One thing I've noticed about the erasure of aspec identities is that it's eerily familiar to the erasure of non-binary identities. Often times Aspec identities are viewed as Blank slates to slap other identities on top of - similar to non-binary identities.

A character uses strictly they/them and people will say "Okay but I'm going to use he/him or she/her because x looks like a boy/girl to me" A character strictly states they are not interested in romance and people will say "okay but I'm going to call them a lesbian/gay/any other sexuality because obviously they must be interested in x even though they said they weren't interested at all."

"I can ignore this characters canonical non-binary identity because people can headcanon whatever they want and I headcanon them as cis instead! no this isn't erasure!!! it's fiction it doesn't hurt anyone! pronouns don't equal gender anyways!!!"

"I can ignore this characters canonical aspec identity because people can ship/headcanon whatever they want and I headcanon this character as allo/not aspec instead! no this isn't erasure!!! it's fiction it doesn't hurt anyone! aspecs can still date and have sex anyways!!!"

idk as someone who is both nonbinary and aroace I'm having a sense of déjà vu.

The Loop [Caution: Sharp Objects]

Batmom x Batfamily

Prompt: It was all a nightmare...simply a nightmare right? Right?

TW: DARK THEMES, NEEDLES AND DEATH

Masterlist Part 1

(GIF not mine)

You uncomfortably made breakfast as Cassandra stared holes into your head. Every Time you moved too quickly, she would flinch then reach out for you. As if she were trying to protect you from something. While you enjoyed spending time with the people you considered your children, this was making you weary.

You were still trying to figure out what happened earlier that morning. Never in your life were you greeted like that. Every single face that you saw had the same look of pure horror on it. It was like you had died right in front of them or something.

"She's just cooking...cooking breakfast." Barbara said as she watched you from the security cameras in the kitchen. Well it wasn't just her watching. "Every movement, and order she's cooking in was exactly the same." Barbara leaned closer to the camera, she wasn't going to miss any details. Anything that you do differently, she will document.

"A hallucigen?" Tim suggested grimacing when he felt the needle push into his vein. Alfred hummed in thought as he collected another blood sample to test, "We were all at the fight with the League, it's possible they used some invisible drug. Maybe us waking up was the drug leaving our system?" Tim asked as Alfred pulled the needle from his arm. After getting it bandaged, he stood up so Duke could get his blood tested next.

"That is likely, we should have done urine samples instead." Bruce mumbled as he analyzed their blood for any signs of drugs or anything that didn't belong.

"Bruce, all the blood is coming up clean. If we were drugged, I doubt something that strong would wash out that quickly. I mean come on, we were all there. We felt her dead body, I felt her blood soak into my pants. There was no way it was fake. It was too real." Dick snapped and ran his hand through his hair, "I felt her body get cold. How is any of this even happening?" He asked then walked away while weaving his fingers through his hair. Stephanie followed after him to try and console him.

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Okay, you were a little offended. You've just finished your famous breakfast, and no one is anywhere to be seen. Well except Cass, who was still watching you while she ate. After a few minutes of the silence, you stood up and stormed to the batcave.

The team was hard at work trying to figure out what happened when you made your way into the dark and gloomy place. "I made a delicious breakfast, and no one has come up to enjoy it. What possibly is so important that you couldn't wait?" You asked while crossing you arms.

They nearly jumped out of their skin when they heard your voice. They were so focused on finding a solution, that they didn't hear you coming down the steps.

Your eyes drifted from your family to the giant computer screen where you saw the results of their drug tests, "What is going on?" You asked then grabbing the nearest person who happened to be Damian. You turned his arm around to see the gauze and bandage wrapped around his arm.

"After the fight with the League, we wanted to make sure we were under the effects of anything dangerous. A simple precaution." Bruce said quickly as he made his way over to you. He rested his hands on your waist, but you noticed the slight hesitation as he did. "Now, let's go eat your breakfast." He said then started leading you out of the batcave, which only led you to ask more questions.

The surprise party was quickly canceled. Even if it was a dream, they didn't want to relive an ounce of those memories. Instead, they opted to take you shopping to your favorite places. Each store, they took turns buying you whatever you wanted. To you, it looked like a simple family outing, but to others, it looked like you were walking around with bodyguards.

Damian even went as far as threatening someone who glanced at you for too long.

After several stores, it was time to get a snack. Everyone managed to cram themselves into the outside patio of an ice cream shop. Bruce felt at ease being that they were in the safer part of the city. You ate your ice cream while chatting away happily. Everyone began to relax, and finally started to feel as if this was just a bad dream.

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Now fully relaxed, your family abandoned the protection formation. You were pushing Barbara and chatting with Jason casually. Though you didn't miss the sketchy person that had been following you. Your constant glances behind you didn't go unnoticed by Jason who alerted the rest of the family.

As soon as the stalker realized he'd been discovered, he lunged for you. Jason quickly intervened, but this man was clearly skilled. It wasn't long before your entire family was fighting to subdue this man. They had to do so as best they could without raising any suspicion as to who their alter egos were. After their success, they proceeded to question him. He could be linked to their dream...if it was real.

Though they would never think that this man could have a partner. He did. You let out a strangled scream when someone grabbed you from behind and a knife was plunged into your chest. The knife left your body, only to be plunged in again and again. Both men ran in opposite directions after the deed was done. This time, Damian was the one who caught you instead of your body hitting the ground.

The young boy watched as you coughed up your blood, and looked at you bleeding body in shock. You then looked up at Damian and your eyes went cold. "Ummi?" He called out while pressing his small hands against your wounds, as if that would help. How could this have happened? What the hell was going on?

Like the night at the party, everyone stood in shock. It was up to one of the Gotham citizens to call the police.

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Police cars, and news vans crowded the area as the family found themselves reliving the horrible night over again. Though no one was holding your body this time. A bloody white sheet covered it. Jason was currently handcuffed and in the back of a police car after he took his anger out on another one.

Gordon knelt by his daughter's side in an attempt to get her to speak, but she was quiet. All eyes were on your corpse once again. What did they do wrong? Was someone out to kill you? First a bullet through the head, then being stabbed in the middle of the street? It didn't make sense.

Dick sat on the ground with his head in his hands when he felt the urge to look up. Across the street where the massive crowd was, he saw a dark figure standing there. It seemed like no one could see it, but him, "Guys?" He called out as he stood up. Everyone looked at him, then followed his pointed finger. Like Dick, they saw the same dark figure.

They watched as it cocked its head to the side then held up an all too familiar music box. Slowly, it opened and the crank started to spin. Bruce started running across the street to try and stop this figure, but his body collapsed to the ground. Gordon caught his daughter when she fell into his arms. She was fast asleep.

Dick held himself up against the wall while trying to memorize every detail of this figure. Whatever it was, he was going to stop it.

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Damian woke up with cold sweat on his body. He wasted no time in getting out of bed to get to his parent's bedroom. He was wearing the same pj's as last time. He threw the door open, and saw that Bruce had just woken up.

Ignoring his father, he went right to the bathroom where you were rubbing some lotion onto your hands. "Damian, what's-" You were cut off when Damian collided with you. His arms were nearly crushing you, "Ummi." He whimpered out like he did when he was having a nightmare. You rested one hand on his head, and the other was on his back.

"It's alright little bird, I'm right here. Everything is okay."

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TAGLIST

@justafanficsreader @seaweed-orchid @O-n-1-x @jared-oranges

@cumbermovels

*holds hands out for alms*

Reincarnation content where wife!s/o of Muzan who cared and loved him during his sickly heian days (who died either natural causes / accident, and he didn't get to appreciate her enough and is kind of an a-hole at that time) reborn as a hashira? And he stumbles upon her?

*coughs aggressively* i need bittersweet pining Muzan to cure my desperation

Wooowwww! I like this idea so much! This is actually very cool and I absolutely love this! Once again, thank you all for this incredible concepts! Muzan is quite the common powerhouse for this blog so let’s give him more attention

Kibutsuji Muzan- Loop-Around

Muzan knows those eyes too well… those beautiful, colourful eyes on a woman so pretty and loving. The flashbacks, the memories, the tragedy and the anger he feels over his past. Over his own failure and his own mistakes over what he did during Heian Era, during his life as a human. Those awful, painful drawn-out days where all he could do was sit in a bed and watch people come in and out of his room

The person who arrived the most was his assigned wife, Dokusha. A kind, patient, sophisticated woman of wealth, and she always spent so much time to take care of and love Muzan, all whilst looking around for the right medicine to cure his terminal illness. Muzan, during this time, couldn’t care less for that woman. She was just a useful tool to make him comfortable, feel validated and save his life but through the weeks, as he grew even weaker, he got real tired of waiting to be rescued by so many incompetents.

When he gotten given a type of medicine that worked, that odd concoction from a rather viable doctor you had bought in for Muzan, and when it shaped him into the first ever demon. He could finally walk for the first time in his life

And he walked out of that room… in perfect health, with razor sharp fangs, with a blood-thirst for human flesh, with his muscles clenching and strong. However, as he explored. He ended up finding something else as tragic as what he caused to his rescuer. His assigned wife mauled to death by wild Ussuri Brown bears in the forest, all whilst clearly trying to find absolutely any medicinal herbs that could possibly do anything to save Muzan

Muzan never really appreciated nor cared for Dokusha, he didn’t see her as much of a person and whilst he looked at the mangled body of that woman… he felt… almost nothing. It wasn’t disgust but it also wasn’t anger, it was just… emptiness and after that day. He suspected he would never see a human woman named Dokusha ever again, foolishly unaware of the fact he truly did love Dokusha and truly did feel a deep pit of misery-fuelled fury at her death. She did so much for him and he did nothing for her

Even after learning the fatal accident that caused her death was entirely centred around trying to recover Muzan from his birth sickness

Currently as the high and mighty Demon King, the first ever Demon in existence. Kibutsuji Muzan, has been confronted by the newest Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps in Asakusa, the Tashio Era when walking back to his ‘family’, and she has the eyes and the voice of his real wife. 10,000 years after her death, she’s back in a entirely new form and just knowing his dead wife has been reincarnated as his moral enemy is making Muzan’s undead heart throb in pain and outrage. Why does he feel this way looking into this Hashira’s eyes?

10,000 years after her death and now, Muzan has finally realised he has missed his wife so bad that he has grown desperate to see her again. He never noticed it, he always thought about locating the Blue Spider Lily and spreading over his ‘gift’ of demonicism around to every human he can find to gain the power he desires, to concur the Sun. Now, he notices how aggressive he is over the idea of love and how he is so repulsed by the six other wives he has pretended to marry throughout his life

Muzan stayed silent, blood red slit-pupiled eyes glaring at his reborn Hashira wife, taking in her features to every corner and constantly seeing glimpses and flashes of her original self… she’s so beautiful and he didn’t even notice how beautiful Dokusha actually was. How she didn’t deserve to die for his sake, if he could, he’d have ordered Dokusha to stay with him when she left upon calling that doctor in, as to save her life so then, he could have turned her into an demon too

Made her his Queen of Demons but no… he failed and now, he is beyond bittersweet. Pining, angry at his own blindness, upset he let the only woman who actually genuinely cared about him go… if he could reverse time, he would

Muzan, now, cannot bring himself to be the cause of his wife’s death once more… he can’t. He’ll just have to figure out another way to get her back, all without hurting her so before Dokusha could even think to begin attacking the Demon King with all the strength she has within that branded Nichirin Katana. Muzan fades away into the pitch black night, his glowing red eyes providing the only semblance of light for him when he retreats from that Hashira and those magnificent eyes, disappearing several streets down from her in a way she can’t track him down

He loves her

He knows he loves his wife and he can’t believe he had to wait for 10,000 years to recognise the mere fact that he did love Dokusha. Even if he didn’t know her enough to even call her a friend, her optimistic compassionate nature and the right to admire that personality was drowned out by Muzan’s own bitterness and desire to remain alive. He messed up royally with the first Dokusha, he won’t mess up with the second Dokusha

And he will make her his queen… even if it includes spending hours following the Ice Hashira around. He’ll do it and he already has a plan devised in his mind. He won’t hesitate to find some method to transform into a powerful immortal being like himself

All because he wants you back so bad

Baby It’s Cold Outside

John ‘Soap’ MacTavish x GN!Reader

not beta read. i used google translate for the Gaelic so sorry if it isn’t correct.

i’m getting back into the groove of writing so i’m sorry if this is stale and kinda sucks!

mo chridhe- my heart

mo leannan- my sweetheart

It was forbidden to date outside your rank. You could get in serious trouble by violating the code, it could fuck up the chain of command and ruin both peoples lives. But there was something about Sargent John ‘Soap’ MacTavish that just set your heart ablaze. After a long song and dance he confessed to you, and you to him, but came to an agreement that you two wouldn’t become anything until you got promoted from corporal to sargent.

It was hard to hide these feelings in public, it was little smiles shared, whispered words in each others ears, he praised you more than other members of 141 or anyone in any squad he was in, Gaz teased you the most that Soap had a crush on you. You and Soap haven’t even kissed each other let alone did anything not safe for work, there was no real label to put on what you two were. You weren’t dating, it wasn’t a situationship if you both tried very hard to avoid anything sticky that would leave others a hint to what was going on between you too.

Tonight was one of those nights that could get you in trouble.

Winter was fast approaching, snow littered the ground and the air was filled with chills. It was the season you wear black leggings under your uniform instead of the black knee high socks, a little loop hole you found during uniform inspection. Currently you were in Johns dorm on base, you snuck in like a you were high school lovers trying to be quiet making sure the coast was clear before slipping in. You snuck into each others dorms some nights to have secret dates.

You’ve already been here for an hour, talking and sipping warm drink’s together, you were pushing your luck by staying any longer.

“Another cup o’ coco?” he was seated on the head of his bed while you sat on the foot watching Mythbusters being played on a shitty desktop on a desk across the small room.

You never liked the Army’s barracks. The Air Force was much nicer, and they had way better rooms, they were bigger and didn’t feel like a stuffy box with a bed.

You moved on the bed so your feet planted on the ground yet you didn’t move, “I want to John but I really should go before we get caught.” You didn’t want to leave the warmth of Soaps room and enter the cold frozen winter wastes of the outside just to trudge in the snow till you got to your own dorm room.

“Aye but we wont mo chridhe.” he tried to reassure you. “Stay for a bit longer. please?” He leaned closer to you placing his hand on your own.

You took his hand in your own and got up, moving past him and to the window pulling back the blinds only to see pure white outside. It was snowing bad outside. You sat back down on the bed hands still intertwined. “It’s a borderline blizzard out there.” You sighed.

“Then stay till it blows over! I don’t want cha’ getting a cold sweetheart.” He pulled you by your interlocked hands for you to press into him, your back to his chest as he leaned up against the headboard and pillows of his bed with his large arm wrapped around your waist hand still in his own larger one. His body heat seeped into your skin almost convincing you of staying, you loved it when he called you pet names.

“Give me your big puffy jacket and i’ll be fine walking back to my dorm.” you smiled and nestled yourself into his hold.

“No, I can’t find it I think ya’ should just stay like this and finish this season with me before heading out.” He spoke into your hair as he rested his chin on your head.

“We’re on the second episode John, it’ll be spring by the time this seasons over.” A smile danced across your lips. You really had no intention to leave just yet but you liked how he was pleading with you to stay with him for a while longer. It felt domestic, it felt like something you shouldn’t be chasing the high of but it felt like you two were a real couple with you being in his arms watching Mythbusters. He gave a soft chuckle.

Soap was silent for a good while, a comfortable feeling in the air hung loose in his room, he just held you and tried to put the feeling of you in his arms in his long term memory. When the next episode began to play he craned his neck down so his lips were close to your ear before whispering to you. “Chan eil mi airson feitheamh gus a bhith còmhla riut. Tha mi airson innse dhut gu bheil gaol agam ort a-nis.”

“What did you say?” you turned your head to try and look at him but he hid his face so you couldn’t look at him.

His voice held a hint of sadness and yearning as he spoke, “I just said how i think your eyes are beautiful.”

“Oh John stop.” you giggled and gave a weak slap to his wrist.

He squeezed you before removing his hand and grabbing the covers of his bed and placed them on you two. “What? Cant I tell ya how much I love your smile? How i love hearing ya bark out commands to troops like it doesn’t make me want to kiss ya?” His voice was back to its usual self now.

You wiggled around flipping yourself over so you were now chest to chest, you settled in between his spread thighs and rested your hands on his chest, you looked up at him with a smile on your face. “Flattery isn’t going to make me stay John.”

“But it’s so cold out there and it’s so warm in here, in my bed, cuddled up together, in my arms.” He grabbed the blanket again and moved it to rest on your shoulders.

“You’re going to have to try another method to make me stay you dork.” You didn’t want to get in trouble and possibly never get the promotion you desperately wanted so you could openly be with Soap but this little back and forth charade was too fun, too warm in your heart for you to stop, it was light hearted banter and he knew you were going to stay for longer as you cuddled up to him.

“What if I kiss ya?” His blue eyes bore into your own, a slight blush kissed his cheeks and tip of his nose. “Would that sway ya into staying?” His voice dropped an octave as he whispered.

You think he could hear your heart beating with how fast and hard it was pounding in your ribs. His eyes glanced down to your lips before searching your eyes again, he wanted to make sure it was okay with you before he went ahead and did it, what a sweet hearted gentleman.

You smiled up at him, “Well I think you’re gonna have to find that out for yourself MacTavish.” You teased.

His left arm wrapped around the small of your back while his right hand went to cup the base of your skull, his fingers intertwining in your hair as he pulled you closer to him. You chuckled and met him half way as you both closed your eyes. His lips were soft, slightly chapped but so were your own, it was winter after all. It was one short kiss you didn’t want to pull away from. The feeling of finally kissing him for the first time made your heart quiver and your face grow warm.

He pulled away slowly, “Will ya stay for a few more episodes now mo leannan?” A dopey smile danced across his lips as he looked down at you with soft adoration in his eyes.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him closer, “I think i need a bit more persuasion hon.”

He kissed you again with no hesitation, his stubble of a beard tickled your face in a comforting way. People say when you kiss someone sparks fly, fireworks go off, or time stands still, but that only happens in movies and romance novels. Kissing him felt like a weight you didn’t know you had on your chest was lifted, feeling his lips move across your own made your heart buzz and your mind race as you took in his scent. You smiled into the kiss and he pulled you tighter to him. It was a soft and slow kiss, the kind from a shitty Hallmark movie, your heart felt like it was going to explode, like you were a teenager again kissing your crush for the first time.

You pulled away before you couldn’t anymore and got addicted to the feeling of him. A small whine left his throat and you think you might have died and went to heaven.

“Hmm fine.” You kissed his nose. “Three more episodes and one more cup of coco.”

His right hand moved from your skull to your neck keeping you in place as he peppered your face with kisses, his lips pressing against you cheeks, eyelids, and nose as you laughed and faintly screamed at the contact. “Alright alright!! how does five episodes sound?”

He placed one last kiss on your lips before moving his hand down your back to where his other one rested on the small of your back. “I don’t care how many episodes we watch i just want you warm and with me.”

i wish to know about how you characterize amorphous shape. amorphous needs more attention. (same with the other henchmaniacs without lines, but i prefer focusing on the character my brain has decided i am.)

I characterize them as approximately 14~19 separate individual shapes from Bill's home dimension that got combined together into one hive mind. That's why I refer to Morph as "they"—I'm not using "they" as a gender-neutral pronoun, I'm using it as a plural pronoun, they are literally multiple people.

How they got combined into one body will get explored later in the fic so I'm not gonna spoil it; but it happened during the destruction of the second dimension.

The polygon parts of them weren't all squares to start out with, but after a trillion years they found that most of the time it's easier for them to simplify themselves into a form that tessellates tidily. They can shapeshift and separate though, so they can return to their original shapes when they want, like:

(that's not literally the exact shapes they were, just concept art of what changing to their original shapes would look like.)

They're Bill's top scientists. Also, his only scientists. Not all of them were scientists, but when you've shared brains for a trillion years, you pick up each other's knowledge, and anyway over a dozen minds working on the same problem at the same time makes brainstorming faster. They're to blame for the interdimensional portal.

Any time Bill attempts to conquer a new dimension, he's gotta try to persuade the people inside that dimension to make him a portal; and in order to do that, he's got to pass those people portal blueprints; and in order to do that, he needs portal blueprints that both, a) work correctly in the physics of the dimension he's contacting, and b) can be built using the technology, natural resources, and construction techniques available to the natives. He wouldn't send portal blueprints that only work correctly with linear forward-moving time to the do-over dimension where spontaneous time loops randomly form, and he wouldn't send a design that can only be powered by nuclear fission to a culture that's barely discovered coal.

For a long time, Amorphous Shape were the guys Bill turned to for all those portal blueprint modifications. Any time he found a promising new dimension with a sufficiently gullible-looking species, he'd go in with Amorphous Shape so they could study local physics and technology and adapt the blueprints to fit local conditions.

By now, Bill & company have made SO many blueprints for SO many universes with SO many kinds of technology that when they find a new universe, they can typically tweak a design they already made rather than start from scratch; and Bill's been studying the blueprints for so long that now he thoroughly understands the science behind them and can draft & modify them himself, so he doesn't need Morph's help so much. He mainly consults with them to double-check the math before tossing the blueprints at a dreamer or to assist on really strange cases like that one dimension with a form of physics based entirely on the letter M.

Right now, Morph's bigger long-term scientific concern is the slow degradation of the Nightmare Realm and finding ways to help Bill shore up the crumbling reality; and implementing emergency quick fixes whenever something small falls apart, like a black hole threatening to destabilize the fabric of reality around several nebulas or knots tangling in wormholes because the ends are fraying.

If Bill is like the self-appointed god of the Nightmare Realm, Morph are something in between a demigod and a high priest: they don't have any reality-altering power themselves, but they do understand and influence reality far beyond any mere mortal and their petitions to the god to do this or fix that keeps local reality functioning.

Talking to them is like talking to a committee or a mob. Most of the things they say are collectively agreed-upon by the members of the hive mind, and so tend to have the careful precision of a department issuing a public statement rather than a regular conversation; but when something happens to get a majority of them mad, they get mad together and egg on each other's anger, and tend to immediately snap into confrontation rather than sit back until they calm down

They don't have a lot of hobbies they all share, so they tend to dabble in and drop a wide variety of hobbies rather than get really deeply invested in any. More likely to spend their spare time seeing what the other Henchmaniacs are doing and tag along on that than try to decide what to do on their own. Bad habit of just going back to work when they're bored since at least they can all agree that's productive.

They haven't gone on a date in billions of years and are not happy about this. They don't even have all the same sexualities, much less the same types. They need to go on a date with like a minimum four people simultaneously to balance out the fact that they'll be variously attracted to/repelled by any one singular date. Finding four people who cover their separate tastes and are all willing to go on a single date with "the same person" is pretty hard, especially when you're workaholics living with the most hated person in the multiverse and don't get out much.

Zealously, desperately loyal to Bill. They've spent a trillion years telling themselves that Bill's gonna rescue his devotees from the Nightmare Realm and claim a new dimension for them. By now it's become easier to pretend he's a flawlessly honest leader who'd never lie to them (unless he has a very good reason) than to grapple with his massive failings as a person and consider that maybe they made a mistake older than universes in following him. Any time one of their components starts to mentally doubt one of Bill's decisions, they're shouted back into conformity by the rest who are ready to offer justifications and explanations for anything he does. Can't do deep thinking on a difficult topic if you don't even have privacy in your own head.

If Bill ever wants to screw with them he can say "Morph, you're four of my best friends" and leave them going crazy trying to figure out which of their components he likes and why he doesn't like the rest. But Bill doesn't mess with the shapes much. Only if it's, like, really funny.

There used to be more surviving shapes in Bill's social circle, but over the eons they left one by one, until now it's just down to Morph, Kryptos, Hectorgon, and Bill; each time the shapes lost another member, it became harder for the remainders to consider leaving. Morph are no more capable of contemplating lives without Bill, Kryptos, and Hectorgon than you are of contemplating a life without bones. The feeling is mutual all around.

The rest of the Henchmaniacs could get fucked as far as they care.

I still need to catch up on re zero but I've seen a bit of spoilers of whatever's going on with Otto but I want know what you think Otto's reaction is going to be when rbd gets revealed like

ooh ty for this ask thats a really interesting question that ive totally not thought about a lot :o HAH but yes anyway. the short answer is that i think that ottos reaction would be Not Good. but it would be kinda good bc ottos strategic mind and undying loyalty to subaru Would be helpful to have.... bc yknow, otto would be a pretty reliable ally who'd KNOW about rbd.... but also NOT GOOD for the exact same reasons (strategic mind and undying loyalty). i just think that otto knowing rbd is gonna cause both him giving subaru some comfort (ie otto going “i know now all youve been through… please confide in me about it”) and A Lot Of Conflict (“haha you should simply stop using rbd so much ahahha”).

anyway!! the longer answer is that i think ottos reaction depends a little bit on if hes finding out rbd alongside other people or if hes the ONLY one to figure out rbd at this time. i think the more likely option in canon is that he might figure it out via restoring roswaal's tome hah, but yes i mean either way, otto finds out rbd and his entire fucking world is gonna get flipped on its head just like any one of subarus other loved ones finding out rbd. if ottos finding it out by himself, i dont think that he'd reveal rbd to other people unless he HAS TO, but he'd tell subaru he knows about rbd (if subaru doesnt know at that point) when he feels its necessary. but more on that later.

anyway in terms of ottos general feelings - yeah, like. a lot of them are gonna be all the usual things that you would feel around finding out that your dear friend has had this absolutely horrific time travel ability haaah... like the horror of "oh god how much have you used that", and then "oh god have i hurt and killed you before" and "oh god whats happened in all those failed loops. youve definitely had failed loops right ahah" and "THATS why you know so much shit you shouldnt know and thats why youre so so traumatized by shit i dont know. ohhhhh god" and "have you always had this power?? in the entire time ive known you??? oh FUCK" you know? like otto especially i think is very analytical about things. and hes uh. Anxious. so hes just gonna go aaaaaalll the way down that rabbit hole (................pun intended) of "what the fuck subaru" and "OH NO SUBARU" and like in general connecting all the awful puzzle pieces together of all of subaru's mysterious behaviors suddenly lining up with rbd..... its a HUGE oh shit moment.

and then otto is gonna go RIGHT into gameplan mode. emergency mode. i think hes just gonna put HIS feelings on the backburner (he might have to have a little breakdown first depending on how Bad it goes, but given this is RBD it most definitely hit otto with the force of a dinosaur) and then ottos gonna throw himself right into doing his "duty" as subarus friend. we kinda see this a bit in stuff like gluttony if where otto tells garfiel to get his shit together bc its only them left bc SUBARU KILLED THE REST OF THEIR FRIENDS.... and then otto feels numb seeing garfiel die and then distantly, iirc, thinks of himself as kind of a shit person for not feeling much about garfiel dying in front of him :( but yeah like. ottos good at throwing himself into THINK OF AND EXECUTE A PLAN TO SOLVE THIS EMERGENCY SITUATION NOW, HAVE ANOTHER CRISIS ABOUT IT LATER. esp when its SUBARU on the line here. and its SUBARU whos been lost a million times before otto found out already, which will most definitely be driving him insane 👍 ottos coping mechanisms (….punching walls…. alcohol……. working….. general bits of aggression….) are very like. numbing/lashing out kind of coping mechanisms. Solitary coping mechanisms. and i think he’s gonna prioritize subaru over himself and try to be subarus support and then go to Cope and Seethe in private where subaru cant see him HAHA. or right in subarus face bc otto has a tendency to do that too, depends on how Pushed otto is. either that or, like with garfiels death in gluttony if, otto is numbed by shock at first (….until the full weight of the reveal probably crashes on him at some point).

that and i think ottos gonna be coping anyway by being obsessive about subaru, as one does (ottos really normal) (very normal) (and very mentally well)

it depends on how rbd reveal goes, but the options like i mentioned earlier are probably gonna be

1. otto found out rbd alongside other people -> otto provides emotional and strategic support to subaru + the rest of the camp whenever possible but stays largely in the background until he feels he has to take any Drastic Options

2. otto found out rbd on his own (and subaru doesnt know yet) -> otto stays in the background and intervenes when he feels he Has To -> will likely only tell subaru he knows abt rbd when he thinks its the right time and then try to be subarus pillar of support

yep so!! in general, i think ottos closely gonna observe subaru from now on— i think otto would wanna keep tabs on subaru at All Times and know Basically Everything about what subarus doing now. i know that sounds like. extreme. bc it is HAH but i think itd be in line with what we’ve seen otto be willing to do to save subaru and their other friends (see: wanting louis/spica dead) (see: being perfectly fine with leaving 50 million people to die), and ottos uhhhh slight nonchalance about getting his hands dirty (see: launching bandits off a cliff in self defense) (see: being nonchalant about the murder mystery in the goddess statue side story) (see: ….his various deranged comments like how its fine if 50 million people die if it means saving rem and subaru) (see: his suicide note in arc 4)

otto knows abt rbd and the effect rbd has on subaru and how subaru WILL use rbd bc hes just THAT fucking crazy but also THAT well intentioned to use rbd like that. this is ottos worse nightmare by the time we get to arc 8– hes upset and scared of subaru especially putting himself in danger bc of good intent and his desire to save people. subaru wants to save the world bc its ALL important to him, otto wants to save ONLY who’s most important to him— ie, ONLY ottos inner circle. so ottos gonna be put into a panic. hes gonna double down trying to control subaru so subaru stops sacrificing himself bc haha who cares about all those other people??? i know you do natsuki-san but this is too high of a cost to you, youre TOO IMPORTANT (to me), you cant keep doing this so ill just have to stop you!!

so i think it might just escalate tbh. if otto doesnt know how rbd reveal is activated, hes gonna try real hard to figure that out. if he KNOWS, hes gonna start making up plans as he fucking goes bc i am NOT letting subaru die AGAIN if i can help it. if he finds out about the suicide pill???? time to consider the pros and cons of yanking that shit right out of subarus mouth. some random vollachian civilians just died???? well time to stop subaru from dying bc using rbd is NOT fucking worth it. especially for random ass people. if something bad happens, like garfiel or someone else dying, and subarus about to rbd? oh fuck, guess i gotta consider if i should let subaru die or force him to live against his will. and let garfiel die potentially forever. oh god if i let subaru die will he be dead in this world or will time just completely overwrite what just happened and i wont know?? OH GOD—

bc you know. assuming otto might be the one person knowing rbd in this hypothetical scenario… (or in general just me using otto as an example here—) once otto knowing about rbd gets cemented past a save point subaru has—the next time subaru dies, will otto be left behind in that world with a dead subaru?? or will the new timeline override the old?? its of course the same question asked in like the arc 4 second trial that subaru has but NOW its from a whole new perspective. otto could potentially be left behind in a failed timeline knowing subarus dead in his world but—is subaru DEAD dead?? or did subaru really go into a new timeline??? itd break otto. i dont think he could LIVE without subaru.

anyway yeah i dont think ottos gonna cope well under these circumstances either way hah but for the sake of everyone else otto would hold his shit together until it gets too much. and i think hes gonna rethink about how hes been willing to DIE for subaru in the past—hes gonna think about how many times hes died for subaru before, hes gonna think about how actually he wouldnt mind dying for subaru but he cant tell subaru that or subaru will be upset, and hes gonna think about how even if he dies for subaru now, is it still worth it when subaru will just do anything he can to reset and undo ottos death??? its a WHOLE mindfuck.

and i think if otto was in the situation of “should i tell anyone else about rbd”, he would choose no in almost all cases. its a lose lose if he does—he upsets subaru and he upsets whoever he tells. its a mindfuck to otto already and the dude can At Least compartmentalize. he knows sharing that secret is a hard thing to do, knows that its hard on subaru. at most i think otto might consider beatrice bc shes close to subaru but also like. hundreds of years old so she of course could carry that burden? and dont get me wrong emilia and garfiel are Very strong in their own right but its gonna hit them HARD hard (i think i talked about emilias reaction to rbd in another ask somewhere hah).

and also otto being the freak he is would want to have all the info he can weaponize to help subaru at. any cost. so also in a strategic sense he cant tell people. both bc revealing rbd publicly both upsets subaru and it would risk subarus mental/physical safety… and also bc otto being the one person who knows is like. I ALONE can make sure my plans go smoothly and no ones stopping me. subaru wont even know unless i HAVE to tell him. and ofc otto cant account for if subaru suddenly knows what ottos trying to do (prioritize subaru over literally everyone) but otto would try his hardest.

anyway!! i do think on another level like if otto knows and subaru knows otto knows i think otto WOULD be a good ally. like ottos smart and resourceful and all that— he can be the second strategist backing up subarus own strategy and power (prior knowledge bc rbd). otto can also support subaru the best he can emotionally about rbd— you know, like comfort subaru, tell him hes done his best throughout all these loops, etc etc. and ottos good at prioritizing too. hes cutthroat with it sometimes but he WOULD be good at like going “hey only one person died in this entire battle of hundreds of people, you cant use rbd its not worth it here. im sorry” or something. otto would basically be like echidna in greed if but better yes T^T

but like. i REALLY dont think otto is just gonna take subaru rbding lying down, it goes against everything otto stands for both morally and as subarus friend. but at the same time otto knowing rbd knows he cant exactly control subaru as much as he wants on that front. otto could try anything and subaru might already know everything ottos gonna try already bc subarus rbded before. subarus lived through this before. and theres a special kind of horror in that too of knowing your friend will have these spurts of suddenly knowing Everything youll do, knowing Everything you intended to do and you just know its bc your friend died and went back in time to do all of this now. absolutely horrific this would do a number on ottos psyche (and of course it already did many many numbers on subarus psyche hahaha…)

so in the end like—otto can be as stubborn as he wants and subaru can be as stubborn as he wants but if they decide to fight each other in this hypothetical scenario theyre gonna end up eternally being thorns in each others sides until it kills one or both of them at least once. but subarus gonna win out in the end bc of rbd, itd be up to otto to find a way to at least change subarus mind just a bit and restrict his rbd use some more. thats. uh. the most otto can do :(( be the support………………

yeah and if ottos finding rbd out alongside other people i think that all of the above that i just said would happen but more subtly. like otto would give his support to subaru and his friends (who’re also reeling from this info :,) ) and then in private otto i think would be like PLOTTING. how can i stop subaru from using rbd. how can i save subaru more. what actions do i need to take. how drastic do i need to be. IM the one who can get my hands dirty here in a way that subaru cant. etc etc :,)))) otto, you sneaky guy……

anyway ive considered making a “otto finds out rbd” fic before but never had specific plot beats so :<<<<< yeah like i said in this entire ask i have my Various Guesses on how otto would react to rbd!!

The Set Up - Tommy Miller x Reader

Summary: Joel and Ellie set up Y/N with Tommy sick of their pining for each other

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: none; all fluff

Y/N’s POV

Ever since I arrived at Jackson with Joel and Ellie I’ve felt Tommy’s eyes on me. Whenever he’s in the same room or area as me I feel his piercing green eyes boring holes through me, unabashed when I catch him. It’s never predatory, more studying or protecting. Not the looks I’ve seen other men give me before Joel’s glaring at them, scaring them away. 

Joel’s like a brother to me, a protective older brother who wants the younger sister to stay innocent. Everyone thought we were a thing when we first arrived all those months ago but we quickly dispelled that despite Ellie calling us a mixture of our names and ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’. It threw up for a loop at first but neither of us denied the joy it brought to us hearing her introduce us as her parents. 

I’ve never really talked to Tommy as he’s usually on patrol or he’s at the electricity plant, checking on it and helping Maria run the town. I’ll admit Maria makes me see green because she’s always by his side despite them always saying they’re not dating or anything. The way her gaze softens whenever she’s looking at him or talking about him and it makes me want to turn and storm away or punch her. Joel knows this, always telling me to just talk to Tommy. Joel’s younger brother. Tommy Miller. Leader of Jackson and the first man in a very long time who seems to have captured my attention. 

“Muuuummmm,” Ellie’s bounding over, joining me at the bar with that excited grin on her face and a glint of mischief in her eyes, “Come danceeee.” 

“You want your own mother to dance with you?” I ask, putting down my beer, “I’m getting too old,” I tease, laughing as she rolls her eyes and drags me onto the dance floor, grumbling something about me only being five years her elder. Today’s what the settlement call ‘Party Night’ or something but the old barn is done up with a band and multitudes of fairy lights strung up. It’s an evening every Friday where people can let go of everything and just be themselves, teenagers get to be just that: teenagers. 

Ellie’s laughter is like music when I spin her, watching the way her messy auburn hair bounces, having grown to surround her round face. She looks so happy and it’s great to see her be able to be a child after everything we went through just to get here. The guilt of Sam and Henry still weighing heavy in my chest but I don’t let it show because I never want her to stop looking happy. Her eyes shine brighter as her attention seems captured by someone over my shoulder as I playfully sway us the way a mother and child dances together when they’re alone. 

“Her names Dina right?” I ask, following Ellie’s gaze, a knowing smile playing on my lips as she blushes. Ah, young love. I wouldn’t know of it myself but it’s so touching to see the way Ellie seems to soften when she sees or talks about the other girl, “She likes you back, you know.” 

“How…” She trails off, rolling her eyes as the song ends, “I’m going to go talk to her.” 

“Atta girl.” I squeeze her shoulder reassuringly before making my way back to the bar where I begin to feel those eyes piercing through my skin. I scan the barn for them, quickly finding Joel, Maria and Tommy sat in a booth near the back. Maria and Joel are poured over a map or something, probably discussing new patrol routes as Joel quickly took on that role upon being welcomed into Jackson. 

Tommy’s heated gaze meets mine and he doesn’t turn away, just studies me before his eyes flit down my body then back up. There’s no shame in his action and I don’t try and hide from it because it feels weirdly right. Joel breaks the stare off by catching my gaze with a wave of his hand, beckoning me over so I comply. As much as Joel and I have a sibling like bond I could never say no to him. He became my constant all those years ago after my brother got shot and I lost the other. I would go to the ends of the earth for Joel and it’s starting to feel like I’d do the same for his brother. These stupid Miller brothers and the power they have over me. 

“What’s up Joel?” I ask, sliding into the booth to see I was right about the paper spread out in front of them is a map with pen marks in different colours of routes to take. 

“How would you like to take Ellie on her first patrol with Tommy?” There’s that same glint in his hazel eyes that Ellie had when asking me to dance. They’re up to something and I think I know what. I flick my eyes to Tommy, being able to take him in properly without it being weird as it why I’m looking at him. 

He’s so different from Joel yet there a small things that are exactly the same like their noses are the same and the way they have such boyish and cheeky smiles, like they know they’re about to say something bad but they’re also about to get away with it. Tommy’s got dirty blonde hair that reaches the back of his neck and his eyes are the colour of jade, he looks tired but there’s a rugged handsomeness about him that has me a little weak at the knees. The scar across his left cheek adding mystery to him. Except Tommy is far from mysterious, he’s an open book and like to push his luck with anyone but he’s responsible with morals. 

“Y/N?” Maria nudges me slightly and shake my head to snap myself back into reality instead of staring at the younger Miller brother.

“Y-yeah, sounds good.” I smile at her despite everything in my being wants to sneer at her. Joel kicks me lightly under the table, raising an eyebrow at me and I raise a shoulder to let it drop in response. He’s asking if I’m okay and I’m suddenly not sure because the intensity of Tommy’s gaze is making me feel nervous and queasy. Joel sighs before sliding out the booth and grabbing his jacket which he wraps around my shoulders. 

“Come on, I’ll walk you home.” He’s catching my hand and I follow pliantly, knowing there’s absolutely no use arguing with Joel, especially when he uses his older brother/fatherly voice. It doesn’t escape me the scowl on Tommy’s face pointed in the direction of mine and Joel’s hand before he seems to relax, guessing he knows Joel’s tone of voice very well from all the stories Joel’s told me.

The cold winter air is a nice relief as we step outside, finally feeling like I’m able to breathe again. I do love these nights at the barn it can still get a little overwhelming after being used to just Joel and Ellie for a little over a year to then be thrown in a bustling town. There are times I won’t even realise I’m panicking until Joel and Ellie are removing me from the situation: like right now. 

I don’t speak, matching Joel’s strides as he walks towards the outer area of town where all the houses have been fixed up to make a small housing community within the settlement. Tommy and Joel are helping repair more and more houses as more and more people stumble upon Jackson. 

Joel’s huffing as he unlocks the front door before following me inside so he can make sure my clumsy ass doesn’t like fall down the stairs or anything. He has every reason for that to be a worry as it’s happened before, more times than I’d be happy admitting out loud. 

“Go get changed.” Again with the not being able to say no to a Miller. I’m already making my way upstairs, knowing exactly what he was going to say. My pyjama shirt and shorts are already set out for me, glad I did that before I left because I’m racing back down the stairs in double time it usually takes me. Joel’s got a mug of what smells like hot chocolate ready for me and I sink into the couch before taking it from his hands. 

“Ellie seems to have a thing for Dina.” I tell him as he joins me, sitting on the other side of the sofa but letting me put my feet in his lap with only the smallest of complaints. 

“They’ve been hanging out a lot, that Jesse guy always with them too.” Joel confirms. Of course he knows about Ellie’s new crush, nothing escapes his eagle eyes. Probably from all that time spent as a smuggler and him being the protector when things get dangerous. It’s burned into his skull to catch everything he can see or it could be used against him and that in itself is a very dangerous thing. 

“I think she’d go well with Dina.” 

“Like you’d go well with Tommy?” I choke on the drink, spluttering and trying to form coherent words which doesn’t seem to help my case at all because Joel’s letting out a chuckle and rolling his eyes, calloused hand squeezing ankle as I recover. 

That’s how the rest of my evening is spent, talking to Joel about things that have been happening around the settlement as well as gossiping about some of the people. Upon meeting Joel you would never have been able to tell that he is an absolute whore for gossip and tries not to hang off your every word but fails miserably. He also always has his own tidbits to add to my gossip and it makes everything so much better. 

———————————

I must have fallen asleep at some point while talking to Joel last night because I wake to a knock at the door. I’m still on the couch but a blanket has been thrown over me so I wrap it around my shoulders as I pull myself up, heading for the door to see who is bothering me at this hour. Screw that, I don’t even know what hour it is. 

They knock again and I sigh, hating answering the door but pulling it open to see none other than Tommy. He’s got baskets of what looks like food and drinks with him, that charmingly boyish grin on his face as I step aside to let him in. 

“Morning sunshine,” His southern drawl strong as he places the basket on the counter and begins putting everything away in the right cupboards, “Joel decided to take Ellie on patrol and sent me over to make sure you don’t hurt yourself.” 

“Oh god,” I scrub a hand over my face, knowing Joel must have told Tommy some of my most embarrassing stories. I’m not sure how I’ve survived the apocalypse this long with how uncoordinated I am. I don’t mean the cutesy ‘oopsie’ kind of clumsy, I mean the turn around and slam straight into a door or trip over an invisible rock kind of clumsy. The type of clumsy that gets you killed in horror movies but then again none of those characters had a Joel who was always there to catch my elbow as the ground barrelled towards me. 

“I heard you once tried to slap a clicker and survived,” Tommy’s talking and I’m groaning, collapsing back on the couch, “And that you almost fell down an elevator shaft. You almost shot your ass off and ended up shooting yourself in the leg.” 

“Shut upppp,” I’m whining, burying my face in my hands so I don’t notice the blond approach or crouch in front of me until his gun-calloused hands are prying my own from my face. I meet his gaze, feeling my breath hitch as we’re inches apart and it would be nothing for me to just lean forwards and kiss those wind worn lips. 

His own gaze seems to drop from mine to my own lips and back before he’s darting his tongue out to wet his bottom one, “Well I think it’s cute.” 

Cute. He thinks I’m cute?! 

“Tommy.” His name rolls off of my tongue in a whisper, not wanting to break this moment. His knees hit the wooden floor as he mutters a ‘fuck it’ and surges forwards. His lips are soft and  there aren’t any fireworks but it’s so goddamn perfect. It’s cautious and clumsy, our noses bumping and he’s smiling into the kiss before we have to pull away for air. 

“They set us up, didn’t they?” He breaks the content silence settling and it sends us into laughter. 

“I think they did.” I nod, pulling him towards me surprised at how willing he is to let me lead him. He understands what I want and is kicking his boots off haphazardly before laying on top of me, his head resting over my heart as I begin to card my fingers through those sandy lock. It’s perfect.

“Let’s just stay like this forever.” 

“Okay.” 

As soon as I heard this song for the first time, I knew that it was one of those I had to be very careful with. One of those I had to stay away from if my headspace wasn’t 101% ready for it.

Townes called them his “hopeless songs” and that is the term I like to use as well, because it really captures that feeling perfectly. Every time I encountered one, it was almost like I could sense it right away, a shift in the air: he shifted into minor chords land and was ready to go to those places within himself so dark that no other songwriter ever dared to explore.

In many ways, The Hole fits the definition to a t. Only the second of his that I can think of on the top of my head to be entirely composed of minor chords (the first being Waitin’ Around to Die), and it’s simply two of them. Two chords repeated over and over on a loop. The effect is as just claustrophobic and gloomy as the lyrics telling us the story of a man falling into a metaphorical hole that stands for addiction, or maybe depression (probably both), which draws him in and doesn’t let go. Isolates him from his family and his loved ones and leaves him trapped in his own solitude and mysery.

And yet today I was listening to a Townes bootleg and I let the song play in full, without skipping it as I usually do to protect myself from it, and apparently for the first time I paid attention to the last couple of verses. That’s when I realized maybe this hopeless song wasn’t quite so hopeless as I thought:

A whisper deep within

Embrace the God of Love

I lifted my face and through the tears

I saw light fall from above

Then it continued:

I hurled myself into the wall

I ripped and clawed my way

Through the stinkin', clingin' loam

Back to the light of day

I crawled out into the wind again

The sky upon my face

I heard the earth sigh patiently

As it slid back into place

I couldn’t believe I didn’t notice that before and I was just so moved by it. To know what kind of hell he had been through all his life, how many times he’d found himself back inside that hole in one way or another; and to still be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel after all of that. To have the audacity of finding hope even in the direst of circumstances.

Never like in the last year or so have I come to know just how painful and impossible even “normal” living can feel, and how easy it is to start thinking like there’s no hope for you at all. But whenever I do feel like that again, no matter how deep is the hole I’ve fallen into, I will try to remember that I can always look up.

Now I'm back among the ones I love

I'm loved by them in turn

And it's only on the darkest night

That green eyed memory burns

saw a comment on a youtube video about how the time aspect wore dave down and a DIFFERENT comment on a DIFFERENT song about how hes giving up time travel good (which i did not read before having him give it up i swear. i feel vindicated) and someone linked the page / read through that a little

so supposedly the beta session lasted a day but dave played at least three days going through time loops, and thats just the alpha dave, not counting all the ones that died or were doomed

i think it works as a parallel for his anxiety and tendency to overthink, probably leaning into some obsessive compulsive issues

like i think that's how his brain worked. he's able to throw out paragraphs of rambling because the spigot from which his stream of conscious flows is smashed permanently open so he's always in his head, distracted, thinking of things to say and possibilities and fears and doubts. running through it in his mind trying to give himself the best chance at success to overcompensate for his deep, deep, deep insecurity it's not the dead part of the dave that scares him. he's used to dead things (in jars) it's the failed part.

(someone remind me to talk about the parallels between his time aspect and interest in wet specimens later)

having to weigh all those decisions and outcomes and decide which ones were more favorable really took a toll on him. like letting jade shoot him (he wasnt afraid of his death he was afraid of jade being hurt)(having to leave his sister behind alone in a doomed timeline to save her in another.)

it's too much knowledge and executive power. the human brain is not built to experience life that way (which is why caliborn makes such a potent lord of time - his brain IS wired to work that way - vicious and cyclical)(whereas for aradia it was like a second chance that was genuinely hers and not taken from her or controlled by a weird horny freak)

i think the moment he gives it up is the moment he realizes he can do more for everyone just being present in the moment. both in terms of time and his maladaptive daydreaming. or his internal panicked searches for the Correct thing to say which is also Very Cool and Funny (which he'll never fully give up but he can learn to say something beautiful and true or even cringy and silly once in a while)

i think it also contributes to his deep unabiding love for his brother because he knows dirk is weighing all the options too. he knows none of them seem great or possible. he knows they're gods who are going to live to see black holes die. he knows that on the graph of the timeline between the birth of the universe and the death of the final black hole, he hasn't moved a nanometer. theyre not even babies theyre zygotes.

the cruxite egg was such a good metaphor because itll hatch when its ready. it takes time. let it do what it does.

davebot experiences all points in time simultaneously so where we would see a moment, followed by a moment, followed by another moment, it's like he has the whole picture in his head from start to finish and enough quiet time to ponder it all and he's cheerfully nihilistic. assigning "good" and "bad" to any moment is pointless because you stretch out the whole tapestry and it's beautiful. you can't just cut out the upsetting parts. find beauty in the threads and the hands that wove them

Concept: Will gets vecna’d and there’s a scene of him running through the forest in the dark in the upside-down, and he can hear the search party and hopper yelling “Will Byers,” but they can’t hear him when he stop running and yells back, screams that he’s here. they just keep yelling his name, over and over and over. he’s still screaming back to them, voice raw and sobbing, and they’re right there but he can’t get to them, he’s stuck again.

All he can hear is his name. And not for the first time in his life, Will Byers wishes he was somebody else, if only so that he wouldn’t have to keep hearing that name over, and over, as if he’s stuck in a loop, unable to get out. unable to get away from being himself, from his own name, his own existence, the mistake that it is.

Its like when Lonnie would scream for him, “Will Byers,” entering the house with a bang, knocking the door against the wall and using Will’s full name to discipline him as if it was an insult in and of itself.

It’s like when Lonnie boarded up the hole in the wall, how despite Will’s begging and screaming, and pleading from the other side, his father simply couldn’t hear him. That was almost worse than before, than the way that his father would usually ignore him- because at least before, his father chose not to hear him, at least before, it was deserved, a choice Lonnie was making, a punishment dealt  for the crime of being Will Byers. At least before, it wasn’t a mistake that Lonnie couldn’t hear him. Or maybe this time, with the boarded up walls, it was a choice- maybe it couldn’t be a mistake, because Will is the mistake, maybe it was deserved. Maybe his father had known this when he boarded up the wall. Maybe he’d always known it, and Will was the ignorant one, blind to the error of his very being.

Will can still hear the screaming. It’s only grown in volume, in size, threatening to swallow him whole. It’s mixed with Lonnie’s voice now, the voices of those searching for him mingled with the voice of the person who’d gotten rid of him.

Lonnie had gotten rid of Will long before the upside-down, long before the boarded up wall, when he left all those years ago. Joyce would insist that they were the ones who’s gotten rid of Lonnie, but Will knew better. Lonnie was finally rid of him. And it’s a pity that Joyce and Jonathan couldn’t do the same. Maybe they had. Maybe that’s why they weren’t home that night. Maybe his mother, and his brother were finally rid of him, in the way that like Lonnie, they didn’t come home that night.  Maybe like Lonnie, they left him in the upside-down. Instead of boarding up the hole, maybe his mother had taken an axe to the wall not to try and give Will an opening, but to try and create a hole, a hole in the wall and a hole in the family, tried to cut Will out of it.  But as Will runs through the forest, runs through the upside-down, he wonders if he ever really left- maybe Will never came home that night. Maybe he left them. Maybe he abandoned them. Maybe Joyce and Jonathan ran through an empty house, searching for Will. Maybe Joyce wouldn’t have needed to chop a hole in the wall if Will hadn’t torn through the wall first, trying to save himself- if he hadn’t torn through the family, if he hadn’t made Lonnie leave in an attempt to save himself.  The screams continue- people searching for him, people (Lonnie) finding him, spewing his name in a drunken rage. People caught in an eternal cycle, an eternal loop of looking for something that they’ll never find, and his father stuck in an eternal loop of finding something he’d never been looking for. The screaming of people who could never see him, mixed with the voice of the person who did know the truth, who always saw right through him.  They wouldn’t look for him if they knew what they would find. Lonnie knows what he’ll find. He’s always known. And as a result, he never had to look for Will, never bothered looking for Will- Will would simply appear when the door crashed open, jump out like a deer in the headlights, running into the light, hoping that maybe he could find safety in it, that maybe if he got close enough to the lights, somehow, the car wouldn’t hit him. He knows it doesn’t make sense. But just like the deer, he’s blinded.  Maybe if he got close enough to Lonnie. Maybe Lonnie only reached out because Will was too far away. Maybe if he put himself in Lonnie’s range, within his grasp, Lonnie would cease to reach for him, would stop grabbing him entirely because Will was already close and didn’t need to be pulled any closer. He doesn’t. Instead, it simply aids the swiftness of his grasp, it simply lets Lonnie pull Will in, grab him close, only to shove him away.  Will does appear when the door crashes open, rattling against the wall behind him, rattling off the wall in the same way that the screams do, when Will finds himself out of the forest and in his living room. And again, Lonnie doesn’t look for him.  Lonnie never needed to look, because he would simply see Will. He would see him for all he is- a mistake, a queer- and so when Will disappeared, Lonnie didn’t look for him, because Will knows that Lonnie knew why he was gone. He knows that Lonnie didn’t know about the upside-down, but that he knew that one day, the universe would correct its mistake, that Will would correct his own mistake, his own existence, that either by his own hand or that of fate, Will Byers would vanish. And so, just as quickly as he appears, he vanishes, bolting into his bedroom.  He was always good at hiding. But he can’t hide from himself, from his own name, still filling the air as the screams continue. People are still searching for him, Lonnie’s still found him- Will can hear the heavy footsteps and the heavier hollering. Deeper, more visceral than all the other screams, as if it somehow came from somewhere within Will himself. 

And right as the screams get too loud, too numerous, like a wave, his own name and the weight of it, of him, of who he is, of what he is, crashing down on him, a deep voice rumbles from right behind him:

“Will Byers.”

Vecna.

Just like Lonnie, Will can feel Vecna looming over him, the way that the air becomes coarse and tight, and heavy, burdened with the weight of his name. WIth the weight of him, of all that was inside of him now turned outside for everyone to see, so that they can stop looking. So that the search ends and the silence finally falls- so that he’ll stay here, forever.  But it doesn’t end. The screaming continues. The searching, the looking continues, because they still can’t see him, even though it feels as if he’s on display, as if his insides have turned outward. Blood drips from Will’s ears. It drips from his mouth, too, and his nose, and his eyes. It slides down the skin on this body, the smaller one, in Will’s bedroom, on the body that Lonnie- or Vecna, Will realizes distantly, has his hands on, digging claws into his shoulders, shaking them, the enraged face of his father resting in that heavy air, expelled from Will’s insides like the dust of the mindflayer was, mingling with Vecna’s stoic features. The blood also slides down the skin of his other body, the one in the flower field, the one that Mike has his hands on. The one whose shoulders are being held, not grabbed, whose ears are bleeding as Mike calls “Will! Will!”

Mike’s the only person saying his name that Will can’t hear in the sea of screaming. And maybe that’s for the best. Because Mike’s voice is the only one he’d be able to follow. The only one that could have possibly risen above the noise, not by higher volume but by a lower one, not by harshness, but by softness, the only voice that could ever rival the screaming without screaming at all. The only voice that truly soothed away that pain, that made him feel like he wasn’t a mistake.  And Will knows, in his heart, that he doesn’t deserve that. Doesn’t deserve to escape, to hide, to follow that voice. And, in what Will recognizes as a final mercy, as a selfish, undeserved relief for himself, he knows that Mike doesn’t hear him either. He knows that when Vecna sinks his claws into him and Will screams, Mike won’t hear him, can’t hear him, doesn’t hear him screaming Mike’s name out into the void. He hopes he doesn’t, at least.  But Mike does hear Will- finally, Mike hears him. He hears his bones crack. He hears his body hit the ground. He hears Will’s heart stop, the silence of its absence more defeaning than any scream Will could ever muster. 

Interrogating Worst Pupper yielded some surprising results and more questions. Let's see if Kurumi has any context to offer about it.

GODDAMMIT KURUMI. I turned my back for five minutes. Did you get kidnapped, eaten, or hungry? All three of these options are viable.

Hard to make out the clothes from here. Is that supposed to be Kurumi or one of the Master Detectives? It looks like another Halara to me.

Oh hey! Congrats, Vivia. Either you or a version of you finally got what he wanted!

Yeah, my money is on Kurumi getting hungry and wandering off to find some flesh to eat. She'll probably be feral for a shocking WTF next time we see her.

In any case, what do we have for intel on Vivia's body?

That distinction is important. It's why bodies have to be disposed of quickly from Kanai Ward.

Okay so that would naturally follow why the homunculus guy is their lead weapon designer. I'm following.

Whole-ass physical reset upon death. Yeah, that'd definitely give the game away if the bodies weren't removed fast enough.

One day, however, is a reasonable timeframe. That's more than enough time to dump them off in the Restricted Area and keep up the cover.

I wonder if we could reset the ferals to factory settings as easily as killing them and letting them regenerate?

I hope our friends are homunculi. I don't want them to be dead-dead.

That's. Interesting. So then it might not be possible for everyone in Kanai Ward to be homunculi. Huesca himself can't be a homunculus. Neither can old man Margulaw from the Resistance. I thought homunculi would naturally age and then regen when they died but no. Anyone that's elderly must be human.

Still haven't met Yakou. Maybe he was human. :(

So you wouldn't even know that you're a homunculus.

I'm going to laugh if this is the explanation for pink blood. "Anyone with pink blood is a homunculus. Nobody ever notices this discrepancy for some reason."

Oh look, there she goes. Kurumi has a rumbly in her tumbly. We should go see how if she's found anyone to snack on. We might find her gnawing on Fubuki's bones.

This looks an awful lot like a driveable road. Bet you this is where the truck bringing the "corpses" of deceased homunculi comes down.

If there are real humans in the city, they might bring those for the ferals to snack on too.

Looks like something smashed through it from inside. That's. I have no idea. Nothing we've seen thus far adds up to HULK SMASH PUNY DOOR. Well, let's go in and see what horrifying behemoth made this hole.

The Food Processing Plant wasn't the secret secret lab. It was the Food Processing Plant. We didn't get to fully explore it but I still think that's where the kidnapped outsiders get processed into KANAI WARD SIGNATURE MEAT BUNS.

So this might be the secret secret lab instead. Man, Kurumi shambled fast for a feral.

OKAY NEVER MIND I GUESS OLD PEOPLE CAN BE HOMUNCULI. Maybe if you were already old when your homunculus was made, you're stuck that way. No backwards-aging for you.

Huesca does not think highly of his own homunculus project. Makes sense since, if Blank Week means what I think it does, he fucking killed everybody in Kanai Ward. Including himself, as we can see here.

Huh, no wonder Yomi couldn't let him escape the city. Just like Icardi, things would have gone downhill real fast and in a hurry for the homunculus secret if Huesca inadvertently and publicly cut himself off from the sanity-preserving meat buns.

Huesca was motivated to rush his work and cut corners to try and win the arms race against UG's experiments. So, of course, he fucked up and everybody died.

No wonder he has a terrible reputation even within Amaterasu.

It was gentrification. There was never a toxic gas leak. That was the excuse used to move everyone out of the village so that Huesca could carry out his work.

Oh look. Zilch's interrogation ended abruptly when he began looping the conversation. I think Huesca's looping all the way back to the beginning. This is when he first woke up as a homunculus, after Makoto remade everyone.

I don't think we need to ask Kurumi about Blank Week anymore. It's pretty obvious what it was at this point.

I always find it interesting that homosexual coded main characters don't really get shipped with every single side character of the opposite gender. And people get told off for shipping lesbian coded characters with men or gay coded characters with women by the rest of the fandom. But it's always aroace coded main characters getting shipped with every single side character that exists. And aroace fans getting told to "not generalise the entire aspec community" and "let people ship whomever they want!! It's just fiction!!!" as if we don't deserve to see characters living happy lives not being in relationships. And my biggest pet peeve is the trope of an aroace coded character "growing up and maturing" by... getting in a romantic/sexual relationship. Really shows what these people think about non-partnering aspec people irl. It's not just about fictional characters but they'll never admit it 🤷

I will say that there are some idiots out there who do ship gay characters with the opposite sex because they believe in people being able to ship whatever they want (which can lead to some disturbing places but I digress) But those kinds of ships do get a lot more push back and the same people who get after people for changing characters from gay to straight do not have the same energy when it happens to aro /aroace characters.

These same people are the ones calling for representation and how we treat characters identities in fiction does reflect how we view those identities in the real world EXCEPT when it comes to aspec characters. Suddenly then it's "fiction doesn't effect reality!!!" there's some double standards happening and it's beyond frustrating that no one seems to even notice and get mad at us for pointing it out.

Not to mention it's incredibly funny to hear them cry "Don't generalize the community" while they generalize the community by acting like every aro/ace/aroace person can date and have sex - which like you said ignored the existence of non-partnering identities and I'd like to add it also erases repulsed identities.

None of these people actually care about the aspecs who date or have sex. they don't actually care how those identities work or those experiences at all. they're using them as a get out of jail free card. a loop hole. a "I can't be homophobic because I have a gay best friend" card. They don't care about QPRs and how those relationships can be experience in wildly different ways. All they care about is if they get to have two characters kiss without having to genuinely look at themselves and their biases and possibly have the revelation that they might hold bigoted beliefs about aspec people.

And at this point I'd rather them admit that they don't actually care about aspec identities or experiences instead of tying themselves into knots to try and prove "I'm not aphobic!!!!" because they actively tried to find a loop hole to make it so that they could feel superior and in the right for being able to erase an entire identity of people.

top 5 cg chapters and top 5 mp100 characters for the top 5 ask game :]

OH. okay. hmmm these will probs all be c!henry centric

1. The Ink Demon

Where do I start. This chapter...perfect ending for the first part. Couldn't even think about anything better than this. Every time I even GLANCE at the ending it gives me the feels. What happened there, Henry having to trust Joey and work with him ("What about you?" GJSJFHSHHFF), the Ink Demon finally given a soul, just the pure shock + Henry reflecting on his past compared to his present. Him IMMEDIATELY adopting Bendy, seeing how he changed. And ending it off with "Now what?" Just....yes

2. Those Still, Soft Spaces

I reread this chapter a lot. Filled with fluff yet its just so...sad. I'm SO GLAD Henry got to have those moments by himself, alone, just letting himself feel and experience the world for the first time in years. Actually realizing that the time loop was broken, that he was free. Even when he had given up hope a long time ago. Him being so damn happy over chex mix of all things was just so adorable but also just so :( this chapter just hits so hard. Him crying with pure happiness, plus the toons actually getting to have a proper introduction with him. I love it

3. Blackout

This chapter was so terrifying...C!Henry IMMEDIATELY stepped up to the plate here. And seeing HS!Henry do so as well despite his fear was refreshing. We got a special moment with the Henries bc of it, but also that fight...C!Henry is so badass, but I hate how this is just his norm. And that NIGHTMARE. A part of me wants it to be more than a nightmare, and considering the theme of CG it probably was, but also does he need to suffer more. does he. the answer is no

I do have a fic in the drafts for this chapter from a different perspective (gonna be mostly hs!joey tho not solely him). When am I gonna finish it? I have no idea. But I really want to see what it was like for the rest of them. But I'm glad we got to see C!Henry's dream

Also it seems that he's gained some respect points from that fight. It clearly shows in recent chapters. "Henry'll be there!" "If anyone could keep it check, it'd be him"  “Besides, ah, Henry, he’s proven he’s not a pushover. I’ll be fine" He's gained some trust from others, they rely on him to protect them now (I personally think it should be the other way around...but I'm glad they see his reliability)

4. There's A Lot to Unpack Here...

This chapter hurts, but it was expected. Honestly it would've been better if they had known what to expect. I mean, I would too be pissed if a guy I used to be friends with had trapped me in a time loop for years, only to be suddenly brought to a separate world where nothing had ever gone wrong and that very same man's counterpart was also there, while also completely misunderstanding just what had happened there. When they started DEFENDING HIS JOEY....he got SO PISSED. I don't blame him at all ("How can you be sure it was even his fault?" Susie sweetie I know you mean well but omfg)

5. Story Time

Ah! An AWRB chapter! Finally! I was waiting for this to happen. And damn that hurt! He needed to actually admit what happened and not keep it all inside, but I feel bad for Al and Tom. Imagine finding out your entire life is a lie? Gonna be even worse when they find out who they used to be. It would probably also result in them also having their grudge against Joey. And HS!Joey's gonna feel even worse than he already does

OH and it was DEFINITELY him who eavesdropped on their conversation. We've had absolute radio silence from him on his part, and all he's done is been holed up in his office. If he's trying to find a solution for Sammy/Sam, or something more (cause believe me, why wouldn't he try to fix their side after hearing that?), I don't know

I think I'm gonna answer the second one in a separate post...don't want it too long + mp100 is too off topic for this

For anyone curious, this is about this fanfic. It's super amazing, so I suggest if you like bendy you should read it!

Writers Self-Doubt and Anxiety

I have had a constant struggle with writers doubt and anxiety. I love to write, but the "after "scares me so much that sometimes it is hard to get myself to sit down in front of the keyboard. By “after” I mean when the book is done, and the world gets to see it.

I have often heard the advice “pretend that no one will read what you are writing” but I guess I am not that good at playing pretend, because I can never do that. No matter how hard I try to do that, the little voice reminds me my end goals is, big surprise, to have people read what I have written.

Instead of believing the “no one will read what I am writing” lie, my brain has worked up other lies in the form of excuses.

“I am too tired to write,” my brain will tell me. Or, “I am not in the mood, I will do it tomorrow.”

And so I started putting writing off over and over again.

I am, however, getting better, so while I am still learning ways that help me, I would like to keep updating my process on this in case these lists might help someone else too.

1. Use Outlines

I used to be a pantser, which essentially means you “write by the seat of your pants” or make things up as you go along. There is something exciting about not knowing what your characters will face next. However, I would get about halfway into the story, feel a crash of doubt about where it was going, then tell myself I need to start over. It caused me to stay in an infinite re-writing loop, and there ended up being only one cure; outlines.

I dreaded resorting to that. I assumed it would take the joy out of writing and remove all the writing surprises. As it turns out, all it did was take out one less thing to be anxious about (plot) so I could focus more on everything else.

As an added bonus, you can have your outline reviewed by a trusted friend to help you find plot holes before you even start writing. Fixing these ahead of time and knowing they are fixed really helped boost my confidence before going in and writing the story.

2. Just start.

I tell myself to just start when the excuses are extra loud. They will say anything from “it is too loud in here to write,” to “I don’t have much time, so I might as well not start,” to “I am too stressed to write”, and “I need to do some tasks before writing.”

The funny part is that when I don’t write, I am even more stressed the next day, so using the “I am too stressed to write” excuse was a horrible loop to be in. I would not write because I was stressed, then I would be stressed because I did not write.

The only cure? Just start. Whenever I get the excuses now, I tell myself to just start writing, and I can deal with the rest after.

3. Set a timer.

When I really don’t feel like writing, I set a timer for 1 hour and tell myself I just have to write for that hour, that’s it. The amount of words within that time does not matter, I just have to make it to that hour. This removes the guilt of not meeting wordcount goals, and takes a lot of the pressure off writing. Sometimes, if I feel like it I will write longer than that hour, but those are just bonus words and should not be expected.

4. Utilize To-Do Lists.

This is for whenever you come up with an excuse during your writing time.

Need to clean the bathroom? To-do list.

Remembered something in the story you need to fix? To-do list.

Writing is only time for writing so just put other tasks in the to-do list so you remember to do them after.

5. Watch this video

The title “How Anxiety Can Ruin A Writing Career” is not really fair. It makes it sound like “if you have anxiety, you are doomed as a writer,” but really it is actually about ways he got around his anxiety. I found this video recently, and really suggest giving it a watch.

6. Join a small writing group

Most people think that a very full and active writing group is best, but that is not always the case. In a big group, you might go unnoticed, so there is no accountability if you don’t write. In a smaller group, however, you get to know each other and cheer each other on.

So, if a writing group has hundreds of members, it might not be best. Instead, try to find a smaller one.

@duelbooks asked:

(( *WALTZES RIGHT UP* sgdhfj )) ~Flashback~ Ask Meme

Send “Flashback” to have your muse see one of my muse’s bad memories

(( find the rest under the cut it's gonna be 800 miles long ))

The first thing that registers is pain. An indescribable agony, seizing what little is left of your body. Your thoughts become an endless echo chamber; your own screams of agony reverberating between one point to another, bouncing off and overlapping in an eternal loop. Your vision is splintered, gaze directed at the sky yet the ground yet rocky crags that line the violet skies. You cannot move, for your form is scattered. Your energy is barren; just thinking is exhaustive in and of itself. And all your mind can concentrate on is trying to regroup.

Then, from the corners of stars know how many eyes, a familiar figure. Despite the overwhelming sense of panic, terror, the ear-piercing screams that just won't stop, you know exactly what stands before you. Your current servant, the one who pledged undying loyalty to you:

Vector.

Just as you were hoping, expecting, he knelt down over you. Gathering your pieces up in clawed hands. Walking to the side and... wait. The side? What's he doing over there? Why does he have that mischievous look in his eyes? Why is he looking at you like that? Without a warning, he takes the armful of you in his arms and throws it. The sensation of falling, the streaks of violent and magenta passing you by as you traverse the endless bounds of space. You feel... disconnected. Vector's maniacal laughter echoes throughout you. It sounds like he's standing next to you. It sounds like he's standing at the edge of the earth. It sounds like he's above you. He is everywhere at once. Your vision cracks and splinters even more as he gathers more of you in his arms and flings you every which way. Over the sides, lobbed at crystals like a ball.

The feeling of being torn apart, of those claws digging into your core and ripping you to shreds, it's practically unbearable. Your vision starts fading in and out, the sound of your own screams nearly drowning him out. Then, after what feels like an eternity, he approaches you and unceremoniously gathers what's left of you in a lump. For the most part, your vision finally collects itself into one. The echo chamber finally dies out with a last pathetic remnant of an agonized cry. The panic that controlled you falling silent.

The memory is not clear here, it is a haze of agony that blinds everything but what you feel within. A sense of emptiness, brokenness, holes where a heart should lay. What use is a number with missing pieces? The next visible area was still a matted blur of pain and tears, if you could produce those in this state, but the color scheme betrayed it: Barian World. He just dumped you on the ground like you were nothing but trash. The desperate pull to your gelatinous pieces was weak; they hardly moved at your beck and call. A vibration is the best that you receive.

Now your body chooses to collect what little is left of itself. The feeling of a hand returns to you, as melted as it is. The general shape of a body, a head. You care not for what you look like; you are becoming you, and that is what matters most. And now that a feeling of normalcy returns, the pressure of everything and anything, the contradicting sensations. Everything and anything at once. The merciless echo chamber that tells you everything and nothing. It's overstimulating. It's overwhelming.

It's too much.

You caress the ground with panicked hands. Are you floating? Are you falling? Are you on the ground? Are you looking at the sky? Are you looking at the ground? At the geodes that litter the ground? Where is the real you? Where is the rest of you?

Why do you feel so empty?

Suddenly, you feel a tight grip around your ankles. The sky begins to move. The sensation of being dragged rides up your back, the dirt massaging what little solid mass you have left. You know that you are incapable of keeping yourself together in this state; your vision begins to splinter once more. The sky seems to stop little by little, portions of your sight frozen in one place. You are unravelling and you know it. The feeling of falling; the faint sight of endless magenta skies overlapped with the clear vision of crimson countered with ruby crags of rock. Your weak calls to yourself produce nothing. A meaningless cry in an uncaring void.

When you are about to give in and melt completely, Vector drops you with barely a care. How much of you trails behind? You turn your head to look, but your nonexistent strength only affords a few centimeters. That wild laugh, that howl of evil, is one that will ring in your ears forever. You draw your hands to your sides to push yourself up, but that does not go far. Your eyes(? Did you form them or do you think you formed them?) gaze down to find Vector's foot in your chest, leg splattered in black goo. It would be painful if you weren't already numb. The Barian bends down, collecting your melty, limp wrists in his hands. He holds them at hip level, one on each side. Your lips part, a desperate plead in a voice that sounds just like your own, but the intonation is the hallmark of someone else.

Someone you know dearly. Someone you would protect with your life.

Your child. Your son. Dark.

                  "U-Unhand me this instant! I am your master, I command you!“

                  ”MASTER?" Vector echoed, struggling to contain his own hysterics. "You still believe in that nonsense? Aren’t you precious!" He bent down over you, putting even more pressure in the newfound cavity in your chest. Which surely would've hurt if you could feel anything at all. "Let me tell you a little secret, princess: You answer to me now, and I don’t like your attitude! So we’re gonna have to FIX THAT, aren’t we?“

                  ”W-What are you going to do to me?!“ Your lips plead, panic woven into every word. Terror like no other has seized you; your life is flashing before your eyes. Or rather, Dark's eyes. The difference never quite mattered to you.

                  ”Don’t worry your pretty little head about it!" The emperor's grip becomes iron tight in anticipation. "It only comes with a few strings attached.“

He doesn't give you the chance to reply. Without warning, he does the unthinkable.

He yanked.

Wild laughter filled the air, echoing throughout you with such intensity that your senses could no longer keep up. You feel yourself slowly shutting down; Vector was pulling and tearing cords and data from your person without a care. Your life's regrets flash through your mind, accompanied by your own screams of pain. The regret of being unable to be free. The sorrow of dying alone. The dying throes of chaos and the emotions that you've swallowed whole. Your consciousness, your sense of reality, is dying fast. The pain has died out, replaced by numb sensations of being ripped to shreds and remolded. Strings shoved into joints, body melded into the visage of Vector's choice.

The last thing you see before your world disconnects is Vector's hand in your chest, ripping your beloved other self from its safe place within your core.

Even at your worst, you cannot do the bare minimum of protecting yourself.

You truly were the weakest link.

How would tony apologize after a major argument and what was the argument about

Ooooh, that’s a good question. Major arguments would probably have a select few topics. Pre!Iron Man, especially earlier on, and maybe you weren’t quite around when he took over the company, I’d wager there’d be some tension about those weapons deals with the government, where exactly are they going, and after finding blueprints for bombs, exactly how dangerous and brutal these things are, etc. He probably even tried to keep you out of the loop on purpose. I feel like it would be a high-tension topic, and he’d end up defending it with the money it makes, and that you seem so comfortable doing things with that money… you’ll probably never get a real apology, probably not until years later when… well, ya know. He’ll give you a few sorries that’ll just end in makeup sex.

And then, those years later, the whole superhero thing happens. Now he’s flying around, doing something that’s probably very illegal, surely??? And playing with lasers??? That are putting holes in your walls and through your couch, by the way. He’s never in bed, he forgets dates— when he even decides to make one or agree to one. Or when he’s even home!!! It’s stressful, and, well, maybe you two used to talk about a family. How are you gonna do that now?? And he promised you that big vacation a long time ago, when he was still pretty busy but now??? You’re lucky to find him in the lab. He knows it sucks, but he can’t just not do anything. Not after everything else he’s already done :( he can only say sorry, but when he’s home he does start trying… eventually.