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strawberryspence · 2 years

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Hopper first properly meets Steve Harrington when he was only 12 years old. Hopper was patrolling in the afternoon, like he does every afternoon, every morning and every night because you know, he didn’t have anything else to do after moving back to Hawkins after his daughter died. He drowned himself with work, cigarettes and alcohol.

When first sees Steve, he doesn’t even know he was the Harrington’s sole heir. He’s just a kid, a kid too small for his age, and Hopper has to reassure himself that maybe this kid just doesn’t eat enough, it doesn’t mean he’s sick. The kid was carrying planks of woods, too long and too heavy for his frame, hauling it on the side of the street.

Hopper takes pity at the kid and slows down beside him, opening his passenger window.

“Hey, kid. Need help?” The kid looks at him apprehensively. Like no ones ever offered to help him, like he’s actually been alone his whole life.

“I don’t need help.” The kid scoffs back, panting a bit as he carries the wood with struggle.

“Okay? You sure about that?” He hums, nodding, not even sparing him a glance.

“You should bring a wagon with you.” The kid stops on his tracks, realizing that he could have bought a wagon to ease his struggle.

“Thank you, Sir.” He courtly answers before marching to his destination.

Hopper has always been curious, has always wanted to know everything. So he waits for the boy to walk further before following him, the kid walks to the forest and there, Hopper watches as the kid struggles to make… a tree house. Alone. He wonders where are this kid’s parents? Why is no one watching him? The kid goes to the hardware store to buy tools, carries them, builds a tree house half of the day and no one looks for him?

Hopper investigates, goes back to work before going back to the forest, staying hidden and following as the kid goes home. He’s surprised when they enter the rich end of the town, the kid walking all the way down to Loch Nora and… to the massive, always empty, Harrington house.

Oh.

So this was the Harrington kid, alone in the house at the age of 12. Hopper won’t lie, he felt pity for the kid but the burning rage comes first. Because he just buried his kid, the one he wanted for the rest of his life and here’s a kid, who lives alone in a big house with parents that didn’t even care about where their son is.

It becomes a routine, Hopper wakes up, eats some shit breakfast, goes to work, goes for patrols, he uses his lunch break to check on Steve in the forest as he slowly builds his treehouse, he patrols around, checks on Steve again, goes home to eat shit dinner, goes back to the forest, checks what Steve has done, makes sure everything is safe and tight for him, he hammers down nails, because no child should be using that, checks on planks, then he goes home and sleeps. Repeat.

Until halfway through the summer, it stops. The treehouse is almost finished, outside it’s a whole treehouse. But inside, Steve’s still putting finishing touches. At the door, SH is carved out, and inside there’s boxes of food, even clothing and a bed. It’s not a kid’s tree house with toys and chalkboards, Hopper realizes, it’s a safe house away from home.

He only finds out why it stopped when he learns from the newspaper that Steve became one of the best swimmers Hawkins have ever seen and might be growing to be the next basketball captain for Hawkins High.

Steve grows up, throws parties and gives Hopper this look whenever he tries to break up the loud parties. Hopper’s always tries to decipher it, but Steve has always been better at masking what he feels. He tries to keep an eye on the kid, but between him, the Hagan kid throwing too many parties and the Munson kid who he thinks is selling drugs, he doesn’t have enough eyes to focus on just one thing.

Because life is weird, he gets a super-powered kid. The kid he tried to lure out with Eggos. He asks her one night, where she stayed in the middle of winter to keep warm. Eleven answers him, with big brown eyes, hair curling in the ends, “A house, up the tree.” Hopper has to clench his eyes to stop from tearing up, the treehouse Steve built at the age of 12, the place he wanted for refuge, the place Hopper helped built secretly, gave his daughter a safe place to stay.

Steve becomes part of his world, gets his shit rocked, and Hopper wishes he can keep all these kids away from this evil underworld, keep them all in a treehouse where they can just relive their childhoods, free of monsters and blood and death.

Hopper dies.

Hopper comes back.

Hopper does everything he wants to do. He hugs El a little tighter, proposes to Joyce, treats Will and Jonathan like his own sons, they’re little shits but he agrees to as many sleepovers the kids want and he finally, finally keeps an eye on Steve, becomes some semblance of a parent to the kid and tells him that he’s never alone. They never have to fight monsters ever again and maybe they’ll never get over it, maybe they’ll always jump at the slightest blink of a light, will always have to sleep with a weapon, but for now just knowing is good enough.

Now, he’s in Steve’s back porch, swinging on a rocking chair, watching as Steve carries planks of wood with ease. If he squints really hard, he can see 12 year old Steve and it makes his heart clench in nostalgia. There’s a 6 year old screaming, running around, clapping as Steve smiles down at him. Hopper can hear them faintly, as Steve explains what they’re about to do, the steps they’re taking to build a brand new tree house just behind his own home.

“Pa! Pa! Look at my helmet!” The kid comes running when the yard door opens, flailing to his other father as he brandishes the helmet Steve makes him wear when he’s near constructions.

“Well, aren’t you looking metal? Safety’s always important, bug, so good job.” Eddie Munson bends down to kiss the kid on the head before walking to Steve, pulling a wagon full of planks.

Hopper watches as the three try to visualize the tree house, laughing, smiling, just happy. Steve turns to them, waving, turning to whisper something to Eddie before he nods, giving Steve’s temple a kiss and helping his kid hammer the first few planks.

Steve walks up to them, holding out his hand as Hopper passes the second Harrington-Munson kid to his arm.

“Hi, love. Did Peepaw treat you well?” Hopper scoffs, because he still had an image to maintain and yeah, he melts every time the kids of the kids he watched grew up calls him Peepaw but no one has to know that.

The baby in his arm coos, almost like saying a yes. Steve smiles down at her, “We’re building a treehouse right at our backyard, darling. Me, your Pa and your brother. So when you grow up you’ll have a safe space just for the two of you. Just like how Peepaw helped me finished my treehouse when I was younger.”

Hopper blanches, “You know about that?”

Steve laughs quietly, “Yeah. I go home everyday with unfinished work and when I come back the next morning it’s always finish. Also, you don’t hide very well.”

Hopper scrubs his nape in embarrassment, “Oh.”

“Thank you.” Steve whispers, “It was a safe place for me when I was younger. And now I want to build one for the kids too.”

“Your kids will never need a treehouse for anything but playing because yours and Eddie’s home is already a safe place.” Steve makes a choked out sound, as he nods.

Hopper helps build the treehouse with Steve and Eddie. They finish the treehouse in two weeks.

And no one says a thing when Hopper tears up when he sees the wooden door up in the tree house, with SH, EM and the kids initials engraved.

JH is carved at the bottom, written by a 39 year old Steve Harrington, still with the same handwriting as 12 year old Steve Harrington.

#the treehouse becomes like the byers castle 2.0 for the party’s kids #i didnt name the kids #im having a breakdown and wasnt in the capacity to name their future kids #one boy and one girl #steddie headcanon #steddie rants #daeheadcanons #steddie fanfic #jim hopper and steve harrington father and son relationship #jim hopper #steve harrington #steve harrington x eddie munson fluff #tw child trauma

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vampireink · 9 months

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I will have a home one day. It will be warm, and it will be safe. It will have large windows so that it never feels like a prison. It will have comfort and light and colours, and there will be joy echoing off of each of the walls. There will be no shouting in my home. There will be no violence, no harsh words, no abuse ... it will be safe, and it will be my home.

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archie-sunshine · 3 months

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Mb if youve already answered this before, but what are your thoughts on Ratchma? (Not just the sexy bits but also just the. Mess that is their relationship lol)

ooohhh girl....

Ok so this sat in my askbox for a bit, not because I don't have ideas, but because I have... far too many. I FINALLY got my shit together though. Ok first of all I'd like to say this post is a little bit pharma heavy, i feel like I would write my ratchet prettyyyyy close to canon?? I think i take a few big steps away from canonicity with my pharma

SECOND. here's what I think ratchma's vibe was as simply as possible

I think it began pretty normal all things considered!! I think he was a little bit clingy, a bit possessive, but like... it becomes odd when he's feeling like this about someone he's not even dating.

This SHOULD have been mitigated when they started dating. it was not. because Pharma is decent at hiding his weird side, and Ratchet was too busy to notice really, because he had a job and he cared a lot about it.

TW: UNDER THE CUT CONTAINS MENTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ABUSE, CODEPENDENCY, TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS, INSANITY/MENTAL BREAKS, BAD MENTAL HEALTH, AND TRAUMA THOUGH THESE DESCRIPTIONS ARE NOT INCREDIBLY IN DEPTH PLEASE BE SAFE!

During this time I do think pharma's BIG issue was that heeeee can imagine his way through anything. I think he was more in love with the idea of ratchet than he was with how ratchet actually was. I feel like pharma based a lot of his desire for ratchet less on him as a person, and more on his skill as a medic, and the rank he perceived him to have. It wasn't really out of manipulation or power grabbing so much as it was like... an obsession with an idealized version of Ratchet that doesn't really exist.

I feel like obviously that would kind of lead to some mild gaslighting on pharma's part. where if ratchet did something that didn't fit with his worldview, he would act like it didn't happen, talk about it like ratchet did what he wanted. Again, I think he got away with this because Ratchet was genuinely just too fucking busy to deal with it.

I think as well, his downfall was also his possessiveness, I don't think it's too much of a leap to say pharma would have been at best cold to those he saw as a threat to their relationship, and at worst, outwardly combative. I think he'd take a swing either socially or figuratively at whoever was 'in his way' if he thought he could get away with it though.

I think on ratchet's part, it's really difficult to be in a relationship with someone who puts you on a pedestal like that. To know everything you say has a 50/50 chance of going in one ear and out the other if they don't think it 'makes sense' for you to think that

Again, I don't think ratchet was really helpless, but judging by the way he ended his relationship with pharma by canonically GHOSTING HIM, I like making sense of that for ratchet by saying I think he had a few pretty good reasons not to end things properly, namely that pharma probably wouldn't believe him.

SIDE NOTE- PHARMA'S SANITY

Okay so I've seen some discourse about people who think pharma was always totally crazy, so i'd like to start by saying I don't think pharma was as cutthroat and murderous as he was at the end of the delphi arc, I think he's always been a liiiiittle bit off. I think pharma is a tragic character doomed by the narrative, I do think he had a hand in that narrative.

I've put together a helpful little chart here to illustrate!!

I fully believe that pharma was pushed to the brink by the situation with the djd, I think he would never be the person he is now without that situation. I feel like it's kind of stupid and naive to say that pharma was always gonna end up like that bc he was a little toxic and weird and bad for ratchet, I think having to betray your oath and butcher your patients for an insane t-cog addict is enough to really drive someone insane.

I feel like pharma dives off the deep end with wild abandon when he realizes Ratchet has met him again at his absolute worst, bringing around someone he seems to really adore(drift), now knowing that ratchet will never trust him again and that he sees him as a murderer and monster and there's know way he can delude himself out of that. I think he sort of goes 'MAY AS WELL!!! NOTHING MATTERS!! AHAHAHA'

NOW AS FOR. *AHEM* EVERYTHING ELSE.

I think pharma brings all of that possessiveness and insanity directly to bed with him. I think he would do anything for ratchet, i think he wants him so bad it makes him think terrible thoughts. I think he'd dissect that man if he got the chance, I think he's the type of guy to be like 'i gotta crawl into his ribcage or I'm not close enough to him' you know??

basically I think pharma is a simp and wants to rip Ratchet apart with his teeth. I think he would say 'oh yeah ratchet whatever you want to do is fine!' and he would mean 'i would do anything to feel your warmth against me for even one fucking second, youre mine, you are mine forever i will die without you'

on a more lighthearted note, Pharma is the type of guy to be like 'PAH! I WOULD NEVER STOOP SO LOW AS TO HAVE A MEDICAL KINK!!' while having the worlds most massive medical kink. I think if he got to do Ratchet's physical he would cum so hard he died. I think pharma has a thing for control, but he can spin literally any situation in his head so that he's in control, and so no matter what position he's in with Ratchet, he's pretty happy.

With anyone else though, he tops or power bottoms, no question, no room for switching.

OUGHHH GOD THIS WAS WAY WAY LONGER THAN I EXPECTED IT TO BE!!!!! AND GOT SO FUCKIN HEAVY I GUESS!! ANYWAYS!! THANKS FOR TUNING IN!!

#long post #my art #archie answers #transformers #my requests #mtmte #valveplug #/nsfw #but only a little #pharma #ratchet #tw: abuse #tw: trauma #tw: psychological abuse #tw: abusive relationship #ratchma

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compassionatereminders · 11 months

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Getting angry at your abusers isn't inherently toxic and unhealthy. It's actually an important part of healing from what they did to you.

#kat gets serious #recovery #relationships #trauma #trauma tw #abuse tw

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iridiss · 8 months

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I want a (non-canon compliant) Narinder whose gentle.

I want a Narinder who was once a kitten, newly crowned immortal, under Shamura’s careful mentorship. Who grew up the hard way, who learned you have to be rough, loud, mean, manipulative, and maniacal, you have to be bloody and violent and cruel, in order to survive in this world. In order to survive against Leshy and Heket’s brutality and Kallamar’s back-handed cunning. He learned from a family cruel and cold that love was a fool’s game, that sentiment was insignificant, that caring was weakness. So he scoffed at caring for anybody at all and learned how to break and toy with people as if they were dolls, made only for his own consumption and desire. That’s what his siblings told him, that’s what Shamura told him, that’s what his subjects and the fight to survive told him.

But he never saw his toys fit for anything more than the most necessary use, he never let them come any closer than professional arms-reach business, and he made sure to throw them away the second they were no longer strictly necessary. And he hated the cruelty of his siblings. He hated how they treated him, he hated how they made him fight for his fair share. And then he kept rebelling against the doctrine of the Old Faith. He would take the cruel, old, traditional rules of how one was supposed to act, and he would take them more as loose suggestions than anything severely concrete that you had to live by. He would start making up his own rules, or ignoring other rules that he simply didn’t like or deemed “inconvenient.”

He quickly became the black sheep of the “family.”

And then the Gods of The Old Faith betrayed him. And everything he was ever taught became a horrible lie. Everything became unjust. Everything turned into a false, corrupted kingdom that had to be torn down, that he could fix, that he could replace with something better. He tore it all down, violently lashing out against the family he had trusted, the family he had followed to the end of the road at his own expense, tearing them apart with his own two hands, because the scars he bore over the years became far too fucking loud to bear. Because everything had been a lie all along. Everything had been wrong, this whole damn time.

And they killed him for it. He screamed so loud about their lies that they simply had to smother the sound. They murdered their own brother—if he was ever a real “brother” to them at all, or nothing more than another religious heir to a crooked throne.

He was a God turned exiled heretic.

So he’d make his own fucking kingdom instead. He would undo everything, and start anew, following the doctrine he always knew was better. What he thought was superior. But problem is, it’s not that easy to shake off the entirety of one’s religious upbringing overnight. He was still clinging on. He would scream and shout about the incongruities and arrogance of The Old Faith all damn day—but then he’d keep Aym and Baal, a gift from his old mentor and oldest sibling, close to his side. He would call them fools and tyrants and wretched liars, but he’d remember the Darkwood flowers with a fondness, yearning to stand in his brother’s flower fields again someday. He would stay in the Lamb’s cult, when he could easily become a constant dissenter and leave like any other follower, when he could attack them, maybe even kill them, at any given moment. He doesn’t. He stays. He clings on to the fondness. He never fully let go of that old sentimental feeling.

I want a Narinder who doesn’t understand what love looks like, because the closest thing he’d ever known to true, honest love growing up was the scraps he’d receive from a withdrawn and uncertain Shamura. Those rare moments where Shamura was kind, warm, gentle, full of love, when he’d listen to the lullabies and the poems that they would weave to put him to sleep, when he’d be wrapped up in the blankets of their webs and their nests. When they would give him gifts.

When they gave him their final gift.

He doesn’t understand love. He was trained to view it as weakness. He still feels deeply, severely insecure about showing said weakness, he doesn’t want to face the severe and violent consequences of welcoming it. There’s a part in him deep down that understands devotion, that already internally understands what real trust, respect, loyalty, and integrity looks like. But it’s buried deep, under layers upon layers of indoctrination, manipulation, fear, insecurity, doubt, ungodly amounts of pain, and rage. He has enough of a natural moral compass to be able to tell when someone’s entire belief system is flawed or fucked up, and he has enough justice in him to want to tear the entire damn world apart from the ground up. Even if it’s just in the name of avenging the kitten in him that was forced to die all those centuries ago.

He isn’t aware of it. He doesn’t understand what’s going on inside of him. He’s never even taken an introspective glance at himself and why he feels everything that he does, he’s never even asked himself why everything hurts so much beyond the simple “my siblings betrayed me, therefore they all must die as they killed me” surface level. Frankly he’s too scared to look, so he pushed it all away and easily leans on the grinning, devilish, mean mask he always depended on before.

Then I want a Lamb that’s everything he ever needed. Literally, yes, as the vessel prophesied to save him, but also emotionally.

The Lamb had everything taken away from them by The Old Faith. They were killed and thrown away to Narinder’s feet like a broken toy. They want to destroy the doctrine of the Old Faith, they want to rip the world apart from the ground up and completely start anew. They share Narinder’s moral core, his drive for justice, his drive for revenge.

But they also learn, through their own cult, how to rule with love and mercy. They save and spare each follower individually, they marry their own followers, they cook for them, clean for them, house them, decorate for them, they love their followers. They learn that there is value and strength in utilizing the “sentiment and care” that the Bishops deemed as weakness. Literally: one of the best and most overpowered mechanics of the game is building your friendship level with your followers. You can’t live without them. You are their servant as much as they are one to you.

And when Narinder demonstrates his upbringing at its fullest by betraying Lamb and throwing them away like they were nothing more than a toy—The Lamb spares him, too.

I want to express to you how much that means, especially to him. I mean, hell, Narinder wasn’t spared by his own family. But instead, this tool, now proven Almighty God, gave him a level of grace that he wasn’t even allowed to fathom before. There couldn’t be a stronger, faster way to take a wake-up-sledgehammer to someone’s childhood manipulation. The Lamb was sent to destroy every last trace of the Old Faith, and I don’t think Narinder ever considered the extent of what that entailed.

He’d been lied to his entire childhood, being told that heart was weakness, that kindness would be his downfall, that sentiment was heresy. And yet here was a God besting him and every other deity/bishop in the land, and still cleaning up their servants’ shit with a broom. And I like to think that Narinder would undergo a massive change during his time in the cult.

He’d start off hostile and vicious and mean, because he’s still convinced that the Lamb betrayed him and “betrayal” is kind of a very emotionally heated topic for the guy right now. Even if the Lamb actually did the opposite of what his siblings did to him. He’s also terrified, confused, lost, and he certainly doesn’t trust any of the flowery, overly friendly mortals getting all touchy-feely with him.

But maybe he starts to show a little more wistfulness and nostalgia through his side-quests, maybe he’s trying to gauge how trustworthy the Lamb is by asking them to bring him special items from his childhood, and when they follow suit, he dips his toe in the water and shows just a little bit more of his heart, a tiny, itty bitty fragment. And then they don’t hurt him for it. They treat him with the same kindness they give to all of their followers.

And over time, he starts to see that the Lamb’s dominion is one of safety. All of their safety had been violently torn from them in the hunt for the last lamb, so now they do everything in their power to make their cult a home. And they welcome Narinder into that home, and Narinder is safe, and he’s loved, and he’s taken care of, and he’s respected, and he becomes one with the community. The Lamb is able to rule like this and still keep their power. And actually, their power is tripled by their bond with their people! Their kindness literally becomes a strength, and Narinder has never seen anything like it before, but they pull it off! In fact, the Lamb literally defied and beat Narinder into the ground because they weren’t willing to give up their home and their people.

I think he’d come to see The Lamb very differently over time. He’d go from seeing them only as an insignificant weapon for someone else’s use (possibly projecting a lot onto them), to bring in total awe of them, to learning that they’re trustworthy and safe, to seeing them as an equal.

I think they’d be two halves of the same whole. They understand each other in ways that no one else ever will. They’re the Gods of Death, past and future, they belong to the same power. They sit on this throne together. They teach each other everything they ever needed. They’re immortals together. Lamb once served Narinder in total devotion, then Narinder served Lamb in total devotion, and now they’re equals in every conceivable way. They have literally trusted each other with their lives. They were forged in very similar religious trauma and bloodshed, they were there at each other’s darkest time, working as a team. They’re vengeance-bonded. They saved each other. They spared each other, gave the other a second chance. They made each other better. Bonded in blood, divine vows, death, and resurrection. They are THE POWER TEAM.

As their bond grows, Narinder would end up letting his repressed soft side shine through. I can see him allowing himself to be kind for the first time, learning to recognize that not only is it safe for him to care here, it’s fully embraced and encouraged. The Lamb will punish him if he’s too mean to one of their followers. He can be gentle here, he can let his guard down and unwind. So he does, and he becomes a whole new cat. The Lamb eventually trusts him with leadership positions in the cult, until they’re ruling side by side, as they should. Narinder moves on from any desperate reach for power, because he’s secure enough in himself to know he doesn’t need to fight for it anymore. He would fight and die for Lamb as much as they would fight and die for him. They’ve given him true sanctuary, true family. True devotion.

#Narinder my symbol and my sponge for all religious trauma #tw religious trauma #tw religion #tw religious abuse #they are ‘wow I’m not crazy’ by AJR #true devotion #cult of the lamb #cotl Narinder #cotl lamb #narilamb #but it also works for a platonic or other relationship between them #cotl headcanons #iridiswrites

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loveyourlovelysoul · 11 months

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Sometimes we desire a relationship cause we think we may heal everything about us through it. We think the other person has all the answers for us, and will solve our own puzzle. Truth is, the other person is just another person exactly like us, with their own issues and life to live, and we cannot expect them to heal us too. We can surely ask for help, for support, as we can give ours to them, but... most of the work is still up to us. We need to do our part: we need to come closer to them too, to compromise (on what we can), to stand our ground too when necessary, and to be fair, vulnerable and open. No matter what we learned in our childhood (very likely when we had to take care of our emotionally unstable/immature caregivers), we cannot have someone else doing all the job for us. No matter how much we want to feel less alone, we also need to give others the chance to get inside of our world. We need to let down some walls in order for this to happen for real. We need to learn to trust again (and trust that we're strong enough to survive if by any chance the other will leave us -it doesn't have to be our fault anyway, it can be just life).

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dual-cetacean · 29 days

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"The Shatterverse is saved, the prism shards are back where they belong, and Green Hill Zone is restored. However, Nine cannot let go. Afraid the Roses and Shadow won’t be fast enough to save Sonic, they chase after them — accidentally flying into the gateway, too. Now locked out of their universe, and more importantly, the Grim, what is a lonely number 9 supposed to do?"

*Edit*

Chapter log

Season 1

Situation 1: So much (for) Prism dust (↑) Situation 2: I’m your best friend, I’m your family. Situation 3: Tea and Toast. Situation 4: Lonely Heart's Club (unavailable) Situation 5: Stranger in a Strange Land (unavailable) Situation 6: I hope, pray you bite your tongue (unavailable). Situation 7: Capital T, but Trouble looks for me (unavailable). Situation 8: Star-Crossed Brothers. (unavailable)

Heyo! I know that this series ended months ago, but this cartoon has me in a head grip. This has been cooking since February, and I'm finally ready to post it after two full months of working on it. I enjoyed season 3 and the rest of the series but was unsatisfied with the ending. So, for everyone like me who wants more out of the story, I hope you enjoy this, especially for the ones whose favourite character is Nine, like me. Plenty of other characters will also appear in it, but for now, it Nine centric.

I am incredibly proud of the cover art I made and put a lot of effort into it. Making all those renders for the characters was a serious undertaking, but it looks great, and I had a lot of fun figuring out how to paint foam and water.

I also made a playlist for this fic so if you're looking for fitting music, here it is! (Current and future chapter titles are also inspired by these songs)

The cover ver without the other characters in the water is under keep reading

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