feel Zoey shift beside him, and she sighed as she intently scrubbed at the stained rim of the saucepan. “You know, there actually was something I wanted to talk to you about today…”

Hero hummed glancing at her over his shoulder as he loaded the silverware into dishwasher. “Oh?”

“Yeah, I wanted to ask you something…But you have to promise me you’re going to be honest.”

“Of course,” chuckled Hero, but Zoey didn’t laugh.

“I mean it. Don’t just say it’s fine because you think that’s what I want to hear.” She paused, and Hero could feel his face flush. “I don’t want to cross a line.”

His brow furrowing, Hero stopped loading the dishes and turned to look at her—meeting her eyes. “Zoey…” His voice hitched, and he could feel his hands trembling even as he tried to calm his breathing. “Is everything okay?”

She nodded with a slight, reassuring smile. “Yeah. Everything’s okay. I just…” Her voice trailed. She wouldn’t look up from the saucepan she was cleaning. “Do you think I could visit Mari’s grave sometime…?”

Hero froze. Of all the things she could have said, he would have never expected that. She had visited there with him several times in the past, but it was always as support for him when he was going there anyway. She had never asked to make a special trip before. It surprised him, but it didn’t necessarily feel like a bad thing. “Uh…yeah. Sure,” he stumbled running a hand through his hair. “I um…Gosh, I don’t know when I’m going to have another day off but when I finally finish up this residency and get a more consistent schedule I’m sure we can…”

“Hero,” she cut him off. “I meant, could I go alone? Would that be weird for you if I went to visit her sometime by myself?”

Something twisted in Hero’s chest. He didn’t know how to feel—didn’t really know what to say to that. It seemed so unexpected, but he didn’t think he had a problem with it. After all, Zoey knew a lot about Mari—not just from him but from Sunny and Kel too, even Aubrey and Basil. He supposed it could make sense that she might want to visit her…but the truth was, he really couldn’t understand why.

Unless…

He swallowed hard—biting down on his lip. He couldn’t even think it.

“Hero?” He felt her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. “Just forget it okay? It was a silly idea. There were just some things that I wanted to say to her, that’s all, but if it’s weird for you, I don’t want to cross that line.”

“No. No, it’s okay. It’s not weird for me, if that’s what you want to do. It’s just…” His voice trailed. He didn’t have the words for what he wanted to say, the question he wanted to ask. In a way, he was almost scared of it—scared of the answer. The truth.

He had tried to avoid it all this time. While he had told her a lot about Mari, he had tried so hard to keep it focused on him and his grief—on how he felt when she died, how he had blamed himself, how it had wreaked havoc on his relationships with the people he had cared about most, how it nearly destroyed him and how he had never thought he could ever be happy again. But she popped up in his stories sometimes and he had told Zoey the most basic things about her that she was kind, smart, and talented, she played piano and was cheerful and warm, the kind of person you could always count on to be on your side or to brighten your day oftentimes just by smiling because when she smiled you would’ve sworn the sun shined brighter.

Zoey knew that he loved Mari, that a part of him would probably always love her. It didn’t seem to bother her at all, but it had been so hard for him to make peace with that in himself. Even now, there were times when he second-guessed himself, felt guilty that his heart was so broken and bruised—that he couldn’t give her everything that he felt she deserved. He desperately wrestled with the fear he wasn’t enough, with the feeling that it wasn’t fair to her that despite how much he loved her and would have done anything for her it would be impossible for him to ever say that she had been the one and only love of his life. He was terrified that she would feel slighted—that she’d compare herself to Mari and feel trapped in her shadow, feel like she was only a second choice or a last resort.

His heart ached when he thought about it—thought about how he could never be the kind of person that Zoey truly deserved: the person he had once been, in that other life before Mari’s death, but that person had died with her and no amount of healing could ever bring him back. There was so little he had to give anymore though he would give Zoey the world if he could. It was so hard to believe his painfully pieced together heart was worth much of anything—even though he loved her with every inch, every crack, every crevice, ever bruise and broken edge of it. He loved her more than he had ever imagined he would or even could love someone again. It wasn’t better or worse or more or less, just so different from the way he had loved Mari. He just wasn’t sure that was enough.

And now…he didn’t know if she was sure either. What else could she possibly want to say to Mari without him there than that she was just playing second fiddle, just taking her leftovers, just standing in as a last resort.

“Zoey, I…” Hero’s eyes burned as the words got caught in the back of his throat, but he eventually choked out a rambling, probably incoherent, “You know I never wanted you to feel like you had to compare yourself to Mari. I…If I’ve ever done anything to make you feel like…like you—like you’re…like you’re only a—”

“Stop.” She cut him off firm but kind. Hero bit his lip, but he wouldn’t look at her. He couldn’t. “Look at me,” she said, but when he couldn’t bring himself to, her thumb traced gentle circles across his cheek. “Henry.”

He inhaled sharply, and something fluttered in his chest at the sound of his real name. She rarely ever used it—only when she wanted to remind him to stop being a “hero” and take care of himself or, he supposed, in times like these when she really wanted to get his attention. It had a weight and a gravity which was only intensified the minute he finally looked into her eyes and she said, “You have never made me feel like a second choice.”

He finally let go of the breath he was holding. In relief, his eyes fluttered closed, but he bit his lip. “I’m sorry…”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” she insisted. “You know how I feel. We’ve talked about this.”

They had. Multiple times. But that didn’t ever take away the nagging feeling in the back of his mind that “You shouldn’t have to…”

Swallowing hard, he took a shaky breath and turned away from her. His shoulders twitched as he stared down at his hands with a bittersweet smile. “I just…I want more for you.”

“More than the perfect man? I’d really like to see that…” she quipped dryly. “And I’m flattered, but I don’t think that’s possible, Mr. Prince.”

His mouth curved into a smile in spite of himself, but he could feel his face growing warm. “I’m far from perfect…” he sheepishly insisted, rubbing his hand across the nape of his neck. “And…” His smile faded. “I’m serious, Zoey.”

“So am I.” Her voice was matter-of-fact—honest, but an affectionate smile curved in the corners of her mouth. “There is no one else like you. You know I still field calls from my old sorority sisters asking how I managed to bag prince charming.”

As Zoey teasingly rolled her eyes with a shake of her head, an awkward, disbelieving chuckle escaped Hero’s mouth. He buried his blushing face in his hands as Zoey continued, “Of course, I never dignify that with a response, but…” She shrugged. “If I did, the answer is really, ‘I have no idea.’”

Hero laughed in spite of himself, feeling very guilty for it, but Zoey didn’t seem to mind—just chuckled lightly herself and smiled at him until her expression and her voice softened. “Jokes aside though I…I honestly didn’t think it was ever going to happen. Not that it couldn’t—just that…I didn’t think you were ever going to be ready.”

He nodded. The truth was he hadn’t either.

“No one would’ve blamed you if you weren’t. I definitely wouldn’t have…Moving on—being ready for that…that’s all you. That’s your choice.” She paused and met his eyes. “And you chose that—you chose me. And that means more to me than the idea of us being cosmically destined soulmates or the one and only love of your life. I don’t need that. I don’t even want it, and I don’t want someone who can give that to me. I only…want to be with you.” Shaking her head, she laughed at herself muttering, “That’s so corny…”

Hero reached out his hand to her—pushing that one wild strand of hair out her face and pressing his palm to her cheek. “Mi vida…”

As she glanced up at him, he could only hope that the look in his eyes conveyed the deeper meaning of those words—conveyed everything he wanted to say every time he called her that. He didn’t use it often—didn’t really use terms of endearment much anymore. It felt wrong to call her the same things he had called Mari. He never called her ‘honey’ or ‘sweetheart’ or his most precious name for Mari, ‘Mi corazón’: ‘my heart.’ But Zoey and only Zoey was ‘Mi vida’—‘My life.’ She liked it well enough—thought it was a pun because of her name. Zoey. Life. His life. A life he never dreamed he’d be able to have.

“I love you,” he said, and her bright green eyes smiled at him.

“I know you do. And you don’t have to try to prove it to me by pretending Mari never existed.” She broke away from his gaze and glanced over his shoulder at the cluster of old photographs of him and his friends hanging on his living room wall—memories of that other life and who he had used to be back when Mari was alive. It had been Zoey’s idea to hang them up, and she said now exactly what she had said then, “Moving on doesn’t mean having to forget, Hero.”

His heart ached at those words, and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. He wasn’t sure how long he held her until she sighed, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t mean to upset you. I won’t go.”

“No, I think you should,” Hero insisted. “I mean…if that’s something you want or need to do.”

“It is. But not for the reasons you think…” She sighed. “Not because I’m comparing myself to her or anything like that. I guess I just…I wanted to reassure her that I’d take care of you. That’s all.” She pulled away from him with a soft, affectionate, smile. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s…really good.” His eyes grew misty, and his voice hitched. “Thank you.”

Her smile brightened, and it reached her eyes. He knew that she understood those words meant infinitely more than what he had said.

“Hero…” she began. “You know I love you, right?”

He nodded, but he couldn’t hold back the smile that tugged at his lips. “Yeah.”

“Can I ask you one more thing?” she asked with a slight shrug of her shoulders.

“Anything.”

She tilted her head, pursing her lips together. “And you promise you won’t take it the wrong way?”

He swallowed hard—his hands beginning to shake again, but he managed, “I promise.”

Zoey took a deep breath—long and heavy. She stared at the picture of Hero and his friends in Faraway Park back before Mari had passed away—back before they were jaded, broken, before they had to learn how to be happy again. “Do you think she’d be happy for us?”

Hero’s chest ached, but a bittersweet smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He thought about the last time he had visited Mari. He had gone alone—stopped there after he had picked up his grandma’s engagement ring from the bank. He had wanted to know the same thing. It felt strange to look for that reassurance—to look for some kind of sign when he knew Mari couldn’t really answer him. But Mari had found a way. When he had told her about his plans—asked if she would be okay with that, there was strong gust of wind. It blew a twig off a nearby tree that hit him in the head. He had laughed. As if Mari was trying to tell him what a silly question that was—especially when he already knew the answer.

He hugged Zoey again—glancing off over her shoulder out the window where the sun was peeking through the clouds even despite the rain. As a certain warmth spread through his chest, he blinked the mist out of his eyes and whispered, “I know she would be.”

#hero omori #omori hero #when sun shines again ⛅#omori oc #omori oc: zoey #hero/oc #hero x oc #hero fic #hero fanart #omori fanart #our content #omori spoilers

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mangaka-neko-chan · 6 months

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If everyone wants Neh'edi, who does she want?

Interesting question, Anon, interesting question. Though I think I know what you mean (probably "want" as in "desire" so romantically or sexually) it is still a broad question so I will take it as such and give you somewhat three answers. Who does Neh'edi want in terms of as by desire, romantically and as a person.

But before I answer your question, let me add that not everybody wants Neh'edi, tho everything around her appearing like that comes very naturally to her hahaha. Her origin is being rejected by her home so bad she went into exile while still being punished to be serving her home that doesn't want her back. And in her life's journey, Neh'edi got rejected quite often. Aside from basic stuff like people refusing to join her fleet, friendly or unfriendly, there is also much disdain and jealousy from rivals and outsiders. Neh'edi is very amicable but being a pirate threat and a very opulent and successful one as well attracts as many admires as it attracts hostility. Neh'edi is at this point torn between mourning the loss of potential great friendships or alliances and low-key enjoying flaunting her glory before those that oppose her, sometimes changing their mind, sometimes not. (She would very much be amused and enjoy you saying sth like that tho.)

Now onto your question:

In terms of desire, Neh'edi has no preference other than she must like one and one must like her as well. It's not like she sleeps around an insane ammount but charm and charisma is her strongest forte and she is not being opposed to a little fun every now and then. As much as the Aeldari Corsair lifestyle in 40k would allow one anyway, without Slaanesh constantly after one's ass, but it's Neh'edi's life-work and goal to improve protection against chaos' grasp on her fleet and herself anyway.

Romantically or intimately there were certainly some she "wanted" but it either didn't work out or they didn't want her. Within her fleet unfortunately her status and role puts her above the people close to her. The only exception within the fleet could be the position as Baron but the current two at her side she does not want romantically but as friends and comrades (and Eli'ara and Aeriden have their own romantic pursuits in each other anyway). It's rare for her to meet someone who she can consider "her equal" and Neh'edi highly dislikes using status to achieve an romantic relationship. So currently, yes there was and is want but without a future for now.

As for people, Neh'edi wants those who align with her values and ideals. People she can trust. People who have the drive of freedom or a vision. People she can build a strong fleet with. People she can call her comrades, her friends, her family. Though it seems like that, Neh'edi doesn't just recruit anyone. If she sees that spark in you and she likes you, you get a chance to prove your loyalty and a true place to call home. If she REALLY likes you she will be quite insistent but she knows to be realistic for the sake of others. Neh'edi is aware that many like her for what she stands for or the things she possesses but above all she charishes connections that are true so she will care for every little person as much as they care for her simply because she wants them around.

In conclusion you would have to be more specific or I simply can't give you a clear answer. Regardless, I hope you are happy with it, otherwise more asks are always welcome~

#I feel like this is related to the last illustration of hers?#good taste #ask me anything #oc #oc neh'edi

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perseusjackson-jasongrace · 4 years

Text

His Blood Runs Gold I

Percy is a God: Part I

Masterlist for the next part and more of my stuff

Y’all already know what this is!!!!!!!! But if you don’t then click this to find out. And i hope you enjoy Percy as a god cause i definitely do ;) *shivers*

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We were warm and shivering,

and young and ancient,

and alive.

-We Were Liars, E. Lockhart

Time is non-existent anymore. Percy should be twenty this year but now that he has ichor flowing through his veins, he can be 102 or 5. He has done things Homer would write epic poems about. If he were around at the dawn of time Ovid would have happily dedicated the Metamorphoses to him. But today Percy Jackson has been a god for three years and he has never felt more mortal in his life.

“Percy my boy, what are you doing here?”

“Hello Father, Camp Half-Blood is throwing a campfire in my honour and I thought it’d be rude not to show my face.”

“Very noble of you son. I remember back in my day the Greeks–“

Percy zoned out, tired of hearing how people bowed down to all these stuffy Olympians. The camp threw a celebration every year on the day he got immortalized and in return he reinforced the borders and blessed every demigod before they leave at the end of summer. He doesn’t know if he’s doing a good job, he doesn’t even know if what he does is making a difference, but he doesn’t know how else to give back to the camp and the people that saved his life again and again; who loved him and fought next to him and oh gods followed him into battle.

He’s never had the chance to talk to Chiron, who’s always busy with this demi-god and that satyr, and this nymph. He barely gets the chance to talk to all his old friends– between the new campers wanting to hear his stories and the general chaos of end of summer camp-life. He thanked the powers that be–what a jarring thought that he was one of those powers now– that he managed to find days in-between to see Annabeth and Grover.

He smiled to himself as he remembered the last time he saw Annabeth. She had been moving into her own apartment to start her third year at the University of New Rome. To his unsurprised delight she had chosen archaeology as her major but somehow slipped Latin and Ancient Histories into her schedule. He had helped carry bags and bags filled with books up to her room and they spent the day setting her up and making sure everything was in its place before she started the year.

Their relationship had progressed so softly, so slowly, Percy sometimes felt like he had imagined the year they had as a romantic couple. After he became a god they managed to go on a few dates, some interrupted by hothead immortals and revengeful monsters, and some blissfully alone. But once Annabeth started university and Percy was called again and again to help with this problem and that, it became a hassle to set up dates and figure out when to meet. They didn’t grow apart, so much as grow between. And although he missed the softness of Annabeth, he had gained a friend who knew him more deeply than any being alive– he was eternally grateful for that, and he couldn’t hate what they lost out on.

“Son, are you listening?” Poseidon pulled him from his thoughts.

“Yes father, it really was a great time for you. I have to go now, but Iris message if you need me.” And without waiting for a reply Percy strode out of Olympus and into the streets below.

He considered snagging a car but decided against it, since you couldn’t very well drive into Camp Half-Blood. Instead he walked into the ocean and let the current take him all the way to Long-Island, till he could smell the strawberries on the ocean wind and hear the echoes of camp games and reedpipes.

He stepped onto the beach, loving the soft sinking impressions he made in the sand. After his blood turned gold he realized he could walk on the sand and make no footprints whatsoever. The idea scared him so much he sunk under water and cried for three hours. How could he leave nothing behind? How could he have no imprint? It was Tyson, riding on his rainbow hippocampi who found him and showed him how to balance his weight; showed him how to step into the sand and not on it. When his footprints reappeared once more, he hugged his brother so hard if Tyson weren’t a cyclops his ribs might have cracked.

So Percy walked up the beach and through the strawberry fields, taking the time to breathe in the forest air, the fruit breezes, and ah the smell of chaos.

“JACKSON!” Connor Stoll yelled.

And with that single announcement Percy was home.

The day was spent in good spirits: racing with various campers up the wall and avoiding every deadly thing it spat at you– even if he couldn’t really die; then eating in the dining hall and getting to travel between tables without getting glares from various houses or Chiron; laughing as all the food turned blue just for him.

When it was time Percy walked with some of his friends; Clarisse who grew to be a steady, if raging fire, by his side, and Connor Stoll who is now the oldest of the Hermes kids since Travis left for college, and of course Will who above everyone reserves the right to make sure his friends were protected.

In a moment of vulnerability, he broke down on Percy’s immortal shoulder and wept. I don’t want to bury anymore of my friends Percy. I don’t want to be tending to them as they die in my infirmary. I can’t do it anymore. For him, Percy double, sometimes in moments of obsessiveness, triple checked his border defenses.

Now the little group walks around the perimeter of the camp and talks softly and contentedly as Percy knocks against the shimmering force, leaking power into the hollow spots.

“How is everyone at camp?” He asked.

“Fine, nothing has changed much. Ever since the Giant War it feels as if everything has calmed down to a lull. I’m wary it’s the eye before the storm but gods-dammit we deserve a break.” Connor answered.

Percy hid the rage of that truth but let the ache of those words settle in his bones. He simply nodded at Connor and turned to Clarisse.

“Are there any new campers who need to be protected?”

“Only a few, a lot have moved to New Rome over the last years.” There was a bitter edge to her words, caused by the sting of loss.

“You cannot blame them for wanting a life that is not concentrated to three months of safety.”

“I know,” Her nostrils flared, she kicked the rock in front of her. “I know. It just sucks that there’s so few of us now.”

“Maybe we can see about hosting annual games at each camp over the summer?” He suggested, careful to not step where the cracks spidered underneath him– even if the labyrinth had collapsed there was still the chance something tunneled beneath.

“I think that’s a great idea.” Will piped up, “Maybe then I can convince Nico to stay for more than one week.” He rolled his eyes, but the glimmer of happiness in them gave away his annoyed pretense.

“I will talk to the Praetors over there and let you know.”

“Thank you, Percy.”

They turned to face him.

He stared at them for a moment, studying their faces. Even now, all these years later it was jarring to see the signs of growth in their make-ups. He couldn’t say aging, they were barely hitting their twenties, gods Will was still a teenager, albeit not for much longer; but it was weird to watch as they grew up, watch as time changed their features, changed them.

Clarisse, who used to be a spitfire of rage and fierce protectiveness was now, more a well-kept hearth. She was still full of flame, but it was contained, and her fierce was warm instead of scorching.

And Connor, who had been attached to his brother at the hip, was all grown up. Travis was three years into a degree and Connor, although a prospective honours student, had forfeited college until he could figure out what he wanted to do. He was the sole head of the Hermes cabin, but somehow, he kept up the mischief as if the two were still together. The shenanigans are some of Percy’s favourites to hear around the campfire.

And Will, who is dating Nico di Angelo. The two were often running between the camps, though Nico more than the child of Apollo. It was Will, Percy thought, who brought the camp together, more than anyone. And Will, who in the process had lost the most. For him, Percy would continue to be here every year, would continue to help if they called when they were in trouble. Because he too was tired of seeing his friends die. Tired of seeing his friends mourn.

“It’s almost time for me to go but I wanted to say,” He fought to choke back the rising wave of emotions, “I wanted to say thank you. For keeping my home safe. And thank you for being my friends.”

Their hug lasted many moments, ribbons of friendship passing between them. And when Percy walked back into the sea, he was glad no-one could tell the difference between tears and ocean.

Friends, the word echoed in his head. So few and far between since he became a God. It was not that people feared him, they just became… wary. They fell into that space in-between, where one wrong move could plunge them into fear. When he first turned divine, he counted on his fingers how many friends he had, and if he didn’t have enough digits, he deemed it a good day. Now he can count with aching clarity all the people who loved him, and still have fingers to spare.

Annabeth asked him once if he regretted taking up Zeus’ offer, if he regretted turning his red blood gold.

He hadn’t answered her till three weeks later, over a three am phone call.

I don’t regret it, he had said, because I know I can help this way. I know I can protect my family and friends better this way. And when the phone had gone dark, he had whispered into the void of his room– an alcove of coral far, far, far underwater– I don’t regret it, but I’m so lonely. The tears at that admission did not stop flowing for many hours.

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

Tags (If you want to be added to the tag list just let me know, all my channels of communication are open):

@thepersonyourparentswishyouwere

@lesbian-peanuts

How are you feeling?? Cause i got 6K words for this fic and i don’t see myself stopping any time soon. Give me your thoughts young ones!!!!

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troublecominghq · 3 years

Text

character name(s)/alias/etc: quentin coldwater / king of fillory

character age and date of birth: twenty five years old, july 20th year 95

character's pronouns/gender identity/romantic & sexual identity: quentin is comfortable with any pronoun, is agender, bisexual/romantic + polyam

character faceclaim: jason ralph

oc or canon + which fandom affiliated with: canon + the magicians

currently located: fillory, castle whitespire

moral alignment + people/groups etc they are aligned to: chaotic good. quentin is aligned and loyal to fillory, the kingdom he is to protect, but also to his friends and fellow rulers. before discovering fillory, quentin had loyalties to brakebills but for the most part, he doesn't really ascribe to offering his loyalty to 'groups'. his loyalties are in people, in his friends above all else, and to his belief systems of right and wrong. in the wider context of the world, before discovering fillory, quentin looked to the disputes across the sea as odd. he didn't understand why people feared the grisha so much for one, and the histories of hatred made no sense to him. he's always looked at magic, especially before he knew he had it, as something beautiful, something to be admired rather than feared. so looking to the conflicts of the east always left him a little lost.

tell us about their personality/the kind of character they are/what kind of goals etc they have: quentin is a deeply thoughtful and introverted individual. he takes solace and comfort in fictional worlds, and after a lifetime spent battling his mental health, quentin grew up thinking there was something broken in him, something wrong that meant he just didn't fit in with this world all that well. it's something that only really changed when he discovered magic was real. he blossomed, and is still growing within that, but he can still be pretty ignorant at times and self righteous. he's judgemental and snippy, but he's also incredibly loving and affectionate to those he finds a bond with. while he finds it hard to connect with people at first on a personal level, he tends to bond on grander scales easier. sharing greater ideologies, realising there are similarities shared with another persons moral beliefs etc? that tends to get him more interested in a person and likely to actually put effort into building a friendship.

quentin's goals in life have always been on the dramatic and grand scale. he's always longed for adventure, to be swept up into the worlds like he only ever read about in books-- the fillory and further books for example. throughout his life, he longed for this-- to find a purpose in a great quest, to find a calling in a far off land, to find out magic was real. and, well, he actually kind of got that. and ever since the recent discovery of fillory, quentin's goals have revolved heavily around keeping that, holding on to it. but given the things that have happened recently, there's a much more important goal: get wellspring magic back.

biography: since he was a kid, quentin had always had a love and fascination for the idea of magic. he read every book possible with a magical story, but none was loved like he loved the fillory and further books. he dreamed of a day he'd get to visit; pretended with his best friend julia that it was real and lost himself to it. but escaping to those fictional worlds wasn't ever enough to keep quentin stable for good. it was a good temporary escape and a bandage for his problems, but quentin couldn't shake the persistent feeling that he never truly fit anywhere, and that he'd never find happiness and belonging in life. tw mental health related stuff: quentin is a deeply depressed person, and when the fantasies of a life of more weren’t enough, quentin often found himself on the edge. he’s been in and out of mental hospitals a lot through life, suffered issues with self harm and suicide ideation, and in fact, in the year 119, quentin spent a weekend checked into a facility in kirington right before his life changed forever.

it was meant to be a relatively normal day. an interview for further courses of education at an esteemed university in kirington, and then perhaps getting drunk with his best friend after. the universe, had different plans. this day was the day quentin discovered that magic was real and he was a magician. brakebills university offered him a place, and quentin felt that finally, he belonged somewhere. classes were hard, mastering magic was difficult, but quentin was excited-- in love with the new, bright world around him that seemed to be saturated with colour for the first time in his life. just before christmas of his first year of study, something horrific happens. in one of his classes, a strange ‘beast’ attacks the professor and students, and quentin feels entirely responsible for the horrors unleashed. with time, quentin comes to learn a further truth: fillory is real, and the beast is in fact one of the children from his favourite books.

after discovering that this is the 40th time loop created in an attempt to stop the beast, quentin and his friends are more empowered than ever to figure this out and stop the beast once and for all. and eventually, they manage it, but not without high cost.

quentin has been spending the last 6+ months mourning the loss of alice, while also striving to be a good king alongside his fellow rulers of fillory. it’s been rough going, especially given that they can’t really leave fillory-- the portal in the tree isn’t reliable and time gets a little fucky when they use it. but nothing was quite as rough as what happened recently: the gang kills a god!

one of the ‘gods’ of fillory decides, it’s game over time, time to destroy fillory. he’s bored of the show and wants it over. so, against the clock, quentin and his friends race to try and stop this from happening and protect their beloved, if a little fucked up kingdom. however, in the process, quentin ends up killing the god/not god/powerful magician with an ego the size of a planet-- ember, and what happens next fucked things up in a way they never could have imagined. what they didn’t realise, is that there was a built in failsafe to fillory that ember and umber created. a death of wellspring magic. a kind of ‘if we can’t have it, then none of you can._ and so now, wellspring magic is dead and fillory is exposed with their ring of protection around the island gone. for the first time in history, fillory is accessible to the rest of the world. so now, without magic and on the hunt for a fix, there are outside foes to consider too. over all, quentin is Mc Fucking Stressed.

#application #admin app

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allie1804-fan · 4 years

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A Doorway is Opened (Chapter 2)

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It was June 2020 and progress was being made with plans to re-open film production - Keanu would soon be heading back to Germany to continue shooting the Matrix 4. With the lock-down restrictions on meeting friends lifting, Keanu invited Hannah to dinner at his house. He even cooked - a dish of spaghetti with prawns, fresh tomato and lemon that his sister had taught him. This would be their first meeting in 2 months and their last in 2 months due to the shooting schedule.

After dinner, they went through to his living room and sat on the sofa to talk through the latest draft of the script.

“So, you’re glad I pushed you on this aren’t you? Gave you something to do in lock-down huh?”

“Yeah OK you win”, she laughed. “I’m grateful to you for giving me the confidence to try”

She carried on:

“You know these past couple of months I’ve felt like the clouds have lifted, the clouds of grief …. and I know that’s partly just time passing but it’s also thanks to you and your friendship” she spoke in an almost whisper. When she met his gaze he was blushing again!

“The screenplay gave me a real focus for the first time since Mark died you know other than helping the boys and just putting one foot in front of the other”

He nodded his understanding

“I kind of feel like a plant coming back to life after a long dark winter”

He smiled to think he’d helped her to loosen grief’s grip on her soul.

“I heard a theory about this before. They said that your grief is always the same, the same size and just as painful but your life grows around it and cushions the pain”

Keanu nodded his agreement

“For me” he said, “sometimes my grief bursts forth like an alien from my chest when I least expect it. I hope we find a way to express your concept in the movie when it’s made - I love it so much. You have some beautiful ways of explaining grief”

“Well like I said, that one’s not mine, it’s just one I found that really resonated with me”

“You’re too modest”

They looked at each other. Somehow, the atmosphere had changed with the sharing of such deep feelings. Keanu looked at her, soft brown eyes holding hers for a few moments longer than felt comfortable. Suddenly he shook his head as if a shiver went through him

“Where are my manners, would you like some more wine”

“I better not, I’m driving and I’ve already had one glass” she said.

“You could always sleep over, in the spare room I mean, I mean I’m not hitting on you or anything, not that I wouldn’t want to, oh God! ……….”

By this point, Hannah had started laughing at his befuddlement and he started to giggle as well.

“Sorry for being such a dork – could you stay though?” he beseeched her with his eyes, or do you need to be back for the kids?, I know I sound like I’m begging, I kind of am I guess ……….. it would just be nice to talk some more ………. I mean what with we me going away for 2 months, Facetime just isn’t the same!”

Hannah took pity on him and placed her hand on top of his and stroked it softly

“1 I don’t need to be back for the boys, they’re at their grandparents this week and so 2, yes I could sleep over and 3 yes please, more wine!”

Keanu beamed and leapt up to fetch the bottle from the kitchen.

“What were we talking about before I started being a total dork?!

Hannah chuckled “oh grief, death, our usual cheery stuff!”

“Oh yes, of course we were, what else is there after all?!”

A ghost of a smiled showed on Hannah’s face.

“Do you mind telling me some more about Mark? How long were you together”

“Wow, over 30 years - we were just kids when we met, literally in elementary school. But we didn’t go out until I was 17, nearly 18. I guess I kind of stalked him until he caved in! We knew we were in love about a month in I guess and we got engaged whilst at uni but married just after. I was 23 so we had been married 27 years when he died”

“Wow you were so young to be getting married!”

“I know right! - when I think Toby is already nearly that age, it freaks me out big time. Anyway, I guess you almost know the rest, from the book. We were lucky in so many ways to find each other and stay in love throughout.

A comfortable silence fell as she reflected and wondered about his romantic history. She hoped their current intimacy meant it would be OK to ask.

“What about you? Who have been your big loves, if it’s OK to ask”

“Sure – I mean I think I can be confident of not seeing any of this in next week’s National Enquirer! Let me see, errrrm there was Penny. She drove with me from Toronto to LA when I left there to pursue my career. It wasn’t exactly serious - she knew how focussed on my acting I was, but she was special, my first steady girlfriend I guess.”

Keanu then told her about a few other steady girlfriends in the 80’s and early 90s. None of them had lasted beyond a year. Film and promotional schedules often overtook his time and took him away from LA making it hard to sustain relationships.

“And then there was Jennifer. We had a long distance thing largely as I was away filming the first Matrix not long after we hooked up. I think that added in my head to the romance of it all. Writing her letters on my little typewriter after long days on set, posting them from thousands of miles away. Once I got back to LA things felt less sure, she was never confident in us, always needing reassurance and I think she found the celebrity thing both exciting and overwhelming - like she was part way a fan, partly my lover, you know? Then she got pregnant and everything changed”

“Oh so Jennifer was the mother of your baby, the one who died?”

Hannah knew this one fact about him but had steered away from looking stuff up on-line about it. She counted him as a friend now so if anything was to be shared, it had to come from him.

“Yeah, Ava’s mother. 19 years ago…….so much water under the bridge.”

“Do you think about her often now?”

“Who? Jen or Ava?”

“Both I guess”

“Yeah sometimes. You know in a sliding doors type way, especially at Christmas. That’s when we lost Ava. Christmas Eve 1999. What about you, do you think about your lost babies?”

“Yes sometime of course ……. but I think it’s different for me. My lost babies paved the way for Josh. If they’d lived, he wouldn’t be here, so I don’t mourn them as maybe you mourn your daughter, do you see? Of course I do think of them and every Christmas we’d hang stars and angels on the tree for them. That’s how we remembered them and the pain of their loss.”

Hannah was quiet for a few moments, remembering

“Do you have a way, a ritual to remember Ava? Do you and your family do something to remember her?”

“I guess they always just try to make sure I’m not alone at Christmas. That’s threatened to happen a couple of times and then Brenda or Janey or Alexandra have stepped in you know to rescue me! Stop me embodying my meme!”

“Your meme?”

You know, “Sad Keanu”?

“That one must have passed me by! I’ll get the boys to explain to their boomer mom!”

“I’m so glad you’re a boomer mum as you say and not all over it when it comes to press and internet stuff about me. It’s refreshing. Makes me feel I can be me without all that stuff informing who you think I am. Sometimes it gets in the way with new people, you know? I know I can be myself around my old old friends like Alex (he was in Bill and Ted) and Rob (he was in the band with me)

“Wait you were in a band?”

“Yes back in the 90s, Dogstar. Our folk thrash punk band”

“Sounds interesting – I clearly wasn’t paying enough attention back in the 90s!”

“Well we weren’t exactly topping the charts so that would probably explain it!”

“Can I hear some of your stuff?”

“Sure”

Keanu fetched some cds and had a look through to pick a song, going for “And I Pray”.

“Gosh, a man of many talents” she praised “what did you play?”

“the bass”

“Cool”

“wanna listen to some more music? I can hook up my phone to the speakers and we can play things on Spotify”.

“Sure, so you’re au fait with all the new tech? I took me ages to get there and I still have loads of cds and vinyl”

“me too - believe me I’m generally way behind the curve with technology but my god-daughter and my kid sister both played a role in bringing me into the 21st century”

They spent the next couple of hours, huddled on the sofa, scrolling through music choices on his phone and sharing both his and her favourites as well as reminiscing about bands they’d grown up listening to and great concerts they’d been to.

It was around 1am, with Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” softly playing that Hannah’s head lolled onto Keanu’s shoulder, the impact startling her back awake

“sorry, sorry” she said embarrassed

“hey no worries, you wanna go to bed now?” he asked

“Yeah, as you saw, my eyes are closing”

“Come on, let’s get you set up in the guest room, I’ve got a spare t-shirt you can sleep in if you like and there’s a new toothbrush in the en-suite with your room.

The room was a pretty one, perhaps decorated with his god-daughter in mind she thought. Once he’d shown her where things were and how to work the shower, Keanu bade her goodnight with a light kiss on her cheek. Despite being so tired, it took Hannah a good half hour to fall asleep. She touched the cheek where he’d kissed her and giggled inwardly at herself for feeling like a giddy teenager. In the past 2 months, she’d recognised her growing fondness for Keanu, putting it down to a mix of absence making the heart grow fonder and the Covid crisis making her susceptible. She’d found him very attractive way before she met him but she certainly hadn’t expected that he would reciprocate those nascent feelings. Tonight his lingering gaze as they talked about grief, his befuddlement trying to get her to stay and his soft goodnight kiss all made her wonder and maybe even hope. Tomorrow was another day.

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#keanu #keanu reeves fanfic #keanu reeves fanfiction #keanu reeves imagine #fluff #romance #miscarriage #stillbirth #same age

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popmusicu · 3 years

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Javiera Mena and the revolution of “Esquemas Juveniles”

Javiera Mena’s “Esquemas Juveniles” is her first studio album, released in 2006. This record has 10 songs and lasts 46 minutes. That’s enough to start a new wave of music for the 10’s decade of chilean pop music.

We have to be clear about one thing: the chilean industry has always been misogynistic, and Javiera Mena is a symbolism of a young woman in the 21th century that faced this situation. She standed in scenarios with an unique presence. She was famous even without any album released yet, because she used to play at universities and scenarios for young people. She let us know that in her first album. Mena talks about uncommon things in music: the complex of being a teenager, the voices from a new generation and the unstabilty of teenager relationships. It’s an album that doesn’t get old, like a trascendental jewel gor her generation. Jorge González himself admires this album.

“Al siguiente nivel”, introduce us to the new sound that pop music is going to embrace for the next years. This track talks about a generation that’s going to go “to the next level”, and shows us the transition from the old sound. It’s energetic, different and has a fresh vibe that will be present in the following tracks.

The next one it’s the album title: “Esquemas juveniles” is about the teenage experience and the expectations about the future, the goal that we want to approach but how different it turns out to everybody. A very similar song it’s the fifth track “Cámara lenta” which gives us mental images that are very special. In my opinion, it’s a very “soundtrack” song. Talks about a new love interest, about our friends and the free time. This song has a special sound that it’s unique in the album, even to the point where you can relate and feel nostalgia about your teenage years.

The third track is a little bit different, but keeps some stuffs from the past songs: “Como siempre soñé” talks about a teenager love as an idealized one and the concept of destiny that can drive us to find someone special. But the following song (my favourite one) talks about the destruction of this nice feeling of loving someone else. “Sol de invierno” it’s a sad song about pain, nostalgia and unsure about the feelings that will come. Also, this sound is a question-answer system, where “Gepe” is the other one. However, it’s a song about losing someone, not necessarly in a romantic way, but the first loss and mourning that we have to deal as teenagers. A very similar one it’s “Está en tus manos”: where she surrendes her own judgement to her partner. It’s a special one, because it’s only a voice-piano track.

The sixth track “Casan (no puedo bloquear lo que quiero dar)”, also touches the teenage romance: unstable and unsecure, even when you love your partner. It’s a simple song, but catches a feeling that repeats a lot in us, and it’s very similar to the next song: “Cuando hablamos” and we start to see the techno part of the next Javiera Mena’s style of music.

The nineth song it’s a cover, but still, matches the narrative of the album: “Yo no te pido la luna” modernizes the old sound of the original song. It’s also a mature way of love, it’s not anymore so idealized as the past songs. Finally, “Perlas” is the last track of the album. This song is also a special one, because it’s short lyricly but it lasts 5 minutes long. This is the late part of our teenager years: it’s maturness, talks about the good feeling about being stable with ourselves, finally knowing who we are and starting a new era in our lifes.

This album deserves more recongition in the current pop music. There’s no another album as this teenage dream that is “Esquemas Juveniles”.

Martina Fuentes

#Albums #submission

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afigureofspeech · 6 years

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You were never in any danger: a Kastle rec post

Hey y’all. If you follow me already, you may not have realized that I’ve gained some fandoms recently since I’ve been too busy to do something as time-consuming as reblogging all the stuff I scroll past but yeah, I’ve currently got two other rec posts sitting patiently in my drafts, just waiting for me not to be destroyed by grad school. As you all may know though, The Punisher comes out today, so I really just couldn’t help myself.

I didn’t expect to be here. I get the sense that most people on this ship didn’t either? Cool, we’re all in this together. I haven’t even been here that long; I happened to see someone freaking out on my dash a few weeks ago about that part in the trailer where they’re on the floor and Frank touches Karen’s hair – you know the one – and, well, somehow I wound up rewatching all the Kastle scenes over and over and over… I was even planning on waiting until next week to binge the whole season, when I’m on break and recovering from minor surgery and all, but I’m way too hyped to wait so I’ll probably get to it this weekend instead.

In any case, this isn’t a full rec post cuz the series dropped and I just wanted to get it out. Please forgive the general messy and incompleteness, I’ll do an update later when I have the time. Now a full rec post! Tried to fit in as much as I could think of. Also, if anyone out there has some fics (or anything else) you want to rec, please do! Like I said I am new here and I haven’t had the chance to go through the whole AO3 tag (yet lol).

My other rec posts can be found here.

Hope you enjoy~

* = new

Update 12/19/17: So apparently there is a limit on how many links I can have in a post. In the interest of being able to add more fic, I have removed the extra sections for fanart, fanvids, etc. If you go to some of the kastle blogs I link to at the bottom though I am sure you can find plenty. Sorry about that!

→ FANFIC

alamorn

AKA Under Investigation AO3 Their first meeting after she told him he was dead to her doesn’t go exactly how he thought it would.

glove upon hand AO3 Frank Castle, metaphorically standing in his half dug grave, takes a literal hand to get out. [Post-Punisher s1]

trouble in mind AO3 Frank didn’t like to ask for things. That wasn’t a surprise — she knew that about him before she knew almost anything else. That Frank Castle, he’s a monster, he’s a machine, he doesn’t know how to ask for help. It’s lucky for him that Karen has never waited to be asked. [Warning: explicit sexual content, femdom, pegging]

alchemistc

after AO3 | Tumblr He presses his lips into her hair and breathes deep, chest expanding against her side, arm curled around her, and Karen thinks - Do we deserve this? [Punisher speculation]

can’t no preacher man AO3 | Tumblr She breathes a sigh of relief when she catches sight of the shape of her late night visitor, and then stifles a snort at herself. Only Karen Page would find the sight of Frank Castle relieving. [Part 2 of the devil’s backbone series]

hangman’s knot and three mouths to feed AO3 | Tumblr “Was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d drop in. ”She kinda wants to punch him in his stupid face, but she knows it wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t even land, unless he wanted it to. Besides, it’s not like she could make the bruises littering his skin any worse than they already are. Frank Castle, Walking Bruise. Somehow, it just doesn’t have the same ring to it as The Punisher. [Part 1 of the devil’s backbone series]

walk together with our hands up in the sky AO3 | Tumblr Frank and Karen in the aftermath. [Post-Punisher s1]

you bear the scars AO3 | Tumblr “Men.” “Tell me about it,” Trish says, her voice somehow managing to convey both too-chipper energy and exasperation of the highest level. “I don’t know how much I can, actually.” Trish grins, tipping the plastic bottle in Karen’s direction. “The Punisher has taken you on as a pet project, you spend your days building up more enemies than even Jessica can manage on a bad day, and you’re totally attracted to a vigilante who prowls the streets at night killing people. Does that pretty much cover it?” “How did you - I am not - there is nothing going on between me and Frank!” [Part 3 of the devil’s backbone series]

angel_deux

AKA Puzzle Pieces AO3 Jessica Jones is not an easy friend to have. And Karen’s not even really sure if she can call her a friend. But Jessica is a good person to have in your corner in a crisis, which is good, because one of Frank’s enemies makes a sudden reappearance. [Part 2 of The Sinner and the Saint series]

Between the Sinners and the Saints AO3 A new villain with killer aim nearly takes Frank out, and he makes the call to go to Karen for help. Karen, who hasn’t seen him in months, who has been wishing she could take back those words she said to him in the woods. She never thought she’d get the chance to repair what they both broke that night, so once he’s back in her life, she’s not going to let him disappear again so easily. [Part 1 of The Sinner and the Saint series]

Tough Girl is What I Had to Be AO3 Lisa Castle survives the incident in Central Park, and Karen Page wants to take care of her. Set in an AU where Lisa survived but Frank had no knowledge of it until after the events of Season 2. [Lisa lives AU; you didn’t know you wanted this but I’m here to tell you that you absolutely do]

carrythesky

i started all the wars AO3 | Tumblr (Turns out fighting’s easy, once you start. The problem is that he’s never learned how to stop.) [Punisher speculation, all the angst]

It’s still heavy Tumblr [Karen Page grows up pretending. She escapes to the broom closet downstairs, curls into the dark space and when she closes her eyes she’s an astronaut, a deep-sea explorer, a knight scaling tall towers to rescue damsels in distress.]

things you said in the dark Tumblr [Sometimes, late at night when her eyes itch with exhaustion and the words on her screen become a jumbled blur, sometimes, she thinks of home. The most recent memories are transparent as glass but her childhood is a series of fragments, fuzzy at the edges - rain on the breeze, gingersnap crumbs, Kevin laughing over his shoulder and running ahead, always just ahead - And this, plucked from the haze: Penelope Page hunched over the kitchen table in the middle of the night, crying.]

untitled Tumblr [q: what scares you? a: you have your good arm around her torso, barrel shoved up under her chin and the magazine is an arm’s length away but you’re still careful, careful. she is steel beneath you and that’s when it hits, that’s when you picture your twitchy finger slipping and a bullet going straight through her skull, in and out before you can blink. the elevator door slides shut and you can’t pull away fast enough. (you are the most dangerous thing her hands have touched.)] [How to pack a punch in 500 words or less holy sHIT]

edourado

Bodies make it perfect AO3 | Tumblr Drunk Karen is a test to Frank's will power [Companion piece/sequel to Second Night; warning: explicit sexual content]

Boss AO3 | Tumblr Tumblr prompt: "I need you to scream for me. You're Karen Page he's the Punisher, he will come for you." in which Karen hurt and taken by a villain and Frank is enraged." [Established relationship; warning: explicit sexual content]

But you’re the truth AO3 | Tumblr Tumblr prompt: Frank patches Karen up after she's hurt because of a job and goes after the people who harmed her. Romantic-ish Special appearence: Max, the Pitbull [Companion piece/prequel to For I can’t help falling]

For I can’t help falling AO3 | Tumblr Tumblr prompt: After Frank leaves his hesitation aside, he gets skin hungy [Companion piece/sequel to But you’re the truth]

Have you seen my best friend? AO3 | Tumblr Karen finds a dinosaur toy in the subway. [Everybody lives AU, feat. an adorable Lisa; warning: explicit sexual content]

Hungry AO3 | Tumblr She fought it. With everything she had, she fought it. Karen can only fight for so long. [Companion piece/sequel to Never Had; warning: explicit sexual content]

Karen AO3 | Tumblr Prompt: someone hurts Karen and Frank hunts them down. As he is at it, he realizes his feelings for her [Warning: off-screen attempted rape]

Never Had AO3 | Tumblr How can you mourn the loss of something - someone - that was never truly yours? [Angsty Matt POV, one-sided Karedevil; companion piece/prequel to Hungry]

Not Pete AO3 | Tumblr * She doesn't like the new name [Post-Punisher s1; warning: sexual content]

Ordinary People AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2, Deleted Scenes) Prompt: Best friends who are the Old Married Couple but fail to notice they're falling in love until is too late. [AU]

Pour AO3 | Tumblr * She pulled his boots off him before they finished the first glass. They now sat under the couch, forgotten. [Warning: sexual content]

Second Night AO3 | Tumblr Tumblr prompt: Frank shows up drunk at Karen's door, and she's on edge, because she has dated a few unpleasant-when-drunk men. [Companion piece/prequel to Bodies make it perfect]

What do you want AO3 | Tumblr Tumblr promt: Karen accidentaly discovers Frank has a hair pulling kink. She sees an opportunity, she seizes it. [Established relationship; warning: explicit sexual content]

Ejunkiet

dilaudid AO3 This isn’t the first time Frank has shown up on her doorstep in the early hours of the morning, but this is the first time that he’d been extended an invitation.

feel it still AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2) w/ evil bunny wolf (evil_bunny_king) Karen’s legs are unsteady as she makes her way to the bathroom to knock on the door, fingers curling against the wood as she hears the water stop, before Frank’s voice croaks through the door. “What is it?” She has to swallow twice before she can get the words out. “Someone knows you’re here.” [Post-Defenders; WIP]

(in our bedroom) after the war AO3 When Karen had received the invitation from WNEX station to speak on Trish Talk, the most popular radio talk show in the city, her first instinct had been to say no. – “With all due respect ma’am, that’s bullshit. Most people, see, wouldn’t be so easy to let the other things” – murder and brutality, bodies littering the floor of the diner and blood on her hands and face – "go. They don’t seek to understand them. They get one good look, and get the hell away.”

meet me in the woods AO3 * Frank doesn’t wait for them to break the lock – he kicks the door open and slams into the first body he makes contact with behind it, lashing out in a blur of kicks and punches. The intruder falls back, face bloody, and then Frank’s gone, and Karen is left alone, crouched beneath her bed like a five year old hiding from the monsters in her closet, except that she’s no longer a child, and now she has a gun. -- Frank turns up on her doorstep on a Tuesday night and stays until Friday. [Part 1 of the corvidae & whiskey series]

elizma_c*

Flight from the City AO3 | Tumblr What are you doing, Karen? she thinks. He might not even be here. Would he even want to see her? What if – The door beside her suddenly swings open. Of course he senses her right away, even as she’s sort of hidden behind the door. He actually puts a hand to his lower back, and she realizes he’s carrying. Of course. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbles, but there’s surprise in his tone. “Karen.” Even with the questionably overloaded vital signs her body is displaying, she gets the sickest sense of pleasure that she’s gotten the jump on Frank Castle.

What You Know AO3 | Tumblr “When reality feels like its slipping away, hold on to those things that you know are true. You have to focus on what you know.” What did Karen know? Karen knows that she likes to read on the subway. She likes wearing heels that click on the sidewalk. Karen hates exercising but is apparently not a fan of therapy, so she goes running on Saturday mornings. She keeps a .380 in her purse and a pot of dying roses in her window. She has a track record for falling in love with the wrong people. She is fine. She repeats the list in her head each morning when she wakes up, until her hands stop shaking and the knots in her stomach go away.

evil bunny wolf (evil_bunny_king) / devilbunnyking

author our own disasters AO3 | Tumblr Frank Castle’s flesh is a litany to disaster. – Karen and Frank meet again for the first time since that final showdown on the rooftop. It doesn’t go as planned. [Part 2 of the you make me feel so criminal series]

feel it still AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2) w/ Ejunkiet Karen’s legs are unsteady as she makes her way to the bathroom to knock on the door, fingers curling against the wood as she hears the water stop, before Frank’s voice croaks through the door. "What is it?” She has to swallow twice before she can get the words out. “Someone knows you’re here.” [Post-Defenders; WIP]

Graves AO3 Frank Castle - had cared. He’d broken himself caring; he’d loved with a heart she’d only glimpsed beneath his darkness, broken and bleeding as it was. She refused to believe that that man could be gone. [Part 1 of the you make me feel so criminal series]

Pacific Swells AO3 | Tumblr It’s not morbid curiosity. She’d be easier to scare away, if it were – he could play the part, flog away another shred of his humanity to dangle before her and ask ‘is this what you wanted? This what you wanted to see?’ [WIP; part 3 of the you make me feel so criminal series]

Perihelion AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1) “I’ve had, I’ve had a hell of a week, but that, I think, might’ve been part of the worst of it.” She clears her throat, and then again, drawing her knees in. Her eyes shine a little in the lamplight. “Yeah. I was scared too. For you.” -- Frank visits Karen, after. [Post-Punisher s1]

Touch AO3 | Tumblr “Why are you here?” he settles on, instead. Her hand moves to the marks on his neck, thumb grazing his adam’s apple. “Because I made a choice. And now I’m making another.” [Part 4 of the you make me feel so criminal series]

The Twist AO3 | Tumblr Frank finds Karen trussed up in the back of a van in Queens. [Kidnapping, protective!Frank]

glycerineclown*

glutton for punishment AO3 | Tumblr If she wants it, it's not a punishment. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

Operation Spot AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2) A stocky grey pit bull peeks out from the mouth of the first alley that Karen passes. It's Frank, but she doesn't know it yet. [Shapeshifter AU]

Ordinary Citizens AO3 | Tumblr Rawlins’ fist had really done a number on Frank, and he has to get some teeth pulled a few days later. Karen takes him home, after, for rest and mothering. He stays longer than he has to—long enough to figure a few things out. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

idekman / hipsterfrankcastle

around the world my body will roam (my soul’s in new york) AO3 | Tumblr She gets two blankets, one for each of them, and sits out there with him until the sun rises. Frank moves into Karen’s apartment. She dreams. [Punisher speculation]

my girl is tall with hard long eyes AO3 | Tumblr He returns the book the next day. She’s asleep, curled up on her sofa, the window shut. She looks so small like this, fragile and vulnerable and not at all like the electric force of nature she is in waking.

this is all I ever was AO3 | Tumblr 'I always thought you liked tulips.' Karen takes the pot of roses from him, places it gingerly back on the windowsill. He listens to her fiddle with it, twist it this way and that – finding the best spot for it in the sun, he realises. 'Maybe. Before.' - prompt: kastle through matt's eyes [Post-Punisher s1]

jazzonia

come upstairs but not to talk AO3 Frank comes to her straight from the firefight. [Warning: explicit sexual content; part 1 of the we’re always alright series]

don’t care about your intentions AO3 Karen’s world is upended when Matt reveals his identity to her. Frank helps her right it again. [Warning: explicit sexual content; part 2 of the we’re always alright series]

LaMorenaReina

Ascendancy AO3 Karen Page's relationship with control becomes all the more tenuous as she explores a singular and inconclusive friendship with Frank Castle, wages her own war against Wilson Fisk, and has to start answering some unwanted questions about her past that lead to new conclusions about her identity.

Re-Entry AO3 Frank shows up again and causes trouble because he’s Frank. Karen goes along with it because, well, she’s Karen. They have adult conversations because, honestly, they should. [Punisher speculation]

PurpleLex / shipsabound

bloodsport AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2) two-part tumblr prompt: "A baddie is threatening/hurting Karen in front of a tied up Frank. And he’s raging?” [Protective!Frank, h/c; warning: mature content, description of torture/violence]

during the dark and storming nights AO3 | Tumblr Frank POV retelling of “the space between dreams and reality” The concrete columns echo again with the second gunshot and he stands there for a minute on shaky feet, disgust and satisfaction twisting and warring against each other within his gut. The satisfaction doesn’t last long, yanked from him harshly when he climbs back into his truck and hears the radio abuzz over a shooting at the tenement building on 47th. Two women sustain injuries — one Sophia Rossum, and one Karen Page. He forgets to breathe for a long minute. [Part 3 of the Dreams & Lasts series]

fourteen weeks AO3 | Tumblr tumblr prompt: “something where Frank has a dog and because said dog has pretty much adopted Karen as his second owner, Karen often times takes care of the dog when he’s away/busier than usual. And it doesn’t take long for someone to start putting two and two together about who the dogs main owner is."

leaving is my last option AO3 | Tumblr Kastle Week Prompt: Lasts Frank rakes his gaze over her entire form, like he’s trying to decipher her. She shifts. He has a way of making her feel like every inch of her soul is being seen, and it’s as much something she longs for as something she’s insecure about. “Sooner or later, you’re going to burn out,” he says, tone flat. “How are you going to take care of yourself then? Defend yourself?” A bitter smile curves her lips. “I could say the same thing about you.” [Part 2 of the Dreams & Lasts series]

meet me in the woods AO3 | Tumblr tumblr prompt: "I would DIE if you wrote a couple of scenes where Karen army trains with Frank. I could TOTALLY see Frank being like, "You can’t get involved in the extra dangerous stuff unless you at least let me train you.” Imagine them running in the mornings??? Karen getting into crazy shape and the tension between them intensifying???“

shine a light through the distance AO3 | Tumblr “You sure about that?” He asks, incredulous, but she doesn’t give an inch. “You help me, you’ll only get blood on your hands.” “I already have blood on my hands.” She almost had his on hers half a year ago by force of a bullet. He put his blood on her hands just a month ago by force of a plea. “Doesn’t mean you need any more,” is all he says before opening the door. [Part 4 of the Dreams & Lasts series]

the space between dreams and reality AO3 | Tumblr Kastle Week Prompt: Dreams He stands in her apartment, by the door, but it is closed this time, and no bullets are coming through her windows. Her gun is in her hand, though, gripped loose from where it hangs at her side. “Why?” She asks. It’s a whisper of a loaded question. He doesn’t respond, just stares at her, gaze too unreadable. Karen wakes with a frustrated sigh. [Part 1 of the Dreams & Lasts series]

untitled Tumblr [Can you do a prompt where Micro yells at Karen and Frank gets the in his face. I literally be for protective!Frank 😂💕] [Punisher speculation]

PunkyNemo / thevampirecat

As days go by, the night’s on fire AO3 | Tumblr She’s lost him, she’s found him and she’s lost him again. And now he’s standing on her fire escape, holding out his hand and looking at her like she’s the only thing on Earth worth seeing. [Canon-divergent AU; part 2 of the Ballads for a dead man series]

Be my saviour and I’ll be your downfall AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1) Once upon a time she derided herself for imagining they were a done deal on a collision course straight to her bedroom. But that’s all over now and he’s gone, hasn’t been back since he walked off her roof and disappeared into the night air. It’s not all bad though. She has friends, she has work and tonight she even has cause to celebrate. It is, after all, her birthday and there’s a chance the universe will be kind. It’s just a chance though. And not a very good one. [Canon-divergent AU; warning: explicit sexual content; part 3 of the Ballads for a dead man series; WIP]

The bullet you never saw coming AO3 | FFN | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) There are days that he wonders if he’s the worst man on Earth. And then there are the days that he doesn’t need to wonder. But, worst man or not, she’s here, sitting on his couch and crying like the world is ending. And he has no idea how to feel about that. Except he does. He really does. [Canon-divergent AU; warning: explicit sexual content]

Can you wait while the world circles the sun? AO3 It’s hard when you can’t take her out - when you’re The Punisher and the world can’t know she’s your girl. But he can make it up to her, make it right … even if he’s not really sure what it is that he’s wanting. [Warning: implied sexual content]

Could you crawl out of your perfect skin and climb into mine? AO3 | Tumblr * It's just a hug, so why does it feel like it's so much more? [Frank POV, The Hug]

Love me back to life AO3 | FFN | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2) He can keep her safe. It’s the one thing he knows how to do, the only thing he can truly give her. So why does it feel like it’s not enough?

You’re a ghost town (and maybe I’m a ghost) AO3 | FFN | Tumblr Safe up in the mountains with Frank following a bloody showdown in Hell’s Kitchen, Karen wonders just how much more complicated things between them can get. She’s about to find out. [Canon-divergent AU; part 1 of the Ballads for a dead man series; I cry about this series in the best way, it’s long and plotty and UST-y and so so great]

queensofthekastle / StellarRequiem & homesickblues

For Whom There are No Words AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1) Originally inspired by the prompt “Frank protecting Karen after Fisk finds out she killed Wesley.” A dialogue-driven slow burn exploring their relationship through conversation, spaghetti dates, two incidents involving vodka, and a whole lot of back and forth between who Frank is, and what Frank does. [Canon-divergent AU; protective!Frank, slow-burn]

Nowhere to Go but Everywhere AO3 * Karen has some emotional recovery to do, Frank is still working on "after," and all along the east-west interstate, someone has been abducting children and wiping all record of the disappearances. ** The roadtrip fic has arrived [Roadtrip AU; fake married, sharing a bed]

untitled Tumblr [based on the new trailer (which shook us to the core tbh)] [Punisher speculation]

untitled Tumblr [Kastle+forced to share a bed (best trope ever)]

untitled Tumblr [kastle prompt fill: “matt and frank having a conversation about karen”] [Canon-divergent AU]

untitled Tumblr [OOOH! What about holding their unconscious body WHILST sobbing into their shoulder/chest ] [Punisher speculation]

samssalvation / jonbernhthal

one day Tumblr prompt: between the explosion and the elevator

weak knees AO3 | Tumblr prompt: karen tripping and falling into frank's arms

SecondFromTheRight

All We Do Is Hide Away AO3 But when she opened the door to him that night with a “Frank”, her lip trembling as she stared at him – her eyes were already red from crying and she looked tired – he wondered how much that mattered. He knew what Karen Page looked like crying and breathing – or yelling – his name, he knew what she looked like with blood on her, but he didn’t know who Ben Urich was to her. He kind of hated himself for that. And for a man used to self-contempt, this dose noticeably burned. [Post-Punisher s1]

The Sounds She Makes AO3 * Now, now that he’s had her, had this. Something good and something he feels part of it. Now that he’s remembered life and something he’s terrified could be love - he can go out with Karen on his lips, in his lungs, with her saying his name in his ear. He can go out swaying in this elevator with her, her forehead against his. The elevator scene goes a little differently (they have sex) [Warning: explicit sexual content]

watermelonp00fs

shooting stars in a jar AO3 * Frank doesn’t visit Karen, after. Not really. But the flowers are there by her window — everyday, for weeks, months — until one day they aren’t. She’s stopped going to the river for a while now, too. Not that he blames her for it. Cut the threads loose, toss the baggage she’s carried all this time into the goddamn ocean — He’s alright with it, all of it. Then, one evening she goes home with a man he’s never laid eyes on, carefree laughs and cheeky smiles — and Frank should be, must be alright with this because God knows she deserves happiness that he cannot interfere with — Except he isn’t.

the world on its axis AO3 Inhale. Exhale. “I’m scared, Karen.” Rough. Guttural. He hated how weak he sounded. “I’m gonna forget her voice.” His shoulders sagged from the weight of his guilt. Frank Castle — the man who took a woman to bed and cried to that woman about his dead wife. What a joke. What a fucking joke. A low hum sounded in the back of Karen’s throat as she stroked the line of his back, gentle and understanding and oh he did not deserve her — “I know,” she murmured and kissed his shoulder. “I know.” Inhale. Exhale. [Part 2 of the like diamonds in the sky series]

Wynn / astreetcarnamedwynn

One Worth Knowing AO3 | FFN | Tumblr The message arrives in an innocuous envelope, a plain white one marked only with her name and the address of The Bulletin, the two scrawled on the front in thick black ink. Karen doesn’t even have to open it to know it’s from him, from Frank, though almost eight months have passed since she last saw him. [UST; warning: adult content; part 1 of the One Worth series]

One Worth Trusting AO3 | Tumblr Frank presses the first speed dial and, a couple seconds later, her phone rings in her purse. Karen doesn’t bother asking how he knew her number. She just stares at him instead, caught between irritation at his actions and understanding for the impulse behind them. And if that didn’t sum up her feelings for Frank Castle, the man a murderer but one she understood. The man in question watches her, his brow furrowed but his jaw set, Frank willing to throw down over this, his efforts to keep her safe.Sighing again, Karen points to the kitchenette behind him. “If you’re so willing to do things for me, why don’t you pour me a drink? I’m going to get changed.”His face softens, nearly into a smile. “Yes, ma’am.” A continuation of "One Worth Knowing." Frank accepts Karen's invitation to come by her apartment for a drink. All goes well until it doesn't, until truths are revealed and revelations made. [UST, kisses, & angst; part 2 of the One Worth series]

Yggdra / favrielle

Bluest Skies Of Mourning Light AO3 It’s Karen’s birthday. The Punisher is caught unaware by his own legacy. [Fluff]

On Hallowed Ground I Stay AO3 He never says "I love you”, but whispers every word of it in all the spaces Karen Page leaves for him in her life. [Fluff]

Paint Your Demons Red AO3 | Tumblr Frank Castle tries to keep Karen Page at arm’s length and out of danger. (Really, he does.) She has other ideas about what safety means. [Post-Defenders]

She Who Believeth In Me AO3 Her brightness touches everything he lays eyes on. And he can’t shake her no matter how hard he tries. [Part 1 of the all the devils series]

untitled Tumblr [kastle prompt: after the explosion scene, frank takes karen back to his and micro’s hideout. possibly a shower scene (doesn’t have to be sexual) where frank is comforting karen because she took another life while looking out for frank as they were making their escape.] [Punisher speculation]

untitled Tumblr [plllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllssssssssssss write a fic where Karen and Frank go back to his hideout to patch each other up after the explosion scenes 😙] [Punisher speculation]

Misc.

Been with the Devil in the Devil’s Resting Place AO3 by Amazing_E_ko The development of Karen and Frank’s relationship from Matt’s perspective, as his own life goes slowly downhill. [POV Matt, not exactly kind to him but in a fun, vindictive sort of way if you’re into that lol]

Heaven Sent the Saints Down (Hell Sent Them Up) AO3 | Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) by Ambrosia But no, yes, the Punisher. In her apartment. Staring at her with an unfazed expression on his face. Even from the doorway, she can see the white skull painted on his chest-piece. And this is somehow so normal for her, at this stage of her life, that she honestly takes one look at Frank, at the bruises on his face, at all his gear spread around her apartment, and says, “Okay. It’s 11:07. I haven’t eaten yet. I’m going to order some dim sum from the corner and you are not going to get any of that gun oil on my bed.”

It is So Quite New a Thing AO3 by an_ardent_rain He realizes, as he is about to order, that there is one other thing he has besides his grief and his anger and his never-ending war. That there is something that helps him remember, that reminds him who he used to be. He orders a second cup to go and writes “Page” in blocky letters on the side. [WIP]

don’t fade away AO3 by consultingpathologist* As she unlatches the window to bring the flowers inside, she realizes the yellow is from a piece of paper wedged in between the stems. [Episode tag]

When you drown, I'll drown AO3 by ebethjanna* His voice is gruff, "Not gonna point a loaded gun at you, Karen." (Two missing moments from 1x10.)

Better Natures AO3 by etirabys “Work with me here, Frank,” Karen snapped. “Make some sense here. Talk to me. We can’t figure out what our next move is until you explain why you’re so disgusted at the thought of my being attracted to you — an attraction which, by the way, I’ve never let interfere with our work or our friendship —“ “I’m not disgusted,” Frank said in a strained, calm voice. “You have ghastly taste, but I’m not disgusted. No. It’s just the feeling of having carried a torch for miles and miles in the dark and… having the sun come up.” [Zombie AU with a side of Fake Married feat. HellaBadass!Karen; warning: explicit sexual content of the dom/sub variety; this fic is everything to me READ IT]

loss like the sharp edges of a knife Tumblr (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5) by fandammit* [The stillness of after is suffocating.] [Frank POV, post-Punisher; one of my current favorite fics]

moth and flame AO3 | Tumblr by freedomatsea Liquid courage and exhaustion lead Frank to reach out to Karen after months of keeping away from her. Set post-finale about 6-8 months. Frank’s POV. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

The Fall AO3 by ghoulsngunz “I need a favor.” A favor? Karen crossed her arms over her chest. She had to be dreaming. There was no way that after three months of silence the Punisher would be standing in her kitchen asking for a favor. “What kind of favor?” Frank rubbed his temples. “I need you to help me find my dog.” [WIP]

Elevator Songs AO3 | Tumblr by Inaccessible Rail (strangetales) A series of drabbles or shorter works that I've posted on Tumblr about my two trauma buds in probable love. [WIP]

But I Wish It Was True AO3 by Ideal_Flower* The first time it happened, he was hit with white hot shame. But there was no bullet, no gunshot, no shattering of golden hair and spray of brain and blood and guilt on the wall, on the side of his face. Just her mouth on him, his hand on her, his fingers tangled through the cornsilk strands at the nape of her neck. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

United We Purge AO3 | Tumblr by Jenye "Just remember all the good the purge does.” – Evil runs Hell’s Kitchen, but one night out of the year that evil is legal. [Purge AU]

Come For You AO3 by larkingstock* Pretty much what the tags say. (I'm so sorry. I wanted it, I wrote it, and if I can figure out the rest I'm probably going to write that too.) (Also so so sorry for the title.) [Sex pollen fic; warning: explicit sexual content, WIP; honestly I am enjoying this fic so fucking much]

You Carry My Heart On Your Sleeve AO3 by Morrigan2345 The first thought that comes to mind when her door opens and she’s standing in front of him in what could only be the tightest black dress he’s ever seen is that she looks good. Really good. The second thought is that he shouldn’t have thought that. The third thought is that he couldn’t give less of a shit. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

the root of the root and the bud of the bud AO3 by nagia* There's a new drug in town, a warehouse full of dead shitbags (and newly empty of a strange, tropical-looking flower), and Karen Page has the kind of connections that might help him figure out what this shit is. [Sex pollen fic; warning: explicit sexual content]

ain’t nothing but a monster AO3 by nighimpossible “Is this okay?” she asks, the question just a murmur in the dark. “You’re already close enough to hurt me,” Frank says finally, after chewing on the thought for a long moment. “So hurt me.” [Warning: mature content]

hail, holy queen AO3 by peppermintcas He kisses her and it’s like setting a building on fire: he knows it’s a bad idea, intellectually, but everything in him is pushing him to do it. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

Strays AO3 by Ruby_Wren* Frank finds out what happened to his dog.

The End of the Line AO3 by ruebellab They say there’s a ghost - that he’s a dead man, but Miss Karen’s seen enough to know one thing. Dead men don’t feel, they don’t hurt, they don’t care - so if there’s a man out there, she knows he ain’t a ghost, he’s broken maybe but he’s not dead. [Western AU; WIP]

Fall On Your Knees AO3 by saltandbyrne* She keeps the flowers in her window for three days. [Warning: explicit sexual content]

windowsill AO3 by shuofthewind Eight weeks, three days. She's going to punch him in his fucking nose. The fic that fixes the lack of Karen at the end of The Punisher. [Post-Punisher s1; UST]

Of Gods and Monsters AO3 | Tumblr by silbecoo Frank is the God of the Underworld, quietly ushering honorable souls to the Elysian Fields while ensuring the evil ones start their time in Tartarus as soon as possible. He doesn’t want or need anyone to care about, until one day the beautiful Daughter of Demeter needs him. He can’t ignore his fate, and neither can she. [Yup it’s the Hades&Persephone AU you were waiting for; WIP]

A Hard Rain AO3 by smolhombre* When he starts over this time, Frank tries to mean it. An after; for people who don't believe in them. [Warning: explicit sexual content; WIP]

the floodgates need repair AO3 by stainofmylove* Karen struggles to put the pieces back together again. Post “I’m already dead,” basically.

moving on AO3 by thecoolestfreak* “I’m going to break the truth over Fisk’s head, sure. But I need the backup to do it. Capable parties.” She said it as she’d rehearsed it in her head, and she winced at how unsympathetic it sounded out loud. “Y’need canon fodder, that it?” he said, and she almost spit out the wine she’d nervously poured in her mouth. “God, no! Frank, that’s not— I’m—" He laughed, a small chuckle, but a laugh, and if he were here she would punch him in the arm.“I’ll do it, Karen. Where and when do you need me?” post the punisher s1 & the defenders s1 - the gang fights fisk, but its basically a kastle fic

elevator AO3 by thefudge 1x10. The elevator scene, but with a much needed addition.

but shrapnel is shrapnel AO3 by theworthofhollin It starts like this: Karen gets a dog. [WIP]

to arm your fears like soldiers and slay them AO3 | FFN | Tumblr by viansian Karen had gotten over the whole “soulmates” hype when she was thirteen years old, and she didn’t plan on getting swept up in that shitstorm again anytime soon. aka the soulmate fic you knew was coming. [Soulmates AU]

Sentimentality AO3 by writesometimes* She stood in front of the windows and scanned the darkening New York skyline. The dark concrete, steel and glass of tall buildings blending with the inky indigo sky. There was no way she'd spot him if he was out there somewhere, but Karen knew. Frank was alive.

Ain’t about what I like AO3 | Tumblr by zombieboyband Before the diner, after the gunfire. City nights, late drives, looking for coffee with Frank. Karen is too tired for easy questions. “Pardon, ma'am?” He sounds so goddamn polite it’s incredible. “The meat hooks. The part where you killed people and put them on meat hooks.” [Missing scene]

→OTHER

On tumblr: kastlelibrary, kastlenetwork, kastlesource, queensofthekastle, thecrimescenejunkie

People with good Kastle tags: afigureofspeech, carry-the-sky, frankcastle, hipsterfrankcastle, likcoln, mazikeene, shipsabound, theworthofhollin

On AO3: the Frank Castle/Karen Page tag

Updated 12/19/17

#kastle #kastle ff #kastle fanfic #frank castle #karen page #the punisher #daredevil #rec post #fic rec #frank castle x karen page #i didn't even attempt to add anything not on ao3 currently sorry #i will fix that when i update #just wanted to get this done #this is how i contribute to fandom lol #i will be freaking out about this show shortly i'm sure #if school doesn't kill me first of course

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kinetic-elaboration · 6 years

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January 19: Abby Excerpt

Here is what happens every week: work saps me of too much energy to write (even good weeks--writing takes a lot of energy) and so I go several days without, and then I worry that I’ve forgotten how, or otherwise build up the whole writing experience so much in my head that I become afraid of it, and then rather than face that fear I make excuses to avoid writing, but I don’t anything productive either because I’m saving my productivity for writing, I guess, and then somehow like half my weekend has gone and I’ve written maybe a few hundred words in the evening tops.

I mean I guess I can TRY not to repeat that pattern this time. What with the RIDIC amount of writing I’m going to have to do to make this BFF fic what I want it to be. I thought it would be significantly simpler than what I am currently planning it to be.

Anyway, not to depress myself or anything. I’m currently a mess of half-formed ideas, worry, and tiredness so I should go to sleep soon. There’s some stuff up in the air about tomorrow and I’m putting off making any decisions until I wake up and get a sense of how I feel. Either way I will be well-served by NOT sleeping till noon.

Here’s an Abby-centric excerpt from a fic I haven’t worked on in a while:

This is not the life she once imagined for them (from the minute she met Jake, the future ceased to be about her, became only about them). To adapt to it required a certain period of mourning, not just for what was but for what can now never possibly be: the little house in the suburbs with the tree house in the back; or the apartment in the city; the summer vacations to the mountains or the beach; the family reunions; the road trips; or the impulse move across the country. The wide vista of possibilities stretching across the vastness of the Earth.

But in the end, to let go wasn't as difficult as she thought it would be.

The mind settles. Loss ingrains itself. Strength gathers and the will to survive moves her forward, looking always forward.

For Jake, sometimes, it's harder. His optimism is like iron in him; it will not bend. And she's come to know him well enough by now to understand that he is stubborn too, like her, but less pragmatic, and that this combination of weakness is always trying to eat away a hole in his heart.

That's how she knows where to find him.

Alpha Station's starboard window bay.

"Best view of Earth on the whole ship," he said, the first time he brought her there. It felt so romantic, at first: his arm around her and the planet down below, glinting like a jewel. There it was, the whole world like a blue and green marble, like a child's toy, a vision as false as the little toy buildings and patchwork blankets of fields she used to watch through the windows of airplanes, except on a scale so unfathomably large that the longer she stared the less real it became. Not the Earth at all. Just a marble. And she inexplicably a giant, somehow a giant though she'd never felt so small.

For several moments, she thought she would cry. But the tears never came, only fear and reverence and awe.

#the year 2018 #2018: rl #2018: excerpt

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tinkdw · 7 years

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Hi dear. So I've been reading a lot about performing!dean meta and I just noticed something while rewatching season 7. On episode 4, he asked a bartender out. Then while waiting for her, he was giving himself a pep talk. Like "You are Dean Winchester. This is what you do." And it just resonated to the whole thing and I just wanted to share or talk to you about it.

Yeah absolutely (7x04 and 7x05 go together re: Dean hand in hand so I’ll talk about them together here). This is Dean’s standard coping mechanism for his pain since the pilot, e.g. Hell. Then since season 6/7′s loss of Cas it starts revolving around him, whenever he dies or is gone, when Dean is in mourning or pining, he sleeps with a woman. Here he’s just lost Cas basically 1 episode before, it’s right at the end of 7x02 and this is the beginning of 7x04. He’s only just folded Cas’s trenchcoat into the back of the car at this point…

After thinking he lost him at first, then getting him back then really losing him…

God does this remind us of anything?

source: @super-sootica

Season 6 v season 12 parallels is a long post I’m working on in hellatus as there is so much material…

Now Dean is in a different place though, especially after 12x18 I’m pretty sure it should be this time, mayyyybe its the next, but I’m pretty sure now there should be some kind of reversal of this where he is so wrecked by grief that he can’t even contemplate using this coping mechanism and a waitress will hit on him and he will flat out reject her, making Sam realise just how bad it is…

Season 7 is such a Destiel heavy season, I can totally understand where people get the theory (I don’t know if its confirmed) that seasons 6-8 were written as a follow on for 1-5 and 8 could have been the final season as it is so much like seasons 11-12 now for the ramping up of Destiel and the individual arcs for endgame… but in the end 8 wasn’t the last season so it backed back down again, which makes total sense to me as they didn’t get them to the right place, but they did set up a lot for endgame, the MoL bunker, Dean facing a lot of himself and Sam facing his guilt and the trials etc, it makes a lot of sense to me so it’s normal that we have so many season 6/7 parallels through season 12/13 as we are NOW heading towards endgame…

So we have in season 6 all the season 12 parallels which I won’t go into but let’s just take Cas’s arc, which is basically the same, except working with the Angels instead of Crowley, to protect the boys and keep them out of it, while Dean just wants him to stay with him. Then season 7 gives us a double death moment (hi 12x23), followed by basically a first half of the season of grieving alcoholic, coping mechanisms Dean and MotW episodes subtextually all about Dean’s frame of mind around Cas, black goo, Sam’s wall being broken (this is much later though, the early stuff is ALL about Cas, this cannot be overlooked).

I mean, one of my favourite moments of the whole show is in 7x04, which is all about Dean and Sam’s dynamic and Dean being in a bad way because of Cas.

The counselling moment… is just basically Dean projecting his feelings of betrayal by Cas into the married couple who end up reconciling and making out because he forces them to communicate…

*Tink looks into the camera*.

Meanwhile, afterwards Sam doesn’t know about Amy (he literally says “we’re good right!”) so what possibly could be eating at Dean? what could he POSSIBLY be trying to get Dean to unload about? WE JUST DON’T KNOW as Mittens would say ;)

So yeah, I’m interested to see how they take these parallels now, given that NOW Dean DOESN’T have the world on his shoulders like he did in this scene, after 12x22…

7x05 transcript:

SAM: You notice how they, uh, you know, how they – how they opened up, got everything off their chest?DEAN:Yeah. Kudos on selling them that crap.SAM:It wasn’t crap, Dean. It worked.DEAN: Sam, I am so very, very, very, very…very, very tired –SAM: Dean, like it or not, the stuff you don’t talk about doesn’t just go away. It builds up, like whatever’s eating at you right now.DEAN: There’s always something eating at me. That’s who I am. Something happens, I feel responsible, all right? The Lindbergh baby – that’s on me. Unemployment – my bad.SAM: That’s not what I’m talking about.DEAN: Well, then what the hell are you talking about?SAM: I’m talking about whatever you’re not telling me about. Look, Dean, it’s fine. You can unload. That’s kind of what I’m here for. I mean… we’re good, right?DEAN: We’re good. DEAN gets into the car. SAM stands for a moment looking somewhat hurt and frustrated.

So now, after 12x22 and Dean coming to his personal arc’s climax of letting go of a lot of this pent up self loathing, feeling of guilt and unfairness etc, this should either just not happen and Dean actively talks to Sam or Sam will be able to get Dean to unload quite easily…

Especially as I believe Dabb is purposefully paralleling earlier moments to current much more blatantly romantic ones / Dean letting his facade down in order to retcon / show by proxy how romantic / performing!Dean they WERE in the past for the GA.

Heart eyes at Andrew Dabb again, OK and I have to say, Bucklemming wrote 7x05 and it is so good, they KNOW how to do good Destiel, even if I hate their causal misogny and love of rape, they have written some of the most blatant Destiel over the years. Hmm, almost like it’s an important theme to the show… And now Dabb is using these past moments to move the whole story forwards… OK it’s going to be a Dabb appreciation day. Sue me :p

#andrew dabb #andrew dabb appreciation post #spn 7x04 meta #spn 7x05 meta #destiel #dream-and-slash

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years

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Am I the only one that doesn't want mopey, grieving Dean drinking his sorrows away? I want Purgatory Dean, hellbent on finding and saving his angel and fuck you if you get in the way. I want him to fight for Cas, determined to finally, at long last, be the one that saves him. I think we compare Dean and Cas' relationship with Dean and Sam's too much without taking in account the different history that shaped them. Also, Cas has been saved via deus ex machina too many times by now.

I would like to see both, tbh. We’ve had Purgatory and we know Dean WOULD fight for Cas. And we had season 7 but it was sort of accidental that Dean’s depression and drinking were linked to Cas and Cas came back, because at least initially he was genuinely mourning a character who wasn’t coming back and it was written in such a way because Dean’s loss was resonant because Cas wasn’t coming back.

I’m not saying that they don’t write real grief when they know the character is coming back, such as when Sam or Dean mourn each other, but by having Cas gone for like 15 episodes and at least some of them with the writers knowing he was gone, Cas was an obvious factor in Dean’s sadness and it wasn’t caged in anything, really. The only thing is they had 100s of reasons for them to be depressed that season and took away *everything* and gave them a load of other stuff to worry about on the side, so Dean’s sadness wasn’t targeted right on Cas, because he had to worry about everything else too. 7x01 was the only episode where his feelings were mostly targeted on Cas, before he even lost him, when he was the current problem to solve.

I think it was nice that over season 11 Dean stopped drinking while he was working on saving Cas, because he was seriously focused and motivated to save him. But he had something to swing at there, some reason to “keep grinding” - if he feels Cas is lost in such a way he can’t be brought back, it would be interesting to see season 7 equivalent grief written in this current narrative where Dean’s feelings for Cas are so incredibly front and centre when they interact, and though they have other stuff to worry about, say Jack’s powers mean more useful dimension hopping and plus a sense that Mary wouldn’t just *die* and she’s lost in the way of Sam not looking for Dean in purgatory - another realm but one you may or may not be able to crack… She’s not *dead* gone, she’s just *gone*. Anyway, it would be interesting to see Dean take this grief full on because he doesn’t know how to bargain his way out of it and they KNOW angel blades are such a final way to kill something. It has this air of weight to it that your run of the mill death doesn’t really have.

And if Cas’s death seems final to him AND they have a ton of other problems, mourning Cas would be very interesting to see him break over it like season 7 but in a way where the narrative is more intentional. I mean like, yeah, how many times can he mourn his friend, but… Eh. I don’t know. If they’re going for angst they might as well go all the way. I’m not precious about Dean getting horrifically hurt or going to bad places in the name of the story because I find that makes the characters significantly more interesting to talk about, and I feel like Dean has completed essentially his entire point as a character per his original set up by confronting Mary, and is now in a gentle retirement to wipe up whatever’s left on the plate, which to me is essentially the subtextual performing!Dean stuff being visually resolved in a way not just meta writers can see like the grenade launcher did, although I kind of consider that resolved too in the sense that 12x22 finished baking Dean and he’s just left to be iced with whatever comes next for him.

Fresh raw angst on top of New And Improved Dean Winchester Who Is Somewhat At Peace With His Family seems like a great way to test him and his behaviour, and he HASN’T had his alcoholism magically cured and it’s not like he’s learned coping mechanisms, he’s just got an inner peace now about SOME things, so this is all from a totally different direction than the family realignment that needed to happen - this is his romantic subplot resolution, essentially, trope wise >.>

And it’s like, his last space to be truly messed up if we’ve resolved the core of Dean’s family angst to a significant degree. Making good with your mother’s death and letting your brother grow up is GREAT and that was 2 of the hugest things Dean ever did but it just means the core blood related family have realigned and fixed their dynamic. Cas as the found family element didn’t resolve HIS feelings about the Winchesters - rather self-destructed literally AND metaphorically on the guardian angel thing, which has been a BAD stance for him because as 12x19 showed it’s NOT how to be integrated into the family and causes all their problems. Dean likewise hasn’t come to terms with his bisexuality or being in love with Cas, truly, because they’re not together. So it’s his big unresolved source of anything huge and unspoken in the way that ALL the family stuff got literally spoken at last this season.

I’m not saying they’ll obviously make it canon or anything, but this is Dean’s remaining drama llama card to play, so… I expect the most drama llama-ing Dean can do about it :P

#Asks #this is such a bundle of mixed metaphors in a kettle #oh well #season 13 speculation #season 13 wishlist #destiel #dean analysis

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motorcyclegirlfriends · 7 years

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Kara’s Necklace

I’ve been thinking about Kara’s giving of her mother’s necklace to Mon-El since I read the spoiler on Sunday, and I think I’ve wrapped my head around something that makes it a lot less... terrible.

At first, I was furious.

Especially since that’s all I had to think about in that moment. I got the information that Mon-El was leaving (which wasn’t a shocker, I’d been saying it since they broke up like 8 times in a row that they’re rushing the course of the relationship so she can lose him at the end of the season) and I got some snippets that Lena and Mon-El made it happen and such.

And then a few hours later, I saw that Kara gave her necklace to Mon-El as he left.

Her mother’s necklace?

A part of me is still there.

Because we really couldn’t afford to lose this connection to Kara’s family. To have her give it up as a romantic gesture, when all season everything has been about this romance, forsaking Kara’s connection with everyone else in favor of it.

I would never give up that necklace.

I would tell my friends not to give up any piece of themselves for a boy.

I would tell Kara that he’ll be okay, that it means more to her and was a gift to her.

And I think it’s really a terrible thing to show girls, because they look up to Kara and might now think that they should give up everything for their romantic partners, especially after a season of Kara being used as a narrative tool to make Mon-El a better person.

But I’ve thought about it, and while I think what they should have done was have Kara learn over the course of the season to prioritize her needs instead of Mon-El’s, it’s still very much in character for her to do the things she has.

And not just because she’s a normal lovesick girl.

In fact, that’s the least important part of it.

And that idea is helping me a lot right now because while I’d have been alright with Kara giving her necklace up to Alex, having her give it up to any romantic partner (yes, this includes Lena) would have disturbed me because it’s about her family and her inconceivable loss and it’s part of what makes her her.

It represents a huge part of what draws me to Kara, and she just gave it up to Mon-El?

The writers just gave this huge depth up for some romance?

But the depth is still there, for those who seek it. I’m here to present it to you.

Some of the analyzations coming up are generous to the writers, but they are not unfounded.

I think that the interpretation I have of the season’s events is what the writers (or at least some of them) originally conceived it all to mean, but somewhere along the way they lost track of the point:

That there’s more to how Kara was and is feeling than missing someone romantically.

Though, first, she does miss Mon-El romantically.

Just to clarify, before we move forward. Jokes like “Kara doesn’t even like Mon-El” are to emphasize how the narrative hasn’t given us reason to think that she should like him, not to say that Kara, in canon, actually doesn’t love Mon-El.

While if, in real life, someone was constantly arguing and breaking up with their partner, had to be told they were into them in the first place, and who could only list positive qualities about them that they had forced their partner to acquire, we’d suspect that maybe they didn’t really like them and that something else was going on.

But the writers and performers intended for Kara to have genuinely loved him. May not make sense, but it’s canon. Like the fact that the glasses work as a disguise.

It won’t hurt your interpretation in every instance to read it like Kara doesn’t actually like him.

A fic set before he left where she chooses to break up with him, for instance. Or one where she comes to terms that she was using his relationship for something else, emotionally. But if it leads you to saying stuff like “Why is Kara acting like this? She didn’t even like him! She should be over losing him!” then I think it’s really just a safe bet for you to stick to what the canon is really saying, which is that Kara genuinely loved him.

It’s important to realize the difference between the story you are interpreting and the story they’re intending, especially when it threatens the logicality of what’s happening on the screen and the integrity of the characters themselves.

Let’s start at the beginning of the season, when we first meet Mon-El.

At the end of the two-part introduction, Kara speaks to Mon-El in his coma, saying,

“I know what it's like to be a stranger on this planet. So when you wake up, I'll be here for you. So you never know what it's like to be alone.”

Right at the start, you can see that Kara is projecting her hopes onto him.

On some level, she was projecting herself onto him. You can see that in the manor that she tackles mentoring Mon-El, trying to form him into a mini-me. And you can see it in her empathy for his experiences, and how she initially fears that he’ll be alone like she was (not that she was alone entirely, she had the Danvers’. But she didn’t have anyone like her, and this little speech was given on the back of dealing with Kal’s abandonment of her when he was the only person who could come close to understanding her when she landed.)

Kara’s empathy and experiences give her the capacity and urge to help Mon-El.

But that’s not what gives her the need to help Mon-El.

Because Kara sees herself in him (or the idea of him), but what he really represents to her is the life she lost. Lives she lost.

In one of these lives, Kara landed on Earth at the same time as Kal and raised him, like she promised she would.

But she didn’t get that chance and a part of her will always feel like she let him down. And I think that’s why- well, part of why- it’s hard for Kara to blame him for abandoning her.

She feels like she abandoned him first.

But now there’s this new person, shipped straight to her by pod, that she can look after. Who will need her guidance.

This is an opportunity for her to finally fulfil her promise to her mother, in a way.

The promise she failed to keep that she has been channeling into being a superhero instead (I think she would be one anyway tbh, but part of her current motivations are to live up to what her mother expected of her).

Now, people have already pointed out that having a child be in the pod would have served the same purpose of having Kara mentor someone.

But, I don’t think I would have particularly enjoyed Kara being in a parental role in season two of her own show.

Having Kara act like Mon-El’s mother is a problem, obviously. Especially at the same time as being her romantic partner, because it endorses the idea that women have to take care of their husbands, are replacing their husband’s mothers. He’s a grown man and should figure out this stuff himself.

But having Kara be someone’s actual mother figure would have had similar issues with shifting the focus from being about Kara to being about the child. The child itself would not be at fault the way Mon-El is, but the writers would still be doing the same thing to Kara’s story.

Think of all the times a female character has gone from being a powerful protagonist to a Power Mom™ and the storyline suddenly becomes about protecting the child- who is usually a boy, and usually prophesied to be All Powerful, when the female protagonist used to be the prophesied and most powerful one.

I think that storyline is a sneaky way to shift women into one of the roles that are used for the benefit of men. Or, if the woman is aging, a way to shift the focus to a younger woman that can ‘still be sexualized’, usually by having the baby some how be a grown up right away, or have them be a mother figure to someone just young enough.

Not that a woman having a child or acting as a mother is always used in this way, but in this case it’d be a slippery slope. Especially since the kid in Supergirl would definately have had powers and be heading toward being a hero. And with the way they handled it with Mon-El in this role, I don’t think they’d have done better if it were a kid. In fact, if it were a child, they might not have been compelled to make it a point that Kara will always be more powerful.

But this is why Kara is so frustrated in finding that Mon-El isn’t a good student, doesn’t want to be a hero. If he isn’t the best version of himself on this Earth while Kara is responsible for him, she is failing her mother all over again.

And that brings me to another life unlived, one with Astra.

Someone who could have been saved if only Kara had had more time.

More words.

The right words.

Someone who, with her gifts, could have been a hero of Earth, standing right next to Kara.

Teaching Kara.

And if Kara had been able to make her better, teach her how to fit in the world and make it better, Kara would have never lost her.

And like Astra, Mon-El was a piece of Krypton.

Just like Kal could have been.

It’s been thoroughly discussed on this site how Kal can’t be everything Kara needs from a Kryptonian because she actually experienced Krypton while he’d only been able to absorb his home planet’s culture through the fortress and through her, in small doses.

There aren’t shared experiences to connect with, just second hand stories.

And I think she mourns Kal, the little boy from her Black Mercy dream, who she would have grown up with on Krypton.

Hell, even a Kal on Earth that she would have grown up with would do. Teaching him all about Krypton every step of the way so that it’s, if not experienced by him, ingrained within him.

But when she reached Earth, it was too late. He was already grown and formed and wrong.

And gone.

And then Astra shows up, holding a piece of Kara’s life on Krypton in her hand.

The beacon.

And she remembers what Kara remembers. She holds Krypton in her heart in the same way Kara does.

It’s a little off, what Astra tells her. Different than she remembers.

Her mother was different than she remembers. Darker.

And it crushes her, to find that her memories are wrong. (And she’s losing it all over again. She loses Krypton over and over and over again.)

But she comes to terms with it.

Accepts that her mother was not who she imagined she was, but that she has her aunt right there, living and breathing and just waiting to live through Krypton with her, if she can just get through to her.

And then she’s gone.

And her husband and all the prisoners of Krypton who were wrong so wrong but they knew her home are gone too and there’s no one left who knows it like she does and maybe it was better before when she thought no one survive because at least she couldn’t lose them again.

And then Mon-El arrives.

At first, she thinks he’s a Kryptonian. Wants him to be Kryptonian. Of course she does.

But he’s a Daxamite. And she hates him for it.

And not just because his planet is filled with crappy slave owners.

But because she could have had a Kryptonian.

A breathing Kryptonian who lived a full life on Krypton.

Who would have known even more than her about it and would have been able to share it with her.

But when he eventually does speak of things she remembers, at first, she seems more bothered than anything.

Because it’s not quite right, and she could have had someone who was just like her.

But slowly, she’s drawn in by what they share and what he could be.

He knows things.

Things Kara can never talk about with most people she meets, things the people she can talk about it with will never fully understand.

Planets they’ve both been to.

Customs they both remember.

Air they’ve both breathed.

Kara would have had a normal life on Krypton. Had her family, her work, love. Everything she is constantly seeking on Earth.

(And hey, she was doing a pretty good job despite her difficulties, if you ask me.)

But she can never shake the feeling that it’s not right, like there’s somewhere else she’s supposed to be.

Like she’s late for her real life on Krypton.

Maybe if she closes her eyes she’ll wake up and realize it’s just another normal day on her home planet and she’s not different or weird or... struggling.

She’s just normal.

Not “reporting job at Catco and boardgames with friends on Earth” normal.

Krypton normal.

And Mon-El is a piece of that life.

And so when he reveals that he is interested in her romantically, how could she not try?

Kara would have fallen in love on Krypton.

Met a Kryptonian and had children and had a purpose and lived a long and happy life.

But Mon-El is as close to a Kryptonian as she’s ever going to meet. Ever. As close to the person she would have fallen for on Krypton that she’ll ever find.

And it’s not just that.

There’s so much that separates Kara from everyone around her that Mon-El shared.

Her secret. Of being an alien and a superhero.

The loss of a planet. Family members and culture and the guilt that comes with that.

They both have powers and could so easily hurt others.

But not each other.

She won’t crush his nose from kissing him or break his toes by stepping on him.

She won’t hug him too hard because she’s excited or send him flying if she bumps into him by accident.

And so much of this has kept her from falling for anyone else. She could barely become friends with anyone, growing up, with her secret strangeness and alien mistakes she was still making.

And who knew if she thought she would ever be able to actually tell anyone the truth. Show her full self. Based on her confession to James in season one- that she didn’t think she’d ever have someone who really knows her- I’m thinking not.

And there’s more...

He’ll live.

He’s hard to kill, even in performing superhero duties, and he’ll probably live for about as many years as she does.

None of her friends will live as long as she. Nor will Eliza.

Or Alex.

Kara will be alone, again.

Survive without them all. Again.

But not if she’s with Mon-El.

All this, along with Kara’s idealization of a “normal” life that likely causes her to see a romantic partner as a requirement for a happy life, would lead Kara straight to him.

Personal issues be damned.

She can change him.

(And this isn’t even touching on Kara’s intense need to do The Right Thing. Which, as everyone kept telling her, was to forgive Mon-El at every turn.)

But for Kara, Mon-El was a sign that she was allowed to be happy now.

She’s allowed to have someone who will be with her, always. Who could fully know her and won’t leave her for any reason.

Which brings us to the end of the season.

After Kara has been with him, canonically happily for a little while.

Just long enough to feel like she almost had it all, like she could have really been happy.

Like she wasn’t going to lose it all.

He leaves anyway.

He’s leaving anyway.

And she sees him standing there, ready to go into the pod and-

She sees her culture.

The last person who knew what the food tasted like on Krypton. How the planet looked in the sky. How it’s people spoke the language.

She sees Astra.

Who could have been saved if Kara had been better.

Had more time.

But she was better this time, she did the right thing at every turn.

Time didn’t matter.

None of it mattered, in the end.

She sees Kal.

Who she failed.

Who she is failing again.

When she left Krypton, she took one last hug from her mother, and lost 24 years because of it. Lost Kal because of it. And he lost her.

For an instant, she chose her love over her duty and everyone suffered.

But not this time. This time she chooses the right thing.

She does what she is supposed to do, heart be damned.

And yet she ends up hurting someone anyway. Ends up losing the person she thought would be her redemption for that fateful failure years ago. Still, somehow, she fails.

She sees herself.

She sees herself entering that pod and leaving forever, like she did so many years ago. But this time, she’s on the other side.

This time, she’s her mother.

But she still feels like she’s the one being abandoned, in a way, even though he’s in her place, now.

Because she’s going to survive, like always.

She’s the one who gets to be safe.

And god was she so content to die for the Earth, because it meant never having to do this again. Never having to survive again.

Because she knows what survival means. It means responsibility and it means loneliness. It means being a hero and losing everything else. It means living forever and watching it all slip away when all you ever wanted was for it to stay.

But she knows what she’s supposed to do in this moment. Even as the words ring in her ear, “As long as I have this, I will never be alone.”

She knows who she is in this scene.

She’s her mother, smiling as the world crumbles around her.

And Mon-El is getting into the pod, flying into the darkness of space

So she gives him the necklace, and he’ll be safe.

Because that’s what she’s supposed to do. She’s supposed to give up everyone and everything.

He takes it and leaves.

And she’s alone.

But Kara didn’t give up the necklace for a romance, she gave it up for her mother.

Because her mother was once where she stood, sending her off. And it must have been so painful.

But she smiled, said “I love you,” and gave Kara her necklace to keep her safe.

Gave it to her so that she wouldn’t be alone.

And, in this moment, after surviving instead of so many because of her mother’s actions, how could she do any less?

And we would tell Kara, Alex would tell Kara, “Your mother gave that to you, for you to feel safe.”

But when Kara became Supergirl she told Alex,

“This is the reason my mother and father sent me to Earth.”

To which Alex replied, “They wanted you to live, Kara.”

“No, it’s more than that.”

Kara has always interpreted her parents saving her as them placing responsibility on her shoulders.

So Kara probably wouldn’t have listened to us when we told her that the necklace was for her comfort. An act of love, not legacy.

It’s a tragedy but it’s not a romance. Who it is doesn’t even matter.

Kara could be projecting all of these things onto a rock, and the result would be the same. The bare bones of the story have Kara using Mon-El as a conduit to deal with her massive abandonment issues. The story uses him as a tool to represent all of these actually important things.

But somewhere in the execution, they lost the message almost entirely. Mostly in (badly) developing this new character.

But there is still substance for us to work with in headcanons, fanfic, and our view of Kara that preserves the overall integrity of her character outside of this romantic train wreck.

#supergirl #kara danvers #anti-mon-el #supergirl meta #i feel so much better guys #if it's too long i think starting with the bold parts toward the end would be fine #also i'm very tired so forgive this if it's terrible i guess #i have more receipts for some of these concepts but this already took forever

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coldtomyflash · 7 years

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TC anon- thanks for your reply. It's hard to explain but like you reblogged a post claiming TC was being set up as endgame b/c (among other reasons) TC's 1x03 dance. Making that romanic for instance, when he just kidnapped/lied to S to save his wife. Also given the S1 mission/time travel, I never saw Rip as mourning his wife in S1, more like how Barry is trying to save Iris now; it's in the timeline but not treated as fixed, so to me, his wife's loss only just happened. Maybe this makes no sense

but to me it's hard to reconcile Rip's actions as human & not horrendous (as he's treated differently for them in canon) if stuff like the TC dance in 1x03 is supposed to build up to a romance (& stuff like him killing her & her complete, undiscussed acceptance of that is a prelude to romance. Basically, to me, if you have a character who's defining goal in S1 was to save his wife(&son), it just doesn't jibe w/ him starting to be set up with someone else in early eps.

His wife was violently murdered as a way to hurt Rip. That's traumatic & not something conducive to new romance so soon. Because (sorry, don't know if you have experience with this, don't want to assume) losing someone you built a life with suddenly in such a traumatic/violent way, it's not a divorce, it can take years to even begin to heal. Unless you don't actually care- which is why it makes me dislike Rip & am unable to reconcile his actions. Does that make sense? Lol this is probably just me...

I think part of the “issue” (not really an issue but idk what to call it) here is really that we’re interpreting TC super differently for a few reasons.

The post you’re referring to with the argument for why TC might be endgame wasn’t trying to suggest that their dance in 1x03 was inherently romantic, only that the writers of the show have been putting them into tropes and spots that, if you zoom out to a meta level, often occur in dynamics that ultimately end up as romantic or endgame. She can correctly if I’m wrong, I don’t think @andieblogs in that post was trying to say that every moment they’ve had was explicitly leading to romance, especially not those early season 1 moments, just that the writers were always leaving in the possibility to go there and maybe had TC plans for the loooong slow endgame, if it worked out given enough time and development. It was a more meta-level commentary about industry, I think.

For the record, I certainly don’t interpret that dance or any of their season 1 interactions as being romantic. Rip was very much still actively grieving his wife, but more than that even, he was sort of treating it like he could still be with his wife. There was a sense of continuity to it in his mind still, as if that relationship hadn’t fully ended. He hadn’t let go of her. Which is different than just processing grief because he still had hope to see her alive, right? Pretty much what you said about how it wasn’t really “mourning” yet.

So for me, it’s like... season 1 allowed them (Sara and Rip) to become friends. To understand and care about each other. Not to think of each other romantically, but to develop a genuine healthy respect, regard, and love (friendship-style) for one another. That’s all it was. It wasn’t “setting up” romance in the sense that the characters weren’t considering that possibility.

By late season 2, things have changed. Rip has let go of his wife and son, in the sense that he’s accepted he can’t save them and has to mourn them. He’s had close to a year and a lot of mess along the way since then, but I think it’s clear he’s been processing that. Which is why he might be starting to consider romance now, and part of why I’m now thinking of him and Sara, as of 2x13, as a potential ship more genuinely.

And while I haven’t lost a life partner, no, I’m intimately aware of the fact that people can grieve very differently. I personally wouldn’t have begrudged him throwing himself into a new romance earlier on if that helped his grieving process, as some people genuinely do that irl, though others never do. Both are okay, by my estimation, because yeah, these things are different for different people. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening, either? While it might take a lifetime for him to mourn his wife and son, it’s up to him decide if and when he’d be ready to consider a fresh romance not as part of his grieving process but just to try and have that again. Which is sort of where I see him at now.

And for the record, in case this is part of what’s going with this discussion, at least one study shows that by 2 years after the death of a spouse, 61% of (male) widowers are dating or remarried, whereas only 19% of (female) widows were. So I don’t think starting a new romance, with Gideon or Sara or whoever, a year out after having accepted their deaths for real is really an indication he didn’t care or didn’t deeply love his wife. It’s just part of him trying to return to being fully invested in living. I personally can’t judge him for that, but everyone (including you) might have different interpretations and feelings about it, and those are valid.

Anyway, all of this being said... I appreciate you coming back to chat about TC, but I don’t know how many more asks I’ll answer in this vein. I 100% respect people not shipping it for any reasons, personal ones or just that they think it’s “meh” or anything else, but after writing this, I almost feel argumentative, which really isn’t what I want to be. I don’t ship it all that hard, it’s just a “I could dig it” thing for me, given their current dynamic, even if i acknowledge the writers maybe always had this in the back of their heads (but maybe not? with the Legends writers, I swear all bets are off 99% of the time). But yeah, reasons to ship or not ship tend to be pretty specific to a person, and I’d never want to invalidate your feelings and position by expressing mine and trying to explain.

So... I hope this helped somewhat? It’s all I’ve got, Anon

#idk what to tag this...#grief #widowhood #rip hunter #i suppose #it's just awkward to put it in the ship tag #but i'll tag it as that now that i've used up the first time #time canary #let me know if this needs more tags #Anonymous #replies

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astrometriia · 7 years

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dear yuletide author

Hello! First of all, many apologies for getting to this letter so late, real life has been incredibly hectic on my end and it kept slipping my mind.

I hope this letter finds you well and that you’re having a good day, wherever and whoever you are. Sorry in advance if I wind up rambling, it’s sort of my thing.

Thanks so much for reading this, I can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with!

Likes: Fluffy stuff, plotty stuff... anything that tugs on the heartstrings just right. I’m a big sucker for strong bonds forming between characters, be they romantic, friendshippy or otherwise.

Dislikes: Romanticized noncon and/or dubcon, sexual situations between parental figures and their children/wards, cis mpreg, de-aging, and anything else in a similar vein that’s not coming to me at the moment.

Triggers: Certain types of body horror, mostly of the irreversible variety, like lost limbs and the like.

WHEEL OF TIME

Characters: Perrin Aybara, Faile Bashere

Not going to lie, Perrin and Faile are one of my favorite ships ever, and Perrin has got to be one of my favorite characters of all time, if not my absolute favorite.

Seeing as these two have finally matured from their experiences, what I’d love to see from a fic is something post-series, maybe, dealing with the burdens of ruling. The Saldaean throne falls to Faile, and in the Companion it mentions that the spouses of monarchs are equal to them in power, so I’d love to see Perrin having to deal with being a King. In addition, as he is still the Steward of the Two Rivers, I’d like to see how he fares with juggling both of these responsibilities. Perhaps he decides leaving the Two Rivers in Tam’s care is the best course of action? Perhaps he divides his time between the two places?

I’d also love to see Faile in all her queenly glory, perhaps maintaining Cha Faile as her informants so she’s got eyes and ears everywhere. Also, I’d love to see anything that deals with Faile’s losses after the Last Battle. Losing her father, mother and cousin in one fell swoop like that takes its toll on you. How is her younger brother faring at losing his parents too? How does Faile feel about the future?

I would also not mind Perrin/Faile smut at all if it serves the story, as I believe there is not a single smut fic with these two floating around, and very little fic on a whole for them. So just... any fic with them as a focus would be great by me!

THE EXPANSE

Characters: Alex Kamal, Bobbie Draper

I’m a big fan of The Expanse series. I first got into it through the show, and I’m currently reading Cibola Burn. But if you’re familiar with the book series I’ve learned of some spoilers up to the first couple of chapters of Persepolis Rising, which more than suggest that Bobbie and Alex pretty much love each other and want to grow old together even if their relationship is not sexual at all, and I think that’s absolutely beautiful.

So anything involving these two and their developing friendship over the years, the way they gravitate towards each other and support each other, would make me really happy to read!

B.P.R.D.

Characters: Liz Sherman, Abe Sapien

The Mignolaverse is probably one of my oldest fandoms. I’ve cherished it for years, and was very sad when Abe and Liz both left the B.P.R.D., though I feel that it was important for them to go their separate ways and do some soul-searching. Now that they’ve apparently reunited in the comics (though I’m admittedly not caught up with them) I’m sure they had so much to talk about.

I see Liz and Abe sharing a purely familial relationship, supporting each other throughout the years since neither of them really fit into the B.P.R.D. the way Hellboy did. I’d love to see something revolving around them both mourning Hellboy, perhaps, or reminiscing on the ways Hellboy brought them together as an older brother of sorts. Honestly, I’d be happy with anything, really!

#steel.txt #dear yuletide author

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bella-heartbroken · 3 years

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I haven’t been mad at you today. I’m working on accepting that you’re on a different path than me; I’m starting to internalize the truth — that our priorities just aren’t compatible.

I need to stop resisting. When two entities aren’t meant to bond, they separate like oil and water. I want to surrender, to “flow” with the current — not swim against it.

I’m practicing letting you go over and over and over again. As many times as it takes until I finally release you. I’m going to have to mourn the loss of what could have been. Mourn the loss of you, too, because you and I won’t stay friends, cause I’m moving in a few months. Besides, I need to be with like-minded people, and so do you. The stuff you’re working on right now — I’ve already done that work. And I don’t mean to say that I’m superior in any way, it’s just where I’m at in relation to you. We’ve all gotta start somewhere. I used to struggle with many of the things you do now, but I was fortunate enough to get the help I needed, which set me on this path of personal development. I hope to God that happens for you too.

I’m going to do something I haven’t done in a while — a visualization meditation. I’m not really fond of visualization practices, but I like them sometimes. And right now feels like the appropriate time to do it. I’m going to visualize myself letting you go. I don’t know what form that “letting go” will take, but I’ll find that out tonight. I’m going to bed soon; I’ll do it when I get into bed.

I’m feeling more at peace today. I really feel like I’m detaching. Not in a cold way, but in a healthy, self-loving sort of way.

This isn’t it — you and I. This has been too forced, too inconsistent, too chaotic. There have been too many transgressions (on your part) and too much despair (on mine).

True love/compatibility is easier than this. It’s not easy, but it’s not that hard either.

I hope you’re well tonight, DM. I really do love you, but not in a romantic way anymore. I love you as a Being loves another Being. I wish you well, and will do my best to do right by you.

Good night.

#DM #do not reblog

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russellthornton · 5 years

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Should I Talk to My Ex? 15 Revealing Questions to Find Your Answer

If you have ever asked yourself, should I talk to my ex?, then you are not alone. Cutting someone important out of your life is a hard choice to make.

Should I talk to my ex? Deciding whether or not to talk to your ex is a hard choice. You don’t necessarily want to just cut this person out of your life so abruptly. But, you also don’t want to maintain the relationship you had. There is a reason you broke up in the first place.

But, there are a lot of things to consider when deciding whether or not you should talk to your ex. And ultimately, the decision is yours.

So, is it beneficial to talk to your ex? Is it worth the trouble? Is it a positive addition to your life or will it make things harder for you? These are just some of the things to consider when you ask yourself, should I talk to my ex? [Read: Should you be friends with your ex?]

Should I talk to my ex now?

First things first, you do not need to make this decision right now. Whether you just broke up or it has been a while, you can think about it. You do not need to respond to a text or decide this right now. As I said, you have a lot to consider here, take your time.

From my experience, if you rush this decision, one way or another, it is not easy to back out later. [Read: Here’s why your ex still texts you and keeps in touch]

Should I talk to my ex?

Now that it has come time for you to consider whether or not to talk to your ex, balance the pros and cons. Think about what talking to them would add to your life, if anything.

Did you break up mutually and you’re on good terms? Or do you still hold resentment towards each other? Read on to help yourself answer the questions, should I talk to my ex?

#1 Did you just break up? If you and your ex just recently ended things, it is best to take a break for a while. Sure, if you need to talk to move out or get your stuff back, but otherwise taking time away from each other will help you move on.

If you talk too soon after a break up, you won’t get that ending. You don’t get to feel that loss or mourn the relationship. You need some time to not see them or talk to them before considering talking again. [Read: 13 essentials you need to move on from heartbreak]

#2 Do you share friends? This is a big one. If not talking to your ex messes with your friends, it may be best to swallow any resentment or bitterness and be cordial. This does not mean you need to text each other or keep up with the latest, but it does mean you will probably need to be okay sharing small talk with the group.

Again, you don’t need to force yourself to do this if it makes you uncomfortable, but if you can put aside the residual relationship problems while you’re with friends, everyone will be better off.

#3 Work together? Working together is just as important as sharing friends, if not more so. Neither one of you wants to put your job at risk because you ended your outside relationship. So, don’t.

If you can work together on the most professional level, wonderful. Walking past their desk or bumping into them in the copy room should be a piece of cake. But, if you work closely together or one of you is the other’s superior you may need to go to human resources to make things easier for both you and anyone else affected. [Read: How to be friends with your ex without any complications]

#4 Do you need closure? If you aren’t considering talking to your ex in the long run, but need to in order to hurdle the end of your relationship, then by all means, do it. My advice though is to be upfront about what you want out of that talk.

If you are meeting with your ex, don’t be misleading about it. When making the plan let them know you need to get closure and talk out anything you may not have before the breakup. You can both be mature and calm about it. I know it may not seem that way, but you can.

#5 Does one of you want to get back together? If either you or your ex is looking to start things up again, talking may not be the best idea. Sure, you can talk to let them know you’re not interested in that, but try to hold back on deep conversation.

These sorts of talks with your ex seem polite and friendly at first but can get messy very quickly if you are not careful. [Read: Does your ex still want you? How to decode their deepest desires]

#6 Do you get along? You may think that you get along because you dated them for so many months or years but really think about this. Many relationships thrive off of passion rather than friendship or communication. If you don’t get along in the most basic of situations, talking to your ex is not going to go over well.

For example, I have an ex I never talk to. We ran into each other once after the breakup. It was clear we just didn’t get one another outside of the walls of a relationship. But, I have another ex where we can bond over tons of topics. We can sit and talk about anything, just as friends.

You do not want to talk to an ex that will make the talking hard for you.

#7 Are they respectful of you moving on? Whether you need to move on from your ex or move on with someone else, talking to your ex is only worth it if they can be respectful of your privacy. If they feel the need to know your current dating situation or feel the need to judge you for it, it is just not worth it.

It may seem rude to cut your ex out of your life, but if they don’t add to it, why bother with them? And remember, the same goes for you. You may want to talk to your ex, but if you will have a hard time dealing with them moving on, just don’t.

#8 Do you want to be friends? Often times, people talk with their ex for a bunch of reasons that do not include actually wanting to be friends with them. They want to be nice or cordial or mature, but none of that is really necessary.

If you do not want to be friends with your ex, you do not have to be, it is as simple as that. [Read: 14 things to keep in mind when you accidentally bump into your ex]

#9 Is this for them or for you? I am not claiming to know anything about your relationship or why it ended, but no matter the terms, only talk to your ex if it is beneficial to you and your life. You may feel bad that you hurt them so you want to make things easier for them by talking regularly.

You may like their family or just want to gradually slow things down. The thing is, any reason for talking to your ex that isn’t for you and your well-being or happiness will make things harder than they have to be.

#10 Do you trust them? If you are just talking in passing hallways, trust isn’t that big of a deal. But, if you are considering talking to your ex on a regular basis, about anything more important than the weather, you need to trust them.

Talking to a liar or someone you cannot trust not only lessens the friendship, but it also makes you lose trust in yourself. No matter who your ex is to you now, having someone in your life that you do not trust is toxic. [Read: 13 ways toxic love can harm you permanently and why you need to get away]

#11 Is it worth the potential drama? Is your ex stable? During your relationship, were your fights calm and collected? Or did they lose it? If this person was fine with yelling at you or losing their temper or talking to people in your life behind your back before, they will continue to do so.

Is that drama and headache worth it? Is your friendship with your ex really so important that you will continue to put up with the stuff you probably ended the relationship for?

#12 Is there already drama? Think about right now. Are you considering talking to your ex because they are reaching out? Are they claiming you are mean, cruel, or cold-hearted because you won’t respond to them?

You may think it would be easier just to answer, but in fact, that is what they want. They want a rise out of you. If someone is already harassing you and you aren’t entertaining them, things will only get worse if you do. [Read: How to turn down an ex who wants to be your friend]

#13 Why did you break up? Did you break up because you grew apart? Did one of you take a job offer far away? Did one of you cheat? Think about the true reason things ended. If it was mutual and you would both benefit from continuing to talk, then go for it.

But, if things ended because your relationship was dysfunctional or poisonous to your mental, physical, or emotional health, do not talk to your ex.

#14 Were you friends before you dated? If you started out as friends before they became your ex, you may be able to get back to that state now. You can bond over what you did before things got romantic. Just remember, you have a history now and if you can’t overcome that, things will likely get messy.

Having access to your ex regularly almost always ends badly or regrettably, but if you can find common platonic groups to focus on, talking to your ex could actually be nice. [Read: Can you actually be friends after a breakup?]

#15 Why do you need to talk? Ask yourself why you are even considering talking to your ex. Do you miss them and need closure? Do you want your favorite DVD back? Think about the reason why you ask yourself this question. Is it reasonable and rational for you to talk to your ex, or is it something else?

[Read: 12 reasons why the no contact rule always works]

Considering all of these possibilities, is it worth it for you to talk to your ex? In almost every case when I have asked myself, should I talk to my ex, the answer was no.

The post Should I Talk to My Ex? 15 Revealing Questions to Find Your Answer is the original content of LovePanky - Your Guide to Better Love and Relationships.

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