#the range of emotion this man goes through in 20 seconds

[boxfivetrades]

Your lover makes a passionate plea!

#the range of emotion this man goes through in 20 seconds #it was terrifying to watch irl :))) #earl carpenter #phantom of the opera #poto #poto west end #final lair #earl carpenter's face

[angel-eyes05]

i remember his hands - chapter 4

PAIRING: kang the conqueror x fem!reader

SUMMARY: after a scientific experiment goes horribly wrong, you've been transported to the quantum realm and have been stuck there for the past decade. with no company, aside from janet van dyne, your life changes forever when a mysterious man in a golden ship crash lands next to your settlement. startled with his initial presence, you two have a rocky start. but as time goes on, you two find each other slowly drawn to one another. you have secrets though, and he has a past he refuses to bring up. can you two make it through navigating an unknown world together, discovering any ulterior motives, and stand the test of time in a place where time has no meaning at all?

INFO: slow romantic burn, pretty fast sexual burn, kinda enemies to lovers????, takes place during that little flashback janet has during quantumania, idk how accurate this is gonna be to canon stuff cause i get very confused about the quantum realm lol, reader is in mid to late 20s while kang is in his “early 30s” (ik he like technically doesn't age or whatever idk the lore but i just made it accurate to jonathan majors age and wanted to give an accurate age range/gap/count), y/n will be very fleshed out like im gonna give her everything lol

WARNING: explicit language (sexual and verbal), smut, p in v unprotected (stay safe people), a little angsty, he’s being nice to her awwwwww

CHAPTER WORD COUNT:  2.7k

NOTES: OMG IM SORRY THIS IS COMING SO LATE!!! its kinda coming from the mix of being really busy this past week and not knowing what to write lol so again, sorry

PREVIOUS PART

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Saying you were furious with Kang was an understatement. Although at this point, you were more upset with yourself for giving into it that easily. You hadn’t even had a full conversation with him and you had sex with him. Honestly, you should’ve seen it coming. That was what upset you the most. You knew exactly what would come of it, and you did it anyways. And worst of all. You liked it. No. You loved it. You tried to make yourself feel better by thinking that it was just the fact that it had been years since someone touched you like that that made you love it. But deep down you knew it was him. The way he handled you, the way he kept teasing and edging you, the way he put you at ease. You loved it. And you wanted it again. 

You had been in this back and forth with yourself for the past three days, the amount of time its been since you’ve started giving Kang the cold shoulder. If you were being honest, you felt bad about how cold you grew towards him. But he deserved it. Part of you wished you had finished the job and killed him then and there. But you didn’t. You still didn’t know why. Right now, you just decided to blame it on clouded judgment from your blood loss. You stopped yourself from trying to figure out why though, as you realized it would send you down a rabbit hole of thoughts. 

After two hours of no luck catching mites for food, you gathered your hunting gear and headed back inside the cabin. And yet again, there he was, just sitting there sprayed across the couch. Despite your pleas to her to get him to work or do anything other than sit around, Janet insisted he needed more to time to recover. Which he would trick her into believing, as you knew what his body was capable of at this point. You would occasionally exchange glances with him while working in the kitchen. In the spilt seconds that your eyes would meet his, you tried desperately to search for any signs of remorse or regret for what he did. But you could never find any. At most, you could only recognize one emotion going through them. Desire. And you knew for what.

Which is why would look away from him so quickly. Janet walked out from her room and over by the couch to talk to Kang. Presumably to try and get some more information out of him. So far, she told you that the only things she found out about him was his name, which you already knew, how he crashed, the core of his ship ran out of energy, and what he called his ship, the Time Chair. He had been secretive about everything else. Frankly, you didn’t really care about finding information about him anymore. You just wanted him out of your house. Janet stood above the couch and asked him to stand up. You turned around to watch and see what would happen. Reluctantly, Kang stood up from the couch and took a couple of steps around the room. You snickered a bit to yourself after seeing the look Janet gave him. He whipped his head around to see you smiling to yourself. “Is everything alright?” He asked sharply. “No no, it’s just funny.” You remarked with a smirk on your face. “That's enough you two.” Janet said, shooting daggers at you. She turned her face back to Kang. “Alright, since it seems like you're well enough to walk, you’re gonna take care of some errands for me in town.” You could see his posture slightly slouch in response to her demand. You couldn’t help but quietly giggle to yourself. “Oh and you’re going with him.” Janet said, turning back to you. Before you could disagree, she said “I need you to show him where everything is and to be there to carry him just in case he can’t walk anymore.” You looked at him up and down, then turned back to Janet. After standing in silence for a second, Janet replied. “Okay, mainly to show him where everything is.” You scoffed to yourself before grabbing your gear and walking outside. Janet tapped Kang on the shoulder as a sign to follow you. He walked outside to find you already about 50 feet ahead of him. This was going to be a long day.

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You walked around the market, making sure to keep at least a five foot distance between the two of you. Your only interaction with him was handing him the bags of wild fruits you purchased to carry. You walked past a pawn shop type building. You knew you and Janet were getting short on cash. You stared at the gold bangle on your left wrist. It was a gift from your father. You could still remember unwrapping the box that contained it on your 14th birthday and putting it on immediately after. You hadn’t taken it off since. But times were getting desperate. And this was your last resort. You took a deep breath and told Kang to wait outside for you. You walked inside and up to the counter to make the trade. You reluctantly unlatched the bracelet and placed it on the counter, tears welling up in your eyes. You took the money from the attendant and turned to leave, but bumped into someone on your way out. “Sorry.” You said without looking at them. 

Your eyes shot up at them though when you felt a hand grab your forearm. “Told you it was her.” One of the men said. Finally taking awareness of your surroundings, you noticed three men crowding around you, one of which held a tightening grip around your forearm. “I thought I told you I didn’t wanna see you around here until you gave me my money.” Once you registered their faces and recognized who they were, you finally responded. “And I’m so terribly sorry it hasn’t gotten to you yet, that’s a real shame on my part.” You replied sarcastically. The man’s smirk dropped as he started to twist your forearm. You stifle a scream as he twists it behind your back. “Oh yeah? And what’s stopping me from breaking your arm and taking what you have now?” You tried to think of a way out of this when you noticed a shard of glass on the floor from when one of the men slammed the pawn shop attendant’s head into the counter. You grabbed the shard of glass and stabbed it into the man’s foot. He screamed and let go of your arm. You picked yourself off quickly from the floor and punched the other two men and ran out the door for your escape. 

Kang was still standing outside the shop when you grabbed his wrist and started running as the two men you punched started to run after you. He breaks away from your grip and starts running with you. “Mind explaining what’s going on?!” Kang shouted at you. “Maybe after we lose them!” You shouted back, maneuvering between the carts and people in the streets. You grab a ball from two children playing in the street and chuck it at one of the men’s heads, knocking him to the ground. You turn a sharp corner and bump into a wandering person, giving Kang time to catch up with you. You grab his wrist again, realizing he isn’t as fast as you are. You look around the street, desperate for an escape. You notice an alleyway just up ahead and run into it, Kang just behind you. You push the both of you back into the darkest corner of the alley as you see one of the men run past. You wait a couple of seconds to see if he will come back before let your guard down. Once a bit of time has gone by, you slunk yourself into the corner. 

“What the fuck was that?” Kang asked angrily. “You know, a little bit of a warning would’ve been nice before you dragged me through the streets while being chas-.” He stops himself when he turns around to see your head cuddled into your knees. He hears slight sobs coming from you mouth. You lift your head from your knees as you clutch the money you just 1) risked his and your life for and 2) just traded away one of your most valuable possessions away for. You couldn’t help but feel at least a little ashamed for breaking down in front of him like this, but you couldn’t help it. He sighed and walked towards you. He kneeled down in front of you and took your face in both his hands. He cupped your cheeks and used his big thumbs to wipe away your tears as they were coming down. “I’m sorry.” was all he could muster up to say. You just nodded in response. “I’m sorry for yelling.” You nodded again, keeping your teary, bloodshot eyes away from his. “And I’m sorry for leaving you that night.” You finally looked at him as he said that. You could see a sadness enter his eyes as you looked at him. Sadness mixed with sincerity. 

You looked back down at the money and clenched it with your hands as you put it away in your jacket pocket. You took some deep breaths, but couldn’t seem to calm yourself down. You just couldn’t believe what you just did. You were angry at yourself for giving something so valuable to you away so easily. And for what? Money that was going to last you two weeks at best. Memories started to flood back into your head. You just missed them all so much. You tried not to think about them too much, but as a result, you began to forget how much they meant to you. You could just sit there for hours, crying and reminiscing. Something ripped you away from those thoughts though. You suddenly felt this huge weight rest upon you. Then it clicked. He was hugging you.

You felt Kang’s big bear arms wrap around your smaller frame. You sniffled as you felt his hot breath graze against your neck. You could feel your cheeks getting hotter and brighter as he tightened his arms around you. You noticed you were beginning to calm down. You pulled away to catch your breath. Then he kissed your temple. Then your forehead. Then the bridge just above your nose. Then your cheek. He stayed on your cheek for a while before pulling away. He was doing it again. His deep brown eyes were swimming oceans into yours. You could sit there for hours just staring at him. Taking in all his features. Noticing the way your cheeks fit into his hands so easily. What happened next was a change in pace though. You kissed him. 

Saying you were kissing him was doing a disservice to both of you though. It was more as if you two were melting into each other. Becoming one. Joining into each other’s body’s. Your hands gripped onto his hips, desperate for more of him. A slight moan escaped him and entered your mouth. You could already feel yourself getting wet. You knew where this was leading. His hands traveled from your jawline to the hemming of your shirt. His warm, coarse hands traveled up your cold, smooth stomach to just underneath your underboob. You took this time to take off your jacket and place it on the floor next to you. Next, you remove your hands from his hips to help him unbutton his pants. You slid them off his legs. He gets the memo and moves his hands from your breasts to your shorts and slides them off. He hooks your underwear with his pointer finger and drags them off. You do the same to his. He helps slide you down from your sitting position to lay down. 

It hasn’t been until this point when your hand dips into a dirty puddle that your remember where you are. You make sure to remind him as well when he goes to take off your shirt. Yeah his cock may be hanging out and your bare ass is out as well, but you’ll take the privacy of a shirt right now if its what you can get. He respects your wishes and puts his lips to your collarbone as he rests just above your hips. After a couple seconds of sucking on your collar, he pulls away, leaving a purplish mark there. You nod in approval just before he slides his throbbing cock into your already tight walls. You let out a wail as he enters into you. He places a hand on your mouth and whispers into your ear. “Not here either.” Yes, you could be slightly louder here than at the house with Janet, but you still had to remember you were in public. You nodded as he continued to slide inside you. You dug your nails into his bare thigh, which only caused him moan more.

Once he was fully inside you, he started thrusting into your hips, fucking you into the hard, rocky, cold concrete below. It definitely wasn’t your ideal setting, but you were gonna take what your could get. His hands moved back underneath your breasts and eventually unhooked your bra. He squeezed one boob with one hand and moved the other underneath your back for more support. Then, he moved his lips back to yours, letting your both release your stifled sounds into each other. It only helped you feel more like you were a part of him. Letting your moans into his mouth as his grunts entered yours. As his thrusts began to speed up, you moved your other hand to his tricep to squeeze for leverage. The deeper into you he went, the more you could feel the heat sink lower into your body. God, you had just started and you were already about to finish. You could sense he was about to also though, with the way his thrusts got messier and his kisses more desperate. 

Everything became so overwhelming to you. You knew he wasn’t going to want to cum before you did, but on the other hand, you didn’t necessarily want to be the first one either. So you stifled the urge by biting down onto his lips. Your lips eventually moved down to his jawline and explored down his neck, until you found the perfect place to begin sucking. His moans into your ear only brought your closer to your brink. Eventually, you couldn’t take it anymore. “G-god Kang I-I’m s-s-sorry, I-I have t-t-to do it-t.” You said, eyes welling up. “Sh-hhhh it-s-s ok. Do it if-f y-you need t-to.” He said quietly into your ear. Suddenly, you let go of everything. You felt the white heat escape your body all at once as it wrapped around Kang’s cock and leaked out of you. You felt yourself relax as Kang began to tense up even more. You moved your hand from his thigh to his cheek and began to rub it with your thumb. “It’s ok, you can do it.” You said tiredly. He closes his eyes, nods, and releases his cum into you. His orgasm takes over his body as he moves his hands to your hips and digs his fingers into them. You both moan as his cum enters your body. 

You both breath heavily once he’s finished and he begins to exit you. He reaches for his underwear and pants before stopping himself. He looks over at you, then grabs your shorts and underwear and helps you put them on before putting on his own. You smile slightly at the kind gesture and help him put on his after you’ve finished with yours. You check your jacket pocket to make sure the money is still inside. Once your hands find it, you take a deep sigh, still disappointed in yourself for making the trade in the first place. Kang notices this and intertwines his fingers into your hand. You look up at him and he smiles at you as he leads you out into the street. You suddenly find yourself doing the last thing you would expect from yourself.

Forgiving him. 

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NEXT PART

A/N: so…hi….its been a minute! again, so sorry for the delay, but if im being honest, i kinda work better when im posting sporadically so yeah dont expect a set schedule for me posting. but yeah i didnt really proofread this chapter cause i wanted to get it out asap so dont judge. but yeah we’ll see where it goes from here lol byeeee.

#quantumania #ant man #kang the conqueror #kang the conqueror x reader #kang x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #i remember his hands #mcu fanfiction #fem!reader

[etherealsign282]

18) imagine blaming your family for shit when a guy has been trying to teach you this entire time, for 5-6 years, to be considerate and not abusive and communicate, and also any trauma you had doesn't make you abusive. You're abusive because you're abusive.

And I mean, you can't just be annoyed and dislike us and not want to be around us and then get mad when we stop giving you the attention you didn't even want lmao. You want fans, not real people. That's why you can be a performative fuxkwit and suck up all the attention from strangers on fb but in real life you cant fucking handle it because you actually have to tolerate and like people for you to get attention from them. Unless they're an absolute yes man and go with exactly everything you want and like. That's also why you're ass at communicating. You just expect them to listen and follow along and it all goes to shit the second you have to explain yourself or justify what you want bc you only wanted a group of mindless zombies as fans, not people who question you or do things in their unique fashion.

And instead of admitting that you just want what you want without having to talk about it bc you feel entitled, you instead get frustrated bc you just can't word it in a way that doesn't make you sound like a selfish wannabe celebrity. So you'll blame astrology, "trauma", being "stupid", but you'll never blame yourself for having such shallow concepts that you can't even explain them into justifications for people with free will.

19) the amount of times you hugged and went "aww" bc I was going through something and you were still in the lovebombing phase, or all the sorta cute shit you came up with for your character and another traumatized character, and yet somehow, somehow, you conveniently forget how to be compassionate and comfort someone who's suicidal?

You fxcking hug them. Tell them you're there for them. Shit, look at literally ANY damn conversation in which you're threatening yourself or, if you can somehow remember all the times we put in effort instead of conveniently forgetting like every other time, think back to every time we had to comfort you for being suicidal. No, don't think about the times we didn't because it was your fifth threat that week and literally based on you treating us like garbage. Think about what we actually did 99% of the time we had to tolerate you threatening your life bc we had standards and expectations, and what we had to say and do to get you to feel better. All you had to do was apply that. Or, ya know, not withhold affection and then weaponize incompetence like a double-wham-shabam-abuser combo.

If being a little mad makes you forget how to be a good person then you're not a good person, bc while anger is only half your emotional range, if you can only be a good person when you're in a good mood, you're honestly not shit lmao.

20) again just not shutting the fuck up about the COVID thing. The minecraft thing. You being abusive. For a month you had to try and come up to me and justify your abuse with "well but-" like no. I don't care. Let it the fuck go since you're so good at letting go of the bad things you did. Surprisingly enough, the 2017 thing doesn't justify everything you did between 2015 and 2021. You being naturally antisocial to J's family bc you hated everyone in that house and didn't want to be nice to them unless it was about your shitty villain arc story, doesn't justify you abusing J into dropping his girl best friend for you within a few months of your relationship (while pretending it was all in his head to invalidate/gaslight him). It's not the same thing, there is a massive difference between "I feel like they don't like me, that's the same as me telling him I'll k1ll myself if he has a chick friend years before this point". Using anything with "it makes me feel bad" to justify making someone feel 2x worse out of maliciousness, for something accidental they did, instead of communicating like an adult, no go. Starting every conversation with "it doesn't help that-" shut up. Shut the fuck up. And saying "maybe he just read too deep into it" like lmao ok. "Well Ive been changing" literally where because you're still fcking arguing, and now using change to discredit the abuse victim and how they feel? Or "that happened years ago", well what happened to your idea of "I can't get over anything" or is that only bc YOU get to hold petty grudges but real, valid problems against you are too offensive?

Like imagine saying you, being an abusive rxpist (while knowing you're a rxpist and only conveniently forgetting your abusive behaviors when you want to weaponize incompetence bc you were usually the first to brag about them/broadcast them), find it unfair because you purposely ruined his birthday, and then decided you couldn't be broken up with on your birth *fucking month*, as if somehow running from abuse has a time limit or expiration date. You also dismissed and devalued it as being about *being annoyed/irritated* when you ABUSED HIM BY THREATENING YOUR LIFE BECAUSE HE WAS ENJOYING HIS BIRTHDAY. And also demanding more and more emotional labor of us as if it's our fault you couldn't change fast enough, and minimizing your VERBAL AND EMOTIONAL ABUSE as you "complaining" bc we were drifting from an ABUSER. You thought it was just you being a little toxic but you were a danger to our health so no, we couldn't keep fucking going the way we were going. And your changes meant fuck all by that point. In fact you'll defend your shit quite a lot for someone that fucking loves to brag about burning bridges and keeping peace yet you fucking ruined any concept of peace we have with acting like the victim and like you didn't know what the fuck you were doing, when right after this conversation and the last last one we had, you literally started posting bogus shit lies about being a fucking victim and betrayal etc etc. You were fucking aware enough, and just hoping we were stupid enough to feel sorry for someone who didn't deserve that level of sympathy.

Also imagine talking about how you were trying to be better to invalidate our decisions, but you wouldn't give us space and ADMITTED that you complained about it (bc once again you were targeting the byproducts and not the real problems like codependency and control), and continued to fucking complain and victimize your way into being seen as pathetic when YOU ARE NOT JUST TOXIC, YOU ARE AN ABUSER. YOU DO NOT GET THE LUXURIES BECAUSE YOU ARE AN ABUSER. YOU ARE A DANGER AND THREAT TO PEOPLES LIVES, BODIES, AND/OR MENTAL STATE. If you wanted being better taken into consideration, you should've actually TRIED.

Again I don't give a FUCK about your apology after I spent so much breath explaining to you, bc right after you posted that shit you immediately deflected without me saying anything due to a guilty conscience, that it was about everyone except you. Excuse me? Lmao?

#ex abuser chronicles

[werewolfnightwalker]

Meet my dabihawks lovechild!

Tenshi Todokami

Basics:

He's either 19 or just turned 20 when I generally picture him.

He's a cis man, he/him, but is absolutely confident in high heels and a skirt.

Doesn't stick to one sexuality, doesn't really care. More than likely Pan, but again, doesn't care.

At 20 he's 5'7, the same height as Hawks. Dabi is pleased that he's taller than both his birds.

His name is Tenshi, but he also goes by Ten, Angel, Eyas (Hawks only!), Goldie (Dabi only!), and baby bird.

He's a pro hero! Or, he wants to be. He's still a sidekick at his Papa's agency, and goes by Golden Frost: The Winged Blizzard Hero.

Breakdown of his Quirk: Fierce Frost

Unlike Hawks, his wings cannot separate into individual feathers. They're solid flesh and bone, fully developed wings. He can't sense anything through them, either, although he's got an uncanny knack for sensing danger.

He also got a twisted version of his Da's Quirk! Tenshi has flames, too, but they burn *cold*, and if he uses them too much, frost builds up on his wings and hands. And while he has fire immunity, his ice immunity is... Lacking.

Tenshi's Life:

Hatched post war.

Prefers Dabi over Hawks parent wise, but that's bc Dabi let's him get away with anything.

Grew up with a lot of love and support, from both the Todorokis and the LOV. The only exception is Endeavor, who Dabi won't let get close to Tenshi. Hawks doesn't like it, but it's an old argument they can't agree on. That later changes, much to Dabi's displeasure.

As a kid, Tenshi loved cartoons, pizza, and bird watching with his Papa. He did fairly well in school, although he got diagnosed with ADHD later on in grade school due to his hyperactive imagination.

In highschool, (UA) things changed. Be it puberty, the pressure of being the number two's son, or the rumors that followed him about his Da, Tenshi stopped being so bright and cheery. Where he was once an over emotional cry baby, he was suddenly putting up walls and talking back.

Unfortunately, this was all due to Dabi's constant encouragement and insistence that Tenshi could be the best at anything he wanted. Despite training to be a hero, Tenshi acted out a lot in school and got in trouble. From stealing from other classmates to straight up vandalism, he landed in detention- or in police custody- more than once.

And as much as Dabi hated it, Hawks sent Tenshi to intern with none other than Endeavor in Tenshi's second year. It helped, though, his granddad put him on the straight track with a little tough love. Tenshi graduated from UA in the top ranks of his class.

He didn't have a lot of friends growing up, other than Kutsuki Usagimura, my dustbunny lovechild! Unfortunately, Kutsuki later defects from hero (the White Rabbit hero: Wonderland) to villain (Stopwatch).

Personality:

As mentioned earlier, Tenshi was a bright, cheery, imaginative kid. While he kept that outgoingness and enthusiasm, older Tenshi is more cynical, cocksure, and overconfident. He makes a lot of mistakes and tears himself to pieces over them.

The media calls him a "ladies man," like his Papa, a view he gleefully fulfills. (He's handsome and he knows it.) He's mischievous and carefree, which helps him keep a close bond to his Da when he's older.

In battle, Tenshi is bold and confident. Unlike Hawks, he doesn't rely on speed (he only has 1/3rd of Hawks' speed) but on the power of his ice flames, which makes him a mid-range combatant. However, he does like to catch his enemies by surprise, dropping from above to get the jump on them.

Unfortunately, he also doesn't think things through in fights, and this has led to several of his allies getting hurt because of his recklessness. Humbling lessons learned the hard way.

Hobby wise, Tenshi enjoys bird watching, ice skating, and playing guitar.

Things he likes include:

Rats

The color purple

Pizza

Heavy metal music

Space

Things he dislikes:

Jell-O

Storms

Reading/math/paperwork

Being scolded

Long car rides (he inherited Dabi's sensitive stomach)

#dabihawks #my oc #tenshi todokami #dabihawks lovechild #long post

[olderthannetfic]

Hi! I know you're one of the older fans on Tumblr & I wanted to ask you about the anti movement. I'm 19 & when I see people talking about the ages of anti fans, they're often within the 14-25 age range & I have no idea why. I also feel it's a little unfair to say that younger fans tend to be antis, though it is understandable since I've also made mistakes when I didn't know things. Why do you think most antis are younger fans? What should younger fans who aren't antis do to be more involved?

Hee! I’m 40, which, tbh, actually isn’t that old for Tumblr (though it’s certainly old compared to the common perception of tumblr), so sure, I can probably answer this. I guess there are two questions here: 1. Is it true and 2. why, if so?

1. Experience suggests that antis do tend to be young... but it does not follow that young people tend to be antis. (You’d have to know the proportion of antis relative to the overall population of fandom, which we don’t. I think the majority of people of any age tend to want to read fic in peace and not be roped into endless wank.) I definitely see some ringleaders who are older and good at manipulating fandom trends for their own ends too.

2. Why would this be the case?

When I was in college, we used to joke about all the freshman year Marxists. It’s an eternal phenomenon: people who don’t have much experience learn a new thing and are on fire to change the world using the one tool in their toolbox. (To a man with a hammer, yadda yadda.) There’s no passion like the passion of the newly converted, and young people tend to have a lot more energy and often a lot more free time to yell on social media. Antis may be one expression of this among people currently in that age bracket. It’s not like people my age didn’t do other annoying-ass things when we were that age. You just don’t see it because it was 20 years ago, a lot of it was never online, and all the websites/platforms from then have been systematically destroyed. (Often by yahoo. Fuck yahoo.)

The other half of the reason, in my opinion, is that there have been concerted efforts to sway lefty/socially liberal people in specific--often TERFy--ways. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the right wing radicalization of gamer guys.

People are susceptible to it because their lives suck and because they don’t know enough history or have enough confidence to form their own opinions and stand up for them. Sure, some people are going to go hardcore for anti views no matter how much they know, but a lot of people are just being swept along with the tide because something sounds superficially pro-gay or pro-protecting kids or whatever.

I cannot emphasize enough that the things that make someone ripe for the alt right are the same things that make them ripe for cults and for various kinds of toxic fandom shit: it’s usually the smart, sensitive overthinkers who don’t have enough close actual friends and who aren’t in a good place in their lives.

---

So what can you do?

You can try to make fewer more significant friendships and make sure your support system isn’t people you only know because you currently share a fandom. Most of my offline friends are people I found through fandom meetups, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for making fandom your life and only hanging out with fandom people, but we’re just regular friends who have dinner parties and shit (well, when it’s not the plaguetimes). Most of the time, we don’t share specific ships or fandoms. It’s vitally important to have a real support network that can’t be ripped away by social media wank.

The next thing we can all do is publicly stand up for what we believe in and not cave to pressure just because someone yelled “think of the children”. It’s important to be clear about the real history and logic behind these things, whether it’s the history of censorship that inspires people to support AO3′s extremely permissive policies or the fact that ‘queer’ was a fully reclaimed umbrella term in the 90s.

It’s okay if we don’t all agree. What’s not okay is appeals to emotion and ignoring science. A lot of anti bullshit is like “Rape fantasies are an abnormal red flag”, and this goes against every damn thing we know about human sexuality.

Part of this is examining our own stances for illogic and hypocrisy. If thought crimes aren’t real, then all of them aren’t real. I see way too many “Okay, but that one gross kink though!” comments from people who claim to be on my side, and this is very silly.

Possibly the biggest thing, though, is that we as a planet need to start being savvier about shitty social media and how it’s destroying our mental health. I don’t have a good overall solution, and obviously, I’m still on tumblr, but we all really need to cut down the amount of time we’re on sites like Facebook and Twitter and probably tumblr too. The more it has an algorithm and the less it has moderation, the more it’s a problem. Individual discords and spaces that can have moderation are better. It’s fine if some of them are 100% antis. The point is to have multiple spaces with rules that suit different groups.

A thing you can do is make your own spaces: be the owner of a discord for your ship, not just a passive participant at the mercy of shitty mods in an existing one. Run a fic exchange with rules you think are sensible and be firm when people try to scream about problematique things you don’t agree are a problem. One of the most pernicious anti problems is mods breaking the rules of their own spaces (usually a “no kinkshaming” one) to cave to social pressure from the loudest, most assholish set of people in the server. They don’t know how many people quietly disapprove and quietly leave their fandoms because they only fear the loud harassers, not the silent toll of caving to them.

Honestly, the climate of fear is the big issue more than a bit of yelling: I routinely meet 20-somethings who live in fear of being canceled and shunned. You can help this by... not being like that with your friends. If they’re friends with a canceled person, don’t ask them to drop the canceled person or face the same fate. If you disagree about some fandom hot take, talk about it calmly and don’t act like the friendship will be over in 5 seconds and you’ll use all your knowledge of them against them in a public callout because they didn’t instantly agree.

Basically, have some self confidence and don’t be fucking terrified all the time... which can be a tall order and probably explains the age thing also.

#fandom meta #loganelfreeces

[hxneyandespressx]

if i were a man (i’d be the man)

summary: jj holds a press conference while on a high-profile case. she has to deal with the stupid male reporters. after the conference is done, jj goes to the nearest bathroom, away from the crowd, and screams and swears to her heart’s content

word count: 6.2k 

content warnings: mentions of emotional and verbal abuse, guns, violence, blood, suicide

a/n: inspiration for this fic is from criminal minds season 4 episode 16 “pleasure is my business”

☆。*。☆。

It was a rough start to a Wednesday morning for a particular FBI agent. She almost twisted her ankle on her early morning jog, got stuck in traffic, and had to wait in a long line for her co-workers’ coffee orders. Soon enough, she started to wish that she took the metro instead. Media communications liaison Jennifer “JJ” Jareau woke up today and chose violence. She huffed in frustration at how her morning went.

Walking toward the bullpen with the coffee orders in her hands, JJ was greeted with “hellos” and “good mornings”. Not wanting to have her co-workers profile her, JJ bottled up her frustration and grumpiness and put a smile on her face. It was a rule amongst the group to never profile each other. With learning an assortment of profiling tactics, JJ knew how to form a realistic smile without genuine happiness. Creases around the eyes, smile lines contoured the mouth, sparkles in her baby blue eyes. The short blonde perfected the fake smile that could fool anyone, even expert profilers.

“Good morning, guys.” JJ said with a bright smile on her face. She held two cardboard trays filled with various coffee orders. She placed one of the trays on Emily’s desk, so she can pass out the orders to her co-workers. She called out the order name as she passed the cup to the person.

“One French vanilla latte for Ms. Garcia. Two black coffees for Emily and Derek. And finally, a coffee with extra cream and sugar for Spence.” Everyone said their thank you’s to the blonde. Then, there was one coffee cup left. A cappuccino.

“Happy Wednesday, my nerds.” Rossi said as he approached the group of tired agents. JJ smiled and handed the cappuccino to the elderly man.

“Grazie.” He thanked the media liaison for her efforts to bring his favorite morning beverage. The group spent some time chatting nonsense before the case briefing. Thirty minutes went by and all of them disbursed into their desks to finish up the paperwork. JJ headed down to her office to work on choosing the next case after the one that was currently ongoing.

After settling in her office chair, JJ took a look around her office. Messy stacks of pending files scattered her desk. Empty coffee cups and water bottles lined the file cabinet. JJ checked the time on her watch. 8:12 AM. About two hours to kill. The blonde put her hair up into a ponytail and took in a deep breath. She dove into the nearest pile of manila files, looking through all the documents and photographs to determine which case for the BAU team to take on after the current case.

As the clock ticked closer to 10 AM, JJ picked up today’s case files and head out of her office. Strutting through the bullpen, JJ entered the briefing room slightly out of breath.

“Sorry I’m late, everyone,” JJ said while passing the manila folders out to her co-workers. After handing out the necessary materials, she grabbed the remote from the center of the wooden table.

“Sam Winchester was found in Fulton Park, in the Stuyvesant Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Eighteen stab wounds to his chest and neck,” JJ explained as she clicked on the remote to switch between the crime scene photos. “He is one of the victims dumped at various locations of Brooklyn that was found last night.”

“Hold up. One of the victims?” Derek asked.

“Yeah. So far this killer built up a rep sheet of five kills.” JJ stated. Hotch raised one of his eyebrows at the new information.

“Seven? Why haven’t the NYPD notified us immediately after the first three kills?” Hotch asked the media liaison.

“Probably the department thought they could handle the crimes,” JJ explained. “That was the case until they realized that they needed help.”

The young blonde switched to the next slide, showing one of the other victims dumped in North Williamsburg.

“What’s interesting about the locations is that the first victim was drowned in the Hudson River. And as more victims appear, the disposal methods get more dramatic. Maybe it plays some role in the unsub’s pathology.” Spencer said as he looked at the screen, observing for any patterns.

“Like with one of the recent victims, the disposal site is in Cobble Hill. It’s typically occupied by those who are relatively wealthy.” Rossi said to continue Spencer’s thoughts. “This unsub is getting bolder with his disposal sites. I’m concerned with there being an end game to this.” Emily stated. Everyone at the round table shifted through the various crime scene photos and documents. Rossi took hold of one of the crime scene photographs: a reversed ten of cups tarot card. “It is also apparent that the unsub is leaving tarot cards at the scene of the crime.”

“Tarot cards? What’s the significance?” Derek asked.

“Maybe to tell of the inevitable fortune the victims faced?” Emily said. 

“Well, each card has a different meaning when it is upright and reversed. And usually, when doing a reading, three to five cards are pulled to tell a fortune.” Penelope explained as she typed away on her work laptop. It had not surprised anyone that the technical analyst had an interest in tarot readings and astrology.  

“You know, the first documented tarot packs were recorded between 1440 and 1450 AD in Milan, Ferrara, Florence, and Bologna when additional trump cards with allegorical illustrations were added to the common four-suit pack. These new decks were called carte da trionfi, triumph cards, and the additional cards are known simply as trionfi, which became "trumps" in English. The oldest surviving tarot cards are the 15 Visconti-Sforza tarot decks painted in the mid-15th century for the rulers of the Duchy of Milan. The Duke of Milan described a 60-card deck with 16 cards having images of the Roman gods and suits depicting four kinds of birds.” Spencer talked about the history of tarot cards, with hand gestures to accompany his little ramble. When he finished, everyone at the table stared at him. The young FBI agents sheepishly smiled as Emily poked his left cheek.

“Since when did you learn about tarot cards?” Emily asked. 

“I learned about it when I took a college course on the Italian Renaissance.” Spencer sheepishly smiled.

“Well, whatever it is, it seems like there is a story to be told––or rather to be heard.” JJ said as she stared at the crime scene photos, her eyebrows knitted together in bewilderment.  

“That’s what we need to find out. Wheels up in 20.” Hotch called out. 

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The BAU members sat comfortably on the jet, each in their little world. That was until the unit chief called on everyone for a case discussion. 

“Let’s go over victimology.” Hotch said to call on the group. Everyone moved closer to the unit chief to better discuss the case. Derek sat in an armchair, with Emily next to him. Across from them were Spencer and JJ. Hotch leaned against one of the seats, practically sitting on the adjustable arm of the plane seat. Rossi sat on the tan velvet couch, adjacent to JJ. 

“Reid.” Hotch called on the genius of the group. 

“White. Male. Between the ages of 45-55. Jobs ranging from a stockbroker to assets protection manager. All of them have cheated on their wives multiple times and some even had sexual harassment accusations.” The young curly-haired man said to start the discussion. 

“Even if these men cheated on their wives and got those accusations, they still didn’t deserve the multiple stab wounds to meet their end.” Emily said. 

JJ looked through the case file to see the reports on all five victims.

“The victims’ names are Igor Andreevich, Lucas Duncan, Hunter Mcevoy, Sam Winchester, Jared Kalinski.” JJ called the names out like it was a roll call. 

“These are the five victims that this unsub killed so far?” Hotch asked. The blonde nodded her head and said “yes, sir” in response.

“As the victim count increased, the more stab wounds appeared on the body.” Rossi said to point out an observation.

“But the M.E. said that most of these stab wounds were created post mortem. Meaning that the initial stab was to get the job done efficiently and he went back in to fuel his rage and/or sexual needs.” Spencer

“Are we assuming his sexual orientation? Because there aren’t many homosexual serial killers, kid” Rossi said. 

“It could be a possibility. We have to consider our options.” Hotch said. 

Just then, the laptop turned on and showed the beautiful Penelope Garcia. 

“How’s it going, my crime-fighting musketeers?” Penelope asked. Everyone, even Hotch, smiled at her cheery greeting.

“Garcia, start compiling files on each of our victims,” Hotch told the technical analyst. “Everything financial and personal. Bank statements, credit card bills, investments, wills, trust funds. Anything that will tell us more about the victim’s lives.”

“Faster than a Hotch rocket.” After that was said into the air, Penelope felt embarrassed while Hotch looked at her with his usual stone-cold face. Derek sighed and shook his head, taking a sip of his coffee to hide his second-hand embarrassment for his babygirl.  

To break the silence, Rossi grunted and coughed into his fist. 

“Based on the jobs these men had, we could safely assume that they were killed in the financial district of New York. Then, the unsub transported the bodies to a dumpsite.” Emily said as she read off from the case file in her hands.

“But why from Manhattan to Brooklyn? That is a lot of weight to carry.” Derek asked. 

“Maybe Brooklyn holds a lot of significance to him. Something from his childhood and he can’t let go.” JJ said. Everyone nodded their heads in agreement as they all closed their files. 

“Once we land, do you want me to get in contact with the media to inform the public?” The media liaison asked the unit chief.

“No. We need to hold back on it. Giving him the media’s attention is exactly what he wants. He wants his story to be heard and we will not give him that.” Hotch explained. JJ nodded in response and wrote down media concerns in her small blue notepad. 

“Dave, You and Prentiss go to the crime scene,” Hotch instructed the group. “The rest of us will get up to speed at the precinct.” Everyone nodded in agreement with the unit chief.

After discussing the victimology and the nature of the case, everyone separated and occupied their own space on the jet. Derek on the couch, listening to music. Spencer by the window, reading the Hound of the Baskervilles. Rossi and Hotch in the back, conversing whatever two elderly men talk about. 

The blonde media liaison stared out of the window until she felt a presence next to her. She looked away to find Emily standing in the aisle with a cup of coffee and a bag of Cheetos in her hands.

“Want some company?” Emily asked as she took the empty seat.

“I don’t mind at all.” JJ smiled at the brunette. The shorter woman felt special that Emily did this for her. She took the Cheetos and the coffee mug from her co-worker. As she grabbed them, their fingers brushed against each other. A little pink blush formed on JJ’s cheeks. Not wanting Emily to know about the silly crush the blonde had on her, JJ covered half her face with her beloved blue blanket. Emily chuckled at JJ’s actions and placed her hand on the blonde’s right shoulder, closing her eyes for a quick nap. 

JJ carefully took some of her dark blue blanket and wrapped it around Emily’s right shoulder. She looked at the brunette who was sleeping on her shoulder and softly smiled.

The blonde took sips of the coffee as she stared out of the window. The sunlight bounced off the water particles in the clouds, creating a mini rainbow over the tops of the white clouds. The media liaison took in the silence as a treat, before landing into the chaos of New York.

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A government-mandated black SUV arrived at the 25th precinct. Everyone––sans Emily and Rossi––got out of the car and was greeted by a lively short woman. 

“Detective Miller? We spoke on the phone.” JJ shook hands with the short woman. 

“Please, call me Kennedy. Thanks for coming in.”

“No problem. These are agents Hotchner, Morgan, and Doctor Reid.” JJ introduced them while gesturing at the person, in respective order.

“Hey, why don't you go on inside and make yourself comfortable.” Kennedy said. The remaining BAU members nodded their heads and made their way inside the busy precinct. Police officers swarmed everywhere as the federal agents weaved their way to an empty conference room. 

Everyone worked at a swift pace to get everything set up. JJ and Derek went with a police officer to get boxes filled with case files and other materials. Hotch talked with Detective Miller to get information on how her officers dealt with the unsub so far. While all this is happening, Spencer worked on the geographical profile, so the agents know where to look for the unsub. 

“What do these tarot cards mean?” Hotch asked the group. Everyone shook their head “no”, signifying that they had no clue what each card meant. 

“I’ll call Penelope and ask her about the meanings of the cards.” Derek said as he took out his flip phone to dial Penelope’s number.

“Live from Quantico, Virginia, it is the Divine Miss Penelope.” Penelope greeted the group. 

“Hey, sugar mama. I need something from you.” Derek said.

“Talk to me.”

“I need you to interpret the meanings of the tarot cards that were left at the different crime scenes.”

“Ah- I’ll be your little witch today. Hit me with have you have.”

“Alright, I’m putting you on speaker.” Derek puts down the phone on the wooden table, so everyone could hear what the technical analyst has to say. 

“Ten of Cups, Garcia.” Hotch said. 

“When upright, the Ten of Cups embody happiness, joy, contentment, and emotional satisfaction in your family, relationship, or companion. It represents an idyllic state of comfort, harmony, peace, and love which makes you feel like you are in paradise. When reversed, it could mean shattered dreams, disharmony, or a broken family.” Penelope explained. 

“Reversed Wheel of Fortune card.” Spencer called out. 

“When the wheel is reversed, it means that luck has not been on your side and misfortunes have been following you. When it's associated with this card, you must understand that these are due to external influences that you cannot control.” Penelope said. 

“Reversed Justice card.” Derek said next.

“A reversed Justice tarot card could indicate various things. One Justice reversal meaning is to show you are living in denial. You are not willing to accept the consequences of your actions or others. You are running from your guilt. You must, however, be aware that these are actions that are in the past. Other Justice reversal meanings could be injustice, retribution, dishonesty, corruption, dishonesty, unfairness, and avoiding accountability.” The technical analyst interpreted. 

“Lastly, the reversed Emperor.” JJ said the final card they had. 

“The Emperor reversed is a sign of abused authoritative power. In your social life, it can manifest in the overreach of power from a father figure or a possessive partner.” Penelope described the final tarot card.

With all the information in their heads, the BAU members felt puzzled about how to move forward. 

“How are these cards related to the crime scenes?” Derek asked. 

“It’s like a performance,” Penelope chimed in. Everyone turned their heads to listen to the cheery woman on the phone. “Like there is a story behind these killings. The cards are telling how the unsub is feeling. She wants us to know her story.” Everyone stood in shock when Penelope made a breakthrough in the case.

“Wait, Garcia. You said ‘she’. Why do you think it is a woman?” Hotch asked.

“Well, sir. The first victim was drowned, with no signs of sexual assault on his body. Doesn’t that usually indicate that the unsub is a woman?”

“Not necessarily but it is a quiet and efficient way of murdering someone.” Hotch explained. 

“Female serial killers are a fascinating field. We don’t have much information on them. But what we do know involves throwing the riles completely out of the window,” Spencer started going on one of his rambles. “For example, female serial killers typically don’t leave a signature.”

“But this one leaves tarot cards at the scene.” Derek pointed out.

“Maybe it was what Garcia said: she’s telling us her story.” JJ said. “Alright. Let’s start from the beginning. What could be inferenced from her childhood?” Hotch asked. 

“She could have had a domineering father who worked on Wall Street. And with that dynamic, he could have sexually and emotionally abused her, making her feeling like damaged goods.” Spencer explained the backstory of the unsub. “Also because the victims cheated on their wives, we could also conclude that the father also cheated on the mother, who always forgave her husband and tried to rationalize to stay for her daughter. And that made the unsub feel rage and being inferior. That she didn’t do anything to help her mother and herself.”

“But there is no indication of sexual gratification.” Hotch interjected. 

“However, there’s a reason why there are so many lacerations on the later victims. It could be the rage from her abusive father that this unsub is using against the victims, who acted like surrogates.” Derek said. 

“The stressor?” Hotch asked. 

“To follow her father’s footsteps, she may have also worked in the financial field. As a stockbroker, a financial analyst, or even as a secretary for a company,” Spencer said. “And as she continued at her job, she had a bunch of little comments and slights against her”

“As for the trigger, maybe she got passed up for a promotion by a male co-worker who was less qualified than she was.” JJ explained. 

“Any sane person would get miffed about it, but she’s built differently,” Derek said. 

“So much so, she killed five men so far.” Hotch said. 

“And she did it in an efficient manner where no one had any idea until now,” Derek said right after the unit chief. “But how did one woman kill five men in one borough and disposed of them in another?”

“She must know the area like the back of her hand. Brooklyn is what? Around 72 square miles?” JJ said in response to Derek. 

“Uh, 69.5.” Spencer corrected JJ. The blonde sighed, not surprised that the boy genius would know the exact measurement. 

“And the fact that no one has seen her either abduct or dispose of says she knows the city and its patterns well.” Derek said to continue what JJ had said before she was cut off by the boy genius. Just then, both Rossi and Emily had returned from the latest crime scene. In Emily’s hands were coffee cups on cardboard trays while Rossi had Chinese takeout. Everyone shared the food as they continued to work on the case. Being the little tease he was, Derek flung a wonton piece at Spencer, who was struggling to eat with the wooden chopsticks. The wonton piece gently hit Spencer’s forehead and the boy genius pouted, hiding his frustration at both the chopsticks and Derek.

“The M.E. said that the cuts were clean, no serrated edges. It would have to be a very sharp knife to be able to cut through human skin like nothing.” Emily said, to drive the discussion about the M.O.

“A knife like that could get the job done efficiently. Could be the work of a throwing knife. Take out the victim with a single throw to have them die quickly, then she stabs them to feel something.” Derek said. 

“Throwing knives? What is she? A secret agent of the Dai Li?” Rossi joked sarcastically. 

“From Avatar the Last Airbender?” Hotch retorted, remembering that his son Jack watches that show on Saturday mornings. 

“What’s Avatar the Last Airbender?” Spencer asked. Nobody bothered to answer the young man’s question. 

 “But this one is different. It’s like the more she kills, the more anger builds up inside and it gets released on the victim when she goes back in.” JJ stated. 

It became silent in the conference room, quite the opposite to the noise of the New York precinct in the evening rush hour. Tired from both traveling and working, Hotch could see that the rest of his team was also exhausted from the day. The unit chief called everyone to head to the hotel and rest, as they can always come back to the precinct tomorrow morning. 

Slowly one by one, each of the agents packed their things and get out of the New York precinct, and hopped into the cars, praying the soft hotel beds would lull them into a deep slumber.

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Day Three at the New York precinct. All the BAU members were getting irritated that they hadn’t proceeded much on the case. Derek tossed a small basketball up and down to pass the time. Spencer twirled a pen as he stared at the geographical profile, the gears turning in his mind. Both Hotch and Rossi were discussing the case quietly while JJ and Emily doodled on each others’ arms. The blonde was innocently drawing hearts and flowers until Emily came up with an idea. Feeling a tad mischievous, Emily took her sharpie marker and started to outline something on the media liaison’s left forearm. JJ raised an eyebrow, questioning what her co-worker was doing. As the image came together, JJ gasped softly, however, not surprised that Emily drew a vagina. 

Emily quietly laughed as JJ, annoyed by the brunette’s actions, took her sharpie marker and tried her best to transform the vagina drawing into a flower. Taking her time, and with only a sharpie, JJ showed off her artistic talent by creating a masterpiece: a carnation blooming out of a vagina.

Emily rolled her eyes when JJ stuck out her tongue at the brunette. Taking Emily’s right arm, the media liaison started to outline a grid for a game of tic tac toe. The brunette started the game by marking an “x” in a spot and JJ took her turn. The two women continued their game of tic tac toe and 

Everyone was silent in their own world until Hotch’s phone rang. The unit chief picked it up and it was a number he couldn’t recognize. Hotch silently motioned Derek to call Penelope to start triangulating the call’s location. 

“Hotchner.”

“Hello, Aaron.” A sultry voice talked. On the other side of the call was the unsub, Taylor Evans. 

“Seems you know my name.” Hotch asked.

“I researched you in preparation for this phone call,” Evans said. Through the phone receiver, Hotch could hear the soft whooshes of pages turning. 

“You reading a book? What’s the title?”

“Le monde comme il va by Voltaire,” Taylor closed her book. “Have you read his work?”

“No, I haven’t. You seem highly educated.” Hotch stated. 

“You seem to know a lot about me.” Taylor retorted.

“But I don’t know you that well since the start of this phone call.” Hotch responded. 

“What would you like to know?” Taylor asked. 

“May I know your name, for starters?” Hotch asked. A cold laugh could be heard through the landline speaker. 

“Evans. Taylor Evans.” the unsub replied. 

“Nice name,” Hotch complimented her to bring her guard down. 

“Now that we are acquainted, you can ask me questions.” the unsub’s content sigh could be heard on the landline. 

“Has life been hard on you?” Taylor asked, wanting to jump the gun. 

“I try my best.”

“Try my best,” Taylor said mockingly. “Is that the best you can do for your family?” A sarcastic tone filled Taylor’s voice, not liking what the unit chief said in response to her question. 

“With what I’ve got.” Hotch said. 

“You got any children?” Taylor said to divert the conversation. 

“I have a son.”

“How often do you see him?” 

“I try to see him every week.”

“Do you see him every week?” Taylor tried to put Hotch under pressure, to get him to crack. 

“No, I don't get there as often as I want.” A pitiful sigh was heard on the phone.

“I believe you, but don’t compare yourself to the men I see and work with. You are nothing like them. You’re just another whore.” Taylor said with such disgust in her tone. 

“How am I a whore?” Hotch asked. 

“You come when called on short notice. Begging to be put to work. Saving your reputation. However, even though you’re a workaholic, you make the time to see your son. You care for your son. You want the best for him.” Taylor explained. 

“You’re right. I do want the best for him” Hotch said. The unsub sighed, wishing that she had a good man, like Hotch, for a father.  

“Enough about you. What do you have to say about me?” Taylor asked the unit chief. 

“You've been betrayed so many times, You don't know who to trust, And that's why that first murder felt so good. But each one since has been less and less satisfying.” Hotch explained. 

“Good deductive reasoning,” Taylor said. “But how do you know if what I find provides me less satisfaction each time?”

“It’s a part of your nature. Until you hit a psychotic break and start devolving.” Hotch said. 

“Hm. Want to find out, Agent Hotchner?” She hung up on him after that last sentence. Everyone in the conference room stayed silent in awe. The unsub injecting herself into the investigation surprised all the agents in the room. 

“She contacted us,” Spencer said in astonishment, breaking the silence. 

“She’s getting impatient. Have Garcia look up everything on Taylor Evans. We need to find if she lines up with the preliminary profile.” Hotch instructed Derek. The olive brown-skinned man did exactly what the unit chief said: call Penelope and extract as much information as possible on the potential unsub.

“Her use of the word whore is interesting,” Spencer quipped. “It suggests she's trying to disassociate herself from her actions.”

“But she's become more personal with the murders,” Emily said. “This doesn’t make sense. She is contradicting herself.”

After gathering the information, and debilitating on the facts, everyone came to the same conclusion: Taylor Evans was their unsub. 

“Reid, tell Detective Miller that it’s time to deliver the profile.” Rossi said. 

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Every law enforcement officer occupied the main space of the precinct. All of the BAU members stood at one side, making it like a stage. JJ stood beside Emily, thinking to herself that she could have been this girl in a way. Both her and the unsub look eerily similar, maybe even mistaken for each other. 

“We wanted to give out the profile as soon as possible. We’re looking for a white female, between the ages of 20 and 25,” Hotch said to start the profile. “Her name is Taylor Evans. Dirty blonde hair with grey eyes. She’s organized, methodical, and knows how to blend in with the crowd.”

“When this unsub kills, she does so mercilessly and without an ounce of pity. She also wants her victims to know they are going to die by her hand.” Rossi said. 

“That’s why her preferred weapon of choice is throwing knives. They provide a clean cut. No mess required.” Emily said, slowly rocking on her heels. 

“With her choice of weapon, she can be quick and efficient with her kills, as murder is her only goal,” Spencer paused to catch a breath. “But all the bottled-up rage gets released when she goes in for a second time, post mortem, and stabs the body multiple times.”

“It is a way for her to get sexual gratification. And revenge, from her years of being emotionally and sexually abused by her father,” Rossi said. “The victims fit the description of her father and they are surrogates for him.”

“She is also a textbook psychopath, exhibiting all of the classic traits: incapability of feeling any empathy towards others, neither guilt nor remorse, and claiming no responsibility for her actions. Like others of her type, she is highly intelligent, manipulative, and narcissistic.” Spencer explained the unsub’s pathology. 

“Evans had received higher education. She graduated with a business degree, most likely a subconscious influence from her father. With the business acumen and the social skillset, this unsub can easily blend in with all the other business people and manipulate them.” Hotch explained, walked slowly around the large room. 

“Based on her background, she came from a wealthy family. However, the family wasn’t perfect. Her father constantly cheated on his wife. The mother always forgave him. As a young girl, Evans most likely has experienced emotional and sexual abuse from her father. It was a way for him to control his daughter, and she had resented that for years.” Emily said about the unsub’s childhood. 

“She mostly has experienced misogyny in her professional life. Had little comments and slights against her. Perhaps a less qualified male co-worker took a promotion that she deemed herself to be of a better fit,” Derek explained about the stressor. “Something in her work life triggered her to start killing the men who represented her father.”

“With this profile, we should search for Taylor Evans’ location and any potential victims. We suggest going public with the information as soon as possible… Thank you very much.” Hotch ended the profile with his parting words. Everyone at the precinct was disbursed from the room to get back to their work. The agents huddled together to prep themselves in case something big were to happen. 

“JJ, I would like for you to conduct a press conference,” Hotch said.

“Why is that, sir?” The media liaison asked. 

“I would like to draw her out. Have it known that we are after her.” The media liaison nodded her head in agreement and left the main room to work on getting a press conference together.

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Before entering the press room, JJ took a deep breath and exhaled to calm herself down. Thoughts were rushing in her mind. Don’t let them get to you, JJ. She neatly fixed her hair to seem presentable. Taking her golden heart necklace, the media liaison kissed it for good luck. 

The media liaison walked into the conference room with great confidence and stood behind the mahogany podium. Standing tall, JJ was not willing to lose a fight with the media, especially with a high-profile case. 

“Ok, can I have everyone's attention,” JJ said to gather the media’s attention to her. “Please, if you could just take your seats…”

“There have been a series of murders that appeared in random locations around Brooklyn. There is sufficient evidence that the victims were murdered on Wall Street then transported to their disposal sites.”

“We believe she may have experienced a psychotic break recently, causing the unsub to escalate to murder to regain a sense of control. You should increase your patrols in and around Wall Street… “

“Why would you focus your profile on the finance guys when the unsub has also contacted members of the FBI?” A male reporter interrupted the media liaison.  

JJ stood at the podium in shock. How could he know about that? We kept that under wraps. 

“I- How did you obtain that information?” JJ asked. 

“I overheard one of the cops saying it.” The journalist said casually. The blonde’s right eyebrow lightly twitched in anger. What couldn’t those cops just shut their mouths, JJ thought.

“What you heard from these officers isn’t true,” JJ lied to keep confidential information private. “Now, do you have any questions about the case?” A new wave of hands came up. JJ took a few more questions to answer. After a while, it was time to end the press conference.

“If anyone works in or around Wall Street, and sees anything unusual, please do not hesitate to call the number on your screen. Thank you.” JJ said her final statement, ending the press conference. As she walked down the steps down the small stage, a reporter called out her name.   

“Agent Jareau! I have something that may be of interest for you!” A different male reporter called out. JJ turned to face him, excepting the same male reporter from earlier. Trying to keep her anger inside, she greeted the news reporter with dignity. 

The male reporter handed the media liaison a letter. JJ took a look at it and was surprised at what she saw: the signature of their unsub. 

“How did you get this?” JJ asked the man. 

“It was sent to me yesterday, directly to the New York Herald.” The man said. JJ called for one of the officers by the wall to collect the letter for evidence. 

“We are going to take this in for evidence processing. One of the officers here will take you in for some questioning.” The man nodded as another officer whisked him away for interrogation. 

JJ sighed and went to search for the officer that unknowingly leaked information. She saw him with another cop, talking, against the wall outside of the press conference room. 

“That information was not for the public!” JJ said, angrily at an NYPD officer. 

“Listen, lady. I don’t know how and where he got the information from,” The beat cop explained himself. “He could have been creeping around the crime scenes or the precinct. 

“Keep your mouth shut, pal, as this case is private and under federal jurisdiction.” JJ huffed as Derek grabbed her shoulders and slowly tried to drag her away. The blonde complied with her co-worker, not throwing a fight as this was not her battle to fight in. 

Once Derek loosened his grips, the media liaison dashed out of the conference room to find her own space to calm down. 

JJ speed-walked once she was out of the hallway’s vicinity. She rushed into the nearest bathroom. Breathing heavily, the media liaison slowly walked into one of the stalls and locked the door. Taking a deep breath, JJ prepared herself for the biggest scream she would take in her life. 

“Fuck. These little shits. Those bastards. Assholes. Son of a bitch. Fucking shit. Why can’t they keep their mouths fucking shut! Those cocksucking motherfucking god damned jackasses!” JJ yelled at the top of her lungs. Her chest fell hard as the blonde was taking deep breaths. She felt better after taking out her anger by screaming. Feeling a little tired, JJ sat on the closed toilet and placed her head between her knees to calm herself down. A few minutes went by, and someone knocked on the bathroom door. 

“JJ… Are you okay?” Emily’s voice could be heard on the other side. JJ sighed while getting up. She opened the stall door and tried to make herself more presentable. Unlocking the silver lock, she opened the door slowly to reveal a relieved Emily Prentiss. 

“Ah–,” Emily gently grabbed JJ and brought her in a warm embrace. They stood together in that position for a few minutes before heading back to the conference room, where the others were, preparing themselves to capture the unsub tonight.

Later that evening, the BAU team, along with SWAT, raided a luxury apartment building in Downtown Brooklyn. Upon entering the only penthouse, Derek broke the door with his strength. The group of agents entered the area and in the middle of the living room, was Taylor Evans. Black mascara ran down her cheeks as she held a gun in her left hand and the final tarot card in the other. 

“Just in time for the show, agents.” Evans croaked. Her sad grey eyes filled with tears, her cheeks flushed from her mental breakdown. 

“Taylor… Listen. You’re young. You don’t have to do this. If you come with us, you can get a lighter sentence and live your life.” Emily said to calm down the broken girl. 

More time passed by as Emily and Spencer tried their best to negotiate with the unsub, but the end was already written. Taylor Evans planned to do an end game, one where she put herself out of misery. 

“I’m sorry….” the blonde girl whispered. In a swift motion, Taylor pulled the trigger onto herself and shot herself underneath the jaw. Her body dropped quickly but Derek ran up to the body to catch it. 

“Damn it,” Derek said. “She was young. Broken. Felt like she had to prove herself that she was something.”

“There was nothing we could have done to help, Morgan. She already had planned her end. She was long gone before anyone else could have noticed.” Hotch responded to Derek’s little monologue. 

Right next to her body was the Emperor card. A beautiful deep purple with gold lining depicting an emperor. The gold detailing reflected against the tall mirrors in the room. The card was reversed, like if she purposefully did that to tell the end to her story. 

taglist: @homosexualyearning / @ssajelle / @iconicc / @sunlightgalaxy / @jemilyology / @pumpkin-stars / @lgbtbau / @drinkingcroissants / @abbyprentiss / @pen3mily / @morcias / @hotchsbabygirl / @gravelyhumerus / @notsosmexy / @rxcklessly-bratty / @hqtchner / @girlbossjareau / @pagetsimp

#honeys stories #jennifer jareau #jj jareau #jennifer jareau fanfiction #jennifer jareau fanfic #spencer reid #derek morgan #penelope garcia #aaron hotchner #david rossi #emily prentiss #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #jemily #jemily fanfic #jemily fanfiction #there is slight mention of jemily #they are pinning after each other #userjemilyology #userika #userhj #userlainey #usertiana #userchips #usersunlight #usercosmic #userablake

[harrysgloves]

Hey if you are taking requests could you please write something where Harry leaves Y/N for someone whom he thinks is better than her and is a major tool while leaving Y/N and then soon realizes that he only loves Y/N and goes to get her back but she isn't convinced easily! But please let it be a happy ending!!

>>My first request! Excuse me while I go die from how excited I’ve been over this. Also, got way too into this and got a bit carried away... and the ending well.. I debated it for too long.

word count: 3.3k

warnings: Language // Mentions of depression, anxiety // Unhealthy amount of ice cream consumption // Harry is a dick // angsty // mentions of smut but nothing fancy

>>><<<

You laid in bed alone for what felt like the millionth time in the last few months. The spot besides you that was usually filled with your loving boyfriend was now empty and as cold as the northern winters. You tried to ignore that nagging deep pit of dread in your stomach when you turned on your side to face the wall.

You knew something wasn’t right but you didn’t want to admit it to yourself. Just a little bit longer of being in denial before you had to face up to the facts.

Harry was out running around on you.

Your eyes filled with unfallen tears as your fingers dug into the soft plush of your pillow. You tried your best to hold it in, to not let your thoughts get the best of you. You tried to rationalize everything he’d done lately that had seemed weird or off. The late nights, the way he guarded his phone like it was his most prized possession. You could rationalize some of it but not all of it, that sinking feeling in your chest only worsened as the minutes on the clock ticked by.

You started to wonder how someone could throw away a five year relationship so easily. How he could possibly come home and look you in the eyes after spending time doing god-knows-what, with a straight face? The feelings of hurt slowly started to wash away into anger as the sun blared its way through the lace curtains you’d bought specifically because Harry liked them.

Fuck those goddamn curtains, you thought as you flung yourself out of your warm and comfortable bed. The tears you had been refusing to cry finally fell in rivers as you ripped the delicate and expensive lace down from the window. Your body shook with a flood of emotions you couldn’t begin to describe as you stared at what you’d done.

You felt like those curtains- torn to shreds, laying like a rag on the floor like yesterday's garbage.

And you used to be so happy.

You dried your eyes with the back of your hand. Fuck this, you were worth more than this. More than sitting around waiting on some man to come home after getting his dick wet somewhere else.

His bags with all his stupid expensive clothes by the front door while you lounged in your nicest outfit, drinking your glass of wine at 6 in the morning. You thought maybe you had gone a bit overboard on being petty but in all honesty, he should just be happy his Gucci didn’t end up on the front lawn. You had some class still reserved.

When the front door finally creaked open at 7:20 your heart felt like it could drop. The back of your tongue was thick and hairy with nerves and venomous words you wanted to spew. The look of surprise on his face satisfied that demon of pure rage in your mind. Of couse, he would think that you’d just be off to work again, that you’d ignore this, again.

No words were spoken as he fully entered into what was once, a very happy home. His green eyes fell on you sipping on your drink, your legs kicked up on the stool in front of you as you relaxed into the chair. Determined to not let him see the fact you were nothing but a mess, ready to break at any moment.

“Wot’s this then?” He asked even though you both knew he didn’t need to.

He knew damn well what this was. He had wanted to break up for months, maybe even longer. Things had changed or maybe it was just him that changed. One thing he did know for sure was that you weren’t Camille. You’d never be her and well… That was the problem.

Ever since the two had been forced to work together again, Harry had realized that spark for her was still there and the girl was everything you weren’t. Sophisticated, educated, gorgeous down to her bones. Sure, you were pretty but you weren’t the famous type of pretty. No, you were just a boring kindergarten teacher who he happened to cross paths with one day.

“Figured you were smart enough to work that one out for yourself.” Your sharp words were a total contrast to your demeanor. You shrugged, your eyes not bothering to look at him when he gave a short, sarcastic, laugh.

“Yeh gonna pay fo’ this place by yehself?” His arrogant voice rang through the home you now hated with a burning passion. Your glass clinked against the glass of the side table when you sat it down. Your body finally turned just enough to him to see whatever was lurking behind his eyes was anything but remorse.

“Nope. Going to move out once I find a new place. Until then, you can stay wherever you want, not my concern.”

“This is my house, Y/N.” He argued. His patience with you running thin as you stood from your spot. The heat and rage that built in your chest finally came to a breaking point.

“The person who cheats gets to couch surf, you fucking asshole.” You seethed, the anger, pain, and hurt couldn’t stay bottled in any longer even if you tried. Your face burned as you looked at him, your body shaking as you clenched your fist.

“Yeh don’t know shit.” He scoffed not caring one bit that you were seconds away from breaking.

“Oh really? Where were you last night?” You asked, hands on your hips, knowing whatever was about to come out of his mouth was about to be nothing but bullshit.

“With Jeff.”

“Alexa, Call Jeff.” You called out loud enough for the smart device to hear. The color from Harry’s face drained as his and your friends' groggy morning voice came over the speaker.

“Was Harry with you last night?” You asked as you stared directly into Harry’s eyes. Tears clouded your vision as he looked back at you.

“What? No?” Jeff said through his barely awaken state.

“Get the fuck out.” You barked at Harry. Storming towards the door to open it for him.

“Fuck you, Y/N. Jesus, you’re so fuckin' dramatic.” He rolled his eyes as his hands picked up the bags that laid on the floor in front of him. “Yeh got so many damn problems I can’t wait to get away from yeh. Every week it’s somethin’ else. My anxiety this, my depression that. How do expect anyone to be happy around you when you suck the fuckin’ will to live out of everyone?”

“Screw you.” You said through clenched teeth. Your eyes burned from how hard you were crying. You couldn’t believe he had used all those things you confided in him about against you.

“Yeah, yeah. Fuck me, I get it. At least I’ll be happy with someone else.” He shook his head at you before he walked out the door. The slam of the wood hitting the frame vibrated the walls, the ceiling, your chest.

“I’ll be there in 5 minutes.”You heard over your sobbing but you couldn’t calm down enough to stop. Your arms wrapped around yourself in a hug as you nodded your head, knowing he couldn’t see it but it was the only type of communication you could do right now. Your heart felt like it was literally ripped from your chest.

>>>

The words Harry said ran through your mind more than you’d ever like to admit. Late at night as you laid in bed staring up at the ceiling of your new apartment you wondered if it was true. If you did force people away from you with all your problems. If you chased him away from you.

You couldn’t stop thinking about it. Every time you were alone or had a moment of peace it was the first thing that popped into your head.

Maybe you were the problem all along. It made sense, you were the common denominator in all your relationships that ended terrible. All your relationships ended terrible and now you realized, it was because of you.

“That’s not true.” Jeff said softly from the other side of the cafe table. His hand reached out to take yours. His thumb running over the back of it as you tried your best to not break down in public.

“Feels like it.” You mumbled. The fork in your other hand pushed the food on your plate around.

“It’s not true. You have so many friends and we all love you. Harry was a dick.” His irritated voice brought a slight smile to the edge of your lips. Jeff had somehow become your life line in the last few weeks.

He had brought you groceries, sat with you when you cried into a tub of ice cream, held your hair back when you tried to drink your feelings away with cheap liquor. He had been an amazing friend, not that he wasn’t one before but now that you two had more time one-on-one, you realized how sweet he could be and how great he was at cheering you up.

“Want me to kick him?” He asked, his big toothy smile across his face when you finally let out a laugh, one he hadn’t heard in what felt like forever.

Whatever small sense of normalcy you were feeling again was short-lived. The bell on the door sent you crashing back down to reality when you saw the head of brown curls enter into the building. A pretty blonde on his arm, smiling brightly up to him like he had just told the world's best joke.

“Fuck.” Jeff said under his breath. The hand connected to yours quickly pulled you up from your seat. His arm around your shoulders, trying to block you from their sight as he guided you towards the door.

“Thanks for taking the trash out, Jeff.” She said in the sickeningly sweet voice. A gloating smile across her face when she looked at you.

Your already low self esteem dropped to deeps you couldn’t imagine when your puffy red eyes met Harry’s. For a second, he looked remorseful for what she said. A look of shock briefly fluttered on his face before turning to stone. Not like it surprised you, what he had said had been so much worse.

Jeff shook his head, glaring at Harry before he pulled you fully outside the building. The cool air licked across the wet streaks on your cheek that you hadn’t even realized was there. You sighed, head against Jeff’s chest as he walked you both back to your place.

>>>

Harry laid in bed that night. The image of your defeated face couldn't leave his mind. Your puffy red eyes like you'd been crying for days filled his wandering thoughts.

He couldn't understand why he couldn't get you out of his mind. He swore he wanted this. The urge to leave the relationship built in him for so long and now he laid next to the only person he swore he loved.

So why did he feel so empty?

Memories of you sitting on the couch beside him, reading to him out loud as you stroked your fingers through his hair flooded his mind. The way you'd look down at him with that crooked smile whenever he said something cheeky about the characters in the novel.

He sighed, his hands ran over his face in the darkened room. He couldn't stop, more like, his mind couldn't stop.

The way you hugged him tighter than anyone else he'd ever known.

The way you'd tell him all about the kids in your class and how much they loved him or his music.

Your cooking, God, he even missed the nights when you'd fuck you dinner and you two would end up ordering pizza. He even missed your sad attempt at biscuits that you tried, and failed, to make every month.

He missed your caring nature. How you'd never call anyone rubbish, even if you hated them, even if they'd wronged you in some way.

He turned in his spot in the bed. His eyes focused on the pretty blonde beside him. Her eyes fluttered open at the movement, a smile on her face when she saw him looking at her.

"Love you." She mumbled, her head nuzzled into his chest that felt like it was being ripped out.

The memory of you saying those words for the first time to him popped in his mind. The way your smile lit up the room when he said it back. Your soft lips against his, kissing him with a hunger and passion he'd never felt before. His hips rocking soft waves into yours as he mumbled to words over and over again close to your ear while your climax hit you.

His heart sank. The feeling of regret was an overwhelming black hole in the bottom of his stomach. The eyes that weren't yours blinked back at him.

"I can't do this." He said as he pushed her away. His body rolled out of the bed in an instant, quickly grabbing for his clothes to leave her house as soon as possible.

"You can't be serious." She scoffed, that soft sweet facade she had started to crack under her aggravation.

"I don't love you." He stated as plainly as he could. He thought he loved her, swore he did, but whatever he was feeling towards her wasn't anything more than last.

You were the one by his side through thick and thin. He was just too much of a dumb-ass to notice it before.

"She's not going to take you back." Camille shot back at him as she scooped up the blankets in her hands to cover herself as he started for her front door. "You're going to regret this, Harry."

He sighed, his hand ran through his hair, tongue wetting his lips as his hand rested on the door knob. He shook his head before opening the door without a word back to her.

The only thing he would regret was letting you go.

>>>

The pounding at your door startled you out of your sugar induced ice cream coma. The empty tub fell to the ground with a loud thud and tinkling of the metal spoon skipping across the linoleum floors. The only sound other than the obnoxious loud bangs was coming from your television, the blue light engulfed the small room all around you.

"Summer, Sid stabbed Nancy... Seven times with a kitchen knife. I mean, we've had some disagreements but I hardly think I'm Sid Vicious." Joseph Gordon-Levitt's pleas for Zooey Deschanel to not end things with him echoed against your bare walls.

Pathetic, you thought to be groveling for someone to not leave you, but yet it was so goddamn relatable.

The slamming of a fist against your door brought you back to reality. You groaned the blanket flung off you as you called out that you were coming, to shut up before they woke your neighbors.

"What the fuck do you want?" Was the first thing out of your mouth when you finally opened your front door. The person standing in front of you was the last person you wanted to see right now.

"Please, Y/N, jus'- jus' listen. Okay?" His words stumbled out of his mouth and as much as you wanted to hate him, you couldn't.

You swallowed as you stepped aside for him to come into your apartment. Not wanting your new neighbors to hear all your business. A curt nod of your head was the only answer you gave him. Your arms across your chest as you stared at the floor in front of you. A part of you wanted to hear but the other didn't.

"I- I," He sighed, his fingers tugged his bottom lip to a point as he looked at you. Nerves radiating off him. "'M so sorry, Y/N, for everythin'."

"I think you should go." You said when your lip started to quiver. Tears welling in your eyes again. What you wouldn't give to go 4 hours without bursting into tears.

"Y/N," he said softly his hand cupped your face. His thumb brushing over your cheek to wipe away the tears and for a second, you leaned into the comfort he was giving you.

Until you remembered he was the reason you were hurt.

Your hand smacked his away as you backed up from him. You brows furrowed, your skin that he touched burned like a fresh sunburn when your fingers ran against it.

"Go!" You yelled, your finger pointing towards the door as he stood there dumbfounded.

"No." He said after a long moment of silence. The words shattering the deafening quiet in the room, cutting like a blade through the tension between you two.

"I. Said. To. Leave." You growled from low in your chest. Anger but mostly hurt and pain from the bitter sting of rejection fueled your words.

"Not until I say what I want to say." His fallen face made a pathetic laugh come from you. He had no right to ask or demand for anything from you.

"Don't you get it? You lost your chance to say anything to me!" You didn't try to hold back your emotions that ran through your voice.

"I fucked up, I know but-"

"Goddamn it, Harry. It's not always about you!" You shouted, your arms flung from your chest as you yelled at him. "You ripped my heart out and dangled it in front of me."

"I love yeh, 'm so sorry. 'M so sorry."

"I don't love you." Your voice cracked as you lied to him. Your puffy swollen eyes swarmed in oceans of tears when his own bloodshot watery ones met yours.

"Y'don't mean that." He said quietly his small footsteps across the floor inched closer and closer to you. Your head nodding that yes you did mean it as you choked out a sob.

"I do mean it." You lied more. Your lips trembled in time with your tears as he grew closer. Your back against the wall, literally, when he finally stood in front of you.

"Know yeh don't. Know yeh jus' want to hurt me like I did to yeh." He muttered, his hand pushed away the few strands of hair that bad fallen into your face. "Yeh can hurt me how ever yeh want fo' the rest of m'life if yeh give me a second chance."

His words stung. Your head buried deep in his chest as your hand grasped on his shirt, and the last bit of sanity you had left floating through your mind.

"I'd do anythin', love. Please." He begged his head rested against your forehead. His chest pressed against yours, his cologne filling the air around you.

Your eyes fluttered open just enough to see him look as wrecked as you felt. His eyes sunken with dark circles, hair a mess, tears down his own face.

Maybe you'd hate yourself and curse yourself one day for this but you couldn't deny the truth.

You were totally fucked for him.

Without another moment of thought or argument running in your mind, your lifted your lips to his. Those soft cushions felt like home against your own. A weight you didn't realize you had laying in your chest lifted when his hands cupped your face, bringing you impossibly closer to him.

His tongue dominating your own when you parted your lips for him. Warm sensations of being close to him like this again ran down your spine as you tugged him towards your bedroom.

A smile formed on your lips as you both stumbled over the threshold to your room. The wrecklessness of trusting him again with your heart never crossed your mind for more than a second.

If anyone was ever going to destroy you, you'd gladly let it be him.

#harry styles #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction #writing #mine #trish takes requests!

[obeymeluv]

Hey ^^ may I please request something? If you won't do it then that's totally fine but could you maybe write about how the demon brothers would react if MC got kidnapped and cannot summon any of them? If you don't have time to do it that's totally fine and remember to take care ^^

Quick rundown on my headcanons for bonding with demons:

When I read this, it made me question whether bonded brothers would instinctively know if their pact mate/bonded person was in trouble? Would they be able to tell if the bonded person was unconscious instead of just...contained? I’d like to think that when demons bond to the point of making pact marks, they can kind of “tap in” or “tune in” to the bonded one to make sure things are okay. When they do, they feel what their pact mate is going through. The longer they stay connected, the more they can share.

For example: a 5 minute connection can allow the bonded pair to say a few things mentally, and would allow the demon to fully tap into their bonded one’s emotions. The telepathic capabilities only work when the two are in eye-sight; the connection grows stronger as the demon moves towards the pact mate.

Basic and superficial wounds can be felt at this point. Pulse rates sync up at about three minutes. If the pact mate is unconscious, the demons can try to push their consciousness into being awake or opening their eyes to try and see through them to figure out where they are (before the conscious mind kicks in, about 5-10 seconds). This connection will also allow them to connect to other senses but the demons will be overloaded and experience them all at once. If their human is conscious and they tap into their senses again, they can filter out senses or enhance certain ones for a short amount of time.

Being connected 10 minutes or longer allows for deeper or graver injuries to be felt, and might help with reflexes. Humans may also take on key attributes of a demon, like sharper teeth or claw-like nails. Subtle changes like being slightly more charming (if pulling from Asmo) or stronger (if pulling from Beel) would start to occur. Using this too much may cause mental or physical pains.

The effects of being connected for thirty minutes or longer are largely undocumented (despite Devildom society being 5,000+ years old) but are assumed to be dangerous for the human (pass out from mental exhaustion, borrowed magic fatigue, numbness or trouble moving limbs if reflexes are enhanced, etc.) Humans like Solomon, who are magically inclined or gifted, will not be harmed or taxed as much as a non-magical human. Connected demons hardly have any drawbacks, save for being sore depending on the extent of their bond mate’s injury if they connect to the point of being able to feel them.

I added all of that because my brain had to know how the bros would find MC. Plus, I’m stuck in chapter 20/21 and think there needs to be more lore about pact bonds/capabilities.

I couldn’t figure out how to squeeze this in anywhere above, but if the demon wants to locate a missing pact mate, they will have an internal compass of sorts. It’s a really strong compulsion to go a certain direction no matter who or what is in front of them. Their bonded one will be at the end of that feeling, and it will intensify the closer they get to each other.

Now, how they’d react:

Lucifer

He’s super pissed, obviously. You’re in trouble and he can’t just teleport to you?! What the hell did you get yourself into?!

Also worried. Did you piss off some figure (witch, etc.) that has magic capabilities or is this just a situation where you, as a human, do not feel safe to summon them?

Lucifer has been alive for 5,000+ years and is one of the strongest in the Devildom. He will use the above-mentioned brain push to get you to open your eyes and look around. He needs an idea of where you’re at (he’ll apologize about your migraines later)

I headcanon that he’s good with directions and has a strong memory, so he’d probably be able to recognize your surroundings and find you personally

When he sets out to find you, he’s a one man army. A one-man wrecking crew of death.

Considers that your captors may be magic-proficient or have some sort of anti-demon items (why else would they be stupid enough to take you?) so he packs an old fashioned, heavy-ass sword or dagger in case hand-to-hand fighting isn’t an option.

Those gloves come off, and he rarely takes his gloves off. Lucifer will make sure your captors suffer a long, slow, painful death that illustrates why he’s a demon and why they should be afraid of him

He fought bare-handed. The dagger/sword wasn’t necessary.

Mammon

WHO JUST TOOK HIS HUMAN? WHY? GET FUCKIN’ READY, BUDDY!

Stuck in an angry panic spin of ‘HUMAN IS MISSING? WHAT DO I DO? HOW DO I FIND HUMAN? GOD DAMMIT!’ until his brain kicks in

Doesn’t think to use the brain push thing. His first thought is: people will sell information

Mammon is the Avatar of Greed--he knows what people want and he knows how to manipulate them. He’s actually pretty slick in a ‘watch this hand, not this one’ kind of way

Also caught in the feels and will not hesitate to beat somebody up for that information.

If he feels asking around will waste time, he’ll teleport to one of his witch acquaintances and have them find you. It may cost him another favor, but it’s worth it. SOMETHING is keeping you from summoning him, so he has to find a way around it.

You’ll hear Mammon coming before you see him. He’ll be complaining the whole way--(”Making me come all the way out here to save you! What were you thinking?!”) but he’ll be kicking ass without breaking eye contact

Being the second-oldest of seven, he grew up fighting several brothers at once and learned how to wrestle in different ways. His reflexes are pretty on point. It’s a very efficient fighting style--hard hits or distance throws that give him time to pick multiple captors off individually

Unapologetic and threatening. Lots of demon noises

He’s pretty quiet and burnt out by the time he finds you. More of a relieved exhaustion than anything. Baby boy missed you and just wants to hold you.

A little paranoid for the next two weeks. You’re basically on lock down with your main man until he feels better about everything.

Levi

THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME IN ANIME AND MANGA AND IT DOES NOT END WELL!

Spends a solid 5-10 minutes hyperventilating BECAUSE SO MUCH COULD HAPPEN!

Has something already happened to you? What have they done?! Will he get a ransom note? A spooky encrypted video email?

WHAT WOULD HENRY DO?

That ‘admiral of Hell’s Navy’ personality kicks in and after a mild panic, he’s all business. He WILL figure out a way to find you

 He’d use that “compass” connection I described. It goes well with his one-track mind/hyperfocus he tends to get.

This is one big ass-whoopin’ quest in the making and he’s fixing to get that achievement trophy

Levi’s more of a strategist than a tank. He’s basically banking on his demon form to help rip your captors to shred.

Were you held hostage by a decent-sized body of water that connects or is fed into by other bodies of water? He’ll be coming at your captors like a Sharpedo. You’re in the splash zone.

Has a very merciless and interesting fight style. It’s kind of cheating in that Levi’s biggest tactic is ‘don’t give anyone else room to fight’, but it works.

Be prepared to see his tail used in interesting ways. Boy has a built-in long-range weapon.

Whether it’s one person or a whole group of people, he may summon Lotan just because they pissed him off. You’ll be safe, of course.

Satan

Boy is big angry

YOU WERE STOLEN? HE CAN’T JUST GO TO YOU?

Satan just wants a nice, quiet, simple life with things that don’t make him angry. This makes him angry. There will be death.

Is very suspicious by nature, and an over-thinker, so he’s probably considered this would happen at one point. Actually already had a plan.

Would use a combination of the “compass” intuition and the brain push to see what you see. Instead of having you look at your surroundings, though, he wants you to look at people.

Does he recognize any of those fuckers? Who’s on his hit-list?

If there’s no immediate sense of a threat, he’s interrogating Asmo. Between the two of them, they WILL find the person/people who took you

There’s probably at least one book in his connection that works like the mirror from Beauty in the Beast where he just has to ask it about you and it will tell him.

When Satan comes in to rescue you, it’s all demon noises. He comes in terrifying and strong and leading with magic.

Probably smells like fire and blood. Is covered in the latter and basically none of it’s his.

Big fan of using his tail like a mace.

They get the horns (literally)

Asmo

Someone stole his precious darling?! Um, no. Not okay. THE FARTHEST THING FROM OKAY, ACTUALLY!

I feel like we don’t have a lot of character depth for Asmo. I’m hoping once I get un-stuck I’ll be pleasantly surprised with Asmo content. I can’t decide if he’d panic a bit or just go into straight, hardcore bitch mode.

The definition of “looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you”. Big dick energy. Big bitch energy.

 I feel like Asmo wouldn’t be super organized because this isn’t usually a kind of stressor he deals with. What he lacks in tactical thought, he makes up for in connections

Boy would probably find you fastest out of all the bros because he can make a few posts across Devilgram, get some celebrities to do the same, and SOMEONE would find you.

Would stay mentally connected with you for as long as your body could handle it, and would be very soothing. A panicked kind of soothing, like pouring his heart out to you and just gushing, but soothing

Like “Baby, I love you so much! I’ll find you soon, I promise! We can even beat these assholes together!” ❤︎

Usually hates getting his hair or nails dirty, but he might just break off a nail in someone’s eye. Or, you know, come find you in a nice-ass pair of heels just to shove one down someone’s throat (or up someone’s ass).

He may look dainty and gorgeous but DO NOT be fooled. This boy has SATAN for an older brother and BEEL for a younger brother. He knows how to throw down.

In general, he’s just a vicious little shit. Asmo knows how to fuck people up physically. He just doesn’t like doing it.

Depending on how many captors you have, Asmo will charm them into killing each other and just watch. It’s not the most satisfying thing, but there is SOME satisfaction to it

Couple snuggles and major pampering after you’re back with him (and you’ve been checked out by medical staff). Lots of kisses.

He cries and it’s very quiet and heart-felt.

Beel

The worst thing to happen in the history of ever. Literally.

In Beel’s world there are two things YOU DO NOT DO: 1) eat his food, 2) fuck with his family

It’s hard for him to think rationally because he’s just so stressed/angry that he’s stumbling around in his demon form and he’s ruining everything.

His full strength is on display and he’s leaving cracks in walls, scratching up things--just general, accidental destruction. He’s breaking things on accident and trying to write out plans on paper that rips up and it’s starting to wear on him to the point of being genuinely destructive

Beel feels first and thinks second, which makes this a lot harder

Uses the “compass” thing. Becomes demon juggernaut.

 Likes to fly and divebomb where possible, so someone’s getting knocked THE FUCK out

When he sees you, or gets to the end of that “compass” feeling, Beel’s football training kicks in and he just demolishes anyone that’s in his way.

People just get tossed around like rag dolls. He doesn’t check to make sure they’re down and out, just clears the way.

The type to try and hold you or touch you first. Then, if anyone’s still standing, he makes sure they get put down before going back to you.

Carries you all the way back, his wings buzzing and singing happily because you’re safe and everything’s okay

Once you’re back in the House of Lamentation his stomach goes off loudly. You guys have a big feast to celebrate.

Belphie

The list of things Belphie likes in this world: 1) Sleep, 2) Beel, 3) You. Do not mess with the things Belphie likes.

Is most pissed that one of his favorite people in the whole damn world have gone missing and can’t summon him. Is side-pissed that he’s losing so much sleep to come find you. It’s not your fault, but still

Someone will die, and only Belphie will have fun

Is sleepy enough that he doesn’t panic and awake enough to think

I headcanon that Belphie in particular has a special kind of brain push due to being the Avatar of Sloth and making people sleepy. When he pushes your brain, he can also pick through what’s at the forefront of your mind or your most recent conscious moments. It’s like being able to link up to dreams, just not limited to dreams.

 Periodically uses the telepathic link as a radar of sorts Uses it in conjunction with the “compass” instinct to make sure he’s going in the right direction. Using the telepathic link once he’s in the general area just helps him find you faster

Belphegor, like Satan, has a lot of reserved anger. It will be well-used.

I bet his tail works like a real whip. It’d be demeaning as hell to get hit with it and Belphie wants to see your captor suffer. The tail will be used

Imagine the last thing you see or feel is getting hit by a demon cow tail. He’d definitely do that.

No holds bar when it comes to fighting. Your captor(s) signed their death wish when they took you.

Mostly fatal bites and deep scratches. Probably some limb tearing or pulling things out that should be kept inside the body. May definitely get a few nut shots with the tail if you have any male captors (you know, just because).

He doesn’t show up as bloody as Satan would, but there’s definitely blood on his face and under his fingernails.

Carries you out of wherever you’d been held. Gives you firm instructions not to look at anything. Just kind of gently pressed you into his chest before readjusting you and carrying out.

I hope you liked it :D

[skyholders]

Lucien: Curtain of Rain [Translation]

[A/N] This is my first time translating a full date, so pardon me if it's gone OOC, I will try my best the next time I do these date translations again. (Which will be a while because well, it's kinda tiring haha.) Also, if any grammatic mistakes are found, please notify me! Thank you for reading :)

A shout-out to @cheri-translates for the few tips she'd given me along the way! If you'd like to see Victor, Gavin, Kiro or Shaw's season two ER dates, visit their blog!

[BEFORE WE BEGIN] This date is based in season two, two years before MC's father died (Meaning MC is 20, and Lucien is 24 in this date.) If you don't know what happens in season two, please do some research here:

•

Lucien: “Curtain of Rain”

Accidental Date

Date summary: After accidentally hearing the news of Lucien’s return to China, I decided to sneak into the newly built research centre, but to my surprise, I’ve encountered Lucien there once more..

•

The moment I pulled the curtains open, the sun unabashedly seeped into my bedroom, and onto the picture on the table. I softly removed the thin layer of dust on the frame, and carefully adjusted it.

“..Seriously, he’ll only promise that he’ll take care of himself with that mouth of his..”

I couldn’t help but sigh. Pulling up my sleeves, I tidied up the fallen, scrambled books and folders on my father’s study desk.

The world silently goes forward, and I follow its trace, welcoming every familiar yet foreign day. Like how it was in the past, I’ve successfully been accepted into XinYi University. I’ve temporarily moved out of Loveland, and moved away from my father.

But then, in a blink of an eye came/comes the year I look forward to the least.

Using homesickness as my excuse, I’ve started visiting my father more often, and at the same time, I’ve also started to pick up all sorts of tasks and responsibilities from the company.

“Don’t know if he’ll be able to leave work early either, I guess I’ll ask him what he wants to eat.”

I dialed his number as I said my thoughts aloud, but his ringtone rang from under my feet. Bending down to pick up his phone on the floor, an unknown contact number's text appeared without warning-

“There are news of Ares' return to the country. The research centre's constructions were completed yesterday. I’ve sent someone to monitor him.”

=MC's shocked to see the message=

The familiar name claimed my entire field of vision. And for a moment, my mind went blank, as I stared at the name over and over again, as if looking for a confirmation of what I’ve just seen.

=Door opening=

“MC?”

“..Dad, are you looking for this? I was just cleaning the study, and found it on the floor.”

I said as I casually waved the phone in my hand, trying my best to calm down, and pretended that I’ve saw nothing.

A wave of complexity flashed across his eyes, but then, it disappeared just as quickly as it came. He smiled and took the phone, gently rubbing my head,

“What a joy it is to have a daughter around.”

“Of course. Oh, dad, what would you like for dinner?”

“Hm.. tomato and eggs stir fry again?”

“I know other recipes too! You’re underestimating me!”

=Dad laughed=

“I think that everything you make tastes nice.”

I proudly nodded, and just like that, we’re walking down the staircase together, chatting and laughing along.

“-Then you’ll have to leave work on time today, alright?”

“Okay.”

=Dad headed off to work=

Watching my dad’s fading silhouette, I turned around and walked on along the opposite direction.

Two years ago, before the sudden, dramatic shift with BS, I’ve never once went up to my father and ask of BS; haven’t been to any facilities related to it. Since what’s happened in the orphanage, any topics relevant to BS are as if known secrets kept between my father and I. Even with the knowledge that Lucien was Ares, I’ve never had any encounters with him, nor have I any reasons for an encounter.

And two years ago, the sudden shift has caused BS to have an internal change of members, and because of that, Lucien left BS. The organisation’s always been interested in his whereabouts, so the “monitoring” didn’t surprise me one bit.

It’s just that..

=MC breathes in deeply, thinking back to the text message=

He’s coming back, huh?

I’ve only realise where I’ve unconsciously been heading after I’ve taken my mind off of the gutter of thoughts-

Lucien's Bioscience Research Centre

[Section One]

A few separation tapes were draped and hung onto the door frame, a handful of construction workers were still adjusting the main entrance's signboard's angle. Just like how the text’s mentioned, the building itself looks to be complete.

I’ve seen how it looked like, flooded with people going in and out of the entrance. I’ve seen how it looked like at dawn, and at night. And yet, that was the first time I’ve seen it brand new, and quiet. I took a step forward, but then the “warning” slipped into my mind unknowingly, and so I stopped for a moment.

“Your unconscious actions may perhaps lead to irreversible outcomes.”

=MC mumbled to herself:

"I think it’ll be fine if I’m only going in for a peek; I’ll be heading out very quickly anyways."

I quickly snuck through the opened door when no one’s looking. The lab was burdened with the pungent smell of formaldehyde, I couldn’t help but try and wave it away.

Perhaps it’s because nobody else’s there, my footsteps quickened, and my feet easily walked along the all too familiar path to Lucien’s office.

His office was deprived of any sort of greenery, nor was there any liveliness-only the sunlight shining through the blinds, forming intriguing shadows all over. I could almost see him taking notes off of a folder, turning to the blackboard to note down anything more; sitting by the desk and sipping on a cup of coffee from time to time, and pushing the frame of his glasses; then, by the next second, his gaze shifting away from the papers, and onto me, with the corners of his lips curving up to an attractive look. These scenes revived themselves right in front of me, as if it’s always been there; as if it’s never left.

"Lucien.."

“I miss you so much.”

My eyes suddenly felt teary. I quickly breathed in and turned around, opening the door as I left the office. The empty space of the corridor echoed the sound of my footsteps. Upon passing by the laboratory, I couldn’t help but think of the first time I met Lucien here.

“Ah, it was here, I think,”

“If everything goes according to how it’s supposed to go, then I’ll have to wait for two more years to meet you once more.”

I sighed, looking at the closed doors in front of me, rewinding back to when I judged his character based off of his looks, the awkward scene I’ve dug myself into then.

“Can’t be as foolish this time, the least I could’ve done was to be friendly..”

“But what am I supposed to say to him? Introduce myself? No, I think he knows who I am..”

As I was mumbling to myself, there’s the sudden sound of footsteps echoing from the floor below, then, the beam of light from a torch.

Oh no!

Without room to think, I quickly pushed open the doors to the laboratory, and at the same time, I felt a pull of the door from the inside.

=MC was confused=

My head bumped into the solid chest in front of me, my eyes closing due to the pain. But a sudden realisation dawned onto me and I quickly looked up.. My eyes widened, and my hands tremored slightly.

Lucien looked at me, a wave of surprise flashing through his eyes. But he quickly kept his composure, and smiled at me politely. His scent had spread to each and every corner of the room, familiar and nostalgic. Everything that’s been prepared so far immediately disassembled upon that unexpected moment; the pair of once diverged lines finally merging into one after countless moments of time.

My heartbeat raced towards my ears, leaving its vibrations as if a drum upon impact. I felt as if something had fallen into place in this moment.

Then, realising that would probably not leave a good first impression, I rushed to stand up on my own, grinning apologetically. Lucien didn’t mutter a word, instead, he observed me with an almost unnoticeable smile.

With too much of emotions urging to flood and drown my heart, I opened my mouth, and words slipped-

“Hello, I’m looking for Professor Lucien.”

He smiled a little wider.

“Is there a reason as to why you’re looking for him?”

[Section Two]

“I..”

Lucien looked at me wordlessly, calm and composed. Then suddenly, his lips morphed into a frown, as he reached out to my lips with his finger.

“Shh, someone’s here,”

He said as he inched closer, his breaths landing upon the tips of my ears. It felt a little ticklish.

“I believe you’d not like to be noticed?”

“If that’s so, I’ll have to inconvenience you for a moment. Is that alright?”

My heart skipped a couple of beats as I nodded. Lucien smiled, seemingly happy, and backed a couple of steps away. He opened the cover of the laboratory bench, revealing a small storage space.

“You’re not telling me to hide in there, are you?”

“Not if you have a better idea.”

“But unfortunately, you don’t have much time for thinking,”

Lucien tilted his chin towards the door, pointing out the increasingly close pace of the footsteps.

I bit my lips before heading in. The space was never bright to begin with, but with the sound of its door shutting, I sank further into the darkness.

A second later, an eye-piercing beam of light broke into a small opening, followed by a voice of a stranger.

“Oi, who are you? How did you get in here?”

“I’m Lucien. There weren’t any security guards on shift when I arrived today, so I came in myself. Pardon me for making you worry.”

“Wait, what’s your name again? Lucien? The Lucien of this Lucien Bioscience Research Centre?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

The man repeated Lucien’s words with exaggeration, chuckling unconvincingly,

“Buddy, lying requires a plan. Professor Lucien hasn’t even came back to China yet, which Lucien are you?”

“Seems like the message hasn’t reached you just yet.”

=Lucien took out his ID card=

“This is my identification information, I believe there won’t be anymore misunderstandings?”

Lucien looked unbothered by the misunderstanding, but his tone seemed so distant. What’s supposed to be a simple explanation felt more like a method of unconsciously pushing people a thousand miles away from him.

There’s the sound of the final bits of construction outside. Then, the man spoke, rather conflicted,

“My, I can’t believe you’re really Professor Lucien! Please excuse my impolite(ness) then. I never thought that you’re this young,”

The guard chuckled to himself.

“It’s alright.”

“There are still certain things I’ll have to check on, so if there isn’t anything else..”

“Oh, please, carry on. I’m sorry for the intrusion.”

The door closed, and silence filled the room once more. The cover above me lifted open, Lucien reached his hand towards me.

I couldn’t see him well as he’s facing back against the lights, but his hair's moving gently as he moved,

“Sorry for the wait.”

“..It’s nothing.”

I held his hand and got myself out of the laboratory bench, as soon as I’ve balanced myself, the warmth of his palm left mine.

My heart instinctively sank with a moment of disappointment.

“You haven’t told me the reason you’re looking for me.”

I stared at him like bewildered, thinking of an excuse while my mind remained blank.

“There’s no need to force yourself if you’ve not like to tell me.”

“No-hold on! It’s not that I’d not like to say it.. It’s just that I can’t say it.. just yet.”

“I can’t give you a reason at the moment. Can I tell you next time?”

Lucien looked at me curiously, his pupils shifting just for a second or so,

“Of course.”

“Actually, I’m just surprised to see you here. At this time, too.”

“Are you trying to say that.. you’re not supposed to meet me now?”

“No! Not that!”

Lucien smiled softly,

“Sorry, I was just joking.”

“But in my opinion, this may not be an accidental encounter.”

His eyes held a foreign weight with them, letting others feel that they can’t reach him. His words had a feeling of nostalgia to them, and yet I still couldn’t understand a word he’s trying to say.

“Still, I am very curious as to why you’ll intentionally come and look for me here.”

“Though one thing I can say for certain.. this time, you didn’t get lost on the way here either, did you?”

“Lost..?”

I froze, before a realisation suddenly came onto me,

The young boy sitting under the camphor tree, along with all of his relating memories, they seemed to have leapt over the rivers of time, and have merged into the Lucien in front of me.

I look at Lucien’s eyes, filled with a certain joy in them. At that moment, I couldn’t tell what I was truly feeling.

“You.. remember me?”

“Did that surprise you?”

I nodded.

“It seems like every time we meet one another, there’ll always seem to be something unexpected happening with every encounter. It’s quite intriguing.”

He lifted his hand, pausing for a second or so before placing it on my head gently.

“Actually, I’ve already recognised you the moment you bumped into me.”

“Because.. you’re very special in my eyes.”

“It’s been a while, MC.”

“I..”

I stopped myself from saying anything else, fearing that I might change certain things in the future from just a single sentence.

But there he was, standing in right in front of me, his hands a reach away from mine. If our first encounter is bound to be two years earlier than the one we had, then I couldn’t just stand still and do nothing about it.

At least this time, I can be by his side a little earlier, I can learn to observe and learn of the world around us, with him.

“Lucien, there is an actual reason why I’m here to see you.”

“I’d like to invite you to be a special guest in my company’s show, “Miracle Finder.”

“Yes, I do know of this show, but why did you choose me as the special guest?”

“Because, next time, I’ll be the lead producer of this filming company, and I’ll be responsible for this show. And I’d like to work with you. So I wonder if you’ll accept this request of mine, Professor Lucien?”

“I accept.”

“This sounds like an early invitation, but it’s the most unique one that I’ve received nonetheless. For that, I’m looking forward to it. Best of luck, MC.”

Lucien smiled, his eyes curving up as he does so.

[Section Three]

For a moment or so, neither of us talked. Instead, we basked in the silence of the room, the mild smell of sawdust stinging into our noses. I rubbed my nose and sneezed. Lucien noticed, and so he walked towards the windows, pushing them open.

The winds blew gently, and the air around us lightened up drastically.

“It’s getting late, let’s go.”

He walked towards the doors, holding them open and faced me. I nodded, and walked towards him. I followed Lucien down the empty corridors. The sun shone upon the side of his face, to the corners of his coat, moving along as he did.

I couldn’t help but to sneak glances at him, studying and memorising each fleeting second of this accidental encounter.

=Lucien notices=

“Is everything alright? You seem to have stared at me for quite a few times.”

He suddenly stopped, and looked at me, intrigued.

Without time to look away, I could only continue to look towards him. The remaining light has now landed upon the office on his side, and suddenly, an idea sunk into me.

“Because you’ve walked past your office!”

I said as I skipped a few steps, pushing the door to his office and pointing towards the little signboard on the door. Lucien looked a little shocked, as if he didn’t expect me to do something like that.

“I’m guessing you haven’t looked into your office yet?”

“Since we’re here, do you want to go in and take a look?”

I tugged at one of the sleeves of his coat, and we walked into the office. I rushed towards the windows just to pull the blinds open, letting the sunlight pour in.

“Look, isn’t it much brighter now? This room has the best lighting at around the afternoon, so we must open the blinds so that.. uh-”

Suddenly realising what I’ve just said, I quickly switched to another topic.

“Hm? What happens if we open the blinds?”

Lucien seemed to not mind about my “rambling”. Instead, he smiled and raised an eyebrow curiously.

“What I meant was that.. it’ll let the greeneries in this room photosynthesise much better.. If.. you’re planning on placing a few plants here, that is.”

“Plants, huh?”

He lifted his hand towards his chin, pondering deeply for a few seconds.

“I’ll consider it. This place does require a bit of decorations, after all. Thank you for the suggestion.”

“Though, it seems like this room is currently not suitable for the guests.”

“If that’s so, I’ll definitely visit the day this research centre opens.”

Without waiting for his response, I accompanied him towards the door.

“Are we going?”

Lucien's face was blocked by the light, which was shining onto his back.

All a sudden, a flash of white light darted across the sky, and what was once a sunny day soon became dull and gloomy.

When we’re near the staircase's exit, we’ve already lost any source of light from the outside, and are surrounded by complete darkness. There was the sound of hurried, messy footsteps on the other side of the corridor.

“Why- why’s there another person coming over?”

I looked at Lucien nervously, but was not able to decipher his expressions in the darkness. He seemed to have walked closer to me, and calmly said,

“Looks like the electricity has been cut off due to the abnormal change in weather conditions. If I remember correctly, there circuits here are still not able support normal usage.”

“Then we’ll have to walk in the dark, just in case we bump into one of the guards.”

“Can we do it?”

“I think so! It’s not as dark anyways.”

I looked around at the sea of darkness among us, and slightly grabbed onto the corners of my shirt.

Lucien took a step down the staircase, and reached out his hand.

“If you don’t mind, I can guide you.”

“..Okay.”

As the warmth of his hands reached mind, I felt a certain otherworldly longing from him.

I fidgeted the joints of my fingers around, wanting to hold him tighter, and yet waves of complicated doubts sprouted in my mind, and I unconsciously loosened my grip.

“Are you afraid?”

“Ah? Me? No..”

“If you’re scared, you can hold onto me a little tighter. I won’t mind.”

In the darkness, I could’ve sworn I’ve heard the light chuckle from Lucien, so light that is was as if non existent. Wanting to test my observations, I purposefully slowed down my pace, carelessly tightening my grip on his hand.

In that moment, I was greedily hoping that time will go a little slower, and slower than that.

“Lucien,”

“Yes?”

“It’s nothing. I was just confirming whether you’re here with me.”

“...”

Lucien's body seemed to have halted for a while, he didn’t said a thing, only holding my hand and walking forward. My heart stung, but at the same time, it all felt calm and steady.

“Lucien, thanks for today. I can only thank you with my words for now, I still owe you some other forms of gratitude. I’ll give it to you the next time we meet.”

“You seem to love saying ‘Next time’.”

“Do I?”

“Looks like I’ve noticed an unconscious habit of yours.”

“See you next time, Miss. MC”

He leaned down slightly, gazing into my eyes, grinning playfully. He’d intentionally emphasised on those two words, as if he was teasing and replicating my tone of speech. I felt my cheeks warming up.

We’ve quickly reached the entrance. I slowly loosened my hold on Lucien’s hand, and looked at him,

“I’ll see you next time.”

Watching as his silhouette slowly fade into the darkness of the streets, I finally turned and left as well.

When she’d finally disappeared from his vision, his world’s only left with black and white.

=Lucien=

Feeling the gaze behind him leaving, Lucien stopped, and looked back. The path the girl had taken was temporarily brushed with striking colours, disappearing quickly as she’d left.

The sky had seemingly sunken in, the dark patches of clouds swallowing the skyscrapers of the city, making everyone feel a little breathless. Lucien walked a few streets away, stopping by a florist shop.

The car finally stopped at the suburban area of Loveland city, the metal gates of the cemetery rusted, the words on the metal sign barely visible after years of withstanding the snow, wind and rain.

It was already close to evening, so most of the cemetery’s workers have already left their shifts. There were only a few wistful silhouettes, masking in the painful silence of the deads’ graves.

The ones alive and walking in these places are often either silent or weeping loudly along the paths.

Thin splatters of rain began to fall, along the tips of his hair to the top of his shoulders. Everything was gentle, soft, as if it may disrupt something if it was just a little louder.

Lucien walked along the gravel underneath him, finally stopping in front of a gravestone.

Lucien looked at the two familiar names and years of birth and death along the gravestone, a wave of melancholy and longing rushing into his heart. He paused, before saying,

“I’m back.”

“I haven’t once visited in the past fifteen years.. I hope you don’t mind.”

He walked a few steps forward, bowed down, and placed the white bouquet in front of the grave gently.

With eyes flooded with countless of complex emotions, he reached out to rub away the layer of dirt and dust on the grave slowly.

“I think I might be able to find what I’ve been looking for soon.”

“Perhaps, it’s going even smoother than I’ve imagined,”

Lucien said lightly, his low, raspy voice washed away by the rain. His pupils dilated slightly, as if he’d thought of something.

“Never in my wildest dreams, did I think that I’d meet her again.”

“The special girl..”

Maybe he’d never once thought of the source of this peculiar feeling in his heart thoroughly. It’s the sudden bursts of colours into his world years ago under that camphor tree, it’s how he thought that he’d never see the colours once more, yet it’d reappeared into it, even if he’s already so used to the habitual, monochromatic world.

He reached into the pocket of his coat, reaching to take out a little peace knot from the inside.

Time has made the girl’s once bright red string faded a bit, yet in Lucien’s eyes, it looked exactly as it was years ago.

All these years, and he’s still keeping the important blessing close to him.

The corner of Lucien's lips lifted up briefly, but the smile soon disappeared.

A long while later, he finally stood up, silently wiping away the raindrops on his body.

“Don’t worry about me.”

His warm, gentle tone swiftly swept by the rain, he turned and walked into the curtain of rain.

[END]

•

[NOTE] Nineteen white chrysanthemums and two white lilies (Lucien's bouquet), symbolises a deep longing and missing for somebody in Chinese.

Thanks for reading! Stay safe :)

#mlqc #mr love queens choice #mr love #mlqc lucien #mlqc spoilers #mlqc dates #mlqc xumo #love and producer xumo #恋与制作人

[aion-rsa]

The Sopranos’ Best End Credit Songs

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

There are so many legendary aspects of The Sopranos that it’s hard to pick just one. Between masterful storytelling, deep character development, and uncanny acting, everything comes together to create a show that has been enjoyed for over two decades now. The most artistic aspect of the package, however, may just be the use of music, specifically the unique songs curated personally by creator David Chase that run during each episode’s end credits. 

Ranging from oldies, foreign ballads, jazz compositions, and pure instrumentals, the variety is stunning and can keep you exploring the track list of the series for days. We’ve decided to narrow all of the end credit songs down to the best 15 in the series, listed in chronological order of airing. Enjoy! 

Season 1 Episode 4: Meadowlands 

“Look on Down from the Bridge” by Mazzy Star

The nice father-son moment between Tony and A.J. at the closing of this episode is accompanied by this beautiful track from Mazzy Star. A.J. sees his dad in a whole new light after Meadow tells him that he’s in the mafia, but a simple smile and wink from Tony reassures the youngest Soprano child that he certainly will still “look on down from the bridge” and see his family as the only priority in his life, no matter what criminal occupation he tries to hide on a daily basis. 

Season 1 Episode 7: Down Neck 

“White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane

This one follows the pattern of the show choosing to play a song earlier in an episode and then again during the final scene and credits. The Jefferson Airplane hit refers to drug use and being intoxicated, therefore changing as a person in the process. The song plays when Tony is taking prozac mid-episode and during the final scene in which Tony and A.J share an ice cream sundae and some whip cream together. No matter how much the therapy and the meds try to alter Tony’s life, he’ll remain the same man: a depressed mobster and a father who softens for his children. 

Season 2 Episode 10: Bust Out 

“Wheel in the Sky” by Journey

If you haven’t noticed by the time you’re done watching the show, The Sopranos loves to point out how trapped all of the characters are in the lifestyles they have either chosen or been forced into. Tony has betrayal surrounding him at every corner at the end of the second season: Richie and Janice plotting his removal, Carmela falling for a painter who is working in the family home, and Pussy’s FBI informancy reaching a climax. Still, the “wheel in the sky keeps on turning”. Tony finishes the episode having some fun with A.J. on the Stugotz, and he doesn’t “know where he’ll be tomorrow” but he’ll enjoy the time he has in the present. 

Season 2 Episode 12: The Knight in White Satin Armor 

“I Saved the World Today” by the Eurythmics

Tony returns home after disposing of Richie Aprile’s body because Janice shot him to death over a domestic dispute. After informing Carmela of the night’s bloody events, she quickly moves on to the list of chores and homemaker responsibilities she is going to lay at Tony’s feet for the next week while she goes on vacation with Ro Aprile. This apt song from the Eurythmics exemplifies everything Tony has to be in the lives of friends and family around him: always there to save the world for them.

Season 3 Episode 4: Employee of the Month 

“Fisherman’s Daughter” by Daniel Lanois

This Dr. Melfi-centric episode is one of the most deservedly acclaimed hours in the drama’s history. When the final scene gives her a chance to let Tony loose on the monster who assaulted her, she powerfully takes the moral route and declines his services. The camera pans to black solemnly with this haunting instrumental track by Daniel Lanois, a perfect backdrop to allow the audience to ponder everything that just happened and why Melfi was able to maintain strength that so many others wouldn’t have mustered. Anything with singing would have detracted from the environment the writers were trying to create, so this is a great song choice. 

Season 3 Episode 12: Amour Fou 

“Affection” by Little Steven and the Lost Boys

The penultimate episode of the third season features the climax of the relationship between Tony and Gloria, in which the crazy affection that they have for one another boils over into violence. Yet another of the brilliant musical choices this show made was to use the same song twice: once earlier in an episode, and then again in the final scene and credits. This tune, sung by Silvio Dante (Steven Van Zandt) himself, plays with Tony and Gloria spending time together mid-episode and then again at the end credits. 

Season 4 Episode 4: The Weight 

“Vesuvio” by Spaccanapoli

Another example of double dipping on the same song in one episode. The above scene between Carmela and Furio dancing and falling in love right underneath Tony’s nose uses this romantic Italian track by Spaccanapoli, and then uses it again in the final seconds when Carmela is daydreaming about Furio while having sex with Tony. So sensual and heavy, the audience knows that Carmela is going down a path she can’t see through to the end, but the music signifies the passion that she will inevitably entangle herself in for the time being. 

Season 4 Episode 7: Watching Too Much Television 

“Oh Girl” by The Chi-Lites

When an assemblyman starts an affair with Tony’s ex-lover, Irina, there is quite a bit of jealousy and ownership that exudes from the mob boss. This classic from the Chi-Lites plays in the car on the way over to the assemblyman’s house as Tony drives over to confront him about “taking” his mistress from him. It is a song which causes deep reflection and nostalgia for a lost love, and prompts Tony to get emotional listening to it. Wonderful acting by Gandolfini and superb use of in-world music that plays over to the credits, something the show got down to an art and a science simultaneously. 

Season 5 Episode 10: Cold Cuts 

“I’m Not Like Everybody Else” by The Kinks

No, Tony Soprano is certainly not like anybody else. He insists that Janice see anger management counselors at the beginning of this episode, and when she actually improves her mood because of it, his narcissism makes him antagonize her until a typical Soprano family fight breaks out at dinner. Tony walks out of the house with a despicable smile on his face to the tune of this intense rock anthem.

Season 5 Episode 11: The Test Dream 

“Three Times a Lady” by The Commodores

In an episode in which Tony spends 20 minutes literally dreaming about past and future problems in his life, culminating in the murder of Billy Leotardo by Anthony Blundetto, The Commodores soft romance hit plays us out. Tony calls Carmela to report about said dreams, part of which were repeat ones that have happened previously in Tony’s life. It’s nice for the audience to see these two having a tender exchange rather than the tense arguing that normally characterizes their marriage, especially because this was when the two were still separated previously throughout the fifth season. 

Season 6 Episode 4: The Fleshy Part of the Thigh 

“One of These Days” by Pink Floyd

Paulie Walnuts is a fan favorite for a myriad of reasons. Between his gray-haired wings and his immature one-liners, many forget that the mobster had one of the scarier violent streaks in the show. After discovering that his mother was actually his aunt, Paulie gets jealous of Jason Barone’s mother trying to protect him from the mafia after selling the sanitation business that serves as a front for the DiMeo crime family. This psychedelic, hard-rock snippet from Pink Floyd that blares in the credits after Paulie threatens Jason’s life at the end of episode is a strong reminder to the viewer that this is a character who borders on sociopathic most of the time. 

Season 6 Episode 12: Kaisha 

“Moonlight Mile” by The Rolling Stones

Unlike other iconic dramas, The Sopranos loved ending their season finales (and “Kaisha” is technically a season finale with season 6 split into two parts) with relative closure and absolutely no cliffhangers. The family has an enormous Christmas gathering at the Soprano residence, marked by A.J. bringing over an older girlfriend and Meadow’s rare absence from family time. This classic from The Rolling Stones that describes the feeling of trying to get back home off the road fits lovingly with the rare moment of calm before the storm that is the final season of the show.  

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Season 6 Episode 14: Stage 5 

“Evidently Chickentown” by John Cooper Clarke

This closing piece by John Cooper Clarke is actually considered a poetry performance, and the anger and fury that it inspires as Phil Leotardo laments being taken advantage of a few too many times is palpable. This is when we knew that war in New York was going to be bloody. The song also symbolizes the perpetual frustration both Christopher and Tony have with one another when they hug at the former’s baby’s baptism. The final season was certainly kicked up a couple notches as these final credits rolled. 

Season 6 Episode 17: Walk Like a Man 

“The Valley” by Los Lobos

This somber piece plays alongside Christopher picking up a tiny tree in his front yard after Paulie had attempted to destroy everything on his property as revenge for a violent incident. After Christopher thinks they’ve made up, Paulie and the gang start making fun of his infant daughter and laughing in his face. It is at this point that Chris understands he is forever an outsider, not loved by a single person on the planet. He will just trudge along and try to keep upright, which are themes displayed in this chilling and melancholy song of choice. 

Season 6 Episode 21: Made in America 

“Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey

The most famous song in the show is also the final one that plays right before the screen goes to black and Tony Soprano’s fate is left up to our own imagination (kind of). It’s technically not an end credits song, but there’s no way it can be excluded from this list. The song represents the nostalgia of sharing one final family meal together, the simplicities of the Soprano family when you strip away the mobster lifestyle and the murder, and it encourages the audience to never stop believing their favorite mob boss is still alive if that’s what they so choose to desire. A special ending to a legendary show!

The post The Sopranos’ Best End Credit Songs appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[shutupandshipit]

Sharpen Your Blades - Ch.7

Summary: “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

The thinning of Aizawa’s patience was evident in the twitching of his brow. “If you stop asking questions, maybe I could finish explaining.

”With a huff and roll of his eyes, Katsuki glanced away from their coach.

“City Hall and the SC want us to give them more variety. We are a team solely made up of single skaters. Every year, we dominate the rankings for single skate while Shinketsu dominates the pairs, so this year both cities are being required to split their skaters evenly between singles and pairs with at least one pair coming from out top five.” There was a collective intake of breath, but no one commented, choosing instead to remain silent. “Unfortunately, for us, it’s a lot easier to switch from pairs to singles. With our male to female ratio, alpha/beta/omega ratio, and those of you actually experienced with pair skating, we’re at a disadvantage. So, I’ve decided to choose your partners for you.”

…..

Or where Katsuki and Izuku are forced to be partners so they can continue to compete, but the blood in the water may be thicker than anyone realized.

Pairing: Bakudeku

Rating: T

Chapter: 7/20

Previously <- Chapter 6: Something about cats and bags

Chapter 8: First Snows -> Next

Chapter 7: Catch

“Making their debut, our first place winners are still unofficial as they haven’t presented yet, but we cannot wait until they do! When they go official, they are going to dominate the competition! So, without further adieu, coming in first place, we have Bakugou Katsuki as lead and Midoriya Izuku as follow! Let’s give these two youngsters a round of applause!”

The announcer’s voice rang distantly in Izuku’s ears. With his anxiety and panic and excitement all mixed together, his heartbeat raced and his face burned. Katsuki’s heat pressed into his side, the back of his neck and shoulders, didn’t help the situation. The thud of his heartbeat in his ears was nearly deafening in the already loud rink. All of the applause and shouting voices and whistling was echoed and amplified by the dome.

Gold medals and pretty red ribbons were hung around their necks. Just another sensation that Izuku’s overstimulated mind struggled to incorporate.

Dizzy nausea swirled over him. The announcer moved on to the second and third place winners, but his mind didn’t stop spinning.

He was only seven. He didn’t know how to deal with his emotions in a healthy way yet, but he knew how to act like he did. It was one of the first things he’d learned how to do when his father started to disappear for longer and longer stretches of time, and his mom couldn’t hold in her grief around him anymore.

While his smile remained firmly in place, he felt himself sway just slightly.

Katsuki’s arm tightened across his shoulders, holding him upright even as his knees turned to jelly beneath him. “Almost done. Then we can go home and watch tv.” His voice was quieter, much quieter than the cacophony around them, but Izuku heard him clear as day. Just like always. Just like it was one of Katsuki’s superpowers. “Can you make it?”

“I can make it,” Izuku told him, and though he wasn’t sure if he was being truthful, he knew Katsuki would make sure it was the truth in the end.

…..

October Week 4

Aizawa stood at the entrance to the rink, but unlike nearly a month ago when Izuku had been on the same side as him, he was on the ice this time. Their coach pinched the bridge of his nose while he waited for them to form up and shut up, brows pulled close together as if he had a headache. It was early in training for him to have a headache though, so Izuku thought that someone else must have caused it this time.

The team quieted down faster than the time before.

Izuku could almost taste their anxiety on the air. Or maybe that was just his own.

“Alright,” Aizawa started, not lifting his head, but cracking his eyes open to stare at the ice, “Who’s seen the news today?” Several hands went up, one of them Izuku’s. “How many of you stuck around to watch the sports section?” All hands dropped, even Izuku’s. The only sport he cared about was figure skating, and the news rarely covered it, even in their city. “Right, so, I’m not sure who let it slip, but somehow the media got ahold of the news that we and Shiketsu are splitting our teams this year.”

Izuku squirmed, remembering Mirio’s words. After a moment, he raised his hand. “Um, Mr. Aizawa, I think I might know something.” Heat rose in his face as all attention swung his way, but he pushed on. “Mirio asked me to verify the rumor last week. I didn’t agree or disagree, but…”

“But you’re shit at lying, so he knew right away,” Katsuki snapped, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the wall. “The kids I teach also asked me about it last week.”

“Right,” Izuku mumbled, “Well, he said that someone had given him the information. Maybe there’s a leak in the SC?”

Releasing a heavy sigh, Aizawa scrubbed a hand through his hair. “That seems likely. While it’s not going to cause us much of a problem, it might in the coming weeks. You all know how it gets as the season ramps up to the Preliminaries. Keep an eye out for each other. This stunt that the SC is pulling might make things worse, especially when the other teams start to flood in. I’m not worried about the teams themselves, but fans can get crazy. Try not to be out and about on your own if you can help it. Any of you. Yes, I’m talking to you Bakugou. Just because you’re an alpha doesn’t mean idiots aren’t going to try challenging you for being Midoriya’s partner. Keep your heads up, keep them on straight, and don’t do anything stupid. Got it?”

“Yes,” the team called in unison.

“Good. Shiketsu and we are going to be releasing a joint statement concocted by the SC with the names of the skaters who are transitioning between pairs and singles tomorrow, so you can expect to be recognized more than usual in the next few days.” They all groaned, but Aizawa simply waved away their complaints. “Whatever. Pairs, we’re going for large tricks on ice today. Stretch out well. Warm-up. Meet me on the south side of the rink in fifteen. The rest of you, you’ll be with Toshinori and Yamada today. Get going.” Aizawa turned towards the three coaches behind him, mouth set in an irritated line.

Izuku’s throat began to close as the five pairs, Todoroki and Ashido pushed off towards the south side of the rink. Panic leaked from him, and it was all he could do to keep it out of his scent.

Despite that, he still caught Katsuki turning his head to glance over his shoulder at him, but stopping briefly before he could turn all the way. After a second, he turned back forward. Could Katsuki smell it on him even through his blockers? Even though he was trying to force it down? Was he that obvious or did Katsuki just have a strong nose?

Fifteen minutes was far too short of a time to calm anxiety like Izuku’s.

Aizawa was waiting for them when Iida’s watch chimed the end of their warm-up period, and the twelve of them clustered around him and Ishiyama. “We’re going to do one team as a time to keep the ice clear. Ishiyama and I are going to act as spotters, but the ten who will be against the wall need to be alert as well. We’ll be up close and may miss a subtle indication of a fall. So, if you see something, say something or even jump in. I’d rather you get in the middle and it be for nothing than for someone to get hurt. This is mostly directed to those with pair work, but this also goes for everyone else as well.”

Aizawa’s eyes lingered on Katsuki longer than any of the others. He wasn’t surprised. Katsuki was a strong alpha with a long history of pair work. It would make sense for Aizawa to rely on Katsuki, even if it was just a subconscious reaction from the older man’s omega. Even still, the thought had Izuku’s own omega raising his hackles.

‘We don’t have a claim on him!’ Izuku reprimanded, but his omega wasn’t listening.

Aizawa pointed at Izuku. “Midoriya, Todoroki, you’re up first since you’ve got the most difficult tricks. After that, we’ll go through groups in descending order of difficulty. Let’s go, you two.” He turned on a blade, gliding out further onto the ice.

Izuku wanted to throw up.

“Midoriya?” Todoroki’s voice was quiet and gentle, just as gentle as the hand that settled on his shoulder. “Are you alright? Do you need another moment?”

Jumping, Izuku shrugged out from beneath the other omega’s hand with a wide fake smile. “I’m fine! I’m good! Totally a-okay! Let’s get going before Mr. Aizawa gets angry.” He shoved away from the wall sharply, ignoring every set of eyes he could feel boring into his back. He just needed to calm down. Calm down. Calm down. He’d completed every trick off ice multiple times with no screw ups. There was no reason he shouldn’t be able to do it on ice.

Which, of course, was a lie. The ice was a completely different environment than the studio with a host of different factors to consider. So many extra factors to consider.

All he needed to do was forget about them. It seemed counter-intuitive, especially for his ever analyzing mind, but it was the only thing he’d found off ice that allowed him to perform as he should. He just needed to allow his body to move on muscle memory. If he didn’t think, then his mind couldn’t overreact which meant neither could his body.

It was going to work. It had to work.

Todoroki followed after him. The distance was small, but significant. “What do you want us to start with?” he asked.

“Your overhead lifts have been the most solid off ice, so I want you to start with that first. Take it slow. Don’t rush. One step at a time. Plant your feet, make sure you have a solid foundation and a good grip. Once you’re sure of those, then attempt the lift. If something feels off, just abort and return to the ice. Don’t get hurt trying to force it.”

Lifts were the simplest pair trick in Izuku’s opinion. It required strength and balance, but not much else. He didn’t have to think during a lift. All he had to do was not move once Todoroki had him overhead. He could do that. He could manage a lift on ice. There was nothing to them. Lifts were easy. Lifts were easy. Lifts were easy. Lift were-

High.

Izuku shook his head rapidly to clear the intrusive thoughts from his mind. He made himself smile even wider as the three stared at him. “Sure! A lift will be a cinch.”

Aizawa’s eyes narrowed as he glared at izuku, but after a moment, he just sighed. “Alright. Take a round to gain momentum. Don’t attempt the lift until you’re back here and see us in position. You can begin your setup once you’ve reached the other side.”

“Sure thing!” Izuku chirped. He pushed off and waited for Todoroki to fall into sync with him before spreading up.

Just like Aizawa had instructed, they waited until they’d made it to the other side of the rink, skirting the edge of the other group, before beginning the setup for the lift. Izuku slid out in front of Todoroki, turning to face him after a moment. He pulled Todoroki along as the other omega planted his feet and gripped Izuku’s waist.

“Almost there. Ready?” he asked, voice ripped away by the rush of air passed Izuku’s ears, but he recognized the words on his lips.

‘Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think.’ Izuku nodded.

Two dark blurs came up on either of their sides, and then he was above Todoroki’s head, the omega’s small hand digging into his abdomen as he quickly shifted into position. For a moment, his mind was blank. There was just the beating of his heart, the cold air biting into his cheeks. He started to reach back for his blade.

Then he glanced down. The panic he’d managed to suppress flooded back into his body in an icy wave.

His body seized before going limp, mind going as blank as his vision.

…..

Izuku absolutely reeked of putrid acidic anxiety as they warmed up. It was worse than usual, more potent. Each time Katsuki passed him, he got a whiff of his scent. Putrid like sewage or a rotting body. Acidic like vomit or ammonia. All undercut by suppressants that made him smell almost chemically scentless. All together, it was an unpleasant scent, and it only grew stronger each time he passed Izuku.

It made his stomach curdle and his alpha pace restlessly. ‘Protect. Comfort. Omega distressed. Protect. Comfort.’

‘That’s not my place,’ Katsuki through bitterly, but that thought was quickly replaced by another, ‘Not yet at least.’ Not yet. That was a true enough thought. Not yet, but one day he’d earn that right.

Katsuki didn’t know how the others didn’t smell it, how the other omegas weren’t plastered to his sides in an attempt to calm him. That was how other groups of omegas operated. If an omega was unmated, it fell to their pack mates to calm and reassure them, especially pack mates of the same secondary gender.

The same was true of alphas. Katsuki couldn’t count how many times his alpha pack mates (specifically friends like Kirisihima and Ashido) had pulled him aside to get his head on straight. To calm him when he fell into a panic attack during competition.

Those had started when he was twelve, and they’d never really gone away. Luckily, they only affected him during high stress situations like the competitive season, but he was still lucky to have people there to help him unlike when he’d been younger. When he’d been alone in his own head.

That was what pack mates were for. So it bothered Katsuki more than he’d ever let on that neither Icy Hot nor Uraraka made an attempt to calm Izuku. He wanted to yell at them. He wanted to make them pay attention to the real issue at hand rather than ice skating. An anxiety riddled Izuku was an Izuku prone to mistakes. If they were doing the big shit for practice, they needed to take care of Izuku first.

Leaning back against the wall, Katsuki felt his own anxiety leaking into his veins. Kirishima wasn’t there that time to bring him back down though, and so his heart galloped forward unhindered.

When Izuku and Todoroki pushed off towards the singles’ side of the rink, Katsuki stood up straight. When they turned towards each other and prepared for the lift, he dropped his arms to his sides. When they rounded back towards their side and their coaches flanked them, he dug his toe-pic into the ice. Izuku’s face was pinched in concentration, but there was also that ever present fear as he was lifted off the ice.

Katsuki moved before Todoroki had completed the lift. He wouldn’t have been able to explain what spurred him forward. Maybe there was a slight shift in Izuku’s scent from scared to terrified. Maybe there was a twitch in his expression. Maybe the light dimmed in his eyes.

Whatever it was, Katsuki was there before anyone had realized something was going wrong, catching the omega as soon as Todoroki’s arm collapsed from Izuku’s dead weight. Katsuki only managed to keep them from tumbling backwards by digging his toe-pic into the ice harshly.

The silence in the rink was deafening. After a moment of labored breathing as his heart began to slow, he realized that the rink was as loud as ever, he just couldn’t hear it passed the rush of blood in his ears. All of his attention was focused on the man huddled in his arms, nails digging into his bicep and panting breaths hot against his shirt. Izuku’s eyes were screwed shut.

Slowly, sound returned to Katsuki though he would have been happy for a few more moments of white noise.

“What just happened?”

“How did you do that?”

“Midoriya, Todoroki, are you alright?

“We should get them off the ice.”

“Where’s Ms. Shuzenji? Someone go get the doctor!”

“What happened!”

“Shut up,” Katsuki snarled. It was the only sound he could make that wouldn’t portray just how shaken he was. He could feel the trembling in his hands, in his arms, all covered by how badly Izuku was shaking. He was shaking like a lead in the wind, nose buried against Katsuki’s chest. “Stop fucking yelling. Nobody got hurt.”

There was a sharp hysterical laugh from somewhere close by, and Katsuki wasn’t sure, but he thought that it was possibly Ashido.

“Yes, but someone could have been.” That was Aizawa, voice deep and monotone. Lifting his eyes, their coach stood beside them, soothing black tea scent snaking out as his hand clasped Izuku’s shoulder. “That could have gone very badly.”

Katsuki didn’t say anything in return, arms tightening around Izuku instead.

The feel of Aizawa’s hand seemed to snap Izuku out of his own head, and he blinked rapidly at Katsuki’s chest. “W-what happened?” he whispered, fingers easing up and nails coming away red with blood. His movement grew faster, and he frantically pushed out of Katsuki’s hold. “What happened? I was- Todoroki- How-”

“You fucking freaked out and I had to catch your dumbass!” Katsuki spat viciously and angrily, temper rising the longer he was given to process the whole incident. “And you know what? Fuck that shit! That’s the last time you fucking practice with anyone other than me!”

Izuku sputtered wordlessly, cheeks going pink and scent growing sweeter as they stared at each other. After a moment, he squeaked, “Really?”

The change in his scent only pushed Katsuki on. “Yes! If you’re going to get fucking dropped, it’s going to be by me because at least I’ll be able to fucking catch you!” He pushed roughly through the crowd towards the rink entrance. Only when he made it off the ice did he recognize the tightness in his chest, the shortness of his breath, the heat beneath his skin. Bile burned at the back of his throat.

Kirishima’s arm slid over his shoulders, a gesture that would look like familiarity to any of the others, but was really a means to keep him from faltering as he walked. “I’ve got you man. Let’s go outside for a breath,” he said under his breath, guiding Katsuki towards the side exit that faced a small thatch of trees. A place for him to either freak out or wretch in peace.

Not for the very first time, but for the first time in awhile, Katsuki was thankful that his friend knew how to read him like an open book.

#my hero academia #mha #bakudeku #dekubaku #decchan #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #a/b/o dynamics #omegaverse #alpha!katsuki #omega!izuku #figure skater au #no quirks au #my writing #sharpen your blades

[cctinsleybaxter]

2020 in books

2020 was a year of changed reading habits; people reading more than ever or not at all, some changing their tastes and others turning to old comforts. While there weren’t any huge overhauls on my end, more free time did mean a total of 32 in a wider range of genres. In the past couple of years I found a lot of the things I read to be kind of middling and ranked them accordingly, but this year had some strong contenders in the mix. With college officially behind me I love nonfiction again, and I really need to stop being drawn in by novels with long titles that ‘sound interesting.’ A piece of advice to my future self: they will only make you angry.

The Good

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky I loved the BBC radio play when I first listened to it back in 2017, but didn’t know if I could stomach the idea of actually reading the 700-page book, especially since I already knew the plot (spoiler alert: this had no effect and I gasped multiple times despite knowing what was going to happen; Fyodor’s just that good at atmosphere.) The story follows Prince Lev Myshkin, a goodhearted but troubled man entering 1860s Petersburg high society and meeting all of the wretched people therein as he navigates life, laughs, love, unanswerable questions of faith, and human suffering. I care about it in the same way I think other people care about reality TV shows and soap operas. I’m so personally invested in the drama and feel so many different emotions directed at these clowns that it’s like being a fan of Invitation to Love (with an ending equally upsetting to that of the show ITL is from, Twin Peaks.)

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlanksy I adored this book. The first half reads a little like a Wikipedia article, and I was worried that it was leaning too clinical and would be disaffected with colonialism and indigenous peoples, but even that oversight is corrected for as the text goes on. It’s not going to be for everybody because it really is just the world’s longest encyclopedia entry on, well, salt, but it’s written with such excitement for the topic and is so well-researched and styled for commercial nonfiction that I think it deserves any and all praise it’s gotten. We have to talk about that time Cheshire was literally sinking into the ground, and companies who were over-pumping brine water to steal each other’s brine water said ‘no it’s okay it’s supposed to that’ so were legally dismissed as suspects.

Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy Cried. 10/10. The plot of Midnight Cowboy is very classic and actually has a lot in common with The Idiot, as 20-something Joe Buck moves from the American Southwest to NYC and meets myriad challenges as a sex worker. I’ve been obsessed with the movie for a few years now and the book made me appreciate it anew; I think it’s rare for an adaptation to take the risk of being so different from its source material while still capturing its spirit. The movie doesn’t include quieter moments like the full conversation with Towny or time spent in the X-flat, nor does it attempt to touch Joe’s internal monologue or his and Rico’s extensive backstories, but these things are essential to the book and are some of the best and most affecting writing I’ve ever read. Finally! The Great American Novel!

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones I would firmly like to say that this is probably the best horror novel ever written. The setup is very traditional in that it’s about a group of friends facing supernatural comeuppance for a past mistake, but delivery on that premise is anything but familiar. A story about personal and cultural trauma that raises questions about what we owe to each other and what it means to be Blackfeet, with a cast that’s unbelievably real and sympathetic even at their absolute worst. Creepypasta writers trying to cash in on the cultural mythos of lumped-together tribes wish they were capable of writing something a tenth as gruesome and good as this. It could very well be a movie the visuals and writing style were so arresting, and I can’t wait to read whatever Jones writes next.

Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas This is the least accessible title on the list since it’s a college textbook for people with background in film, but it was so nice to read a woman unpacking film theory with the expertise and confidence it deserves that I have to rank it among the best. I had an absolute blast reading it and am going to have to stop myself from bringing up the horror of 1960s safety films as a cocktail icebreaker.

Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson

The year’s toughest read by far, but also its most rewarding. Thompson uses mountains of documents, government-buried intel, and personal interviews to explain what happened at Attica from beginning to end, and does a fantastic job of balancing hard facts and ‘unbiased journalism’ with much-needed emotion and critical analysis. It’s more important reading in the 2020s than any kind of ‘why/how to not be racist’ book club book is going to be, and the historical context it provides is as interesting as it is invaluable. The second half drags a bit in going through lengthy trial processes with some assumed baseline knowledge of legalese (which I did not have. All that criminal minds in 2015… meaningless), but aside from that editing and prose are some of the best I’ve seen in nonfiction. 

The Bad

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn A friend and I decided to read this together because I’m obsessed with how insane the author is and wanted to know if he can actually write.

He cannot.

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron Barron is an indie darling of the horror fiction scene, so I was excited to finally read one of his collections but can now attest that I hate him. If you’re going to do Lovecraft please deconstruct Lovecraft in an interesting way. I had actually written a lot about the issues I have with how he develops characters and plots, but one of the only shorthand notes I took was “he won’t stop saying ‘bole’ instead of tree trunk” and I feel like that’s the only review we need.

Bats of the Republic by Zach Dodson Look up a photo of this author because if I had bothered to glance at the jacket bio I honest-to-god wouldn’t have even tried reading this.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone I went in with high expectations since this is an epistolary novella I’d seen praised on tumblr and youtube but oh my god was there a reason I was seeing it praised on tumblr and youtube. This is bad Steven Universe fanfiction. Both authors included ‘listening to the Steven Universe soundtrack throughout’ in the acknowledgements, and to add insult to injury there’s a plug from my nemesis Madeline Miller.

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton The premise of this one plays with so many tropes I like that I should have been more suspicious. It’s a dinner party with stock characters one would expect of Clue, and rather than our protagonist being the detective he’s a man with amnesia stuck in a 24-hour time loop. Body-hopping between guests, he must gather evidence using the skillsets of each ‘host’ until he either solves Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder or the limit of eight hosts runs out. I read a lot of not-very-good books, and it’s so, so much worse when they have potential to be fun. This is how you lose the most points, and how I abandon decorum and end up writing a list of grievances: • Our protagonist can only inhabit male hosts, which I think is a stupid writing decision not because I’m ‘woke’ but because wouldn’t it make sense for him to also be working with the maids, cooks, and women close to the murder victim? • Complaining about the limitations of hosts makes some sense (e.g- there’s a section where he thinks that it’s hard to be an old man because it’s difficult to get to the places he needs to be quickly), but one of his hosts is a rapist and one of his hosts is fat. Guess which one gets complained about more. • One of the later hosts is just straight-up a cop with cop knowledge that singlehandedly solves the case. We spend some time being like ‘wow I couldn’t have done it without the info all eight hosts helped gather’ but it was 100% the detective and he solves the murder using information he got off-screen. • The mystery itself is actually well-paced and I didn’t have a lot of issues with it (e.g, there’s a twist that I guessed only shortly before the end), which makes it all the worse that the metanarrative of this book is INSANE. No spoilers but the reveal as to why our unnamed protagonist is even in this situation is stupid. I just know they’re going to make it into a movie and I’m preemptively going to aaaaaaaaa!!!

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi The fact that this was the worst book I read all year, worse even than the bad Steven Universe fanfiction, and it won multiple awards makes my blood boil. I could rant about it for hours but just know that it’s a former theater kid’s take on perception and memory, and deals with sexual abuse in a way that’s handled both very badly and with a level of fake deepness that’s laughable. Select fake-deep quotes I copied down because at one point I said ‘oh barf’ aloud: -I’m filled with melancholy that’s almost compassion. It’s sad the same way. -[On a friendship ending] We almost never know what we know until after we know it. -Because we’re none of us alone in this world. We injure each other.

There are also bad sex scenes that I can’t quite make fun of because I think (HOPE?) they’re supposed to be a melodramatic take on how teenagers view sex, but I very much wanted to die. Flowers were alluded to. Nipples were compared to diamonds.

Honorable/Dishonorable Mentions (categorized as the same thing because, well,)

The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North This book was frustrating because the first third of it is fantastic. It’s set up to be a takedown of the manic pixie dream girl trope, jumping from person to person discussing their relationship with the titular Sophie, and indirectly revealing that she was just some girl and not the difficult and mysterious genius they all believed her to be. Then in the third act, BAM! She was that difficult and mysterious genius and she’s now indirectly brought all the people from her past together. I wanted to scream the plot beefed it so bad, but the good news is I really liked this octopus description.

It was the size of a three-year-old child, and it seemed awful to me that something could be so far from human and obviously want something as badly as it wanted to get out of the tank.

Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore Cool new nightmare speedrun strat is to hear a 2-second anecdote from a documentary that people used to get radium poisoning from painting watch faces, be curious enough that you buy a book to learn more, and be met with medical and legal horror beyond anything you could have imagined. This was almost one of my favorite books of the year! Almost.

Radium Girls is very lovingly crafted and incredibly well-researched; one of those things that’s hard to get through but that you want to read sections of again as soon as you’ve finished. The umbrage I take with it is that it’s very Catholic. The author and many of her subjects are Irish and their religion is important to them, but it casts a martyr-y narrative over the whole thing that I found uncomfortable. Seventeen-year-old girls taking a factory job they didn’t know was dangerous are framed as brave, working-class heroes, but there’s not a set moral lesson to be gained from this story. Sarah Maillefer didn’t make “a sacrifice” when she agreed to the first radium tests, she agreed because she was terrified. She didn’t think she was helping she was begging for help.

The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Tsing Tsing is an incredibly skilled researcher and ethnographer; there are so many good ideas in this book that I’d almost consider it essential leftist text… if I could stand the way it was structured. Tsing posits that because nature is built on precariousness she will build her book the same way, allowing it to grow like a mushroom, and thus chapters don’t progress linearly and are written more like freeform poetry than a series of academic arguments. Some people are really going to love that, but I’m me and a mushroom is a mushroom and a book is a book. I don’t think in the way Tsing does, and while I tried to keep an open mind it’s hard to play along when something is this academically dense and makes so many ambitious claims. As if to prove how different our structuring methods are, I’ve made my own thoughts into a pros and cons list

Things I liked: • ‘Contamination’ as something inherent to diversity • ‘Scalability’ as a flawed way of thinking (Tsing has written whole essays about this that I find very compelling, but a main example here is that China and the US have come down on Japanese matsutake research for being too ‘site specific’ and not yielding enough empirical data) • Discussing how Americans were so invested in self-regulating systems in the 1950s we thought they could be applied to literally everything, including ecosystems • “The survivors of war remind us of the bodies they climbed over- or shot- to get to us. We don’t know whether to love or hate the survivors. Simple moral judgements don’t come to hand.” • Any and all fieldwork Tsing shares is amazing; I especially liked reading about the culture of mushroom pickers living in the Cascades and their contained market system

Things I didn’t like: • Statements that sound deep but aren’t, e.g- “help is always in the service of another.” (Yep. That’s what that means. Unless an organism is doing something to help itself which then nullifies your whole opening argument.) • A very debatable definition of utilitarianism • “Capitalism vs pre-capitalism,” which seems like an insanely black-and-white stance for a book all about finding hidden middle ground • A chapter I found really interesting about how intertwined Japanese and American economies are, but it tries to cover the entire history of US-Japan relations. Seriously, starting with Governor Perry and continuing through present day, this could have been a whole different book and it’s a good example of what I mean when I say arguments feel too scattered (the conclusion it reaches is that in the 80s the yen was finally able to hold its own against the dollar. Just explain that part.) • A chapter arguing that ‘true biological mutualism’ is rarely a focus of STEM and is a new sociological development/way of thinking which is just… flat-out not true

For all the comparisons art gets to ‘being on a drug trip’ this anthropology textbook has come the closest for me. Moments of profound human wisdom, intercut with things I had trouble understanding because I wasn’t on the same wavelength, intercut with even more things that felt false or irrelevant. I can’t put it on the nice list but I am glad I read it.

#2020 #books #long post #(in case the read more isn't working)

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen X Rambles about Chapter 7

“I hope Episode 7 is focused on only 2 or three characters with little distraction... Amiya maybe finding out that Ch’en is slowly becoming Infected and helping her come to terms with that. Ch’en revealing her past to Amiya and the two connecting over losing so many close to them due to Oripathy. The two standing up to the political corruption of Lungmen, shoulder to shoulder, as women that refuse to see another life lost due to the indifference of a city’s politics.”

-Allen X, October 2nd, 2020, Rambling about Chapter 6

Man... I’m starting to believe it when they say Arknight’s story mode is longer than the Harry Potter series. Things are getting crazy in Chapter 7 and crazy-long to in terms of length. This chapter really had me on the edge of my seat as I read through it and as I played through because 7-16 and 7-18 were a bitch to get through that require some of the most precise timing I’ve seen in this game yet. That aside, I enjoyed a lot what I read and experienced.

And I wanted to talk about it a bit.

But first, as always, a synopsis.

Coming off the heels of Frostnova’s death and the realization of Wei Yenwu’s purging of the Lungmen slums, tensions are high and trust has been fractured between Rhodes Island and Lungmen. However, in the midst of Ch’en hot temper and Amiya’s cool head, Reunion is plans to send the Russian Ursusian   city of Chernobog on a collision course with Hong Kong Lungmen, giving Ursus a cause to make war against Lungmen and its great region of Tawain China Yen. However, through some rather amazing political maneuvering and passionate words by Wei Yenwu’s wife Fumizuki, Rhodes Island agrees to mobilize in order to save Lungmen, the Infected, and the beloved daughter of Lungmen, Ch’en. But beyond Chernobog lies Patriot, Reunions greatest commander next to Talulah herself, who’s rage toward his daughter’s death is only matched by his disciplined mind and even more disciplined soldiers. It’s a fight to the center of the Chernobog to save as many lives as possible, even at the cost of this great general’s life.

An Addendum to 7-18

So between my venting about 7-18 when I talked about some fun Arknight’s lore a handful of people wanted to give me some advice on how to conquer that stage. Admittedly that venting was said out of anger and was much more acidic in tone than my usual essays and opinion pieces. I have since beaten that stage and I can give some of my thoughts on this advice. Some of it was helpful... some of it.

“AmIyA cAn TaNk PaTrIoT’s SpEaR tOsS!”

This is technically true and I was technically wrong. When Amiya’s S3 is active she gained increased Max HP and can in fact survive with a sliver of health. However, Amiya’s S3 takes quite a long time to charge even with her talent, and unless someone is actively blocking Patriot her can honestly spam his spear through for how long it takes Amiya to get prepped for her S3. This is more of an issue of Amiya’s balancing than with the game, but I’ll talk about that later.

“jUsT sTaLl PaTrIoT tO kEeP hIm FrOm UsInG tHe SpEaR tOsS!”

This would be pretty viable advice if Patriot didn’t one-shot my units. Yes, defenders like Cuora, Nian, Hoshigumi, and even tankier vanguards like Zima and Siege can tank at least one hit from Patriot without dying, meaning a squad of healers can just focus-fire on them while they do chip damage to Patriot and stall him out. However, Patriot’s phase 2 has him do constant damage to nearby units with his aura ability, so if he can get lucky enough, he take someone down to a sliver and let his poison damage finish off your staller before they get a chance to be healed. That strategy needs luck and some damn smart unit placement. Neither of which I honestly have.

“uSe SpEcTeR aNd DeBuFfErS!”

Again, this is also a pretty good strategy. Specter’s S2 makes her immortal for a limited time and pairing that with healers like Breeze and Celycon who reduce stun damage isn’t a bad idea. Characters that ignore or lower defense like Pramanix, Shamare, and Meteor are also good. This doesn’t work for me however since I only have Pram and the other debuffers are way too underleveled and not on my priority at the moment, and E2-ing units this late in the game just to take out one boss feels like madness.

“f12 CaN dOdGe ThE sPeAr ToSs!”

F12, W, Jessica, and FEater have a dodge chance. Their dodges are not guarantees. Yes, Patriot will target the ranged operator furthest from him and there are range tiles pretty close to his spawn point for that purpose. However, some of those operators have some pretty damn expensive DP costs and waste that on a chance to survive isn’t worth.And feeding Patriot ranged units that take over 30 seconds to redeploy is a waste of DP in general. And those either dodge chances aren’t viable. Them surviving isn’t a strategy, it’s a fluke, and you can’t depend on flukes in auto-deployment.

“Allen, you’re being kind of an asshole to what’s actually sound advice.”

Yes, I am. 

I don’t care. 

7-18 does things to a person, man. That stage breaks people. I lost sanity IRL just doing that stage or 20 times with a guide... dear lord this stage.

Anyway, moving on.

Story Notes

My, this story sure was thick, wasn’t it? It’s been while since I’ve been on a ride that wild. And this time around I don’t have any small issues to bring up. All the characters felt in character without breaking my suspension of disbelief. There weren’t multiple character arcs going on at once. And I even tolerated Kal’tsit berating the Doctor for reasons beyond his understand since she wasn’t discussing too many things that were above my head as the player.

No... I only have big issues. 

But before that, I wanted to hit on some actual important notes that were very good and smartly written.

Rosmontis and Child Soldiers

This was probably the biggest takeaway for me. I know the Arknights community likes to poke a lot of fun about the child soldier thing and how Kal’tsit is harboring slave children, but... man, it makes so much since now.

These kids aren’t just kids, they’re all infected people with some rather scary abilities. Popukar has a history of mental instability coupled with monstrous strength. Ifrit has powers she can just barely keep under control and could set Rhodes Island ablaze at any point. Frostleaf and GreyThroat are deeply traumatized from their past. The Ursus Self Government are full of kids with hatred, resentment, and fear of both the world and themselves. The list goes on, but the fact is that these kids all either have abilities that would be a danger to themselves and others if they aren’t trained, or have emotional hang-ups that might very well have them lash out at innocent people if not put on a leash. Wouldn’t it be better to at least give them some training and let them hack and blast away at the actual bad guys? Wouldn’t it be better to at least make them a weapon for some kind of greater good? And would anyone else really treat these broken, powerful children as anything but weapons and warriors anyway?

I know this is about chapter 7, but I remember in Children of Ursus Rosa asked Zima why she fought, and Zima casually answered that she just liked fighting. It’d be far better to have someone with that mindset working for an organization like Rhodes Island than ending up in Ursus’s fold and blindly hacking at something she shouldn’t. 

And I think it’s important to remind everyone that Amiya is the head of Rhodes Island and not Kal’tsit. She’s a big part of the organization, but it’s the bunny in charge. And the bunny that is herself close to a living nuke and is also has empathetic superpowers understands this probably better than anyone else, which is why she okays it. 

Patriot and Reunion

As much as I despise, and I do mean despise, how cagey this series can be with it’s portrayal of Reunion’s morality I can understand why a lot of its members can see the group as being just. Patriot is a warrior of such renown and praise, and Talulah has so much charisma and power that I can see the group overlooking characters like Mephisto and W when the other two do so much for their members and general people. The Guerillas under Patriot behave like soldiers. They don’t rampage, loot, pillage, or harm everyone in sight, only those that halt, stagnant, and harm the infect. Talulah has a charisma about her and attracts people, and seems to come from some sort of royal/noble line to match. And while Faust wasn’t mentioned much in this chapter, he was a soldier that started at the bottom, worked his way to the top, and made sure to play by rules that kept his moral high ground. Mephisto seems to be the only outliner here for some baffling reason.

But... there are some major issues with this story. I hint at them every time I talk about Arknights’ story, but I’ll go into depth here. And I’ll present these two issues I have in the form of a two question:

Who is the Doctor?

I don’t mean this the sense of the story, but what is his function as a character? Is he a self-insert for the player, or his own character to be explored and examined?

And either answer, to me, is wrong. 

The Doctor Isn’t a Self-Insert

It’s straight up impossible for the Doctor to be a self-insert character. Most self-inserts are blank enough to let us place our own personality onto them and the situations their in the choices they make are meant to be more or less choices we’d make or at least a general audience could make barring some specifics. Their personalities tend to be blank or at least bland to let us, the players, live through them and project our personalities onto them.

The Doctor isn’t this. 

There are too many moment where our choices are clearly pointing to one conclusion and most choices, though varied, give a clear idea that the Doctor is someone that care about the operators’ wellbeing deeply and hates seeing them used, abused, or manipulated. They are strategist and commander, but they have enough humanity to not see people as tools. They are passionate when they see other operators and especially Amiya in harms way and tries to come up with strategies to minimize lost and causalities. Awhile we, the player, feel the same in this regard the Doctor has dialogue that feels more conversational and toward specific directions than what a player would likely want and gives us some bits and piece about what they’re actually like. 

The Doctor hates Kal’tsit and wants little to do with her, only tolerating her presence as much as she is with the Doctor. The Doctor is a bit of a bleeding heart that doesn’t fully grasp that they are constantly in a warzone despite their strategic competency. The Doctor has an extremely weird diet and eating style, devouring live animals and ingesting foods that would probably need to be probably mixed and brewed before consumption. The Doctor still sees Amiya as a child despite her mature nature. 

The list goes on, but there’s enough there for me to say the Doctor is more like Hakuno Kishinami of the Fate/Extra series, a character that seems like a self-insert but has a number of traits and character tics that keep them from fulfill that role. However Fate/Extra, for all I have against it, makes Hakuno work by giving them their own internal thoughts outside of the player’s actions that explain their dialogue choices and actions outside of the player’s control. The Doctor doesn’t, so them being a self-insert feels really weak and irritating when the dots stop connecting.

But despite this...

The Doctor Isn’t Their Own Character

Too much of what the Doctor does is passive. For a clear as their personality is, at least to me, they don’t have much agency in the plot. Not enough for me to call them their own character at least. They commander the battlefield, but they don’t have a place on it. They don’t have much reason to interact with characters like Patriot and Talulah unless its on the metaphorical and literal chessboard we’re playing on. 

Every time the Doctor says something that advances the plot in some way I feel like it could be said by another character and work better. Amiya trying talk down Patriot and explain that Frostnova fought bravely did not need the Doctor’s interjections, especially when Patriot shoots them down in the same manner. In chapter 6, being trap with Frostnova would had worked much better with Amiya since that chapter was giving them parallels anyway. The only thing that really works is the Doctor trying to call out Kal’tsit for her treatment of Rosmontis as a soldier despite her age, as that’s only something that someone who didn’t have the full context could do. 

But... Jessica, Frostleaf, Frostnova, Melantha and several other Operators are young teenagers and even children. Specter and Lappland are clearly just as mentally damaged and still going into battles. The Doctor knows the kinds of people that fight for Rhodes Island, so isn’t this just another young fighter like Popukar and Suzuran? Hell, in chapter 6 we canonically had Beagle and Fang in a stage where they had to fight and tank Faust, why is the Doctor so surprised that someone like Rosmontis exist and works for Rhodes Island?

See? 

See how trying to give this character separation from being a self-insert and actively slot them in the active story does more harm than good? 

I think games like Girls Frontline and Honkai Impact 3rd do this better, where the player character is clearly more behind the scenes and is only a passing influence, if any.

But that leads me to my next question, which is...

Who is Amiya?

Amiya falls into the trope of being a cute anime girl with a mysterious past and dangerous powers. More accurately, she has a mysterious past and powers to the player, but everyone in Amiya’s inner circle seems to have a clue about it. I don’t mind this being a mystery, but... when our main character’s plot revolves around things the player doesn’t know, it’s curious at best, and infuriating at worse. 

Folks, I’m not someone that looks to theory-crafting. I’m not someone that reads every scrap of dialogue in this game to find out more about its lore. The lore, to me, is just fun and interesting. I honestly do not have the time and energy to spend on making theories and predictions that could be wrong and a waste of mental energy. However, with all this stuff about the King of Fiends just feels like a waste of time, or at least a last minute addition to something I could had been added properly in Chapter 8.

A lot of it feels like you had to know about the Darknight Memoir side story to really get a feel for what’s going on. The Sarkaz civil war, Theresa, W’s role back when Rhodes Island was Babel, a lot of things that don’t come up in the main storyline. Especially with that bombshell about the Doctor maybe killing Theresa. 

I don’t like it when a story expects me to have read the spinoff to understand the mainline story. This is why I don’t like the Dragon Age series and I’m really getting annoyed with Arknights right now.

This bombshell of the King of Fiends also kind of sours a bit of Amiya’s character as this young child who rose through the ranks of Rhodes Island as a charismatic leader being able to steel optimism with the reality of war to forge ahead as a proper leader through her abilities as both a commander and an empath. Instead it’s beginning to come across that her skills as a leader comes from something more supernatural, or at least something more forced than "small child is a good leader and can lead an army,” which is surprisingly more believable and nuanced given how seriously the series takes Amiya’s character. 

That said, I recognize this criticism is more my wish of what was rather than an issue of what is. I completely understand that essentially wishing for my own fanfic and limited fan theories to come true isn’t a sound criticism, but it's a criticism I have regardless.

But moving on, there’s one more issue that bugs me.

W’s Importance

I’ll keep this brief since I already discussed my bigger issues of the story and this is an admittedly small portion of the story:

W wasn’t utilized much in this story despite being a main feature of it in the promotional material. She has a pretty lengthy intro, disappears from the story for most of it, then reappears at the last bits of chapter 7 to make mean looks at Kal’tsit and the Doctor before being literally shoved offscreen again. I’ve already discussed my issues with the Doctor’s agency so I won’t bother here.

W’s banner should had been during Darknight Memoir, it just makes more sense given she was the feature character of it and her high physical damage would had been a goodsend among all the arts-resistant Sarkaz units of that series of chokepoint-heavy maps, similar to Weedy’s inclusion her is helpful as a lot of these maps could use a good pusher, especially 7-16.

Speaking of, Weedy, the other operator on this limited banner, has no presence in the story at all. Need I remind you in the last limited banner Aak and Hung at least had cameo-esque appearances in the Ancient Forge event. Weedy’s inclusion feels like an afterthought because they didn’t want the limited 6-Star to have a good chance to be pulled for the whales.

Anyway, I believe those are all the big issues I had with this story, so...

In the Future

As I always tend to say, I don’t like the idea of trying to fix something that has already been made and has already passed. It’s too late to change the past, but I see nothing wrong with asking for things to happen in the future as a way of giving feedback. 

To that end, I still have hope that Chapter 8 will have a focus on Amiya and Ch’en tackling Talulah together. From my understanding of some spoilers this is more or less what is going to happen. I also hope that we’ll have a more detailed idea on this whole King of Fiends thing is about. As much as I personally don’t care for it, it’s already be discussed in the story so I at least hope we get the full idea on what’s going on with that plotline. 

I also hope the Doctor either plays less a role or becomes their own character outright away from any player influence. Us speaking through a character that already has a personality feels weird to me and I’d rather not have it at all.

Anyway, that’s it for me folks. Next time... maybe I’ll talk about anime or something, who knows.

#your dictator is speaking #arknights

[mosswillow]

The People You Love Chapter 13

A/N: Hey, look at me not being lazy and adding the chapter to Tumblr too.

Warnings and Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe, Eventual Smut, Protective Ben Solo, Alpha Ben Solo, Omega Rey (Star Wars), Mating, Cycles/In Heat, Mating Bond, Knotting, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Emotional, Hurt/Comfort, Dubious Consent, unconscious medical procedure (chapter 6), Emotional Hurt, Suicidal thoughts (very mild no actual planning) ch 8, Did I already mention emotional hurt?, Emotional hurt (once more for good measure.) Slow Burn, Implied/referenced attempted suicide (not described in detail) (not Rey) (ch 15), some violence, Attempted Kidnapping, Attempted assault (ch 14)

AO3 link

By clicking keep reading you confirm that you’re an adult over the age of 18

The seconds tick closer to midnight and Rey gets to work digging through her room. She finds a bag and fills it with some papers from her file, clothes, the money card Leia gave her, and toiletries. Minutes before it’s time to run the room becomes clear, like she put on a pair of glasses. It’s sharp and bright, every detail jumping out at her. The specs of dust in the air float around her and she stares at the room taking in every detail. Her head starts feeling light and she realizes she’s stopped breathing. There’s hesitation. Anxiety. Maybe it’s fear or maybe guilt, she doesn’t know. Her mind turns to what will happen to the Solo’s. She knows, even though she doesn’t want to admit it, that running away from them will fuck their lives up. The moment she leaves her room she’ll be doing something she can’t take back.

It takes several deep breaths and hyping herself up to cut the bracelet and climb out of the window. The climb down is easier this time. She hits the ground after a few short minutes and starts running, making it down the street before she has to stop to catch her breath. She feels elated, free and happy, the world is open to her.

Then the initial adrenaline rush dissipates and her heartrate settles. She’s left alone in a dark alleyway. It’s a sliver of freedom and she wonders if it will be worth it. She hopes so.

She makes her way to the closest bus stop and reads the map, running her hand over the spot where Finn and Poe’s house is. She knows it’s where she needs to go. It’s the only way she can think to get home.

“Where to honey?” A tired looking woman says.

Rey almost turns around and goes back. What if the letter says something she doesn’t want to hear? What if something terrible happens? She takes a deep breath and hands over her money card before climbing in a large bus to start her journey. The island was an illusion, it held a life that did not exist. The illusion is broken now and all that’s left is the reality that the facade was built around. Rey is tired of everyone knowing more about her than herself. Even if something horrible happens or if what she finds out breaks her heart she has to go. She can’t live her life knowing that there’s truth out there and she didn’t go find it when she got the chance.

-o-

It takes over twenty four hours to finally reach the charming little house she once knew. Rey was so focused on getting away that she hadn’t considered how it would feel to be back. As she stands outside hyping herself up she goes through a range of different emotions. Anger at first that they gave her away without even talking to her first. Then she feels a sense of loss thinking about how much she cared for them, how she felt loved and safe and like she was part of a family. She misses that feeling and it hits her that she may never feel that way again.

She waits until she’s sure they’re fast asleep before walking to the back door and trying the handle. It turns easily; they never did lock the doors. She tiptoes through the house and stops at a picture frame. It’s her, she doesn’t even know when it was taken. She picks it up and looks at it, almost feeling guilty about what she has to do.

“Your mate called, told us when you would be here. He wants you to call him.”

Rey jumps and looks over to see Finn and Poe standing across the room. She puts the photo down and makes eye contact.

“Are you going to call him now?”

“Do you want us to?”

“Does it matter?”

Finn slowly walks towards Rey and she backs up in response looking at Finn with distrust and heartbreak. He stops and slackens his shoulders.

“We should have told you before he showed up here, we were afraid you would run off.”

Rey crosses her arms and takes another step back.

“Why are you here Rey, are you ok?” Finn asks.

Rey looks back and forth between Finn and Poe before dropping her arms and giving up.

“My grandfather left me something on the island.”

There’s a pause and then Rey watches their eyebrows raise in unison as they understand.

“You need our boat.”

Rey nods.

“So you were just going to steal it?”

She nods again.

“I was going to bring it back after.”

“We could get in a lot of trouble for helping you, you know that right?” Poe says.

Rey walks over to the couch and plops down putting her face in her lap. Finn comes next to her and rubs small circles on her back.

“We’ll take you there,” He says quietly.

Rey pauses for a moment as his words wash through her. She feels a mix of relief and resignation. Even in the time she was on her own she still had to rely on others. She puts her arm around Finn and leans against him. Maybe relying on others isn’t a bad thing and fighting the instinct to form attachments only ends up leaving her hurt. She doesn’t trust Finn and Poe, at least not the way she did before but she also isn’t angry.

“Thank you.” She whispers

They don’t waste much time. Poe makes a sandwich for Rey and they hitch up the boat. It’s a long and cold ride to the island. Seeing land is a relief and yet Rey finds herself unable to move as they dock. The night she left was one the most difficult of her life. Flashbacks play in her head and she half expects a group of men to come running at her from the house.

“Do you want us to come with you?” Poe asks

“No,” She breathes before steadying herself and starting the walk to the house.

The island looks exactly the same and somehow wildly different than what she remembers. As she looks around at all the familiar rocks and trees she begins to understand that the island isn’t what’s different, She is. Her eyes have changed, giving her the ability to see the headache inducing complexity of shapes and colors that were blended and muddied before. Beautiful memories of her childhood sit beside the knowledge of lies and control. She can see it all and it overwhelms her.

It doesn’t take her long to find where the letter is hidden. She opens it with shaky hands and reads the last words her grandfather wrote to her.

-o-

Rey,

You probably have so many questions and I’ll do my best to answer them before I have to do what I have to do. I’m going to die now, I’ll make sure they kill me or I’ll shoot myself. I can’t be brought in and questioned. If they find you they’ll use you against me until I crack. There are people who count on me, what I know could bring down an entire organization.

You’re what’s called an Omega. The medication I give you suppresses it, but even with the medication it’s who you are. Omegas are kind and caring, meant to serve others. They’re also strong and resilient, I know you’ll escape this island. I’ve included directions to a safe house that I had set up just in case. Rey, I only have one month of medication for you. When it runs out you’ll go into what is called a heat. It will be painful but you’ll be ok. Do not leave the safehouse after you run out of suppressants. People will be able to tell you’re an Omega and you will be in danger. I have it arranged for someone to bring food and supplies to you for as long as you need it. You won’t have to worry about anything and can spend as much time as you need living there, even your whole life if you want.

There’s a family, the Solo’s. A man, Ben Solo, was assigned to be your mate when you were just a little girl. They’re a good family and one day when you're ready they’ll protect you and love you. There's a file about them at the safehouse. They’re the ones who are here now but their issue isn’t with you, it’s with me. They think that I’ve been hurting you for the past several years.

You’re probably wondering why, why didn’t I tell you about any of this.

Twenty years ago I made a decision that ended up haunting me forever. I gave the go ahead to kidnap the child of a politician, one who was my friend. My men tortured this child and sent him back to his parents broken. We needed to get a law passed that now feels so trivial. I lost my soul that day and five years later, in direct consequence to that choice I lost my son and his wife, your parents. They tried to take you too that night to return the favor, thankfully they didn’t succeed. That boy is now a man and what I didn’t consider 20 years ago is that I may have been creating a monster, and by monster I mean someone exactly like me. Be careful Rey, there are people in this world who want to hurt you. It’s not fair but life never is.

I brought you here after your parents died vowing to keep you safe, to raise you right and give you a childhood away from pain, one I hadn’t given your father. I was supposed to hand you off to the Solo’s when you turned eighteen but the day you presented as an Omega and I saw your pain I did something rash, I gave you my suppressants. I just wanted a little more time with you but as soon as my medication wore off all those feelings of inadequacy and failure to protect your father came crashing back. I let myself spiral into my Alpha biology. Even as I write this I feel a sense of intense need to protect you. I failed to protect my Omega and failed my child. I can’t fail you Rey. I kept telling myself that one day I would have to let you go but every time I thought about it I just couldn’t. It may be selfish but I couldn’t let go of you. It turns out that life isn’t worth much without the people you love, and I love you Rey.

I hope I did the right thing. I hope that when you come out of your hiding place and find this letter you’ll understand why I did everything I did.

I love you Rey

-Grandfather.

Rey lets the letter fall to the ground. She starts taking steps back until she hits the wall. She doesn’t know what she was expecting, for there to be some explanation that would make everything ok, that would refute everything she’s been told about him. It doesn’t.

What hurts her now is that she doesn’t feel anger. He was her captor, lied to her just as much as everyone else in her life. If he was standing in front of her now she would scream at him and lock herself away. She would run from the island and not look back. He’s not in front of her though, he’s dead, and she loved him. She feels deep and true love for someone who murdered, tortured, lied, a criminal. How can she love someone like that? Her chest tightens and she starts feeling lightheaded.

What if she had stayed hidden like she was supposed to that evening? What if she came out and found the letter, had time to process everything and decide when and if she wanted to call the Solo’s.

She feels tired and trapped. It doesn’t feel good to be back on the island, it feels just as much a prison as the Solo’s house and she wants to leave. She gathers the letter and directions to the safe house.

She has one more thing she has to see, hopefully she’s able to. Hopefully the cleverly hidden security system wasn't found during the ransacking of her home. She walks to the hidden cabinet and uses her thumb print hoping that it will let her in.

And it does.

-o-

“Where is she?” Ben asks.

“Don’t worry Solo, we’ll find your little Omega after we deal with him.”

Knight. She didn’t know he was there. She didn’t notice any of them that night, only Ben, only her Alpha.

“You can come nicely.” Knight gives a sly smile as he pulls out a gun

“Or not.”

Sheev pulls out a pistol in turn and Ben looks back and forth between the men.

“You have three seconds to leave before I start shooting… Three,” Sheev starts.

Knight smiles and Ben's eyes widen.

“Two,” He continues.

“Don’t,” Ben cries but it’s too late. The shot is firing off and Ben is standing there shocked, looking at the blood pouring out of sheev.

“One,” Knight finishes.

“You weren’t supposed to kill him.” Ben says.

“He was torturing your girl wasn’t he?”

“I wanted but… This is not… You aimed for his head… You murdered him.” Ben says. He looks away from the scene and his eyes land on something.

“Rey.” He breathes “Don’t you fucking go near her Knight.” He yells before running out of frame.

-o-

Rey doesn't even react, her mind won’t let her. She slowly turns off the monitor and walks to her old bedroom, looking around at the mess all over the floor. She finds her little stuffed stingray and stands there with it for a few minutes before walking all the way to the ocean.

She wades in, holds the stuffed animal to her chest, and lets herself feel. She feels everything all at once, from her parents death to the moment she stepped out of that window, the good and bad. There's use in objects that comfort, that remind someone of their past and where they came from. There’s also use in letting go. In realizing that there’s no going back and the only way forward is to say goodbye. In taking a quiet moment to thank an object before letting it go. It’s symbolic but sometimes symbolism can be so strong that it becomes reality.

“I love you,” She whispers.

Rey lets the little stingray fall into the ocean and be carried away and with it goes a weight she’s held in her for as long as she can remember.

She makes her way back to the boat, stopping when she sees a little flower. She leans over and picks it wavering with it for several moments before putting it in her bag.

“Did it go well?”

Rey settles in the boat and gives a small smile.

“Yes, I think so at least.”

-o-

Rey is exhausted by the time they arrive back. She doesn’t feel safe there though. The safe house isn’t far, a few hours to walk. She can make it, she knows she can. She may fall over from exhaustion by the time she arrives but she has to go.

“we can give you a ride wherever you need.”

“It’s better you don’t know where I’m going, safer that way for all of us.”

Poe disappears inside of the hose and Finn pulls Rey into a hug. Poe comes back and stuffs some food in her bag before joining them in the hug. He looks at her awkwardly.

“He wasn’t coming after you. He knew where you were. You used a money card Rey, they can be tracked.”

Rey bites her lip and looks down feeling dumb for not knowing that.

“I think he genuinely just wanted to know you’re safe. There was something he wasn’t saying, I don’t know.”

“Thank you.” Rey says as she pulls away.

It’s bittersweet, seeing them and now leaving. Rey takes a step back and then turns away.

“Stay safe Rey,” Finn calls out as she walks slowly down the driveway.

She turns back and gives one last smile and wave before turning on the road.

#alpha ben solo #ben solo x rey #reylo #Omega Rey #abo #starwars abo

[seyaryminamoto]

Been thinking for a while that I’d like to do a light behind-the-scenes glimpse into one of the themes in the newest Gladiator story arc. While it’s not the very core element of the arc, the source of Azula’s current struggle in the story came from... an unexpected place.

Unexpected as in, it came from LOK.

Okay, in all fairness, it’s not quiiiiiiiite something that came from LOK itself, but it’s a take on an idea I had while pondering the various reasons why Asami’s character wouldn’t really take off for me in the show. Well, beyond the obvious reasons why it wouldn’t *cough* Book 2 *cough*... 

I’ve always said I’m more than a little confused by how a character like Asami, with just 20-something years of age at the time of LOK Book 4, has enough talent and know-how to not only be a top-of-the-line engineer (which, yes, is believable enough on its own), but to also be a CEO in her own company (I gueeeess since the company falls into her hands and she mismanages it plenty in Book 2, it’s not that impossible to feature this in conjunction with the first thing?), a clothing designer, an architect AND a urbanist, capable of driving every machine known to man, an outstanding hand-to-hand fighter...!

... If you really think about it in cold blood, it feels like a little too much.

BUT. Instead of boringly accusing Asami of being a Mary Sue (which I’m sure some people might) for having a thousand talents that we don’t really see her work for, that she just developed offscreen, I thought the show would have benefited greatly from actually focusing on how Asami is handling the constant, desperate need of so many authorities in Republic City to have HER resolving all their problems.

Therefore, instead of a Reunion episode with a conflict focused on rescuing a kidnapped Wu (whom I profoundly dislike as a character, not for his role, but his personality is simply barf-worthy for me and the amount of focus Book 4 gave him was, as a lot of things, detrimental to the show as a whole, in my opinion), I thought LOK’s Book 4 could have instead featured a Reunion episode focused on Asami... which, of course, would also be a nice way to fix some of the lackluster onscreen development of Korrasami. So... let’s go onwards with my episode pitch:

Picture that Korra is about to reunite with Mako and Asami for the first time in all those years, same as in canon. Asami arrives! Yay, Korra is happy, Asami compliments her hair, just like in canon... aaaand then Asami says she can’t really stay, she just dropped by quickly because this REALLY matters to her, but there’s this pressing issue going on at the company and she has to deal with it RIGHT NOW, because no one else can. So, woops.

Korra is completely disappointed (and probably doesn’t even understand WHY she’s so disappointed, hinting at deeper feelings for Asami that Korra hasn’t even stopped to reason with yet), but she sees Asami off while pretending this doesn’t bug her (for Asami’s benefit), and ends up spending the evening with Mako but clearly she’s not enjoying it as much as she hoped to. Which could result in Mako being pretty surprised by whatever closeness and bond those two seem to have now, noticing that he seems to have fallen to second place in Korra’s eyes somehow.

So! Skipping ahead, perhaps to the next day, Korra tries to check on Asami again! :D Oh, but she’s got to work on the airbenders’ outfits, some have been having trouble with the aerodynamics of it, and it’s just not working as Asami intended, so more calculations are needed! She takes to studying on the subject frantically, has to figure out what formula she’s missing or messing up, and while Korra offers to help, she knows there’s not really anything she can do to give Asami a hand since this stuff is well out of Korra’s area of expertise.

Then, when Asami is finally finished, OH NO! An emergency in the train she inaugurated at the start of the season! Asami has to go deal with that too! And of course, Korra goes too, while wondering how TF does this damn city even run without Asami...

... And then realizing it actually doesn’t. There’s a president who basically dumps all the difficult issues on Asami because she has the know-how and the resources to deal with all the city’s problems, there’s an airbending master who requested for that same girl to help with the designs of his people’s combat outfits instead of dealing with it himself or finding someone else to help, there’s an entire vehicle company (ranging from cars to AIRPLANES) that depends on HER. And it’s just SO. MUCH. SHIT. For a girl who’s like... 20? 21? How old is Asami at this point? xD I don’t even remember. But the point I’m trying to get to...

Is that Asami should be overwhelmed. She hasn’t had anyone helping her, she deals with everything alone, and it doesn’t matter how hard she tries to work through this, there’s always one more problem, one more obstacle, one more bothersome thing she has to tackle, and nobody seems to stop and think that maybe she could use a break. That maybe she needs a nap because she hasn’t had one in 20 months. That maybe things in this damn city would be in a better place if people didn’t rely on her, and her alone, to resolve the bulk of their problems.

Korra, though, with her latest character growth (... that I’m not really fond of anyhow, but still...), has become a lot better at understanding people’s emotions. And her job as an Avatar is, amongst many things, to help people: someone she cares about deeply, her best friend future girlfriend, is currently going through so much crap and the truth is, Asami needs help. Whether Asami realizes it or not, she needs it. And so, whether it’s Korra’s job or not to help her, that’s all Korra wants to do right now. 

So Korra enlists Mako and then all three deal with whatever that train emergency might be! Asami probably rejects their help at first, out of force of habit of doing everything alone lately, until Korra tells her she doesn’t have to do that anymore. And then Asami’s mind is blown because yeah, maybe there’s a bunch of older people in charge who are happy to dump all responsibilities on her! But that doesn’t mean she has to accept it meekly and save all their asses time after time... and it also doesn’t mean she has to deal with everything alone.

After the train problem is resolved, Korra and Asami (maybe Mako too? But for Korrasami’s purposes, it can just be those two) get to have a small chat about what life has been like for Asami since Korra vanished. The conversation doesn’t merely focus on Hiroshi, which... *cringes* let’s not get into that. It focuses on Asami and the hardships she’s dealing with, seeing as the city is basically using her as a non-bender Avatar, in the sense of leaving all the problem-solving to Asami alone. Korra probably apologizes, Asami probably tells her not to feel guilty, because she has had it rough, and Asami understands that better than anyone, especially after what she’s been through lately.

It’s a cute, heartfelt moment, not necessarily romantic yet, but featuring a strong, meaningful bonding scene between these two! Asami wants to go back to work on some pending stuff, and Korra respects that, though she warns Asami not to overdo it. Asami promises she won’t... and the next time Korra checks on her, Asami is asleep on her desk or something like that. Korra smiles and puts a blanket on her shoulders, and when someone else arrives to say something REALLY BAD is going on, Korra shushes them and decides to deal with it herself (as long as she can), and, if she can’t, she’ll find someone else to do it in Asami’s stead so the girl can sleep safe and sound for the first time in ages.

Episode pitch over! :’D

*siiiiiiiiiigh* alright, so yeah, this was something I originally thought of as a replacement episode, to further explore and establish a bond between Korra and Asami that wouldn’t really resolve all of the rushed-Korrasami problems... but it would make it so much clearer that those two share a different bond, and a very special understanding of each other, that the other two Krew members simply don’t have with either of them. It’d deepen their relationship, but the most important element about this for me was that it’d be an Asami-focused episode and plotline. However brief it would have been, my idea was to feature Asami facing her own problems, not problems based on her relationship with other people (be it family or romance). It was also a way to show that she’s not indestructible or just the go-to problem solver with neverending resources and talents that the plot can exploit at leisure whenever it feels like it. And, most importantly, that Asami can’t and SHOULDN’T be the answer to every problem in Republic City, especially when she’s only delivering those answers off-screen, offering the viewers next to no chance to see her in action, kicking ass at all the things she apparently has insane expertise on.

As far as I know, the two LOK comic trilogies haven’t really done much for Asami either. I haven’t read them so I could be wrong, but from what I can gather from comments of people who have read them and the books’ summaries, she’s still Korra’s girlfriend first and foremost, gets kidnapped so she can be used as a hostage to manipulate Korra, and then gets brainwashed into fighting against Korra...? If this is truly how it is, again, Asami just gets reduced to a satellite character, in the sense that she just revolves around other people as though that’s all there is to her character, canon-wise. Which... makes me sad. She had potential, plenty of potential worth exploring, if only the show’s writing had been more paused and allowed their characters to breathe and grow organically, as a consequence of their own actions and decisions rather than by being forced into hellish situations persistently until they broke out of desperation.

So... LOK really had the chance to explore a much more human side of Asami that they’ve neglected to acknowledge so far (from what I know), a chance to deepen her character by displaying that no one of such young age should have so many difficult responsibilities dumped on her shoulders... which, again, could be expanded into a metaphor for the Avatar’s role, showing both Korra and Asami as two highly capable women who could achieve great things... but who need a chance to be normal too, once in a while. From the looks of it, neither of them have had that chance in canon (yes, Korra was stuck in a compound all her life but Asami must have been stuck in constant lessons at every discipline she has mastered? If she can deal with all those jobs of hers as flawlessly as she has, I don’t think she had much of a life before LOK started), and it would have been really nice of the deeper, darker show LOK wanted to be to acknowledge that a bunch of grown-ups, who had relatively smooth lives in their youth, dumping so much heavy work on a pair of girls who are just becoming young adults and barely had childhoods of their own, is just damn nasty :’D just as it was nasty in a show featuring a much younger cast... *innocent whistling*

Alas, this was just one idea that won’t ever go anywhere in canon, as is obvious. I’m sure I mentioned it at least once before, not as thoroughly as I did just now, but this is more or less what I had in mind. If you dump a thousand things on a character, it would only be fair to let them suffer for it, to a fault. Maybe don’t feature them whining because they have soooo much work to do... but turn them into workaholics! Show that they’re struggling to make everything pay off, that this kind of burden isn’t child’s play because in real life, it simply wouldn’t be.

But, as there’s next to no chance Asami will ever get this sort of development, I merely stashed this idea on my back burner, in case it might come in handy in the future... 

... And then I returned to it once Gladiator’s Enforcers became a solid reality. Azula has been dealing with challenges that are rather different from those Asami dealt with... but ultimately, the responsibilities both girls have taken up, Asami in canon and Azula in my story, were just insanely big. Azula, in Gladiator, has had very little time to spare for “secondary” pursuits since the previous arc, and in the current one that has become a problem because she simply CAN’T stop working. She goes home and instead of going to bed, keeps on working. She’s constantly on edge, assuming that any time not spent working is wasted time, time she should take advantage of to further improve her projects and endeavors... to the point where people are starting to notice she’s slightly overwhelmed, extremely stressed out, and needs to calm down :’D

I really had wanted to explore these themes in overachieving characters, who take up far too many responsibilities, more than are reasonable. While I’ll always consider it a really big waste of potential that LOK never gave Asami this particular dimension, despite her character 100% warranted it, at least I had the chance to explore this with Azula instead, and I’m honestly really pleased with the result, because it suits her really well too. The outcome won’t be at all like what I just outlined for the LOK episode that never was, and the current story arc will take a vastly different direction... which is why I thought it would be fun to explain where this particular, new dimension of Azula’s character had come from.

Aaaanyways... the bottomline is, Return to Shu Jing is here. And I reeeeeally love this arc. I hope that those of you reading and staying up to date with the story will love it too!

#gladiator #me talking about LOK? #who'd have thought (?) #but it's something I've had running circles in my brain for ages so #it feels good to release it into the wild at last (?) #I really think this is the only genuine link between Gladiator and LOK #... and it's not even 100% a link #but the idea is one I thought of for LOK #and that I now repurposed altogether for my big bulky story #so... indirect link I guess #but boy I really wish they'd done this in canon #would've been wonderful for Asami's character... *sigh*

[blue-eyes-and-auburn-hairr]

Second Chances Chp. 4

Disclaimer: Okay, I got more notes than I thought I ever would, so while the world is quarantined...I wrote another part.

Warning: Mention of death, fluff, I don’t want to mislead anyone this will very much be a slowburn

Summary: Can you imagine being widowed at such a young age to a man you thought you’d have forever with? On the anniversary of his death, on top of a mountain, Thea and Chris begin their new journey together.

(I want to experiment with a different perspective if its trash I’ll redo this chp. )

Thea had no idea why it was so hard to ghost this guy. It should be easy, they hung out for half a day a week ago. He should already have her out of his head, but no he still continues to call. 

“Ms. Mulligan I finished reading the chapter what should I do now?” Thea’s 3rd period reading support class was currently working on finishing their novel. She would typically read to them but her mind had been scattered all week. 

“Kay, why don’t you draw a picture of your favorite chapter so far on the smartboard?” Thea prompts, knowing that Kay loves to draw and she really is interested in the novel...even if she won’t admit it. 

“Can I listen to music, puhleaseee?” She spins around with a great big smile on her face. 

“As long as you don’t blast it and its not that Billie Eye Lash person,” Thea rolls her eyes with a smirk knowing what would follow. 

“Mully, you’re embarrassing yourself you know her name is Billie Eilish because I’ve stalked your Spotify playlist, right Kai?” Kai, who was too busy reading the next chapter to even look up when she responds, “Yeah Mully, we are currently working on one of those mixtapes for you so be prepared.” 

The nickname Thea fought for a good three months but finally caved when her co-workers started using it as well. As for the Spotify stalking, not surprised more impressed and she was now looking forward to the next mixtape they give her. 

Last semester, Thea assigned the class a project that required them to find a song to coincide with each chapter of their novel. The students also had to write one paragraph explaining why they choose each song. That was when the revolting started for about 20 minutes until Andrew, in the back of the class, had enough and shouted, “She is legit letting us listen to music all class period and write like 10 paragraphs for a week. The other students have to write an essay on like literary devices or something and they had to read the book all by themselves.” 

“Legit?” Kay announced shocked.

“Legit Kay, legit,” Thea sighs, “Also we have like 78 words on the word wall can we work on using one of those instead of ‘legit’?” 

“Bet.” Kai says with her hand in the air and at that point, Thea just puts her head down silently laughing. 

Her phone buzzed on her desk again, this time it was just a CNN update but the missed call was still staring her in the face. All Thea has felt since that night was guilt. She felt like she was cheating on Jamie and all they did was hug before getting in their own cars and driving away. The bubble burst though on the drive home when the waterworks wouldn’t stop and she had to pull over on the side of the road almost three times. 

And then Sunday morning, her phone rings and she watches as it goes to voicemail and then it vibrates again with a voicemail. She stares at her phone for a few more minutes before playing the message. 

Hey Thea, I just wanted to call and check in on you. You never messaged me when you got home last night and I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Leaving West Point now and you were right I think I definitely made the guard’s day.  I’m sure you are busy getting ready for the school day tomorrow but if you have a second to talk I’m around. Okay, take care now. 

He called one more time that evening but no message. It was now Friday and Thea had five missed calls and two messages in total. She did not know how to process all of this and she had been burying herself in work trying to stay busy avoiding the topic. She did that with most things and she knew it wasn’t going to end well and that she was being selfish. So she picked up her phone and tried to type out a text, but then the bell rang and the class started to pack up. 

“Okay, guys I’ll see most of you in 7th and 8th for Math, make sure to have your homework notebook, hint, hint hint,” Thea says with a wink. She knew their anxiety would soar if they walked in not knowing about a homework check so she always made sure she casually mentioned something to them. Her co-teacher was not a fan of this, but her kids, her decision. 

Thea now had a prep period and then lunch to try and sort out all of her thoughts. She even had time to call Chris back, but she did not trust herself to keep her emotions in check, especially while at work. 

Hey Chris, Sorry for the disappearing act. I’m still just trying to process everything and work has kept me occupied. Can we talk tonight? Text, call or even facetime if that’s easier.  Sorry again. 

Chris’ phone finally vibrated in his pocket as he was walking out of a bagel shop in New York City. He was supposed to make his way to Boston to see his family after his trip upstate but that was sidetracked by some work stuff. 

His new movie, “Captain America: Civil War was being released in a few weeks and he had a few talk shows and then the Lower Manhattan premiere was on May 4th. He knew he was going to be in town for some time now and wanted to see Thea again. 

She just didn’t want to see him. 

He had no idea what he did wrong and wanted a chance to see her and explain that. So when she finally answered him back he wasn’t sure how to respond. He would prefer to talk in person but did not want to upset her or whatever else he may have done. He tried to call his brother for some advice but that call went to voicemail as well, but his mom picked up on the first ring. 

“Chris, honey you okay?” 

“Yeah Ma, I just needed a little advice and Scott didn’t answer,” he admits to his mother.

“Well, why would you call him before me? Does he give better advice or somethin’?” This was a rabbit hole Chris would very much like to avoid. 

“It’s about a girl Ma, he already knows most of the back story,” Chris sighs through the phone.

“Ahh, so this is about the girl you met on the hike, well more like Dodger found, who you had to call your brother about in the bathroom while on a date with her?” 

“Wait what? We weren’t on a date and wow did he really tell you everything?” Chris says in complete shock. “And let the record show that I called him when SHE was in the bathroom.”

“Of course he did, I’m his mother, he tells me everything” cue the eye roll. 

“Okay Ma, and yes I called Scott, obviously that was a mistake,” Chris chuckles “He apparently blabbed everything.” Chris still wasn’t sure why he called his brother when Thea went to the bathroom, he just was so happy for the first time in a while that he needed to tell someone.

“So this is the girl that you’re going to marry, huh?” His mother bluntly states, causing Chris to almost drop his phone. 

“What the fuck did Scott say? Who said anything about marriage? We talked for like four hours and she has been avoiding me all week.”

“Scott said you were going on and on about how you finally ‘found her’ which is why he called me 20 seconds after hanging up with you.” Thank goodness for the ballcap and the glasses or all of NYC would see the flushed cheeks of Christopher Evans. 

“Okay, can we circle back to that whole topic later? Or maybe after I have a word with my kid brother. How do I ask her to meet up with me tonight when she only wanted to talk on the phone? Is that too forward? Should I just say yes to the phone call?” Chris continued to ramble to his mother. 

“It can’t hurt to ask,” such a simple response and yet it was perfect. “Just mind your manners, you were raised better Christopher.”

“Thanks, Ma,” Chris says finally smiling because he has a plan. 

“And if you need to call anyone on this date, call me not your brother,” she chuckles on the phone. “Love you and let me know how it goes.”

“Love you too”

Hey Thea, a phone call would be perfect unless you would want to meet up in person? I’m still in New York and would really like to see you again. If you wanted to meet in the city or someplace by you...whatever is easier. 

Thea wanted to act like she was shocked by the message but she understood. Jamie and her relationship started out as long-distance, so when you have the opportunity to see someone in person you jump. 

She didn’t know if she was ready for all of this, but she also knew it wasn’t fair to Chris. They needed to talk and put all of their cards on the table.

I would like to see you again too, but whatever is easier for you.

Long Beach is about an hour train ride to the city, but not sure would be better for you with people and stuff. 

You could also come here and we could get some ice cream and take a walk on the boardwalk? If that doesn’t sound too cliche...

The bell is going to ring so no rush we can figure this out after school. 

Thea finally stopped blowing up his phone by her overthinking and put her phone in her bag for the rest of the school day. 

The afternoon went by in a flash, Thea waited until she got into her car after school to look at her phone. 

Not cliche at all, that sounds perfect. I can be to you by 7, just send me the address of the ice cream shop 

Thea forwarded the address and then made her way home. She had a few hours to kill before she would see Chris so she tried to busy herself with things to do to prevent the overthinking. 

Chris on the other head couldn’t stop the overthinking and the worst-case scenarios that played out in his head. He has so many things to worry about with the movie and all the press but he cannot get her beautiful smile out of his head. 

He just didn’t know what it was about her, everything about Thea just seemed authentic. She had been dealt such a tough hand that would make any person cold and distant, but she still wears her heart on her sleeve.  Even Dodger could see her genuine soul and stepped in to defend her when we were on the mountain. Chris just wanted to get to know her better, he thought he might miss out on something unbelievable if he just walked away. He also understood that she was still so hurt and wanted to help her in any way that he could. 

Chris thought about that while driving down to the ice cream shop and pulling into the parking lot a few minutes early. He spotted Thea as she was laying down a blanket in the trunk of her Jeep. He could only see the back of her and he was glad she was wearing something comfy and casual. It made him feel better about his jeans and t-shirt that took him an hour to finally commit too. He parked his car and made his way over to her, he closed his truck door loudly and called her name so he didn’t startle her. She didn’t turn around, she was too busy struggling with her own nerves. She had been fixing this blanket for a good 10 minutes and trying to decide whether or not it was lame and if she should scrap the whole idea. She didn’t even have a clue that Chris was behind her for a few minutes before she actually turned around with a jump. 

“Sorry, I was trying so hard not to scare you but you didn’t respond when I called your name a few times,” stumbled with his words. 

Thea kept a hand over her heart trying to steady her breathing and when it was finally calmed she looked up to see Chris’ concerned expression. 

Thea couldn’t help but laugh, “Well you looked like the last time we met too, only I had a knife in my hand and yet you look more scared now.” 

And just like that the tension that had worried them both had broken as Thea walked over to give Chris a big hug. They make there way over to the line and ordered two sundaes and then head back to her car. 

“I figured we could sit here while we ate our ice cream and then head to the boardwalk, its a few minutes away but I didn’t want the sundaes to melt” 

Chris continues staring at his ice cream trying to find a way to ask the question that had been driving him crazy all week. He didn’t know how to phrase it without making the situation worse. 

Thea scoots back into the car and sits like a pretzel, “So let’s talk about it before the elephant in the room gets any bigger.” Thea used to be all about beating around the bush but after everything that happened, time is one thing you can never get back. 

“Did I do something to upset you? I have been trying to figure out why you didn’t answer and I am coming up short” Chris admits finally looking away from his ice cream. 

“You did nothing wrong and I don’t want to sound like an asshole when I say that this had nothing to do with you,” Thea says while running her fingers through her hair. Chris sits patiently giving her a second to collect her thoughts. 

“I want to explain this right, so please take everything I say with a grain of salt because I am bound to put my foot in my mouth” Thea sets the stage with a disclaimer because she is absolutely terrified of the direction this could go. 

“You know that feeling when you are exercising or playing a sport and your breaths are coming shorter and the tightness in your chest is growing? You can still breath but it’s a struggle and you cannot wait for it to subside? And then finally you stop and you catch your breath and the air in your lungs fills again and you know you are going to be okay?” Chris nods along to Thea’s analogy trying to see where she was going with this. 

Thea takes a second to collect her words again, “Chris, I have been trying to catch my breath for three years now and no outlet, no resource, nothing was helping. The panic attacks while I was awake and even when I was sleeping, I just couldn’t...” Thea tries to collect herself shaking the tears from eyes refusing to let them spill. “And then I ask Jamie for a sign that it’s okay for me to stop running and I turn around and there you were” Thea clears her throat again.

“And Chris, I finally started breathing again.”

“Then we hugged and I got in my car and started to drive away and all at once it was gone and my lungs were aching and I was terrified and lost all over again” Chris is not sure at what point he reached for her hand but he was gently squeezing it as Thea continued to shake her head. 

“Out of nowhere, I was angry at myself that I let this happen and how I was a fool for thinking I could be normal again.” Thea pulled her hand away, “I woke up to the text you sent me and then the guilt set in. I felt guilty being happy with you and wanting to answer you and then guilty because I was not being fair to you and then guilty because we only knew each other for a few hours and I was giving so much power to something that wasn’t real.”  She swirls the melting ice cream in her lap, “and now I am just sad because sitting here with you right now with all these emotions I am breathing just fine.”

“And I am scared of what will happen next.” 

Chris had no idea how to react to all of this, she had so many layers and so much going on and unintentionally he hurt her. Thea was right though this wasn’t about him but the fact that he was helping and hurting her at the same time was making his head spin. Nothing was sitting right with him and maybe ice cream wasn’t the best choice because his stomach was churning. 

“I don’t know what to say, the thought that I am causing you pain, it makes me sick. Why would you say this isn’t real though?”

“Chris,” Thea sighs “I don’t know, you’re you and I’m me and I am talking this Chris not that other guy so don’t jump to conclusions. I am filled with scars and a heart that may never work again. You are so sweet and caring and could be anywhere right now and yet you are here with me eating ice cream in my trunk. We only talked for one evening, it just doesn’t make sense.” 

“Isn’t that how all great stories start though, with a great evening that leads to many more?”

“Chris, the only thing I can offer you is a hand to hold and friendship, I don’t think I can handle much more and that’s not fair to you.”

“Deal, sold, I’ll take it. Now let’s head to the boardwalk before it gets too chilly” Chris says while taking the melted ice cream and tossing it. 

“Wait what?” Thea says completely taken back. 

“I am not done getting to know you and I have a feeling this will all be worth it,” Chris says with a smirk. 

“Chris, I really don’t…” Chris cut Thea off, “I’m an optimist so let’s just enjoy each other’s company, okay?” 

Thea nods and recommends that Chris should follow her back to her apartment building to leave his truck so that they can just walk from there to the boardwalk, parking was bound to be crazy on this warm spring night. When they finally park and head to the boardwalk, Chris, optimistically, grabs Thea’s hand and they start their walk with the breeze from the open pushing them along. 

Chris decides while looking at her windblown hair, that he is going to help her no matter what. She deserves so much happiness in this life, Chris made a silent promise to her that all of her hardest days were behind her.  

Giving her hand an extra squeeze, Chris looks out into the distance and makes the same promise to the night sky that was watching over her.

@chi00072 @capstopavenger​

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