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professional-yapper · 3 months

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This is for the anon who's ask I unfortunately lost when I accidentally posted this fic prematurely 😭😭 I'm so sorry nonnie please forgive me 🙏

Anon asked for an Aonung X reader where the reader is a Na'vi from a colder region!

The Deal

Aonung x Snow/Mountain Na'vi! Reader

Warnings: none really, mild head injury ig, aonung is so painfully ooc im sorry guys

Sempu: Dad/Daddy [informal version of father] - tsyeym: treasure, something precious

The call that land had been sighted went up shortly after dawn.

You were shaken from dreams of seals and shimmering landscapes by your father rising from the mat beside yours, rubbing a hand over his face blearily as he went to see for himself.

He was bare-chested and barefoot, wearing only pants, rolled up to his knees, as many of your fellow traders were, though the women kept their chest wrappings on for obvious reasons, having abandoned their warm furs and skins upon leaving the homeland.

You yourself were dressed simply for sleep, one of your father's old shirts, so worn thin from years of work it was perfect for the tropical climate you all had stumbled upon.

Some of the other traders had hopes of seeking out the reef, home of the aptly named reef people. You knew them by no other name. If they even had one.

Your own people were named in such a way that it couldn't be replicated here. A thin whistling noise made through the teeth, a mimicry of the icy wind that swirled across the snow covering the homeland.

But you also knew your father had no such hopes. The reef was too far, the surrounding seas too dangerous, filled with fantastical creatures that none of you could name. The not knowing was the worst part.

There was no way you could've found your way to the reef. And yet, soon, the boat was alive with traders running to redirect the vessel towards the land, calling and yipping to one another excitedly.

You sat, yawning and stretching, ears tilting downwards with the effort, the furs sliding off you as you did.

Your father smiled at you as he passed, reaching out to ruffle your hair, so like your mother's, though it had been months since you last saw her. "Come, tsyeym. Take a look. It's beautiful."

Unlike anything he had ever seen before, his eyes said as he glanced back towards the land, which came into view more strongly now, the last wisps of the fog snatched up and away by the brisk breeze.

You shifted onto your knees, leaning forward on your hands, still too sleepy to be bothered standing up, drinking in the sight laid before you greedily. A sky streaked with purple and crimson, and a sea stretching before you that reflected that.

So many sunrises, and each one as entrancing as the one before.

The reef was well within your sights now, and you could even see little figures, aqua blue in colour, high up on the layers of rock, probably coming to investigate.

Your father and a few other traders waved to them, but earned no response.

Instead, the reef people climbed down the rock levels and dove neatly into the sea, disappearing from you. You frowned. Where were they going? Were they coming towards the boat to see what you all wanted, or were they going to summon one of those mythical creatures to frighten you off?

Not sharing your father's natural optimistic personality, you stood and went over to him, tugging on his arm. "Sempu, maybe we should-"

"Look how fast they can swim, tsyeym," your father responded in a dreamy voice, watching the water, eyes fixed on them, and their forms cutting through the water became clearer to you the longer you stared. "They're made for this."

"We are not," you replied briskly, once again your mother's daughter with your practical personality. "Sempu, if they tip the boat-"

"Ah, my child. You worry too much," your father chuckled, wrapping a beefy arm around you and hugging you to his chest briefly, before striding off to help the other traders.

You huffed, but dared to move a few steps closer to the edge of the boat, following the reef people as they swam ever nearer, eyes narrowed with suspicion, hands fumbling for the fish knife that sat at your hip that you'd forgotten to take off after yesterday's evening meal.

Which also explained how uncomfortable sleeping on your side had been. Though obviously not uncomfortable enough to investigate. But nevertheless, you drew it and dropped to a crouch on the lip of the wood, gripping tightly with your fingers to keep yourself from tipping into the water, head over heels.

The reef people were close now, so close you could make out individual traits of each one. A few men, by the looks of it. Warriors, maybe. You frowned. You didn't care for warriors. The ones back home had biceps bigger than their brains, and mouths bigger than their biceps. The title of warrior was gifted as a show of strength and bravery, not intelligence or anything like that.

But you supposed it might be different here.

One of the men was actually a boy, judging by his smaller body and lack of tattoos. You leaned forward, trying to see better as they drew nearer, then swam entirely under the boat. Your frown grew. What were they doing?

Leaning further, further...

Then one of the reef people burst right out of the water before you, nose bumping against yours. You yelped, reeling back, dropping your knife in your shock.

There was a heavy moment of silence as you and the reef boy stared at each other.

He wasn't unpleasant. Just weird-looking. Hairless, like a fish. Pale and green and pink, with eyes like glaciers and dark curls that kept escaping the bun on the crown of his head.

You supposed by reef people standards he was quite attractive. By your standards too, but you couldn't even admit that to yourself.

"What are you?" he said finally, treading water and staring at you.

His attractiveness evaporated.

"What kind of a question is that?" you demanded, glaring back at him.

"I am the chief's son, you answer me first!"

You felt a headache coming on already. "That- how old are you? You sound like a little kid. And we don't recognise any kind of leadership, anyway, so take your title and stick it up your ass, princeling."

If looks could kill, you'd have just dropped dead.

He didn't say anything for a moment, taking a deep breath, ears flat against his head and nostrils flaring. Then, "Fine. I may have been too abrupt."

"A bit," you scoffed, earning another scowl from him.

"Let me finish. What I meant was; you're not like any Na'vi I've ever seen or heard of."

"So?" you replied, feeling too offended to even bother faking civility.

"So I want to know what kind of Na'vi you are. What's your tribe?" he said, ears flattening further, eyes dark and wet as he looked up at you, water lapping against his broad shoulders and chest.

"We're traders from up north. Our name is-" You made the sound for him, but the look on his face told you he wasn't going to even attempt to mimic it.

"We're Metkayina," he offered. "My name is Aonung."

"Oh," you hummed, making a note to tell your father the reef people had a name. You deliberated for a moment on whether or not to tell this rude fish boy Aonung your name, then decided not to.

And of course Aonung took offense to that too. "Aren't you going to tell me yours?" At least, you thought he would take offense. But he sounded almost amused, his expression shifting to something almost playful as he swam a little closer.

"Why should I?" you replied haughtily, curling your thick tail around your toes, hugging your knees to your chest. "You're kind of a skxwang."

Aonung laughed a little. "I get that a lot. I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to offend you. Seriously. I didn't know you'd take it to heart."

You raised your eyes skyward, asking Eywa if this boy was serious. "You've got to be kidding. You hit me in the face then looked at me and asked what I was, like I was a dead animal you found floating in on the dawn tide."

"I did not look at you like that."

"You did! I saw you."

"I wasn't looking at you like that!"

Your sudden laughter surprised even you. "Okay, fine, you weren't looking at me like that," you relented, leaning forward. "What were you looking at me like then?"

He smiled at you, fangs pressing into his bottom lip a little. "Like I said. I wasn't looking at you any way."

You rolled your eyes. "You're infuriating. Are all reef boys this annoying?"

"Maybe. You should come find out," he said slyly.

"Sure, if your chief wants to make a trading agreement with us."

"My dad's the chief. I can talk to him if you want," he offered, and you noticed he was swimming closer to you ever so slightly, like if he moved slowly enough you wouldn't notice.

"Why would you do that?" you prompted teasingly, tilting your head to one side. "Want me to stick around?"

He shrugged, feigning innocence. "I could care less."

You couldn't help another laugh bubbling up and out of you, warmth filling your chest at being able to talk and banter with another teen your age. Even if said teen was kind of a douche. "Sure. Just admit it. You wanna know more about me."

"Well, I still don't know your name, so you could start with that," he pointed out.

"Sure," you repeated. "Get your dad to make a trading agreement with us and I'll tell you whatever you wanna know."

"Deal," he said, shifting forward, hoisting himself up on the edge of the boat, partially leaning over you, blocking out the light of the rising sun, eyes glittering with amusement as he looked down at you.

Great Mother. His attractiveness had returned with full force.

Broad chest, strong shoulders, a perfect body by the standards of your people. The dark curls, the colour and texture still so foreign to you despite all the different Na'vi you've met. The eyes, like precious gems held up to the sunlight. The water running down said broad chest in little rivulets, glistening and catching your eyes even as you tried to stop yourself.

You stared up at him for a second, wondering what in Eywa's name he was doing, before you realised he was holding out his hand to you.

You shook it.

Christ ALMIGHTY it's gonna be another multi chapter lads. Let me know if you want to be tagged in any future chapters x

#atwow #avatar #avatar 2 #avatar x reader #avatar fanfiction #aonung #aonung x reader #aonung fanfiction

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foundfamilywhump · 6 months

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serious word of warning about a server that's been making the rounds

i've debated about making this post a lot, for a lot of reasons. i'm concerned about making it as a trans person and as a relatively new blog, though i've been involved in the whump community for years. i hope you'll hear me out and i'm not looking forward to whatever backlash may come my way, should anyone actually pay attention to this at all.

the short version is: the whump discord server 'whump lovers collaborate' (@/whumplovers-collaborate) is unsafe and hostile to trans people and the server owner will not take action to shut down transphobia, nor will she allow her mod team to do so. i am certain this would apply to other bigotries as well. i know this because i am trans, and when i called out some disgustingly transphobic commentary being made by a member of the server i was blamed for causing drama, essentially, and there was a rule added to the server not to talk about 'controversial topics' or get into arguments, and that was all that was done.

the much longer version is under the cut. i just can't sit on this anymore after seeing that the server got advertised in the whumptober server (to no fault of the whumptober mods who didn't know about any of this, they're fine) and also seeing hundreds of notes on posts broadcasting it. this server is unsafe for trans people and the server owner is actively enabling bigots. given the whump community has a bit of a transphobia problem in some places, i wanted to make sure no trans person or ally was unwittingly walking into that without warning. i'd appreciate it if you would spread the word as well, to keep trans community members and allies safe.

so, here's what happened:

i was in the whump lovers collaborate server for a while earlier this year. in february, a member of the server started spouting off some extremely transphobic rhetoric, including talking about inherent biological differences between men and women, that women are inherently and unchangeably weaker than men, that men have a 'biological instinct' to protect women, and other things. (there was also some bizarre commentary about how abuse or assault committed against men was inherently less upsetting, and often funny to witness because of this).

seeing this and being unwilling, as both a trans person and someone who believes it is important to not let bigotry go unchallenged, i stepped in and called out these statements for being both factually untrue and steeped in both misogyny and transphobia. this person and i went around and around in circles as he asked 'genuine questions' which were just thinly veiled excuses to continue needling me on the subject. eventually, i shut it down by saying that this was not the appropriate venue for a transphobic cis person to get educated about the nuance of the trans experience and trans issues, but what he was saying was transphobic and he needed to stop now that he'd been told that.

throughout this interaction, mods were emoji-reacting and responding to other things. at no point did any mod step in to help me or shut down the transphobia or at all intervene in what was happening. after i shut things down for good, one of the mods said 'thanks for keeping everything respectful' which was a truly laughable thing to have said in that situation.

after this, the server owner made an announcement that said, among a few other things about Not Fighting: "Friendly reminder that we are all here because of what we have in common, our love of writing We are not here to debate controversial issues Or say harmful opinions If you cannot hold a conversation without being civil and without escalating conflict, back away from the channel, and cool down All involved in a conflict are responsible for turning a chill space sour No matter how right you think you are (I’m not saying no mention of controversial things is allowed per se, I’m saying be civil, if that means avoiding controversial topics, avoid away)"

this is not an appropriate response to one person espousing blatant transphobia (among other disgusting views) and being called on it. a rule was added that if a mod or the server owner asked you to change the subject from a topic, you had to do so immediately and there should be no more discussion of it 'by any of the participants'. no rule was present to begin with making clear that bigotry was not tolerated, nor was one added.

subsequently, the server owner made it clear she had no interest in protecting marginalized community members, and that she blamed me for what happened because i refused to allow rampant transphobia to proceed unchecked.

when either asked by other server members about what happened or when asking server members who left why they left (which is a weird thing to do on its own) the server owner responded by essentially throwing a fit and asking what she was supposed to do? kick the transphobe out? she whined about how the person saying something should be done about the transphobe was assuming that she hadn't already done anything.

(she also said that she hadn't done anything. the person was not warned, muted, banned, there were no consequences. but she whined about the assumption that she hadn't done anything about it.)

she also said that it wasn't just the transphobe's fault. "[transphobe] was not the only one at fault there in that others contributed to the conflict by engaging them, drawing out more of their unpleasant opinions. If I punished [problem person] alone, the others might think that they were in the right" that is a direct quote from the server owner. i was clearly the person she was speaking about, and she refused to enforce consequences on the transphobe because that might lead to me thinking that it was okay to call out transphobia and protect myself and other trans people in that space.

when i spoke to a few of the other mods about what happened, the response was disappointing, to put it mildly. the mod team had apparently tried to argue with her and get her to enforce a no bigotry policy but she was afraid of causing arguments and didn't want to deal with conflict, and so refused to do so. this is not acceptable behaviour for someone who is in charge of such a large space. you cannot be this conflict-averse and also run a server of hundreds of people, especially if the outcome is protecting bigots.

the mods i spoke to also got defensive and upset when i pointed out that by not expressing disagreement with the owner's actions and by throwing up their hands and saying 'oh well, nothing we can do!' they were also tacitly endorsing transphobia and a community that protects transphobes at the expense of trans people. they were unwilling to do anything in the moment, and failed to do anything after the fact either.

i have screenshots and proof of all of these events, but i didn't add them here bc i didn't want to make this even longer. please feel free to contact me directly if you would like any further information or to see proof of what i have mentioned here.

in short:

please do not join this server. you will not be protected there, as the server owner cares more about making it as big and as popular as possible than she does about keeping her server bigot-free. please do not promote this server or allow this server to be promoted in your own spaces either. please do your part to keep trans people in the whump community safe.

#whump #whump community #whumpblr #idk what else to tag this with ugh #long post

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rwrbmovie · 9 months

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#RWRBMovie: deleted scenes

Matthew López:

The Cornetto scene. The breakfast scene at Kensington Palace. Everybody’s wondering what happened to the scene [at] the campfire. You know, in the course of making a movie and in the course of telling a story — runtime is less important in the streaming age than it is in theatrical distribution, but what was important to me is that the film be the right length. You cut things for pacing. You never want the audience to get ahead of you, you never want the audience to be bored. You know, there was originally a whole scene where Alex comes to the polo match. He meets Princess Bea. Henry and Alex have a little exchange after Henry gets off the horse. They go to the tack room together. What we found as we were watching the film was that Nick and Taylor were so good together in the scene prior, in Alex's bedroom. And actually when we did a version of that scene in Alex's bedroom, we got a note from the studio, from producers, asking if we could try and make that scene shorter. “It’s good, but it’s long.” So we did our first test screening and I did a shortened version of that scene in Alex's bedroom. I was really hesitant to cut it back. But I wanted to be a good collaborator and prove that I can take a note and I'm willing to try things. We actually got more than a few comments back literally saying, “We wish that scene were longer.” So that, of course, was great for me. That scene in Alex's bedroom is the entire scripted scene. There's not a single cut from the script to the final cut. As a consequence, though, of that being a rather lengthy scene, I needed to then regain momentum. We've spent it all on this scene and it's worth it because that scene between the two of them is so dynamic and wonderful. But now we gotta get things going again. So, I had a new editor come in halfway through because my first editor, Christina Heatherington, who's wonderful, had another project that she had committed to doing. And our post dates got extended a bit and she had to leave, so Nick, my new editor coming in, took a look and he says, “I wanna try something with that polo match.” He spent a weekend of his own time doing something, and then he was ready to show me. He sat me down and said, “I’ve done something crazy.” I’m like, “Great. We love crazy.” He showed me what was largely the version of the polo match that is in the film and with that music. I was laughing with glee the whole time I'm watching it. He was nervous, 'cause he is taking like six minutes of story and condensed it into two and a half minutes. But it has so much drive. It's sexy. It tells the story. It was a real lesson for me as a first time filmmaker: if you expand time, then you need to maybe also learn how to contract time. So that was a big lesson to me in pacing. With the Cornetto scene — that scene in Kensington Palace Gardens, it does everything I needed it to do. Weirdly, the Cornetto scene actually relieved some of the tension between them. I was like, look, if you take the Cornetto scene out, then the tension from that first scene remains when they go into the interview scene. I learned a lot of it is about taking the energy from one scene and using it to help you get into the next scene. One of the things I learned as a playwright, which I found was applicable to cutting a movie, is if a scene isn't working, it might not be the scene itself. It might be the scene before. “Why isn’t the interview scene playing as well as we think it should?” Look at what came before: the Cornetto scene … The Cornetto scene is charming. But we also understood, narratively speaking, it was unnecessary. And more to the point, it sapped the tension out.

(source)

#rwrb movie #red white and royal blue #interviews #matthew lopez #pls prime we need these deleted scenes

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wovenstarlight · 4 months

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I got an interesting anonymous ask on the SFS Tumblr asking about the reasoning behind a bunch of Yoohyun's decisions that had… less-than-stellar outcomes, let's say? (LMAO.) and I'd like to keep the TL blog clean so I'm answering Anon here. I'm gonna post their ask in full for reference, because the answers to each individual question overlap:

Hi, thank you very much for your time, energy and effort. What you are doing is really amazing and admirable. I know you are busy enough and I shouldn't trouble you, but after reading the manhwa, I had questions about Yoohyun's logic and sentiment, and I became more confused after reading the novel and I don't know who to ask. Please ignore my message if it's to much trouble. 1: Why doesn't Yoohyun spend the last years of his life on earth peacefully with Yoojin, even though he knows that the world will end soon? 2: What did Yoohyun accomplish by leaving and humiliating Yoojin that he was persistent to do it for so many years? 3: Why instead of using his forces and technologies to protect Yoojin, he announces to the world that it is open season on him and he is worthless? (Normaly no one dares to harm the family of an S class but Yoohyun expose Yoojin to danger by abandoning him.) 4: Why does Yoohyun stop protecting Yoojin when the most dangerous part of Yoojin's life as an F class hunter begins? (Using his influence he could easily ban Yoojin from entering dungeons. Or he could have secretly formed a group of the most powerful hunters to go with Yoojin to dungeons. This way he could have provided him with everything he needed and keep him safe. That is, if he had any intention of protecting him.) 5: Why would Yoohyun gain all that resources, power, wealth and connections and he sit around and does nothing so that Yoojin would face death every day and rot in the basement? He gain all that for what, if not for protecting Yoojin? 6: Why doesn't he ever change his procedure or provide new options for Yoojin to stop going to dungeons? (Yoojin has no chance for a peaceful life due to not having a degree and being a notorious person. And he doesn't know about that cult.) Yoojin got to see his 30 years old birthday cause the cult didn't feel like killing him and he took care of himself in dungeons and was lucky that only his legs broke. So why would Yoohyun identify as a doting brother? The more I think about it the less I understand.

(crossposted on AO3, if you'd prefer to read there)

Okay, so, I'm really prone to rambling at length and this is a subject I have strong feelings on, so I'll give you a very short version of my answer in bullet points, and then a longer version with proper chapter-specific references and full explanations of what I think was going on.

Yoohyun wants to repay Yoojin for all the care and love he's given him, but as a 17-year-old, he doesn't have much social power

Yoohyun's Awakening puts himself and anyone he loves (i.e. Yoojin) in a dangerous position, because while he has individual physical power as an S-rank, he still lacks social power and also can't singlehandedly protect Yoojin 24/7

Yoohyun, in all his rash 17-year-old glory, takes the drastic action of cutting off Yoojin, planning to build up enough power to protect Yoojin and then reunite with him. Yoojin, as just your ordinary everyday 22-year-old, faces no risks other than people targeting him in order to hurt Yoohyun (I don't agree that no one would dare to harm the family of an S-rank, for reasons I'll elaborate on later in the long answer), so if Yoohyun's not close to Yoojin, then that cuts it down to "no risks at all", right…? So tell the media, tell the world, that no, Han Yoohyun doesn't give a shit about Han Yoojin. Yoohyun assumes he'll be able to explain it all to Yoojin one day and that he'll understand. (This should answer your Question 2 and Q3.)

But it doesn't work out as expected. Yoohyun thought it'd take much less time to establish his position than it does in reality (the assumed 4-ish years ended up as 6+ years). Also, Yoojin's gone from trying to make up with Yoohyun in a way that'll let them be together again (not going to happen, because Yoohyun's still not ready to bring Yoojin back into the fold) to being in his own terrible situation, so he's started lashing out at Yoohyun. So even if Yoohyun was in a stable enough situation to try reconciling with him, Yoojin might not be open to it by this point

Somewhere along the way, Yoohyun learns from the filial duty addict Diarma the world is going to end. He doesn't drop everything and go to live with Yoojin because even now, there's still the concern that maybe Yoohyun won't be able to protect Yoojin from everything, and maybe Yoojin doesn't want Yoohyun around, anyway. There's no use in going to live with Yoojin if it'll just end up getting Yoojin killed through Yoohyun's inaction (Q1).

So Yoohyun keeps maintaining his guild and his power so he can keep protecting Yoojin from what he thinks are the Real Threats. (Because the worlds of low- and high-rank Hunters are VERY different. Yoohyun probably assumes that because Yoojin's not facing the high-rank Hunter dangers, he's facing no dangers—a stupid but understandable mistake, given that Yoojin also assumed the exact same thing in reverse about Yoohyun! It sucks, it really does, but I really do think Yoohyun just… didn't realize just how bad it was.) (Q5) And the world can end whenever it wants; if there's no challenging it, then at least Yoohyun's kept Yoojin safe in the meantime.

And the one danger they have in common, dungeons—you suggest Yoohyun banning Yoojin from entering any, but Yoohyun's cut himself off from Yoojin entirely, remember. Trying to interfere in his life would be met with (a) STRONG rejection by a deeply hurt Yoojin who doesn't understand why Yoohyun thinks he has any say in Yoojin's life anymore, and (b) interest by Yoohyun's rivals, who'd wonder why he's trying to keep his hyung away from dangers when he says he doesn't care about that hyung's wellbeing, putting Yoojin right back in their crosshairs. (Q4)

Also, the immoral people have been killing Caregivers of S-ranks. Diarma might have told Yoohyun about this. If he did, then Yoohyun's goals would definitely have gone from "stay strong and one day reconcile with hyung" to "NEVER get close to hyung, because there are beings outside this world, much more powerful than anything I can match in a reasonable timespan, who will 100% kill him". At which point, even if Yoohyun had wanted to reconcile with him, or compromise by just adjusting his plan and talking to Yoojin a little more, or literally anything past making a show of total and complete indifference, he couldn't have without knowingly risking Yoojin's life. (Q6)

You and I and all the other S-Ranks readers, removed from this situation as we are, can think of half a dozen ways Yoohyun could probably have gotten around things. But the simple fact is that in that situation, under that much pressure, with that much emotional attachment to his brother and literally everything that mattered to him at stake if he fucked up in the tiniest of ways—forget making perfect decisions, there was absolutely no way Yoohyun was going to do anything other than what seemed least risky. Because to do otherwise would be risking Yoojin’s life and therefore his own. And the choices you’ve already mades, the path you’re already on—no matter how bad it is for you, no matter how bad it is for the people you love, no matter how much it hurts—will always, always be less risky than the unknown path, because at least this way, you know what dangers to expect and brace for. At the core of the matter, it’s just that… the path that was best for Yoojin's happiness wasn't the path that was best for Yoojin's life expectancy, you see? And Yoojin can't be happy if he's dead. Yoohyun can't be alive if Yoojin's dead. That's all it came down to.

……oh my god that was so long actually. And that was supposed to be the TL;DR. The long version is going to be SO long. I hope you like reading 50-page passionate essays. There's a poll at the end, you can look forward to that!!!

(Also, okay, before we jump into the Deep End. Two disclaimers.

Anon, you said you read the manhwa and novel, but I read only the novel, so some of my chapter references might be unfamiliar. I know they shuffled events around a little in the webtoon, too, so I'll try and describe the general events so you can find any webtoon parallels.

Yoojin's a REALLY unreliable narrator and definitely doesn't know a lot of what Yoohyun's gone through. Part of that is because there's things he has no way to pick up on or deduce; part of that is because he wants to not think about Yoohyun going through bad shit; part of that is because Yoohyun doesn't want Yoojin worrying about him and has actively hidden the worse parts of his life from him. So a fair part of what I'm talking about is going to be reading between the lines and extrapolating.

Okay, disclaimers done!) Now on to the long version with references. Let's go point-by-point based on the TL;DR.

#1: Yoohyun wanting to repay Yoojin

I mean, the skill's called Last/Final Repayment! Isn't that enough? Where did you think that came from? There certainly wasn't anything Yoojin wanted to repay Yoohyun for.

Okay, no, more seriously. Yoohyun and Yoojin have grown up with only each other to depend on. Yoohyun has watched Yoojin take care of him alone their whole lives, with no outside support, keeping a roof over their head and their stomachs filled. For Yoohyun's sake, Yoojin has given up:

A complete education, with Yoojin having "dropped out of school to take care of his little brother", as mentioned in chapter 1.

A proper social life. In chapter 25, Yoojin says his friends in his early 20s were "middle-aged factory workers" instead of people his own age.

Hobbies. He says to Yerim and Myeongwoo in chapter 45 that one of his "few hobbies" is taking spam calls, but his character profile from the E-books volume 1 confirms it's his only hobby, and one that's now fading… which leaves him with zero personal interests. (The spam calling thing is almost certainly something that sprouted from loneliness in the years that the brothers were separated, by the way. After all, why would Yoojin waste time listening to some stranger on the phone talk to him about something he doesn’t care about? Most likely because there isn’t—wasn’t—really anyone else who’s willing to talk to him, anymore.)

The sole birthday present of "a 10,000 won bill to buy something tasty to have with his friends" he got from their parents, which "would be used for Han Yoohyun’s birthday. As [it was] every year", as mentioned in chapter 239, during Yoohyun’s flashback to childhood.

And Yoohyun, a helpless child, could only watch as Yoojin gave up all of that, to no real benefit of his own, just to focus all his attention and resources on supporting Yoohyun.

By the time he was in middle school, Yoohyun was already talking about becoming a doctor since it'd be "advantageous in a lot of aspects"; he says he "just wanted to make it so you [Yoojin] could live comfortably" (chapter 258). Yoojin wouldn't have to be the sole earner, and would've been able to pursue his own happiness as well as Yoohyun's. Yoohyun wants very badly for Yoojin to not have to worry about him anymore. It makes sense that that sentiment would remain even after he Awakened.

#2: Yoohyun's Awakening

And boy what an Awakening it was! Straight from a random orphaned kid with zero social life and decent grades to one of the world's most desirable and dangerous individuals, basically overnight. He has none of the social sway that the rich and well-connected Sung Hyunjae or the professional athletes Moon Hyuna and Choi Sukwon do, and he refuses to get the help of big corporations like Choi Sukwon and Bak Mingyu (and Yoon Kyeongsoo? I forget if Soodam was also a corp-backed guild). So he's got no power, but he's also declared his intent to create a guild, and that combined with his nature as a born S-rank makes people perceive him as a threat. Maybe not so much in the early days, when people think he's just an arrogant, stupid kid who's going to crash and burn, but definitely more so as time passed, which Sung Hyunjae confirms in chapter 152:

“[Han Yoohyun] was at an age where he had a lot of problems, starting out living alone.” […] “He wasn’t even alone, strictly speaking. I heard Team Head Seok and the others joined Haeyeon early on.” I heard that Seok Simyeong had visited Yoohyun-ie even before Haeyeon was founded. He was still annoying, but I had to give him his share of the credit for Haeyeon. Sung Hyunjae gave a small nod at my words. “Even so, it isn’t easy for a latecomer to find his place.” “That’s… You’re right.” “For the first year or so, it was easier. Since most of them said Haeyeon wouldn’t be able to properly establish itself.” Sung Hyunjae also said he hadn’t been interested in Haeyeon—in Yoohyun-ie—at the time, either. “The problem arose when it started to become a major guild.”

The second the initial "LOL, this has got to be a joke, right?" blinders come off, he's at risk. And he would've known that this would happen right from the start—Yoohyun's smart enough that he would've understood the lack of attacks was just because they didn't see him as a real threat yet.

So, again: a latecomer on the scene with no power and no experience to his name, and seen as a threat to deal with. No social connections means he has no one to rely on to help him with Yoojin's protection: it's up to him alone. And even S-ranks have to eat and sleep and use the bathroom and do half a dozen other things that would pull him away from Yoojin's side, not to mention the all-important requirement of raiding dungeons, which Yoohyun himself admits in chapter 71 was one of his main concerns:

“Once I start a raid on an S-rank dungeon, I’ll be gone for a week […]. Me… avoiding you… was also largely due to the S-rank dungeon raid time. Since, obviously, I can’t look after you once I go into the dungeon.”

So Yoohyun himself can't just stay by Yoojin's side as his bodyguard 24/7. He'd have to leave him unattended for, at minimum, whole weeks. Which means he doesn't have a reliable, sure way to keep his hyung safe.

#3: Cutting off Yoojin, and the risks to an S-rank's family

And that's not even mentioning his own safety. What happens when Yoohyun's hurt and can't help with guarding Yoojin? And he will be hurt, either by dungeon raids or other people. If you don't think that second one is a concern, as early as chapter 6, when Yoojin and Yoohyun are having their first meal together, Yoojin asks about Yoohyun's ability to cook, and he says he taught himself:

“I’ve got items for detoxification and de-cursing, now, but I didn’t have them before. So making my own food felt safer. Even now, when I enter dungeons, I bring dried rations I made myself. Since it’s most dangerous inside dungeons.” “…Detoxification? De-cursing?” What was I hearing right now? As in, there were bastards who’d poison and curse his food, so he had to make it himself… that sort of thing?

Yoohyun himself, a strong, healthy S-rank with a good constitution and one hell of a temper, was at risk of being poisoned and cursed through something as everyday as food. You said that normally, no one would dare attack the family of an S-rank—but if people are willing to attack the S-rank himself, knowing that he'll kill them for sure if it fails and he learns they're behind it, then what's stopping them from attacking the S-rank's family?

There's two points you could argue:

Yoohyun says in the chapter 6 conversation that "It’s a major crime for an Awakened person to target an Unawakened person, so I made them think it wasn’t worth it to risk going after you." But that'd only last for the 3 years up until Yoojin Awakened, and honestly, there's a real risk that anyone targeting Yoojin before that time would just be rich or socially connected enough that they could make the charges go away.

The other argument that if they attack an S-rank's beloved family and that fails, now the S-rank is coming after them with a vengeance, and he's not even suffering from the aftermath of poisoning or a curse to weaken him in the slightest, so that might scare them off. But, like… people do stupid things when they're desperate. In that kidnapping where Yoojin met the Krecke Blackie (chapters 46–49), sure, Yoojin had his own special skills that made him valuable, but he also had five major guilds and the Association all dedicated to his protection. That's several times the protection a single S-rank could offer, and some idiots who weren't even in a desperate situation still tried to go after him for benefits similar to what you'd get from having leverage over an S-rank. So I really don't think anything would stop people from threatening Yoojin. If anything, the combined facts of Yoohyun starting out from a weak position, Yoohyun obviously caring about Yoojin, and Yoojin being so much weaker than Yoohyun would make that the best option by far, if you wanted to hurt Yoohyun. After all, it’s not like Unawakened F-rank Yoojin can fight back himself, and again, Yoohyun isn’t going to fight you if it would risk Yoojin’s life.

So, Yoohyun goes "if I distance myself from hyung and make people think it WON'T hurt me for him to be hurt, then people have no reason to target him!" and follows through. I do think this was a stupid move on his part, even if he intended to explain it all to Yoojin eventually, because by not letting him in on the secret right from the start, he guaranteed that Yoojin would be hurt and upset by his sole remaining family member seemingly abandoning him for better prospects. Which leads Yoojin to start making his own stupid moves, which snowballs into a series of bad decisions on both their parts, and so on… but we'll get to that in a minute. The problem, I think, is that this plan could've worked, if only Yoohyun had told Yoojin at the start, so that Yoojin knew not to draw attention to himself. Maybe they could've done regular calls on burner phones or something, to stay in touch, and they'd have been happier that way.

Unfortunately that didn't happen. Why? Because, as Yoohyun states in that same conversation in chapter 6, he "didn’t want to burden" Yoojin. Yoohyun's desire to protect Yoojin is not just physical, but also mental/emotional—he doesn't want Yoojin to know that Yoohyun's going through all this trouble of leaving home and dealing with threats to his life and making big decisions, because he doesn't want Yoojin to worry.

[EDIT: And actually, thinking back over this, do you realize—Yoojin always talks about how Yoohyun was a delight of a child to raise, never complaining, never throwing tantrums, wonderfully behaved and always doing as he was told. Enough so that Moon Hyuna has to tell him, explicitly, in Chapter 43, that that’s not normal, in those exact words:

“He was a good younger brother who never needed to be scolded. Ever since he was little, he listened well and didn’t worry me…….” “You said you were the one to raise him, right? After you lost your parents early. That’s not normal.” She clicked her tongue and continued. “A good, obedient little brother from a poor family without parents. That sort of thing doesn’t even appear in children’s fairy tales these days. Because it’s not realistic.” “I mean, to go that far—” “Kids are kids. They get frustrated and angry if there’s something lacking, they make trouble to get attention, they compare themselves with others, and beyond begging their parents to buy them something they want, they might even resent them. Parents might still think their kids are cute, but brothers? To them, they’re just enemy bastards; I also have a younger sibling, so I know. Of course, there are brothers and sisters who get along. In peaceful households where their parents take good care of them. Even then, it’s not like they never fight. Younger brothers in particular are a type that need to be put in their place; older siblings the world across would probably agree.”

This suggests that Yoohyun and Yoojin have never, ever, EVER experienced conflict on major life decisions. Not once have they argued about Yoohyun making choices that Yoojin wouldn’t like. Which means Yoohyun approached cutting off Yoojin with a very particular mindset, and I have some guesses as to what exactly that mindset was. Do you think he hoped Yoojin would understand that his perennially well-behaved brother would have some reason for leaving home? Do you think he just… didn’t know how to approach telling Yoojin about his choice, knowing it’d upset him so much, so he simply didn’t and hoped for the best? Or was it something else entirely?

Either way: Yoohyun absolutely did not know what would come of this choice. He definitely did not expect just how hard it would be on Yoojin. At the time, he was probably just wanting to spare Yoojin the heartache of their first major argument about Yoohyun’s life choices.] And it's that very desire to not bother him with the knowledge of how much Yoohyun's suffering that eventually makes things go wrong and both of them suffer for it.

#4: Yoohyun's strategy failing

What do we know about Yoohyun's plan going wrong? We know that Yoohyun intended to wipe out his enemies before even thinking about allowing Yoojin into danger. In that conversation in chapter 6, he tells Yoojin to wait "just 1 year" and to basically live in confinement, locked up safe inside Haeyeon, until Yoohyun's done. Combined with the 3 years since the dungeons appearing and Yoohyun Awakening, that means he thought it'd take maybe 4 years in total, with hurrying at the end to accommodate Yoojin already being involved with him again. Yoojin says in narration that pre-regression, it took him 3 years instead of the 1 he's proposing, which puts us at a total of 6 years minimum before Yoohyun could even think about reuniting with Yoojin.

But, of course, a lot can and did happen in those 6 years. Within the first 3, the brothers' relationship had deteriorated enough that Yoojin blocked Yoohyun's number, as mentioned in chapter 32 by Yoohyun to Yoojin during novice Hunter training:

“You got angry and told me not to call, remember? You even blocked my number.”

Why was Yoojin angry? See chapter 158, when Yoohyun was temporarily amnesic due to Jellyfish's fog:

“I’m certain I told you not to come near me.” …I remembered. When I’d heard that, I’d blocked Yoohyun’s number, telling him not to call me back.

Yoohyun's repeated refusal to tell Yoojin about his plans, just telling him they had to stay apart, only worsened their relationship. And while Yoohyun did attempt to reach out and help Yoojin in ways such as sending him money to cover living expenses (probably hoping to repair their rapidly deteriorating relationship), that also made it worse, with Yoojin rejecting all of those attempts. As he explains in chapter 274, during the flashbacks induced by Jellyfish in their fight:

Gritting my teeth, I sent back the money Yoohyun-ie sent me without even laying a finger on it. To the me of that time, it was horrible money that my young brother had as good as traded his life for. Yoohyun-ie wanted me to accept living expenses and stay safe, but I believed my brother was being sent to his own death and could never accept it.

It isn't like Yoohyun didn't try to reach out. He did. The problem was that all of his attempts were undercut by his continued refusal to tell Yoojin why he had distanced himself, such that all those attempts at staying in touch only rubbed salt in the wound of being abandoned. And as early as 3 years in, by his own admission in chapter 6, Yoohyun starts to think that things have gotten so bad that even if he tries to confess everything now, Yoojin might not "be understanding". He might not be willing to let go of his hurt and resentment to reconcile with him.

So should he stop reaching out, then? Surely there's still hope that they can reconcile in the future. Someday, maybe, when Yoohyun's sure he can protect Yoojin, even if Yoojin doesn't want to be with/near him.

#5: Learning about the world ending

Only, there's a deadline imposed by the end of the world, which Yoohyun learns about from filial duty addict Diarma. Part of the contract with the filial duty addicts, as Sung Hyunjae explains in chapter 102, is not interfering with said end of the world. Actually, the contractors have to give "their word that they’ll eliminate obstacles" i.e. other people fighting against the end of the world, so Yoohyun can't do anything about this deadline. This gives him a limited amount of time in which he can "eventually" reconcile with Yoojin.

So, as you ask, Anon, why not spend that limited time with his brother? Well, just because there's an end of the world approaching—which Yoohyun can't even talk about! L-rank contract, remember—doesn't mean that Yoojin is 🌟magically🌟 going to get any less mad about Yoohyun abandoning him for several years than before. Yoohyun still doesn't want to explain, so that argument is absolutely not getting resolved.

Even if he tries to explain vaguely that there's some threat and that he'd like Yoojin to live with him or at least accept his offers of protection and security, what happens if Yoojin refuses? Yoohyun clearly isn't willing to violate Yoojin's desires too far, since the most certain way to keep him safe would be to lock him up in a vault somewhere inside Haeyeon and never let anyone else see him, but that would trample all over his free will and happiness, not to mention it'd ruin Yoohyun's "live normally and happily with hyung" goals. So he'll have to let Yoojin stay out in the world, while all of Yoohyun's rivals and enemies are still out there, watching the Haeyeon Guild Leader reach out to his brother and wondering if they've reconciled. At that point, it doesn't matter if they actually have made up or not. If someone even suspects that Yoojin is close to Yoohyun, then they'll target him on the off-chance that it's true. And if Yoojin did refuse Yoohyun's offers, which he's almost certain to, then he's defenseless against whatever attacks come. And they will come. In chapter 6, Yoohyun admitted that a single visit to Haeyeon Guild by Yoojin, willing or unwilling, would be enough to get attention on him:

“But if I directly give orders for you to be brought in and allowed to live within Haeyeon Guild, my enemies will start to actively target you. Even with you just being here right now, I’m sure they’ll already have started keeping an eye on you.”

Think of it from Yoohyun's enemies' perspective. If Yoohyun cares about Yoojin, attacking Yoojin gives you leverage over Yoohyun. If Yoohyun doesn't care about Yoojin, then he won't care if you're attacking Yoojin, so you'll face no retaliation from him. Yoohyun's enemies have nothing to lose from this, while Yoohyun has everything to lose. So, in this situation, it'd be better to take the least risky path: just don't engage with Yoojin at all.

And, also, even if he'd decided to take that risk, there's a different one when it comes to actually figuring out a system to guard Yoojin. This point is more speculation, but I do think Yoohyun might have struggled with deciding when he'd done enough for Yoojin's protection. Because the reality is that Yoojin was never, ever going to be 100% safe from all dangers ever. Again, the vault method is the only way Yoohyun could achieve that. Yoohyun could've put together any amount of high-rank Hunters as Yoojin's exclusive security detail, and he'd still have to leave him alone with these potentially corruptible strangers for a full week at a time during every S-rank dungeon raid. I suspect there was a real risk of Yoohyun continuously going "I just need to get a bit stronger and a bit more established" indefinitely, without ever reaching a point where he was actually satisfied. (Which, if this was indeed a risk in canon, would be overridden in the post-regression timeline by Yoojin's keyword usage making Yoohyun's desire to live with him again and uncertainty about Yoojin's response win out over the urge to keep obsessing over safeguards.)

#6: What counts as a "real" threat

When it comes to Yoohyun's need to defend Yoojin against threats, there's also an important aspect you need to consider, which is: what threats? You see, the worlds of low-rank and high-rank Hunters are very different, to the point where Yoohyun seems to completely overlook some aspects of what Yoojin's used to dealing with, while Yoojin explicitly notes on multiple occasions that he didn't even realize Yoohyun faced certain dangers. As always, we come back to the poisoning attempts mentioned in chapter 6, the first time Yoojin realizes Yoohyun was suffering his own ordeals. This sort of sneaky threat gets reiterated in chapter 11, after Yoojin's trip to the Hunter Mall, when Yoohyun tells him he can't even take a simple drink from any public vendor because it might be poisoned (not something that'd work on Yoohyun himself, but it certainly would on those lower-ranked people around him who he cares about). No, not even in a government-sponsored location like the Association, because even these locations are filled with other guilds' spies and informants. Yoojin's internal response is essentially "what sort of underhanded bullshit is this", and out loud he questions Yoohyun about it:

“But would they do that sort of thing in none other than the Association? If they get caught, the backlash will be huge.” And if Awakened people couldn’t trust the Association, it’d end up hurting the guilds, too. “Of course they wouldn’t make trouble inside the Association. But it’s possible to have their target sent away in an ambulance or police car.” “…And then that ambulance or police car goes missing?” “You’re getting it.”

And Yoojin literally thinks, not a paragraph later, that this is maybe too much even for him:

Somehow, the further things went, the more I felt like I should stop being involved with this brat Yoohyun-ie and go off to live on my own.

Better the dangers you know than the ones you don't, but in Yoojin's words.

Everyone in the high-rank sphere is, well, high-rank. Strong and resilient even when they don't have defensive skills, to say nothing of when they do. They face threats, yes, Real Threats that pose danger to them and risk their safety and status, including threats from other people—Song Taewon mentions to Yoojin in chapter 83 that he's investigated Yoohyun for murder multiple times a year—but because they're so strong, those threats come in the form of dungeon monsters or social attacks, not actual physical harm. Especially not physical harm from other people; like, chapter 75 mentions there's laws against S-rank Hunters going into dungeons together for fear that they might hurt or kill each other, so unless they encounter each other in a dungeon break region where combat is expected (or pick fights with Chief Song, an S-rank duty-bound to fight other S-ranks), they're never really going to encounter personal threats from other Hunters.

Take all that through the lens of protecting Yoojin: he's just some guy, he's not involved in the social/political Hunter Hunger Games, so he's probably fine on that front, right? And otherwise, Yoohyun just needs to protect him from dungeons (keep Yoojin out of them when possible, prevent breaks in his area), and maybe just some general watching out for Yoojin getting himself into anything risky, since he's so weak as an F-rank. That's all the threats Yoohyun sees on a daily basis, so that's probably it, right?

Wrong. Low-rank Hunters have their own set of threats they face, and while a part of that is dungeons and monsters, a very large part of that is also just… being easy to kill, in a community of people very ready to kill. Low-rank Hunters murder each other a hell of a lot more than high-rank Hunters get to even hurt, let alone kill, each other. Think about how easily the knowledge of dungeons being good body disposal spots comes to Yoojin (chapter 19, when threatening Yerim's uncle). Think about the way Yoojin talks about being pressured into slave contracts and miner guilds, and how common it seems to be for low-rank Hunters to be maimed and disabled and left in the lurch (chapters 21 and 22, saving Yoo Myeongwoo from Hope Resources Guild). Think about chapter 49, where Yoohyun claims there's strong camaraderie among high-rank Hunters, and Yoojin responds with this:

Comradeship, huh. There was no such concept in low-rank Hunter teams. Of course, it wasn’t like there were no good people around. The problem was that they all died before long. There were fixed low-rank teams united through trust and friendship, but it was very rare that they lasted. With how strongly they banded together, if one of them died, they couldn’t endure the shock and would fall apart; and even if that didn’t happen, if they were doing well for themselves, they’d be attacked from the outside by the many Hunters who’d find them unpleasant. But a high-rank dungeon raiding team that suffered few such accidents could form a sense of comradeship and keep staying together.

Low-rank Hunters will get killed by monsters, or survive only to get killed by the loss of their teams, or find good teams only to get killed by other jealous low-ranks, or (in Yoojin's experience) survive multiple team-wide killings only to get ostracized and distrusted for being suspiciously good at surviving (almost like you're the one setting up your teams to fail! really makes you wonder, doesn't it?), or, or, or…

High-rank Hunters just… survive. That's it.

Of course Yoohyun wouldn't know to protect Yoojin from these threats. He's never faced them. To him, fighting other people is a fun, challenging pastime, where no one being allowed to kill each other is an unspoken rule that goes implicitly understood. He wouldn't realize how it was very much not fun for Yoojin; maybe he'd know it intellectually, but I don't think he'd understand, not without getting up close and personal to see Yoojin struggle with it, which he can't do himself. If he tries to send someone to spy on or just generally help out his brother, Yoojin's primed by his experiences to distrust the people around him, so spies won't get anything out of him, and any strong Hunter handpicked by Yoohyun to help his hyung might simply be unable to gain Yoojin's trust. (Picking out a whole team of strong Hunters? Even if Yoojin trusts them, they'd probably end up victimized by jealous Hunters. Rinse and repeat.) You must also take into account that Yoojin's been made enough of a target by society that he's hiding every weakness someone could potentially exploit. Hell, if he's hiding well enough, you might think he's doing just fine.

And in the time period where it would be blatantly obvious that Yoojin was not fine, that early period right when he Awakened and turned into society's scapegoat overnight? That was when Yoohyun and Haeyeon were also being targeted, and wouldn't have been able to spare the kind of attention and help Yoojin would've needed, not with all the scrutiny they were all being subjected to. Actually, when Yoojin's reminiscing about these times in chapter 59, he hypothesizes it might've been Yoohyun's rivals themselves who were behind the scapegoating:

At that time, it would’ve been hard for that guy to look out for me. Public opinion wasn’t good in many ways, and there were too many scrutinizing eyes for him to secretly look after me. Now that I thought about it, I wondered if there wasn’t some sort of operation targeting me. The response was too excessive to have simply been the work of a few trash journalists. It was a matter that could be packaged excitingly, I was an F-rank which made me easy to use, and at that time, it could drag down Haeyeon Guild in the public opinion. Whether it was the government, the Association, or rival guilds, they’d have been fools not to use me.

If it was Yoohyun's rivals behind it, then by fighting on the Haeyeon front, Yoohyun might actually have been keeping Yoojin safe, too. How do we know he didn't actually mitigate the suffering to some degree? We haven't heard from Yoohyun about his side of things during this time, so we don't have a definite answer one way or another.

Certainly, Seok Simyeong didn't help at all by making a public statement denouncing Yoojin, especially not when it was so bad Yoojin admits to almost being suicidal over it (chapter 19)! But, well, it was a busy time. We don't know whether Yoohyun was consulted on that one, or if it was something they rushed in order to get ahead of the situation. It might also be that Yoohyun was consulted and made the choice that they'd publicly denounce Yoojin but privately offer him support, only for Yoojin to reject it as he did before with the money Yoohyun sent. Yoojin's done this before, where he conveniently doesn't mention a detail about a scenario until it becomes immediately relevant!

I cannot emphasize enough that we don't have Yoohyun's perspective on this. We don't know what he was doing or not doing to help. But we know, from his love for Yoojin, from his desperate desire to keep him safe at all costs, that he must've been doing something. Was that something effective? Was it useful to Yoojin's immediate life? Who knows. But he was trying.

#7: Banning Yoojin from dungeons

…Keyword being trying. Because, uh. To be honest, how well do you think any direct attempts at "helping" went over? The very first moment that Yoojin regresses to is when Yoohyun got him out of a meeting with an Awakening broker. And Yoojin himself says that ended so badly that "after listening to Yoohyun-ie’s nagging, I’d become furious and stormed off, shouting that I could take care of myself and to quit bothering me" (chapter 5). So if Yoohyun tries to openly keep Yoojin out of danger, then Yoojin is going to have a screaming fit of anger at his life being controlled by someone who apparently isn't even interested in being in it.

And that's before Yoojin Awakened. Once he had an actual, legal, government-assigned license saying he could go into dungeons? Yoohyun had zero standing. Zero chance he was ever going to be able to stop him from going into dungeons, short of breaking down and crying and begging for him to not do it, which (to successfully convince Yoojin he wasn't just putting on a show or trying to guilt trip him) would also require Yoohyun to admit he still cared about Yoojin and reveal his 3- uh, 4- I mean, 5- 6(!!)-Year Master Plan To Keeping Hyung Safe Forever And Ever.

Yeah. Never gonna happen.

And even that one (1) attempt at keeping Yoojin away from dungeons and Hunters and everything related could've gone really badly, because as Yoohyun himself admits in their chapter 6 conversation, his enemies will "already have started keeping an eye on you [Yoojin]". Just from one single show of apparent concern for Yoojin's wellbeing! Can you imagine what would've happened if Yoohyun kept stopping Yoojin every time he tried to go into a dungeon? Setting Yoojin's own frustration and anger aside, can you picture the kind of attention that would've gotten Yoojin? No, this was one battle Yoohyun had to lose in order to win the overall war.

Anon, you mention providing "new options for Yoojin to stop going to dungeons". Okay, sure, we're starting with Yoojin being society's black sheep and probably rejected out of hand from most positions he applies to, and Yoohyun's only leverage in society being in dungeon- and Hunter-related fields. What options would he have provided for Yoojin? A dungeon- or Hunter-related job, probably at Haeyeon or one of its affiliates? That's precisely what we're trying to avoid, and also visible enough that Yoohyun might as well not have even fucking bothered with the 6-Year Master Plan etc. etc. Okay, so then something at one of Haeyeon's sponsors-? Except Haeyeon famously doesn't have backers, and any connections they have through business deals will be glaringly obvious to Yoohyun's rivals if leveraged. Oh, Han Yoojin, the man who no one wants to hire, got a job at a company whose products Han Yoohyun sponsored just a while ago! Absolutely no one is wondering how this could've happened. Also, funny how Han Yoohyun's helping Han Yoojin find work, it's almost like he cares about him… (And so the end begins.)

Remember, all of Yoohyun's efforts at separating himself from Yoojin require actually being separate from Yoojin and the choices he makes. Yoojin's life is—unfortunately enough for Yoohyun—his own to live… and his own to ruin.

#8: The transcendent threat

And all of that—every single one of these environmental factors that make it so Yoohyun has a billion and one concerns to consider before he can so much as talk to Yoojin—all of that comes before we take into account one more fact:

God Hates Caregivers Personally.

Or, in a non-joking manner, and in the fashion Yoohyun might have learned about it from Diarma, as is strongly suggested in the virtual reality dungeon arc during chapter 246:

There are beings out there, outside your world, stronger than anything you know, and this is acknowledging the fact that you are among the strongest existences humankind will ever produce. These beings rule your entire world, are the children of the very power that created the dungeons terrorizing your planet, are themselves so powerful that they can predict dungeons and manipulate the system in their favor, that they can manipulate the circumstances of individual humans as long as they're inside dungeons. In allying with any one of their number, you make an enemy out of half of the entire population of these transcendental existences. You have already made an enemy of them. And these people, these all-powerful creatures, who you've painted yourself a rival of? These same people have a known track record of killing the loved ones of people like you.

Your brother goes into dungeons every week as part of his job. He's already at immense risk. If you go near him, if you make it seem even slightly like you're interested in him personally, you make him an out-and-out target for these transcendents, and they'll smite him. He dies, and you die, and it's game over.

Option one: You can grow to their level, meet them with equal strength, certainly, but will you get the time to grow that far before they kill your brother? Is his natural lifespan even long enough that he'd survive the time it took for your growth? He dies. You die. Game over.

Option two: Don't pose a threat. It's too late for you to never get on their radar in the first place, but if you can keep from seeming any more dangerous, maybe they won't give him any attention. Secure a favor that will let you help him when he needs it, at most, but otherwise never use your transcendent connections to your own advantage.

Option two, taken to its conclusion: If you die before your brother does—if you die calling in that favor and saving his life—you never have to see him be killed.

(Option two, on the flip side: You will not expect it to be your own ally who set the stage for your loved one to be killed.)

So, basically, every single concern Yoohyun's had about protecting his brother that made him distance himself and not tell him anything so far? All of that is taken and cranked up to difficulty level Maximum. "If I show interest in hyung, one of my rivals or enemies might choose to hurt or kill him!" The transcendents WILL kill him with NO known incentive. Yoohyun might assume it's because he poses a threat to their side, but he can't be absolutely certain that's it. In fact, he doesn't know anything about this opposing transcendent faction, since he was blocked from contacting them by the very fact of having chosen a side in the first place, as Water Droplet explains when discussing the born S-ranks in chapter 106:

“We don’t know for sure either. The filial duty addicts contacted them first, so their information is obscured. We only know that there are five, and about the ones that are in contact with you.”

And while Yoohyun-as-Alpha knows the reasons behind the immoral people killing Caregivers—namely, that they want to remove distractions for S-ranks, so that they focus on combating dungeons and monsters—if Diarma had told Yoohyun about this, and if he'd thought to apply the bare minimum of intelligence to his delivery (a disclaimer that must be made, with this transcendent in particular), I really don't think he would've told him why. No, he would've wanted the immoral people to seem like a dangerous threat, so he would just have said that they might kill Yoohyun's family, without giving him their reasoning.

Which means Yoohyun knew nothing about the immoral people's motives, nothing about their goals, nothing about what they'd see as aggression. Which meant, hypothetically, that any and every action he took could trigger them to smoothly and efficiently eliminate the only person he loved in all the world. It would be so easy, too; Yoojin's entering their turf multiple times a month as part of his daily job, a fact which we've already established Yoohyun couldn't do anything about. The only thing he knew for sure is that they hadn't killed Yoojin so far.

Remember what I said before, about the known path being safer? Because you know the dangers you'll face on it? Yoohyun knows doing what he's doing right now is keeping Yoojin alive. He can't control a single other thing outside of that. And the danger posed by not doing what he's doing just got shifted to a level he is not prepared on any level to respond to. Before, he might've thought Yoojin was safe at least inside dungeons with his chosen teams; from his perspective, "dungeons with only guild members inside are actually safer than the outside world" (chapter 134), while the outside world was more of a risk because of all of Yoohyun's enemies. But now? There is danger all the time and in every location Yoojin goes, even those outside of this world, on an insane, unrivaled level. He is never, never safe, and any single unexpected action Yoohyun takes puts that at risk. If doing anything at all is dangerous, then it's better to do nothing.

So, yeah, that's the crux of it, isn't it. Yoohyun needs to protect Yoojin every day, every single time. Everything else in the whole world only needs to kill Yoojin once. In such a situation, how would Yoohyun ever dare to risk making either of them vulnerable?

…The end! I hope that this explanation, long as it is, has given you at least some additional insight into Why Yoohyun Did All That, and helped serve as a reminder of just how little we actually know about Yoohyun's perspective of the events pre-regression.

By the way, this entire post is pulling only from information we get up to chapter 272; there’s more information revealed up to chapter 350—actually, even just in the next few chapters after that, up to 275—that sheds more light on Yoohyun’s decision-making process in the pre-regression timeline. Maybe I’ll come back and post a part 2 to this analysis someday using the additional information we get as time goes on, but right now, this much will have to be enough.

In any case—thanks for reading this far. And of course, as promised, here's the poll!

#star.txt #my writing #my sranks #the s ranks that i raised #han yoohyun #answered #anonymous #this had the working title of 'han yoohyun's shit idiot reasoning' bless his soul #certified yoohyun hater is asked to defend his actions. what happens next will shock you

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slicedmayonnaise · 2 months

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I want to take a moment to talk about one of my favorite characters in RDR2: Kieran Duffy.

I've seen a few posts on my timeline recently about him and people's different interpretations of him and head canons of him. So, I'm going to add my two cents.

Now, this is my personal head canon about what type of person Kieran is and some of this may be GROSS mischaracterization.

Let's begin with the facts.

Kieran is NOT some weak, innocent, stuttering, scared man. He IS the sassy man apocalypse! He is not afraid to stand up for himself or others when he feels he needs to. He saves Arthur, for one. He is also one of the characters who can knock Arthur out and kick him out of camp when he's being an asshole. We can also see him standing up for himself to people like Javier and Sean during camp interactions. He also draws his pistol when Milton and Ross show up to camp and threaten the gang in chapter 3. He is an army vet and was part of another gang before he was taken by the O'Driscolls.

Now let's get into my personal head canons.

First of all, I don't believe Kieran Duffy is actually his name. When Arthur first asks Kieran his name, he says "I don't know" and after Arthur threatens him a bit more, he comes up with Kieran Duffy. And we of course know outlaws are notorious for using pseudonyms. We see the others use them constantly throughout the game.

Why would Kieran lie about his name though? Easy. Because he is actually secretly a badass, cold-blodded ex gang leader.

Stay with me now.

I believe Kieran was actually the leader of the gang he ran with before the O'Driscolls. And I believe he was a big time outlaw just like Colm or Dutch or Flaco Hernandez.

Why? Because why would Colm waste his time attacking and kidnapping some random guy he found camping in the woods? There had to be a reason. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's rewind.

I believe in leading his gang, Kieran became greedy and corrupt, just like Dutch did. And I believe he, like Dutch, led all of the men (and maybe women) that followed him straight to hell. One by one, they were picked off, just like with the Van Der Linde gang. And I believe the last of them were killed when Colm attacked. Maybe he was originally after Kieran for the price on his head, but decided he was more valuable to him alive. Surely if he's a big time outlaw, Kieran had thousands of dollars stashed away, which Colm would have obviously taken along with Kieran. Maybe the money he got from Kieran was more than the reward he would've gotten for Kieran's head, so he gave Kieran the choice to work for him or die with the last of his gang. Kieran obviously chose to work for Colm because he was afraid to die.

Obviously, Kieran would have felt a lot of guilt because of his gang, and would have gone through a lot of torture at the hands of the O'Driscolls. We can see in the beginning of the game that Colm is abusive towards him, which isn't surprising. He is also malnourished prior to the gang starving him as a means of making him talk. And let's look at how horrified he is at the thought of betraying Colm. He says himself that Colm is an evil man, and he expresses to Sean how scared he is of Colm. This experience would've definitely humbled him and watered him down from the tough outlaw he once was. Much like John, he no longer wanted to be a part of the outlaw life. He just wanted to live quietly with his horses and go fishing. And that's the version we get of him after he finally settles in with the Van Der Linde gang.

I also think Kieran is bisexual and gender fluid. I think he was a lot for femme presenting before he got taken by the O'Driscolls, just given his mannerisms and the way his hair is cut. It looks like he had long hair and chopped it all off Mulan style. I believe, similarly to Javier in rdr1, he stopped taking care of his looks after he joined up with Colm. He cut his hair and let his facial hair grow out, as he lost his desire for vanity.

#anyways thats my rant #live laugh love kieran duffy #kieran rdr2 #kieran duffy #i love kieran #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #red dead redemption #red dead fandom #red dead redemption community #rdr #red dead redemption two #red dead #red dead 2

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pumpkin-padparadscha · 6 months

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What if I just read "The Art of Losing" by @wafflelate a million billion times because it's my favorite.

Anyway the rest of this post is just going to be me going !!!!! so, spoilers ahead

Things I think intensely about:

-how suna is going to react to Gaara deciding to become the kazekage

-how any detractors of his new position are going to be IMMEDIATELY shut down because the "first" thing he does is "contract with a seals mistress to get the dead wastes converted into arable land" (who is going to prove it WASNT a seal? Sunas sealing sucks lol. And technically it did originate from a seal. Gelels seal.)

-how devastated Gai is going to be upon learning literally everything Kakashi went through

-how pissed as fuck people are going to be upon discovering that root seals can apparently block soulmate bonds? I feel like sealing people without their informed consent is about to become very very illegal outside of emergency circumstances.

-how the fuck is cat feeling. Does he believe Kakashi is dead? Does he hope Kakashi is alive?

-nara shikakunand yoshino are about to fucking eviscerate the elder council. Either they were aware of this bullshit or they were criminally negligent. Oh, what's that inoichi and shibi? Some of your family got kidnapped too? Maybe we should bring torture back to t&i. Just this once.

-kakashi is going to be so fucking proud of shikimaru. In his super repressed way. Maybe in a he deserves that legacy more than I ever did if he's feeling self deprecating.

-do you think temari has to sit through a million drafts and revised versions of kankuros shikabane play the more information comes out. Soul mates who were cut off completely from their connection, one believing the other dead, and the other never even educated about soul bonds. Them still recognizing each other enough that Kakashi was kind to her and she freed him instead of killing him. Please kankuro why can't you make the fight scenes longer.

-shikaku seeing shikakos complete shadow transformation and being like "yeah that's insanely dangerous to so much as think about attempting, I don't want to consider how bad things had to be for her to create that. Forbidden jutsu on account of who the fuck knows how she didn't end up falling into the black"

-does Gai feel like he failed Kakashi. Does he swear never to do so again. Imagine him thanking shikako for saving his friend. Imagine Kakashi being shocked Gai still considers him a friend

-hi inoichi this is my soulmate Kakashi, he did not take thinking I was assassinated well at all, do you have any self help books because he hates talking about feelings

-obviously she knows about seals because danzo wanted his own nara level intelligent seal master. Obviously she hid as much of her skill as she could from him because she isn't stupid.

-anyway here's a book a better storage scroll some medical seals and the seal to get rid of roots evil tattoo of shittyness.

-actually now I'm thinking about what if she DOES join suna because Kakashi has trouble feeling safe in konoha or just because being around a shikamaru who never knew her and idolizes Kakashi is kind of awkward.

-if they share dreams do you think she explains her original world to Kakashi after he dreams of cities he's never seen.

-wondering who was the first person to remember the lookalike yoshino nara missing nin that got mentioned in that one report.

-if I think about how nervous Kakashi is going to be the first time he trolls shikako and how he'll feel when she grins or laughs or goes along with it I experience An Emotion™

-"I don't know if you'll like them, but here's other you's favorite books. They make a good social barrier, and you've been looking a little overwhelmed."

-yoshino is going to cry so so so much. Her baby needed her all this time and she never knew it.

-kakashi learning that he was absolutely invited to shikakos funeral and danzo is just a dick who lies

#nara shikako #shikako nara #dreaming of sunshine #wafflelate #the art of losing by wafflelate #the many gardens of shikabane hime #is that everything? no. i love that fic.#ive actually only read it seven or eight times so far

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dduane · 6 months

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Just in case anyone was concerned...

The MiddleKingdoms.com site will be down until Sunday or Monday for a theme change and other tweaks.

The maker of our original MKCom theme (called Stack) came off freelance status and went to work for Automattic a year or so ago. And they're lucky to have him: as a theme-maker, he did fabulous work. But that change also means that support for the MKCom site's old theme is no longer available.* When something goes wrong with it, you're on your own; you can try to fix it yourself, or sigh and change themes.

The Stack theme was already showing signs of having trouble with WordPress updates months back, in that the underlying "Variant" page-builder app that came with it was getting cranky about its ability to edit pages. Sometimes it'd work: sometimes it wouldn't. Newer versions of the app that were then available made no difference to this. So, seeing that the hand over against the wall was already starting to scribble the words MENE MENE TEKEL BETTER START SCOUTING FOR A NEW THEME DAMMIT, I started scouting.

And lo, the day came this week when a new update of WP (to v6.41) left the Variant page builder unable to even see the contents of a page made with it, let alone edit it. This caused me to go immediately into launch-the-lifeboats mode, during which I cut-and-pasted all the site's contents into Elementor-friendly pages. That work took me a couple of days, which is why my posting here has been a little on the sparse side this week.

So now I need to clean up the ensuing mess and reformat the site into something as closely matching the old one as possible, using the replacement theme Astra. ...Not that I can't now rework the site into something newer and glossier, but this week is NOT the time for that: got too much on the plate already.

I'm going to need at least a few days for this, as Elementor has changed the way it handles page contents from the box-and-column-based one I was already familiar with to a container-based one that's more complex and granular. An improvement, yeah, but one it's going to take more time for me to wrap my brains around. (eyeroll) Whoopee.

On the good side, this is going to be useful practice for when I have to do the same thing to the Food and Cooking of the Middle Kingdoms site (which is also still running Stack, though without the Variant builder) and DianeDuane.com (which is running a different theme by the same maker, with some of the same problems). Whoopee again.

...Anyway, that's my whinge for today. Herself willing and the crick don’t rise, normal service will resume over the weekend sometime. Or Monday at the latest.

*He handled this responsibly, BTW, by notifying the theme’s users and also by withdrawing it formally from the online marketplaces where it appeared. I’ve worked with themes where the makers simply vanished without a word or a trace, and it’s no fun.

#Middle Kingdoms meta #MiddleKingdoms.com #websites #WordPress #argh

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finalresidentevilfantasy · 10 months

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A Version of Leon Ada Will Always Love.

Summary: Leon's wife gets caught up in the mess Simmon's creates and Ada shows a rare act of kindness towards a woman she barely knows but has a deep respect for and is willing to risk more than she thought she ever would.

Warnings; Major character death, swearing, brief mention of alcoholism

W/C: 3K

A/N: This is my first ever fic writing for Leon! I hope you all enjoy and I thank everyone who takes the time to read it! I apologise if there are any typos! I plan to post more fics in the coming weeks, I always accept constructive criticism and I look forward to writing more for you guys. Although I generally write female readers and try not to use Y/N, I try to keep my female characters without much description! I may have an attempt at writing a gender neutral reader in the future!

"Sweetheart" Leon was careful as he approached her. She pulled the needle from her neck and disposed of it on the floor. She turned to look at him, panic in her eyes, they both knew what Simmon's had just administered and it filled Leon with dread, his palms starting to sweat.

"Let's hope she doesn't turn quickly, right Leon?" Simmon's taunted with a smirk. Helena growled in frustration, firing her gun several times in his direction, it only hit the glass he was behind but she felt better.

"Leon? I feel hot." The woman was panicking and Helena felt sorry for her. She kept a hand on her gun though, ready to shoot if necessary. She hadn't turned yet but she could at any minute.

"Hey, it's okay. Keep your eyes on me." Leon said as he approached her slowly, his own gun had fallen to the floor when he watched Simmon's inject her from afar, shoving her into the room with them as he laughed.

"I don't want to turn into one of them." She dropped to her knees in the middle of the floor. Helena knew she had to put her feelings to one side as she knew Leon wouldn't have what it took to hurt her, he'd rather die. Helena's heart hurt for the couple, she was innocent, a civilian that had stolen Leon S Kennedy's heart and kept it safe. Helena only knew that because Leon had told her when they found her, the information that he was married was classified.

"I promise you won't baby, we'll find a vaccine. I'll fix this." Leon's voice was hopeful but Helena was sceptical. Vaccine? There wasn't one. His wife, as harsh as it sounded, wasn't going to be that for much longer, not if what they'd seen was anything to go by. Simmon's had dragged her into this, just like he had Deborah.

Leon carefully approached his wife, she was panicking, chest heaving as she tried to keep her emotions in check. Just as Leon knelt down in front of her she fell into his arms, a crying mess as he held her, Helena felt guilty for watching, this was a moment between husband and wife. She stupidly took her eyes of them for a second.

Leon shouted his wife's name, causing Helena to look back, her weapon drawn and pointed at Leon's wife. She had his knife, her arm drawn back ready to plunge as Leon held her wrist. It was easy for him, he easily overpowered her normally, but she was putting up more of a fight as the virus flooded around her system. "Come on, come back to me." Leon stated firmly.

A shot rang out through the room and Leon's head snapped to Helena, smoke leaving the barrel of her gun. Leon snapped back to his wife, watching as the knife fell from her grasp, Helena's shot having hit the metal as intended. It must've brought her out of her trance.

"Leon?" Her voice rang out, a gasp escaping her lips. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me." She made to move away from him, but Leon was quick, pulling her into his chest as he buried his face into the hair at the top of her head. She planted her hands on his chest and pushed.

"Sweetheart please don't fight me, it's okay."

"No, no, no. I almost, I was going to." She cut herself off as she began to hyperventilate. Her thoughts everywhere but Leon just pulled her closer.

"I'm gonna get you through this, I promise." Leon said as she gave in and collapsed into his chest, crying her eyes out. Helena felt guilty, what had been the point for her? She'd lost Deborah anyway and many people had lost their lives families because of her. She couldn't watch as Leon lost his wife, the guilt was too much. They had to do something.

"Maybe I can help." A new voice rang through the room, Leon turned his head towards the woman, the one who once held a part of Leon before the woman in his arms tripped into him in the street. Ada Wong. An absolute goddess of a woman, her beauty unmatched by so many, her only downfall being that you couldn't trust her. Leon thought he'd never get over her, then his wife came into his life and now she was a distant memory, a part of his past. Ada no longer held a part of him.

His wife was everything to him, Leon would do anything for her, he'd sacrifice everything if it meant keeping her safe and Ada knew this. At first when Ada had found out about Leon's engagement she'd been jealous, determined to come between the two and then she'd observed her, for several weeks. She was a goddess in her own right, a beauty the did match Ada's, if not surpassed it. She was beautiful inside and out, a kind woman who gave spare change to every homeless person she walked past, stroked every cat and dog that crossed her path.

Ada started to see why Leon loved her so much. She could give Leon the one thing Ada never could and that was her full heart, her honesty, all her bad and good. She stole Leon's heart and kept it locked safe in her chest, she was patient with him, careful, attentive. She loves him in all the ways he deserves to be loved and Ada loved her for it. Sure, she'd had to let him go and watch as he fell out of love with her, but she couldn't think of a more worthy woman.

"Ada?" Leon sounded almost relieved to see her. He knew deep down she'd be able to help, that she was caught up in all this, what other reason would she have to be here? "Please help her." Leon didn't beg often and it took a lot for him to beg from someone like Ada but this was his wife that was in danger and having to drop his act of toughness? Worth it for her safety.

"There's a lab. One Simmon's had here in China. I know where it is, there's a blueprint vaccine there but we need Jake Mueller's blood." She stated and Leon breathed a sigh of relief, he knew where Jake was, he was with Sherry, all he had to do was get in contact. He prayed that his wife would fight it, hold on as long as she could.

"Come on baby, you heard her. Just fight this a little longer." Leon pulled his wife back to look at her, she was sweating, a small smile on her lips as she nodded in agreement, she was as determined as him, she wasn't going to give up on him so easily.

*****

"Fuck." Ada exclaimed as she took in the wreckage. They couldn't all get to the lab, not in time. In the time they'd spent wandering through the city looking for the lab, Leon's wife had snapped three times, the last time worse than the others. She refused to be anywhere near Leon now.

She was almost curled in on herself as she walked behind them. Her arms crossed across her chest, she made herself look smaller than she was. Leon was starting to worry, his façade breaking, he looked ready to cry himself, a cut on his cheek from her last outburst, she'd clawed at him, catching his cheek as she did. She was beside herself, not trusting herself around him.

"We can't all go." Ada continued as she looked at both Leon and Helena. Their heads turned as Sherry and Jake jogged to meet up with them, Leon looked relieved.

"Here." Sherry was quick to hand over the vial. Her heart also broke as she took in Leon's soulmate, Sherry had met her a couple of times and heard so many endearing stories from Claire, how could Simmons do this? She didn't deserve it, Leon didn't deserve it. Leon handed the vial to Ada.

"Please," his blue eyes begged her and her heart broke a little, he was so used to her betraying him at the final hurdle. "Please help her, I won't survive without her." Leon's voice broke and Ada knew it was true, before he met her he'd struggled with alcohol, abusing it almost every night until she helped him. She became the light that outshone every dark corner of his life.

Ada nodded as she grabbed a hold of Leon's wife, shooting her grapple hook into the building above. Pulling them both into through the labs window. Leon prayed he'd see her again, Ada hadn't given him a moment for a goodbye but every moment counted, she was running out of time.

"She'll pull through Leon." Sherry comforted as she placed a hand on his arm. "Now come on, we've got Simmons to confront." Sherry said as they set off towards her rendezvous point with Simmons.

*****

"I know who you are." She spoke as Ada continued to mix chemicals together as instructed on the paperwork she'd found. "Your her." Ada stopped for a moment. Leon had told his wife about her?

"Listen, me and Leon? It was never gonna work out anyway." She shrugged off but the admission stung at her heart.

"I know." She confirmed, not in a horrible way, Ada was beginning to think she didn't have a malicious bone in her body. "He told me how in love with you he used to be." She admitted and Ada continued as if her words didn't affect her. "He believed you were in love with him once."

"I guess I felt something, a long time ago." Lies Ada. She knew Leon wasn't hers anymore, why dwell on what could have been? "But then he met you."

"I worried for a long time he didn't love me the same way he loved you." She admitted, that made Ada turn to look at her, she looked so vulnerable as if the admission was one she'd never made out loud before. As if Ada was the first person she'd admitted this to.

"He doesn't." Ada said and immediately wanted to cram the words back into her mouth. They came out harsh, cold and the woman in front of her looked so defeated, as if Ada had ripped everything away from her.

"I thought so."

"He loves you so much more than he ever loved me." Ada continued and her head snapped up towards her. "You give him all the things I never could. Security, stability, normality, you'll never understand how much people like us need that. I watched him fall in love with you, I watched you become his everything. He looks at you as if you hung the universe yourself. You know just after you married we bumped into one another and I knew." She elaborated.

"Knew what?"

"That I couldn't even scratch the surface anymore. His love for you runs so deep that I don't think anything could come between you. He so clearly loves every part of you and you've saved him, I knew Leon before all this, I met him back when he was a cop on his first day and you've brought that back for him. He's that man again when he's with you." Ada smiled and it was returned in full by the woman in front of her.

"But you still love him don't you?" She wasn't angry, she wasn't judging, in fact she looked guilty, like she'd come between something that could have been had Ada chosen a different life and maybe Leon and Ada would've worked out but they'd never know.

"I have a soft spot for him, yes, I'll admit that much, but I was more in love with the man I met in Raccoon, the innocent, naïve young man" Ada had never spoken much about her feelings, this was the closest she'd ever gotten, it was just another charm the woman in front of her held. The ability to create a safe space to feel vulnerable.

"I'll admit, I was jealous of you at first. The way he talked about you, it was so clear he was in love with you." She admitted with a shy smile.

"So you can understand how I feel now." Ada answers as she adds Jake's blood into the vial and administers the syringe.

*****

"Leon!" She shouts as she runs from Ada's side. Leon whips around at the sound of her voice, opening his arms to catch her as she jumps into them. He holds her so close Ada thinks she might disappear inside him. Ada smiles at the interaction, watching as Leon peppers her face in kisses, the glimpse of the man she met all those years ago shining through and she was happy for them, truly.

"I love you." Leon said as he smiled at his now cured wife. He couldn't thank Ada enough, she'd racked up a debt Leon could never repay, no matter how many lifetimes he lived. She reciprocated and kissed him again, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist, it was almost like there was no one else there, that they were in their own little world, a world for only those two. But of course all good things must come to an end.

"How dare you disobey me." Simmons sneered from above, Leon was quick to place his wife on her feet and shield her body with his own. She gripped the back of his shirt in fear. "Ada Wong, a soft spot for human life, I was starting to think you had no heart."

"You seem a little obsessed with me Simmons." Ada retorted, having found all the evidence of his obsession, his desire to recreate her image. Simmons lunged at that, jumping from his perch as he transformed into something that looked like a t-rex.

Leon was quick as he moved him and his wife to safety, he pushed her to one side and dived on top of her. Ada moving herself out of the way as Helena followed.

"I need you to get out of here." Leon said to the woman beneath him.

"But what about you?"

"I'll be fine, but you need to go. Please." With much persuasion she finally made her way out of the way and found a safe place to hide from the chaos that ensued. Leon, Ada and Helena working tirelessly together to bring Simmons down, after a while he fell, his body falling to the ground with a loud thud. They were safe.

Leon's wife approached the trio, feeling as though they were safe now. Simmons' body unmoving on the floor as Leon opened his arms for her, she was quick to plant herself in them, her safe haven. Ada watched with endearment until a small movement caught her eye.

Just as Leon let go of his wife and she took a step back from him, Simmons moved, sprouting a leg that was sharp as nails, Leon couldn't react quick enough, his scream ringing through the building as Simmons struck, his hand reaching for his wife as he looked away, he couldn't watch.

Blood covered the floor, Helena moving to finish Simmons, a well placed shotgun shell to the head. Leon fell to his knees, taking his wife into his arms, he was examining her, looking for the wound but he couldn't find one.

"Leon." Her voice was weak, soft and Leon's head moved to the source of the noise. It was foreign to him, he'd never heard her like that.

Ada.

"No." His wife said, her hands covering her mouth, Ada lay on the floor, Simmons leg sticking out through her stomach. She'd pushed her out of the way and sacrificed herself. Leon and his wife moved towards her, Leon taking her into his arms as he held her dying frame. A tear falling down his cheek, Ada smiled up at him, moving a hand to his cheek, wiping away the tear as she took her last breath, her hand falling to her side.

Leon cried as he held her, although he was no longer in love with her, she would always be an important part of his life, hell, he wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for her. She was the last part of his past he had, the last memory of his struggle through Raccoon. Sure, he had Claire but they had spent most of their time apart, only meeting back up a handful of times during the survival of Raccoon city.

"I'm so sorry." His wife took Leon into her arms from behind, holding him as he cried over a woman he never thought would change but here she was proving him wrong, again.

*****

They had a small funeral for her, only Leon and a handful of others in attendance. His wife held him as they both cried, mourning the loss of a woman who had given her life to save both of theirs. It took a long time for Leon's wife to understand why she'd given her life to save hers.

It dawned on her one night as she laid awake, wrapped in Leon's arms as he held her closer, tighter than he had before she almost died and it suddenly made sense. Ada gave her life so that she could protect that part of Leon she thought had died after Raccoon, the part that only she, his wife could still coax from him. The man who made Ada question her morals again and again, a man she'd saved multiple times. A man she loved enough in the end to put first.

#leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy #leon kennedy x female!reader #re6 leon #leon kennedy angst #leon kennedy fluff #leon kennedy imagine

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alivingfire · 6 months

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he'll see i'm not so tough

a @steddiebang fic

author: alivingfire artist: @knitsforthetrail betas: hibiscus & @hamiltonsteele

150k | explicit | tags: steve as kas the betrayer; secret relationship since s2 planned posting dates: november 21-december 2

When Steve gets trapped in the Upside Down, Vecna offers him a deal: become lieutenant of the monster armies and gain some of Vecna’s power, in exchange for being the bait to lure his friends back to rescue him. Steve takes the deal, believing wholeheartedly in the Party’s ability to save him and finally kill Vecna, but discovers quickly that his power to infiltrate the memories and dreams of people in the real world is very limited; in fact, he can only visit one person in his new monster form.

Thus begins Steve’s haunting of Eddie Munson, who, coincidentally, has been in love with Steve since they started secretly hooking up after a Halloween party in 1984.

“Something wrong, Munson?” says a voice, and Eddie yelps and rolls out of bed.

When he pops up on the other side, he sees a very alive Steve Harrington perched on his own bedroom windowsill. His face is exaggeratedly wild and sharp, and his hair is windswept. His skin is silvery-blue in the moonlight. His fingernails are dark and long and curved like claws. He’s in a Hawkins Swim t-shirt and light wash Levi’s, and there’s dried blood on his bare arms.

He’s like the film negative of a boy Eddie knows by heart, like a cover version of his favorite song.

And then he smiles, and his teeth are sharp.

“Hey, babe,” Steve says. “Did you miss me?”

Eddie, bravely, faints.

longer excerpt under the cut:

The vine around his left wrist uncurls, and Steve lifts that arm automatically to see his palm glowing like a lantern, and more than a dozen strings of light shooting straight up at the sky. The strings are golden-hot and hard to look at, too much on Steve’s overloaded senses.

“Look at that,” Vecna says, moving that large clawed hand from Steve’s face to wrap around Steve’s free wrist. “That’s a power I never gained, try as I might. All that love and affection you have for your friends has connected you securely to them. Even as a dead man, you have ties to the world above. Eleven did not plan for that. Could not plan for that.”

Steve stares at the lights, too, and the more he looks, he feels like he can see differences between them. One seems weaker than the others and looks like wood smoke and has a ruddy red tinge that, for some reason, Steve knows is the string tying him to Will Byers. One is pinkish and looks wrapped in lace: Nancy. Robin’s looks like water dripped with nail polish, swirls of navy blue. He can pick out Dustin’s, then Lucas, El, Max, Jon, Erica, even Mike. Eddie.

He can’t think about this. He rips his gaze away.

“Why are you showing me this?”

“I can teach you how to visit them. How to talk to them,” Vecna says. “Through dreams and hallucinations, yes, but you could see them, and they could see you. See that you’re alive.”

“But trapped.”

“Yes,” Vecna says. “The only way either of us could ever truly leave this place is if Eleven opens the gates back up, or if Max dies to finish the ritual I began. And I’m assuming you’re not willing to do that second option.”

“Fuck you.”

“As I thought. So, here is my deal: if I give you my powers, it would not be for free. You will act as my lieutenant here in this realm. You will control the beasts in my stead, and do as I command. If you are convincing enough, your friends will come to rescue you, and when they do I won’t make you fight them, but I will be there to welcome them, and this will finally be finished.”

“Then why would I do this?” Steve laughs, incredulous. “Why would I draw them here, if they’re just going to die for it?”

“Because you doubt me when I say that I would win against them,” Vecna says. He lays it out like a winning poker hand. “You believe in your friends. You believe they could beat me. And if they do, you could be saved.”

“And if I say no?” Steve asks.

Immediately, the pain comes pouring back, his vision going blurry, the colors fading from the world, his mouth filling once again with blood. His thoughts are slow and dripping. He groans and slumps forward, barely held up by the vines around him.

“Then I leave you like this,” Vecna says. “It won’t take long for you to die. Your friends will never know what happened to you, and I will spend as long as I need to working to get back to the other world without you. And I’ll have help, because your friends cannot keep the government from meddling once more. Every crack they make in the barrier between worlds is one I can exploit. I will get through some day. At least this way, you have a chance to stop me. You have a chance to live again.”

Steve breathes unsteadily and looks back down at his palm. He thinks about those tiny connections to people that he loves, and thinks about leaving them to fight this fight without him.

It’s stupid. He isn’t the person who should be making this deal. He knows that Vecna manipulates and twists to get what he wants. But his logic makes sense, too.

Steve doesn’t know what to do. He’s not the planner. He’s not the right one to choose this. He’s-

Two weeks. Robin, Dustin, Eddie, Erica, Max, Lucas, Eddie, Jon, Will, Mike, Eddie, Joyce, Claudia, Wayne, Tommy, Carol, his parents, Eddie- they all think he’s gone. He remembers how he felt when Hopper died. He can’t-

His jaw creaks when he opens his mouth.

“Fine,” he says, pain cracking his voice into something horrible, weak, pathetic. He sucks in another breath. “It’s a deal.”

#steddie #steddie fic #stranger things #he'll see i'm not so tough #steddie big bang #steve x eddie #here we go!!!!

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bomberqueen17 · 3 months

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noodle bowl recipe/technique

When I'm not at the farm it's always a struggle to eat as many vegetables as my body wants me to eat. Like it's just confusing to go out and buy vegetables when you're really used to just kind of going to the walk-in cooler and being like "ok what have we got too much left over of, time to Eat That", and I need to overcome this by having a recipe in mind beforehand but one I can adapt if they don't have the thing I'm thinking of at the store. So I'm trying to collect not recipes so much as techniques, because I have this problem where it's hard for me to follow a recipe because I accidentally skip reading the middle of it. Ha.

(I saw a good post about how "measure that shit with your heart" is misleading and like, mood. I am a very experienced cook but I have attention problems and can't follow a recipe if I'm tired or distracted or in pain. So I'm trying to link to real everything is measured for you recipes where I can, so if you haven't made this before and don't know what it should look like, you've got a tested version with proper amounts to start with. Just like I do! And then once I have the technique down, and the relative amounts, I'm sharing my method, which is less so on the measuring and more on my mother's technique, which is "you put in enough and then cook it until it is done", which when I was new was so frustrating, but now that I am old, I know it is 100% based on practice. And that's all, there's no mystery, it's just "I've made it before and I know how it should look so you just make it look like that." Now that I can't reliably read a whole recipe and not miss a big whack of the middle of it, I rely so much on having practiced and generally knowing what things look like when they're "right". But it's not magic and I'm not measuring with my heart I'm measuring with my practiced eye and hand.)

Anyway. Rice bowls or noodle bowls are a fantastic way to just throw a bunch of vegetables into a nice yummy sauce over a good comforting starch and have that be a meal. I tend to do a noodle bowl, and then any left over ingredients get incorporated into a fried rice scramble thing later, so you can keep that in mind if you want to try this.

I found this recipe for butternut squash mushroom noodle bowls. And I tried it as written, and it wasn't bad, but for me, roasting everything in the oven was very hard to time and didn't turn out fantastically well. YMMV, but I have more experience sauteeing things. (My first attempt I also used bok choy instead of spinach so I roasted it separately on another sheet pan according to a technique I've done before for roasted bok choy; this approach would probably work just fine if you were paying more attention than I was; my main issue was that noodle bowl recipe linked above gives far too little time for the butternut squash to roast so mine was unpleasantly crunchy. It's wrong, give it longer, and so I found it best to just not try to squeeze anything else onto the sheet with it as that recipe directs.)

So I changed it up for a second try.

First thing I did was peel the butternut squash with a vegetable peeler (I find it easiest to do this if I kinda cut it in half crosswise first), then scoop out and set aside the squash guts, then cube the thing up and roast it on a sheet pan, drizzled with peanut oil and salt and set at 400.

That's gonna take like 45 minutes or so, so I set most of my timing around that. Check the directions on your noodles or whatever, figure out what order you've got to do those in. (Soba are best for the protein, but I had rice noodles and they needed a pre-soak and it messed up my timing, which is why I'm making this note here.)

dice an onion. preheat skillet, add oil, begin to sautee onions.

rinse and prepare bok choi or other green of choice.

when the squash is part of the way cooked (like 25 minutes or so, give it a stir and check it to see if it's softening at all), take the seeds you set aside. separate them from the guts (I squeeze them with my fingers out of the assorted gut-fibers, works pretty well), spread in single layer on small baking sheet. turn oven down to 350. drizzle seeds with sesame oil and a tiny bit of salt. put them in the oven for like ten to fifteen minutes. (Turning the heat down is my attempt to have them not pop and fly all over the oven. IDK if it'll work. Be prepared to wipe seeds out of your oven tomorrow morning. They're not messy at least they just fly everywhere.)

Now throw your mushrooms and some diced garlic into your onions and saute. Add the bok choi or spinach or kale or whatever as you're stirring. Cook it all down.

Now make your sauce-- I did not measure anything this go-round, I just grated a bunch of ginger (I keep my ginger root in the fridge and it's easy to microplane off whatever you need) into a wee prep bowl, then added soy sauce, some honey, a couple spoonfuls of water from the boiling noodles to melt the honey and clean the spoon, and then a spoonful or two of chili crisp ("happy lady sauce" [lao gan ma]) because i don't stock sriracha currently.

When your noodles are ready, turn the oven off. Drain the noodles and divide them into your serving bowls, top with squash, add sauteed veg, squash seeds, the sauce. top with sesame seeds.

This was awesome, and I have leftover cooked squash cubes I'm gonna put into another recipe later cuz if you're gonna roast a butternut you might as well roast a pretty big one. I particularly like using the squash seeds because they're so tasty and crunchy and deserve to be eaten rather than thrown out.

#recipe post #comfort foods

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the-silver-chronicles · 2 months

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5 Songs and 3 Outfits

Tagged by @g0dspeeed @nightbloodbix @voidika @onehornedbeast @inafieldofdaisies and @strafethesesinners

Tagging @socially-awkward-skeleton @direwombat @softtidesworld @adelaidedrubman @strangefable @turbo-virgins @cassietrn @carlosoliveiraa @corvosattano @josephslittledeputy @josephseedismyfather @afarcryfrommymain @megraen @minilev @starsandskies @deputyash @deputy-morgan-malone @dephellseed @derelictheretic @chazz-anova @snake-in-the-garden @cloudofbutterflies92 @florbelles @foofygoldfish @fourlittleseedlings @gaeadene @henbased @ladyoriza @la-grosse-patate @skoll-sun-eater @shallow-gravy @thewanderer-000 @titiagls @trashcatsnark @vampireninjabunnies-blog @shellibisshe @wrathfulrook and @aceghosts + anyone else who wants to join.

RULES: Post 5 songs associated with your OC(s), followed by 3 outfits they would wear.

Gathered Silva Omar, Kamski Neon and Ernesto Stallone for this one. Read under the cut:

SILVA OMAR (FAR CRY 5)

Dream -Bishop Briggs

"I wanna break down where your heart gets So torn it's almost breaking mine I wanna lay here, lost and bitter So long, I feel like I could die I wanna tell you what my truth is But it's buried down inside."

Last One Standing - Skylar Grey ft. Polo G, Mozzy, & Eminem

"Now you see me standing in the lights But you never saw my sacrifice Or all the nights I had to struggle to survive Had to lose it all to win the fight I had to fall so many times Now I'm the last one standing."

Safe And Sound - Capital Cities

"I could lift you up I could show you what you wanna see Take you where you wanna be You could be my luck Even if the sky is fallin' down I know that we'll be safe and sound."

Heat Waves - Glass Animals

"I just wanna know what you're dreaming of When you sleep and smile so comfortable I just wish that I could give you that That love that's perfectly unsad Sometimes all I think about is you Late nights in the middle of June Heat waves been fakin' me out Heat waves been fakin' me out."

Somebody That I Used To Know - Gotye ft. Kimbra

"Now and then, I think of all the times you screwed me over But had me believing it was always something that I'd done But I don't wanna live that way Reading into every word you say You said you could let it go And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know."

Note: The women in the images below are not Silva's faceclaim and I unfortunately could not remove them. I had done my best at removing their features but if you notice a difference between the women and Silva's faceclaim, please ignore it and focus on the clothing instead. Thank you for your understanding.

Below is Silva's dress which she pretty much only wears at home, a longer version of the deputy uniform, and her casual clothing (plus that of which she wears during the Reaping). Yeah, she doesn't like to show off a lot of skin.

Another note: These are not the right colors.

KAMSKI NEON (FAR CRY 5)

[No Faceclaim Acquired Yet]

Enemy - Imagine Dragons ft. J.I.D

"Oh, the misery Everybody wants to be my enemy Spare the sympathy Everybody wants to be my enemy Look out for yourself!"

Whatever It Takes - Imagine Dragons

"Whatever it takes 'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins I do whatever it takes 'Cause I love how it feels when I break the chains Whatever it takes You take me to the top I'm ready for whatever it takes 'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins I do what it takes."

Some Nights - Fun.

"Some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck Some nights I call it a draw Some nights I wish that my lips could build a castle Some nights I wish they'd just fall off But I still wake up, I still see your ghost Oh, Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for, oh."

All The Stars - Kendrick Lamar ft. SZA

"Tell me what you gon' do to me Confrontation aint nothing new to me You could bring a bullet Bring a sword Bring a morgue But you can't bring the truth to me Fuck you and all your expectations I don't even want your congratulations I recognize your false confidence and calculated promises All in your conversation I hate people that feel entitled Look at me crazy cause I aint invite you Oh you important? You the moral to the story? You endorsing? Motherfucker I don't even like you Corrupted mans heart with a gift Thats how you find out who you dealing with."

Spirits - The Strumbellas

"I got guns in my head and they won't go Spirits in my head and they won't go I got guns in my head and they won't go Spirits in my head and they won't go But the gun still rattles The gun still rattles, oh."

Kamski's clothing mostly consists of a worn doctors uniform, however he does use a pedestrian disguise with a mask if he's going to do something illegal or a regular casual clothing (in the habit of dressing up for winter and refuses to break habit even in the worst of Summer) when going to do legal groceries.

ERNESTO STALLONE (FAR CRY 5)

[No Faceclaim Acquired Yet]

Bad Feeling - Jagwar Twin

"They say! Everything's perfect here And the sun is shining Hey! Hey! Everything's perfect here There's nobody crying Oompa loompa doompety do I got a bad feeling about you Oompa loompa I don't know, dude I got a bad feeling about you."

Hot Girl Bummer (slowed + reverb) - blackbear

"Fuck you, and you, and you I hate your friends and they hate me too. I'm through, I'm through, I'm through."

I'm A Wanted Man - Royal Deluxe

"They didn't know it when they turned me loose I shot the sheriff and I slipped the noose The law ain't never been a friend of mine I'd kill again to keep from doing time You should never ever trust my kind I'm a wanted man I got blood on my hands Do you understand? I'm a wanted man."

Bad - Royale Deluxe

"I'm bad As bad can be So bad That it's hard to believe Oh what they say about me I'm bad, I'm bad As bad can be I'm bad Take a look and see So bad That it's hard to believe I don't care what they say about me."

Bloodshot - Sam Tinnesz

"I'll take another hit to the backbone I'm picking up the heat Like an atom bomb No time on the clock It's a bloodshot 3, 2, 1 You got me bloodshot Maybe I'm a good guy Standing on the wrong side Maybe I'm a sweetheart Trying to make my own scars Don't know what it looks like Just know what it feels like Scared to let it outside Scared of what I just might find."

Stallone doesn't have that much change in clothing besides two changes in his dark blue Courser Guard/gunslinger uniform and his disguised Chosen clothing (for when he infiltrates Eden's Gate).

#far cry the silver chronicles #far cry 5 #oc: silva omar #fc: mina el hammani #oc: kamski neon #oc: ernesto stallone

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juletheghoul · 10 months

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Let Me Follow (Part 6)

AN: Phew! So this was fucking torture. I don't even know how to explain how hard it's been for me lately. Interaction on this site has been abysmal-and while I know we do this for fun, it sort of feels like I'm talking to myself sometimes. It's so hard to not take other people's success personally but I am trying! I have such a clear vision of where this story will go, and I have so much planned that I don't want to give up. I figured the best way to build up my self-esteem, build up my confidence was to go back to how I did it in the beginning, just write, and post. I've done my best to edit this myself, but it hasn't been beta'd. Hopefully, it pays off, enjoy! xo (enjoy the softness before the storm😅)

Joel Miller x F!Reader

Pairing: Joel x F!Reader

Word Count: 4K

Warnings: (18+ NO MINORS) angst, language, age-gap (about 10-11 years, legal, reader is of age), Yearning, post-apocalyptic world, piv sex (wrap it up!), the softest version of this Joel that I've written to date, Grief, panic attack / ptsd / nightmare

Let me know if I missed anything!

reblogs are appreciated

Masterlist Series Masterlist

It felt wrong to smile, almost silly. How could anyone smile with how things were in the world? With Johnny gone, with the pounding pain in the back of your head, with the effort and the hunger shredding a hole through your insides—you’d wipe it off your face. Had managed to keep it off for a long time, but then an animal had jumped onto the road and Joel’s arm had shot out in a protective gesture and it had creeped back in.

“Looks like the rest of the way is on foot.” What had started out as a grinding noise, had quickly turned into dark plumes of smoke from the engine, filling the car with an acrid smell. “Shouldn’t be too far now, few hours.” His scowl was in place, but you saw it differently now–saw it for what it was. A mask, a representation of what this world did to you.

“We can manage that.” Ellie was grabbing her pack, helping Luke with the door before making her way towards the direction Joel pointed you all in.

“Yes, we can definitely manage that.” You smiled at her, wincing slightly at the way your head pounded.

“You okay, Sunny?” His hand lands gently on the side of your neck, turning your face towards his. “You can walk, right?” His hand sweeps up, prodding gently at the throbbing goose egg on the back of your head.

“Yeah, I’m okay, my head hurts like a bitch though. Need water soon.” His scowl seems so different now, it’s worry you see there now, instead of anger. He nods once, lingering for a moment before turning and leading the way. Luke doesn’t comment on the exchange, just gives you a small smile and follows Joel, but Ellie; she gives you a toothy grin and a thumbs up.

Hours pass, thick trees give way to open space. A vast, beautiful landscape stretching out before all of you, seemingly untouched. Everyone is quiet, but alert as you all move closer to your destination.

“How much longer do you think we have left, Joel?” Ellie is lagging a little bit, the hunger and thirst evident in her voice.

“Shouldn’t be too much longer.” He turns to look at her, slowing down to let her catch up but he tenses at the sounds of horses just over the ridge in front of you. His gun flies up, but there are too many. Instantly you’re all surrounded by armed people on horseback, twenty people at least. “Get behind me.” He raises his hands in supplication, letting the gun fall onto his shoulder. “We ain’t lookin’ for any trouble, we’re just passin’ through.”

“Drop the gun.” The person in front of Joel has a rifle pointed at him, a lot of them have guns pointed at the four of you. They have coverings on the lower halves of their faces, the one closest to Joel is yelling, and Joel drops his gun. “You-” He gestures to you, Luke and Ellie. “Take five steps back, separately.”

“How about we just talk this through-” Joel starts to speak before anyone moves.

“How ‘bout you shut the fuck up.” The man cuts him off, and gestures to the rest of you.

“It’s okay, do what he says, we’ll be okay.” You nod at Ellie, moving away from Joel, your own hands up.

“You been near infected?” The man asks no one in particular.

“There’s no infected out here.” Joel responds.

“The hell there ain’t!” The man answers before whistling, from somewhere behind them another man emerges with a dog. “Last chance for a bullet, if you’ve been infected, he will smell it, and he will rip you up.” The dog barks, and your heart sinks. Ellie looks to you, big eyes pleading and you take a tentative step towards her, stopping when another of the riders points his gun at you. The dog makes his way over to Joel, sniffing at his feet for a moment before rising up, friendly.

“Like I said,” Joel calls out. “We’ll just move on.”

“Now the rest of you.” The man calls out, and the dog sniffs Luke, and then you, moving on lastly to Ellie. Your stomach drops and your hand inches towards the knife in your pocket but after a tense breath, the dog licks Ellie’s hands. You can’t help but take a deep breath in relief.

“You just bought yourself more seconds.” The man doesn’t lower his gun. “What are you doin’ out here?”

“We’re just lookin’ for my brother, that’s all, nothin’ more.” A woman rides forward at his words, her dark eyes focused intently on Joel’s face.

“What’s your name?” She asks him.

“Joel.” He answers, and it’s the magic word. She gestures for them to lower their guns. “Joel Miller, right?” She lowers the covering.

“Yeah, do I know you?” His voice is thick with confusion.

“I know Tommy, come on, we’ll lead you to him. Give them a few horses.” She calls out the command to no one in particular, but they rush to obey her nonetheless.

You ride with them, nervously clutching Joel where you sit behind him on the horse they gave him.

“You’re okay Sunny, just hold on. Don’t squeeze your thighs.” He speaks low and you take a deep breath.

“Sorry, I’m afraid of falling off.” You tighten your grip on him, squeezing tightly around his middle.

“I won’t let you.” He presses his hand to yours, reassuring you.

It isn’t long before you arrive at a high wall, with people walking along the top of it. A giant gate is closed to all, until Maria–the woman on the horse gives a signal, and the giant gate opens up for your party. The scene that greets you just inside the gates shocks you into silence. It’s a town, a lively, inhabited, working town. People mill about a central high street, kids play and watch your party move through the street with curiosity instead of fear.

It’s a lot to take in, working lights and shops seemingly open and in good condition, scaffolding and people repairing things–working together.

“Tommy!” Joel yells out, startling you and you see one of the men on the scaffolding turn and look, rapidly making his way down while Joel dismounts the horse you’re sharing and runs towards him. It makes you smile to see and hear Joel so happy, to see him find his own brother and it makes you think of Johnny.

I wish you could have seen this place, Johnny.

–

The food tastes too good to keep any semblance of decorum, instead you shove it into your mouth faster than you can chew it, breathing deeply through your nose in order to fill your belly. Maria and Tommy sit across from the three of you in what was essentially a town cafeteria–Luke had been taken straight to the town doctor and you’d all been assured he’d be fed.

Joel speaks, Ellie argues, and you keep quiet. Tommy and Maria are an item, and if you had to hazard a guess, Tommy has been less than kind in his description of his older brother. There’s something in the air between them, Maria and Tommy, the two of them versus Joel. A look of judgement in her gaze and it raises your hackles.

“The house across the street from us is empty, the one next to it too if you wanted your own place–” She looks at you but Joel cuts her off.

“We stay together. The three of us.” He reaches over, taking your hand in his. Tommy isn’t the only one who’s found someone and it makes your heart soar to have him claim you openly like this.

“That works.” She smiles politely, Tommy too. “How ‘bout a tour?” Joel nods, and you make your way out, with a full belly and a full heart.

The town is well and truly a marvel, the culmination of hard work, strategic location and the well oiled machine that is their patrol. They’ve managed to rebuild a functioning, safe town; full of most of the comforts the world had had before, only on a much smaller scale. You keep quiet as she guides the three of you through their little corner of normalcy, unable to stop yourself from noting where all of the supplies are kept, where the food stores are, how many horses are in the stable.

There’s a tense energy flowing between Joel and Tommy, something unspoken in the air, an anger, a resentment and you can’t exactly blame Joel for his share of it. His brother has been here, safe and happy, with a purpose–content to leave his brother in the dark in order to protect what they have here. You can almost understand why, there’s something else though, something in the way Maria watches Joel that plants a seed of suspicion in your brain. Your suspicion deepens and if you had to hazard a guess, he’s told her some unsavoury things about the man you’d come to–what, love? The thought is sobering, you push it away.

Maria suggests showing you where you’ll be staying, mentions getting cleaned up while she moves away from them, gesturing for the two of you to follow, and with a nod from Joel, you do.

The house was furnished from before, everything old and a bit dusty, but otherwise in good condition. Relatively clean, working lights, a hot shower. Heaven. You stay in there a little longer than necessary, too content in the warmth of the water to make it as quick as you’d planned. Your little trailer–although having served as an oasis by today’s standards–didn’t hold a fucking candle to this.

You smile to yourself, picturing Joel melting in the warmth, his handsome face tipped back in unadulterated joy. It almost made you regret not waiting for him, almost. That first time Johnny had rigged up the trailer to catch rainwater and figured out a way to somehow connect the whole thing to a powersource and heat it, that same feeling coursed through you now as the steam filled the ensuite, only now it was painted with a bittersweet brush. You’d gotten good at pushing away thoughts of Johnny and what could have possibly–probably–happened to him, and you did it again now. You forced his breezy smile, his dumb jokes, the comforting piece of home that he’d been out of your mind and focused on getting clean.

Maria had left some clothing for the three of you in the house, doing a remarkably accurate job at guessing what would fit and once dressed, Ellie had run out of the house, itching to explore. It served you well enough. It gave you time to rest and to regroup. It gave you a chance to think about exactly what it was you wanted to do now that something like this was an option.

—

The house looks normal, really normal. Not just the normal he’s had to adjust the definition of the word to over the last twenty years, either. It’s just a house. It’s just a suburb, just a neighbourhood relatively untouched, by the ravages of the last two decades. A two-story home with good bones, a home he imagined could be stable for him, for Sarah.

The thought of her forces the air out of his chest, punches it out of him with the force of a gunshot. He hadn’t let himself think about her in so long that it shakes him, freezes him where he stands on the porch like some sort of statue. It had been twenty years since he’d lost her, and yet he can still smell her hair in his nose, can still feel the weight of her in his arms, can still hear the sound of her voice and it breaks his heart all over again. He squeezes his eyes shut tight and lets the anger, and the hurt, the rage of his monumental loss pass engulf him.

His heart pounds in his chest, the blood it beats booming like a drum in his ears. His vision blurs as he stands there, terrified and bewildered, swaying as though caught in a massive wave and struggling to breathe. His hand shoots out and he braces himself against the wall of the house. He focuses on the brick under his hand, the grit of it digging into his palm.

Breathe Joel, breathe.

His lungs fill with air.

In. Out. Repeat.

His vision eventually clears as he catches his breath, the pounding in his ears lessens and he finally feels like he can move his legs and after a few more steadying breaths, he leaves whatever the episode was, and the memory of his daughter on the porch.

—

He groans as he makes his way up the stairs and you can’t help but smile, anticipation and excitement and a whole bunch of feelings you can’t, or maybe won’t name swirling in your gut as you wait for him to find you. The scowl is there when he finally opens the right door, his eyes burning into yours but there’s something else there too.

“Everything okay?” You sit up at the sight of him, pale and no doubt clammy by the looks of him, “Did something happen?” The fear doesn’t creep, it slams into you.

“No no, everythin’s okay. Just tired.” His eyes soften, but only a little. “You look…cozy.” He raises an eyebrow at finding you in bed, quite obviously cleaned up and relaxing. “Shower working?”

“Yes, I am very comfortable. It’s a real bed, Joel—real blankets and a real house… lights and hot water.” You can’t help but gush, and smile and kneel up to speak to him, “go, go shower and get clean. Maria brought us some clothes, here—“ you all but crawl out of the bed and rush over to the dresser, grab him a towel and soft sleep things, hurrying to shove them into his hands.

“Hold your horses, girl—where’s Ellie?” He quirks his head, listening for her.

“She’s fine, in the bedroom down the hall, she was passed out when I checked in on her about an hour ago. Now go! Get clean, mister.”

“Okay okay, Sunny, I’m goin’.” Both his tone and his smile are soft, “be right back.” He grumbles halfheartedly, but does what you ask all the same.

He takes just as long as you thought he might, the hot water and steam casting its spell on him, just as it had on you.

“Jesus Christ,” He looks so much softer than you’ve ever seen him, standing at the door in a loose shirt and some boxer shorts, holding his dirty pile of rags, “that was the best shower I’ve taken in years.” He sets down the pile before making his way over to the bed.

“Life Changing, truly.” You smile up at him, giddy at the thought of having him here, safe and protected, in a real bed. “I had almost forgotten what it was like.” You move in a little closer as you speak, itching to snuggle up to him, but keeping your distance all the same. Despite his kiss, his open declaration in the dining hall, it wasn’t easy to forget being pushed away.

“The little setup you had was pretty good.” He must see the doubt, must see the way your fingers twitch with want and he makes the first move, pulling the blanket up and opening his arms. You crawl into his embrace with a toothy grin.

“Nowhere near as good as this.” You bury your face into the skin of his neck and inhale, eyes rolling into the back of your head when his clean scent hits you, “God, I love soap.” You all but moan it into his neck and he laughs, a genuine, deep rumble that fills your heart with something.

“Yeah I bet you do, I’m sorry about the state of me before. You smell pretty great yourself.” He wraps himself closer too, skimming his nose along any inch of skin he can reach and it’s almost as if the world outside doesn’t exist. This is the only thing that matters. Him, you, this bed—Ellie, safe in her room.

“I scrubbed a lot, l probably took off a few layers of skin.” You run your fingers through his hair, basking in the feeling of his touch, basking in his voice and the soft caress of his breath against your skin. Ignoring the tiny little voice that warns he might change his mind later.

Stop that, just enjoy a good fucking thing here.

You scold yourself, bringing your focus back to him.

“Me too, reckon I needed it, bad.” His hands move from your back, up to your skull and you wince when he touches the goose egg. “Still hurts? I should go find Tommy, see if he’s got any painkillers for you.” He almost goes to move away and while your heart sings at his readiness to leave the comfort of this to take away your pain, your fingers dig into his back and hold.

“Don’t you dare.” He laughs, and gets back into place.

“Yes ma’am, I’ll do it in the morning.” He takes another look at where you’d been hurt before tucking you close, and pulling the blanket up over you both. “It feels so strange to lay here, almost normal.”

“I know, it’s almost too weird.” Your leg lifts of its own accord and hooks over his middle, “I have my knife on the nightstand beside me, but I almost feel like I should have it under my pillow.”

“I know what you mean, been livin’ in fear a long time. That doesn’t just go away after a hot shower and a good meal.” His hand comes down and holds onto your thigh, as though you’d both done this a million times, you smile into his neck.

“Can we stay here?” The question has been there all day, burning a hole in the back of your brain and into the tip of your tongue, “Do you want to stay here?”

“I don’t know, I don’t even know what I’d do with myself here.” You bite your lip at his admission, “If you wanted to, I would. I’d go wherever you go.” His tone is soft again, his eyes averted and you can see it’s hard for him to admit that out loud. “I know I’m hard to be around sometimes, but I’m tryin’.” His hand sweeps up your thigh as he speaks, giving himself something to focus on, ground himself with.

“I know, Joely. I can see it.” You lean in and kiss his cheek, pressing yourself closer to him, pushing past the lump in your throat to speak. “Once Ellie does what she needs to do, we can all live here.”

“We’ll have to see how that goes, her and the fireflies.” He says nothing more, and you leave it there.

A yawn slips out and before you’ve even finished, he’s reaching over and turning off the light on his side. His arms, the soft sweep of his hands on your skin, his voice in your ear and his lips at your temple all work their magic and lull you into a deep, dreamless sleep.

His whole body twitches, and that’s what wakes you up, bleary eyed and half terrified. You barely have time to rub at your eye with the heel of your hand before he’s moving again, his head jerking side to side and you call to him, but he doesn’t hear you.

“Joel, wake up,” you put your hand on his shoulder, softly, “Joel!”

He lurches forward violently, his arms flailing in the darkness and you know he’s still in the nightmare, the terror bleeding through into reality for a moment before he realizes where he is.

“It was just a bad dream,” you reassure him, keeping your voice soft and calm, “you’re okay, come.” You open your arms to him and even though he’s awake, he still takes a few deep breaths before moving. Whatever he’d dreamt, it had been bad. He breathes hard as he settles beside you, the sheen of terror shining on the parts of his face illuminated by the moon filtering into the room. “Do you want to talk about it?” You run your fingers through his hair, doing your best to soothe him.

“I–” He frowns, opening his mouth, then closing it, and repeating the action a couple of times before answering again, “It’s just, everythin’.” He lets go of a big breath, and melts into the bed, melts into you. “I just, I dreamt somethin’ bad happened–I think. I don’t even know anymore.” his breath fans across your skin as he speaks, raising goosebumps in its wake.

“I get it,” You press your lips to his neck, “Happens to me too, sometimes.”

The novelty of this moment isn’t lost on you, the stark contrast between when you first met and now would have been unbelievable to you back then.

“First night in a real bed, and this is what happens.” He scoffs in the dark. The words are meant to be light, but he can’t hide the annoyance threaded in the tone.

“Well, we could take advantage,” your thumb brushes against the plump of his lower lip, but you don’t push it further, “what do you think?” He almost doesn’t let you finish your sentence, instead his mouth presses against yours, forestalling any further conversation, and filling your stomach with butterflies.

It’s almost embarrassing how fast your body responds to him, the trail his hands leave across your skin like an electric current. His palm skates up under the loose shirt and finds the weight of your breast, his thumb brushing over the stiff peak in sync with the groan he feeds directly into your mouth. You scramble to get closer, feeling the frantic energy in his hands and matching it.

It feels so fast, feels like just a moment before you’d been sleeping and not clamouring to eat each other alive. But it also feels so slow, like no matter how hard you both breathe one another in, no matter how quickly you rip off each other's layers, you cannot get close enough, fast enough.

It’s then that the realization hits you. There, on the edge of this bed that isn’t yours, but could be. It’s there when the layers are finally fucking gone, when your mouths are fused together but barely moving, when you’re finally fully seated and your aching pussy is stretched around the thickness of him.

I love you.

His forehead rests against yours while you sit on him, snug, and tight, and wet. The two of you sharing each other's breath, the nightmare forgotten, or most likely repressed. You try to shoo the thought away and focus on the way he feels, on the way he fills you so perfectly. You focus on the hands that hold onto your ass, on the broken moans he breathes onto your skin.

God, I love you.

It pops up again, unbidden and you frown to yourself, trying again to focus on him.

“What’s wrong baby?” His eyes are on you now, his frown a mixture of pleasure and worry. “Am I hurtin’ you?” He holds your chin so tenderly, it makes your heart ache.

“No, Joely, it feels so good.” You kiss him, relishing in the fact that you can, but it isn’t enough because he pulls away for a moment.

“You sure?” He cradles your face in his big hands and it’s a double edged sword. It’s everything you never thought you’d have, it’s comfort and belonging, but it’s also a void. A black hole you could fall into, and never crawl out of. It’s a weakness, a stupid, wreckless risk that this world no longer seems to have any space for. You can see it, the black pit of despair in his eyes, the trust and gamble it is to love another person and it shifts like the colours of an oil slick stain on concrete when it rains. From terrifying, to beautiful.

“I’m okay, I promise.” You press a soft kiss to his mouth again, and lie to both him, and yourself.

---

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