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#i will never understand why violence and murder is so much more acceptable then some fucking WORDS
timeisacephalopod · 2 years
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I love the logic of American (and by cultural mingling extension Canadian) tv standards because Supernatural straight up has tons of blood, on screen violence, mutilated corpses (just ran into one on the show with no hands/feet and a rune carved into his chest) ect and this is fine. No thoughts on Morality™️ here-
Somehow the line is drawn at swearing, because that's more offensive to viewers than cannibalism, which has also been featured on the show multiple times. "Fuck" is somehow more dangerous to public consumption then two people eating each other to death, an actual plot on the show, so what the fuck kind of line to draw is that? Let them say fuck and don't be a bitch about it when they straight up murder people on the reg and it's a violent as fuck show why is there no swearing allowed??!?!? Ghostfacers made it canon that they swear and I think Americans (and by extension Canadians) need to be freed from this dipshit ass Morality Police standard when objectively there's worse content on most shows than a god damn swear.
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heartsforhavik · 4 months
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yandere mk1 men x compliant! reader
warnings: kidnapping, mentions of violence and murder, stockholm syndrome, all men are yandere and ooc, implied afab reader in johnny's, implied nsfw in bi-han's, mentions of an anxiety attack in zeffeero's, tomas is a masochist, gender neutral reader, reader doesn't care that they were kidnapped
summary: the mk1 men (johnny cage, bi han, kuai liang, zeffeero, tomas vrbada) are yandere, and they just kidnapped you. but you seem to not care...
a/n: sorry again for my late updates😭 anyways i was reading a yandere fic and i was like 'i would just give up and accept my fate if a yandere kidnapped me.' so here's some hcs based on that lil thought LMAOO
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johnny cage would be ECSTATIC when he notices how compliant you are. thank god he didn't have to force you to accept your new life, that would've been ugly. now, he can live out his fantasy of a perfect life with you! and don't worry about your needs such as food and water, he's got the money to take care of that. besides, now you're with THE johnny cage! other people would sell their soul to be in your spot. you're grateful for your new life, right? you have to now, because johnny is so excited to start a family with you very soon, whether you like it or not.
bi-han wouldn't be surprised that you submitted to him so easily. it was a wise choice to be obedient. if you didn't, bi-han would have to punish you. and we wouldn't want that, would we? obviously, bi-han's always had the power and resources to make sure you never escape in the first place, but since you're just so calm and compliant, he doesn't have to stress about that anymore. but that doesn't mean he's entirely trusting of you yet. he would still keep his guard up for the first few months of your capture, just in case you were deceiving him with your willingness. but overall, bi-han is glad that you are so compliant. he brings you outside every now and then as a reward for your obedience. who knows, maybe if you keep up your good behavior, he'll reward you even more.
kuai liang was not excited to take you in. he knew you'd probably resist him, but it's for the best! please don't kick and scream at him, he's doing this because he loves you. he's keeping you safe, there's a lot of bad people out there that could hurt you and he can protect you from them. as soon as you noticed you were in an unknown place, he braced for an argument of some sorts, until you casually addressed him and asked where you were. kuai liang explained your situation and told you that he was doing it because he loves you so much, and you'll understand someday. surprisingly, you simply nodded and shrugged, accepting your situation and deciding not to defy scorpion himself. he was relieved that you didn't have any qualms with your new life, especially after he put so much effort into mending your new living space to your liking. he worked very hard to provide you with enough of your necessities to make you never want to leave.
zeffeero is confused at how cooperative you are. he had an entire anxiety attack before he committed the act, berating himself for doing such an atrocious thing. he would've hated for you to despise him, even though he would've understood why. fortunately, his anxieties were put to rest as soon as he saw how casually you handled the situation. even though it left him wondering if you were as mentally sane as he thought you were. but that doesn't matter, because now zeffeero doesn't have to hold back on his affections. he took your compliance as a sign that you are okay with his twisted way of loving you. now, your life within those walls is a lot more suffocating than you thought it would be.
tomas vrbada had mixed feelings about the situation. if you woke up in an unknown place, surely you'd be pissed at him. so you would probably cuss him out, or even fight him physically. tomas doesn't want to hurt you, but at the same time, he would relish in your hatred for him. for some reason, tomas would get a strange high out of your assertion and he'd feel very flustered if you were ever aggressive towards him. you could yell at him for the smallest thing, and he'd just stare at you with adoration as if he was in a trance. even though he would love for you to yell and scream at him, he would ultimately prefer for you to be happy with him and your new life. tomas desperately wants to have a normal-ish relationship with you, so it would be best if you were compliant with him. thankfully, you ended up quite cooperative with tomas, and easily adjusted to your new life. it made him so happy that you accepted him, that he spoiled you with everything you could ever want. tomas is at your beck and call, and he will do anything to make you happy. except free you.
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rise-my-angel · 10 months
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Heart of the Great Wolf
5 - A War of Tragic Beginning
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Pairing: Jon Snow x F!Baratheon!Reader (Slow Burn), Robb Stark x F!Baratheon!Reader
Length: 18.5k
Warnings: Angst/hurt comfort, slow burn, mentions of executions, discussions of war, blood and violence, smut, oral (m receiving), p in v, slight dom/dub dynamics, casualties of war, major character death, unexplained mystical phenomena, slight canon divergence
Notes: I have no excuse for the length alright, I apologize. Anyways, I told you this was a slow burn, so strap in because we are in for the long haul now. Series Masterlist Here.
Little news had come out of Kings Landing since Robb had received your raven about his father being injured in the streets by the Kingslayer. Maester Luwin had tried to maintain an air of rational saying that things are likely too busy but it was an unspoken look between him and Robb that talked of a worry about what as to come. Once word from you stopped coming, Robb stopped sending, the likelihood of anothers eyes intercepting any word between you, too much of a paranoia.
He had kept busy, falling into his fathers role as Lord of Winterfell more naturally then he had once feared. You had assured him the morning you left that you had every confidence in him, and a boyish part of him hoped that you’d be proud for seeing the right future in him. Bran was still getting used to his older brothers new demeanour having separate Robb from him as a brother and his more common demeanour now called Lord Robb. If he remembered correctly, he didn’t have too different of a point of view when he was a child.
Still very young, and his only other sibling, only friend even being Jon, Robb had many memories of having the free time to watch his father assume a role he was never meant to have. Winterfell was meant to go to his Uncle Brandon, and once the war ended, his father had to quickly learn to take this role over. Days his father was in court, he was much more stern whereas in the quiet of the night was when he finally could see his father laugh and joke.
Robbs nights however, weren’t filled with the same peace. A plot by the Lannisters to murder his brother that none seemed to know why, his father, sisters, and wife away in Kings Landing where the only word was him being attacked by the same Lannisters, and his own brother, his closest companion for his entire life now up at the Wall swearing his entire life to a whole new family.
It was Jons choice, but somehow it made it harder to accept.
Somewhere along the lines, Robb couldn’t help but realize that he should’ve done more as his brother. He should’ve made Jon’s life less of a series of obstacles to jump over, should have stepped in more between him and his mother’s anger. So much of Robbs life had changed so drastically so quickly.
His father named hand of the king, leaving for the captiol with both of his sisters, his brother falling from a tower in a plot to murder him, his brother leaving for the wall, and now to add being tossed into a sudden marriage with one of his oldest friends and only having one night together before she too was dragged to the capitol. Even just a year ago, Robb would’ve had Jon there to talk it out with.
They’d ride to some challenging terrain in the woods and spend the afternoon switching between jesting at the other for complaining and reassuring the other. They were both good at that, or at least Jon was. Robb once more, regretting not being more of that reassuring support to his brother when it would have mattered the most. But at least Robb could’ve gone to Jon to stop the noise in his head screaming about you.
Jon knew you as long as Robb had, and he had a better friendship with you as well. He was close with you for so many years and that was nothing to scoff at but there was a quiet understanding you and his brother had that he was thankful for. Whatever Robb couldn’t see, you always did, and vise versa. Robb had only started to work with you in the training yard, because Jon had started teaching you first. Were the one brother he could talk to still here, maybe he wouldn’t feel so strange about his feelings over you.
Robb wasn’t blind, he knew all too well you were pretty. By the time you had come to Winterfell when you were fourteen and had matured considerably since the last time he saw you, Theon who had not met you by that point made an off handed comment about being the one to teach you what a man looked like. All three of them were around sixteen at the time and he could still see the glaring and aggressive looks both he and Jon gave him instantly. But he wasn’t wrong, you were very pretty.
There had always been a spark of something there, but something in Robb told him to hold off on acting on any of it. Your friendship regardless was fond, soft looks that always warmed him on the inside and eventually Robb simply had matured enough that if this was all there was then it would be alright. Then the letter came.
Something about the morning you came to his room, nervously trying to get out that you didn’t want their first kiss to be in front of the way too big crowd of the wedding set Robb alight. The fact that you did want to, the softness of your lips and skin under his touch and the sigh that Robb didn’t even think you realized you let out dragged him down.
It was duty to marry, but you were someone he cared about, and neither of you were shying away about what being married would entail. He had to guide you that night, and as he watched you nervously collect yourself in his room looking out the window he truly felt like some lecher. His eyes unable to stop looking at you in a way he never really did before and how easily you melted under some of the lightest of touches made him want to ruin you.
It scared him how easily you two fell into something neither thought you’d ever even have, how well you felt around him and how responsive to his touch you were. And now not seeing you for months, not even knowing if you were okay? It made Robb desperate to talk to someone about how on edge it made him feel. Like he was too protective, his thoughts about you too obsessive and he needed someone who understood him to work through his mess of a mind over you.
He couldn’t really talk to Theon. He trusted him like a brother, easy to forget he was a ward, a prisoner, when they both treated each other like he was just meant to be there. But Theon wasn’t the right one to talk to about you. His interest in girls was always just sexual and Robb couldn’t even remember a time he talked about someone in any kind of romantic way. Being so far apart so soon after marrying you was messing with his head.
But, that feeling only got worse. A raven came from Kings Landing, and as he stood there with Theon and Maester Luwin, that confusion turned to rage. Holding it in his hand he looked it over again. “Treason?” Looking up to Luwin he felt as confused as he was enraged. “Sansa wrote this?”
Luwin was doubtful but confident, “It is your sister’s hand, but the Queens words. You are summoned to Kings Landing to swear fealty to the new King.”
His blood growing hot he couldn’t even bring himself to read the words another time, for case he tore it up on the spot. “Joffery puts my father, and my wife in chains and now he wants his ass kissed?”
Luwin spoke low, offering a reason that as Robb only imagined the right of you and his father tossed away in their dungeon, sunk to the lowest parts of the sea. “This is a royal command, my Lord. If you refuse to obey..”
His voice was confident now, the Lord Robb that Bran would call him. It felt drastic, but as every other scenario played in his head, none came to mind that sat alright with him. “I won’t refuse. His Grace summons me to Kings Landing, I’ll go to Kings Landing. But not alone.”
This was it, he says these words and he has chosen his, his families, and the Norths course of action but as he looked at Luwin, he didn’t see the look of someone who didn’t trust him. He saw the same support and loyalty that he’d seen towards his father many times over.
“Call the banners.” Asking to be sure, asking if he truly means all of them and he didn’t blink nor pause to respond. “They’ve all sworn to defend my father, have they not? Now we see what their words are worth.”
Luwin was proud, even if he didn’t say it. They’d dismiss him as a boy, but that was not the command of anything but a man and a leader.
It took some of the houses far sooner to get here, the North was vast but as they arrived it was with no doubt or offence. It would be a few days before they could expect all of the banners, should all of them prove their loyalty at least, and it left Robb tense.
Unable to relax, there was a constant clench in his jaw, a heavy set in his shoulders that hardened each passing hour. Grey Wind stuck dutifully by his side. He didn’t have the words to explain it, but there was a connection he had with his direwolf, something that he was sure if he brought up to Maester Luwin, would be dismissed as his imagination. But Grey Wind always knew what Robb was feeling it seemed and at times, Robb didn’t know why but it felt like he was controlling him as if he were the true wolf.
It was that sense which he put trust into that night. Grey Wind grew agitated and worked up, Robb letting him out into the main yard thinking he may just be in need of a good hunt as all of these men converged on Winterfell.
Robb was speaking with Maege Mormont when it happened, the howling of Grey Wind, a chattering just outside and the galloping of a horse. Drawing him out the doors, Robb had barley stepped onto the gravel below when his eyes deceived him.
You were feeling truly exhausted. Not having slept in days, and the second you had landed in White Harbour you heard of the banners being called and made one hard ride to get here. The no food and barley any water wasn’t didn’t make you any less shaky either. Climbing off the horse, you could only look at Robb as you struggled to catch your breathe. Looking at him, he was more of a leader then when you departed, and you were certainly not similarly better off.
He called your name, and it was hard to remember if you went to him, he you, or met both ways but all you could really recall was collapsing into his arms. Robb pulling you tight against him, one hand wrapped around your lower back and the other cupped the back of your head to hold you close to his neck. Your name once more murmuring quietly from his lips, being hummed into the side of your head as you tried pulling back. “No, no, no, relax. Hold onto me, okay?” That warm voice almost made you cry, soothing in a way you hadn’t heard or felt in months you only managed to wrap your arms around his neck before Robb swiftly scooped you up.
Turning his head away to the crowd you heard him command someone to fetch Maester Luwin, only to turn back to you quietly when you tried shaking your head. “He’s looking you over, and that’s final.” A command in his voice that was well suited on him.
A woman’s voice shouting in the background as Robb brought you inside to, “You heard him, get your asses moving,” He chuckled into you when your brows furrowed slightly.
Your eyes tried fluttering shut, so in need of sleep but Robb slightly adjusted his hold on you to be tighter and higher, “Don’t fall asleep on me now.” You tried to speak, mind racing to get it all out at once but he shushed you with a gentle murmur of your name. “It’s alright, relax for me first. Let’s just make sure you’re okay before we do anything else.”
Sitting you gently onto his bed, you winced to sit up against the headboard as Robb took to the edge of the bed facing you. A hand running over the side of your face, his bright eyes narrowing with flashes of anger at the dirt and cuts still scattered about. Your hand gently reached up, grasping at his wrist and holding it there as you ran a thumb over his pulse. Still as strong as it was when you left. “I’m fi-”
“You’re not fine, you could barley stand for two seconds the second you got off your horse.” Opening your mouth to protest, Robb called your name firmly with his other hand gently at your waist. “You going to force me to make it an order?”
Smirking weakly, you felt some of your insides come alive too at the soft one he returned. “You ordering me around as what, Lord of Winterfell or my husband?” A playful scoff left his lips as he leaned in, sliding the hand on your cheek to gently hold the back of your neck. “I’ve only just gotten back, my Lord. A little patience wouldn’t hurt.”
You barley saw him roll his eyes before he pressed his lips to yours. Nothing firm or pushing, just an ever so gentle kiss as he ran his thumb over the back of your neck from his firm grip. Your hands weak, only willing to grasp at his waist before he already pulled back. Meeting your eyes, you wanted to pull him back at how much was overwhelming his.
Both of you looking to the door as Luwin came in, a genuine look of relief in his eyes as he closed the door behind him. One that was so much more real then any of the people around in Kings Landing.
Robb stood close by as he watched him check you over. Answering his questions, where certain marks came from and Robb’s jaw tightening with each explanation. “They are mostly innocent, should heal in a matter of days but you are okay. I can get someone to fetch some food and water for you,” he looked up to Robb “and you make sure she gets some sleep.”
His eyes softened as he looked at you, “You’ll need all the energy you can to deal with the lot out there.” Laughing weekly, you leaned your head against the wall behind you, covering your face with a long sigh, collecting your thoughts.
“Are you up to telling us what happened?” Hands falling down to your lap you nodded, much more serious then just before. Glancing between Luwin and Robb you explained as best you could. About looking into Jon Arryn, the King’s death and what Renly and Petyr Baelish tried to propose and by the time you got to what truly occurred you felt the same rage you did in the moment.
“He played us for fools. Trusting him, the city watch, all of it.” Your eyes on the fire at the opposite end of the room glazing in the flames as you saw it all again. “He was right, she didn’t care what we were going to do, she knew. Cersei knew we wouldn’t stay quiet and she counted on it, we were always going to get thrown into those cells.”
Luwin relayed what the raven from Sansa had said, and you confirmed what Lord Varys had told you himself. “She’s still engaged to Joffery, and as long as she is she’ll be safe.” Pausing with a tilt of her head, “Relatively safe.”
You hadn’t mentioned Arya and neither did the letter, “What about Arya?”
Shaking your head, a weaker feeling passed over your eyes. “She’s still in the city, and if she is they’ll find her. They’ve got eyes everywhere, someone will see her and Cersei will likely keep her under close watch.”
Luwin had thought it over, “The Queen needs them alive, especially now. Three Starks to trade to prevent war.” Robb asking what about you, and the glance between you and Luwin said it all. Your eyes narrowing as you looked down to nothing as he was far more grim. “She’s not just your wife, she’s Stannis Baratheons daughter, his heir.”
Your voice was tight, yet fooled no one of the strain behind it. “If I didn’t leave when I did, I wasn’t coming out of there with my head.” Missing the restrained anger in Robb as you failed to look at either party in the room. “If somehow they beat my father, then the claim passes to me.” The words felt heavy and unnatural on your tongue as you said them. “Then they really can’t risk it.”
“You’d be dead either way.”
Turning to meet his eyes, you knew the rage behind his stilled expression all to well. A rage many Starks held and one that you had seen in his father as things continued to get worse. He wouldn’t lose it here though, with his fathers bannermen outside there was a real place to channel that rage.
Luwin left you both alone, going to ensure someone sent you up something easy to down as Robb came back to your side. Sitting close enough now that he could lean his forehead against yours, his hands on your cheek and waist while yours found enough strength to gently slide around his neck.
Despite how you both got here, there was no doubt that in this very moment, Robb felt like home and how much you truly had missed him. Maybe it was too strong or too soon, but now wasn’t the moment for you two to talk about that. Right now as he waited for someone to bring you something, you both sat in the others presence. Appreciating both the quiet and the feeling of the other in your arms, but like that day by the Weirwood as everyone else left to give you two a moment. Just quiet closeness to reassure the other, it had to be about you two now and your heart was much lighter at the sensation of how easy it was getting to allow it to be that way.
You’d remember your strange dream that night in the black cell later, the one of fierce cold and fire and the urgency in the rasping voice that you once knew but couldn’t place the longer you were away from the dream. But right now, it was the soothing, all consuming warmth of the one you vowed to be with.
Laughing to yourself, he pulled back with a slight grin. Running a hand over your hair, “What?”
Maybe it was how tired you were, but it just slipped out no matter what you had just tried to tell yourself not to do. “You make it too easy to fall in love with you, you know?” Robb’s eyebrows raised and his eyes lit up playfully.
“Do I, now? Do you want to elaborate on that at all?” Rolling your eyes you tried turning away but he gently pulled you back. “Oh no you, don’t. You’re in my bed, you’re not getting away that easily.” Leaning in he brushed his mouth against yours as he spoke, “How about my pretty little wife tells me all about what’s made her cold, hard, exterior fall for a man like me?”
You smirked as you felt your insides fluster, you were exhausted and for days on end now, in a constant state of panic and yet here Robb was making you feel like a little girl as he teased you. Part of you felt guilty at how Jon had simply known you’d find it easy to do so, but looking at Robb you knew not only did he deserve to be loved but you wanted it to be from you.
Something about these Starks apparently spoke to you. One real father away on the island of your home and yet the one you worried for was the wolf trapped away in Kings Landing. So much of the men in your family found no love or affection for the women in their life and yet both of Eddard Starks eldest sons found their own unique way to make you soft on the inside.
Pushing forward to kiss him yourself, Robb sighed into your mouth. His body relaxing a bit more like you both could only put on a ruse like this for so long. Pulling away just enough to press his lips to your cheek and down your jaw you smiled weakly, “You’re supposed to let me rest.”
Humming as he kissed your neck, it almost tickled from the brush of his facial hair. “I never said you had to do anything, my lady. Just relax, and take it like a good girl.” Oh he was unfair, he was not allowed to make you shiver like that now of all times.
Lightly pushing him back, he breathed a laugh at the knock at the door, sitting back to give you space as he called them in. To your surprise, the door was rather busy. One made sense, Grey Wind having found his way inside, no doubt also keeping to Robbs side more as people arrived. Some likely unsure of being around the increasingly growing dire wolf, and seeing him obey at his masters side would lighten that doubt.
The three others, one was a large man you recognized as Hodor carrying little Bran who upon seeing you widened his eyes and exclaimed your name. Nodding to the bed, Bran glanced at the large man with a polite, “Please, Hodor”.
Steps loud and large, Hodor reached the bed where Robb gently took his brother himself to sit up up close to you the way Robb was. Bran reaching forward the same time you did with a hug, you burying your face at the top of his head running a hand over his back, little exchanges of “I’m so glad to see you,” followed by an “I missed you too.”
Pulling back he sat in front of you as you looked up to the other woman. Not a face you recognized but putting down a tray of what looked like a simple broth and bread. She avoided your eyes but curiously glanced up as you moved your head to meet hers. Bran spoke up first, “This is Osha, she’s-”
“One of the free folk.” She paused before adding on a quick, “My lady.” That sounded unnatural from her mouth, which given who she was you supposed made sense. A quick glance to Robb he nodded calmly that he’d explain later but assuring enough to trust her. Gesturing towards Bran, her voice was deep and with a bit of a rasp that sounded strained, but appeared to just normal. “The little lord heard you’s was here and wanted to see you.”
Thanking her, she turned and slunk away as you watching curiously before looking back to Bran, running a hand over his hair. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be here when you woke up.” He seemed to be in better spirits then what Robb had written to you about, no doubt time doing much of the help.
You three sat for a while, you slowly working away at the food while Bran sat, leaning slightly against Robb as you all pretended like the world outside the room wasn’t awaiting death and war. You noticed Rickon wasn’t there, but Luwin later would tell you that Robb calling the banners had almost sparked something in the six year old that made him spend more time on his own.
You felt for him, he was too young. Bran was as well, but at ten he was better equipped to handle and understand the situation. Growing late into the night, Hodor took Bran to bed as Robb insisted you sleep, noticing it was getting harder for you to keep your eyes open.
By tomorrow night almost everyone should be arriving or close to, and when they did? You and Robb were to be put to the real test. A lifetime of being raised by respected lords and leaders and the question of not only could you both be leaders, but did you have it in you to do it together.
Morning came early, far too early but you had woken up in a way you could barley remember by your return. The sun just lightly shining into the window from the more cloudy northern skies, a warm fur draped over you as you lay in a bed, one actually soft and forgivable on your muscles. But it was the warm body behind you that pulled you out of your sleep.
One large warm hand draped over your hip has caused your shirt to ride up ever so slightly, enough that it let him slip under and explore whatever he could find. Sometime during the night, he seemed to have pulled away the thick of your hair out of his way, giving him the space to rest his own head partially against the back of yours and enough for Robb to have pressed a few gentle kisses to your neck when he joined you in bed hours after you fell asleep.
The stone walls of his room were so much more relaxing then the brightness of any quarters you had in the captiol. Twisting slightly, you tested if you could move without disturbing him, but Robb just adjusted in his sleep to whatever you did. Turning to face him now, your hands rested gently in the small space between you.
You wondered if you looked so calm, so at peace in your own sleep. Somehow you doubted it, Robb was the better one to look at in this pair afterall. His brown curls once more tinted red in the morning light, begging you to gently run you fingers through them. Trying not to jostle, you sighed quietly at how soft they were and how easily you could play with his hair.
This..well this was something unique for you. For everything that had your heart before him, the only time you’ve ever had the real grace of waking up next to someone to intimately were dark, stormy nights on Dragonstone. Nights when Shireen had snuck into your room and whispered if you could let her sleep in your bed tonight.
But waking up like this was something you only had once before, with the same man. This time your exhaustion wasn’t from any memory you wanted to look back on, this time it was the scattered fears of fleeing a city wanting your head no doubt. Just as you tried to shake off such a thought, Robb’s brows furrowed, eyes still not open.
His voice matted in sleep, accent thick as anything and slurring together as it came out raw. “You trying to drive a man crazy this early in the morning?” Opening one eye with a playful annoyance you breathed out your own laugh in return. Robb flipped onto his back, arms pulling you along with him, your body cuddled into his side as your head rested closer to his chest.
Moving in closer, you felt your limbs buzzing at how new yet normal it felt with him. “I’m not allowed to admire my husband?” If the way his grip on you tightened, so freely calling him that stirred something within that man.
Keeping his eyes sharp on the ceiling with a smirk sliding onto his lips, Robb let one hand trail down your side. “Not when it riles him up so easily, and you’re supposed to be resting.” His hand said something different however. His palm rough on you as it made its way to your waist, stopping to greedily squeeze the soft skin he could grasp at. His smirk grew at the skip in your breathe.
Your own eyes narrowing playfully as you gently ran your own hand over his chest. Pushing the open sides of his shirt off him to give your fingers room to explore without anything in your way. “I’m supposed to be. Didn’t stop you from getting in the way of that last time.”
Mistake. That seemed to be a mistake. Robb shoved his hand down your hip and thigh, the force of the action shoving your pants down with him. Turning slightly to see you better, you weren’t nearly as teasing or daring as your words. It only made him bold.
Suddenly moving so that you were the one on your back and Robb learning over you on his side, his face looking down your legs as he yanked them the rest of the way off one leg. Pulling back to hover over your bottom half he grabbed the other side and yanked it off as well, tossing the article to the floor like it offended him.
He didn’t give you a chance to return the favour. Climbing up your body, Robb just as roughly pulled your shirt off as well leaving him mostly clothed and you laying back in his bed completely bare. His eyes raking over yours he found himself pausing, “How is it you look even better then I remember?”
Not giving you a chance to answer, Robb leaned down and captured your lips. His kiss much greedier then last night as he wrapped an arm around your back to pull you up into him. Your hands running over his chest and pushing the material off of him enough that you could grasp onto his shoulders.
One hand grasping your jaw to tilt your head to stay exactly where he wanted. Your knees parting without thought to let his hips slide into the space as he hovered over you more. Biting you bottom lip, you could feel the sting from his force pulling a gasp from you. Robb chuckled darkly into your mouth at the high pitched sound, using the perfect opportunity he wanted to slide his tongue into your mouth.
One hand raking up into his hair, nails scratching at his scalp as he dragged his tongue along yours while his hand on your jaw gave you no choice but to let him taste you at his mercy. Dragging his fingers along your inner thigh as he dragged them slowly across your folds, you jolted and grasped onto him tighter when he dragged his nails over your clit.
Moving your neck to push your head into the pillows, he granted himself access to your neck with bites not letting you ease into it. Gasping his name, Robb smirked against your neck as he bit and sucked at the skin with much more ferocity then he had your only other night together.
His fingers slid back down your entrance and back up in the same tease as before with no pause, your thighs now sat the side of his own hips shaking slightly as you exhaled trying to keep composure. A feat not worth fighting as you let a whine slip as Robb pressed his lips firmly to a sensitive spot of your neck that he could feel soak his fingers more. Slipping them up to your ear your eyes fluttered as his warmth breathe ran over it, “Is it really this easy to make such a composed woman into such a needy thing for me?”
Another whine failed to swallow down your throat before he heard it. Pushing up onto his knees he pulled the rest of his shirt off. Reaching for his own pants he paused, hands right at the lace when he looked up at you with a dark need. Slowly Robb moved his hands to slide over your thighs and grasp at the skin.
Your chest heaving you couldn’t stop glancing down as your veins burned in a need. “Robb-”
“You want my cock?” It should’ve been shameful how you didn’t even think to nod, but his eyes only grew darker. “Be a good little wife and pull it out for me, then.” What should’ve been more shameful was how quickly you sat up to obey him. The way he looked at you like you were just a juicy piece of meat all for his ravishing hunger made your brain feel foggy.
Looking up at him, you undid the lace slowly pulling the material down. Just as you freed his cock, he grasped the back of your head, keeping your eyes on the thick length begging for attention. You couldn’t understand why you felt so willing to do anything he wanted or asked, but it was like having only him and his touch in your thoughts was a craving. Your hands gently grasped at his hips as he still knelt above you, his voice thick as anything. “It’s all yours. Just ask for it.”
“Please, Robb, my lord, I want you in my mouth.” Were he not spreading them you’d have clenched your thighs together at how tightly he fisted your hair as he almost hissed at you. Unable to risk speaking, he pushed your head forward.
You licked the tip of his cock, eyes closing at the salty taste of precum already leaking out. Moving to take the rest of his length into your hands, he tsked at you with a tightening in your hair. Fingertips flexing, you kept them on his hips as you took his tip into your mouth. Sucking gently as you licked what you could it, it didn’t miss you that even just this he stretched your mouth wide.
Ever so slowly, he allowed you to take him at your own pace, your own saliva building up and coating his cock the deeper you took him. Pushing past a certain point only a little over a third, your heart skipped a beat of what felt like panic. Robb however, seemed to sense it, loosening his grip and more massaging where he held you at your hair, his other hand reaching for your neck. His thumb gently running up and down your throat, as you felt your heart steady and your muscles relax.
“That’s a good girl. You can take all of me, I know you can.” How was he so calming yet making you even wetter all at the same time? It took some time, Robb muttering small praises before you were more then halfway down his length.
You pulled back a bit, as Robb guided your head himself now to pull your mouth up and down his cock, the sight of your closed eyes enjoying as you bobbed your head on him too much. His head falling back with a needy groan, something which might be your name thrown in there as he let you take this for now.
The more you sucked his cock, the more you forgot the world around you, the more worked up you felt on the inside and the more eager you became to take all of him. His length throbbed just as he yanked your mouth from him. A trail of saliva caught between his length and your gasping lips as you looked at him. Soaked from your mouth and shining from how much you spread his own precum along as well.
In an instant, Robb shifted. Pulling you up to his lips as he leaned down to yours. “Turn around for me,” He muttered between another kiss.
Without thought, you moved onto your hands and knees as Robb yanked your hips up more, forcing your face slightly towards the bed. One palm sliding over to roughly grasp at one of your ass cheeks he swore with a grumble under his breath. The other went to gather the wetness between your legs and ran across your clit with two fingers. You gasped as the spark of pleasure burned your core as he was firm and rough in his touch.
Pressing himself closer the tighter the rough circles he had on your clit, the more overwhelmed you felt from it. Head dropping you found it hard to breathe at the constant touch and Robb behind you left your ass to drag up your spine and grasped the back of your neck. Pushing you to stay face down into the sheets as he slid the two fingers deep inside you. Pumping quickly for only seconds before pulling them back out and up to your clit again as you begged with “Please,” and breathless “Robb- oh fuck,”
The hand on the back of your neck made you feel like an animal forcing to obey their pack leader, but perhaps that's exactly what this was. He was the wolf, and you were the mate on your hands and knees soaking his hand. Only Robb’s own need was strong.
Just as you moaned, the fire inside you burning to bright and snapping, your orgasm washing through you did Robb push inside. His cock just as soaked from your mouth and what his own touch gathered from you, he slid in deep way too fast.
You were too slick inside and he sunk deep enough in one thrust that you could’ve cried, but you may have cried more if he pulled out. Pausing, Robb leaned over you, his cock that way pressing firmer inside as he rested his forehead against the back of your own. “Fuck- I should punish you for keeping a cunt this good from me for so long.”
His hips started to move, and they were not gentle but maybe they shouldn’t have been. The pace was fast but the roughness was unrelenting to the point that you could only dig your hands into the sheets and brace yourself. He felt so thick inside of you and his thrusts so fast and rough that it took your words and your breath but not his own.
Biting at your ear he slurred out in great desire as he pounded into you, “My perfect girl, perfect little wife so fucking good for me, taking my cock,” You whined his name and his laugh almost sounded somewhat delirious. “Oh fuck, clenching around me like you want me to spill inside of you already, That what you want? Want me to fill you up already?”
You barley could nod from how pressed into the sheets you were, but you would’ve stayed that way for as long as he kept fucking you so intensely. “Anything, fuck anything Robb please,”
His strength was less rough but his pace was deliciously cruel. “Don’t say that, don’t you fucking say that if you don’t mean it.” His entire chest laid over your back as he buried his head into your neck rambling. “You have no idea the thoughts that run through my head about you, no fucking clue. You’d run back to your father if you knew the things I want to do to you.”
You cried out his name, reaching one hand blindly behind you to grab onto him and grasp his hair like your own anchor. “Please, I mean it, I mean it I promise. I’m yours, fuck-”
His words spitting into your skin as he pushed your orgasm right back to the edge, his cock having to pound into you with more force just to fuck you as deeply as you clenched so tight around him. “You’re mine, pretty girl?” You nodded but he needed more. “Say it. If you’re mine tell me, fuck tell me you’ll always be mine and I’ll fill this cunt right fucking now.”
Nothing else came to mind, only him. “Always. I’m yours, Robb. Now and always,”
The angle was awkward, but as Robb turned you to bring his lips to yours with force neither of you cared about how messy it was, how your teeth bashed against the other at one point as he kissed you and fucked you, he dragged your orgasm right around his cock.
Crying his name into his mouth, his deep groans turned to moans as he came as well. You could feel his seed, more thick then you remembered and somehow so warm as he filled you up. As long as you were still feeling shocks of pleasure from your orgasm, somehow you kept milking Robbs cock for all he could spill inside of you.
Both of you were ragged, out of breathe as he stayed inside you, laying atop you as neither tried to move him or yourself. It was a while you stayed just like that, his touch turning to gentle and soothing eventually. His voice turning much warmer and soothing again as he lulled you back to the present with soft nothing whispers.
You two only had one other night in this bed, and yet today was your last for you didn’t know how long once more. Only this time, as the men all gathered on Winterfell, you’d decide on final plans before departing and then in the dead of night?
It would be the true final judgment, did your lives truly prepare Robb and yourself for war. But at the very least, you both had the other for however this journey took you both. You weren’t going to sit idly as war fought alone for the father who made you feel as he was yours as well.
For all his faults, you at least understood what it was about Northerners that you could see would greatly put off your father. Some of these men you knew, others you didn’t but there was no question that they saw you as part of the dynamic. Maege Mormont took a liking to you right away, with a comment that would’ve flattened your father and sent him walking into the sea were it him.
“And those ingrates said you didn’t have enough of the North in you.” An arm wrapping around your shoulder, she pulled you into her tall, large frame fondly. “Looks like our lady here got plenty of Northerner in here last night.” Her other hand nudging at the marks you had quickly realized just wouldn’t get covered.
Robb had smirked quite proudly to himself when you realized he had done so on purpose.
The laughs though, didn’t put you off. From everything you’d heard about the woman next to you, your tongue slipped the words out easily as dry as ever. “I can hear the bears all growling without you to warm their nests from here, Mormont.”
Grasping your shoulder she shook you with a hearty laugh as did the others. Introducing you to her daughter, Dacey. Just as large and imposing but with the same grin on her face as she forewent the formalities with you as well.
Maege had been the one to give you the run on which lords were which and what houses you didn’t already recognize. Normally with a greeting and nudging you up yourself. Knowing the men you’d fight beside with was not out of the ordinary for you, you knew most of your own fathers bannerman by sight but the ease of their handshakes and talk put your mind at ease.
Northerners were different then you, for many reasons you got along with them but at the end of the day you to anyone else would be seen as the enemy. You grew up in the Crownlands, your Uncle was the King and your father one with his own claim down south. Your blood was that of the Andals, theirs of the First Men and yet the ones who didn’t trust you spoke to you and found little to care about in those differences.
And the others, well seeing how you already knew a number of these houses was answer too. It was hard to remember, that across the continent, another war was being prepared by the one man it seemed the Crown thought you’d stand by.
But you were told to stand by your family, and if Eddard Stark had not made you feel as if he was a father to you already? You lived half your life in the North, with these people, your heart belonging to more then one. And now you were Robb’s wife, and that made you a Stark to them more then those who still saw you as a Baratheon.
As the sky fell, more plans begun to form and a camp was in mind that would be the first act of taking them all out into the field. Draped in a fur and standing so confidently at Robb’s side you could feel the starting of looking at those who made such promise of council.
Having come over to greet Robb, you were then met with a pair of curious eyes that sat on the face of a very hard to read man. His voice was smooth and with a quiet kind of power his handshake to you felt unusually tight. His eyebrows raised however, when you squeezed back with your own strength as he now kept his eyes on you. “I must say, my lady, you are surprisingly exactly what I expected.”
Your face remained impassive as you struggled to find something behind the polite gaze. “And what would that be, Lord Bolton?”
Then there was a small half smile on one side of his mouth. “Your father has quite the reputation as a commander. I see much of that in you.” Nodding his head to Robb, “The lad is lucky to have you by his side.”
He and Robb shared an easier look before he pulled you a tad closer with a playful tug around your waist. “That I am. I’d be a fool if I just left her here after spending all those years knocking her into the dirt.” You narrowed your eyes playfully as his smirk grew wider. “Hey, I didn’t say I was still doing it.”
Bolton looked at you with a curious gaze. “I look forward to finding out how a southern girl fairs against her own kind with the North at her side.”
In the moments as he walked off you and Robb were silent before you spoke up. “You’re sure I should come with you?” His eyes narrowing as he turned to stand at your front. “You don’t think it’s a mistake having me at your side out there?”
“Where’s this coming from?”
Shaking your head, you tried turning away crossing your arms over your chest. “I know how to swing a sword, but maybe that doesn’t mean I have the right to be out there with you and these men.”
Robb grabbed your upper arms, not a trace of amusement in his eyes and a sternness in his voice as he looked at you. “How many wars have you fought in?”
“None.”
“How many have I fought in?” You tilted your head at him in indignation but he ignored it. “How many?” You repeated the last answer. “Exactly. You’ve been in as many battles as I have. You’ve trained like I have, and yet none of those men are telling either of us we should just stay here and let them do the fighting for us. They trust me to lead them as I’ve called upon them. And I trust you.”
You looked off at the nothing in the growing sunset for a bit, your voice smaller then you wished. “It’s paralyzing. Not knowing that it’s really going to be like.”
You didn’t see it but Robb smiled softly. Tilting your chin to look over at him with two fingers he leaned down to you. “At least we’ll be scared shitless together.” He pressed a short kiss to your lips before pulling away and tugging you into his side.
“Now come, we have a bunch of men in the main hall all clambering to yell about which one of them gets to do the most killing.” Huffing a laugh, you thought back to your father once more.
Certainly, a very different atmosphere then the kind of army he commanded indeed.
The more ale in their bellies the more rowdy they became over it. Robb had you sat by his side in the hall, Bran beside him on the other table end and Grey Wind having found a place between both of them on the floor. You felt for him, having to watch his brother leave off for war and leaving him in charge of Winterfell at only ten.
At the opposite end of you and Robb sat quite a large and imposing man. Greatjon Umber has a loose tongue and a louder yell as discussions continued. “For thirty years I’ve been making corpses out of men, boy. I’m the man you want leasing the vanguard.”
With one elbow on the table resting over your mouth your eyes narrowed slightly at the roundabout debate continuing on. Robb beside you was stern yet too growing agitated. “Galbart Glover will lead the van.”
Greatjon acted as if he’d just been served piss stew as he scrunched his face up in offence. “The bloody wall will melt before an Umber marches behind a Glover.” Robb leaned forward, resting both hands together in front of him, his shoulders tense. “I will lead the Van, or I will take my men and march them home.”
You rose your head high, a narrowed look that caught Brans attention before Robb’s did. His eyes were unamused when he looked to Greatjon. Sitting back as his voice came out rough and yet unwavering in tone. “You are welcome to do so Lord Umber.” Standing slowly he braced his palms on the table as the ferocity didn't even blink in his eyes. “And when I am done with the Lannisters, I will march back North, root you out of your keep, and hang you for an oathbreaker.”
“Oathbreaker?” Jumping from his seat, Robb stood straight as you and multiple others stood from yours in defence. The man pushing his luck a great deal too far had silence wash over the hall. “I’ll not sit here here and swallow insults from a boy so green he pisses grass-”
In an instant something that caught stuck with you played out. Not even half a second went by, did he reach for a blade by his side did Robb’s eyes narrow slightly and a growl let out. Grey Wind leaped up onto the table and in a few short steps lunged onto the man grasping at his hand with his teeth.
A snap echoed as Greatjon yelled out in pain on the ground, while Grey Wind calmly returned to Robb’s side. Calm as the wolf had been moments before the outrage as Robb scratched behind one of his ears staring still at the rising man holding his bleeding hand. “My lord father taught me it was death to bare steel against your liege lord. But doubtless. The Greatjon only meant to cut my meat for me.”
Throwing his chair to the side, none moved but all with watching unsure eyes as you and Robb both stood next to each other with still gazes. “Your meat...” Something in the man seemed to dull back down as he looked around the room then back to the two of you. Realizing in his haste, he had pushed Robb too far and bore the punishment for the subordination. He rose his bleeding hand, and so did he lighten his tone. “Is bloody tough.”
A different air in a Northern Army indeed, as both men started to laugh as did the hall join in with ease as the tension melted down to nothing. Crime committed, justice given and both men could look at the other knowing their limits. For a quick second as the man looked at you, a smirk on his face as Robb placed a hand on your thigh, the touch burning as if his blood ran hot from such an encounter.
“No wonder you fit so well, lass. I’m not the only one whose got a wild bite or two in ‘em now am I?” Gesturing with the bloody hand to your neck, maybe you should feel ashamed for such marks be so glaringly obvious but the laughs that came weren’t at you. In fact a fair few seemed to be of an amused approval.
Robb beside you, tightened his grip on your thigh. Roughed up by a wolf indeed, you were. Only you’d ask for it, even beg for it at this point. The warmth of Robb beside you, the heat of the castle, and yet for some reason as you glanced at him? Feeling something grow inside of you at how easily he sat there in control of such a rowdy barrage of soldiers?
You felt a strange wave of cold, a cold that felt just like that image of fire and rasping tone that so far away from you now, you couldn’t quite recall what it was you had dreamt. But the cold returned as you sat there, at Robbs side preparing to leave for war.
It didn’t last, but it wasn’t the same cold that the army had all left into. Whatever cold and the distant rasp seemed to be trying to get to you with, was something that not even the furs around you shook off.
For only a second, you thought of ice.
Snow had begun to fall once you had reached Moat Caitlin. Only a light dusting that stayed not long after hitting the ground but it felt fitting. The North left for war and this brought the cold with them.
You had all left in the middle of the night, eyes could be on you at any time and under the cover of darkness was the safest bet. Robb took no chance at allowing the Lannisters to find out they were coming. You both had looked back at Winterfell one last time before turning to the other. If the other had nerves running through their heart, neither of you showed it.
A number of you stood in one of the tents, around a map as word reached you all of both forces against you. Tywin Lannister had his army planted close to the Trident and had the numbers, but with a lesser number still greater then the North had, Jaime Lannister was besieging Riverrun fast and pushing them back close to their tails.
“Lord Tywin has more commanders at his own camp-”
“Jaime’s moving faster through-”
Your eyes trained on the map, seeing the forces move in the stillness of the image as you looked to the numbers coming to mind. Either choice was risky, yet the lands that surrounded them spoke to different fights to come. The man around you speaking in your watchful quiet, “Our scouts confirm it’s even larger then the Kingslayer’s.”
“One army or two, the Kings in the North threw back hosts ten times as large.”
You were quiet but the eyes you as you spoke both had a similar understanding. “We worry about their numbers to ours we’ll be here until they find us. We push on Tywin and there’s nothing around us except to chance us against theirs.”
Roose Bolton glanced to you curiously, “What are you suggesting?”
“If we break-” Multiple lords at once looking up, had you and Robb turn to a sight that you hadn’t expected. Lady Catelyn stood with Ser Rodrick almost with a look between shock and worry on her face to the scene she arrived at.
Her and Robb shared a moment where they hesitated to embrace in front of the men, almost making you smirk. Truly there was more love in that little moment then you think you’d ever seen publically from your father in a lifetime. Whatever image of leadership was at their thoughts was already far too much for Stannis Baratheon.
Lady Catelyn smiled at her son in front of his men at the minimum.
Looking at you, she found a far sight from the stripped down emotions you two shared in Brans room as he lay unconscious. Had you asked her, you reminded her far more of the detached reputation of Lord Stannis. You nodded once at her as she requested, “I would speak with my son alone. I know you will forgive me, my lords.”
In a quick moment, you found yourself feeling unwelcome. Not to any fault of hers, but you found yourself pulling from Robb. His quick touch to your waist pushed back gently as you jolted your head to the entrance of the tent. “You heard her.”
Beside you, Theon was shoved forward as well. Greatjon snatching him like wrangling a child, “You too, Greyjoy. Are you bloody deaf?”
The pair of you came beside the other as you gave the pair space to talk, you not looking back at what still didn’t feel like your place. Theon however, felt no qualms of bringing it up. “You’re as much her family as you are Robb’s you know.”
Face flat, you shrugged a shoulder. “She said alone. Can’t be alone if I’m there.” Looking forward you could see Grey Wind wandering along the edges of the camp, eyes trained on you without having any need of. You thought of that day in the hall before looking back to the men around you. Theon kept looking as you shook your head. “What?”
Stopping, you turned to look at him as he looked not like he did to a superior he served, but just as the boy you spent years with at Lord Stark’s side. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Brows narrowing in confusion he stepped forward with an eye roll. “Your father’s off on an island about to declare war on the Lannisters too and you’re not with him. Don’t try and tell me that doesn’t make you feel a bit fucked up.”
Oh, oh this is not what you wanted to talk about at all. It was hard to tell if you gave anything away in your expression as you looked to him. “Robb’s-”
“A husband that he chose for you.” Something inside you felt uncomfortable, not with Theon but with an implication you were clever enough to pick up on. “I’m just saying, you’re still that old bastards daughter and if he’s the one with the actual claim to the throne then that-”
“Don’t.” A harsh almost whispered hiss that took him back. You did not want to hear this, that was not the life you chose and not something you were meant for. “I’m not fighting for a fucking chair, Theon. I’m here for the Starks. That’s all.”
The air between you was thick at the sheer amount that neither of you were saying, and it wasn’t lost on you how he didn’t chose his path to serve this House as you did to marry into it. If he was almost one, as he was insinuating that you could be one right now?
Absolutely not. You wanted nothing to do with this, and neither should he. He tried saying your name and you shook your head. “We are not discussing this.”
You hated whatever the hell this had turned into. Something unspoken and volatile swimming between you both that if you wanted nothing to do with, you pleaded on the inside for him to drop it as well. It was not the same as what happened then. This was about Lord Stark, about the girls, about keeping together the family that had made you both like one of their own.
Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Grey Wind perched closer by with an eeiry aggressive look in his eye looking in Theons direction. Nervously looking between you both, he backed off with a genuine regret. “Sorry, that was out of line.”
“It was.” A mere second passed before you exhaled. Looking around the camp with a much easier time breathing before turning to stand more beside him as you felt the brush of Grey Wind come to sit close next to you, your hand reaching down to run over his head gently.
“Now that you’re married, is it wrong of me to say you look sexy in that armour?”
Whatever he tried to bring up, now gone into the wind once more. It wasn’t a life meant for either of you, and you knew it. So you both stood there and laughed. Nudging him with your arm he nudged back as you both glanced with a small smirk. “Still look better then you, Greyjoy.”
If something more was running through his head, it was impossible to say, but you laughed together and felt less like you both were here armed and armoured for bloodshed. But once more two people who had long bonded over irritating duties and even more distant fathers.
Running your hand over Grey Wind you spotted Maege Mormont over in the distance, what looked like yelling but could just be her natural manner when story telling. The rowdiness of the northern army stood out so much more. The only other army you’d truly seen ironically was what led you to Theon.
Your father had taken charge of taking down his uncle, Victarion Greyjoy and his Iron Fleet in the Straits of Fair Isle. A victory which allowed your uncle, Robert and Eddard Stark to gain access to the Iron Islands and end the rebellion. In exchange for Balon’s life he surrendered his ambitions to take his crown and gave his last living son up as a ward to the Starks.
Victarion as far as you knew continued to serve his brother and the third, Euron had been banished for crimes that you need not think about. That was a man who was a true Iron Islander. Does and takes what he wants, only paying what they called the Iron Price. If they want something they only get it by taking it. Standing next to Theon though?
Watching other Northerners? You two felt similar. Neither of you belonged with these people by blood, but in many ways you also didn’t feel at home with your real blood. Balon hadn’t been Theon’s father for ten years and Stannis had not treated you like a real daughter in the ten years since Shireen was born either. Yet you stood here now, accepted amongst these kinds and both someone of great importance to Robb Stark.
But still, perhaps what was spoken between you? Was just the insecurity of both, the worry that you wouldn’t be seen as one of them, and the wonder if you should be? For now, all you had to focus on was getting the Starks back.
Everything else now was secondary. This wasn’t a war of anything but justice.
It was Catelyn who later found you, “It seems our families can’t stop going into war together.”
Looking up at her from where you had been partially leaning against a tree, your tilted your head in mild agreement before looking back out to the camp. “Perhaps the crown should stop giving us reasons too.” Clearly there was something else on her mind, but you could see she was struggling to find the right words for it. Pushing up you stood next to her for a moment before speaking up. “I shouldn’t have left.”
Her face shifting into something confused before it morphed more into a motherly concern, saying your name consolingly you just shook your head and looked straight.
“No, I know I shouldn’t have. I thought I didn’t have enough time to get to him, or find Arya or Sansa and I just left. I was there to stand by your husband and do my duty, and I failed that.”
You could sense part of her wanting to come closer, the soft embrace of a mother but with your arms crossed and a distant harsh stare she looked down before taking but one step closer to your side. Not that she said anything, but it didn’t fail to occur to Catelyn that her own reunion with Robb was likely nowhere near anything you’d get should you see your own father and mother again.
The truth she spoke wasn’t sugar coated at the least, “If you had stayed there, the Lannisters would prefer your head on a spike then to even consider trading you.”
A whisper, but one without fear or pain as if you had thought of it too many times to be bothered anymore. “Knowing Joffery, he’d have it sent to my father. Paint a nice picture of what he was willing to do to keep his uncle from taking his throne.”
It bothered Catelyn that this didn’t seem to horrify you as it did her or Robb. “And yet you still think you shouldn’t have left? What would that do, whose justice are you serving by rotting away in a cell?”
A question you thought you knew, but the more you considered it the more you couldn’t shake the feeling that running wasn’t how you were raised. “We both stood in that room and committed the same crime, but I’m the one free and he isn’t. My duty was to stand by his side, what should these men think of me? Knowing I fled that?”
“Your duty is also to stand by Robb’s side, is it not?” Shoulders tensing, you felt tightness in your chest that put a pressure on your lungs. “There is every chance we can get Ned and the girls back safely, but you’re also Lord Stannis’s daughter. Cersei thinks she has no reason to fear us, but she does about your father. And killing you sends a better message then keeping you alive.”
Your eyes were trained down on your feet, a noise in your head that begun to turn into an ache. “I’m willing to wager trading your families lives in favour of my own would’ve caused a lot less bloodshed.”
She had no chance to respond, Robb’s warm voice coming up behind you both. “You mind if I steal her away?” Catelyn relented, but a look between them spoke of a worry in her eyes as his hand found it’s way to your lower back and pushing you forward. Beside him was a larger man, a harsh narrowed almost glare on his face and an armour that was dissimilar to the men around him but a little more like the lighter material of yours. The black colour also flared out in what looked like scales.
Robb introducing you both, and the design clicked. Brynden Tully, known to many as the Blackfish. You nodded to him as he watched you back with a curious look. “I’d say it’s nice to meet you, my lady but I would’ve much preferred it to be anywhere but here.”
A weak willed half smirk slid onto your face for only seconds. “Same to you.”
Robb could sense something wasn’t quite right, but it just wasn’t the moment to address it nor did he suspect you were going to make that easy. He’d seen Theon talk to you about something and since then it was like something changed in your brain and kept you at arms from everyone around you.
At least it’d be easy to get out of the Greyjoy what he said then to try and force you to explain what was bothering you. He knew all too well you tended to keep it bottled up until it exploded.
The area around the table was crowded as those present huddled to debate their movements, plotting out who was where in the process. Robb was standing at the head, you and Theon on either side of him. Ser Rodrik to your left, then around the bend was Greatjon Umber, Brynden Tully, Rickard Karstark then closing the loop beside Theon was Roose Bolton.
Night had fallen on the camp and a decision needed to be made now if they were to have any chance at riding ahead of any scouts from the opposite end. Roose Bolton leaning forward as he debated his own stance. “We need to get him on broken ground, put his knights at a disadvantage.”
Greatjon was loud in response to the former’s more quiet tone but with no less fever. “No, we need to get around him and break Jaime Lannister’s siege of Riverrun. Do that and the River Lords will join us.”
Peeling your eyes from the map you met the man’s eyes, a spark of agreement that had you both give the other a very slight nod. Loud and brash, but he had a better point in your eyes. Robb beside you had his eyes much like yours on the map as he plotted out in his head. “To do either we need to cross the river, and the only crossing is at The Twins.”
Palms braced on the table, you scratched at the wood with your nails slightly. “Robb’s right, we need that bridge, but Lord Frey isn’t going to just open the gates and let us pass. Or if the Lannisters have bribed him to their side.”
Brynden Tully rapped his knuckles lightly against the map, “We get to the Twins, then what is it going to be? Do we move against Jaime, or Lord Tywin?”
The answer on Robb’s tongue was interrupted however, two men dragging a small man covered in grime in between. “Pardon, my lords. We’ve captured a Lannister scout.”
Both you and Theon taking an edge and throwing it over the other half to cover the pieces at play, catching the Greatjon’s amused attention. “Don’t you worry, he won’t be leaving this tent with his head.”
Robb watched the scout with careful, dark eyes. Calmly asking where they found him. “In the brush above the encampment. He looked to be counting.”
The quiet in the tent was thick, the only sound being Robb making his way around to the front never taking his eyes off the nervous scout. Coming in front of him, he still made no move that put him at any less fear. “How high did you get?”
Eyes darting around the room before looking back to him, “Twenty thousand. Maybe more.”
Leaning forward, you watched Robb who had yet to give anything away but you could see the gears in his head click into place. Ser Rodrick beside you, knowing him still as a boy tried to offer an out. “You don’t have to do this yourself, your father would understand-”
Turning to him, Robb looked not like the boy he thought he was speaking too, and his voice as sure as any of the seasoned fighters in the tent. “My father understands mercy, when there is room for it.” The men around you far more looked with less confidence as he looked back to the scout. “Let him go.”
The smallest whisper of protest was let out, but a pride filled you with how quickly it was shut down as Robb turned to look at them all. Only as his eyes met you, did yours narrow slightly with a tiny tilt down of your head almost like a nod of yes. You could see the conclusion, both Greatjon and Roose were right.
Stepping towards the scout, Robb leaned in close, voice low and a dangerous authority to it that ran shivers down your spine. “Tell Lord Tywin, winter is coming for him. Twenty thousand northerners marching south to find out if he really does shit gold.”
Almost shocked at leaving with his life, the scout had some decency before being dragged out. “Yes my lord, thank you my lord.”
It appeared, his choice was not yet clicking in some. Both Roose Bolton and Greatjon Umber appeared their own distinct variety of angry but it was the hulking size of the later that rounded the table to get into Robb’s face. Almost spitting as he scolded him, “Are you touched boy? Letting him go?”
Without even a blink, Robb was quietly calm and unflinching. “You call me boy again.” Greatjon leaned forward as did Robb. “Go on.”
Greatjon stammered, taking a leave with nothing more then a huff. A rowdy man that you suspected wouldn’t quite temper that aggression until Robb could prove his worth, a worth you had no doubt in whatsoever. Turning back, he looked to you as your eyes shined with a proud and impressed glaze over them, pulling the map back Robb assumed his previous position. Two carved wolf heads being put down in front of each carved Lion.
“Once we reach below the Neck, we split into two.”
The plan had to move fast, whatever negotiation with Lord Walder Frey was going to have to be done quickly. Roose Bolton would lead two thousand men to the Green Fork and sneak up on Tywin in the early morning before any word could reach him or Jaime Lannister that the main force of the army was sneaking right up on the kingslayer in Riverrun.
If the scouts were correct, you’d come right up behind him at Whispering Wood but first as you stood on the hill in sight of the crossing at the Twins you knew time was ticking. Theon stood primed with a bow, ensuring no word was coming in or out by raven. So far none stood out, and none were directed anywhere but as letters to other Freys, the last one read out by Theon, “A birthday to his grand niece Walda.”
“Or so Walder Frey would have you think.” Catelyn looking to Theon, “Keep shooting them down, we can’t risk Lord Walder sending any word to the Lannisters.”
You and Robb stood next to one another, the tensity in your veins seemed to twist and connect to his as you stared at the bridge in the bright barley rising sun. “Father rots in a dungeon, how long before they take his head? We need to cross the Trident and we need to do it now.”
Theon looking over to him, “Just march up to his gates and tell him you’re crossing, we’ve got five times the numbers. You can take the twins if you have too.”
Watching the sight you could only see the darkness of the black cells you knew Eddard Stark was still tossed into. “Not in time, Lord Tywin will either get too far north to surprise or he’ll hear word from his own scouts before we can get Bolton and his men at their heels.” You and Robb glanced the other, an urgency in both your eyes. “For six hundred years they’ve exacted their toll, we need to get in there and make a deal now.”
“Have my horse saddled and ready.” Peeling his eyes from you, Robb looked to his mother who turned to look at him with her own disapproval.
“Enter the Twins alone and he’ll sell you to the Lannisters.”
Others threw out other suggestions, but if you were to get across now there was no use in standing around debating how to go about it. The longer it took as well the was increasing the chance that you’d lose the ambush on Jaime. Robb shutting down his mens protest. “My father would do whatever it took to secure our crossing. Whatever it took, and if I’m going to lead this army I won’t have other men doing my bargaining for me.”
Just as he looked down to you, Catelyn spoke up. “I agree. I’ll go.” The protests were just as loud as before but there was a calm confidence in her. “I have known Lord Walder since I was a girl. He would never harm me.”
Something turned in your stomach, like it was filling up with blood and threatening to spill out from a slice inside it. Only Robb heard you, gripping your wrist with a thumb over your pulse to ease you down as you whispered. “Unless he had a profit in it.”
Nerves raced within you the longer time ticked by, an antsy feeling that refused to give up no matter how calm others around you felt. You supposed this was normal, that most in your position felt this way but the passing of time had you staring out to the water like jumping in would wash away the growing lurch of anxiety.
Sat down on a high stone nearby, you had one arm laying across your chest as your elbow rested on it to bring your nails up to your lips. Threatening to tear at the skin until a rough hand slid across the back of your neck firmly. “You know it never felt real until right now.”
Robb didn’t question, just coaxed you to stand up. Facing you now his hand drifted more to the side of your neck so his thumb stroked at your jaw. His blue eyes bright in the morning sun and an anxious pang smacked you at what was to come once more. You grabbed at his wrist, turning with it so he rested it alongside your collarbone and you leaned back into the cold armour on his chest.
“All these men, they all came at my call. Following my commands, but they’re all far less terrified then I am.” Your hand tightened against him with a furrow of your brows. “Maybe they’ll know we’re coming, get the jump on us and then I lead them all into a slaughter.” You could feel him glancing at those whom were to be headed towards the Kingsroad into Tywins forces. “More then I already am.”
His voice was deep and rough in your ear as he forced himself to stay calm about it. “I thought the scariest part would be the prospect of yourself dying when I was a kid. I never understood why my father didn’t even blink twice when he set out to take out the Iron Fleet, but I think I get it.”
Your heart raced and your limbs itched to move as you both stood there, “I’m not just watching you sail off to war and hope you come back. I’d have to watch it, or even worse have to live with myself knowing I survived and you don’t.”
He didn’t show the fear he spoke of, it was kept tight in his chest and you wished you had that ability to stay so together. “Then we just don’t die then.” You could feel the small grin in his voice, bringing one out of you as Brynden approached.
“Pardon the interruption, but I know two scared shitless kids when I see it.” If the anxiety weren’t so strong you may have felt flustered at how Robb didn’t move an inch from you as he turned to his great uncle. “Saying we all felt the same before our first time won’t help, but it’s true.”
Robb holding you an indeterminable amount of tighter, “It’s not just being able to fight, I have to lead these men. My father needs me to lead them.” His voice was controlled, not letting much get passed an even tone.
Coming next to you both, Brynden from that angle reminded you a lot of Catelyn. Tougher, brasher and far more authoritative by nature you assumed, but you could see the same worry in his eyes that you had seen in hers many times. “If you weren’t good enough to lead them you would’ve have gotten all them this far anyways. Not just anyone can command twenty thousand men for the first time. Gods know Edmure doesn’t have that kind of leadership.”
You hadn’t met him, but from all accounts he seemed to be in a similar place as Renly once was in the trio of siblings. The youngest and the one which didn’t have the same kind of authority that ran deep in the families blood. At least the Tully didn’t see fit to crown himself and tear the family apart.
Not a single Baratheon was working together, and yet the Starks and Tullys both seek to work together for the sake of a cause of family and justice. The only Baratheon who is even with another of your family is Shireen, but being ten she didn’t count. You were quiet in volume, but the more you leaned against Robb the calmer you felt. “Your fathers a good leader, for all his faults mine is too but I think that’s the problem.” Robb looked down to you, his curls brushing over the side of your head slightly. “You’ve gotten us this far on your own merit, and we didn’t follow you because we expect you to be like Lord Stark. We all followed you because we trust in you.”
Brynden nodding to him, a fond look in his eye to his great nephew before looking to you. “And you’re certainly not your father.” Looking over with a raised eyebrow he shrugged his shoulders as his arms crossed his sleek black armour. “Trust me, us riverlands folk might be more forgiving, but that lot wouldn’t trust Robb if they thought you’d bring him down.”
You bit your tongue, keeping your face impassive. “Guess I die, we’ll find out if that's true.”
Maybe on another day this talk of death would’ve put Robb off, but this was your first battle as it was his. You both knew the others skill, but there was too much at stake in this battle. You lose this and you lose this entire fight for Lord Stark’s life. You lose this with your life? Even worse.
Jaime would have yours and Robb’s head sent to Kings Landing and no doubt Joffery would parade them around the court boasting about what fools the northerners are. You had been in a cell expecting that to be you, but you’d rather throw yourself down in front of the court then have the same done to Robb.
Some time passed before Robb spoke up again, “What do you think he’s asking? Walder Frey?”
Brynden rose an eyebrow with a grimace on his face. “Be thankful you’re married already. There’s nothing Frey wants more then to spread that damned family of his across the kingdoms more then their ugly mugs already are.”
You never considered yourself attractive, your mother was never spoken of like the beauty of the Stark women, your own sister whispered as “that ugly daughter” like they had any right. You briefly wondered if he’d be better off with a pretty Frey girl, a strangely childish and girly worry while you waited to send men off to battle.
By the time Catelyn had returned, you all were quite antsy through the whole camp. Those whose blooded their swords before ready to jump atop their horses and go, and others worried about how long it would take before it was too late in the morning to not be spotted early.
Looking up, she seemed to have an air of relief about her. Robb beside you spoke first, “Well? What did he say?”
All in the tent dropping with a sigh as she spoke, “Lord Walder has granted your crossing. His men are yours as well.” The Greatjon letting out a small sound at the news. Numbers were indeed what you needed desperately with the events about to come. “Less the four hundred he will keep here to hold the crossing against any who would pursue you.”
Now comes the part all dreaded as he asked, “And what does he want in return?”
“You will be taking on his son Olyvar as your personal squire. He expects a knighthood in good time.” You held off a smirk at the easy dismissal from Robb, more of a nuisance then a burden at the least so far. However, “And Arya will marry his son Elmar when they both come of age.”
You and Robb did share a glance at that one, you could genuinely hear her yelling about such a thing from here. You tilted your head with a slight grimace, “She won’t like that one bit.” Catelyn paused, making you both worry. “And?”
She sighed to herself, glancing at Brynden. “When the fighting is done, Edmure is to marry one of his daughters. Whichever he prefers.” So Arya wouldn’t be the only one causing a fuss over this deal it seemed, but it was so. Crossing was granted.
As the horses mounted, the drawbridge crossed you, Robb, and Roose Bolton passed first. The pair of you nodding to the man, his own confident back. “When we meet again, my lord, my lady.” Watching two thousand men ride off in the direction to get the jump on Tywin Lannister you and Robb looked at one another.
For everything you worried about earlier, it was that sight and that sight alone that had you both feeling unwell. Roose was a skilled man and a terrifying one at that, but the men he led weren’t being drawn to a fair fight. They were cattle being tossed onto the Lannisters for slaughter as you jumped on the other.
You and Robb looked at one another as the men all crossed to the other side. His voice was even and confident like the man you’d seen last night. “You with me?”
You exhaled the shaking on the inside. “Now and always.”
The feeling you had watching the men head one way was the same feeling Catelyn had the watching her son and his wife lead the others in the opposite. Ser Rodrick stayed behind with her, from the point of safety when she refused to leave. The longer the two of them waited, the more she felt her heart tear itself up.
When she had watched Ned ride off to war over two decades ago, she had found out soon after she was pregnant. Robb was the thing that carried her through being alone in that war and now she sat atop her horse, waiting to see if that same son would come back. A son who started a war to rescue his father.
And you. As she waited, Catelyn felt she hadn’t given you the chance. She’d known you since you were a little girl, watched you grow up on and off in her own home and see her children and husband consider you one of their own. But the older you got, the more your friendships started to form and she couldn’t help but think she let one of those get in the way.
It made sense, out of all of her husbands children you and Jon Snow were the most alike. The quieter ones, a little more reserved and closed off and tended to be on the sidelines. A night she remembered vividly, you had been twelve and Jon fourteen, you two had snuck out in the dead of night. Arya was barley two, and was terrorizing Cat’s sleep by doing nothing but fuss and cry at night.
She walked through the second floor outside, gently humming her newborn to sleep when she saw you both come into the yard from the stables. The pair of you soaking wet, head to toe clothes and all as Jon was walking you both forward, his arms wrapped around your front as you could barley speak through teeth chattering laughter.
Apparently having snuck out to ride to a small lake in the dead of night, Jon had picked you up and tossed you in the water, and when you went to climb out, he jumped in himself and dragged you back with him. You both were so comfortable with the other in a way she hadn’t seen from you and Robb, not that you and him weren’t friends but she’d just never seen Jon like this.
It was painfully obvious to her in that moment, Jons crush. She didn’t know when it went away, but the older he got the less she ever saw it until it stopped occurring to her. You were younger, you were only twelve and hadn’t even bled yet, you weren’t thinking of boys that way. The boys did though. Robb, almost fifteen by then had confessed to Cat that he thinks he liked you and it was seeing that same crush in her husbands bastard son’s that made her put a block up.
That crush went away for Jon, and eventually it seemed to simmer down for Robb as you both became adults and had other duties to attend too. But she always kept something in her mind as if it was your fault that you were just closer to Jon. Like you chose a side, but where were you now?
In the thick of Whispering Wood fighting by your husbands side, by Robbs side and she felt ashamed for not having looked to you like the daughter you were now. You both didn’t marry in love, but the foundations were all there.
She hadn’t accepted that when Robb called the banners, it was you he was also fighting for, and yet you were the one who fought your way back to him first just so he didn’t have to ride into war alone. She’d seen the way her son looks at you and it wasn’t fair of her to dismiss you like you were just another soldier in his army.
Catelyn saw the way that you only ever looked like there was truly a living breathing emotional woman in there when you looked at her son. The way you and Robb would grasp at the others wrist was just like that day in Brans room. Grasping at the boys wrist, feeling his pulse as weak as it was to remind yourself that he was indeed still alive.
You hadn’t lectured her, judged her, or said anything but your own understanding of her grief. You hugged her, kissed the top of her head like she was the child in need of comfort and not you. And she hadn’t given you any of that courtesy from the moment she returned.
“We should go, my lady.” Catelyn didn’t even look at him as she refused. Ser Rodrick leaning closer with more urgency, “My lady..” But horses were in the distance. And Catelyn would see them no matter what.
Hearing them gallop and neigh before beyond the treeline did they appear, dark ones all around the edges and two light ones up front. Was it a laugh or a sob that left her? Maybe both. But she smiled none the less.
You and Robb both rode next to the other. Grime, dirt, blood all covered him and you as your eyes trained harsh and forward. Your nerves had all but been shot out of their existence and your heart no longer pounding from your chest but weighing down inside of it. It was both everything you expected and yet none like it.
It was worse but not the nightmare you imagined somehow, and through it all the victory was with no question. The Lannisters had bigger numbers but were overrun like they were sparkling boys of summer unable to keep up. As you had been taught, you weren’t ever going to be strong like them. So you were quick, dodging all the lessons came back to you in many voices at once that blended together until you acted without them.
It was truly hell, but not one that you couldn’t do again. You’d only ever seen the Kingslayer almost overpowered once when he was up against Lord Stark and this time it seemed he had only become cockier for the worse. A man like him looked at Robb like a boy, young and inexperienced that was in over his head until blood was seeping from his face at Robb’s mercy.
Men trying him up with no care of how rough they handled him, Robb had looked to Grey Wind as his teeth bared and the blood pumped in his veins. Grey Wind snarling at the Kingslayer before running to where he had kept track of you.
Robb cared not who saw him stride up to his wife, and grab you by both sides of your face pulling you into a biting kiss before checking you over to see if you were hurt. If the men had anything to laugh about such a display, let them, he said.
Now as the man all surrounded the area, you climbed off your horse as Jaime Lannister was dumped onto the ground in front of Robb. Coming up to his side, you stared him down with nothing more then dark eye. Being jostled up onto his knees before you both, he looked up to you and had finally decided which house he saw fit you belonged too. “Lady Stark. I’d offer you my sword, but I’ve seemed to have lost it.”
His smug face and bright green eyes had once been described as handsome but they all painted him in a vile image as did the voice attached. “I’d take far more from you before that, Lannister.”
Theon stood behind him, the blood in his veins having not yet cooled he was loud and worked up as he spoke with vigor. “Kill him Robb. Send his head to his father, he cut down ten of our men. You saw him.”
Eyes now dark and glaring, Robb spoke low and calm as the eyed the once great fighter on his knees bloody and broken. “He’s more use to us alive then dead.” Standing there, he looked truly like the wolf he was meant to be.
Glancing up at Greatjon you nodded to him, “Put him in irons, feel free to make sure they’re tight.”
Grabbing him roughly, Greatjon yanked him up as Jaime just could not control that mouth of his. A flaw he never outgrew it seemed. Twice your ages and more of a patronizing child in the face of the Stark who beat him firsthand. “We could end this war right now, boy. Save thousands of lives.”
Call him a boy, you thought but he was more of a man then the Lannister had ever been in his entire life. Letting him spill out his little speech as he watched with no taste for the games. “You fight for the Starks, I fight for the Lannisters. Swords, lances, teeth, nails choose your weapon, and let’s end this here and now.”
Robb didn’t hesitate against him. “If we do it your way, kingslayer. You’d win. We’re not doing it your way.”
You nodded at Greatjon to take him away, him snatching him up and dragging him along, “Come on, pretty man.”
The men around you and Robb cheered, smiles and yells for what they’d accomplished. But you and him looked not at them, not each other. His voice broke your heart as it was full of sorrow, “I sent two thousand men to their graves today.”
Theon trying his cheer, “The bards will sing songs of their sacrifice.”
Lannister called Robb a boy, but there was man beside you. One full of a painful responsibility that he felt in his bones, one that was no game or glory that he knew rested on him. “Aye, but the dead won’t hear them.” He stepped towards you, arms pressed up against the other as you both looked out to the men around.
Robb twisted his hand, grabbing your wrist and you did his. Both of you feeling the beating pulse of the other under their thumb, and pressing against it with harsher pressure in desperation. His voice was loud, cracks as he cared not to hide the weight of their losses. “One victory does not make us conquerors. Did we free my father? Did we rescue my sisters from the Queen?”
You held each other tighter as he pleaded the reality to his men. “Did we free the North from those who want us on our knees?” There was quiet amongst them. “This war is far from over.”
Robb looked to you finally and you back, not letting go of the other for a while after. But he was right, this war was not yet over. Only, the war he set out towards burned in front of you when the raven arrived as hours turned to a passing day upon its landing.
Dragged away from the other as the slimy words of Janos Slynt coated your ears and his roughness scratched you up, the last you saw of him was the shocked, angry betrayal as you were forced from the other. The last you saw of him was the seconds after you both had put your lives on the line for the sake of the truth, and as it turned out it would be the final time.
Silence was painful in the camp that day. Defeat heavy in the hearts of men who all came together and just as they begun it was taken off of them. You heard not the quiet words of the soldiers you passed, and you didn’t know if they thought you cared. Face cold, staring forward with nothing but a shaking will power to stay stoned and together in front of them.
You felt no breathe leaving or entering your lungs, but they screamed at you as the world felt fuzzy and the sensations coming to you felt unreal. You had reached a clearing that was scarce by the edge of the camp as you collapsed with your back against a tree.
Kneeling over all alone you gasped, ragged breaths that stung and did nothing to settle you. The panic and gut churning anxiety of what you had done, left behind to such a fate made you feel sick and horrified. Someone on an island you once called home, Stannis Baratheon was alive and well.
So why did this feel like you lost a father? Why did the last thing you did, being smuggled out of the city without Eddard Stark feel like you were at fault and you had the sword in your own had that did it? Why was the world spinning and your breaths coming out in cries you hadn’t noticed?
For years you knew him, and now you felt as if you had been Joffery and you had cut his head off. But no, not even Joffery would do it, he’d leave the pain of being Eddard Stark’s killer to others and not get his hands dirty.
The senses around you only came too when the sound of another person was somewhere ahead of yourself. Yells followed by a thud, grunts that had a similar crying pain to them that called to you, the cool air revealing tears down your cheeks you didn’t know fell in such volume.
Coming up the hill in the brush of the woods did the sun peeking it’s final moments brighten the scene before you. And there was the now the only thing your heart could see. The slashes of his sword against the tree were harsh and violent, and the pain yelling out each time from Robb cut you as he did it.
Twice you tried calling his name, but the sob in your own throat fought with it. Forcing yourself up an edge to the flat ground he stood at you called to him once more, a waver in your voice. “Robb,”
The man he was, gone. Tears of his own, face twisted and broken as he heaved looking at you. Maybe you should be comforting, but he wouldn’t be fooled if you tried to ignore the tears of your own as you looked a the other. You had such little conviction in your tone, nothing but a weak softness that knew there was nothing you could say. “I-”
Head dropping down, his hands gave up. Letting his ruined sword fall to the dirt and leaves as he stepped towards you. He was no longer the man, the leader you saw, and you were not the woman his men watched stand by his side.
He collapsed into your arms, his wrapping around your waist as you both knelt down. You wrapped yours around his shoulders, and one cradling the back of his head to your neck as you perched in his lap. Trying to hold as much of the larger man as you could in your arms as he held onto you.
Robb spoke and it was nothing but pain, a growl in his tears that was a wolf too in pain to hold himself up. But there was such anger and pain in his voice that it pulled more tears from you, and you pulling him closer to you. “I’ll kill them all. Every single one of them. I’m going to kill them all.”
You ducked your head into his curls and kept him close, his arms tightening around you. Your voice was like a whisper in his hair only for him, and with a softness that was new to both. “My love,” He held you closer. “I’m with you, I promise. You and I, we stay together from now on, and I promise we will kill them all.”
Pulling his head up enough, he found the strength to cup your cheeks as his blue eyes found strength for one thing only to give you. Muttering close to you, you felt his breathe on your face as he spoke and his words only pulled tears more. “I love you, now and always.”
You pressed your forehead to his, feeling like the only two who existed anymore and your heart couldn’t find a way to be closer if you tried, you returning the gesture as you held the others face impossibly close. “And I love you now, and always will.”
You shared a kiss, gentle and both of you poured your heart into it. Pulling back, he fell into your neck and your face into his hair. Neither you nor Robb know how long you knelt there together, but there was only one thing you walked away with and it was the only one either of you needed.
Robb had made you his lady wolf, and in turn you gave him your heart and the young wolf gave you his.
The gods had punished you all, and now, they intended for one final test. Your heart was Robb’s, but your loyalty? Your sword? Your duty to the justice demanded from you?
Your heart was asked to choose between something and you made that choice to Robb. But you had another that you didn’t expect, and one you had no way of knowing was coming that same night.
Fitting in with this lot seemed to be of your nature. Neither you, nor Robb, or Catelyn displayed the sheer pain felt by Ned’s loss but as you looked at her, and her you? She saw the pain you could see in her and once more her doubt of you melted away. Robb sat you next to him with Grey Wind laying by his feet as the men gathered around.
His hand was on your thigh as he had you sit up against him with no shame for his display.
Roose Bolton had returned with the few straggling survivors to the news, and thus the fighting begun. A purpose you all came together to fight was taken from you. Now? There were three kings pulling in every direction. Three kings and no agreement.
From one end Galbert Glover had been fighting with the Blackwoods before he turned to Robb with confidence. “The proper course is clear. Pledge fealty to King Renly and move south to join our forces with him.”
Robb watched you shut your eyes in a frustration he knew was making your head pound. Grey Wind below him reached his head up to run against your leg as Robb yelled, “Renly is not the king.”
Glover for all his skill as a soldier, was not a man who could read the camp well. “You cannot mean to hold to Joffery, my lord. He put your father to death.”
You peeled your eyes to look up at the man with a fierce glare and gritted teeth, “That doesn’t make Renly King.” The camp had been growing to learn to listen to your quiet tones as they many times were laced with a surety that many of them did not have.
Robb shutting down that side of the debate, “He’s Robert’s youngest brother. If Bran can’t be Lord of Winterfell before me, Renly can’t be king before Stannis.” Someone in the crowd asking if this meant they were to declare for Stannis.
As he looked to you, and you to him there was a tightness in your face that screamed of a doubt that was difficult to explain and impossible in front of this lot. But Robb could read you easy, a hesitation about loyalty to your own father as something inside of you had been pulling away from what used to be your duty as just his heir.
Fighting continued before Greatjon started to yell. “My Lords,” repeating himself louder as he stood facing the crowd with his great stature. “Here is what I say to these two kings.” Spitting on the ground half of the crowd laughed, and you raised your eyebrows in wonder.
Continuing he seemed more confident then you’d ever seen and more passionate then the other men trying to lead the debate. “Renly Baratheon is nothing to me. Nor Stannis neither. Why should they rule over me and mine fro some flowery seat in the south? What do they know of the Wall? Or the Wolfswood? Even their Gods are wrong.”
Pointing to you with a bit of a smirk as he said your name, “Well we know all too well she’s had more then enough Northern inside of her to make her one of us.” The crowd definitely laughed at that one, making you bit your tongue to fight back a fierce fluster as Robb gripped your thigh higher and rougher.
“Why shouldn’t we rule ourselves again? It was the dragons we bowed to, and now the dragons are dead.” Pulling out his sword, you stared with parted lips as he pointed to Robb who sat with a powerful respect. “There sits the only King I mean to bend my knee too. The King in the North!”
Shivers ran all the way down your spine, Robb didn’t look at you as he stood, but his hand on your waist ensured you stood with him. Another stood next, “I’ll have peace on those terms. They can keep their red castles, and their Iron chair too.” Coming before you both, he pulled his sword out kneeling down with his sword blade in the ground. “The King in the North.”
Theon next, no question in his voice as he looked at Robb. “As your brother, I swear to be yours to command. The King in the North.”
There was pause as some looked to you. You were his wife, rode into battle by his side and was seen by many as Northern as that like Catelyn was now. You also, were the daughter, a would be declared heir to the one man with the best claim to the Iron Throne.
You felt your insides shake, and your heart swell as you looked beside you. Robb finding your eyes with not a second of guess or question as you spoke to him. “Are we together, now and always?”
“Now and always.”
You felt you eyes sting and did nothing to hide the water wanting to glaze over as you looked at Robb, turning to face him as you stepped back to be right in front of his person. Pulling your sword out, you knelt down closer to him then the others, but knelt all the same. “My heart is yours, my sword is yours. In victory and defeat, from this day until our last day.”
The men of the camp erupted. Standing with their swords high in the air all yelled “King in the North” with a pride like a chant as no man there saw him as anything less.
Robb pulled you up as they yelled, arm around your waist as you both looked at the other as if this was only a fate he wanted if you are to be his at his side. Turning to the crowd, you both looked with a hesitation but awe.
Robb Stark did not choose his fate as King in the North, but the North itself decided he was the only one they would follow now and ever. You had chosen a wolf’s heart today, and now you had chosen your loyalty, your duty, the people who were as much yours to protect as your husbands.
You chose your side.
Miles away in either direction, your fate was known by two. One, hair dark and curls more wild as he heard none, but in his head was the vision of two. The sight of you by his brothers side with love in the eyes of both. Why he kept seeing you like this, why you would appear to him in the dark in foggy visions and dreams at all he didn’t know.
His heart did though, and it tightened a little more painfully as it did each time his dreams showed you with Robb. Jon Snow didn’t go to the wall thinking he would move on from you, he went there thinking he would eventually learn to accept the gods chose Robb for you instead. But it was getting harder and harder to accept that with every harsh blow, every new horror he slowly uncovered in the icy north.
Jon Snow did not understand why he was being shown dreams of you that seemed to come true.
On the other side of the continent on an equally dark place, only this was an island of more then just dim looks. This was the place you once called home, and the people who once called you family.
As news reached him, it would take someone with a keen eye to see the sheer amount of anger in his eyes. Stannis Baratheon, the one true King now stood a the painted table looking over the raven scroll for five times to many now. His firstborn daughter, the one he expected would come to him with the allegiance of the North, the one who would be his heir?
But the North had declared Robb Stark their King in the North, and the River Lords had joined them.
Renly took his men, Joffery took his throne, Robb Stark took two Kingdoms for himself and now had taken Stannis’s daughter and heir, as his Queen. Queen in the North those lot had named her, and oh did those words mock him as he read them over.
The woman in red, draped around the angered Stannis. “She will come to us, my King. Her and her wolf both, the flames have shown it to me. The Princess will return to you, and with her love beside her. The heart of the Great Wolf will stand by you too. That I promise you. The Lord of Light has shown it.”
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yanderes-galore · 1 year
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hiiii! what about goth! michael x reader headcanons?
i in love with him
Attempt 2 at this as I accidentally closed all my tabs -_- Aged up au after high school. There's not much on him that I could find so it is a bit short.
Yandere! Tall Goth/Michael Concept
Pairing: Romantic
Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Poor family life, Stalking, Secret photo taking, Michael struggles with love, Kidnapping, Murder/violence, Jealousy, Forced relationship, Breaking and entering, Arson, Theft, Smoking.
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Michael would struggle with having a crush on his darling.
He isn't entirely sure if he believes in love due to his home life with his parents.
He'd probably like his darling if they didn't try to change him like his parents tried to when he was younger and maybe you even understand him.
Michael is conflicted as you seem like a ray of light compared to him.
Your words don't hurt him and you honestly talk to him like he would with someone from his group.
He... appreciates it.
Michael wants to call you a friend but anything more and he gets hesitant.
Love never worked out for his parents, why would it work with him?
Despite his worries... he still finds himself adoring you.
Michael doesn't mind doing illegal tasks to pursue his darling.
It starts with stalking.
Talking with you and taking the occasional picture of you placates his obsession for the time being.
He doesn't want to lose what he has with you... but knows it'll happen at some point.
He keeps photos of you with him and often looks at them when no one is around.
Michael likes to watch you from afar within his group of goths.
But when he isn't with them then he'll follow you, being careful to not be caught.
Michael will move onto more major crimes to pursue this obsession he has.
His feelings grow within him the more he talks with you.
Soon he's breaking into your house to see where you live.
Then he's remembering your route/routine around South Park.
He knows you'd hate him for this.
However... he also knows at some point you'd hate him anyway and call him a monster... so why does it matter?
Michael keeps an eye on who you talk to.
Past crushes, exes, friends, etc....
He doesn't mind doing horrible things to them.
He may even get the goths in on it if he can convince them.
Michael doesn't mind attempting murder and he's already tried kidnapping before.
He tries to be patient with you as he feels you deserve that much.
But... murders and burning houses get suspicious over time.
The theft from your house doesn't help his case either.
Michael can't believe he's going this far for someone who isn't even a goth....
Michael's final progression of his obsession will involve him kidnapping you.
This time he's actually successful in a kidnapping.
You'll awake to your goth friend staring at you in his basement, smoking while leaning on the wall.
He isn't entirely sure how this love thing works yet he thinks you'll help him figure it out.
His way is certainly not the classic way... he's aware of that.
In fact, Michael is a very self-aware yandere.
Which may make things scarier.
Michael is aware that he's killed/injured people, Michael is aware he's done arson, Michael is even aware that this is probably not how you love someone.
Yet Michael loves you.
He's willing to accept these destructive feelings of adoration for you as his own form of love.
So even though you cry and call him a monster, he disregards what you say.
He already knows he's a monster.
Michael doesn't mind inflicting horrible crimes and acts upon this world...
As long as it means he's doing it for you.
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tinyozlion · 9 months
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“True Friends” - Understanding Mr. Treize and the Contradictions of OZ
“Treize himself has a tremendous disdain for any tactic that allows for excess casualties. Ignoble behavior on the battlefield sullies any victory, and civilian death makes a mockery of what a True Soldier fights and dies for. For Treize, there is nothing more hateful than removing the human component from battle, or the cowardly avoidance of responsibility for human death.”
Gosh! What a great quote! I wonder who said that? Oh right, that was me! I did. I wrote that in the entry about “True Soldiers: Aesthetics, Honor, and Chivalry”.   
Let’s examine that a little more, shall we? 
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“His Excellency doesn’t want battles that involve civilians.”
Everyone who knows Treize best, his “True Friends”, who grew up with him, who were trained by him, who understand him, all seem to agree: His Excellency wouldn’t stand for needless casualties. OZ may be ruthlessly pragmatic and underhanded, but that couldn’t be Treize’s fault– no, it’s always Lady Une! It’s his fanatically devoted colonel who always chooses the path of greatest violence, heedless of any collateral damage– she’s the one to blame! Treize would never give an order that risked civilian lives.
…Right?
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…Right?
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Surely he would stop her, admonish her, make her face serious consequences for the atrocities she was willing to commit. He’d leave no room for doubt that she had failed him and disappointed him.
...Right?
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Yeah, that’s right, a firm slap on the wrist oughta do it. Tell her to try a little harder next time to understand the value of human life. Just do better! It’s alright to use mobile suits to attack a school, but we’re going to put a stop to it because I’ve changed my mind about killing a teenage girl, as a personal favor to a friend. 
–Friends of His Excellency would certainly like to believe that he would never knowingly sacrifice civilians, but he sure doesn’t seem to mind benefiting from someone else doing it for him.
How well do Treize’s friends really understand him, when they seem unaware of how wide a margin of error he finds acceptable in pursuing his ideals? 
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Well, ideals are fine and all, but war is war, and some amount of pragmatism is necessary to stay on top. Treize isn’t the one calling all the shots (yet), and the organization he reports to expects results. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, right? That’s why it pays to have a Chief Omelet Maker working for you, so she can break all the eggs, and murder school children, and threaten nuclear assault, and you can come away still smelling like roses. 
…But what sort of effect does that have on her? 
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It’s better for a ruler to be feared than loved; being hated is the perfect motivation to stay strong; fighting will never disappear from the world, so the strong should rule it for the sake of damage control; God was too lenient when he gave mankind the free will to rebel; people find comfort in being controlled by the powerful. 
--These are some of Treize’s stated ideals. 
So Lady Une devotes herself to fulfilling those ideals unflinchingly, no matter how much blood ends up on her hands. Better her hands than His. OZ has to be the strongest. OZ has to win. OZ must be victorious at any cost. Damn the Colonies, damn the politician’s daughter who made herself a liability, damn the wounded soldiers left behind at New Edwards Base– she’s going to make OZ so absolutely unfuckwithable that their enemies shit themselves at the mention of its name, and she’ll do it herself if no one else will. Because THAT is what His Excellency wants. She understands him. 
...So why does he keep telling her– ever so gently, ever so gracefully, that she’s wrong? If making sure the strongest rule and the weak obey isn’t what pleases him, then what will? 
Killing is simple– anyone is capable of killing anyone, so you mustn't abuse that capability. The Earth is fragile and infinitely beautiful. Human life is fragile and infinitely beautiful. One must always take responsibility for the fates of those who fight for you, and honor the sacrifice of those who die. Tragedy in war is inevitable. 
--These are some of Treize’s stated ideals. 
So Lady Une devotes herself to fulfilling those ideals with grace and empathy, to bring an end to needless bloodshed. The world needs a strong, compassionate leader, who is capable of loving humanity and guiding them to a peaceful future, where loss and war are tragedies of the past. Order and peace can be maintained without sacrifice, by using technical advancements to replace soldiers on the battlefield and keep them out of harm’s way. That is what His Excellency wants. She understands him.
...So why does he tell her– so sadly, plaintively, that she is wrong? That he is not who she thinks he is, that the future she has so carefully laid out for him is a fantasy of her own making? Why does he plead with her to come back to him, as the person he once knew so fondly?
Civility and honorable conduct on the battlefield is worth more than victory. To fight for something one believes in with perfect clarity is the purest endeavor of mankind. The tragedy of loss is what gives a battle meaning. Honoring the sacrifice of those who have died for your cause means being willing to die for it yourself. To fight, to lose, to die for a noble cause is to move the hearts of all humanity, to touch immortality. 
--These are some of Treize’s stated ideals. 
And so she does– she sacrifices herself to save the Gundam pilots and turn the tides in outer space, rejecting Romefeller, rejecting the Mobile Dolls. At last, she understands him. 
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…But didn’t she always?
Except perhaps in the case of using Mobile Dolls to replace soldiers (an idea that was easily manipulated by its inventors to fit into her worldview at the time), her understanding of Treize’s ideals wasn’t ever wrong, just fragmented. She focused on a single facet at a time, each time excluding the contradictions of the other sides– light bouncing off a solid plane without revealing the rest of the prism’s convoluted geometry. 
She isn’t mistakenly interpreting him– HE is a mess, and she is representing him accurately, one dimension at a time. 
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What is more significant is that he finally understands this about her.
Treize is mortified to realize what sort of effect he has been having on someone he cares about, during a period where he is questioning the validity of his own beliefs and significance. He may mistakenly believe that he is responsible for having fragmented Lady Une’s personality– which is not how the condition she has operates– but he is not mistaken in taking responsibility for her distress, and the danger he has put her in.
Losing her, or believing that he has lost her, is devastating. Rather than moving him to action, it moves him to inaction; aware that he has come to represent ideals that are too easily manipulated by people who he fundamentally disagrees with, that the idea of him is too powerful to be used responsibly by the current rulers, he withdraws. 
Treize cannot switch off the magnetic field of his charisma or its continuous pull on the soldiers who take inspiration from him, but he refuses to willingly lend himself to a cause that he finds irresponsible. In fact, he refuses to join any cause until one presents itself that he can have complete faith in– and complete control over. 
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The people whom Treize considers his True Friends are the ones who “understand” him– this includes his enemies, the ones who oppose him but nevertheless espouse values that he can respect. In fact, ANY strongly held ideal, even ones in opposition to him, and ANY display of courage, is more admirable in Treize’s estimation than lip service to his own ideals or those of his organization. The “fighting spirit” that is of paramount value in his worldview is not limited to combatants– he expresses immense respect for Relena Peacecraft, more so even than his respect for the Gundam pilots, who he comes to idolize. What matters is the strength of conviction. What matters is courage.
He respects and admires Lady Une, even when her errors in judgment have megaton consequences, because she is so singularly and ferociously dedicated to her goals. He tolerates the violence and inhumane actions of the Specials and OZ soldiers because they are fanatically ambitious and ready to die for their ideals. As long as the ultraviolence isn’t cowardly or self-serving, then Treize can and will overlook the body count– noble sacrifices, all. He’ll memorize their names later on today.
Treize’s ideals are flawed and contradictory. There is a tipping point in the series where he gains enough self-awareness to recognize this fact. This does not stop him from believing in his ideals– he can’t simply turn away completely from what he values and loves about humanity and its “fighting spirit”– but it does allow him to appreciate those who see his hypocrisy for what it is, and who despise him for it. 
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“You’re only capable of looking down on others; you’re only fighting to satisfy your ego. How many people have died because of you?”
The fact that Treize has memorized the names of all 99 thousand people who have died for him does not do anything to improve Wufei’s opinion. For Treize, that number is a sacred personal burden; to Wufei, it is evidence of offensive, monstrous egotism. 
Wufei, of all the Gundam pilots, is best acquainted with how wide the margin of error is in Treize’s ideal of chivalry. Nataku herself, the namesake for Wufei’s gundam, fell neatly into that margin and died in it. Long before they met and dueled, Wufei knew of Treize as the OZ official jointly responsible for an attack on his Colony. While General Septem of the Alliance (then in control) would have murdered everyone on the Colony indiscriminately with biological weapons, Treize’s solution was more sporting: OZ sent in Mobile Suit troops to directly eliminate the rebel element, who were armed with nothing but a single decrepit prototype Leo and an unfinished Gundam with no ammo-- a much more chivalrous way of sterilizing a Colony, allowing the largely unarmed group of dissidents to die fighting rather than be killed with the push of a button.
Would the deaths of the Long Clan have been meaningful sacrifices in Treize’s eyes? Was exterminating civilians for the sake of convenience a noble cause to fight for?
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One could argue that the existence of the then-in-development Gundam was enough of a threat to justify an attack, but at the time the idea of gundanium mobile suits was no more than a rumor. Could Treize, back on Earth, have reasonably predicted its invention? 
Not if we are to believe his own words, which clearly indicate that the Gundam’s existence was unknown to him until reported after the attack.  
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For those who fall outside of his cult of personality it is easier to see past the charisma to the reality: no matter what his soldiers think of him, Treize is not a god. He is only a man, and no one person has the right to decree some deaths necessary to the future. 
–And Treize, for his part, would agree. He is a single individual, whose ideals people put too much faith in without fully realizing the essence of what they mean. But the belief people place in him gives Treize a level of power that must be acknowledged and used responsibly, and to the best of his ability, he tries to use it for the good of Earth and humankind. 
As a symbol, he is far more influential than he could ever be as a man, and his awareness of that fact leads him to choose the path of martyrdom, knowing that his very existence is a threat to peace. The only way he can neutralize his own power as a military icon is to join the sacrifices to the cause. And what more iconic way to do that than with a duel?
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Treize may have resigned himself to being an anachronism and a dreamer, but if he is going to die for the sake of the future, he will at least go out according to his ideals: gracefully, nobly, at the hands of an enemy he respects. 
For personal and aesthetic reasons, Milliardo is Treize’s hopeful first choice as a dueling partner, but Milliardo had his own role to play in their final performance, which prevented him from participating in a duel for their mutual actualization. So Wufei is the right choice; Wufei both understands him and has a justified reason to want him dead. Besides, it’s an elegant, symmetrical solution– the continuation of a duel that he predicted they would be destined to finish in mobile suits.
--And what effect does that have on Wufei? Perhaps expectedly, a fracturing one. 
It shouldn’t be surprising that Treize’s ideals resonate so powerfully with someone who was raised in a warrior culture, especially someone who only knows how to express his beliefs and sense his self worth through combat.
Wufei, too, lives with contradictions that he cannot fully unify. 
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Treize Khushrenada cannot live in the world he wishes to see realized. 
 If he were to win the war against White Fang, the cycle of oppression and resentment would continue. Even if he were to immediately relinquish his power to Relena and demilitarize the Earth Sphere, the end result would lead to more conflict; his refusal to take control of the Colonies would be seen as capitulation, and a betrayal of those who fought for him against the threat of annihilation from space. Even the considerable power of his charisma would evaporate overnight if he were to appear to be turning his back on the soldiers whose fanatic loyalty had allowed the unified mobilization of Earth’s military forces under his banner. But, as a general leading from the front lines in a noble defense of Earth, dying gloriously in battle for the sake of peace lends all that charisma to the future he fought for. 
--The message left to the surviving soldiers is not: “His Excellency led us into battle and then abandoned us when he won”, but instead: “this is the peace His Excellency died protecting.” 
Indeed, after his death, Treize’s name IS used in an attempt to lend legitimacy to the argument that soldiers have been devalued in a time of peace, and that continuous war to determine the strongest victor to lead humanity is his true legacy. But it doesn’t stick– the would-be dictator who tries to use Treize’s name in service of his military takeover is killed by a nameless soldier, whose change of heart is motivated by the memory of what Treize actually died for. 
--It is not a victor who moved the hearts of the people, but a glorious loser.
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yanderecrazysie · 4 months
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just went on a nostalgia trip with Katy Perry and I found a song with so much yandere plot potential.
Yan Japan with a reader who keeps reincarnating and throughout the history she's been involved in it was always a time of violence where she always ends up becoming a hero. But due to her being a woman she's more believed to be a legend than a real person. So she's basically Link from LoZ and just like Link she had her own Zelda. At first he accepted that, if the red string of fate said they belonged together then there's nothing he can do. However the more she reincarnates for him, her beloved country the more selfish he starts to become. And it all boiled down to him promising himself:
In another life, I will make you mine.
And in the other life, he sees her again now a normal adult woman living the simple life she should've had all those lives ago. Working as a literature teacher (which lead to her unknowingly discuss about her past self) with a co-worker who also looked familiar
Her soulmate
This is such an interesting idea! I don’t know if I can do it justice, but I’ll try! I don’t know anything about Legend of Zelda unfortunately, so I don’t understand the reference, I’m sorry!  
What’s the name of that song, btw??
Title: Throughout History
Pairings: Japan x Reader
WARNINGS: Yandere themes, descriptions of death, implied murder, Japan is jelly
Summary: He’s watched you all throughout history, a silent observer. Now, he’s ready to make you his.
Your beautiful (hair color) hair laid spread like a halo around your bleeding head. Your soldiers bowed around you, crying. Thankful that you had saved them all from the rule of the evil king, distraught that you had died doing so. This moment would live on forever through history books and literature, but you’d never live to receive the glory.
From a short distance away, Japan stood with his soldiers, watching silently as his allies mourned the death of the brave woman who had led them valiantly into battle. This was not the first time he had met you.
You had once been the queen of this country, a vigilante in the dark, an assassin and, now, a war hero. In every life, you had been a heroine. Brave and selfless to a fault. 
Japan’s eyes narrowed as your husband kneeled by your side, sobbing over your broken body. In every life, there was a king to your queen- the same man reborn again by your side. Life had assigned you a partner and sidekick for eternity.
Sometimes Japan felt as though he’d been put on this earth just to suffer. To watch from the sidelines as you grew closer to another man and then died a tragic hero. No longer. No longer would he stand for this.
In another life, he thought to himself, I will make you mine.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You stood at the front of the classroom, reading out from a book in your hand. The pale brown cover depicted a (hair color)-haired woman in armor with her hair billowing in the wind behind her. Your young students sat with raptured interest as you told the exciting tale of a woman taking down the evil king.
“Her beautiful (hair color) hair laid spread like a halo around her bleeding head. Her soldiers bowed around her, crying. Thankful that she had saved them all from the rule of the evil king, distraught that she had died doing so. This moment would live on forever through history books and literature, but she’d never live to receive the glory.” You read, eyes tearing up with emotion. You were never sure why some of these books made you so emotional. You weren’t even sure if Astrid ever existed, so why were you moved to tears over her story?
The students applauded as you ended the book, a few of them whispering enthusiastically amongst themselves. You weren’t sure whether they were excited about the book or about the approaching end of the school day. Sure enough, the bell’s ring cut through the air and the students all cheered and started gathering their things.
“Have your reports on Astrid on my desk by Friday. Have a good night!” You called out to your pupils as they left your classroom. 
From across the street, in the office building next door, Japan stared out the window, watching you sit down at your desk and pull out a red pen. You took your students’ homework from a drawer and began to grade their papers. You looked happy, a little smile tugging at your lips as you marked a 100% at the top of the first page.
It fits you. Japan thought to himself, a small smile of his own spreading across his thin lips. You always seemed so happy and relaxed, so different from the wild war hero or the dignified queen. No longer did you have so much stress and responsibility weighing on your shoulders. 
The door to your classroom opened and Japan stiffened in his seat, fists clenching a little as he saw who dared to disturb you. 
Of course, a rebirth wouldn’t be complete without your soulmate.
For now, he was simply a co-worker. You were too busy to even think of pursuing a relationship, no doubt. But that would change, Japan knew it would. It was fate, after all.
His heart twisted unpleasantly in his chest as he averted his eyes from the two of you, both having started an enthusiastic conversation. It wasn’t fair! He was doomed to watch from the sidelines again and again and he was sick of it.
Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind. What if there wasn’t a soulmate for fate to pair you with? Would Japan be able to swoop in and save the day? Become your shoulder to cry on, then something more?
He didn’t like the idea of murder, but it was high time he took control of your fates.
You’d never be the wiser.
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alpaca-clouds · 9 months
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Media does not understand forgiveness
(And to be honest, neither does society.)
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Kinda based on what I wrote yesterday about the redemption arcs... Because it has a lot to do with each other. See, people do not understand one thing. Mostly, because Media does rarely ever portray it. (I could like name one book that got it right, but only one.)
Forgiveness should be about the person who forgives - not about the one forgiven.
Let me explain. In our everyday live the entire concept about apologies and forgiveness tends to be kinda trivial. Husband forgot to take out the trash. He apologizes and is forgiven. Kid threw a tamper tantrum and broke some plates. They apologize and are forgiven. Wife got angry for the thing she thought had been done but that was not true. She apologizes and is forgiven.
The thing is that in those circumstandes it is more about the person in the wrong admitting that wrong and admitting responsibility. The forgiveness is not hard to give. Because those are tiny slights that tend to be forgotten a week from now.
I could obviously go into a whole rant about the idea that a forced apology is basically no apology at all, because an apology has to be about taking responsibility - not just doing some lip service to it. But... I am gonna leave it at this for now.
But when we are talking the kind of dramatic storytelling we see in media, it is nothing like those examples. It is usually much more horrible stuff. Oh, yeah, your one friend killed your other friend because there was no way out of it. Your former villain has killed your parents. Oh, and that one guy, yeah... He also is a reformed villain and once held you prisoner for weeks, torturing you every day. Also, that other guy there? Yeah, he raped you.
That is the kinda stuff we deal with in media too often. And yet... in those cases most media still is gonna follow the social script being laid out above. Bad guy says they are sorry, bad guy gets forgiven. Sure, maybe he has to go an extra step or two. But it is the basic script.
And this just completely and utterly ignores trauma.
Come closer, please. I am not letting you in onto a secret. Ready? If you are a mass murderer and realized that murder is wrong, no survivor forgiving you is gonna make you feel any better. And also: That survivor does now owe you that forgiveness.
What people tend to ignore in our society at large is, that violence in any form - like actual violence - tends to leave trauma on both sides of the conflict. A ton of people struggle to admit to it, especially on the perpetrator side, but... It is a thing.
Because - as I will harp on in this blog again and again - humans have evolved to be pretty social animals. And contrary what so many stories will tell you, we are kinda neurologically opposed to violence (unless trauma or brain injury changed that). That is why military and the fucking police put their people into boot camps to kinda... traumatize the brains into being okay with violence.
And suddenly, that violence that gets apologized for... it is all about trauma. It really is.
Actually forgiving someone - and meaning it from your heart - is about coming to a state of acceptance towards the trauma. To accept it has happened and it cannot be undone. This is a step taken by the victim and only the victim. Sometimes the victim might never get there. But even if they do... This process of arriving at this forgiveness is something that first and foremost afflicts the victim, because...
Even when the victim goes to the perpetrator of whatever violence and tell them: "I forgive you for what you did to me/my friends." It doesn't do shit for said perpetrator.
Because what happenes - on a purely psychological basis - is, that when that person realizes they did wrong, their brain usually will also tell them: "Jo, man, you are aware that we like have lots of trauma from doing this, right?" And their victim(s) forgiving them is not gonna take it away.
What needs to happen - and what people hate in that regard happening, because they have been trained to see that as wrong - is, that this reformed badie has... to forgive themselves for what they had done. Because nobody else is truly able to forgive them. Because in those cases the forgiveness is about the person, who forgives, healing... And not some karma getting somehow balanced.
And, heck, yes, this can also be true in the other way around. Because heroes being the heroic type will at times actually feel bad for what they might have done to the antagonist, especially when the antagonist reforms and joins the good side.
But there, too... The reformed antagonist saying: "I forgive you." Well, it won't the hero make feel better. Because they gotta reach that stage of acceptance and self-forgiveness on their own.
And yes, all of that is kinda... messy. But it is realistic. And I kinda hate, how it is ignored in so much media.
I personally like to play around with it a lot in my stuff (turns out it comes up a ton in both my original stuff and the fanfics). With people getting told by their victims or their reformed villains: "It's alright. I forgive you. You had no other choice." And their trauma brain reacting with: "That's to fucking easy! Not buying this."
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spaceless-vacuum · 2 years
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Fandom‧˚。゚・° 。✎ Legend of Zelda
Pairing‧˚。゚・° 。✎ Yandere!Link x reader
Word count‧˚。゚・° 。✎ 725
Summery‧˚。゚・° 。✎ The idea was you’re just someone from some village he falls in love with. I couldn’t get the idea of how he’d ratioanlize and explain his own behavior to himself so I wrote this.
Misc‧˚。゚・° 。✎ third pov, kidnapping, mentions of violence, murder, emotional manipulation, kidnapping
Link is unable to understand that you don’t want him. His worst tendency is the fact that in his mind you either do love him or will fall in love with him. There is no if or maybe. He has deluded himself into thinking that if he just tries one more time he can't fail. Seventeen tries later and he still isn't about to give up.
In his mind he has everything he needs to succeed; and anything he doesn't have he can go get. He faced hordes of monsters, killed ganon, and saved Zelda so many times it made him a bit too confident in his abilities. A warrior is never without a weapon if they train their mind and body after all. If you don't like what he has he just needs to try another way through.
That’s what being the hero of courage is. Perseverance. 
The idea that no matter what he does you wont like he never crosses this man's mind. It can come off as childish and cruel. To him it doesn't matter what the issue is, he just needs to find a new way to approach the issue. You refuse to eat the food he cooks for you? That's ok! Hell just buy you food, or buy the ingredients so you can cook instead. The entire time he’s so proud of himself. He filled your kitchen with so much food you won't have to shop for the next month. To Link it isn't a big deal. Why are you even complaining?
God forbid you show interest in any of his advances either (unless you want to feed these tendencies?). Once interest is shown in one tactic he'll lean hard into it. You said thank you to him for giving you a gemstone one time? Now you have ten sitting on your table. The next day he brings you even more. Apparently he hunted down a magma Talos just for you. No need to thank him, except you have to. Seriously, don't be ungrateful, it will only make things worse.
This goes for anything you ask of well. Need some ingredients for a stew? You have enough stock to last for three months worth of ingredients. If you don't tell him to stop bringing you ingredients he'll never stop. It’ll just start to pile up in the pantry. The whole time he never stops to think it’s an inappropriate reaction. He's just doing his best!
Just don't treat him or any of his gifts with malice or disinterest. If you start to act cruel (ie: selling the gifts he gives you or by lying to him) he will take to more extreme measures. Rumors will spread about you. Starting with your hometown and then leading to cities and other kingdoms if your actions were that horrible. None of what is said is actually true, but sometimes the truth needs to be stretched to make a point.
Items in your home will go missing. The only way to get them back is to act nicely. To go along with the game in his head. Pretend you love him and give him his wholesome moments or he will start to take everything from you. There's where to run, no one to turn to, and no escape. Just accept Link and he will make you happy.
.
If you continue to push back he’ll grow harsh. Don't get him wrong he hates to enact violence against you, his love, but sometimes it must be done. Being a hero isn't all sunshine and rainbows. tough choices are made every day by people in power. If someone gets in the way there's not much that can be done. They will disappear and you will live by his side.
When push comes to shove he’ll do it. First he'll start with his usual methods. Just talk them away from you, threaten them a little, but if all else fails actions speak louder than words. A moment of rage and passion later the evidence must be destroyed. Monster attacks happen so often in this world. It’s a shame they got caught by one.
The remorse from having to take such an action hangs with him for a few days. However, getting to see you again makes it all worth it. For you, for Hyrule, no price is too high.
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Outside the twst world player writes a letter of love and gratitude for Lilia ( I totally didn't get the letter of Google (;;;・_・) )
Dear Lilia,
I'm writing this to tell that I love you. You're my first thought in the morning and I hold you in my last breath in the evening. I need you more and more each day like an addiction of some sort, an addiction to love I guess. You fixed me when I broke and you toke my pain away. you listened when I sobbed and watched when I laughed. But, most importantly, you never let me go-no matter how much I tried pushing you away and that, is something I'll never forget.
Yours truly,
Player/Name
Self-aware au
I do not take any responsibility for you reading this no matter which age group you are from!
WARNINGS: Yandere themes, obsessive behavior, religion, war, blood, beheading, obsession, murder, violence
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Lilia Vanrouge-Threats of fate
After starting the game you were met with your usual home screen. Lilia standing to the left and the menu to the right. What surprised you though was his unusual voiceline. “You seem to have a letter in your mailbox. Why not look what's written inside of it?” And look at that, he was right! There was no indication that it was there, almost as if the game didn't want you to notice. But nah, that could not be the case. As you continued to read through it you started to ask yourself if TWST was some sort of weird yandere dating simulator with horror themes.
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Dear overseer of the world,
ah! When I read your words I thought I had finally passed on and joined you in the world beyond the woven threats. That my fate would ever entail such a thing was something unimaginable for me no matter in which period. The chains that bind us cannot be destroyed, but it seems like my future was meant to be a pleasant one. My dear God, my beloved, allow me to ask if what you are saying is the truth. It almost feels like a dream, too perfect to be real! Forgive my insolence but please understand my position! This is all I ever dreamed of. If you had told me back then to betray the fae and become a traitor I would happily have done so. There is no one else whom in love as much as I love you! My God! My saviour!
I was sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness, time consuming the flame which was my hope. Living for such a long time does a lot to your head. But then you came! I saw the first church being built. I was one of the first who entered it. I was your first true follower! But what about you? Was there someone for you in the flow of eternity? If not, then I would love to take that place. You will never be alone again, the changes of time never touching me, never changing me.
There isn't a thing I wouldn't do for you. If my God wishes for a purification of the world then I shall do that. I will preach, I will tell and I will teach. Your grace, your perfection have been recognized by many other places besides the valley as well but they don't see the truth! You aren't a God to them. Such a thought saddens me. A dethroned deity, a fell God if we put it like that. I will not allow that. Continue to sit upon your throne, the traitors shall all fall.
I still remember it, the last holy war. I was smiling in glee when I beheaded that foolish king. How much I wish I had done more than to turn his lakes into puddles of blood. He did not want to accept your rule, his fate. Instead he attacked us, calling it the beginning of the uprising against the tyrant. Tyrant! How funny that he described himself. Boasting about his achievements against God whilst his subjects trembled at his feet. May he feel the weight of his chains for all eternity.
My love, I care about you more than anything else in this world. How much I wish to be with you. I shall wait until the time comes in which either I join you or you descend upon this world. Everything for you. Everything for your love.
Forever yours,
Lilia Vanrouge
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rosanna-writer · 11 months
Text
we said hello and your eyes look like coming home (3/?)
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Summary: A canon-divergent AU where the bond snaps for Rhys on Calanmai, Feyre unwittingly accepts it, and Fire Night magic proves to be more transformative than anyone bargained for. Feyre drags a mate she hardly knows out from Under the Mountain, then puts him back together as war with Hybern approaches. Warnings: dubious consent, canon-typical sexual violence Rating: Explicit Chapter Word Count: ~3.8k
The rest of the Inner Circle meets Feyre, or:
"I've only had Feyre a day and a half but if anything happened to her, I'd kill everyone in this room and then myself" - the Inner Circle probably
Read on AO3 or you can find the third chapter below the readmore.
ch. 1 - the altar is my hips | ch 2. - an arrowhead leading us home | ch. 3 - by the way, i just may like some explanations
From the early hour and their mussed hair, I suspected that Morrigan had pulled Cassian and Azriel from their beds. But weapons hung from both their belts, so if that was true, they either slept armed or with daggers nearby. Warriors too, then.
The shock was obvious on both their faces the second my scent hit their noses. Morrigan dropped their hands.
"This is Feyre," she said. "I found her in the townhouse this morning when the wards alarmed. She claims she's Rhys's mate."
"She's telling the truth. I can sense the bond," Amren said with an authoritative finality.
Amren still terrified me, especially when her tone brooked no argument, but I relaxed a bit at that. At least the terrifying creature was on my side.
Cassian snickered and said, "And I'm sure that's not the only thing you can sense on her."
Cauldron, I would have killed for a bath, just to stop these comments. My cheeks heated, and Morrigan smacked Cassian in the center of the chest. Perhaps it shouldn't have caught me off-guard—Rhys had specifically told me to find his family, after all—but I hadn't expected them to act so much like siblings as they interrogated me.
"We're—" Azriel started to say, but I cut him off.
"Cassian and Azriel. Rhys told me to find all of you," I said.
"What else did he tell you?" Azriel said.
I hesitated. "It's a long story."
"We've got time," Morrigan said with a smile that I think was meant to be reassuring.
All I could do was start from the very beginning. I didn't want to tell them about killing Andras, especially after Lucien had hated me so much for it at first, but there was no way around it. I expected disgust that their High Lord's mate was a murderer, not the looks of understanding I got instead.
In fact, it wasn't until I described the way Tamlin had burst into our cottage and taken me to Prythian instead of killing me that I got much of a reaction at all. The four of them shared significant looks, and Mor in particular tensed up with anger.
"That was never in the Treaty," she said, interrupting me. "I'd know, I helped negotiate it. There are no special consequences for a human killing a faerie."
A lie. Tamlin had ripped me from my family and brought me to Prythian and lied to me to do it. And everyone I'd spoken to in the Spring Court had gone along with it.
"But why?" I said.
"He might have known you're Rhys's mate," Azriel said quietly, tucking his wings in tight. I wasn't sure what the gesture meant.
"That's not Tamlin's style. He would have just killed her outright," Cassian said.
"If Tamlin just needed a human girl for whatever he's planning, then it seems terribly coincidental that the one he found is Rhys's mate."
I felt the blood drain from my face at that, even though Rhys had warned me that there would be a target on my back. I just hadn't thought the threat could be from Tamlin.
By the Cauldron, I'd been falling for him.
"You're scaring her," Mor hissed at them.
"We can't keep her safe from enemies if she doesn't know who they are," Amren said coolly. Mor glowered back at her.
"She is right here, you know," I said, crossing my arms across my chest.
Mor's face softened as she turned back to me and said more gently, "There's bad blood between Rhys and Tamlin, from centuries ago. We can tell you all of it later, but please keep going."
I told them everything—Tamlin's promise my family was taken care of, the Bogge, painting again—and left nothing out. They just let me talk, occasionally sharing more significant looks among the four of them that I didn't understand. At some point, I took my cloak and Rhys's jacket off, and we moved to Amren's sitting area. It seemed we'd be talking for a while.
When I laid it out like this, I felt like such a fool for having let my guard down in the Spring Court. Years of keeping my wits about me in the woods, only for all my defenses to crumble the first time someone was a bit kind to me. It was just so stupid.
The Mother only knew what would have become of me if I'd stayed in there any longer.
It wasn't until I started to tell them about the Suriel that I was interrupted again. Cassian blurted out, "How the hell did a scrawny little thing like you manage to catch a Suriel?"
Maybe I was just exhausted, but hearing another arrogant faerie question my ability to build a snare eroded the last of my patience. Even the ones who seemed to like me equated being human with being useless. "I was even scrawnier when I did it," I snapped. "I think the real question is how the hell did you manage to survive this long without anyone killing you?"
I wasn't sure what I expected, but it wasn't for Cassian to tip his head back and laugh. Or for Azriel's brows to flick up in what I thought might be approval.
Mor smiled, but her eyes still looked sad. "You wouldn't be Rhys's mate if you weren't a little mean," she said, as if it were a good thing.
Before I could continue, the mating bond roared to life as a wave of Rhys's emotion slammed into me. Rage, pain, disgust, a million other awful feelings, but above them all—an overwhelming sense of violation.
I let out an inhuman-sounding cry and vomited on Amren's feet.
Wiping at my mouth with the back of my hand, I looked up at their concerned faces. "Someone's hurting Rhys," I said, my voice trembling.
Not just hurting, raping him, but I couldn't bring myself to say that aloud.
My breath came in gasps, and I dug my nails into the tops of my thighs, willing the pain to stop. I hardly registered it as Mor made the vomit disappear, then guided me over to the sink and handed me a cup of liquid to rinse my mouth out with. At some point, I ended up sitting down again as she rubbed my back. I don't remember when I picked up Rhys's jacket, but I clutched it to my chest as I cried.
Mor's help calmed me enough to reach down the bond for Rhys, as if I was holding out a hand to someone in distress. There were a few scattered images I saw through his eyes—red hair spilling across a naked breast, the ceiling of a room that looked like it was carved into a mountain, a ring with a spinning eyeball.
It lasted barely a second before he shoved me out, a mental wall slamming down between us. His pain still leaked down the bond, but it had a strange, muffled quality.
My breathing returned to normal, and my hands stopped shaking. Rhys was distant enough that I took in my surroundings again and gently pushed Mor's hand off my back. Cassian, Azriel, and Amren were across the room, talking in urgent voices too low for me to hear.
And then it hit me with a cold certainty—I might have known Rhys for less than a day, but I'd kill whoever did this to my mate. Slowly, and I'd enjoy it.
I'd never thought I'd ever have it in me to take pleasure in killing anything, but everything had changed last night, changed in a bone-deep, fundamental way. It was the first sense I had of the way a mating bond reorients the way you see the world.
"The redhead who wears an eye as a ring. Who is she?" I said.
"Amarantha," Amren said. "She stole Rhysand's power along with the rest of the High Lords', and she's been ruling from Under the Mountain for the last fifty years."
That certainly explained why no one wanted to say her name—and why she'd been able to put her hands on a High Lord and not be killed for it.
For the first time since Tamlin told me my family was taken care of, I had a goal. I needed to get Rhys back. It didn't matter that he was little more than a stranger or that I was a human who didn't stand a chance against a faerie holding the power of all seven High Lords.
A mating bond overruled logic.
As long as she was hurting Rhys, a sense of wrongness wouldn't leave me, rippling under my skin like the echo of the stag's magic. But unlike a gift, this would eat me alive from the inside out. I had to end her.
Cassian broke away from his conversation with Azriel and Amren and came to sit next to me. "No. Absolutely not," he said, his voice sharp and full of authority. I jumped, thinking he could read my thoughts like Rhys could, but he continued, a bit more softly, "I've fought enough battles to know what that look means. We're not letting you do something rash and get yourself killed."
"I can feel what she's doing to him," I whispered. "I can't just sit here. It hurts."
"I get it. Even when it's the right move, waiting still feels like shit. It helps to remind yourself that Rhys deserves our best effort, and that means getting your head on straight before doing anything," he said, looking at me with the deepest well of empathy I'd ever known. He was speaking from experience, the way only an immortal could.
I reminded myself that this was Rhys's family. It was hurting them, too.
Even if this had been going on for more than the length of my life twice over.
"Tell us what you learned from the Suriel," Amren said.
I didn't miss the disgusted look Mor shot Amren, as if to tell her to back off. As tired as I was, I didn't mind pressing forward. I wanted to get this done.
Amren frowned as I described what the Suriel had told me, and I supposed she was disappointed that there wasn't any new information for her. But for me, it was good to hear the four of them confirm everything I'd learned, then fill in a bit more about Amarantha.
I kept going, telling them about the naga, the faerie who'd returned with his wings ripped off and bled out in the manor, the pool of starlight and then…Calanmai.
I almost didn't tell them that the stag had called me High Lady. Even then, it had struck me as ridiculous, but now in broad daylight and surrounded by three powerful fae—plus whatever Amren was—it seemed even more absurd. But in the end, my worry about what they might do to me if they found out I withheld information won out.
As soon as I said it, Amren grabbed my left hand and held it out so she could see the tattoo. The glint in her silver eyes was unsettling enough that I didn't snatch my hand back.
"I should have seen it sooner," she said. "Rhysand didn't give you this, did he?"
"No," I said. "I…I think the Night Court itself did."
Amren studied me, tilting her head again and making me feel as if I were some sort of interesting bug she was trying to identify. I willed myself not to squirm under her gaze.
"You're Made, but there's more than that. It's fainter than when I sensed it on Rhysand back when he was just his father's heir, but I can feel it on you regardless," Amren said.
She turned my hand over to examine the tattoo from the other side. The hairs on my arm stood up. "Feel what?" I said.
"Potential."
I had no idea what she meant by that. I didn't want to know.
"If the rest of the design were filled in…" Mor said softly, trailing off. Her eyes were on my hand, too. So were Cassian's and Azriel's.
"It would mark her as High Lady of the Night Court," Amren said, dropping my hand.
"What about that line on your third finger, Feyre?" Mor said.
"That was just my mate being a prick," I said, earning a chuckle from Azriel.
Amren scowled and said, "Just tell us the rest, girl."
I shoved my tattooed hand under Rhys's jacket, not wanting to look at it again, then continued on and told them about the stag's boon, finding Rhys, and giving him the pomegranate seeds.
At that, Cassian cut me off again and said, "Shit Feyre, you really just accepted the bond without even knowing his name?"
I had no idea what that meant, but just from his tone, the bottom dropped out of my stomach. "Accepted the bond?" I said, a little weakly.
Mor was looking at me with what looked like a mixture of horror and pity, and I couldn't face it. I twisted the fabric of Rhys's jacket in my lap and stared down at it.
"When a female offers her mate food for the first time, it means she accepts the bond," Mor said gently. "It's rare for a mating bond to be rejected, but most pairs get to know each other first and make an occasion out of it. It's an…important moment."
I didn't say anything at first, just let that sink in. With the magic in the air and the stag's instructions pushing me towards Rhys, I wasn't sure if I would have even had the willpower to reject the bond, or even just wait, if I'd known. And Gods, this was something the fae made into an event, but he'd eaten straight out of my hand outside a random cave in the forest.
Maybe there'd been a reason beyond my safety that he'd been so quick to send me away.
"Is it…permanent?" I said, even though I knew the answer. I could feel the strength of the bond for myself, how nothing could possibly be the same again.
"A mating bond runs deeper and more permanent than anything else," Amren said.
I nodded and tried not to think about what a burden it must be for Rhys, an eternal bond to a human. With no magic or means to protect myself, I was a weak point, a dead weight.
And now I always would be.
"It's been a few centuries since there's been a Lady of the Night Court," Azriel said. His face was blank, and his tone didn't give much away, either.
But it didn't escape my notice that he'd said Lady, not High Lady. Mother above, I had a title. I wasn't sure I wanted to know why it had been so long since anyone else held it or what had happened to the last Lady of Night. This was Prythian—whoever she was, she'd likely met a bad end.
"It has," Amren said, "but we can discuss that later. Finish your story, girl."
There wasn't much more to tell. I certainly wasn't going to give anyone else a detailed account of what had happened in that cave. I skipped ahead to this morning and kept talking until I described arriving at the townhouse.
It felt like getting a weight off my chest, albeit a small one. It was all out in the open, and no one seemed inclined to attack me. "What next?" I said.
"You look dead on your feet. You should sleep," Mor said.
She wasn't wrong—I'd barely gotten any rest, and I was beginning to feel it. But that wasn't what I'd meant.
"After that, I think I should trap the Suriel. I could see what it knows about what Tamlin wanted with me and how to get Rhys back," I said.
Cassian's face darkened. "I don't like the idea of sending you back through the wards alone," he said. Mor seemed to agree with him, but Azriel's face was still blank.
I balled my hands into fists and looked Cassian straight in the eye. "And does Night treat its guests the same way Spring does?" I spat. If they meant to keep me here, I wanted them to at least be honest about it.
Cassian just shrugged. "It wasn't an order. I don't have to like everything you do."
I couldn't tell if he truly meant that, or if this was another false choice like when Tamlin had told me I was free to live anywhere in Prythian. Technically true, but I never would have made it more than a half mile from his manor before one monster or another killed me.
"It's a risk, but a reasonable one. Feyre can clearly navigate a forest alone, and if Tamlin is planning something, we'll all sleep better knowing what it is," Amren said.
Again, she spoke with a finality in her voice that made me think she had some sort of authority over all the others. Or perhaps she just terrified them all into going with whatever it was she wanted.
"I'm with Amren," Azriel added, tucking in his wings again. "I don't see another option, not while my shadows can't leave the city, either."
That seemed to settle it—Mor would glamour me to hide my scent on the off chance I did run into anyone. But from what they said, it sounded like the pine forests were mostly empty, and I'd likely only encounter animals.
Whatever Rhys had been doing for the past fifty years, it had been keeping the blight well away from the Night Court.
Mor brought me back to the townhouse not long after that. I'd assumed she'd show me where to find a bed, but she just stayed in the living room and said, "Feyre, I hate to ask you a personal question right now, but it's time sensitive. Have you been taking a contraceptive brew?"
I froze. I hadn't even thought about the possibility of a pregnancy, and I would have just gone right to sleep if Mor hadn't asked. Gods, that could have been disastrous.
"No, but I need one. Can you…?" I said.
Mor smiled. "Of course. There's no food in the house, either, just Rhys's things. I'll pick some up for you."
She squeezed my shoulder before winnowing away, and she was back shortly after I'd tucked the bow, quiver, and knife in the antechamber. There was probably a closet or something else to store them in, but it felt rude to poke around a house that didn't belong to me. Exploring Tamlin's manor, which had been full of servants, had been different. The townhouse felt lived-in, cozy, and intimate.
When she got back, Mor inclined her head towards the kitchen and handed me a small box. "I'll show you where the kettle is if you'd feel safer boiling the water yourself. I'll have a cup of non-medicinal tea if you don't mind me staying," she said.
I did feel safer boiling the water myself, and I was relieved she'd brought me a sealed, unopened package, even if it contained more than I'd probably need. As I filled the kettle, it hit me that Mor was experienced at this kind of thing. Maybe it had been magic, but she'd been back quickly, as if she'd known exactly where to go. And when she'd rubbed my back as I'd cried, she'd given me just the right amount of space to make it feel comforting but not smothering.
I wasn't sure exactly why Mor had spent so much time supporting distraught women in need of emergency contraception, but I was glad to have her here.
She could have used magic to get everything out of the cabinets, but Mor grabbed it all herself, probably for my benefit. And even though I'd been around the fae for months now, it set me at ease, too. A few minutes later, she was giving me a sympathetic look above her own teacup as I sipped the bitter brew.
"I think you should know," she said slowly, "that even though things between you and Rhys might be…up in the air, you're part of our family now. We're duty-bound to protect you and all that, but I want to be your friend, too. You have guts, and I like that."
I didn't believe her. I was grateful for the help, but the last faerie I'd thought I could call a friend was Lucien, and he'd been assisting my kidnapper. Even if Mor and the others didn't have an ulterior motive, at best I was a horribly fragile human who'd been dumped on their doorstep to be babysat.
But I wasn't stupid enough to tell any of that to Mor. I just took another sip of the contraceptive brew and said, "Thanks."
"And all of us might be a little overprotective—don't be surprised if you find Cass or Az perched on the roof later. You can tell any of us to get fucked if it's too much," she said.
That sounded like those fae instincts that always had them growling, snarling, and scenting. I wasn't sure I'd ever completely get used to it. "Overprotective because I'm human?" I said.
"Yes," Mor said, and I appreciated the honesty, "and because you're young and you've already been through a lot."
There was no pity or condescension there. It was still a bit strange to hear this sort of plain honesty from a faerie, especially after so much I'd been told in Spring had turned out to be half-truths.
And I hadn't thought about it earlier, but if Mor had helped negotiate the Treaty, she must be at least five hundred. It wasn't the time to ask, but I wondered if she or the others had fought in the War.
If they had, something told me it wasn't on the same side as Spring and Hybern.
I couldn't think of anything to say to that, so I just forced down a few more sips of the awful, bitter tea. Mor didn't seem bothered at all that I was so quiet, just continued in that chipper way of hers, "But anyway, I just didn't want to let it go unsaid, even though I think you'd tell us off if you needed to. I can't wait until this is all over and I get to watch you nail Rhys's balls to the wall."
That got me to crack a smile, as impossible as it felt after everything that had happened in the past day. I didn't share her optimism, but I wanted to like Mor and hoped I could trust her eventually.
I finished my tea, and Mor showed me where to find everything upstairs. I took a guest room instead of Rhys's—I already felt like enough of an invader just staying in the house. Mor left me with a set of soft nightclothes and surprised me by pulling me into a hug before winnowing away.
I wanted a bath, but just changing and crawling into bed sapped the last of my energy. As I drifted off, Rhys's talons brushed the very edge of my mind. They didn't invade any further, just reached out as if to reassure him I was still there.
With a mental hand, I curled my fingers around a talon and clutched it until I was asleep.
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yanderes-galore · 1 year
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I know you've done Halo Infinite Sangheili so idk if you know this guy from the first Halo Wars, Ripa 'Moramee. he's been around years longer than the Halo Infinite guys but gets barely any content anywhere, so I'm curious how you'd imagine him falling for a human darling
Sangheili content my beloved... I'd love to! I have not played Halo Wars but I hope my research helps. Tried to stay in canon but was also creative.
Edit: I got carried away, this is long lol 😅 Guess I'm down bad 🤷‍♀️ I'd love feedback as this was REALLY fun to write. I also suggest having some background knowledge about Halo/Halo Wars to understand this more.
Yandere! Ripa 'Moramee with Human! Darling
Pairing: Romantic
Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Violence, Murder, Religious themes, Manipulation, Internal conflict, Obsession, Human/Sangheili, Angst I guess, Violence against darling/wounds (You are enemies... it's only fair), Swearing, Denial, Feelings of betrayal, Kidnapping, Isolation, 'Moramee is losing his mind, 'Moramee is implied to have intimate thoughts, End is implied to also be intimate but nothing happens.
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There's so much moral conflict in this pairing.
His whole purpose is to elminate the human race.
That's his whole purpose as Arbiter.
He thinks humans are weak, completely and utterly undisciplined in the ways of a warrior.
As Halo Wars is deep in the past of the Human/Covenant war, even before Halo CE, a pairing between Sangheili and human is forbidden.
Even more so if he's meant to kill them all.
'Moramee is known as ruthless with an insatiable bloodlust.
He's quick to anger and has a temper.
The moment he hesitates in killing you upon your first meeting... rage builds within him and tears him apart from the inside.
He's harmed humans, Unggoy, and Sangheili alike in his rage...
Why does he hesitate on a human!?
The Prophets demand your execution!
He's a savage beast even in Sangheili terms.
He knows nothing but anger and rage.
'Moramee has never had his own rage directed towards himself.
He likes victory.
The Sangheili had tried to hunt you down when he met you.
So when he finally cornered you on Harvest he was prepared to strike.
Why did he hesitate!?
He had one of his plasma blades lifted in the air, ready to strike.
Was he distracted?
Did you distract him?
Either way he hesitated enough to be hit by gunfire from your squad of marines/spartans, the Arbiter was forced to abandon his prey.
'Moramee is thrown into an enraging conflict with himself after this.
He doesn't dare tell The Prophets.
His subordinates notice his growing rage and keep their distance.
He's a yandere that would be driven to pursue his human through the desire to end his internal conflict.
He knows humans are weak and should perish in the wake of the Covenant.
However, the fact he couldn't slaughter you haunts him.
It scares him that you, as a human, make him weak.
He's a disgrace to The Great Journey....
He hates the fact you make him weak.
He doesn't even consider the idea of love... even if that may be what he's feeling yet can't understand it.
'Moramee loathes the idea of loving a human.
His moral and religious conflict make him volatile towards his own crew.
They already tremble before him.
Now when they hear him mutter to himself and roar in rage, they start to dread him pulling out his weapons.
If/When 'Moramee eventually tries to hunt you down again then he tries to do your abduction alone.
He can't have his crew find out about his true intentions with you.
Intentions he dreads but has to accept if he wants to regain his focus.
'Moramee intends to slaughter anyone he feels he needs to in order to solve his issue.
Expect him to send a small group of troops to remove your group.
Despite the order to kill your group and any humans they find aiding them, 'Moramee describes your appearance and gives the order to spare you.
Spare... something that baffles both the Sangheili himself and his troops.
He was not one to spare.
However, in a way you can view his true intentions as not sparing
His troops knew better than to question the Arbiter's judgment.
The order was sent... then executed like your team.
'Moramee awaits the fallout of the skirmish.
By the end of it you're standing in the middle of corpses making up your team.
Your skin sizzles around your wound, a plasma burst being the cause of your agony.
His troop had withdrawn and left you there, a wound to your leg and you gasping for breath in fear... and pain.
So much pain.
Once his troops relay back to the extraction point, 'Moramee stalks closer before wrapping his hand around your throat and decloaking.
Shock and fear paralyze you, the recent trauma of watching your friends die still fresh in your mind.
Along with the blood from their demise still staining your skin.
"You..."
The Sangheili growls, tightening his grip.
He could easily snap your neck.
"A human such as you should be killed for The Great Journey! You've ruined me!"
Upon your struggling 'Moramee and you most likely engage in one-sided combat...
It's enough to make the Arbiter vent his rage.
The entire time he curses you.
Every bruise... broken bone... he deals it to you for a purpose you don't understand.
'Moramee fights with you to try and clear you from his head.
You're fighting him to survive at least a little while longer.
By the time it ends there's barely a scratch on his armor.
Your breathing is painful due to your heavily wounded body.
You can only stare at the Sangheili attacker whose orange eyes burn with confused anger.
You swore you saw the rage flicker into regret for a moment before he snarls again and picks you up.
Your body is so fragile in his arms while he drags you back to the extraction point.
Due to shock trauma you pass out in the Arbiter's arms.
To make a point to his troops (and keep up an act) he holds your limp body by the neck before his troops.
A message that humans will fall by his hands for The Prophets.
When you awake you're laying in some sort of cell on Harvest.
All except you.
Cheers congratulate him... even when it doesn't feel like a victory to him.
Your neck and everything hurts.
However you notice you've been treated... albeit clumsily.
Covenant know nothing about human anatomy.
It confuses you why they bothered to treat you.
You squint through your cell, you had been brought into a captured facility from what you could tell, repurposed to be a jail for the Covenant.
Your blood freezes when the Arbiter who fought you before enters the room.
"You are my secret from all the rest."
He stands in front of you, orange eyes glaring at you in hate.
"You are my only failure as an Arbiter. The human I can't kill. You are something that's tormented my focus for far too long. I never gave a damn about honor. However... you are a stain on my reputation I can't get rid of if the truth comes out."
"What truth, you ugly bastard... why do they care if I'm kept here?"
The Arbiter is silent... as if dreading the reasoning for your capture.
"Really now?"
"... my orders are to kill all humans. To slaughter humanity for the sake of The Prophets... and I can't kill you!"
He's seething, each word strained.
"I don't know why so I intend to keep you in secret. My troops don't dare question me. They fear me... which I will use to my advantage."
"Soft for your enemy now all of a sudden? My team would've laughed at a Sangheili's mercy if they weren't dead."
The Arbiter only glares at you and you see his hands clench.
"Watch your tone...."
"Or you'll kill me?"
With a frustrated scream of rage the Arbiter leaves the room.
Not only could he not kill you...
It's deserved but frustrates him all the same.
You taunt him.
He isn't sure what he was expecting.
You to be scared of him?
You to be over the death of your allies so quickly?
Was he expecting you to show something comforting to him?
He shakes his head and gnashes his mandibles.
He had a lot to learn about you.
He was never this invested in humans.
Yet after mission after mission on Harvest for relics to appease The Prophets, he found himself back in front of that holding cell.
The troops on guard cowered at his gaze.
What he wanted with you was none of their business.
The Arbiter struggled to understand why he kept holding onto this human.
His rage at your existence used to be hot enough to glass a planet on its own.
He continuously stood in front of your cell to chat, asking questions and learning how to keep you alive.
Learning about you in general even if your species was to be destroyed.
Each talk brought it down to a smolder.
You always hated him but your hostility also lessened with time.
Those who caught wind of his talks between you were quickly ended.
An Unggoy or Kig-Yar heard something they shouldn't have?
They're left at the Arbiter's mercy.
A Sangheili? 'Moramee threatens them into submission or sinks his plasma sword deep into their gut.
He wonders if you care he kills for you?
You're special enough to not only gain the Arbiter's mercy, but his casual discussion and attention.
Denial still burns deep inside him.
Despite this... acceptance is a quiet thought in his mind.
Each time he looks at you in the cell... he remembers both failure and discovery.
Was he simply exhausted?
He was starting to care for you like a fellow Sangheili... and he wasn't sure if he still hated it or not.
Perhaps he vented all his anger about you for weeks on end... leaving only forced acceptance.
He would laugh at this... his ego shattered and behavior pitiful.
He couldn't bring himself to do it.
Whenever he looked at you he saw his biggest failure of all...
Him feeling companionship in a weak human heretic.
He could not be feeling adoration for you.
The idea brings a sick taste to his mouth... but a nervous and warm feeling in his chest.
The heresy of humans seemed infectious like the newly discovered Flood that threatened to taint the relics he sought after.
Ever so slightly you consumed his mind.
The Prophets wonder about his sudden distracted mind.
He assures them he is simply annoyed about the UNSC advances.
A lie... somewhat.
All to keep his human secret under lock and key.
It's gotten to a point he only ever talks to you with hesitant respect.
No one has broken his ego and mind like this.
You are certainly an anomaly in his eyes as a human.
Through his holy missions he develops other thoughts involving you.
Ones that he feels are even more of a sign of disloyalty to The Great Journey than simply sparing a human.
He's thought of releasing you.
He's thought of other things that would be considered sin among Covenant and Sangheili alike.
He's thought of how it would feel to take a moment a feel your skin.
His turmoil is at an all time high.
'Moramee coming to the conclusion that he sees you as that kind of a partner makes him sick.
The Arbiter is speechless on the topic.
His peers have claimed to see a broken look in the Sangheili's eyes when he passes by.
When asked he responds with violence.
The entire time he experiences moral turmoil, you have no clue.
You simply answer casual questions and refuse to answer anything that gives valuable information.
You speak to him with no fear or anger anymore.
You've been here too long for that.
As Harvest dies all around you, you're forced to speak casually with a leader of its downfall.
'Moramee hopes you're happy to cause him this pain...
It's only fair due to the pain he caused.
He feels there's only one way to deal with his problems.
'Moramee couldn't focus unless he got it out of his mind and system.
Rage replaced with irritation... 'Moramee makes his way to your cell.
He calls off the guards and taps at the keypad lock.
You're struck with confusion when the Arbiter enters the cell.
"Is my execution finally here?"
His alien eyes glare... but there's a hint of amusement within them.
You struggle when his much larger body shoves you against the wall... the Sangheili craning his neck to growl at you.
"Not in the way you expect, human..."
The Sangheili Arbiter places a hand against the black body suit you wore, stripped of its heavier armor long ago.
"You've infected my mind long enough. I plan to end this and make you my newest victory instead of my oldest failure."
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dismie · 11 months
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hi here's my smoking hot fresh off the griddle take on calling people pigs discourse because you said you wanted it in your tags 😁😁 eat up while it's hot yummy yummy yummy 😋
so i disagree with calling unsavory people animals/diseases/forces of nature/any other dehumanizing term for much the same reasons as that post you reblogged. fighting fire with fire (or in this case, fascist ideology with fascist ideology) has literally never once worked in the history of politics and i don't get why we expect it to now. (inb4 what about all the oppressed groups who have had to respond to violence with more violence are they WRONG??? no and you know that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about philosophical concepts and ideology okay i just wanted to clear that up.) i think people get so bogged down in like... surface-level specifics of which oppressed group is being harmed by what that sometimes they fail to stop and consider the ideology behind it if you will? he who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster and all that. we should be fighting on the side of oppressed groups because we respect everyone's innate right to freedom and a quality life not because we like fighting so much. obviously it's better for someone with a bloodlust to use it for something good, but also i believe in leftists! i believe we can be more compassionate than the murder party! and we should be striving to achieve that!!
implying that fascists or bigots or cops or whatever are less than human also removes their agency from the situation. animals don't (to our knowledge?) understand morality and harmlessness and ethics and i don't think any of us really blame them. when a hamster eats her excess babies nobody should really blame her, that's just what millions of years of hamster trial-and-error has deduced to be the most effective way to ensure as much of your genes as possible can continue on. if a human parent that wasn't expecting twins decided to mend this problem in a similar way i imagine we would all have qualms with it? fascists *choose* to be violent, they *choose* to be bigoted, acting like it's simply how they are just lets them off the hook. humans are capable of both good and bad and a gazillion shades of gray and we need to be able to accept and understand that so we can make sure we're being good people, not just cover our ears and pretend we're not also capable of intense evil.
also maybe it's the crraaaaazzzyyyy ara (i'm also an ara LOL) in me talking but i think we should respect animals more than that! acting like humans are the pinnacle of creature and to be anything else is bad and wrong just doesn't sit right with me, even though i accept that that probably isn't the conscious intention of people who call others pigs. i dunno. i just think that if we want to stay humble and respectful of other life on earth we shouldn't use them as insults.
bonus: pigs are awesome and don't deserve to be associated with fascists. i'm not even sure which trait of pigs is supposed to make them like fascists? they're not particularly dirty when given enough space to actually get away from their waste. i mean they mudbathe but plenty of people use mud or clay on their skin too. they're quite smart and perceptive and even show empathy towards other pigs and humans in some cases. i don't think they're particularly ugly and while they can be aggressive, pretty much every animal (including non-fascist humans) can and is when they feel threatened.
sorry for rambling it's one in the morning right now so this might not make a lot of sense :D i feel like i should end this ask with an actual question. seeing as it's an ask and all. i came out into the living room because i heard a weird breathing sound and i thought it was my dog but it wasn't. got any theories?
Okay so:
1) I'd like you to know I was terrified when I open my notification bar and the words "Here's my fresh smoking off the griddle take since you..." came up because I recently made a bi erasure post and have already been getting anonymous hate. Thank you for instead being SANE this was a very informative ask and a wonderful surprise :)
2) this was a wonderfully worded explanation and I do agree on your points on morality and ethics and how animals can't understand them; I was mostly wondering because, obviously calling fascists/cops/capitalists pigs is a pretty well ingrained thing in leftist culture! I wanted to know what the updated concensus was and I am absolutely going to refrain from using the term to describe people in the future!
3) To answer your question about the origins of the term "Capitalist Pig", from your local National History Day finalist [my brag for the next year and a half]: the origins of the term actually trace back to the Soviets, who called Americans pigs---as well as political cartoons, as you might expect. Probably due to the "dirtiness" of pigs--and likely as well some fatphobia as well or a way to, like you're saying, dehumanize the enemies; though honestly, pigs are probably cleaner than some people I know...
4) most absolutely i fucking LOVE pigs all my homies LOVE pigs. and another point: petting them is so nice in a sensory way...
5.1) i love how the ask is unrelated your vibes are great
5.2) ghost
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zoobus · 2 years
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oh, got other "shounen for adults" type recs? also oof forgettin stories that seemed meaningful in the moment. that was a feel i didnt expect.
I don't have many shounen recommendations because it's not usually making stories for me. I do see the appeal in shounen for adults and I've even enjoyed it but I have less insight into what's happening over there.
I previously mentioned Devilman Crybaby, Kimetsu no Yaiba, Chainsaw Man (Naruto except good), and Dorohedoro (post apocalyptic dark fantasy slice of life) already. Those are all good and you should read/watch them. The rest of these were read a long time ago but I recall liking them. Keep in mind I never finish series, so I can't tell you if it remains good either.
Darwin's Game - Battle Royale murder-to-the-top shounen with an interesting evolution-based premise. It stood out because 1) the confront the misconception of what being "the fittest" entails and make that a core element which means 2) our protagonist has to *think* about what being the most fit to a situation requires. More often than not it means communicating, understanding different points of view and their compatibility with his, resource management, minimizing interpersonal conflict, and so on. His power is gun and yet that's his least interesting.
Nice guy MCs are tricky but he has a strong incentive to emphasize amicable relationships over violence (certain death).
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Caveats:
don't read if you're grossed out by loli designs. There's no porn, but all the major female characters have a certain look.
there's a turning point where imo the MC's personality, the story, and the overall quality 180. If you think "why is he taking the death of this random guy he didn't seem to know that well so hard," you can stop and make up your own end.
Talentless Nana - not sure this really counts as "adult shounen" but I liked it so much I spammed five discord servers with the first chapter when it came out. I relished every last "holy FUCK" I earned. See for yourself!
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Caveat: I hear it ends kind of sloppy but can't confirm. I will say it felt like the writer didn't have a concrete conclusion in mind so I'm inclined to believe it.
Kumo desu ga, nani ka - this is a seinen and frankly it's unlikely you don't already know about the spider girl isekai but recommendation lists should have at least three suggestions and it fits the shounen vibe.
It's interesting that all the images I'm seeing looking up the title are so...kawaii? I can't even say cute. Pink, goofy, smiling chibi spiders. Never saw the anime, kept up with the manga until her second or third interaction with humans, so maybe the anime differs or at I'm remembering wrong.
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Kumoko is heavily insinuated (but never quite confirmed) to be a victim of high school harassment and she seems to go out of her way to not think about what happened to her. Did she get chased in front of a truck? Did she commit suicide? Who knows, she doesn't want to talk about it.
She isekais as the weakest spider at the bottom of a dungeon filled with F to S-tier bosses who intentionally and unintentionally almost kill her. She gets to do the fun video game skill system/achievement lock thing HOWEVER! there is one skillset that's intentionally not explained or even given a name. "Don't rank up in that skill" is the most she's given. So of course it's ding, ding, ding flying straight to the top, maxing out the forbidden skill that continues to not be explained as she accidentally hits its requirements and tells herself it's probably nothing.
I never found out what it is but I've assumed it's something related to losing your humanity, some kind of unforgivable evil that can't be named. That would fit with the overall thing of celebrating kumoko's hard won battles and clever thinking with much stronger opponents but also in the back of your mind it's like huh this teen girl sure has been trapped in a pitch black cave miles under the earth gagging down roaches and centipedes, gradually accepting that being burned with acid or losing some legs is normal life, always thinking about her next kill, and just generally seems to forgotten about being a human at all, for plausibly years; I wonder if this could become problematic in the future.
Caveats:
I stopped reading after a while because the battles were getting dull
I assume the girl posing on all the covers but it never comes up. She takes up 50% of the page, why?? Even if it is her, it's not even relevant
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wack-ashimself · 20 days
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Sorry, but the new fallout series sucks so far...
just starting episode 3, but they are doing so much backdrop/atmosphere, that real relatable characters and story are non existent.
You just don't give a fuck about anyone. They're all shitty, boring and/or 1 dimensional.
I mean, the fucking old store lady & her friend had more (at least original) personality than all the others combined.
And I know it's based on a FPS, but the violence is more over the top than accurate while zany. Difference between I killed a whole town vs my gun is a fucking cannon that no one else seems to have.
Just...here's the plot flaws SO far. Spoilers.
1-The vault just blindly accepts a previous message that the other vault they are letting in lost their leader. FINE. I guess at the end of the world, you don't question if an overthrow of leadership can happen. But how come these vault people YOU HAVE MET BEFORE (cuz clearly they have done trades in the past) are ENTIRELY NOT RECOGNIZABLE? Aka, how did you NOT think they weren't murderous thieves when you never met or heard of a SINGLE ONE? WHY WERE THEY ALL NEW TO YOU?!
2-Why did the solider get the position of his injured friend? Especially after he was accused of harming them? At minimum, the most qualified person should go, and HE IS NOT IT. Makes no sense. Also, why were they bullying him at the beginning? Just to make us have sympathy?
3-Why did the main bad guy let those other vault dwellers live? She killed ANY AND EVERYONE, but those 4 can be spared? Why? Was there a maximum of kills she would allow?
4-If I knew a man was buried alive, and unburied spasticly to be basically tortured, why would I think he would be peaceful to strangers that unburied him? Especially knowing he's a mutant?
5-The dog. OMFG, the DOG. Plot hole black hole. No one double checks the dog weights? Why did he want a dog in the first place? How was he able to sneak the dog to his private lab (and did he have 2 positions)? Clearly, STRICT rules, so WHAT was his excuse? THE PLOT NEEDED IT? How/what did he feed the dog on such extreme rations (even water)? What about the dog's waste (smell & clean up)? The dog NEVER barked EVER in the months/years growing up? Why was that guy in his lab out of no where? How did no one smell dog in such a dirty place (where you KNOW that dog did not bathe)? How did he get ALL THE WAY OUT with the alarm blaring, from HIS lab with a dead person, then an AI turret miss every god damn possible bullet, AND no one chase after him (since the turret went off, they know which was he escaped*)?
6-If she was told being a vault dweller is bad, why the FUCK did she continue to wear her bright shiny clothing with the labels? At minimum, take the dead people's clothes OR dirty yours up.
7-The dog, PART 2. Dog is stabbed, quits moving, but can still be brought back to life. FINE. But now he's AUTOMATICALLY LOYAL TO THE GUY THAT JUST THREATENED HIS OWNER AND STABBED HIM?! And then when they find the owner's body, the dog doesn't bat a fucking eye? The dog was saved by him, raised by him, loved by him, killed for him and died for him, but now, fuck the owner? FUCK THE DOG! Sell out whore.
8-This isn't a plot hole, just stupid. If you're dying, do not threaten to lie & get killed the person holding your life saving medicine. That is fucking something a child would understand! Ok...maybe a teenager. lol
*Know what I hate about these shows? They have this advanced technology, some beyond ours right now, but it's....stupid technology. Outta Idocracy or something. Like it can do amazing things, but fucks up all the time. Like the power suit; never thought to put guards around the vulnerable neckline? SUITS OF ARMOR DID THAT!
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explainingthebs · 3 months
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Hello, fellow internetizens.
The creator and author of this blog, holds a few very specific views on things and they might be as follows (I'll adjust according to changes in view). Even perhaps some of them might be simplified to keep this short and sweet.
Insulting folks, as in them personally (aka ad hominems) are uncreative and do not constitute as a form of argumentation, let alone critically thought out rebuttal. They are for people who don't have anything to counter with, don't want to think about the discussion, and definitely haven't cultivated having fun with discussion/argumentation.
Politics should stay in it's little box, the only thing political is politics itself. The only acceptable avenue they can tread is when a fundamental right should be protected.
Karl Marx has had a disproportionate influence on the discussions about economics, anthropology, and countless other things. His communism was never really defined well by him and what was outlined is not compatible with any sort of human rights. Droves of folks pay him far too much lip service for a man who reads like he "took a class once".
Race is and will always be a sociopolitical tool for subjugation, I will not budge on this. The legacy of the quacks who conceived of the concept is still being dealt with today.
Capitalism as it sits now is unsustainable and is in need of a significant overhaul if not replacement. Probably would avoid certain anti-capitalist frame works due to the serious flaws that can found in them.
Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism is a lot of being critical and not a lot of critical analysis of gender. In addition to the lack of critical analysis, there also a propensity amongst those who share in this particular view to broaden the definitions of words, so as to mean nothing. Found 15.7% TERFs insofar who didn't know biology, definitely more out there.
Naturalizing/Essentializing horrendous actions only allows the door for people to excuse them because they're "born this way, can't help it". There is no way to rationalize the perfect excuse for committing domestic violence, rape, murder, and genocide.
If you hold specific frameworks or perspectives without understanding why you do, let alone without being able to critically analyze your belief. Then you're mistaking believing something is correct with having unquestioned faith that it's correct. The former can be reevaluated, the latter only ever will lead you astray.
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rametarin · 7 months
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Ram watches more Naruto
So yeah I'm 39. I didn't bother watching Naruto in the 00s because it wasn't my jam. It still isn't, but eh, it never hurts to know some things.
I'd catch an episode here and there, but there are 220 and I figured given the monster of the week plot shows of the past, maybe I was missing a whole lot of content. But, upon an actual watch.. not really.
It has some environmental storytelling, but not too much for a children's show. It has a bold amount of violence and death. That's not a mark against it. I'm genuinely surprised this managed to clip passed the censors, as most studios would be told, "yeah we're not going to air this show about child bloodsport. it sets a bad precedent; think of the children!" But, it stands as a glowing example of the then difference between what you were allowed to produce for mainstream broadcasts in Japan vs. the no-fun police in the US.
But more than anything else, it focuses on a few specific events that drag over multiple episodes and are bookended by slice of life just to make the protagonists more rounded as people and not fighters in a fighting game.
I was expecting there to be more arcs and conflicts over the 100 someodd episodes I've watched, but honestly, given I've also watched Dragon Ball Z, and that can be summarized as, 'meet Raditz,' 'Meet Vegeta and Nappa', 'meet Frieza', 'Meet the Androids' 'Meet Cell', 'Meet Buu', that's surprisingly little over such a long period.
So far, Naruto has fought.... a dickhead nihilist in the leaf village, and was a one boy stompdown for it. Some bara dude wearing cowprint and his sad girl in the snow twink boyfriend. The Shinobi School System, that tries to educational murder him on a daily basis. Snaketwink von Hithhith. No-Sleep McSandvaginooki, and his gourd of fine granulated childhood trauma. His own ignorance and youthful inexperience with working ninja magic. And then Snaketwink von Hithhith and his nerdy pal Medschool Beetlejuice again.
And I'm up to episode 101. That's very close to halfway through the whole original run. If this were a J-RPG we would barely be out of the first two villages in Breath of Fire 2.
I'm pondering if it gets more intensely story twist and turn packed by episode 220, 'cause relatively speaking, it doesn't have much time left.
Oh. And also, I think I understand a little better what people are complaining about when they talk about Naruto Filler. From enjoying Akira Toriyama's silliness, I can appreciate slice of life and gags from my manga and anime. And uh, well... I think shonen fans are sometimes a humorless bunch. At the same time, some of these episodes feel more like they're extra long funny doodles in the ledgers of an old European monk's tomes. So, I can kind of get why they're seen as wasted episodes. That's a cruel way to think of them, but I guess when you're invested in the metaplot and characters, just using them as if bringing them out of a toybox to do stupid shit is seen as a waste of time.
I guess perhaps the creator wanted to create more content in the world using the world's rules to tell whimsical off-stories. The fanbase appears to've rejected this method of lateral and parallel worldbuilding, on account that these stories may as well not exist as anything but intermission. It's a subtle trick. To have the audience watch a slice-of-life thing that never gets referenced again, but you still accept is resolved and was part of their day-to-day life. These episodes and the narrative styes just make those bolts and seams extra visible and the fanbase can tell, on a fish and lizard brain level, reject them as superfluous. It's an interesting experience to witness. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it or picking it apart. I'unno.
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