#he hasn’t had to kill very many of them unless they really were beyond reasoning

[bard-llama]

The Taint of the Common Man (Meve/Reynard/Gascon)

Okay, so I finally tried to play Thronebreaker again and it turned out that my comptuer/steam/whatever had actually kept my save!!! So I didn’t have to start over, which was good, because the beginning was kinda boring, which is why it took me so long to continue. But it’s also kinda bad, because now I do not remember anything about Gascon’s introduction beyond “they fought, Meve won and threatened to hang him next time”. Which like... I could probably make it work, but knowing the details seems important for writing Meve’s feelings and reactions to Gascon. 

Anyway, this is a continuation of the thoughts that this lovely post inspired, and because I’m me, those thoughts grew a plot. Both the link and the rest of the story involve a VERY dubcon/noncon premise, so please engage only if you can. Also, spoilers for Chapter 1 of Thronebreaker (aka major plot things that happen once you reach Lyria’s capital).

Okay, once again: HUGE WARNING for Dubcon/Noncon stuff. Like, it’s how the story starts and it’s gonna be something dealt with through the whole story. My idea is basically a story that starts with Meve losing EVERYTHING, and then, through her quest to reclaim her throne, she learns how to be a better queen to ALL of her people, not just the noblemen. End game is intended to be Meve/Reynard/Gascon, but tbh, idk how they get there. Like, at first, Meve and Reynard hate Gascon A LOT, so they have to learn to love him and that takes time.

I’m kinda still learning about these characters as I think this through, so apologies if you find them ooc or if I contradict canon (without meaning to. Sometimes i do it gladly lol)

So we start with Meve returning to the Lyrian castle, only to find that her son and the Council of Peers (read: ruling council that advises the monarch and consists entirely of peerage aka nobility) have betrayed her and surrendered to Nilfgaard. She’s thrown in a dungeon and though her son orders that she is not to be harmed, she knows enough about reality to know they’d never let her live. 

She’s on guard, waiting for the guards to come and kill her - only when footsteps approach, it’s not the guards at all, but the fucking Duke of Dogs, the leader of the Strays of Spalla, a gang of bandits that plague merchant caravans and noblemen alike. Gascon, the proclaimed Duke of Dogs, opens the cell door and steps in and tells Meve that he’s freeing her, because the Council of Peers used him and his men and he can’t abide betrayal. But there’s one condition - Meve has to ask him, all nice and polite-like.

Meve, of course, refuses, because she’s nothing if not prideful. So Gascon closes the cell door and leans back against it and says something like, “guess we won’t be leaving, then. Unless, of course, you’d prefer to do something else on your knees,” or some sort of implication like that that makes it clear he’s suggesting that she blow him in exchange for release. And Meve is furious and her pride cuts at her, but dammit, she has no hope of freeing Lyria from Nilfgaard’s grasp while stuck in here. So she goes to her knees. And Gascon is surprised - from his view, she could’ve just begged him??? - but like... the QUEEN is on her KNEES for HIM, a (decidedly un)common bandit who she’d threatened to hang not a week prior. 

Also, I think there’s also a part of Gascon that blames Meve for the massacre of his family. According to the wiki, the year before King Reginald (Meve’s husband) died, Gascon’s family revolted against the king and were soundly squashed, with Gascon at a mere 8 years old the only one to survive. From there, he fell in with the Strays of Spalla and eventually became their leader. Remember this bit, ‘cause I’m definitely gonna come back to it. But anyway, Gascon doesn’t like Meve. He’s doing this because it’s the right thing to do and a little because having the queen indebted to him feels awfully good. Also, Meve is good with her mouth.

So good, in fact, that she drives him crazy, taking him to the edge and teasing him and teasing him and teasing him until his legs are shaking and the cell door is all that’s holding him up. I don’t think he actually begs, because his men are around the cell watching this, but he has to bite his lip hard to keep from doing so.

For Meve, there are many complicated feelings happening. On the one hand, this is humiliating and degrading and it’s shameful that she’s fallen so far as to be forced to service a fucking bandit and even worse that his men are SEEING this happen.

On the other hand... look, Meve was widowed 8 years ago. Somewhere in there (or before?), she comes to love and trust Reynard - who her husband, upon his deathbed, told her that he alone could be trusted. But she hasn’t made a move, because it wouldn’t be appropriate and she doesn’t want to ruin things between them. 

Point is, it’s been 8 years since she’s had sex and she has had cause to desire some sex. Queens can probably get amazing sex toys, but like, an actual cock? it’s been AGES since she’s been able to play with one and she kind of missed it. 

Additionally, in an effort to combat her shame and humiliation, she decides to flip the script on them. Gascon wants her to blow him? Fine, she’ll blow him so well that he utterly falls apart. And maybe she’s a little of practice, but Gascon is young anyway, he probably doesn’t even know better lmao. (But later, she’s oddly grateful that she had this chance for ‘practice’ before it actually mattered)

Eventually, she lets Gascon come - or maybe he uses his grip on her hair to pull her onto him? (She may decide to make it a good blowjob, but that doesn’t mean he’s earned deepthroating) - and the Strays, who have gone from hooting and hollering over the queen’s humiliation to flushed and aroused at the skillful way she destroyed their boss, let them out of the cell. 

Next, they go to the city jail to release Reynard, who was arrested as soon as the coup happened because everyone knows that Reynard’s loyalty to the crown is absolute. Reynard is sitting against the wall and he smiles brightly at the sight of her, so Meve strides into the cell to unshackle him. So of course Gascon, who now stands in front of the door once more, suggests something like, “such faithful loyalty deserves ample reward, does it not?”

And Meve is conflicted. Because AGAIN, the Strays of Spalla are watching them and Gascon is trying elicit sexual favours from her. But also, it’s Reynard. She’s wondered for so long what Reynard’s cock would be like and how he would treat her. And, she justifies to herself, she was already forced to give a piece of filth like Gascon a blowjob. Reynard most certainly deserved better.

So she orders him to stand and goes to her knees and is almost eager to get him in her mouth. And Reynard is caught entirely off guard here, because he was ready to skewer Gascon for the mere suggestion, and then she’s ACTUALLY DOING IT!!! And it’s not like she’s alone in having thought about it, but he always assumed that he would be the one on his knees. So for her to do so... he’s awed and a little horrified that he is party to degrading his queen in this way. And also aroused. REALLY fucking aroused, because Meve is on her knees for him! And unlike Gascon, he has earned deepthroating. Fortunately, he’s already leaning against the wall, so he doesn’t collapse. 

If Gascon hadn’t had the most intense orgasm of his life like 10 minutes previously, he’d definitely try to see if he could join in, even though they really don’t have the time for that sort of thing. But suffice it to say, Gascon remembers each and every moment Meve spent on her knees vividly.

Reynard comes (and Gascon is reluctantly pleased to have a companion in the wait-you-want-me-to-fight-after-how-hard-I-came!? club) and they all leave the dungeons - and get found by a patrol of guards. They have to fight their way out and Meve thinks Gascon managed to slip away - right up until he comes to their aid with his whole crew. With Gascon’s help, their motley crew flees the capital of Lyria (largely by traveling thru the sewers).

That night, they set up camp somewhere and instead of the royal supplies she’s used to, all they have is whatever the Strays of Spalla had, which means stolen and/or threadbare, ‘cause they’re not exactly living the high life. And Meve knows she should get some rest, but she can’t stop thinking about what happened in the prison(s) and she decides that, as long as Reynard was willing, why shouldn’t she pursue the man she loved? 

So she goes to the mess tent and it’s predictably full of drunken soldiers - well, drunken warriors. This rabble didn’t deserve to be called soldiers - and clusters of people playing dice and cards. She spots Reynard at one of the card tables - but sitting across from him is none other than the motherfucking Duke of Dogs. Half-formed plans to kiss Reynard drown under the flood of fury she feels and she summons Reynard to her, ignoring Gascon, who definitely tries to flirt with her. At this moment, she has VERY conflicted feelings about Gascon and most of them are negative. But also, they need him. She is very much aware that his men are the only reason she has any chance at all of taking back her home.

Anyway, Meve confronts Reynard, who explains that he doesn’t trust Gascon as far as he can throw him and whatever mischief Gascon is up to, whatever he thinks he can gain from helping them, Reynard is ready for the doublecross. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer is very much his philosophy, compounded by the way he has learned not to reveal - well, much at all. People probably find him very... is softspoken the word? Not like he speaks soft, but like, he doesn’t say a lot. He learned to keep his mouth shut after he managed to survive insulting the king, so he plays things pretty close to his chest and people find it hard to guess what he’s thinking. 

Gascon, for his part, is helping Meve because it’s the right thing to do (and a little because again, queen indebted to you? Very handy). He’s probably aware that Reynard doesn’t like him, even if Reynard acts friendly enough? Like, literally Reynard is so loyal to Meve that he was imprisoned and she was sure of his fealty. And Gascon has found ways to rationalize what he did i.e. raping Meve - she could’ve just begged! She had a choice! - but even though Reynard got a blowjob out of it, I’m sure Gascon would assume that Reynard would want him dead for the blowjob that he got.

I don’t precisely know what Reynard and Gascon’s relationship is like during this, tbh. I think it’ll be Meve’s POV, so she may have a limited view, but I think it’s definitely complicated. Made worse, of course, by both Meve and Reynard beginning to see the redeeming qualities in Gascon. But that comes later.

For now, Meve accepts Reynard’s explanation and knowing that he would do anything to protect her soothes some of the ruffled feathers from a very trying day. So she decides to subtly ask him something like, “come to my tent?” that like, isn’t blatant ‘cause they’re surrounded by drunk men, but also is pretty clear. And Reynard’s eyes widen and it hurts so much to do, but he tells her no. She’s had an intense fucking day - betrayed by her son and court, imprisoned, forced to give multiple blowjobs and work with lowly bandits and shit. Like, she’s been through a lot and he knows that she’s not able to be in her right mind. So he says no, part of him hoping that if she actually means it, she’ll try again in the morning.

But what Meve hears is no, not interested. Which makes this the third time today that she gets to be humiliated in front of the fucking Strays of Spalla, because not only is the man she loves rejecting her, but like... is he rejecting her because she’s tainted now? How is she supposed to interpret him enjoying a blowjob from her one hour and rejecting her advances the next? 

And the taint... I think that’ll be a theme in this fic (thus the title). Like, at the height of her power before the fall, Meve was “pure” - which in this case means firmly assured that she was right in everything, as she was always destined to be. There’s no questioning of the world order or if she’s qualified to lead. She simply knows that she is.

But now she’s been betrayed, her nobility and her title ripped from her grasp. And not only that, but she’s demeaned herself with a common thug! She even says it in the game - “look how far we’ve fallen, to be surrounded by peasants and deserters and bandits”. For her, this entire situation is almost like “being common” is reaching for her, trying to pull her in, and she wants to resist, because she’s always been taught that the nobles are BETTER than the common people. But as she works with her army of thugs and commoners, she starts to learn that poor people are people too (gee, who’da thunk it?)

That journey takes time, though, and we’re barely at the start of it! 

So, Meve gets rejected. She’s hurt and humiliated and at the moment doesn’t have a kind word for ANYBODY. She maybe cries herself to sleep and hates herself for being weak.

Then morning comes and she has her regular strategy meeting with Reynard, as she did every morning. And it’s awkward and Reynard is as silent as usual, always so deliberate about every word that leaves his mouth. And she wants to ask, but yesterday’s humiliation was enough. She can’t repeat it.

So even though they SHOULD’VE gotten together, they fail to, because Meve is stubborn and prideful and Reynard is closelipped and proper. And Meve kind of hates even the sight of Gascon, but since he IS the leader of the army that is currently only at her disposal because of him, she invites him to join the strategy meetings every morning. If Gascon helps provide a buffer between her and Reynard, so much the better.

Okay, I don’t actually know how everyone ACTUALLY gets together, BUT as they travel through the countryside of Lyria towards the Aedirnian border, a couple of important things happen.

1) Meve sees the real conditions of the people living in her realm. Even in areas that the lords had reported prosperous, people were starving and dying. She starts to learn that these are her people too.

2) Meve and Reynard get to know Gascon. Not just over their strategy meetings, but as they observe him and the Strays of Spalla they (Meve especially) begin to realize that their judgements were all wrong. Because yes, the Strays of Spalla are bandits. They steal from wealthy merchants and even wealthier nobles. That had always been enough to know before.

But now they come to know that that stolen food and blankets and supplies and coin went to the starving peasants in these lands. Hell, most of the Strays are from these areas. These are their people, even if Meve hasn’t figured out that they’re hers too.

Anyway, idk how they get together or how the story ends - is it with them getting together? Getting to Vengerberg to ask for help to reclaim their home? Ousting Villem and taking Lyria back? idk, I haven’t even gotten that far in the game yet lol.

So yeah, here’s a very long synopsis of a story that manages to have almost no porn and lots of angst, despite being inspired by a purely porny post lmao.

#meve x reynard #meve x reynard x gascon #thronebreaker #the witcher #fic planning #dubcon

[galloperthompson]

Regarding Galloper Thompson’s clothes

Including his (slutty, thigh high) boots

It’s been brought to my attention that galloper’s slutty thigh high boots actually look like ankle boots with the thigh high part tucked into the boot. So I’ve decided to go beyond my jokes about him being a slut anyways and make this post going over his clothes. And buckle up folks, it gets long.

I’ll be honest, it’s pretty difficult to find details about 13th century (and 12th century) Scandinavian life specifically, especially since I’m using google. For this post, I have just used general European fashion, but in the future I’ll be mixing viking things with general European things from this time (but I’ll mostly try to keep the general European things to German and English/Irish stuff). I’ll also be referencing things from both the 13th century and the 12th century, since galloper “lived” during the early 13th century (and every website seems to think the 13th century started in 1250).

But anyways, an English knight from the mid 13th century apparently wore something like this on his bottom half (underneath other layers):

Now as you can see in this terrible quality picture (sorry about that, but I did try to label it), the hose are thigh high just like galloper’s leg coverings, which is what gave me the idea that maybe it’s hose he’s wearing. So let’s begin.

I would explain the whole system they used, but this does it better than I could (you only need to read until it starts talking about chausses since we’re only talking about the hose). The linked text is a bit weird and may (or may not) be unreliable, but it’s compact, explains things well, and has pictures (it’s where I got that *stunning* photo I labeled). However, keep in mind that it depicts a mid 13th century English knight, and galloper is from early 13th century Scandinavia, so while there may be similarities, there’s also definitely differences in how he would’ve dressed. Braies were apparently longer in the first half of the 13th century, for one, and didn’t really become “underwear” for everyone until the second half and later. Hose were also referred to as stockings, and apparently hose and stockings didn’t really refer to different things until later on. Additionally, clothing differed between class, but we’re not going to go over that today.

So how does this relate to galloper? Well his lower half actually sort of resembles the picture above, doesn’t it? His “hose” are thigh high, with ankle high shoes over them, just like the picture. Despite the similarities, though, there are differences. His “hose” aren’t pointed, and so there are no ties for them. Apparently, hose didn’t have to be pointed, and those thigh high hose that weren’t pointed were held up with pins.. but there are no pins to hold them up either. Without one of these mechanisms to hold up the hose, they would not stay in place. And considering we can see where the thigh high part ends, we should also be able to see at least part of what’s holding them up. The thigh high part could also theoretically be “leg bandages” that extend above the knee. However, his “hose” don’t look like wrapped or crisscrossed cloth, they look solid, so leg bandages are unlikely.

Now, I wanted to present hose as an explanation based (somewhat) in history, but I don’t actually think he’s wearing hose. We’ll go over why later in this post, but let’s keep going for now.

On to his tunic and coat. Well I say tunic, really it isn’t a tunic by medieval standards. Back in the 13th century, tunics didn’t have buttons—at least not on the front. And his coat.. well it’s not something you’d find in the 13th century. Longer coverings, down to the knee or lower, were the style then. Shorter coverings with buttons down the front didn’t appear until the 14th century in the form of things like doublets. Those “things” were usually very padded and form-fitting, however, and neither galloper’s shirt or coat seem to be padded or exceedingly form-fitting at all.

The history of gloves (in everyday wear, at least) is surprisingly complex, so I won’t be touching his gloves. I’m also ignoring his belt because I don’t have much to say on it, but they did have leather belts with “single-looped” buckles (whatever that means) in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Moving on to his cape. Ah yes, his tattered little cape (which matches his mare’s tattered little saddle blanket!). Who knows why the fuck he wears it. There doesn’t seem to be a hood (like the medieval chaperon) or a part that comes around to cover the shoulders, and it’s too short to be a cloak. My best guess is that it was a design choice based on the fact that such a short cape doesn’t need a fluttering animation. Why not axe (lol) the whole idea of a cape? Well, all the coolest characters have capes!

His weird ass shoulder pad I can’t come up with an explanation for, though (or at least a medieval one). If he had a neck, the shoulder pad would be digging into it based on the position. Maybe it’s supposed to be like those shoulder pads with tassels on some formal military uniforms (technically “epaulettes” with “fringe”)? Except instead of tassels it’s feather looking things and also there’s only one shoulder pad for some reason?

All of this is to say that none of what he’s wearing can realistically pass for 13th century clothing, except maybe his lower half, and that’s still stretching it.

His entire outfit actually most resembles military uniforms from the 18th and early 19th centuries, as @inkowl13 pointed out in this post. When he floats, you can even clearly see his tattered coattails, which are his trademark green on the underside. In the case of 18th century garb, his shirt would be a waistcoat (he doesn’t seem to be wearing an 18th century shirt underneath his “waistcoat” at all, but maybe we just can’t see it or distinguish it from his “waistcoat”), and his jacket-thing would be a uniformed soldier’s coat. His lower half would be breeches with either a. ankle boots and over-the-knee stockings, b. ankle boots and thigh high gaiters (those things with buttons that go over the top of the shoe), or c. thigh high boots, which appeared as riding boots in the 15th century and remained common until the 19th century—including in military uniforms (in fact, some cavalry units today still use them in their ceremonial dress uniforms). His shoulder pad would, in fact, be a strange attempt at an epaulet/epaulette (which were used in the 18th century (and beyond) to denote rank) with fringe the color of his trademark green. The fact that there’s only one also makes sense within this period; whether the epaulet/epaulette was on the right, left, or both shoulders indicated rank (Galloper’s “epaulet/epaulette” is on his right shoulder, our left). The issue of glove history is also eliminated since it seems military uniforms in the 1700s made use of gloves. Men’s capes/cloaks at this time went to the knee or below it, so my explanation for his cape is unchanged. Through this lens, things start to become clear.

This is a mannequin (is that what you call the fake models of historical clothing? does mannequin apply in this context?) wearing an 18th century cavalry uniform:

As you can see, he looks incredibly similar to galloper, despite the many differences.

And these are two sets of 18th century soldiers (again, sorry for the less than ideal quality):

On the left there’s a pair of soldiers with over-the-knee boots and on the right there’s a pair with over-the-knee gaiters (see how they go over their shoes). Thigh high boots would make more sense for a horseman, but thigh high gaiters would explain some things about his lower half, like how his boots and the thigh high part are different colors. However, there are no buttons on the sides (like gaiters have) or garters at the knee (like both stockings and gaiters had), and the thigh high part is tucked into the shoe, more like stockings rather than gaiters. In these pictures you can also see how his upper half looks incredibly similar to all four soldiers, again, even with the differences.

Now, unless galloper was keeping up with fashion until the 18th century when he stopped (he gave up I guess? said “fuck that shit” and hasn’t changed clothes for the past 300 years?), he shouldn’t be wearing an 18th century military uniform. Especially since he was shown wearing the same clothes in his execution scene (which I don’t put too much stake in considering the Jarl was in his ghost form and even the soul riders don’t have 2 sets of clothes in game).

So why does he look like this, then? The reason why he looks like a revolutionary war soldier can be traced back to the inspiration used for his design. According to Jorvikipedia, his “...design takes direct inspiration from author Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow...” which explains why he looks the way he does. Jorvikipedia has been wrong before (they list his place of birth as “Jorvik (presumably)” which doesn’t fit with his backstory), but if Galloper’s design was based on the headless horseman of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (which it very likely was), it would provide justification for the 18th century look of his clothes. Washington Irving’s horseman was, after all, (alleged to be) killed during the revolutionary war in the 18th century.

It’s obvious his upper half is based on 18th century uniform, but the intention behind his lower half remains a mystery. Whether it’s meant to be stockings, gaiters, or boots, I don’t know. Theoretically, his lower half could even have been intended to be hose, braies, and shoes. But considering his entire look and the inspiration behind his design, an 18th century explanation seems more likely (I just don’t know which 18th century explanation, exactly). It would be pretty strange if half of him was medieval and the other half was from the revolutionary war era. Though, I’ll admit, it’s not completely impossible.

My theory for the contradiction between his design and his backstory is that his backstory came after his design. The 18th century look of him, along with his inspiration, and the lack of medieval elements in his design all make a compelling case for this theory. The only thing I can think of that may disprove it is his mare’s y-shaped bridle, but even that could be explained if she was designed after galloper, while his backstory was in its first stages of development (I’ll probably do another post on his horse’s tack, since this post is already long, but that’s for another day). But that’s just a theory; the star stable team could very well have just not done any research on 13th century attire, instead modeling his look on depictions of Irving’s headless horseman and adding the bridle as an indication of the origin they had already established for him.

Ok, but what about the rest? The other parts of his and his mare’s designs (color scheme, hanging pumpkin jack-o-lanterns) can be attributed to the fact that he is the halloween event character. Though his color scheme could be inspired by the headless horseman in World of Warcraft, who was introduced in 2007 (I found out about this horseman while looking into other possible inspirations for galloper’s design), all the colors seen on him and his mare (black, green, red, orange) are general Halloween colors. The hanging jack-o-lanterns are not historically accurate for the Middle Ages (or the revolutionary war era, actually) as pumpkins were not introduced into Europe until Columbus “discovered” the Americas, and did not become commonly carved into jack-o-lanterns until the 19th century in America -which was when and where “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was published (though the pumpkin “head” was not even carved in the original story). I suppose galloper could have developed an affinity for pumpkins (and for carving them) later on (Jorvik seems to have a lot of them), but it’s more likely that they added them (to the keep and his mare’s design) based on modern halloween practices instead of historical halloweens or consideration of galloper’s feelings on pumpkins.

Ok, so we’ve established he’s not historically accurate for the 13th century, but what would his clothes look like if they were actually historically accurate? The answer is: I don’t know! Maybe I’ll do another google deep dive and make a post on that, but for now we’ve come to the end.

All of my information about historical clothing came from sorting out google results, so take the historical bits with a hefty grain of salt (more like a bowl of salt actually). If you have any actual knowledge about history, please feel free to correct me.

#i am planning on doing more of these little deep dives into what life was like back then #a large chunk of this post is a bit of a mess but oh well #sso #star stable #star stable online #galloper thompson #gunnar thrymson #tagging this #googling history #separate from the ‘me overthinking’ tag

[whump-town]

Into Your Arms

@genevievedarcygranger this one’s for you (I would have done more but the other’s sucked ass)

Various ways Aaron Hotchner stumbles his way into his loved ones arms only to give them heart attacks because he’s a drama queen with awful timing (and inspired by this post)

(1) Haley

He tells her everything that he can when he gets home each night. A second debrief where he sits on the couch, anxiously rubbing at her fingers, and is allowed to feel the impact of what occurred. She knows it’s just the honeymoon phase, that’s why he still greets each day with a smile and promises her it’s not that bad. He’s still got that look in his eyes like he can save the world or eat it whole like he hasn’t decided but when he does...

She thinks that if there was ever a man who could succeed, it’s going to him. His background is so drastically different from everyone else there. Not the son of a politician, hardly the son of a lawyer. Aaron has dragged himself here bleeding, nothing more than roadkill to these men. He might not have been able to pour himself into these cases as they had, doesn’t have the experience, but he’s lived many of them. Felt abuse and escaped his monster’s hands. Maybe she’d just needed him to be different. Safe for once. 

But isn’t that what all those other men had wanted too?

It’s midnight when he gets home. She’s already in bed when she hears him fighting his bike into the door, the loud clatter of the pedals and the handles refusing to fit. All before he shouts angered and explosive and not nearly under his breath-- “fuck”-- before he gives up and throws it out onto the porch. Desperate with those thoughts that tell him everything is out to get him, that’s he’s alone in his misery.

She jumps when he slams the door, not expecting the sound from her typically very timid, soft-spoken husband. The man who will drop a dish or a pot and comes to find her to make sure he didn’t scare her. She’s known him for nearly all her life and she’s heard him utter maybe five curse words. It’s how she knows that what greets her downstairs will not be her Aaron but something broken, something like the boy who feverishly tried to convince her that his bruises and scars were something of her active imagination. The boy killing himself to save everyone else. 

“Aaron?” She comes down the stairs, making sure to hit every creaky board so that he can hear her coming. He’s not in the living room. None of the lights are on but with the street lights pouring in she can make out just enough, and he’s not there. She searches it twice, making sure her eyes don’t deceive her but he’s not there. “Aaron?” she comes around the side of the room and stops.

He’s standing in the kitchen, shoulders shaking. She can hear his soft intakes of breath, the way he presses his hands into his face to muffle the sounds of his sobs. “Oh, baby.” She comes around him, keeping her distance until she’s standing in front of him. Watching as he wipes at his face, jaw quivering as he fails to hide the tears streaming down his face. “Aaron,” she hesitates to touch him, waits until she’s certain he’s calmed down enough not to flinch at the contact. 

She starts with a hand on his shoulder-- this is the hardest part about loving him. No matter how many years she’s been here, no matter how long it’s been since he’s seen or talked to or been hurt by his father every time is like the first time. Like he’s still just a kid standing in his kitchen waiting to get beaten for something beyond his control. 

He lets her get closer, anxiety growing but he wants her there. Knows it won’t get better until she’s got both arms around him so he wills his body to remain stationary. He whimpers when she touches his back but she keeps going until their chest touch and there is, he’s right there. She wraps him as tight as she can. Feels his heart beat against her chest.

“Okay, okay--” she’s not ready for how quickly his knees give out from beneath him. She pulls him back when it startles him, holding his arms with her own, willing herself stronger to keep him down. “You’re okay.”

He shakes his head, bowing in until his face is in her shoulder. “No,” he rasps. “She was right there,” he cries. “I had her in my arms, Haley. I felt--” he chokes on his own words. Chest heaving. “She died and I held her, she wasn’t alone but I couldn’t do anything.” 

She hates the pain in his voice, the way he shakes nearly feverishly against her. 

“She was seven,” he cries, “and I held her the entire time, I promise I did. I tried but she just kept bleeding. She was so tiny, I don’t even know how she had so much blood. I hurt her, Haley. She cried when I put pressure on her wounds. She was scared and all I did was hurt her.” He’s frantic, trying to make her see his reasoning. See him for what he sees, the thing he flinches from in mirrors. 

She just holds him and waits for morning.

(2) David Rossi

Dave is going to put a tracker in the kid’s boxers. He’s fairly certain Haley might hate him but she might okay this idea, so long as nothing like this happens again.

“He’s like ten feet tall,” Max grunts, “how the hell did you lose him?”

Dave shoots him a glare in the rearview mirror. “I didn’t lose him!” He presses on the gas pedal, the old car groaning as it accelerates. There’s nothing David Rossi likes more than playing Mr. Cool & Collected and there’s nothing that Aaron freaking Hotchner has accomplished more than making Dave feel like the frantic father to a toddler that can’t just stand still in the store. It’s kind of ruining the badass vibe thing he claims so feverishly. It’s hard to be a hot FBI agent when he looks like those dads in the store, running up and down the aisle calling out for their child.

“Alright,” Jason soothes, reaching over to squeeze Dave’s elbow. He looks at the picture of calm but he can feel his own fears rising as the gauge climbs steadily over seventy miles per hour. “Easy, Dave. Have some faith in him, okay? You’ve put in the time, he’s a smart kid.” A blind hope sort of faith but all things considered (with the exclusion of the fact that Aaron is like a fire-bug and seems to not understand that you run from danger not to it) he’s has a good head on his shoulders.

“Right,” Dave mumbles. God, he should have left Aaron in Seattle.

They find him in a field and when Dave hears the deputy calling in his description-- early thirties, dark hair, slender build-- his breath catches in his throat. He’s expecting the kid from Seattle, whose gangly height had made Jason wince and Max laugh. Who drinks too much coffee and trips over everything to be brought back to him on a stretcher. A sheet thrown over his body. Suddenly all those jokes, the way Max pointed out Aaron’s ankles hang off stretchers, would fall bitter.

But instead, he sees that ten-foot-tall, 99% all-leg toddler that he hired and his throat dries.

There are deep, dark circles around his eyes. Too many cuts to count on his face, some actively dropping blood onto his dress shirt, but he still smiles. Still raises a hand to wave when Jason shakes his head and huffs out “that kid is a piece of work”. He leans heavily on the deputy at his side, wincing and limping but he’s upright and alive.

Dave gets to him first. Tearing through the tall grass to end up, chest heaving from the run, right in front of Aaron. He points a finger up at him, anger melting at the sight of just how tired he looks. How young he really is and Dave hates himself for bringing him into this stupid mess.  “Don’t you ever do something like that again, do you understand me?” Is this what it feels like to finally find your kid in the endless aisles of Walmart? Because he’s livid but he wants to pull this big oaf into a hug and never let him go. “You could have been killed. Do you know how much paperwork that is?”

Aaron smirks, tilting just a bit and wincing when he puts pressure on broken ribs.

“Come here,” Dave says far too angrily to make it clear he’s on the verge of tears here. He pulls Aaron down, cupping the back of his head closer and wrapping his other arm across his back. “Big old idiot,” he chides sniffling to keep his tears at bay. Dave can feel him shaking, shivering despite the humidity looming over them thickly. Making even the air nearly unbreathable it’s so thick.

Aaron grunts, shifting in Dave’s arms but not away. Just trying to be comfortable but his ribs light up like a match has been struck inside him. “Rossi,” is all the warning he can get out, knees rolling out from beneath him. He hits the ground with a thud, Dave grunting to keep him from falling completely.

Dave grabs him, wincing when Aaron’s eyes roll back into his head and his mouth slacks open. Body jerking.

“It’s a seizure,” the deputy drawls. Dave is too shocked to fight as the deputy eases Aaron to the ground, rolling him onto his back, and holding him on his side. “You have to time it.” Dave looks down at his watch but he’s unable to think-- unable to breath as he hears Aaron moan in pain, crying softly as his body jerks beyond his control.

The deputy rubs Aaron’s chest, whispering something softly until Aaron’s eyes peel back open. His choked breathes easing into breathless pants, confused mumbles leaving his mouth. He doesn’t pull away from their touch, if anything Dave thinks he might actually press his face into Dave’s leg. Holding on a little tighter to Dave’s hand. “My son used to have them,” he tells them both. “You’ll be tired for a while but you’ll probably be fine.”

Unless it’s a brain bleed or a severe concussion or brain damage or a thousand other things.

“Da--Dave?”

He leans closer, squeezing Aaron’s hand and rubbing at his back. “I’m right here, you’re okay.”

Aaron peels an eye open, that signature scowl slipping into place. He looks like himself for a few moment as he looks around and artfully deducts, “I’m laying in the mud.” Leave it to Aaron. “It’s cold.”

Dave thinks again to the sweat pouring down everyone else’s backs. To the humidity so thick it should be considered a solid at this point, defying all laws of matter. “Shut up,” he says entirely too softly to be taken as it should be. A jab, a taunt. “You’re always cold.”

The crunching of grass betrays the medics coming in behind them but Dave doesn’t leave Aaron’s side. He hears the deputy tell them about the seizure. He smiles down at Aaron, brushing back a strand of hair. “I’m putting a tracker in your underwear. Gonna handcuff you to me next time we go anywhere.” And as Aaron’s eyes slip closed, loosing his battle with fighting his body, he smiles.

Dave already complains that he walks too fast, how would handcuffing them together solve anything?

(3) Penelope Garcia

They entrusted him in her care. She’d seen the hesitation in Emily’s eyes, watched her move back to Aaron’s side twice before averting her eyes and going to stand back by Dave. As if physically putting distance between them would solve the gut-rotting feeling Emily has that she’s abandoning him. That they’re all awful for leaving him but there are no other options. They leave him and they go solve this case and they can come right back as soon as it’s over.

“I’ll watch him,” Garcia promises. “We’ll be okay.”

And it’s relieving to know that it’s Garcia who will be here. It’s unspoken the connection between Garcia and Hotch. No need to review the ways he won’t even behave for Emily or Dave, he will succumb to Garcia’s nurturing ways. Let her tuck blankets around him and fuss with him about resting when he wants to sign himself out. He’s far more hesitant to hurt her. He loves her just a little bit more.

“Call if you need anything,” Derek reminds her again, as he stalls at the door. Looking back between Garcia and Hotch, convinced there is no way this goes over smoothly. No way Hotch doesn’t burn her trying to self-destruct and he’s afraid of what that will do to both of them. Garcia has ever right to be wounded by the daggers Hotch throws when he’s down-- a wounded animal cornered, snapping and teeth barred fighting with all he has left. But if Hotch sees the blood, sees the way that he hurts them… He doesn’t need any help placing those knives in his chest,  prying his ribs open to see his heart. Trying to convince himself, as his blood flows freely over his hands, that his human. 

They’re all terrified of what will happen this time. As they are every time he goes down. How much longer until the next time? How close will he let them get? How much blood is it going to take? 

“We’ll be okay,” Garcia says again because she’s still trying to believe it herself. 

But she knows that when he wakes up, he will be someone else entirely. An animal biting it’s leg off to escape, unaware that is leaves that mutilated limb behind that they will never get free. A few feet. Maybe a mile. Blood loss and infection will set in and they will die alone. Panting but free. 

Aaron never cares about what he has to loose, he  just has to get free. 

The drugs hold him back for a day. She sits there, expecting every little hitch in his breathing to be the start, but the next inhale comes and all she has is a pained groan or a soft sigh. 

She falls asleep, laptop precariously tipping off her hips, when he wakes. He doesn’t make a sound, just peels his eyes back and takes in his surroundings. He’s panicked, on the edge, and he sees her but he can’t say a word. He’s too tired, too drugged to even try to make the great escape he’s already formulating in his mind. 

She hears the monitors pick up, something shifting in the room. “Sir,” she gasps but she’s a little too late. He’s already sitting up, hunched down and over himself. “Are you okay? Should I--” 

The door is thrown open, startling them both with the bright lights from the hall into the dark room. 

“Hotch are you okay?” she stays right beside him, trying to get him to say something. Anything.

The nurses buzz around him, not as frantic as she feels just quick practiced movements. She watches them give up trying to move Hotch’s arms, raising the sleeve of his gown up and plunging something into his arm. They step back, going to the machines.

“Hotch?” she tries again, softer. 

He turns his head, eyes darting between hers.

“Are you okay?” she touches his shoulder and nearly jumps in surprise when he leans into her. She hesitates for only a second-- mind racing to understand what’s happening right now. Hotch who avoids hugs and hates attention, leaning into her. Seeking out comfort. “It’s okay,” she whispers, pulling his shoulders closer to her. “You’re okay.” 

She can feel him deflating, all of him now against her. Head on her shoulder and his other arm, not the one pinned between their bodies, trying to reach closer. His breaths even out, no longer quick and shallow as they had been before. 

“It was a sedative,” one of the nurses assures her. “He’s okay. He just needs to rest.”

Garcia nods and tries to pretend like that idea doesn’t terrify her. She’ll call Derek or maybe Dave just someone later and tell them about this. How quickly Hotch had just gone limp in her arms, unable to hold his body up. She’ll cry in the shower and probably every night after this-- is that how desperately he needs a hug? Should she have really been listening to him all these years and skipping him while showering the others in affection? 

She doesn’t fall back asleep, she sits up with him. Listening to his breathing and calming him back down before he can wake up or work himself into a nightmare. She’ll make up for when she wasn’t there and vow that once he’s back on his feet, she’s going to pull him down into a hug and she’s never going to let go.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #haley hotchner #penelope garcia #david rossi

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Mod, who are your top 10 favorite characters and top 10 least favorite?

//I have actually been wanting to discuss something like this, so I’m glad someone brought it up to me.

//I’ll go through with this, but I won’t be discussing my least favorites, since I don’t want to bring any negativity, and to be honest, I enjoy writing pretty much everyone in this blog. I also fear if I share who my least favorites are in the main series, said characters won’t get as many asks, and I don’t want any unfair bias. I can definitely admit to hating Haiji though, because...well...he obviously won't be receiving any questions anymore. Besides, I doubt many people will disagree with me.

Honorable Mentions:

Makoto Naegi

Mahiru Koizumi

Kirumi Tojo

Kaede Akamatsu

Tsumugi Shirogane

Shuichi Saihara

Iroha Nijiue

Mikihiko Koyasunaga

Yoruko Kabuya

Tsurugi Kinjo

Uchui Porosen

Kibin Hatsudoki

//Though to be honest, everyone may as well be an honorable mention because I love writing every single one of these guys. Also, like I just said, don’t let this top 10 affect your asks. I love every character in this blog and I’m happy to make asks for each and every one of them. It was really hard to narrow it down to 10

#10: Tenko Chabashira

This might seem a little surprising, given that Tenko hasn't had a whole lot of screen time and story relevance so far. She's only been prominent in two arcs, Deadly Harmony and Novoselic Revolution, both of which she didn't have as much screen time as most of the other characters. However, not to spoil anything major, I have big plans for her, and what I've pulled out of her so far is something I'm proud of. My main goal is mainly to give her a bit of development, and tone down on the sexism element of her character. Not remove it entirely, mind you, because let's be real, Tenko unfortunately isn't Tenko without it, but basically to not do what the DR dev team did and make it the forefront of her character, while her other exceedingly good traits are just at the back until later on in the story.

#09: Kokichi Ouma

Kokichi is one of, if not, my favorite character in the original DR series. My main goal of him in this series is trying to grapple with his constantly changing attitude, mainly towards the DRV3 cast besides himself. At first he's glad to see them, then he turns spiteful towards Shuichi and Kaede when they try to fight him, then he straight up just abandons them and attempts to cut off contact. As he is right now, he's conflicted about how to feel about everyone. Sure, they all still hate him, but during Cabaret Kyojin's they came to his defense when he most needed it. That whole arc might've seemed pretty pointless and acted as needless filler, but my true intention of it was to flesh out the characters involved, mainly Kokichi and Kuripa. Speaking of which, that's another plot point that I'm looking forward to branching upon: the little companionship those two have going on right now.

#08: Monaca Towa

Monaca is a character I actually tend to struggle with in the grand scheme of things. The reason being that, arguably, she in canon is the second biggest antagonist in the series behind Junko. What I tried to do with Survivor though, is not make her an antagonist, but make her slowly become more and more redeemable, despite her actions. The reason why I went with this approach is mainly due to Monaca's last appearance in the series, where she states to Toko and Komaru that she's kind of just done with everything to do with Junko and Despair. I don't think it would be easy to bring her back as an antagonist because of THAT fiasco, and that is legitimately one of favorite scenes of her...which is funny because it's from DR3 and I kinda hate the anime. Her whole presence in Survivor is based around the idea of trying to seek redemption, but she doesn't outwardly want to admit this, nor does she really think she's worthy or deserving of said redemption. She's an adult now, and she grew a conscience. A guilty one that weighs her down and makes her come back to earth to basically settle things and make peace, and though it's been difficult, I love how she's turned out so far.

#07: Akira Tsuchiya

I understand many have their reservations about Akira after what he did this arc, but he's still legitimately one of my favorite villains in this blog because despite the fact that he's a psychopath who kills and ruins people all just for causing Despair, he's just kinda super relatable. He constantly lives with the attitude of just being done with everyone's shit, and I know a lot of DR fans can relate to that. He's also the kind of guy who marches to the beat of his own drum, which is obviously a very slow beat. He rarely ever does what Tsumugi tells him to do, unless the plan interests him or gives him something to do, and his character in general is based around the idea of "Shut-in NEET who just so happens to have a power complex." Overall, what makes him unique to me is just how normal he is, especially when he's compared to the chaotic sea that is the Danganronpa Villains.

#06: Mikan Tsumiki

Novoselic Revolution had the very important role in the story of mending Mikan. Without her efforts and the sacrifices she made in that arc, there's a high chance that the group would have failed to retake the kingdom from Angie and Mikihiko. It goes without saying that the screentime Mikan got in this arc was some of my absolute favorite moments on this blog from a writers perspective. A lot of people in DR dislike Mikan for her actions and character change in the third case of the second game, which I really don't think is fair. Mikan was just the character chosen to be afflicted with the Despair Disease. Nothing else would have been changed had it been a different character, so her role early on in Survivor is mainly her trying to come to terms with her actions, as well as things like making things right with Hiyoko (and Ibuki by extrension) and reevaluating whether or not she's a good person. Mikan is an emotionally and mentally broken child, and it's my full intent in my writing of her to heal her wounds like she does for so many other people.

#05: Narumi Osone

Easily my favorite Zetsubou villain in the blog. During Novoselic Revolution, I really buttered up how much I enjoyed writing Mikihiko, but in reality, I was just waiting for the Rebirth Duo (her and Akira) to burst onto the scene. She didn't make for as great a twist villain in Life and Lies of Akeru Yozora as I would've liked her to be, but even now, I still feel like she left an impact. I mean, she committed quite the number of atrocities. The main reason why I like Narumi though, is how she diverges from the rest of the Zetsubou group. While most of them are doing their evil things for reasons that constitute to causing as much Despair as possible, she does it for almost the complete opposite reason. She absolutely despises Despair, and the only reason she's with Organization Zetsubou, is so that she can patiently await and watch as the Hope that stems from the people fighting back. It's also plays into her ideal. Narumi is so obsessed with Hope that she believes that anyone and everyone who is without hope, and gives into Despair, doesn't deserve to live (and ideal that also allows her to easily hit it off with Nagito). To name the best example: The UUV. Their revenge fantasy is based around the Despair they feel post Ayumu and Marin's deaths, and not around the Hope of their goal of reforming society, even if by force. When Narumi notices this, is angers her so much she murders all of them in cold blood, believing them to be beyond redemption. As a final note, Narumi's violent nature and lust for bloodshed (and lest not forget her weird obsession with Makoto) is also made all the more tragic when you remember she's literally just a 14 year old kid with not a lot of life experience. For someone to be this far gone at such a young age is pretty depressing, but it also provides me with a lot of great writing opportunities, and god damn it she isn't a fun character to write.

#04: Mukuro Ikusaba.

I could pretty much just copy/paste the basic things I said about Monaca's personal conflict for Mukuro, but on a much more extreme level. This is something that I plan on actually branching on later down the line, but Mukuro's backstory and reason why she has a presence here is briefly mentioned by Sayaka in one post. To sum up what she said, when the Foundation were first starting to use the machines to bring back the victims of the first killing game, Makoto was the one who suggested possibly bringing Mukuro back, something that understandably, his classmates initially were against. However, at the time, Kyoko was still new to being the Foundation Chairwoman, and Makoto very much pressed the issue with her. Kyoko eventually agreed to the resurrection, but in exchange, any and all actions committed by the soldier, most notably any treacherous or bad ones, would subsequently be Makoto's responsibility. Of course, as you can imagine, Makoto accepted these terms, and Mukuro was resurrected. For a while afterwards, many were very wary of her presence, and most didn't outright accept her as a member of the Foundation, even when the Remnants of Despair officially signed up. What you have to remember is that Mukuro wasn't really brainwashed into helping Junko, at least not in the same way that the Remnants were. Most of what she did for Junko is what she did willingly, but Makoto felt that in reality, Mukuro was just another one of Junko's victims and she'd never known Hope in her life, which is why she turned out so chaotic, so his whole intention of reviving her was to redeem her honor, of which he was pretty much successful. The main trait of Mukuro's though that I tend to focus on, is arguably her most serious: her PTSD. Of all the characters who could have been hit hard with PTSD, it makes the most sense for it to be a soldier, and since the beginning of her revival, Mukuro has been cursed by the lingering ghost of her dead Despair sister. Junko's presence in her mind less drives Mukuro insane though, and simply makes her doubt herself and her presence, wondering if it was worth being revived, or whether or not she truly deserves to live. But regardless of how she feels, she's duty bound to the end, and still supports everyone unquestionably, especially towards those in her own branch being Makoto, her boss, the man who saved her, and of course her undeniable love interest, and Kuripa to whom she disciplines, but also acts as a mother/big sister figure to.

#03: Hajime Hinata.

It might just be me, but I feel like Hajime in particular is the fan fav in this blog. I feel he's shown up in more posts than any other character, which is fine by me given he's also one of my personal favorite characters, and is probably my favorite protagonist (it really changes depending on my mood, honestly, I think they're all as great as each other). The remnants of Despair's conflict is an obvious one that you commonly see in post-game fics such as this one, and in Survivor, and my personal opinion, Hajime is undoubtedly the one who has it the hardest. However, out of all of the characters in the series who HAVE trauma (and let's be real, that's undoubtedly a LOT of characters in both DR canon, and this blog) he's also undoubtedly the one who handles it the best. However, there is a limit to how much pressure he can take, and that causes him to lash out (like he did with Mahiru during Misfortune's Revenge, which I know we don't like to talk about but its the most notable example). He's been through a whole load of shit and the pressure is constantly crushing him like a gigantic boulder, yet he still forces himself to carry it. Outside of my own writing, Hajime has so many conflicting thoughts and trauma in other fics, and in Survivor, I don't intend to flat out copy them, but I do desire to live up to them. The reason why Hajime has so many burdens placed upon him, and as of Misfortune's Revenge now has double as many, yet is still able to keep going strong, is because he's no longer allowing himself to be weighed down by events that are in the past and out of his control. What makes his ideal unique, is that he has power, almost limitless amounts of it, but instead of focusing on what he can do with it, he's more conflicted and focused on what he CAN'T do, and changing the past is one thing he can't, and as of such doesn't focus on it. He only ever focuses on the present, and the future, and worries about that. And you've got to hand it to the guy, while it's definitely been better, his life is actually super good right now. He has at least 15 really great friends/found family members, a home on an island resort, an AI companion in his phone who will always help him out and support him, a smoking-hot red-haired girlfriend, a pretty good job and a lot more. For him, it's not simply a matter of abiding by the Foundation and fixing the chaos that he indirectly caused. It's also about the fear of losing what he has, and wanting to protect it.

#02: Ayumu Fujimori.

I've said this one or two times before, but I think Ayumu turned out spectacular, and when I eventually had to kill him off, I felt really bad about doing so. The main reason why I removed him, and why I currently don't have any plans to bring him back, is due to my future plans, having him around would make little to no sense. He serves mainly as a catalyst for the new phase of the story, a much darker one, and with his death, we enter that phase. I know many people are worried about it, but it's not just Ayumu's reason for being in the story that makes him great. While it isn't obvious right away, the main character that I was trying to portray with him, is that he's basically the darker side of Hajime. The two of them share very similar traits in character, personality and backstory. Some notable points would be

Both of them are incredibly self-doubtful, and that self-doubt caused them to become Ultimate Hopes.

Both of them once held huge admiration for a powerful group of people. For Hajime it was Hope's Peak and for Ayumu it was the Japanese Government

Said power called them useless, which led to their transformation

Both have pretty sad backstories, which involve two different types of cruel parents and family's.

They both have a best friend who likes to sleep.

Said best friend ended up dying horribly right in front of them, with them both unable to do anything about it, which eventually leads them both to go insane and make some bad decisions.

Though their methods differ, ultimately, they both want the same thing: a brighter future for their friends and the people they love

Ayumu might be a threat, and an antagonist, but he doesn't really count as a "villain" per se. At the core, he's basically just a misguided young man, who the world treated like shit, so he just wants to get back at it. He's also an influential figure, pulling many people into his fight, and gaining many supporters outside of his friends in the UUV. For the short time he was on the blog, he was an absolute BLAST to write, and you can damn sure bet I'm going to miss him.

#01: Kuripa Kurafto.

This is undoubtedly the riskiest part of this list, especially since we're talking about an OC here, but I also think a lot of you guys saw this coming. I can understand why some of you might disagree with me on this placement, but I'll tell you now, if you're unimpressed, trust me, I am barely scratching the surface of Kuripa's character. As of such, I have to go on this based off of what's already known about him. His whole character I feel comes full circle at the end of the Ultra Despair Gang arc, in which the first monumental event in the blog actually happens: him killing Haiji Towa by stabbing him in the gut and sending him falling to his death. This is then followed by a speech to Makoto, Komaru, Toko and Byakuya, which basically lays out the key part of Kuripa's character, being his ideals. Every protagonist in Danganronpa goes by a certain ideal that contrasts that of their enemies. For Makoto, it's Hope, for Hajime, it's Future, and for Shuichi it's truth. Kuripa is the complete reverse, being a protagonist that represents Despair. He's not outright a villain, or even a generally bad guy, but he definitely has some apparent darkness to him, and is also incredibly violent when at the peak of rage. Of course, it all stems from a huge event in his life, the murder of his little sister Kotoko by the hands of Matta Gyalusetsu, which has led to his over-arcing conflict: his desire to find Matta and kill him as revenge. I tend to hate characters in stories who have the "My Sister is Dead" archetype or trope, but the main reason is because most characters who have that JUST have that, and for Kuripa that's something I'm trying to avoid. One of the most important parts of Kuripa's character is the contrast between his dark, almost psychopathic side that believes murder is a suitable way to indefinitely solve a problem, and his regular self, who to put simply, is a complete and total clown. He's like a walking meme, and makes a total fool out of himself, either through just being a mindless tomfool, a playful perv, or a loveable idiotic otaku. Still, his presence is indeed important to everyone around him, especially seen through his interactions with Makoto, Kibin, Mukuro, Uchui, Kokichi, The Kyojin's and the High Roller staff. This is another thing in regards to Kuripa's conflict that is quite saddening to. Similar to Hajime, as things currently stand, Kuripa has an excellent life. He's a successful animator who makes a lot of money from his work, he enjoys his time at the Future Foundation and really looks up to both Makoto and Mukuro who both treat him with a reciprocated amount of respect, he gets to work in tangent with his best friend, he has many pals, some of which are part of an anime club, and on top of it all, he has a cute girlfriend who playfully flirts back and forth with him all the time. He has everything a guy could possibly ever want, but due to his one track mind, he can never be satisfied knowing Kotoko's killer is still out there, and he will do whatever it takes to avenge her...even if he needs to cut a few people down to get it...

//Doing this kind of self-reflective character analysis is pretty refreshing and fun to be honest, although, doing it makes it sound like I have a big head, and am complementary of my own writing where I know many might disagree with my techniques and opinions. You're free to, believe me, but please keep any criticism constructive.

-Mod

#tenko chabashira #kokichi ouma #monaca towa #akira tsuchiya #mikan tsumiki #narumi osone #mukuro ikusaba #hajime hinata #ayumu fujimori #kuripa kurafto #self reflection

[sachigram]

I know Halloween has long passed (*sob*) but what do you think of Izaya as a Witch? 🤔 (maybe with a side order of Shizuo being his beastly but also angry familiar? 😂😂😂)

((Okay so I went rogue on this one. It’s funny because @lateniteslacker and I have an rp going where Izaya is a witch right now so I wanted this one to be darker and wanted Shizuo to be a beast for real.))

The thing about humans is, they really do have more in common with wild animals than they'd like to believe. Izaya has always studied human behavior extensively, obsessively, and he's always excited when a completely civilized person gives into their instincts, usually in a moment of complete desperation. The four f's really are a universal truth, and while Izaya is captivated by humanity as a whole, he can't deny he feels a certain...thrill in knowing society could topple at any moment, with only the slightest push, and then people would show their true colors and what lengths they would go to in order to survive.

Thinking this over, Izaya lifts his eyes to the beast pacing around his apartment. It's late at night, obscenely early morning, actually, but neither of the occupants in the apartment have slept yet. It's close to sunrise, Izaya realizes, and Shizuo has still yet to kill him.

“You're letting me live again? How generous of you, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, and when Shizuo growls at him in answer, Izaya's lips curl into a small smile. Shizuo can't reply at length, of course. No werewolf in existence can speak when they're transformed.

Shizuo's body could be considered grotesque, but Izaya's never been squeamish, and he doesn't mind watching the huge monster walk in circles, his features lit only by the city lights streaming into the windows. His skin is dark and leathery, only some of it covered in thick, wiry fur. Shizuo's mouth is gaping and filled with sharp, jagged teeth, so many that it seems to be hard for Shizuo properly close it, thus making him leave drops of saliva in his wake. His eyes are the same color as normal, so dark they're practically a mirror for anyone who looks into them, but they're filled with bloodlust and hunger, instincts Shizuo would be acting on if not for Izaya's potion keeping him in his own mind.

“You could sleep, you know,” Izaya continues, watching with glee as Shizuo's ears perk towards Izaya, hearing him whether Shizuo wants to or not. “I'm not going to do anything to you. We seem to be in a truce, don't we? Unwilling companions.”

Shizuo snarls openly at that and makes his way over to the desk, looming over it and salivating onto Izaya's papers. Izaya merely looks up at him pleasantly, knowing Shizuo won't actually kill him. Shizuo is too afraid of being left alone to do so.

“Is it some kind of atonement? You think keeping yourself sleep deprived will help you feel better about what you are? It's actually only making it worse.” Izaya listens to Shizuo's deep, rumbling growl, and hears it for the question it really is. “I'm not awake because I want to be, Shizu-chan! It's not the same. You know I have insomnia. At the very least, I'm grateful for your company.”

Shizuo huffs and turns away from him then, going back to pacing. Izaya knows how cruel it is of him to act as if Shizuo has any choice to be here, but it hardly matters to Izaya why Shizuo is here. He's here. That's all Izaya needs.

It was months ago, another full moon. Izaya was fed up with Shizuo, wanted him gone for good. Shizuo wasn't rising to Izaya's challenges anymore, would actually ignore Izaya if they crossed paths on the street. More and more of Shizuo's time was spent with that woman, that doe-eyed assassin, and Izaya decided he was done playing around. He hired some men, some higher-ups in the Yakuza, actually, and Shizuo fought as he always does, but he couldn't avoid the sharp teeth when they broke his skin and infected him with something that could never be cured.

It took two weeks for Shizuo to come to Izaya. Shizuo was pale, haggard, looked as if he hadn't slept in days. He stormed into Izaya's apartment and demanded to know what was wrong with him, why he wanted to bite and tear, why his dreams were filled with blood and viscera— “guts” is what Shizuo actually said, but that's besides the point.

“Why did you come to me?” Izaya had asked. “What makes you think I know?”

The answer was more than Shizuo could put into words. All monsters make their way to Izaya sooner or later, all of them knowing Izaya can help if he chooses to. It's why Shinichi made contact with him, why the more beastly members of the Yakuza put up with him. Izaya is stronger than he looks, smarter than is good for him, and filled with a constant boredom that makes him dangerous. To top it all off, he's one of the only witches in Japan, and an incredibly powerful one at that.

Izaya explained that Shizuo was bitten by a werewolf, and he would succumb to his desires during the next full moon unless he relented to trusting Izaya to help, and at first, Shizuo stormed out, cursing, threatening to bash Izaya's head in. A week later, one week before the next full moon, Shizuo was back, looking worse than before, and he had a tired sort of acceptance about him that let Izaya know the monster had already worked through all the other stages of grief.

Now, they can be around each other for extended periods of time, but never without underlying malice and contempt in their words and actions. Shizuo refuses to take the potion home and be alone in this, and Izaya hardly minds being subjected to Shizuo's transformation, despite the fact that Shizuo keeps promising to kill him before sunrise. They're at an impasse, and like all shaky alliances, they're waiting for the other one to break it first.

The next time Izaya looks up from his computer, Shizuo is back to normal, curled into a ball in the floor, panting at the strain of his return to humanity. Izaya stands and goes to his side, offering him a blanket to cover his trembling, naked body, and Shizuo swats him away, sending Izaya toppling to the floor. Izaya only laughs, pleased Shizuo still has some fight in him. It's so much more fun this way.

“Fuck,” Shizuo hisses, lifting his head to glare openly at Izaya. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” Izaya asks earnestly.

“Like you love this.”

Izaya opens his mouth to respond, but he decides Shizuo has suffered enough for one night. He stands and goes back to his desk, leaving Shizuo to his own devices. Normally Shizuo will dress and leave immediately, but he lingers this time, hovering almost uncertainly by Izaya.

“Your mind is a mess,” Izaya says, hating that he can hear the majority of Shizuo's thoughts. Izaya tries not to read minds very often, feels like it's an unfair advantage in his line of work, and he so loves an actual challenge. But Shizuo's mind is different; it's loud and demanding, wanting more than anything to be heard.

“Why are you helping me?” Shizuo asks.

“I help many members of this world and the next, Shizu-chan,” Izaya replies without looking up. “It's part of my job.”

“Why wouldn't you want me to lose my mind and kill someone? Everyone would know then, wouldn't they? That I'm a monster. Isn't that what you want?”

Izaya looks up at him at last, a bored expression on his face. “It's enough that I know it.”

“Bullshit,” Shizuo snaps. “I keep waiting for you to sell me out, to tell everyone what I am. Why the fuck haven't you? I wouldn't help you if the tables were turned.”

“I know that,” Izaya says, shrugging. “I guess you could say I've been touched by how pitiful you are. How helpless.” Izaya's smile stretches into a leer, and he can see the way it makes Shizuo's skin crawl. “You need me.”

“I could find someone else,” Shizuo says. “Celty could know another...magic person.”

“By all means, go find them,” Izaya says. “Go explore the country and beyond on your measly second rate bodyguard salary. Better yet, go to Kasuka and tell him what you are and beg him for help in finding someone else to give you the same potion I give you for free every month.”

Shizuo flinches at that. He's obviously terrified of Kasuka finding out, which is hilarious in itself, as Kasuka is dating Ruri, another of Izaya's clients. It's true she doesn't have much vampire blood in her veins, but she has enough to feel the bloodlust. Izaya hasn't told Shizuo any of that, though. If nothing else, Izaya is loyal to his clients until they give him reason not to be, even if those reasons are nothing more than being more interesting once they find out Izaya betrayed them.

“You could go to Celty, see if Shinra and his crazy father can help you look for a cure. You could do a lot of things, but you come to me every month.” Izaya rests his chin on his hand and watches Shizuo carefully. “Is it because you already hate me, so you don't mind me seeing you at your lowest?”

“Fuck you,” Shizuo says, and he marches towards the door. Izaya rolls his eyes and goes back to typing, but he looks up again when he realizes Shizuo hasn't left yet.

“Say whatever the hell you have to and then leave me alone,” Izaya huffs. He needs to finish this assignment soon, and he'd like to do it within the next few hours so he can sleep afterwards.

“I know how rare it is. What you are,” Shizuo says, his back still to Izaya. “Celty told me.”

“I'm surprised you spoke to her about any of it.”

“I didn't tell her what I am. I know she wouldn't judge me for it, but still, I just...” Shizuo trails off, and he turns to face Izaya. “But she knows what you are, and she told me. That's why I came to you.”

“And what did she say about me?” Izaya asks, amused. He knows the courier despises him, but he doesn't care much for her either aside what she can do for him.

“She said there's a reason witches are so rare, and it's because most of them have been killed off.” Shizuo moves closer. “She said the majority of them abused their powers, the same way you do, and that's why they're targeted so often.”

“She neglected to mention the part where it was everyone else who came to us first,” Izaya says sharply, remembering the first time he saw members of the other world. Ghosts, demons, monsters of every kind flocking to him, asking for help. He was a child then, a neglected one at that. He was on his own with no one to help him, and that was when he realized how unfair the world could really be. “You're always barking about how you can't control your strength, well I can't control this. I didn't ask for this either.”

“You did this to me,” Shizuo accuses. It's not the first time he's said it, but Izaya has never admitted to it.

“And if I did?” Izaya asks, annoyed by this entire exchange. “What are you going to do about it?”

Shizuo roars with rage and lurches towards Izaya, lifting him up and slamming him against the wall. He breathes into Izaya's face, his sharp teeth bared.

“Why can't you just leave me the fuck alone?!” Shizuo shouts, and suddenly it seems as if he's being deflated, like all the strength is leaving him. He drops Izaya's feet to the floor, but he doesn't step away from Izaya's space. “Why can't you leave me alone?” he asks again, defeated.

“Because you're interesting,” Izaya says, and when he lifts his fingers to Shizuo's face, Shizuo only flinches slightly at the touch. “Because you're right, I'm alone in this, and you were alone, too. You were surrounded by people, but you were alone. No one knows better than me how that feels.”

“You ruined my life,” Shizuo says, no ire to it.

“You ruined mine first,” Izaya says, not bothering to elaborate. Shizuo doesn't seem confused, just tired, and when Izaya tucks his face into Shizuo's neck, the beast only growls softly before allowing it.

The thing about wolves is, they always protect their necks. It's one of their most vulnerable areas. Shizuo is allowing this, and that speaks volumes in itself. Izaya smiles and wraps his arms around Shizuo, clenching his fingers in the fabric of Shizuo's shirt.

“It'd be easier for you, wouldn't it? If you actually hated me,” Izaya murmurs. He presses his lips to Shizuo's neck, and he can feel the tremble of Shizuo's body before Shizuo's arms wrap around him in return.

“You won't die, right? You can't,” Shizuo says, his voice muffled in Izaya's hair.

“Wouldn't it be better for you if I did?” Izaya asks.

“Yes. No. Fuck.” Shizuo kisses the top of Izaya's head, and he makes a disgruntled noise when Izaya pulls away, growling until he realizes what it is Izaya wants. Their lips brush together gently, a complete contrast to all their harsh words and usual actions. “Izaya,” Shizuo breathes, clinging tight enough to Izaya to hurt.

“You won't be alone, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, sighing sweetly when Shizuo kisses him again. They wind up on Izaya's couch, their clothes scattered around them as they give into their basic instincts, showing each other just how beastly they can be.

#asks #anon #prompts #shizaya #Izaya Orihara #Shizuo Heiwajima #unhealthy relationships #codependency #witchy izaya #werewolf shizuo #I didn't quite get to the familiar part but rest assured Shizuo makes Izaya a stronger threat lol

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

if you have a question about aussie slang, for a fic or whatevs, please just ask i don't know all of it, but we do have some fun words and sayings that are day to day statements

esp. the more rural you go

not everyone has the full accent though, because you do get a lot of pressure at work to come across... professional or whatever.

the only one i've never been sure of being an Actual Phrase, or if it Became A Phrase after popularisation on a tv show, is "Stone the Flaming Crows" bc a dude from Neighbours used to say it frequently.

examples of day to day stuff i can think of right now

mad as a frog in a sock (angry about something, went off, off the shits)

mad as a cut snake (usually means 'they're nuts', but can also mean they exploded with anger, usually contextual)

she'll be right (it's fine - can be a flippant statement, can be reassurance, etc)

drongo / galah - (idiot, not very smart, wanker, etc)

dunny = toilet

thunderbox/outhouse / long-drop - usually outdoor toilet

dry as a nun's nasty / dry as a dead dingo's donger (I am thirsty, or It Is Hot AF/we need rain so bad)

chuck a u-ey (do a u-turn)

Oi! (Hey I want your attention/i was surprised, general exclamation, stop that, you are in a lot of fucking trouble mate - depends on the tone of voice and volume) like "OI!" says aunty ruth has just found her dentures in jello and she knows you did it, etc

Bugger off (go away, or sometimes a statement of disbelief)

Yeah nah /Nah yeah (can mean yes, no or maybe depending on what was said directly before the statement)

you cant pull the wool over my eyes - you can't lie to me like that / i can see you are not telling the truth

shut your gob / put a sock in it / put a cork in it - (shut up / shut the FUCK up / close your mouth or i will shut it for you) depends on tone

Ya wally (you idiot)

Roo = kangaroo

o = can be affixed to anything to shorten it at the servo - gone to the service station, arvo - afternoon, smoko - morning tea, bottlo - where the grog is

goon/goonsack - wine in a box

grog - alcohol

stubbie - beer, ususally

boardies - board shorts

rashie - swimming shirt,

slip, slop, slap - ancient proverb for avoiding sunburn. singing pelican.

thongs - footwear

sheila = female / woman, don't hear this a lot at the moment tbh except in certain contexts or from specific people

'Getting rowdy' = things are heating up, people are riled up, a fight is about to/has just broken out, etc.

DJ's like a mad cunt = one very specific meme about a bad PM we had like 10 years ago. i can't tell you how many PM's ago, it's been game of thrones here lmao

Beyond the black stump / Out whoop-whoop / references to timbuktu (quite a distance away)

strewth!/crickey!/bloody hell - (exclamation of surprise, expletive replacement, etc)

flat out like a lizard drinking (tired / drunk / exhausted / sleeping)

pull a harry holt - (I've heard a dozens variations of this one, it means Go Missing / Disappear, often used as a joke. PM Holt went swimming one day and disappeared)

have a stickybeak (to poke your nose in/investigate/look around)

chuck a wobbly/throw a tanty/chuck a tanty/throw a wobbly (throw a tantrum, i have legit never seen anyone successfully deescalate a situation by telling someone not to chuck a wobbly or throw a tanty, go figure lmao)

bogan - (very specific kind of low-income, generally white, people. sort of like rednecks, but with more stereotypical aussie features like a mullet, singlet tops, sunnies, stubbies, etc. tend to fall under the liberal party ideology - who are our republicans... )

ankle-biters / rugrats / little takkers / gremlins / nippers - (kids, usually the littler ones)

tiff - argument, small fight (had a tiff, had a row)

pav = pavlova

piss/whizz/take a piss = going to pee

vegemite - delicious

Kiwi = New Zealander

Banana benders - the disrespectful bs that apparently other states call anyone living in Queensland, the wankers

station - farming areas that have sheep or livestock usually, have farmhands etc.

dole bludger(s) - (anyone on Centrelink, whether they want to be or not, with no other employment. but like, a lot of people on centrelink have a job that does not cover enough and need additional financial supports to meet a minimum wage, or are students or apprentices, etc. there are people who go on centrelink on and off to avoid engaging in the jobseeking stuff, they are the real dole bludgers, but a lot of richer people tend to call anyone on 'welfare' bludgers)

don't you come the raw prawn with me - (do not lie to me / don't try that shit with me, mate / I wasn't born yesterday /etc)

dak/dack - to dack someone is to come up behind them and yank their pants down (or skirts). Often taking out your boxers, too.)

budgie smugglers - (speedoes, male swimwear)

togs/toggs or cozzie (swimwear, any kind. cozzie = costume)

mozzie - (mosquito)

better than a kick up the backside /better than a kick in the arse - (pretty self explanatory, one of those phrases parents use to get slightly hurt kids to start laughing and/or coworkers to commisserate about new work rules, etc)

I wouldn't piss on (name) if they were on fire - (self-explanatory, you hate them, or they're a useless tit or an insufferable person /a suckup etc, and you would gladly hand them a match)

one for the road = getting a drink for the road, usually. can also make a joke of it like, "one last piss for the road" = I'm going to the bathroom before I leave

here's your handbag, what's your hurry - probs not an aussie phrase but a common joke in my family

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

So like, there's some words and items from Australian Indigenous culture that often get used wrong in stereotypical characters, like saying 'gone walkabout', using 'cooee', making digeridoo jokes, and making some really uncomfy 'savages' statements can be very disrespectful. You might want to go looking into Australia's fucked up policies and historical (and only recent) situations before starting any arguments about this stuff... in many ways it mirrors the cruelty of american colonisers to native american peoples, etc.

Avoid some phrases. Your character gone to cool their head? He's gone off on to soak his head, or he's on his bike (gone away) but he'll be back... You can use 'Oi, dickhead!'

Please don't mock the names of towns or places, they are often the names from the traditional custodians and inhabitants.

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

Random things:

We drive on the left side of the road, driver's side reversed.

More of our cars are automatic than manual. Utes aren't atypical, but bigger vehicles are out in rural areas because more than a few of the rural roads are poorly maintained or dirt, with potholes that yoyo your soul into your body.

If you have a character on a long drive on a non-highway, or rural road: +if you are on a one-lane road and someone is comingthe other way, you both move half-on, half-off; for big vehicles or trucks, you can choose to pull off completely and stop. Just for safety, esp. in rain, fog, mist or late at night. +at one-lane bridges, you have a give way sign on one side. if you want your characters to have a moment of 'pause to look at each other while driving' or 'a quiet moment of reflection', have them wait for another car or truck to pass from the other side. These can be a few metres long, to like, a really long bridge. +They may pass markers that say 'flood level marker' with numbers of 2, 3 or 5 metres. Could be useful to remark on if your fic needs a reason for them to have a crisis. +Bushfire warning signs (from Low to Catastrophic) are frequent +Animal Crossing signs are very frequent, and often have a wildlife rescue number on them +Water restriction signs are in most small towns, they range from levels 1 to 6. This can change what the characters are allowed to do with water in little towns, etc. +You may occasionally find a small servo and one or two houses. +pubs don't open/won't serve alcohol until after 10am. the joke has always been, 'beer on your cornflakes' but you will never be able to actually get that unless you preplanned the night before in your hotel room. +Around dawn and dusk, a lot of animals like hares, kangaroos, wallabies, sometimes echidnas and koalas and little numbat things, and snakes and bushmice will be close to the road. Sometimes dashing across. They do not react logically to cars approaching, and will leap out at random. Hares do this zigzag nonsense. If you need the character to hit the brakes frantically, or swerve, this is a good reason. If you are ever driving here and see an animal on the side of the road, flip lights to low beam, slow down and watch to see how they react. If you can. If there's a truck blaring down on you, you may not be able to.

+Emus are in more rural areas. Echidnas sometimes appear on fringes of towns though.

+Kookaburras are a lovely creature, I have rescued a few and they are nice... but their laugh is very grating when it goes off super early in the morning. They eat snakes (good) and baby birds (not so good).

+Lots of snakes round here. LOTS. Carpet Snakes are pretty common, red-belly black snakes, eastern brown (big danger!!!), whip snakes have declined in my region, keelback snakes, this one black and white banded one we found deceased, etc. Snakes can climb, snakes can SWIM. Putting something that stinks around a campsite MAY help, but not always.

+Never go swimming in a dam you don't own, and that hasn't been checked, and if no one knows where you are. How deep is it? What's on the bottom? How stirred is the water? etc.

+Kangaroos CAN drown you. They have perfected this attack, and will do it to humans, dogs and other pursuers alike. They can also eviscerate you with their hind paws or shatter your ribs with a kick. The 'boxing' they do is exceptionally violent. This seems to surprise people, but like, giraffes can kill each other by slamming their heads into each other, you think a 7 ft swole motherfucking cryptid can't do harm? They can be lovely tho, if they trust you. But DO NOT GO PETTING WILDLIFE.

+Dropbears, austrilanicus vericanthus bitus, are real. We do make jokes about them, but they are a Problem. The pee on yourself thing won't ward them off, that's more about working out which tourists are the most gullible (and if they run with it, the moistest) lmao. Akubras and other thicker-layered headwear,

+We have wild dogs and feral pigs. Do not fuck with the feral pigs, some are HUGE, and no... they're not just pigs who escaped farms, these are MASSIVE motherfuckers who will Get You if they See You. Rustling in the night outside the tent? Good Luck.

+Koalas should not be picked up directly. They have claws, and a lot of them have chamydia. I mean if a character saves one in a fic that's fine I guess, but like... someone's getting antibiotics after that lmao. They are bigger than you think, dumber than you think, and sometimes they have to be chased across a highway with a windscreen cover bc they're not very bright and keep failing to climb metal fences, lmaoooo

+Towns of about 20-30k will have more shops (some franchise, some local owned), servos, fast food places and usually at least two to three shopping centres. Usually small level entertainments like a cinema, or local groups. +Towns with 10-20k, may have one or two major shopping centres, servos (tracks and RVs catered to), possibly a maccas, and the majority of stores will be local-owned. May have a cinema, but not one that has the newest releases. Local council may have more festivals, or 'that one thing they're known for'. +0-10k towns have a small local store, prices usually a bit higher. A servo, often with capacity for trucks. Local festivals. Characters can cop a bit of side-eye in these places, esp. if they don't fit the traditional ideas or are loud/violently american. +Grey nomads are a thing. Old people with fancy caravans who drive So Slow, and move all around aus. Several refused to stop during covid and it was like, WHO DO YOU THNK WE'RE TRYING TO KEEP ALIVE BY STOPPING YOU MOVING THROUGH MULTIPLE TOWNS???

+Some rural areas have legit red dirt, its always super cool to look at. Some places have light brown to dark brown, some have more chalky colours or yellowish dirt. Depends.

+Reminder: Australia has very specific gun laws, if your character/s have weapons then they may need to be sneaky or store them specifically in the vehicle. Although if you're talking about like, mad max type rules, then who cares. But if you have them get into a gun fight in a town, the police will come, etc.

Dunno, just ask if you have a question... just trying to think of random things to paint a picture if you have a character over here for a roadtrip or mission or whatever.

[wayhaving]

i love you how the sun loves the earth

nate sewell x detective rose adler

rose is kidnapped by the trappers... right from nate’s grasp.

rating: T

hi here’s an example of rose being an Idiot in the face of danger. hopefully this doesn’t seem choppy, and flows narratively... im so Bad at writing like this but i want to see rose Suffer. so i gave a kidnapping fic a shot. this is part 1.

words: 1.9k

by nightfall, the warehouse is in a frenzy.

and by dawn, it is quiet - as if the whole of the earth has decided not to disrupt the unsettling blanket of forbidding peace that has settled like a low-on-the-ground fog.

but despite the sun, and it’s peaking over the hills, light seeping through the trees, there is a darkness. an eclipse only triggered by an absence. an absence of a piece of the sun. an absence of her.

one look away, a simple second, and rose was gone. kidnapped. 

it should’ve been easy to track down those that have hunted her; who have plagued her life, and mocked her fear only to snatch her up given the first opportunity. they don’t even know why they want her. not really.

save for the special quality of her blood - and what might they do to her once they no longer have need of her. will they hurt her? torture her for information?

...kill her?

nate chokes on the thought. a flash of rose’s cold, lifeless eyes fills every crevice of his mind. he tries to will the image away but it sticks like a reminder. a reminder of his failure, a motivator to recovering what he’s lost.

he can’t help but think she’s already gone. she can’t be, and yet, his mind offers nothing but platitudes to fill the void of silence.

if she were here, (and she’s not, he can’t forget that, he couldn’t dare to forget that) she would be laughing in the face of her own fear. he wonders... he wonders if she’s doing that now. spitting at those who have her bound, trembling voice mocking her captors... god. her voice.

how he knows that voice - when she’s afraid but deigns not to show it—

“she will be fine.”

he doesn’t need to see him, to know that it’s adam’s hand on his slumped shoulder, or to know that it’s his softened voice speaking platitudes in order to ease his anxieties.

“will she?” he asks, turning around to face the older vampire. nine-hundred years of loss are etched on his face, lines permeating the usually stoic facade. it’s then, that nate truly grasps the direness of the situation (if he hadn’t already before, but seeing his old friend, with such worry so openly on his face, does nothing to quell his fears).

“they have no reason to hurt her.” even adam knows he is lying to himself, but what else is there to do?

admit their mistakes. admit they failed her. again.

“don’t they? what if they decide to kill her for it, adam?” her blood, nate doesn’t need to say it out loud for adam to understand what he means.

it’s insensible, adam knows this, but the ‘what if’s’ are too impending to ignore.

she’s special, killing her would be a loss, for the enemy... and for the team. but the truth of the matter is, rose has had a profound impact, not just on nate but on the team. it’s so easy, even for adam, to feel like everything has blown to chaos without her, yet still, he ignores it, pushes it down, becomes the friend nate needs.

“they might need her, to use her—“

nate snaps, “she’s not something to be used!”

and his eyes widen in surprise, that he let his frenzied state bubble up, but then again he’s never been afraid of his own emotions. though today... today he is. last night he was. and until she’s back, forever if she doesn’t. “she’s not...”

his head falls into his hands, calloused and rough - the perfect opposite to rose’s own hands... how he misses the feel of her skin... if only—

no. he lets it fall away, he can’t let her only be a memory, he was supposed to have years, before these thoughts even penetrate his mind.

let her soft skin be a motivator, let her light be everything he can’t get enough of - let it be something he can chase, and grasp and obtain again. she isn’t just a memory... not yet.

“i’m sorry,” he admits, now balancing on one tip of the scale, the one that brings him hope. it won’t be long until the terror seeps back in. but for now, he must focus. he can’t lose his focus.

not when—

not when it’s the reason she’s gone in the first place.

“we are... all on edge.” adam clasps nate’s shoulder again, full of understanding in nate’s reaction. he doesn’t want to argue. not now.

nate shifts in his usually comfortable seat, he supposes he shouldn’t allow himself comfort... not when... god he can’t even bring his mind to think about it. she’s alone, and scared, and cold... and he’s here... warm.

and yet still shivering inside.

—

meanwhile.

rose struggles against the ropes binding her wrists to either arm of the very cold, and very metal chair, smack in the middle of the room. the room itself is dark, with a greasy light fixture barely hanging to the ceiling, and in truth, rose is more worried the light will fall onto her head, than the trapper standing in front of her.

at least, if she lives to tell this story, that’s what she will tell.

the trapper, only a table away, keeps his face calm, and so does rose. a battle of wits almost, and rose is very talented. so many, many years of sitting in trouble at the principal’s office? well... let’s just say rose has a knack for never giving in and never telling secrets. not unless it’s to her gain of course, and right now? nothing seems like a gain, nothing except for getting out of here.

and she really hopes that the team is on their way, that they know where she is. that he knows where she is.

...that he’s okay. that he’s fine. that he’s not freaking out.

but she knows he is, because it’s nate, and she knows him (more than anyone she’s ever tried to know). so she knows he’s pacing, and worried beyond his normal limits of worrying... which are quite hard to surpass.

if she were there, (and she’s not, she couldn’t dare to forget that) she would be holding his hand, tighter than she ever has before. and this time she wouldn’t let go. a fatal mistake it seems.

the trapper is still eyeing her with a carefully constructed face - there’s no emotion, save for a slightly intimidating crease between his eyebrows. clearly, he’s practiced his intimidation techniques before.

“i don’t really have all day.” rose tilts her head, eyes now focused and calculating. her tactic is to... very plainly put, annoy the shit out of the trappers either to stall them in whatever it is they want to do to her, (this is seriously the preferred option) or to speed up the death process because truthfully, she is losing-her-mind bored. 

in her head, she’s already tried to convince herself it’s a win-win scenario because it’s easier to be crass than to confront the terrifying reality that this may be the end of the line.

but she isn’t sure how much longer she can muffle her whimpers, or keep her lips from trembling. she can’t run from it any longer, she doesn’t have anywhere to run. 

at least nate is safe. at least he’s warm, at least i saw his face one last time before... all of this.

the trapper says nothing in response, and rose searches carefully for any indication that what she had said has had any effect on the man. regrettably, there is no visible effect.

“do i get lunch?” rose asks, and pulls on her best doe-eyed look, batting eyelashes as coyly as possible. 

again no response, but this time the man leaves the interrogation-style room.

rose calls out after him, “you know, considering you grabbed me from my very private lunch with my—!” the door slams shut, and rose’s voice immediately shrinks to an irritated whisper. “my boyfriend—“

her body jerks, in anger and in hopes to loosen something, anything. “shit!”

she lets out a ragged sigh, breath wavering. tears prick in her eyes, so she closes them. tears are a weakness she can’t exactly afford to show right now. but later.

later, she will cry, inevitably, and hopefully on nate’s shoulder.

—

“we think they want to do tests on her...” rebecca starts, slow, every syllable drawing pain through her, “and on other... supernaturals that they have captured.”

she breathes in deeply, hands shaking so she hides them behind her back, but the team already knows. she’s barely holding it together, and truth be told, none of them are.

adam’s jaw is snapped shut, clenching and unclenching subconsciously like his fist at his side. nate hasn’t been able to breathe, not since the last time he’d seen her. mason is calm, but there’s a darkened quality in his eyes, a wave of unrefined anger, if you were to look in them, surely you would find a fire reflecting back.

and felix.

felix is unusually quiet, hands fidgeting with the scarf rose had bought him for his birthday. no one had ever really given him a gift before that, and now that she’s gone... no he can’t think about it. he had already planned another shopping spree with her, he had to keep his promise.

“so they want to test other supernatural’s abilities,” adam confirms, with a tilt of his chin.

 “they’ll need to keep her alive then.” hope courses through nate’s veins as his mind entertains the possibility. he feels her touch even though she’s not here, the memory is a poor substitute but it makes him feel alive. it’s an even greater motivator. he will feel that touch again, even if it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. 

there’s a collective sigh, and nate is pulled from his thoughts, remembering he’s not alone. the team sits behind him, like a strength he can rely on. 

“we’ll get her back.” mason pulls his third cigarette of the hour out of his mouth, his voice is full of certainty. “in the meantime, she will be fine. i know she will.” he pretends to ignore the crack in his voice. 

“do we even know where she is?” felix asks, leg bouncing uncontrollably from where he sits.

“no, there’s more of them than we thought. more than i thought.” 

felix doesn’t get to respond when the door opens. an agent steps through, mouth open, head nodding. 

nate turns to adam, and then to rebecca.

“we think we have their location.”

the agent tells them where. the forest near the beach. no one lingers around there, an old legend has it that the woods are haunted. the legend comes from truth, but the ghosts that had lived there have since been long gone. it’s secluded and dark... and not far from the warehouse. 

there’s a flash of movement, and suddenly rebecca is alone in the common room. instantly her mask falls, and she looks far older than usual. 

thus ends part 1. i really just wanna post this so... ill be breaking it up. itll only be 2 parts. the next one will be the Happy reuinion. or will it be Happy...? anyways i hope u Liked this. its a bit of practice... not my Best but i just wanted to highlight rose’s ridiculousness ..

#The Wayhaven Chronicles #twc #detective rose adler #twc detective #nate sewell #nate sewell x detective #unit bravo #the quality of this just goes down the longer you read i Am Sorry

[capricornus-rex]

The Haunt of Redemption (3)

Sequel to: A Path I Can’t Follow

gif not mine, for header purposes only. it belongs to @sovahunter​

Chapter 3: Runt of the Litter | Cal Kestis x Reader

Summary: It has been months since your last encounter with Cal, at that time he was a fledgling Inquisitor. In an ironic twist of fate, you cross paths and blades with him once again, and he’s keen on turning you into an Inquisitor as well—unless you bring him back to the light first.

Tags: Dark Side! Cal Kestis, Inquisitor! Cal Kestis, Redemption Arc! Cal Kestis

Also posted in AO3

Chapters: 1 | Previous: Chapter 2 | Next: Chapter 4 | Masterlist

3 of ?

Koboth remained the unforgiving wasteland that it was.

The Eleventh Brother, the Fortress’s new habitant, was a force that nobody had seen coming.

In the first week since he came in, Cal had already established his authority in the stronghold; it wasn’t the imposing uniform and weapon, nor was it his blank yet steady expression.

It had something to do with his own powers.

Like most of the Inquisitors, he is a Force-sensitive. For someone his age, he was cunning and powerful—one would dare say, even just in their head, that he was above from the other Inquisitors. As accomplished as he might be—he was still the odd one out, the loner, the quiet one. The late Second Sister might have been his equal in terms of combat skill, caliber of Force abilities, and the mental prowess.

“Shame that they put him in a lower rank, I thought he was the new favorite,” the Eighth Sister scoffed one time to the other Inquisitors when he was recently anointed into his rank.

“Not surprised,” the Seventh Sister concurred in the conversation she shared with her fellow Mirialan. “That only meant he still has to prove himself if he wants to climb higher.”

Rarely a time did the other Inquisitors ever approached him, not even for an opinion or insight in their plans, under the impression that he’s too good for them or the other way around. They always spoke of him from a distance or behind his back. Either way, he wouldn’t have minded.

Instead, Cal whiled away his time in the dojo. As a matter of fact, it was the only thing he did out of his own volition—the conferences were compulsory. His only audience? A couple of Stormtroopers assigned to watch over from the control room.

“Wow, he’s really into this whole practice thing,” A Stormtrooper blurted to his comrade. “That’s all he’s ever done since he got here!”

“Yeah, this is the third time this week he’s gone here. I think he’s the only one who actually uses this place—except for the Purge guys.”

They watched as they remained in their post. For every Purge Trooper that came walking out of the holding cells in the dojo, the young Inquisitor wouldn’t make them last long in the duel. The longest he’s gone against with is a pair of them—an electrohammer wielder and a staff wielder. The boy made use of the movable grates, relocating them using the Force, and utilizing them to amplify his attacks.

When the staff-wielding Purge Trooper split his weapon in half, it didn’t make much of a difference as the young Eleventh Brother deflected his attack with his own split saber while deflecting the electrohammer with the other blade.

“Gotta admit that was impressive,” the guard bantered and his co-worker agreed with a weak “Yeah.”

The Eleventh Brother pulled away from both opponents, inflicted Slow on the brute and sent a flurry of attacks to the dual-wielder for the time being. The Purge Trooper’s jaw met Cal’s elbow, causing him to drop his weapons—which Cal stole one of them and used it on its owner, sending a wild shock into the body until the opponent fumbled and was at the mercy of the boy Inquisitor. When that was finished, Cal returned his attention to the electrohammer Purge Trooper, disarmed the larger fighter by slashing across his shin guards until his knees fell to the ground.

With that, Cal emerged the victor—after five waves of opponents—and the two Purge Troopers yielded for today. They quickly regained their composure, stretching their shoulders and collecting their weapons.

“Someday, I’ll take him down in spar practice,” the duel-wielding Purge Trooper mumbled.

“Hah, not unless he kills you in the process first!”

Today, the Stormtroopers had just witnessed a true demonstration of Cal’s raw power.

That scene had further cemented their fear of the boy Inquisitor.

Cal exited the dojo and made his way to his bedchambers. The officers that were in his general direction—regardless of rank, whether it’s an admiral or a cadet—avoided eye contact from him, but some looked at him with a curious or trivial look, as if admiring how could such a young man have that much influence without even speaking much. Some even likened him to Darth Vader, but it was a stretch.

Aside from the dojo, his bedchamber was his primary sanctuary.

“Home sweet home,” he muttered to himself as he removed his mask.

By rote, he retreated to the bathroom to wash off the grime that had gathered on his face and body, he wets his hair and stubble for good measure. Even after the course of seven months, he still hasn’t gotten used to his overall appearance, especially the redness faint dark tint on his hair even if he’s never altered anything on his body; a faint pink shade ran along the bottom rims of his eyes retells the training he’s endured, as well as the lonesomeness in the solace of his bedroom.

If he isn’t fighting in the dojo or attending those mandatory meetings, Cal spent his time researching on the holotable in his room. Reports from Stormtroopers and hired spies of your whereabouts are immediately transmitted to him, although the pickings were very slim, he was almost impressed by how elusive you and the crew were.

“Now, where have you run off to?” he mumbled, particularly to the still holographic image of you projected in his holotable.

Eventually, he came to a standstill with his own research, hoping to require more reports from the Stormtroopers and spies in every possible planet you may have gone to—Takodana, Kashyyyk, Zeffo, even Dathomir was an option no matter how much you disliked it as Cal recalled.

“Nothing… just nothing,” he sighed in defeated.

He combed back his hair with his fingers as he steered away from his holotable after slamming the off switch. He leaned against the wall of glass that gave him the view of the barren horizon that stretched beyond the lava rivers. His forehead thumped against the glass as he took deep breaths.

Cal didn’t want to admit it, even if hard training has been ingrained into his mind and body for seven months now, he still feels lost in all of this. The Eighth Sister shrugged it off as the same feeling as being the newcomer of the town—which is exactly just that. The excelled in all aspects of the training, further improving the training he’s received under Jaro Tapal, impressed—and intimidated—the ranking officers present in the main command center with his unconventional yet effective strategies, and silently climbing his way through the ranks.

In the midst of the silence—which he enjoyed—he hoped that there would be something to come up any moment… but there was none.

The viewscreen fixed upon his wall suddenly fizzled to life, he paid attention to the admiral seen on the other end of the call.

“Admiral,” Cal acknowledged.

“Eleventh Brother, the Grand Inquisitor will be transmitting a message. Shall I relay it to you?”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Very good, my lord.”

The call rippled and then faded out. Cal donned his Inquisitor outfit with an urgency and pressed the button to bring his holotable back to life. Shortly after, the projection of the Grand Inquisitor’s bust hovered and occupied the center space of the holotable, it was large enough to prompt Cal to step back a few paces just so he wouldn’t hurt his neck.

“I hope you haven’t gotten dry on the girl’s trail, Eleventh Brother,” the Grand Inquisitor hummed.

“It won’t be long until we find the girl and her treasonous crew, Grand Inquisitor,”

“Remember your true objective here, Eleventh Brother, the precious cargo that they have with them is what you should set your sights on. The girl is merely collateral,” the Grand Inquisitor’s projection cracked static in between words but then continued. “If she does prove to be powerful like you say, then we will bring her to our ranks. Only then will she realize the magnitude that the Dark Side could factor in her powers.”

“Never have I doubted that insight, Grand Inquisitor,”

“Very good. I expect many a great things from you, my boy.”

Without the formal conclusion, the Grand Inquisitor switched off his transmission and his hologram crackled away into the air.

The pressure is on, but Cal didn’t dwell too much as it would have completely compromised his focus. The idea of taking you in, turning you into an Inquisitor, constantly ran in the back of his head—it was the outcome that he hopes for. He wanted to meditate—he longed for that dark tranquility—but can’t seem to find the peace that will help him latch on to connecting with the Force. The activity has become staler for him nowadays, if he did try, it went back to the exact same as he was before: he loses control while under the trance.

Cal decided it would be a good idea to take a walk. He ended up observing the assembly procedure of the facility from a reasonable distance on a platform. The whole factory worked in a harmony in piecing together the parts: heavy metal banged on the thick conveyor belts, sparks spewed out from the joints of the machines, until the machines have created the finished products—ship parts that will still undergo a second stage of assembly, power cores that glowed bright orange as it came fresh from the manufacturer.

Much later, he was joined by the Fourth Brother. A smug bastard, as Cal always thought.

“I see machines fascinate you,”

Cal rolled his eyes and had no choice but to wallow in this banter, “I grew up around them.”

“Ah yes, I recall the Second Sister calling you something of a sort,” the Fourth Brother, Ezir, pondered. He unnecessarily snapped his fingers as if trying to recall the word.

“A scrapper.” The boy grumbled.

“Ah! That’s the one,” he sniggered and continued to watch with the Eleventh Brother. “Look at that one, over there. Isn’t that worker pretty? Looking past that oil and grime on her face, I wager she would look divine.”

The Eleventh Brother didn’t comment on that, he kept silent and continued observing the manufacturing.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I forget that you already have the love of your life! Though she’s in one side of the galaxy, and you absolutely have no idea where she is,” Ezir scoffed. “I saw her once that time in Magyon. I have to say, she is rather beautiful. How many men do you think have thrown themselves over to—”

While keeping cool, Ezir struggled on his next words. He tugged his collar a bit, coughed, gulped, and cleared his throat. The faint squeak of a glove prompted him to turn to Cal and noticed that his hand was positioned to a grapple, then he turned the Fourth Brother to look at him in the eye.

The boy Inquisitor’s face creased, mouth curled to a snarl, and a fiery rage burned behind his clear, blank, quiet eyes.

“String your words carefully, Fourth, they’re not always as smooth as you think they are.”

The Fourth Brother gurgled in his own spit, struggling to speak a single word back at the Eleventh Brother. He looked almost pitiful in Cal’s eyes, it doubled when he yielded, tapping his chest—crumpling his dress shirt in the process—until his tormentor released his grip.

“Bastard,” Cal scoffed as he walked out on Ezir and left the observation platform.

#cal kestis #cal kestis fic #cal kestis x reader #cal kestis x reader fic #star wars #star wars fic #sw #sw fic #star wars jedi fallen order #star wars jedi fallen order fic #swjfo #sw jfo #swjfo fic #sw jfo fic #jedi fallen order #jedi fallen order fic #jfo #jfo fic #dark side! cal kestis #dark side! cal kestis fic #inquisitor! cal kestis #inquisitor! cal kestis fic #redemption arc! cal kestis #redemption arc! cal kestis fic #inquisitor #inquisitorius #the grand inquisitor #dark side #dark side of the force #angst

[cherry3point14]

Stranger Than Fanfiction: Ch 3

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x Reader Warnings: Meta baby. Pure meta. Word count: 2,100. Chapter Summary: Your google search turns up something unexpected. A/N: No author in this one for... reasons. Also this one is kind of short and lame. A means to an end if you will, but trust me, Ch 4 is a doozy. P.S it’s nearly 3am so Chapter 4 will be up when I wake up, ya dig.

Ao3 if you prefer

It’s almost funny how dramatic the voice in your head wants to be about those suited criminals and yet it doesn’t care to elaborate on anything important. Like, say, your imminent death. The mention of it was so casual, calm, but a couple of weirdos want to pretend to be insurance adjusters and suddenly it’s all pretty prose and run-on sentences. Flowery language about broad-shouldered men in roaring muscle cars that are going to change your life. She’d kept going while you’d interviewed Maggie Hall. She’d harped on and on about how you couldn’t stop thinking about them.

Of course, you couldn’t stop thinking about them, she wouldn’t shut up about them.

After an entire monologue about the way the paper felt in your hands and could never be replaced by computers—purists are the worst—you finally get to leave. That's when you get some respite. You’re walking out into the late afternoon sun and thanking Maggie for her time and it's bliss. Maggie's story sounds a little off, after years doing this you have this gut instinct for when you should investigate further. Funnily enough, you have drama in your life that you’ll submit a valid claim anyway. Just so you can get this cursed case out of your hair. You might even hurry it through the system before the thing has the chance to kill you.

You’re still not sure how a case could kill you. You’re a pencil pusher at best and the interview with Maggie is an excellent example of the majority of your fieldwork, obviously excluding the criminals at the start. Unless your demise is death by papercut.

For now, you’ve given up trying to fathom out the voice you’re hearing, especially since she's chosen to once again go radio silent. If she won’t say anything useful, like say how not to die, then you were going to have to figure out how to skip ahead on your own. Since she kept talking about the imposters you’d met that day, they seemed to be an excellent place to start.

CNK 80Q3. Ohio plates. That's as much as you know without google.

That evening you set yourself up in the same way you would to work from home. There's a desk in the corner of your dining room with a chair that offers enough lumbar support for the longest of research sessions. Although it’s your personal laptop and there’s not normally a large glass of wine sitting next to you when work.

After it powers on you’re assaulted by the usual pop-ups; windows you forgot to close last time and your emails. Procrastinating is not a new routine, and you’re on a mission, so they all get minimized instead of closed completely. Then you open a new browser window and a stark google homepage stares back at you. A hopeful new beginning.

CNK 80Q3. You’re genuinely surprised that she hasn’t started talking again to describe the change in the air as you type in the plate number. Or some drivel about the way your fingers emphasize each letter and number. It’s all there happening anyway, making the moment foreboding, but your narrator doesn’t seem care.

The first row of results are images. Weirdly its images of the license plate itself. That doesn't strike you as odd at first glance and then you think about it a little more. Why are there so many pictures of this particular license plate? Who is running around taking these pictures? You're pretty sure if you typed in your own plate number there would be no pictures of it. And then you see some shopping results where you can actually buy the plate. While the online shops might explain the images, it only really poses more questions. Why are so many people buying that license plate? What’s so special about it?

You take a sip of your wine before you scroll further, savoring the taste as well as the way it relaxes your shoulders. You don't own any 'fun' novelty coasters that say it but you're inclined to agree with the statement you've heard before. Wine really does make everything better.

You’re not yet into the murky depths of page 2 but you’re far enough down the page now to make it past the sponsored results. These links come thick and fast from websites that all seem to have one word in common. Supernatural.

Then you see your salvation. A page called Supernaturalwiki—the link is simply titled: Impala—and you stop scrolling, a grateful sound slipping past your lips as you do. Wiki, you know that word. Like Wikipedia. Wikipedia has references and moderators', clear and concise explanations. This was the easy way out you were looking for.

That’s what you hope as you click on the link anyway. Your naivety lasts all of twenty seconds before the page loads. With its stock image of a 1967 Chevrolet Impala, and a quote about it being the most important object in the universe.

Or it's the most important object in some books at least.

Further clicking and longer sips of wine reveal it’s a series of books called Supernatural—with the title of the wiki you should have seen that coming. These were story after story of ghosts and demons and angels? There are pages that describe monsters, urban legends, and two men. Sam and Dean Winchester. They each have dedicated pages with their whole lives mapped out.

Sam and Dean are fictional brothers and apparently the heroes. Each of their respective profiles begins with an illustrated image from book covers, and then a series of quotes that contradict those pictures. Then their lives are intricately detailed, or should you say they are chronologically recorded according to each book. You would read their histories in full if it wasn't for how tiny the scroll bar is, indicating that these profile pages are ridiculously long.

You sit back in your chair and take a deep breath in the hopes of it being soothing. Or answering all your questions. It does neither. You have no answers and more stress.

This went beyond two men pretending to do your job now. Those guys were driving around in a car with fictional license plates. What was this? Some weirdly immersive cosplay? Was that something Sam and Dean did in the books?

Even so, those two guys weren’t roleplaying at comic con, they were actually in that woman's home. If you hadn't arrived they could have done anything. They could be doing anything now.

There's a ding from the kitchen which means the frozen meal you’d thrown in the oven is ready. Not that you stop thinking about this while you go and grab it because the more you think the less sense everything makes. Like why is a narrator who, until now, was obsessed with those guys, so very silent all of a sudden?

Back at your desk with hot food, you head back to google to see if you can buy these books anywhere because knowledge is power. Unfortunately, not even Amazon has copies. It’s only when you add the term “ebook” to your search do you find a Tumblr blog with links to download all the files, split into two categories. Published and unpublished. There are a lot of Supernatural books and from the looks of it there’s an equal amount of drama over how the unpublished ones got out.

You start downloading them without consciously making a decision to read them. Downloading kind of happens because your macaroni cheese is too hot for your mouth to handle yet, and your hands still need something to do. Besides you didn’t necessarily need to read all of them, if they were truly terrible you’d delete the files. No harm, no foul. But if this was the only way to get answers then you and your kindle were going to be pretty busy this weekend.

“Morning Laura.” Nobody likes Mondays, yet you have a little bounce in your step having made your usual green tea, got dressed, and driven to work in complete and utter silence. In fact, you’d heard nothing all weekend. The caveat was that, yes, you’d spent all weekend reading those books.

You liked reading and without discrimination. Trashy romance novels at the airport? You betcha. Fantasy books thicker than your mattress? Sure thing, order a pizza. But a mystery? Well, those were your favorite. Of course, the detective needed some sort of sketchy backstory and there had to be a fishy amount of red herrings. Most importantly there had to be something to solve. It was an elevation of your day to day life and you always get sucked in. In your job, you try to solve the most benign mysteries; people faking insurance claims. More often than not there isn’t even a mystery to solve, someone really did slip and break something. So, a mystery that grabs you out of nowhere is like a promotion for you, a challenge.

That had been how those Supernatural books had dragged you in. Ghosts and ghouls you could take or leave, you might have stopped reading if that’s all there was. Then this Carver Edlund went and put in that damn side plot about their missing father. It was too enticing, addicting. From the cryptic disappearance to the indecipherable journal of clues. John Winchester would be the death of you.

Or case 24-01 would be. The jury was still out on that.

And now it’s Monday. You’ve heard nothing more from the voice in your head—it may have been a low-level case of carbon monoxide poisoning—and the boys are so close to figuring everything out you can taste it. Technically they know John is alive by now, you finished Shadow some point yesterday afternoon and felt yourself choke up at the emotional goodbye with a father they just got back. But they still have no clue what he's up to, which is a hideous funhouse mirror reflection of your own life. Hopefully, by the time they figure out John’s game plan, you'll have your life figured out too. And fingers crossed figuring everything out will involve staying alive as well.

“You look like you’re feeling better this morning.” Laura is her perky self, always a little too happy for this side of 9am.

Oh right, you went home sick on Friday. You should remember things like that. “I think it was a bug or something I ate maybe.”

“Sure, sure. One of those convenient Friday bugs.” She winks at you.

If she accused you of that say, last week, you’d have laughed it off given that's a thing everyone has in common; trying to skip out on work. So, that's what you try to do this side of the weekend. You push out something that hopefully resembles a regular person's laugh like you’re in on the joke. You have to fake it because you’re still thinking about Providence. The book you’d finished that morning instead of watching the news. You’re still wondering if Sam is starting to move on after Jessica. 

Needless to say, you understand now. The many fan blogs and the artwork you’d glanced at before you started reading. All those things that you’d disregarded as an unhealthy fascination for a bunch of books. Now you’re one of them, obsessed. Walking into the office with your kindle tucked in your bag and Salvation just begging to be read.

This goes beyond finding John. That plot got its hooks in you but you’ve known John was alive since Home and you’re still reading. You could also blame this on your general love of reading except it goes beyond that too. Honestly, it’s hard to pick one thing. They’re really great books. Sam and Dean have such turbulent lives but they still have each other. They’re snarky, lost, angry, and caring. They’re both so different but the sibling relationship is so real. And the stories go beyond a new monster every book, there are these huge interesting story arcs that you couldn't stop reading if you tried. John Winchester had been the first example of these addictive plot points, but not the only one.

“Y/N?”

You snap your head up, “sorry, sorry.”

“I was only saying you’re going to be here all day then, lunch?”

Even though Laura must see the decision on your face she still pretends to hope until you start speaking. “Actually I have a lot to catch up on so I’ll probably be working through. Tomorrow?”

She smiles brightly and nods, “sure thing.”

As bad as you feel about lying to Laura she has presented you an opportunity. Everyone thinks you were sick on Friday. They even think you're behind on your work and they don’t know you’ve already conducted the initial interview. Which makes your decision to sit at your desk and prop your kindle up next to your screen even easier. Nobody would notice the difference between you concentrating or reading. If you skip lunch you might be able to get to Bloodlust out of the way too.

Continue to Chapter 4.

5eva tags: @divadinag @darthdeziewok @fluentinfiction @witch-of-letters @supernatural-teamfreewillpage @magnitude101999 @alexwinchester23  Dean babes: @thewinchesterchronicles @akshi8278​ @bloodydaydreamer StrangerThanFiction tags: @jaylarkson

#dean x reader #supernatural fanfiction #spn x reader #dean winchester x reader #spn fanfiction #supernatural #spn #spn fanfic #supernatural fanfic #dean winchester #dean winchester x you #dean x you #dean x y/n #dean dean the soft lil bean #honestly this isn't a strong chapter and I kind of hate it but I need it to get to the last part because GUYS #I actually wrote a fucking outline for this #can someone please be proud of me #like you don't need to read this just be proud of me #anyway it all comes together in the end and just EUGH chapter 4 is way better just stay with me till chapter 4 #LITERAlly the next chapter #also I am tired so if this is poorly edited as well as poorly written then I am sorr #y

[98prilla]

Abductions, Past and Present

Next

Previous 

AO3

...

Remus’s breath catches and he’s backing up, backed into a wall, backed into a corner. He can feel his breath getting caught in his throat, his heart hammering against his ribs, and it’s dark, too dark, and suddenly he’s back, back in the cell, back in the black, except it’s smaller, it’s so much smaller, iron bands wrapped around his arms and legs, climbing up him until he can’t even wiggle his fingers, until they cover his mouth, then his nose, and he can’t breathe, he’s suffocating, they’re suffocating him, and he wants to scream, but he can’t, he can’t, and he can hear Him, whispering, taunting, just like he always does, it echoes in his ears along with his silent scream until they’re ringing and there’s still no air-

 Contact. He flinches, lets out a garbled shout that comes out as more of a strained whimper. The touch quickly moves to withdraw, but instinctively his hand shoots out, latching onto the contact like it’s the only thing left in reality, and he’s drowning, drowning in his own mind, his own thoughts, his own memories

 “remus.” His name finally makes it through the ringing in his ears and his head shoots up, wild eyes locking onto whoever’s face, Logan’s face, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, because it’s not Him, it’s not Him, it’s not Him! “can you nod, if you can hear me?” Logan’s voice is soft, softer than he’s heard it before, and there’s emotion in it too, instead of the clinical cold tone that sets his teeth grating. Slowly, with effort, he manages a nod. “that’s good. You need to breathe, ok? Can you breathe in, 1,2,3,4” Logan counts, and he screws up on that, the very first part, and his heart rate rockets up a notch, because now comes the punishment, now comes the pain, now comes the hurt, as a result of his failure, of his stupidity, he can’t do this, he can’t do anything-

 “it’s ok, Remus. It is perfectly fine. Let’s try again, ok? Just do whatever you can. No one is going to hurt you. You’re doing fine.” Logan, again, soft and… and worried? He doesn’t know, but he doesn’t sound angry, as he starts counting again, and Remus tries, in fits and starts and gasps, he tries, until finally, he can breathe again, and he collapses into a ball on the floor, gasping sobs flooding out of him in bitter waves as his head clears from the thoughts, from the memories, from the fears, from the pure intensity of his emotion, one that doesn’t even have a name, just a mix of sorrow and loss and fear and deep, keening pain.

 He realizes Logan is still there, has dropped to the floor with him, and he feels guilty at pulling him down too, realizing he’s still gripping his arm, probably hard enough it hurts, and between breaths he gasps out an apology.

 “It’s perfectly fine, Remus. You can hold on as long and as tight as you need. Do you want me to get someone else? I… know you are not fond of me.” He shakes his head, because he can’t, he can’t be left alone like this, he can’t force himself to let go, or he’ll drown again, and he’s afraid if he plummets again he will hit the ground and smash into a million pieces.

 “okay. Did you have a nightmare?” Logan asks softly, and he laughs, because the last decade has been a waking nightmare, half of Roman’s entire life has been a waking nightmare, and he apparently cannot function unless he’s being tortured, because he’s fallen apart more since he’s been rescued than the entire time he was held captive!

 “that’s only natural, Remus. While under such extreme duress you didn’t have time to question or think, every moment was spent on survival. Your mind is trying to process ten years of trauma all at once. It’s not easy, it’s not something your brain is made to do, it shouldn’t be something you have to experience in the first place. It is only natural that now that your body has realized it doesn’t need to expend all it’s energy on fighting, that it’s trying to understand and comprehend everything you’ve been through.” He uncurls slightly, looking up at Logan, face so different from the impassive mask he is used to, softened around the eyes and mouth, a slight frown on his lips, sympathy and worry and pain in his clouded silver eyes.

 “it just got so loud. I’ve… I’ve always been shit, at dealing with it, I always get nightmares, I always… I hate sleeping, I can’t…” He’s on the edge of losing it again, and he forces himself to breathe, forces himself to take deep breaths, but he’s lost what he’s saying. He feels Logan gently squeeze his arm back, and knows he understands what he’s trying to say, at least.

 “it’s ok to be angry. It’s okay to be furious. It’s ok to want to hurt the people who did this to you, it’s ok to want to destroy them, it’s ok to want your life back, it’s ok to scream and shout and punch things because it isn’t fair. Because it isn’t. It’s ok to grieve, Remus. However that looks for you, it’s ok.” Logan near whispers, and he’s silenced for a moment at the ferocity in his voice, at the venom when he spoke of the captors, and then he breaks again, surprising Logan as he falls against him, his tears reduced to sniffles now.

 “I want them back. I want my parents back, I want them to know we’re safe, I want them to know what happened, I want them to have closure, they probably think we got dragged off by cougar or something, they probably think we’re dead. I want Roman to have gone to middle school, to have gotten to high school, to have tried out for every school play, because he’s such a fucking good singer and actor, I want to have helped him run lines and gone to every performance and I would have beat up anyone who made fun of him for being into theater. I want him to have gone to college or gotten an audition and ended up on broadway, and I would have been in the front row screaming, cheering him on, and so would our parents. I want to have gone to high school, have gone to college, have become an artist, an animator, done something with my life other than be a fucking lab rat, and I know it’s not fair, and I know I can’t have any of that, but I’m so damn angry because the two of us can’t stop blaming ourselves for shit that they did to us!” He yells, shaking with exhaustion, spent and empty yet again, angry tears dripping down his face. “and I hate them. Because I want to hurt them, I want to tear them apart, I want to watch them scream and writhe and beg for mercy before I kill them with my bare hands. I’m just… I’m just like them. They made me their monster and I hate myself for it.”

 “No. You’re not a monster for wanting that, Remus. You aren't Them, for wanting that. You have a reason to hurt them, a damn good one, too. It’s not wrong to want revenge, though taken too far it can be damaging. They are the monsters. They had no reason to hurt you, yet they did, for their own selfish gain. That’s what makes them monsters.” Logan answers, voice shaking, but surprisingly fierce, and Remus feels him hugging him, firm and protective. “it took me a long time to learn, I still am learning, that it is ok to feel negative emotions, necessary, or you will never be able to let go of it all and move forwards. It hurts and it’s terrifying, but it gets better.”

 “does it?” he asks softly, he’s so tired and broken and so far beyond caring.

 “Yes. There's not a single one of us on this ship that hasn’t gone through some kind of trauma, and I swear it gets better. Not fast. Not easily. But it does.”

 “What? You… but you’re so…” Remus gestured to all of Logan as he pulls back, eyes wide, and Logan lets out a humorless laugh.

 “Yes, well, appearances aren’t always what they seem, are they? We each have a reason we got into the rescue and rehabilitation business. We've all lost something to the trade.” He sits silent for a moment, considering Logan, head tilted as he tries to make sense of him.

 “while… while we are speaking, I would like your input on something.” Logan pauses, and Remus nods for him to continue, a bit wary. “I know you dislike me, for obvious reasons, but I do not wish you to be afraid of me. I… is there anything I can do differently, anything I can do to make you more comfortable in my presence, I… anything you need, just ask it.”

 “oh.” He hadn’t been expecting that. He doesn’t know how to answer. He feels more at ease with Logan now, after he had talked him down from his panic, had helped so much, but he’s afraid that in the light of day, he won’t be able to help himself, help the fear, help the instinctual panic at the way he speaks, moves, acts. “it’s… it’s not you. You’re… fine.” He mumbles, fiddling with his sleeve. “you… I mean, I get it. You were protecting him, and I get that. I… wasn’t at my most lucid. I don’t mean what I said, anymore. I know you weren’t… weren’t trying to hurt me. Even if I can’t quite forgive you for it yet, I’m not… mad… about it anymore.”

 “then what is it, Remus? You don’t have to tell me, you don’t need to, I just… I want to be able to help.” Logan asks, reaching out, and he doesn’t pull away, as Logan slowly rests a hand atop his.

 “it’s not even to do with you, really. It’s… Him. The Scientist.” He says, nearly whispers, irrationally afraid that saying the name will summon him. “he… he moved, like you do. Had the same, I don’t know, the same sound to him that you usually do. But you don’t sound like that now. You don’t… you don’t make me think of Him now.” He replies, staring at the ground, aware of Logan’s gentle exhale, close to a sigh.

 “He was probably the same race as me. Straevion. We are… curious, intellectual. We learn things very fast and very thoroughly. Most of us become scientists or engineers or mathematicians. We love exploring, discovering, studying. And many of us are ethical, interacting and learning from different species we encounter, respecting and studying the cultures, the language, the worlds. We thrive on learning, really. But there are many who see themselves as above, as better than, because we are more technologically advanced than many worlds, therefore those worlds are lesser, those peoples lesser. They see other races as not really other peoples at all, just animals. It’s wrong, and horrendous, and despicable, and I hate that the Council that rules our world does nothing to stop it. That’s why I do this, Remus. Because somebody has to stop it. I know that it’s a reflex. That it is ingrained that my general appearance equals pain, but I will never knowingly hurt you. And if I accidentally hurt you, tell me immediately so I can rectify the situation and avoid causing harm in the future. I swear it.” Logan’s voice is serious and heated, and passionate, and a smile pulls at the corners of Remus’s lips, because Logan is so much different than Him. He just has to try and remember that, try and push past his first instinct to run.

 “ok.” He whispers, meeting Logan’s eyes for a moment, before looking away, though it was long enough to see the slight smile on his own face, enough to see Logan once again understood without him having to say all the words what he meant. “I, um. I came out here for some water, before I, y’know, broke down. I’m… sorry. For unloading all that. On you.” He mumbles, face going a bit red.

 “Oh, of course. You’re perfectly fine, Remus, I am happy to listen and help talk you through your thoughts, if that is something that helps.” Logan replies, getting to his feet, reaching out a hand to help him up. Remus hesitates for a moment before taking it, a bit wobbly on his feet, as he settles on one of the stools at the kitchen island, realizing the light has gotten brighter. It must be early morning. No wonder he was so tired, he hadn’t slept at all, and he’d had an emotional breakdown. He runs a hand through his already ruffled hair, letting out a soft groan.

 Logan sets a glass of water on the counter before him, and he slowly sips at it, despite his desire to chug it. Still, he empties it quickly, and Logan quietly refills it for him. He rests his head on his arms atop the counter, letting out another long sigh, tiredness filling every inch of his bones, but his mind is still whirring a thousand miles a minute, the reason he couldn’t sleep in the first place, he was never able to silence his mind.

 “You have insomnia.” Logan says, though it has the hint of a question. He nods, enjoying the feel of the cool counter against his forehead. The luxury of having space is incredible.

 “where are we going?” he asks, suddenly, curious, his mind wandering and trying to focus on anything other than the thoughts in the dark spaces.

 “Pardon?”

 “I mean, we’re on a spaceship, yeah? You can’t just be drifting pointlessly.” He gasps, shooting upwards. “Is there a window? Like, can you see out, into the stars and stuff? Galaxies and planets and stars, oh my!” he giggles slightly to himself, realizing he’s losing it a little, loopyness setting in a bit. Logan just chuckles, raising an eyebrow.

 “There is. We have a star map, where we chart our courses. The room also doubles somewhat as an observatory, with rounded, slightly tinted windows, so the light of passing suns and stars don’t damage anyone’s eyes. Virgil still can’t tolerate the brightness, his kind is especially sensitive to light. As for a course, we are currently heading towards a small, mostly plains biome planet known as Drakkia. We intend to stock up on supplies, as well as gather resources and information. Also some new clothes for the two of you, as well as things to decorate your rooms, if you like. If… you intend on staying, anyways.” His eyes are wide as he stares through Logan, imagination running wild, because the thought of stepping off a ship, feeling actual, solid land beneath his feet, feeling a sun on his skin, even though it’s not his sun, still… still.

 “Remus?” He realizes he’s crying again, and he shakes his head, snapping back to reality, smile bittersweet.

 “it’s been ten years since I stepped foot on a planet. Our whole world was the cell, the lab, and the testing rooms.” He says softly, just barely catching the stricken look on Logan’s face, the flash of anger that vanishes quickly as he takes a deep breath.

 “well. You are no longer confined anymore. We will arrive in approximately two days. That being said, I can show you the observatory later. I am the chief navigator, if you are interested in how the ship itself flies and works.” He perks up again at that, excited.

 “I loved building things. I even made a few robots, before. Always got in trouble for taking things apart to figure out how they worked. Wouldn’t’ve been a problem, cept I could never put it back together right. Started a loooot of fires.” Logan chuckles again, shaking his head.

 “Do your best not to light anything on fire while onboard, please.” Remus snorts, head thumping back down against the counter, giving a thumbs up.

 “Lo, did you start the coffee already? Oh. Hi.” Virgil, sounding a bit tired himself, and he gave a small wave without removing his head from the counter.

 “I did not.” Wait.

 “Coffee?! You have coffee!? I was gonna fall asleep on the stool, and there’s caffeine here!?” He shrieks, glancing between the two slightly taken aback aliens with wide, excited eyes.

 “Um. Yup. No one else aboard can really handle it, it’s a little like poison to them, but I’m less physical, of a being so it doesn’t do much. I take it you want some?” Virgil asks, clearly holding back a snicker.

 “I was hoping you would get some actual sleep instead of choosing to stay awake via drugs that would literally make my heart explode.” Logan replies, looking sternly at them both. Earlier, that look would have set his heart racing, his pulse panicking, but now, that fear is easy to push through with a scoff.

 “What kind of a heathen are you? Coffee is the drink of the gods. It’s barely a drug, have you ever had Meth? Now that is a drug that will get you buzzed. Heroin isn’t so bad, though, it mostly just makes you feel good and sleepy. Must be why they didn’t use it as often. Acid though,” he shivers at the thought, “that just is wild. I always had a bad time with that one.” He looks up, and realizes Logan’s face has darkened again, and Virgil is looking at him with mild concern and something soft, before he turns away, and pulls out the cups without commenting.

 “Remus… “ Logan starts, but sighs, trailing off and shaking his head. He’s about to say something else, when he hears a scream from down the hall and his head whips around.

#sanders sides #space au #alien sides #remus sanders #sympathetic remus #logan sanders #sympathetic logan #roman sanders #sympathetic roman #virgil sanders #sympathetic virgil #trauma #past trauma #past torture #past abuse #panic attack #ptsd #non consensual drug use #remus angst #piles of remus angst #so much angst #logan does a good #he's trying so hard

[potahun]

DMBJ Reboot Watch and Brainstorming

Brainstorming here cuz I pretty much lost the main plot watching eps 21-22 and I want to remember some of the pieces that are making me ponder (spoilers up to eps.21-22 ahead): 

In the notebook of the guy called Du Ming Qiu (the past Cang Guan from the Children’s Warehouse), Wu Xie found a picture of the plane that crashed, and it was mentioned that the spirit jar was on the picture too. That plane crashed somewhere on the south-western border 30 years ago. The crash revealed the location of an ancient tomb.

We’ve got 2 things here: Plane, and Spirit jar. We also have a 3rd thing, which is the history of Warehouse 11 itself, so I’m going to think about it one by one.

Plane: In the first ep, we were shown that Wu Xie and his Third Uncle went to the location of the crash and that there was a transnational archaeological team put together to investigate the tomb at the time. In the tomb, shit happens, and the Third Uncle disappears (that’s how the ep makes it seem). Wu Xie gets out alive. We’re not told who saved him or took him home, but everything was on fire. For what it’s worth, we’re actually not told if there’s any connection between that tomb and Thunder City.

The Plane gets stored in Warehouse 11. We’re not told who did that.

Also, sometime, we’re not told when, Third Uncle went to the mute village and followed the path of the Underground river to search for Thunder City. We were told that he went with the son of the guardian of the village, and that her son (and presumably Third Uncle too) disappeared then. 

As far as I know, unless those two things (Thunder City and tomb on the south-western border) are in the same location (or are the same thing), that means Third Uncle disappeared fucking twice. How does that work? I have no fucking clue. 

So the only theory I can think of now is that, despite the way it was presented in ep1, Third Uncle didn’t disappear in the tomb on the south-western border. Wu Xie remembers that tomb and remembers the fucking airplane, but he never links those two with Third Uncle’s disappearance. He probably would have searched that way if Third Uncle disappeared then. So my current guess is that Third Uncle actually came out of that tomb, took Wu Xie home. Subsequently, as he was involved in the ‘listening to thunder’ business, he went to the village with the Underground river, where he actually disappeared. 

Where does that lead? I have no fucking clue. 

Spirit jar: We are told that the Spirit jar was on the picture with the plane, and we presume that it was first found post-crash. So this jar came out from the tomb on the south-western border 30 years ago. 

The Spirit jar gets put in Warehouse 11. We are again not told who did that.

We are told by Du Ming Qiu that the Spirit jar was initially stored in the Children’s Warehouse (incidentally the nth reason why Warehouse 11 is fucked up and I have no faith in it). How did the jar get in, when the access to the Children’s Warehouse is only big enough for a child to get in and out? We are not told. We are told that the reason the jar was kept in is linked to how it could keep the humidity of the Children’s Warehouse at bay. 

Subsequently, at an unknown point in time  but when Du Ming Qiu was already an adult, the Spirit Jar has been moved out of the Children’s Warehouse. Since then, murders happen and 6 past Cang Guan from the Children’s Warehouse got killed. 

Why was the jar moved out? We are not told. 

Also, the Children’s Warehouse was closed down a number of years ago but we are not told how many years ago or why. We are just told that the records of the children who used to work there have been destroyed in a fire a “number of years” ago. We are not even told whether the murders started happening before the closure of the Children’s Warehouse i.e. while it was still working. 

When it was still working, the Cang Guan of the Children’s Warehouse would switch every 4 years. The plane crashed 30 years ago. 6 x 4 yrs, that’s already 24 years, so this means that pretty much all of the Cang Guan who had known the Spirit jar as something belonging to the Children’s Warehouse, got killed (except, perhaps, the last “child” Wu Xie is looking for). 

So the only theory I can think of right now, but this is almost pure speculation, is that the reason why all the Cang Guan who saw the Spirit jar in the Children’s Warehouse got killed, was because (i) the very reason why the Spirit jar was moved out was directly related to why the Children’s Warehouse had to close; and (ii) to prevent them from inquiring into why it’s been moved out. 30 years means a rotation between a maximum of 7-8 child Cang Guan, and we know six have been killed. Presumably, the missing “child” was the acting Cang Guan when they moved the jar out and closed the Children’s warehouse. Presumably, also, this final acting child Cang Guan has been intermittently watching, from inside the jar, the moves of all previous child Cang Guan, once the jar was moved out. 

Incidentally, how was the jar moved out? A few possibilities: (i) the access of the Children’s Warehouse is too small for an adult but could be big enough for the jar (doesn’t seem like it from what we see but wouldn’t argue too much with the logic). That would explain how they stored it in there to start with; OR (ii) they smashed the jar and pieced it together again, both when they stored it in and when they took it out (why tho). That would explain why there were traces of it being smashed before and such; OR (iii) there is another access to the Children’s Warehouse and no one bothered to explain where it is or why adults can’t use it; OR (iv) the one outside is just a replica. That’d be weird tho.

Did the last acting child Cang Guan kill the other 6, or did this “child” only watch out and notify the murderer about their moves (e.g. notify the murderer that xxx is getting too close to the jar)? No fucking clue. Where does that lead and how does that connect to the main plot? Also no fucking clue.

History of Warehouse 11: We are told by Bai Haotian that, according to “legend”, Warehouse 11 is only 100 years old. 100 years ago, it was established by an unnamed merchant, who initially used it just to store some peculiar goods. Then, at one point, all the precious antiques in Warehouse 11 as it was before, were hidden in a river (unnamed) that ran for 20-30 miles. 6-7 years later, someone else rebuilt Warehouse 11, and spent 5 years getting the goods back up from the river. She says that, despite this, many areas of the Warehouse, as it was before, were abandoned and no one really knows what’s in there anymore. She also mentions that currently, Warehouse 11 is only at approx. 30% capacity. 

Well, no matter what is stored in the abandoned zones, based on the “legend”, that means those goods could only have been stored 100 years ago. Max. We are not really told how old exactly the legend of the Nan Hai Wang/King of the South Sea is (I think?) but in ep. 3, Tang Tang mentioned that back in the Han Dinasty, this country of the Nan Hai Wang (Nan Hai Luo Yun Guo) already existed. Han Dinasty, that’s like 202 BC–220 AD according to Wikipedia. That is dead ass old. So if there is anything related to Thunder City in Warehouse 11, that’s a REALLY big piece of the plot that hasn’t been remotely explained yet.

Questions:

What is the link between the tomb on the south-western border and Thunder City? Location-wise, we know both of them are located south-west. On one side, the Underground river is meant to lead to Thunder City and the entry point is the mute village somewhere in south-east asia (I think they never specified the country, but still that’s south-west of China). On the other, the plane is also said to have crashed on the south-western border. It could be that these two locations aren’t too far from each other, but if so, we haven’t been told that yet. 

What is the link between Warehouse 11 and Thunder City? Warehouse 11 is only 100 years old, man. Given the facts we currently have, if anything stored there is related to Thunder City or the country of Nan Hai Wang, it was most likely stored after the plane crash 30 years ago. At this point in time, we probably can’t even rule out the possibility that Third Uncle is the one, or part of the ones, who asked to have them stored there. 

We are also told that at some point in time, presumably after the plane crash, Third Uncle went to Warehouse 11. At that point, he was already talking about there being thunder in the warehouse, so we can presume he was already involved in the “listening to thunder” business. This could be before he disappeared in Wu Xie’s eyes, or after. No one knows. If he is the one to have asked for Thunder-related goods to be stored there, it would be a plausible reason why they would allow him to be in Warehouse 11 (he’s there to check his own goods). The only other possible reason he’s there is that, as we’ve been shown in eps. 17-18, the staff of Warehouse 11 are inconsistently highly competent or incompetent bastards, so I wouldn't put it beyond them to have let a whole ass Third Uncle infiltrate either (God I hate this warehouse). Either way, Third Uncle’s been there. The only theory I can think of now is that he was checking on certain goods that have been stored in there, following the plane crash, and were related to Thunder City and Nan Hai Wang.

What is the link between the Spirit jar and Thunder City? Fuck knows at this point. It could be that the mystery surrounding it is just some kind of by-product, caused by certain things happening in the Children’s Warehouse. All we know at this point is that there is a reason for the Spirit jar to have been moved out of the Children’s Warehouse, and that they had to close down the Children’s Warehouse. That's a huge lot of possibilities. We don’t even know how long it’s been since Third Uncle disappeared so for all we know, something he did could be the reason why the Children’s Warehouse had to be closed. I have no fucking clue. Anything to do with the Spirit jar is, to me, a big fucking question mark at this point. 

So one narrative based on 70% speculation and which stands ready to be corrected at any point, is this: 

Third Uncle, following the excursion with archaeological group 044, came out of the Nan Hai Wang Palace (in China) and discovered a beginning of something with Mu Xue Hai and Yang Da Guang. At that point, this we’ve been told, a “mysterious” group of people had helped to get Mu Xue Hai and Yang Da Guang out and became interested in Thunder City. Thus, Mu Xue Hai, Yang Da Guang and Third Uncle were involved more deeply in this business, probably against their will. 

The plane crashes. As someone who was already involved in this Thunder business, Third Uncle is part of the archaeological team that investigates and sees if this old tomb could be related to Thunder City. He barely makes it out unscathed because there is a shit ton of weird stuff in the tomb on the south-western border. But he does make it out and takes Wu Xie home. He and/or mysterious people ask for all the stuff they find from the tomb to be stored in Warehouse 11.

This said, Third Uncle is still involved in finding Thunder City. Possibly at this point, as part of the investigations, while Yang Da Guang is struggling to listen to thunder everywhere, Third Uncle goes to Warehouse 11 and finds clues there, probably based on what’s been stored there after the crash. Possibly at this point in time, stuff happened and the Children’s Warehouse had to shut down.

God knows how, perhaps in Warehouse 11, they find a new track to the village in south-east Asia and the Underground river. Perhaps, and this is a stretch, the track he finds wasn’t even stored there after the plane crash, but was just one of the things that were fished out when the “new” Warehouse 11 was built. Anyways, Third Uncle goes to the Underground river. As far as people are aware, he’s gone for good after that.

At some point in all these shenanigans, Third Uncle met Jiao Lao Ban and almost got him killed. (????????) Jiao Lao Ban is potentially part of the mysterious group of people who were involved in finding Thunder City with Third Uncle.

Mysterious people, having lost ways to control Third Uncle’s actions, try to get Wu Xie to finish the job. Hence the messaging and getting him into Warehouse 11 etc.

I am lost and stand ready to be corrected at any point regarding this word vomit. It’s just that this Warehouse 11 stuff is so damn convoluted and I have no idea how the hell it’s supposed to connect to the main plot otherwise. 

Also, in all this thing, we have no idea what Er Shu is hiding from the others. Great.

#dmbj #the lost tomb reboot #chongqi #reunion the sound of the providence #wu xie #dmbj watch #I wonder if tomorrow's episodes will have any more info #how to ruin a beautiful pacing and make it terrible 101

[afinepricklypear]

hello!!! im really sorry to bother you! im a huge fan of your powerless series and i was very excited to see you beginning to post the next instalment, but i just had a question!! od*zai makes me really uncomfortable for personal reasons and i was wondering if there would be any of it in the fic? again im really sorry for bothering you vnjdfklnb

I don’t know when this was asked, I rarely come here...but I’ll answer as best I can and hope it’s not too late. I really don’t want to spoil the story too much, but I can also understand that many fanfiction readers (myself included) don’t like too many surprises in their fics and, when it comes to a multi-chapter fic, they don’t want to invest too much time in a fic that might disappoint them in the end. I also understand that for many people (once again, myself included), ships can make or break a fic, and that many people have notps (I, personally, have *a lot* in BSD), so I’ll try to give you an indirect answer.

I’ll start by noting that I do tag most things appropriately -- including romantic relationships that will appear in the fic, so that’s always your best bet for determining if a particular ship will show up in one of my stories -- sometimes things come up as I’m writing that I didn’t anticipate, and I’ll always warn when the tags of a fic change. I also try to tag when a fic will have an ending that the readers might not be satisfied with.

However, I feel like you might be able to guess the answer to your question too if you read my notes throughout the series. I’ll reiterate a few things I’ve said in the past installments here:

- I’m not a huge fan of Oda. It’s not that I dislike him, I just don’t particularly like him either. I’m neutral about him, I guess. Apathetic is most appropriate. I just don’t feel that the character was well developed by Asagiri. He’s flat and bland. His personality traits read off like a character the author is desperately trying to make readers like by cramming arbitrary positive characteristics down our throats that feel as though they weren’t fully thought out or given much impetus: he rescues orphans, wanted to retire as a novelist, mafia grunt that never kills (though he doesn’t quite qualify as a ‘criminal with a heart of gold’ like Chuuya because we never see him do anything criminal...but then again, we never really see the Port Mafia doing a lot of criminal things beyond murder). He also knows nothing about fairytales and apparently that makes him interesting -- and not an idiot(?) -- to Dazai. In short, like his ability name, he’s basically Flawless. Unless you count his breakdown in Dark Era when his plot devices...er...I mean, orphans that he rescued, each of whom are indistinguishable from one another (except Sakura because, she’s *the girl*) were killed by Mimic, which spiraled him on a Saint’s Martyr journey. 

OMG. He’s the Gary Stu of BSD. I never realized it before.

Er, I’m ranting. I didn’t mean to turn this ask into an Oda-Bash, and I mean no offense to his fans. We all connect to different parts of a character, and I just...didn’t connect to anything with him. That’s not to say I wouldn’t rise to the challenge as a writer of giving the character more depth than presented in cannon.

- I’m not so much a multishipper, as I don’t care about any other ships in BSD outside of DaChuu. Not much else to add to that one...

- I won’t be introducing any romantic pairings into the story that weren’t tagged in the first story of Release, because it would be wholly unfair to the readers who’ve stuck with me through to a fourth story to suddenly throw a curveball at them with potential notps. So, while there might be hints to other pairs (teasing, more like, similar to cannon), no new romantic pairs will be confirmed and the readers are free to interpret relationships between characters how ever they want...though I might note in comment replies my own preferences on those ships, that isn’t to say that the readers are wrong in reading into characters within my story their own shipping preferences since the characters are otherwise meant to be close to cannon, and there are no cannon ships...therefore, anything goes.

- I want to see Dazai and Chuuya move towards a healthier relationship in Release. As it stands, there are a lot of growing pains they would need to go through to get there. It’s not enough to “confess your feelings”, relationships are built on a lot more than that. They’ve got a lot of bad history, in cannon and as established throughout my story, that they need to work through. They have certain understandings that they relied on in the past to work with one another which no longer hold true, and so they have to figure out new ways to work together. There’s a lot made of the trust between them, also, in the story, they themselves and characters like Lady Murasaki have made mention of the solid trust between them. The problem there, however, is this trust predated their confession to one another, and is, therefore, built on a foundation that is regardless of love. So it isn’t really a great measure of the state of their romantic relationship -- a mistake, I might point out, Dazai may have already made.

- Not technically me that said this last one, but I would also refer you back to chapter 2 of Lock-Down, where Chuuya and Dazai briefly talk about Oda. Although Dazai is rather aloof about his feelings towards Oda there, he is very clear that he and Oda were never romantically involved while Oda was alive.

...

Something I haven’t really said, but I do want to create space for it here, is that there are many different kinds of love. When I set out writing Release, I wanted to keep as many things as possible close to cannon, I wanted the characters as close to cannon as I could get them, tweaking only what was necessary to make the story work. One of the things from cannon is that Dazai’s relationship with Oda had a powerful impact on it. I see a lot of soukoku writers deal with this by ignoring or downsizing the relationship between Oda and Dazai, or changing Dazai’s relationship with Chuuya to "elevate it” -- for lack of better phrasing -- to the same level. What can’t be denied about cannon is that Oda meant a lot to Dazai, his dying words inspired Dazai to leave the Port Mafia, and in the Beast AU, he changes *everything* and even, arguably, puts Atsushi and Kyouka through a kind of hell to create a world where Oda lives and finishes his novel. I would be a terrible fanfic writer if I didn’t at least acknowledge that it is made obvious in cannon Dazai does love Oda...however, it all depends on your perspective what kind of love that is. Odazai fans like to interpret it as romantic love, and that is their ship, nothing wrong with it, but romantic love isn’t the only kind of love with power, and it’s not the only kind of love that drives people to do whatever necessary for the life and happiness of that person. 

Within the context of the Release series, Chuuya also interprets Dazai’s love for Oda as romantic love. This itself is a conflict, but it’s representative of a larger conflict in their relationship...that being Chuuya’s insecurity with regards to Dazai’s feelings for him, which is a theme I really want to explore. I don’t know that it’ll ever explicitly be discussed, but a lot of the trauma from Chuuya’s assault by Dante is actually closely tied with this insecurity too. It isn’t Dante’s actions that affected Chuuya so terribly, rather the newness of his romance with Dazai at that point in time, and how easy it felt for him in that moment, for Dante to brush aside “Dazai’s kisses and touches”. It really represented for Chuuya how fragile and vulnerable his feelings for Dazai are, and how afraid he is that he’ll lose whatever is developing between him and Dazai before he ever really gets to call it his own.

An element of the Release series that I use to drum up drama and suspense, and which I try to impress on readers is that, with few exceptions, we’re only getting Chuuya’s perspective. His information is limited, and his interpretations of events and the people around him are not always going to be reliable. But we’re on this journey with him and we learn most information at the same time that he does. In this case, the important thing isn’t whether Odazai is a thing, it’s that Chuuya *believes* it is a thing. This creates a nice conflict, because it’s very problematic, highlighting that, while Chuuya trusts Dazai with his life, he doesn’t (yet?) trust Dazai with his heart. A partner secure in their relationship would be understanding that they’re not the only important person in their lover’s life, and that their lover can have strong emotions of love for others without it changing their love for their partner. Thus far, it hasn’t come up as a major conflict in their relationship, because Oda is dead, but recent revelations in the fourth Release story (the reliability of the character who gave the reveal, notwithstanding) raises some interesting questions stemming from: what if Oda could be brought back to life. Most readers seemed to have accepted Chuuya’s logic built on his personal narrative that Dazai was in love with Oda and vice versa, that if Dazai is trying to bring Oda back, he’s using Chuuya to do it as some sacrifice, because he truly loves Oda and wants to be with Oda, and that his relationship with Chuuya is meaningless. So, if we stay within that perspective we’re left with the one question: is he really trying to bring Oda back? -- and the conclusion drawn from it being: if he is, he doesn’t love Chuuya, and if he isn’t, he does love Chuuya. But there are some other important questions I don’t see too many readers asking, such as: are these things truly mutually exclusive? Would Dazai being romantically in love with Oda represent the only explanation for why Dazai would want to bring Oda back to life? Would Dazai really see bringing Oda back as being in conflict with his and Chuuya’s developing romance?

Of course, this added potential motivation for Dazai aside, stopping the Grimm Brotherhood is paramount. This is a dangerous organization that is doing horrendous things, and their mysterious machinations are made more ominous by the fact our heroes don’t fully know their ultimate goals. Thus far, everything that’s happened involving Chuuya has been beneficial towards bringing down the Grimm Brotherhood. Regardless if Dazai is pursuing the Brotherhood for personal reasons, his actions still align with the motivations of the Agency and Chuuya.

I don’t know if this answered your question but I hope that you might trust me as a writer that has no intention of “pulling one over” on the readers and that you will continue to stick with the story. I don’t get my jollies from leaving stories with unsatisfactory endings. I believe that there should always be an appropriate payoff that the story built towards. Thank you for the question, thank you for reading and enjoying my other stories, and I hope that you take care!

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 123 Thoughts

#spoilers

You know, I, for one, am not shocked. From an outside view, our options were Eren going through all this trouble to fix everything once and for all with a genius solution that only works with grand forbidden power--

--or Eren continuing to make everything worse.

His most enduring strategy has involved making everything worse.

I’m not mocking him. That honestly seems to be the point.

What’s interesting is how unhappy he seems about all of this. He’s angry when his dad needs him to step in to wipe out the Reiss family. In the aftermath, he’s despondent. He takes Armin’s punches and insults Mikasa. He allies himself with Zeke but makes no effort to build their relationship. He goes out and cries over all the things he’s about to do, but he still does them.

That’s the part of all this that seems strange to me. Eren finally losing to the pressure of being Paradis’ hope is a depressing storyline, but not that weird. Burning everything to the ground because that’s the only way he can see out anymore is something that I can see coming from an Eren who’s taken one too many hits. Sometimes something essential cracks. Sometimes people break, and when the storm that shatters them comes free, there’s nothing left to hold it back.

Only Eren’s relentless adherence to his goal doesn’t seem to be something he’s happy about. He doesn’t lose his stress lines the entire chapter, except when Mikasa brings him ice cream. I don’t think he’s had a scene without them since the time skip.

He can see the future. He makes it to Marley, and all he can do is stare at all the people. Alive.

Eren knows what he is going to do. He goes out alone his last night with his friends and cries about it. There is no appearance of this being something that he wants. The only thing that’s seemed to resonate properly since he left everyone is Willy’s declaration that they were born into this world.

He spends one last night with his friends, and leaves them forever.

This is not someone who is so far gone that this is it. This is what fixes everything. That might be where he gets the energy for all of it, but his last honest moment with anyone seems to be asking Mikasa why she cares about him.

Even by Eren’s current standards, he does not look good when he asks.

"Why is it... that you care so much about me?”

What value does Eren have as a person? Who is he? Who does the person who has been most obvious in her affection for him see?

That’s how this chapter opens. With Mikasa asking herself that question.

“But maybe that’s wrong. Eren hasn’t changed one bit from the start. If that’s who Eren truly was all along... what part of him... had I been seeing?”

Eren is someone who can kill children. He can take advantage of his friends’ love and dedication and manipulate it so they have no choice but to cooperate. He can throw his entire country’s desperate hopes to find a new solution out by leaving the room without discussion.

Before that step, he stands by himself and cries. And asks someone who loves him why she even cares. What creates this bond that the future he sees has him destroy.

Over eighty chapters ago, someone else tries to ask someone they love this question. They also get the wrong answer back.

“I mean… I decided to join the Survey Corps on my own. But… you didn’t, right? Back then… you chose the Survey Corps… Because I...” “Because what?! Huh?! Are you saying I joined for your sake?!”

“Then why are you here right now? If you don’t have a reason, then just start running...”

“Why… Why would you do that much for me? Does it have… something to do with my family?” “Yeah. It does.” --37, Krista and Ymir

That saga has its own tragedy, and here we repeat the refrain that causes the most miscommunication; that simple inability to admit the vulnerability of caring for another person by choice and happenstance.

Eren asks why. He wants a direct answer. He frames it first by going through the excuses. He saved her. They’re family. She’s said it often enough.

But is that it? Is that all that sums up her link to Eren? Is it just circumstance?

What is it that Mikasa values in him?

Mikasa can’t tell him the full truth. It’s too much for her to admit. So of course that, when the world is falling to pieces, is what lingers. That last moment of honesty she has with Eren, and she can’t make herself tell him any of the truths that maybe could have stopped this.

There’s no logical reason to think it would have, but Mikasa wonders for, I think, the same reason Eren asks at all.

Is there something valuable enough in Eren that just being Eren is enough?

Can something that isn’t the big picture and humanity and everything--can he find stable ground in that?

The answer was probably always going to be no. Eren’s been beyond friendship speeches for longer than I think any of his friends want to contemplate. But the picture Eren paints is someone who wants to be reminded of his humanity before he throws it away.

Mikasa, hearing that now, knows she couldn’t do that in that moment.

There is a very clear line following Eren through his decisions, but the logic of why he’s picked them is still missing. If the thread of him simply wanting destruction is to be followed, you find his obvious unhappiness whenever he’s confronted with what he’s about to do. If he truly believes he’s doing the right thing, why isn’t he sharing the strategy with Armin, or Hange, or Levi, or any of the people he’s already waded through blood with?

What is so important about Eren doing this, and why is it so important that he does this alone?

The Zero Requiem strategy demands that Eren be the villain of this piece, and he’s playing that part well, but there’s no stable end in this version. He’s simply antagonized both sides to the point of loud voices chanting for genocide.

Framing Paradis as the villain could arguably be the point, but Eren’s firmest declaration about why he’s doing all this is directed at other descendants of Ymir. The only ones who know he’s willing to slaughter the world for Paradis are the people who are already dealing with everyone hating them because of this one damn island.

The state of the world is not such that you can have the good Eldians in one corner and the bad Eldians in another.

Focusing on the island has been the rule of the land for a while, and it’s helped nothing. All Eren has done is bring yet another titan-led wave of destruction down on everyone, reminding them why the hatred started.

Really, the case that Eren’s doing this for precisely the reasons he says he is is the one that makes the most sense, and so we come back to him having clear problems with his own idea.

Additionally, while there are going to be those Eldians who are psyched about everyone else being dead, there are probably going to be more who are traumatized and horrified, so at the end of all the stomping, you’re just going to wind up with different groups of people in wars.

This doesn’t solve anything.

Like Liberio, it’s a bloodbath with the main accomplishment being that more people think Eren should be taken out.

Getting as many people to hate him as possible is the only consistent result of everything Eren has done.

Which is nice, since that suggests that maybe there’s some kind of logic buried under all of this.

Except the aim of making everything worse has only succeeded in making everything worse.

So. Like.

Everything’s worse.

Make everything worse.

Worser.

More worser.

The worstest.

Things are now worse.

Congratulations on a successful plan.

This is why Armin is usually stuck with this.

I can’t even be properly upset that Eren’s setting loose the rumbling, because something is clearly still missing. Not to be a broken record, but we’ve got unseen flashbacks with Historia and our little pickpocket, and Historia’s the only named character permitted to be featured listening to Eren without her face visible.

This after 108 made a big show of pointing out how strangely inconvenient the timing of the pregnancy was. Unless having Zeke alive mattered to someone.

As previously discussed, that adds to the worser pile, clearly making it relevant.

So yay, Eren has succeeded in setting himself up as The Worst.

Now we wait for why while an undetermined number of people are sacrificed to whatever unholy abomination of a strategy this qualifies as.

...Yeah, that’s all I’ve got.

Oh, wait.

This part was good.

This too.

It’s a curious chapter. There’s so much light and joy in pieces, and everywhere we look we see reminders of why these are the people we’ve rooted for. Levi won’t let a pickpocket get lynched, even if it causes their cover issues. Mikasa’s eyes sparkle at ice cream. Armin’s excited to be out in the world.

They party with a group of people they don’t have a language in common with. It’s that easy.

All of that still exists, so what is it that makes this the logical next step?

Why introduce so many devastating cycles only to keep them going? Why would someone--several someones--actively opposed to perpetuating this kind of violence settle on a plan that loops a new one around?

The only answer I can come up with is that this isn’t the final word on what’s going on.

So, in keeping with the chart...

The worse continues.

To the secret better.

#Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK 123 #Eren Yeager #shingeki no spoilers #SnK spoilers #spoilers #tl;dr #chapter post

[buckybarnesbingo]

The amazing results of last night’s game, “3 Prompt Summary”!

Everyone threw in three prompts, and then let loose on the prompts and created fanfic summaries based on the prompts!  There are a lot of VERY INTERESTING ideas in this bunch!  

Here’s the first example round...

Prompts from LLightz - soulmates, Steve/Bucky, dog

Summary by @rebelmeg​ - A dog. His soulmark was a dog. Which was no problem, Bucky liked dogs. But... a dog?! A golden retriever with a smiley dog face and a blue collar. Go figure.

The rest are under the cut!  There are a lot of them, and they are so cool!  There’s an amazing mix of characters, prompts, angst, fluff, crack, and everything in between.

Prompts from @magicadraconia - Cloak of Levitation, Stark Expo, butterfly kisses

Summary by @fightingforcreativity​ - How Strange lost Levi was beyond him. But he assumed it had to do with the smitten Super Soldier and Engineer. Somehow Levi had it in his mind that those two needed some help. So, Strange knowing that they were to be at the next Stark Expo opened a portal. Finding his cloak planting butterfly kisses on Stark's cheek was something he didn't expect at all.

 Prompts from @rebelmeg​ - coffeeshop AU, glitter, Sam Wilson

Summary by @themadhalewrites​ - When a pride parade ends up in Bucky’s Coffee Shop he ends up not only having to clean up the glitter but now his glitter soulmate mark that matches up with the parade leader Sam Wilson makes sense.

 Prompts from LLightz - Enemies to Lovers, Highlander, Stucky

Summary by @fightingforcreativity​ - Being alone for so long has hardened Bucky's heart. He had lost everything back then. His friend, his brother, his lover. All to another Highlander going by the name Captain America. What a travesty. Since then Bucky had tried to hunt him down. His sworn enemy with eyes so similar to his former love.

 Prompts from @dreaminglypeach​ - Pepper, only one bed, kidfic

Summary by @rebelmeg​ - Bucky didn't understand it. The entire Stark Lakehouse, but there wasn't a single couch or guest bedroom open? At least, not unless Morgan Stark was willing to give up her bed, which, given the obstinate expression on the little girl's face (and WOW did she look like her dad), she was not about to share. Luckily, Pepper comes to the rescue. Albeit, in a kind of weird way...

 Prompts from @rebelmeg​ - coffeeshop AU, glitter, Sam Wilson

Summary by @dreaminglypeach​ - Sam hates coffee. Like, really hates it. Won’t drink it, can barely even stand to smell it, even talking about it makes him feel vaguely queasy. Why, then, does he work in a coffee shop? That, my friends, is a long story, involving glitter, puppies, and the incredible stubbornness of a dumbass named Steve Rogers.

 Prompts from @themadhalewrites​ - Lost, Hidden Love, Mystery Child.

Summary by @fightingforcreativity​ - Oh the f*ck Tony managed to get lost in this freaking forest was a mystery. Just like the child with brown hair, and steel grey eyes following him, hiding in the trees now and then but always there. Tony could feel it on his skin. How should he know, that the child, was the man, Tony had loved so fiercely but has had to hide it for James was not of the same standing like him.

Prompts by @fightingforcreativity​ - Love at first sight, missing, one date

Summary by LLightz - They'd had just the one date... Nat and Clint had set them up... pretending it was a chance encounter at their local gym, but he would have noticed the gorgeous brunette with the soft wavy hair and sky blue eyes if he'd ever been there before... It had been love at first sight... but he hadn't shown for their second date, and the number he had been given for him kept going to an invalid number…

Prompts by

@rebelmeg​ - Sam Wilson

@themadhalewrites​ - hidden love

@dreaminglypeach​ - Pepper

Summary by @magicadraconia - Pepper had always had a thing for boys in an Air Force uniform (her crush on Rhodey had lasted for years), so it was natural that that would expand to include the newest Avenger as well. It was just such a pity that Sam Wilson was now a wanted fugitive and hiding out from the world somewhere. Oh, well, she was about due a vacation anyway. Perhaps she'd try Wakanda this time…

Prompts by @rebelmeg​ - coffeeshop AU, glitter, Sam Wilson

Summary by  @fightingforcreativity​ - Glitter. It had to be glitter. Now he had glitter in his hair, glitter in his clothes, probably also in his underwear and glitter in his coffee. He was so done. Sam wanted nothing more than to smack Bucky for this. And he would, if Bucky wasn't the cutest and hottest barista in town.

Prompts by @dreaminglypeach​ - Pepper, only one bed, kidfic

Summary by @fightingforcreativity​ - Pepper was a godsend. No one and nothing would ever convince Tony of something else. Even though he was a bit miffed that he had missed out on the end that was fun. No Steve, James and Tony had to get deaged to their kid years. All included. And dang, considering the pics, the three of them had been clingy at hell, sharing everything after they had to share one bed, because Tony hadn't put in more than one guest bed in the lake house.

Prompts by

@fightingforcreativity​ - love at first sight

LLightz - highlander

@Magicadraconia - butterfly kisses

Summary by @rebelmeg​ - It had been like something out of a period film, or a romance novel, the moment he appeared out of the mist. His shoulder-length hair was damp, and tiny droplets even clung to the stubbled on his face, the jawline so sharp it was like glass. And it was utterly unfair how amazing those legs looked in a kilt. But that? Had been nothing compared to the way it felt when he reached out, his palm calloused, leaving the softest of touches on a warm cheek. Like butterfly kisses... Love at first sight wasn't supposed to be a real thing. It wasn't. And maybe this wasn't it. It could have been something else that sent the heart racing, goosebumps rising up over every inch of skin, a swooping sensation in the stomach that spun like dizziness. Could have been something else. Right?

Prompts by  @fightingforcreativity​ - love at first sight, missing, one date

Summary by @themadhalewrites​ - Stephen had only briefly caught sight of the man during the absolute carnage that was the Battle of New York, but just that glimpse was enough to make his heart race for a different reason than the adrenaline that had been pushing him until now. But he was never able to find the man; it was like he'd vanished into thin air. It isn't until he becomes the Sorcerer Supreme - with the ability to travel the multiverse - that he's able to find the man again. Now if only he could muster the courage to ask for a date…

Prompts by

@themadhalewrites​ - Mystery Child & Lost

@magicadraconia - Cloak of Levitation

@dreaminglypeach​ - Pepper 

@rebelmeg​ - Glitter & Coffeshop

Summary by LLightz - He should never have taken it off in the coffee shop, but he'd been trying to shake off all the damn glitter that had caught on it from all the paraders outside, and then he'd been distracted by the long-legged strawberry blonde who'd brought him the iced mocha... and now the priceless cloak of levitation was missing! That mysterious kid had run past so it was possible he might have snatched it, but there were so many people around that he didn't know where to start looking... Strange was going to kill him !!!

Prompts by @rebelmeg​ - pet fic, bakery AU, crack

Summary by  @fightingforcreativity​ - Iron Mouse was supposed to be a joke, not a thing. Rhodey was snickering madly while Sam grinned mischievously. Tony hated his friends and coworkers. He was a god damn baker, not a pet caregiver. Well... until now apparently.

Prompts by  @fightingforcreativity​ - Love letter, grieving, dancing

Summary by @themadhalewrites​ - He never expected that while we was grieving the death of a Tony, he would recieve a video love letter from Tony where he was drunk dancing to horrible music.

Prompts by @magicadraconia - Stars, "Oh, a wise guy, eh?", chicken soup

Summary by @fightingforcreativity​ - "And there you can follow the line of Taurus, then there is-" 

"oh you're a wise fella, huh?"

"What-" 

The brunet came closer and Tony saw that it was indeed the super soldier. "Mind if I sit and listen? Ma used to tell me about all the stars but I can't..." 

Tony didn't need that sentence to be ended. He knew what Bucky was about to say, and he didn't want to hear the hurt so he interrupted with: "Only if you make that chicken soup for me and Morgan you did the other day."

Prompts by LLightz - Lake, Mythical creature, Parachute 

Summary by @rebelmeg​ - Okay, so jumping out of a plane had been unplanned, but that's what parachutes were for. And now, Bucky was basically just having a nice, lazy float down, watching the world rise up to meet him with idle interest. At least... until he realized that he was drifting rather closer to the lake than he'd like. And, um... was there supposed to be something huge and MOVING in there?!

Prompts by @themadhalewrites​ - Lies, Baby bottles, "These aren't mine"

Summary by @dreaminglypeach​ - “I can explain, Pep!” Tony gushes, desperate to get the words out before she comes to her own conclusion about what’s going on here. “I know she said it’s mine, but it isn’t, I swear, there hasn’t been anyone but you for months, it’s a practical joke or something, I don’t know, just please, Pep, you have to believe me!” 

Pepper, goddess that she is, just sighs, takes the baby from his arms, and proceeds to make it actually drink from the bottle Tony’s been trying to give it for twenty minutes now. “Okay,” she says. “We can figure this out.”

Prompts by

@fightingforcreativity​ - Dancing

@themadhalewrites​ - "These aren't mine"

@dreaminglypeach​ - Alcohol

Summary by @magicadraconia -  It had been a really good beach party, lots of booze, lots of pretty young women - and men - to dance with, but now Rhodey was trying to help him find his pants so he could go home. Ah, those looked like his! "Hey, wait a minute, these aren't mine!"

Prompts by @themadhalewrites​ - Lies, Baby bottles, "These aren't mine"

Summary by @fightingforcreativity​ - Sometimes, in the depth of the night, Steve just needed something that would remind him of better days. Of days he had dreamed about being his everything. Those nights Steve took out a carton, filled with baby things, bottles, nappies all kind of stuffed animal things. Lies, beautiful lies in a beautiful box. Because Steve never had that. A baby. A family. How could he? He had been to sick to have a dame and when he wasn't anymore, he was in the war. "These aren't mine and yet..." And yet the blond wished for nothing more than to have buy those things for his own babe.

Prompts by 

@fightingforcreativity - Grieving & Love Letter

@dreaminglypeach​ - Alcohol, Dystopia, Nat

Summary by LLightz - She didn't think she could sink any lower than this... sitting on the blood and dirt stained floor at the foot of some stranger's bed, reading through their crinkled long-forgotten love letters with a quarter-full bottle of Vodka in one hand, a torn up kitten plushie tucked against her chest, and tears silently staining her face... she hadn't ever experienced any of this for herself and here she was, at the end of days, vicariously grieving through someone else's heart.

Prompts by @dreaminglypeach​ - Alcohol, dystopia, Nat 

Summary by @rebelmeg - "Here's to us," Natasha reached over and clinked her chipped mug to Bucky's, very nearly clumsy in her movements. Which, considering who she was, meant she was probably so drunk she could be lit on fire and used as a torch, her blood alcohol content was so high. 

"Lone survivors in a dead wilderness." Bucky intoned flatly, focusing very hard on not slurring. "Yay us." 

"You think there's anyone else out there?" Nat nodded out, towards the ruined landscape outside the cave they'd taken shelter in. 

With a shrug, Bucky finished off his drink and leaned back, bracing his weight on his elbows. "Who cares? This is all gonna be gone by tomorrow anyway. All that matters is that we get and stay drunk between now and then."

(And the commentary, because it’s too good)

Prompts by LLightz- Lake, Mythical creature, Parachute

Summary by @fightingforcreativity​ - Springing out of the plane without the parachute, again, wasn't the greatest plan Steve had in a while. Everything arched, because he landing in the lake. How water could be so hard and hurt like a bitch was a mystery to him. How he hadn't drowned when he fell into it, because he froze, plagued by flashbacks, was another mystery. And who had that beautiful man been? the one how embraced him and... saved him?

Prompts by @dreaminglypeach​ - Alcohol, dystopia, Nat

Summary by @fightingforcreativity​ - Nat was the last Avenger standing. Well, she didn't do much standing these days, nor fighting. But she was still there. Still inspiring a sense of fight in the youth. Being the last Avenger had hurt so much, she could understand now how Tony, who had lost everything over and over again, had lost himself in the bottle in the end. She did the same until she didn't. until Morgan and Peter and Harley and Shuri got to her. Helped her, inspired her to be the role model they needed to win. To finish the evil, the dictator who had ruled and burned them all for the past 10 years. She finally got up again, leading a war against Hydra, against Captain Hydra.

Prompts by

@fightingforcreativity​ - grieving

@dreaminglypeach​ - alcohol

@themadhalewrites​ -  lies 

Summary by @rebelmeg​ - Was an ex-Hydra supersoldier assassin supposed to be cute? Especially when he was sitting on the floor, clutching a bottle of vodka like a teddy bear, and sobbing like a baby. 

"You've gotta be kidding me." Sam muttered. "This has to be a joke." 

Steve just shook his head as he facepalmed. "I reeeeeally wish it was." 

"You LIED to me!" Bucky wailed, kicking out at Steve with a sniffle. "You LIAR. I hope your pants catch on fire IN YOUR SLEEP!" 

"This is ridiculous." Sam swatted away Bucky's hand that was tugging at his pant leg. "Stop it. You are being stupid." 

"HE'S A LYING LIAR WHO LIES!" Bucky bawled, taking another swig of vodka. "I DEMAND RESTITUTION."

(i have no idea what the lie was, but bucky is GRIEVING and it's VERY SERIOUS, SAM)

And more priceless commentary!

Prompts by @rebelmeg​ - pet fic, bakery AU, crack 

Summary by @rebelmeg​ - Shuri cooed at the black panther cub in her arms, tickling it under the chin and beaming when it took a swipe at her hand. "I'm just SAYING, you'd probably get some really good business if you made treats for pets too. It's hard to find a good treat for cats." Bucky barely graced her with a glimpse of his resting murder face before turning away. "I am not making you gourmet cat treats for your illegal pet." "He's not illegal!" Shuri protested, cuddling the panther cub to her chest like he had insulted it.

"Does T'Challa know about it yet?" 

The teenager blinked a couple times. "That's beside the point."

Prompts by 

@rebelmeg​ - pet fic, bakery AU, crack

@magicadraconia - Stars, "Oh, a wise guy, eh?", chicken soup

@themadhalewrites​ - Lies, Baby bottles, "These aren't mine"

LLightz - Lake, Mythical creature, Parachute

@dreaminglypeach​ - Alcohol, dystopia, Nat.

Summary by @fightingforcreativity​ - Bucky had loved the dog next door when they had been kids. He had tried to argue with his ma over and over and over how he would take good care of a pet if he ever got one. but money was tight and his sisters and Steve's health were more important than having a pet. So one of the things Bucky did when he remembered and was 'fine' was looking for a dog. He hadn't expected to find a cat, but he loved her dearly. Bucky was stable for a while, had a cat, had a job at a local bakery and some odd jobs here and there. At night he would look in the sky, trying to figure constellations seeing the stars differently then he faintly remembered. 

At the same time on one of those stars far away, a star named Earth, Tony Stark held his baby boy, feeding him some stardust with a bottle. Whispering, "One day you know you're the world. One day you know, you are a wise guy. But wisdom comes with age and until then you are smart." 

Natalia was with him, in the back looking onward, knowing things she shouldn't. She had tried to drown the foresight with alcohol, it never lasted. Flashes of their world, their planet destroyed, burned and scourged plagued her since she was a small child. "These aren't mine" she had said over and over when the doctors viewed her mind, when BARF showed Tony her innermost secrets. 

Beside Tony everyone judged her though. Believing her to be cruel and wanting this. But she didn't. The boy in Tony's arms proof of that. On silent soles she made into the kitchen cooking the chicken soup her mother taught her. 

A side glance to the parachute they had rediscovered. The parachute of their friend and lost lover. It had floated on a lake not far away. And.... If myths were to be believed it would lead to a world beyond. To a star far away. A star Tony was looking at. A star Bucky hopefully now lived on. amongst the mythical creatures, cats.

AND THAT’S A WRAP, FOLKS!  Leave our contributors some love, they deserve it!  And you never know... maybe some love will get an actual fic!

#buckybarnesbingo2020 #bbb2020 #discord party #party game #3 prompt summary #fanfic #summaries

[bemused-writer]

VNC Chapter 41 Analysis

What a chapter! After reading this one, I was left reeling a bit, I won't lie. Certain things didn't surprise me all that much, but then there were revelations that I definitely didn't see coming whatsoever. So, without further ado, let's take a look at what took place. The first thing we see is Olivier and Roland fighting side-by-side without much success. We already knew they were comfortable with one another, but to me this sort of cemented it. They've fought together many times in the past and they're used to one another's ticks.

Contrary to what I've been thinking, Olivier is definitely the more high-strung between these two, even in battle. XD Not that I ever thought Roland was high-strung, but Olivier is the kind of character who could have easily been written as calm and collected above all else in everything. Instead, he very much is not: he seems to be barely keeping a lid on it, at least around Roland. I'm loving this about him, because it actually fits in very well with his portrayal in The Song of Roland. He tolerated Roland's antics there, but he was completely done more often than not. For VNC it makes for an interesting foil to Roland. Olivier is more serious about his job, but Roland generally has a calmer personality, even as he branches off to do whatever he thinks is right. Olivier still maintains his more sensible, responsible streak from The Song of Roland, though. He reminds Roland that they're short on time. Soon, they will have to kill Chloé. I find this interesting because neither of them is happy about it. They're just doing their jobs. It's not super obvious what Olivier thinks about vampires just yet--he's been a lot more concerned with Roland just being a good paladin and not rocking the boat, but he's never said Roland is wrong to question either.

[Volume 4]

[Volume 5]

He strikes me as someone who will do whatever it takes to make sure Roland stays out of trouble. He even says that he recommended Roland for Jasper because he thought some responsibility would help him settle down. Now, in The Song of Roland, Roland was engaged to Olivier's sister, Aude. I wonder if some of Olivier's concern with Roland is because he views him as part of the family, a brother of sorts.

He also knows that Roland cares very much for his own family; he has several siblings and it sounds like he joined the chasseurs as a way of providing money for them. Personally, I think this is nearly the only reason why Roland obeys the chasseurs whatsoever. Olivier was right when he said Roland "believes in himself as a follower of God." He will do what he thinks is right first and foremost, consequences be damned. But the consequences of disobeying here are retribution against his family.

I'm very curious to see just how long Roland will manage to keep this up. Things worked out well enough this time around, but his loyalties are essentially split between the chasseurs and Noé. That can't last forever. Meanwhile, Vanitas has realized saving Chloé will be a little more difficult than he'd anticipated. This is at least the third time that a specific malnomen has been brought up. The second was in the catacombs:

[Volume 4] Vanitas of the Blue Moon: It's a vampire's shadow made physical. The shadow of one under this curse begins to writhe as if it has a will of its own. Swelling and growing larger and larger, it swallows the vampire to whom it belonged in the end. Prédateur is a glutton. It kills and eats anything it can reach. Until the moment it consumes the last of the life force of the vampire who created it, its only goal will be to devour life. When I first read this section, I assumed Prédateur was simply a manifestation, a part of the curse. However, the description of Chloé's malnomen gave me pause:

Vanitas of the Blue Moon: The trouble with this malnomen is that it can't be cured simply by deriving the formula for an inverse operation. Unless the curse-bearer rejects the theater of their own accord, the link can't be severed, and you'll end up erasing them along with the closed space. It's finally struck me that we're dealing with names. Specifically, Prédateur, Millie, and Loup-Garou way back at the beginning. Malnomen aren't simply part of being a curse-bearer, they have a life of their own. Perhaps they are literally members of Charlatan acting through another living vessel or perhaps they're lost vampire souls trying to find absolution. Maybe there isn't a difference between the two. There's a lot to consider there. Also, Vanitas of the Blue Moon definitely has a teacher's aura about her. Everything Vanitas knows about the book comes from her; he didn't simply figure this out on his own. And the way Vanitas of the Blue Moon is teaching him... It's like she knew he would need to do something about curse-bearers at some point. Sure, it could have just been academic, but why mark him and give him access to the book's abilities if she didn't think he'd use it at some point? The mystery surrounding her only continues to grow as well as what Vanitas's relationship with her even was. Either way, Vanitas has to convince Chloé that she should be cured. I want us all to think about this for a second. The fellow who literally said "I'll do as I please, use methods I choose, and no matter what you people want, I will save you without fail!" is now having to reason with a vampire and convince her he should be allowed to save her. Truly incredible. Makes me wonder, what if his issue with VotBM is that she wouldn't let him save her? There's a thought... But getting back on track, Vanitas still isn't great at reaching people through tender methods. No, he berates Chloé and points out things will be awful either way, so she better make up her mind real quick. I'm... not sure he was convincing exactly, but I appreciate his urgency. It works though. The fact that it's her choice, that she has to choose, finally wakes her up and she sees the destruction around her. More specifically, she sees Jean-Jacques. Chloé has never wanted to hurt Jean-Jacques. She hasn't understood him all that well as he pointed out in the last chapter, but she genuinely wants to do right by him. Not an easy position to be in. We finally get to see how Noé's doing at this point in his battle against Astolfo. These two are interesting for two reasons: 1) This is someone Noé can't just "fix." Astolfo's issues with vampires run deep, far more so than Roland's ever did. Noé isn't used to being confronted with a problem without a solution. He's been able to solve everything else so far, so Astolfo is the first real evidence he's had that the enmity between humans and vampires is beyond him; he can't use diplomacy with him. He might not ever be able to. 2) Noé is a good person, but for Astolfo everything he says and everything he does reminds him of the night his family was defiled and killed. We're used to seeing Noé as the good guy, but for Astolfo it's impossible for Noé to ever be anything other than evil. Even though we know Noé would never do any of those things, through Astolfo's eyes we see Noé's image slanted as it becomes corrupt, all because of what he was born as. It's exactly how bigotry in real life works. We can understand why Astolfo hates vampires, but at the end of the day it doesn't make him right or his cause just. Roland goes out of his way to explain Astolfo's history to Noé regardless of it being impossible for Noé to change Astolfo's mind. Why? My guess is that he thinks we should all understand our enemy. Roland didn't understand his enemy, vampires, until he met Noé and realized they could be good. Likewise, Noé can't understand those he fights until he learns some of them are irredeemable. I like that Vanitas is initially outraged at Roland doing this:

Vanitas has been worried this whole arc that Noé won't be able to handle Astolfo as we can see from his reaction to Noé saying he can handle him:

Honestly, this entire arc has been Vanitas worrying over Noé, incessantly so considering who we're talking about. He let Noé fight him in chapter 35, but he also didn't have a choice. No doubt, he thought Roland revealing how tragic Astolfo's past would stir Noé's chivalric side and he'd have difficulty once more. Vanitas knows Noé is affected by these kinds of revelations. When he told Noé his own parents were killed by vampires, Noé took it pretty hard and things went downhill from there. Turns out, Vanitas was both right and wrong to worry about this. When Astolfo goes into the details of how he's suffered, Noé looks affected, but what really takes him off guard is when Astolfo starts bleeding from taking too much of the tonic. Personally, I think this is how Astolfo was able to trap Noé and Noé was forced to lose his arm in order to avoid being literally blown to smithereens. I'll admit, this was the biggest shock of the chapter for me, as I'm sure it was for pretty much everyone reading it. XD I'll get into more detail on that in a second, but I do want to point out that the fact Noé didn't die, didn't hesitate so much that he lost his life, is a big shift for him, and it's thanks to Vanitas, who must have known he had to do something to counteract what Roland had revealed. Vanitas: Don't hesitate, Noé. Don't think about whether Astolfo's hatred is justified or not. Both humans and vampires act on their own concepts of justice. One's just can be someone else's evil. "Being right" is "power." It can easily turn into violence, a weapon that's much harder to deal with than malice. Don't brandish it. Keep it inside. Justice should merely be the light that illuminates the path ahead of you. Vanitas hasn't been prone to giving good advice in the past (or at least not advice Noé would take), so Noé's reaction is understandable:

He's shocked into silence. Vanitas is giving genuine, heartfelt advice, designed to help Noé with a difficult situation. It's possibly the most open we've ever seen Vanitas. Sure, he's told Noé things about himself in the past, but it was always veiled in anger or resentment. This was simply to help without any strings attached. Between how he's been treating Noé this arc and even Jeanne, we're seeing a much softer side of Vanitas than we had previously. And the advice doesn't stop there.

Vanitas looks so fond here and just a touch regretful. I wonder if he knows this way of doing things would never work for himself; he's already devoted to himself to revenge; it's Noé who gets hung up on what's right and wrong and how he can help others. Maybe he wishes he had that kind of solid moral compass for himself. We also see Roland smiling as they talk; he honestly likes, and is inspired by, their friendship. 

Another thing about these two panels is that Vanitas is being openly affectionate this arc, in front of Roland of all people, and I genuinely wasn't expecting it. This arc has been a whole lot of Vanitas fussing over Noé and everyone (except the person in question) noticing it. Behold my montage Let's take a look at how things have developed so far:

This isn't even including every single example, but you get the idea. Vanitas's way of caring is a mix of berating (because he doesn't know what to do with the fact that he cares), lying to anyone picking up on it, and opening up/being gentler when he's reminded that Noé really is on his side or by things he's learned about Noé more generally. Most of these events are prompted by Noé doing something first: Noé apologizes for wanting to drink his blood, Vanitas is nice to him on the train. Noé has a tendency to wander about, Vanitas tries to get the whole group to look after him. Noé has a hard time fighting against a particular type of person, Vanitas switches their targets/keeps Noé away from the problem, and reminds them of their goals. Noé is missing/kidnapped, Vanitas spends the entire arc worrying about where he is. Noé can't tell what is real, Vanitas assures him. Noé assures Vanitas that he doesn't look down on revenge as a motive, Vanitas wipes the blood off his face/promises to help Chloé. Noé learns the truth about Astolfo, Vanitas gives him the best advice he's given anyone in this entire series. If the catacombs arc was about Noé learning about Vanitas and helping him, then this arc is definitely about Vanitas caring for and helping Noé. 

Also, the advice Vanitas gives Noé about how justice should be the light that illuminates the path ahead of you? Who was it Noé compared to light only a few chapters ago? And was symbolically represented as the only light Noé can see?

None other than Vanitas himself.

We’re definitely seeing how these two are inextricably intertwined for the rest of the series.

 Anyway, getting back to the fight with Astolfo, Noé loses his hand and part of his arm in order to dodge the blast. The one thing he can't concede is Chloé and Jean-Jacques. More broadly, if Noé has the capacity to help someone, he can't back down, no matter what.

Dante's reaction to Noé's victory is one I wholeheartedly endorse. I, too, was pretty impressed. Even so, Noé's coming out of this arc a complete wreck. 8D

He still has a head injury, his shoulder seems to be pretty well sliced, and he's missing his forearm. I just... wow. But this raises several questions: How will Noé cope with only one good arm for fighting? Can he regrow it? Will it be missing the rest of the series? Can he withstand that much blood loss? Did Vanitas bring his medical kit? Because some first aid would be a good idea right about now.... Possibly the most interesting question to ponder out of these is "Can he regrow it?" The reason for this is that we already know Noé suffered some kind of extreme injury as a child:

For his entire left eye to be wrapped seems to heavily imply one of two things: it was either gouged out or otherwise severely injured. But we can see that as an adult he has both eyes and they both seem fine. If he was actually missing an eye, then he regrew it and the likelihood of him being able to regrow his arm increases. If it was simply injured, maybe not. But the one time Vanitas offered to give him medical aid, he was pretty nonchalant about it:

Even Vanitas thought that was a weird reaction. Perhaps Noé has unusually good healing abilities. Or he's stubborn. Guess we'll be finding out soon. 8D Also, I’m just going to hazard a guess that, seeing as it’s the same shoulder that’s been injured in both of these examples, the main difference will be that, while Noé turned away Vanitas’s help before, maybe he’ll accept it this time. It's also finally revealed that this whole time Chloé wanted to be human. I thought that must be the case; why go to all this trouble otherwise? It's terribly sad that she never felt like she was really herself once she became a vampire. She's never been able to accept who she is once her entire life. She's spent all these centuries trying to make her family, who has long since passed on, happy.

But Chloé's finally made a choice, and that choice is to remain with those people who are in the present, her new family: Jeanne and Jean-Jacques.

It's an almost suspiciously happy ending and I am fully expecting Mochizuki to take this down a darker path, but I kind of hope she doesn't. It would be nice to see these three get the happiness they deserve, and with how much attention has been given to Jean-Jacques and Chloé this arc, I think it would make a lot more sense for them to serve a role at the end of the series. The chasseurs (or maybe just Astolfo) might be the main problem, or possibly Charlatan itself. But right now, it genuinely looks like things have been taken care of, which would be great because I don't think Noé is going to last much longer if things keep up. Of course, this analysis wouldn't be complete without addressing "Luna."

I have two thoughts on what this could be. One, this is the name of the mark and marks might work like malnomen: they have a life outside of the purpose they serve. Two, Luna could be VotBM's real name and this mark is very literally summoning her power. When Vanitas uses his power, Noé remarks on the formula he sees:

This got me thinking, is he seeing the world formula itself right now or a physical representation of Chloé's name or soul so to speak? I'm leaning toward the latter if only because with Amelia we also saw a unique background when she was cured and it was completely different:

Flowers, which fits perfectly with her name. As for the next chapter, I'll admit I don't have a lot of guesses. I would think it would just be everyone recuperating and healing up. Probably some serious conversations will have to occur. I think it’s important to note that even if things go badly, Vanitas did keep his promise to Jeanne, which is huge. There was no guarantee, but he made the promise anyway and, lo and behold, he kept it.

 As for whether the peace will last, I have no idea, but I definitely think this arc is coming to a close and we'll be moving on to the next fairly soon. I'm looking forward to what happens. ^^

#vanitas no carte #vnc spoilers #long post #Bemused's post

[wienerbarnes]

Whatever It Takes (2/6)

Pairing: Bucky x Doctor!Reader

Word Count: 1,519

Prompt: Doctor AU

Warnings: Descriptions of disease symptoms, funny stuff

A/N: yay chapter two! thank you to everyone who showed me love on the first chapter and left the sweetest comments! 

SERIES MASTERLIST

Your loud James Brown and the Famous Flames ringtone interrupts the silence of the quinjet on the way to Avengers tower. Bucky feels a vein about to pop in his forehead as he glances up from his book in his seat across from you as you pull your phone from your pocket to see Abraham calling. He watches you glance at the screen as you pick out the pretzels in your teeth with your tongue.

“I thought you said you left your phone in your office?” Bucky questions, annoyed wrinkle in between his eyebrows.

“Just wanted to see if you’d be able to tell if I was lying.” You respond mischievously as you answer the phone and put it on speaker.

“Inspector Gadget speaking,” You greet as Bucky continues to stare at you.

“Where are you?” Comes Abrahams voice through the speaker, excitement poking through his voice.

“I’m on a top secret mission for the Avengers.” You inform as you kick your feet up on the corner of Bucky’s arm rest across from you. Bucky rolls his eyes and glances back down to the book he was reading.

“… Right. CT, history, and tox screens came back normal.” Jordan tells you.

“Her tendon reflexes seemed a bit weak to me, though.” Abraham argues.

“Areflexia could mean Miller Fisher.” You infer.

“Yes, Areflexia could mean Miller Fisher, but since her reflexes were weak and not absent, it means nothing, I’m releasing her. You can get back to your strip tease or Avengers-themed orgy or whatever it is your doing with your cosplay buddy.” Jordan states.

“You think the Avengers would allow such-“ You’re cut off by the dial tone as Jordan hangs up the phone.

…

Bucky leads you through the modern looking hallways of the Avengers tower and you sneak peeks into the many labs that line either side of the hallway. Large screens, cases and cases of tubes and containers with various liquids in them, even the hospital beds look like the most luxurious cots that money could buy. They probably are the most luxurious cots money can buy, you think. You finally reach an office at the far end of the hall and Bucky opens the door for you.

Inside you find Bruce Banner sitting behind a desk looking over various files and papers. He glances up at the sound of the door, removes his glasses, and stands to greet you.

“Dr. Bruce Banner. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Doctor, especially on such short notice.” Dr. Banner holds out his hand and you shake it gratefully.

“P-pleasure’s all mine. You’re Bruce Banner.” You ogle at him. First an invitation to the Avengers Tower and now you’re standing in front of the Bruce Banner?

Bucky smirks, amusement clouding his face as he takes notice of your admiration. It’s hilarious to him to see how fast your sarcastic and immature exterior melts into a star-struck, stuttering mess. It’s… endearing, almost.

“Oh! This is Dr. Curtis from the Mayo Clinic,” Banner gestures to a middle-aged woman sitting in a chair in front of the desk. Glasses hanging around her neck with a dark blue blouse and black slacks on her body, she stands and shakes your hand, too.

“Dr. Sydney Curtis on Immunology, Dr. Curtis?” You confirm.

“Oh, you’ve read it?”

“No, but it is keeping my piano level in my apartment.” You inform. Dr. Curtis’ smile drops and you see Dr. Banner’s eyebrow quirk upwards and Bucky stifle a laugh and disguise it as a cough from his position near the door.

“So, where is the poor, sick fella?”

…

“I’m afraid there will be some limitations on his medical history. Just let me know what you need and I’ll try my best to provide.”

Dr. Banner leads Bucky, Dr. Curtis, and yourself down a different hallway, presumably towards the Agent’s room.

“F-Y-I, my medical malpractice insurance doesn’t cover alien autopsies.” You tease.

“Don’t worry, all of that stuff is the next wing over.” Bucky chimes in, sending you a wink when you turn your head to look at him. He finds you more amusing now that you’re annoying more people than just him. Your wit is always clever and you always seem to know the perfect thing to say to push everybody’s buttons and make him laugh.

“Where was the patient when he fell ill?” Dr. Curtis asks.

“I’m afraid that’s classified. Assume there aren’t many places John hasn’t been. And, yes, John is a cover name.”

“Well, why do think it was an attempt on his life?” Curtis tries.

“We can’t tell you that either.” Banner replies, stopping front of one of the white rooms along the hallway.

“Well, what can you tell us?” Curtis asks.

“Yeah, did Oswald really have sex with Marilyn Monroe?” You ask. Bucky smiles and opens the door, leading in first followed by Dr. Banner, yourself, and Dr. Curtis.

Walking into the dimly lit room finds everyone staring at the frail looking man laying in the hospital bed. Pale skin, open sores, bruises, skin almost looking like it had bubbles forming it over it. Redness covers what’s visible of his body; arms, neck, and face. Dark circles surround his closed eyes and lips are cracked beyond belief.

“Good Lord,” Curtis whispers.

“Very professional,” You huff and throw a disapproving glance at Dr. Curtis.

“Five days ago he was 185 pounds,” Banner begins. “Perfect health.”

Silence fills the room as everyone observes the sick agent in the bed, wondering what could possibly cause this amount of damage in such a short amount of time.

“Cool.” You exclaim.

Banner walks over to the stack of files sitting on the small table at the end of the bed. He hands one to both you and Dr. Curtis and you realize it’s Agent John’s file, or at least a file with any information they’ll give you.

“We’ve tested him for every poison, every metal, and every biological agent we can think of.” Banner informs.

“It says in here that he ate a lot of chestnuts.” Curtis states, reading through the file in her hands.

“Woah, woah, woah. If the squirrel liberation army is involved in this, I want no part. Those little rodents will-“ You begin to mock.

“Horse chestnuts are poisonous, if someone switched-“ Curtis begins to explain but you interrupt her.

“Horse chestnuts may look like chestnuts but they taste like a horse’s lower-than-chestnuts. Which makes the theory that he ate a couple hundred a tad unlikely.” You argue. You don’t ignore the fact that both Bucky and Banner are both failing to hide their smiles at the banter between you and Curtis. You want to be professional around a very handsome, brooding soldier and the doctor that inspired you to study medicine, but Dr. Curtis is making it very difficult.

You close the file and pace slowly around the room. “Seeing as he was prowling the streets of… Tehran?” You guess.

“Actually it was the streets of- Oops! You almost got me.” Bucky faces you with a sarcastic grin.

“Unless you can tell us the environmental factors or any poisonous fauna-“

“Which you know I can’t do-“

“You might as well just Google, ‘poison’!” You respond defeatedly. You’ve solved difficult cases before, but this is turning out to be a real puzzle.

“The only thing they would tell me is that he’s spent the last eleven months in Bolivia.” Bucky compromises, arms crossing over his large chest. He wants to help, he really does. He cares about this agent; he cares about all the agents he’s trained and watched become great heroes. Especially after requesting to be taken off missions, he’s been lucky to be put in charge of training any and all incoming agents and helping Sam assign them to missions.

“Who are you gonna kill in Bolivia?” You question, brows furrowed on your face.

Bucky rolls his eyes as Dr. Curtis chimes in, “What does it matter what he was doing? He’s dying!”

“Not anymore, it’s pancreatitis.” You say as you slump down into one of the bedside chairs.

“He’s not an alcoholic.” Banner informs you.

“And unless his pancreas is in his fingertips-“ Curtis sarcastically states, looking to Bucky to see if his expression matches the annoyed one of Curtis herself, but he’s only staring at you, curious about your thought process.

“Spies can’t get fungal infections?” You ask.

“What about the burns on his skin?” Banner inquires.

“Spies can’t get sunburns? Bolivia doesn’t have sun?” You joke, catching Bucky’s eye as he chuckles softly at your reasoning.

“So either we go with her theory of the non-drinking drunk, which is totally unreasonable, or the theory that someone poisoned him with the resources to make it completely untraceable.” Curtis argues.

Banner looks between you and Dr. Curtis, gears running a million miles per minute in his brain trying to think of what to do.

“Let’s, uh, let’s treat him for radiation poisoning.” Banner says as he begins walking towards the door. You roll your eyes and stand to follow him, Dr. Curtis, and Bucky out of the room again.

TAGS: @thefvcker-tucker @angel-fire @gagmebucky @hannie-writes-marvel @unicorniorosacomefrutillas @creepylittlemarvelgirl @spiderrpcrker

#d&s’milestonecelebration #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes series #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #doctor!reader #marvel #marvel fanfiction #bucky barnes x doctor!reader #whatever it takes