#(ironic given their canon dynamic)

[eahsayswhat]

I love how authoritative Apple looks moments before her brain catches up with her mouth. Cue the flustered mess in 3...2...1...

Happy Pride, everybody!

[longagoitwastuesday]

On the one hand, I don't believe Megumi and Gojo were ever too close, even if their apparent closeness called my attention since their first scene together because of the way they behaved and talked to each other.

On the other hand, Megumi was a fifteen years old with a lot of problems, a pretty bad childhood and a bit of an attitude to say the least, and Gojo, besides Tsumiki, was the "paternal" figure he could turn against

[aphelea]

17 & 21

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

I think it would be cool if there were more fics set pre-canon/describing the backstories of certain characters or events! There's a few of those already, I know, but not as many as I think I'd like there to be.

21. part of canon you think is overhyped

Definitely the love triangle. Also, I don't know if this really counts as canon, but I personally don't care much for shipping moments between the kids. Like whatever Tam-Biana-Dex thing is going on. It's not bad, I just don't particularly care much about them.

[msmorningstaarr]

let me be yours. | part I

ao3 | masterlist | part II >

Pairing: Rhaenyra Targaryen x F!Martell!Reader

Word count: 3.1K

Summary: You, a Martell princess who was recently brought into Rhaenyra's courtyard as a sign of goodwill to ensure the unification of the Seven Kingdoms. With time passing on, you feel trapped under the enticing aura of the Dragon Queen and sees yourself desiring her more and more. However, in a delicate situation, is it worth the yearn for your Queen? Would you give in to your needs to have your way with her and find some indulgence?

Warnings: SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI), afab reader, bisexual rhaenyra, canon divergence, longing, age gap (you early 20s rhae mid 30s), fingering, masturbation, oral sex, sub/dom dynamics (rhae dom you sub), overstimulation, scissoring, queen rhaenyra targaryen, nipple play, possessive rhaenyra

Ever since you left your homeland to be a ward in King’s Landing, life has become a journey of too many changes and mixed feelings. The sense of homesickness and fear of the unknown was present and huge within your heart.

You were a princess of Dorne, the second in line to inherit Sunspear after your brother. After the rise of Rhaenyra Targaryen as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, she successfully united the relations with Dorne and finally brought it into the feud and unifying the realm once and for all. You, after all, were presented at her courtyard as a sign of good will from the Martells and forge a prominent marital alliance between you and the heir to the Iron Throne, Prince Jacaerys, in order to legitimise the coming of the dornish to the courtyard.

You obviously missed the sultry dunes of sand, the sweeteness of Dornish Red, the incandescent sky, with a fiery burning sun crashing your skin and the sense of community amongst your siblings and the freedom your country provided. You felt less lonely in Dorne, for the life in King’s Landing could prove to be challenging under the judgemental and prejudicial nature of the rest of the Westerosi. Some became outraged by your presence, others just spoke in whispers around the corners of the Red Keep, yet, it was undeniable that as soon as you stepped into the city, you became the centre of attention, always remembered by the courtyard for your mysterious peek, luscious, long hair and exquisite beauty or your luxurious sense of fashion. It distanced yourself from the standard beauty of the other ladies in the realm, putting yourself easily as the fairest maiden of your time.

You had no idea if this title came over the fact that you hold a big status as future consort and people wanted to fuss around you or if you were indeed the most beautiful lady in Westeros. However, you knew well that ever since the Queen has met you, she had been enchanted by you and held you in high regard, always complimenting you and your astonishing beauty. Her Grace enjoys calling you by terms of endearment, being “sweet girl” her favourite name for you, showering you with jewellery and plenty of expensive gifts or simply having your company along the day, to have long walks throughout the royal gardens and even show you the Dragonpit became a regular routine when she arranged time between her royal duties. You barely had time to bond with Prince Jacaerys, given the fact you became her loyal companion.

Speaking from the back of your mind, you cared not much, once you found yourself drowning into the alluring beauty of Rhaenyra. The Westerosi average accent for you was dull and ugly on everyone else; on her, it was perfection. Her touch was gentle and her violet eyes were rather attentive, careful of you. You spent your nights having supper with her and her other sons or simply sharing a good conversation. She made you feel less lonely in that castle.

You questioned yourself if what you were feeling was no more than a delusion, a projection over your neediness for attention. But you could swear you caught yourself in a moment with her where your gazes locked on each other and she lightly pinched your chin, getting too close to your face. Queen Rhaenyra was a daydream. You never indulged in kissing or having any romantic interaction with other ladies but Rhaenyra lit a fire within you - a liability only Her Grace could solve.

And now there you were, another night where she requested your company for supper. You wore an orange dress with silky cuts giving a slight volume to the gown, although it was a more simplistic dress, more adequate to the occasion. Her Queensguard announced you at the door and she received you with a polite smile before you gave her a courtesy.

“Good evening, Your Grace.” You speak, bending your body on a polite greeting gesture to Rhaenyra.

“It has been a far cry since we are done with courtesies, sweet girl,” Rhaenyra said, silently commanding her servants and guards to leave her with you. Her peek examined your features and smiled softly at you.

“It is a costume I would rather not lose, Your Gra-… Rhaenyra.” You corrected yourself, remembering she wanted you to address her by her name only, as a sign of how much she enjoyed your presence. She giggled and guided you through her chambers, ever so caring and jolly.

“I should warn you,” Rhaenyra began, walking through her private apartments. “I commanded the cook to prepare you something special.” Her Grace spoke to you, graciously raising her eyebrows and excited, yet contained beam. Your eyes lit up, already knowing what she was talking about.

You sat after her on the small table fetched for the two of you and a set of plates strategically placed for the duo to have dinner. Even before you would open it, you already knew. “The dornish recipe of roasted lamb.”

Rhaenyra grinned and joined her hands once she realised how much you enjoyed the said surprise. “I had the cook searching for this recipe for days, sweet girl. I hope it is of your liking.”

And then, after waiting for Your Grace to start eating, you hummed in satisfaction eating your meal. The spicy flavour exploded in your mouth, invading your taste and drooling your mouth by the slightest of satisfaction. “I take for your expression that you enjoy it a great deal.” Rhaenyra told you, after taking a bite of her own dinner. You nodded eagerly tasting it and had to contain yourself to not lose your composure in front of the Queen.

“Thank you, Your Grace. It tastes delicious, I have missed this.” You reply to her and involuntarily touches her hand, squeezing it delicately. Once you tried to take it away, Rhaenyra held it tighter, forbidding you to take it away and stared at you, silently reassuring you it was acceptable. Her hands entangling on yours was almost electrifying, causing goosebumps on your skin just with a simple touch or an exchange of looks. Her face, however, was tender and calm, with a soft smile whilst looking at you.

Rhaenyra put her hand over the table once again and her fingertips traced patterns over your soft skin. “My pleasure, sweet girl.” She muttered at you and tension was thick in the air. “Do you miss Dorne, my dear?” Rhaenyra asked you and her other hand grasped the cold metal of her cup of wine, taking it to her mouth to drink it, but her gaze never left yours.

You craved her attention, thirsting for more of Rhaenyra. Her presence sparked questions in your mind about her prowess as a lover; with so many sons, it seemed plausible her husbands found her passionate and fulfilling in bed, particularly Daemon. Could she bring that same intensity and allure to you? As Rhaenyra doted on you in your future role as a daughter-in-law, you could not help but ponder how she might express her affection in a more intimate relationship. Her gestures and glances, filled with warmth and intrigue, hinted at depths of passion waiting to be explored. The thought of her as a lover stirred your curiosity and desire, wondering how her charm and grace would translate into romantic moments.

"I do," you replied, your voice tinged with anticipation and full of honesty, grappling with the allure and uncertainty of what lay ahead. Would she meet your expectations, exceed them, or perhaps offer something entirely unexpected? The prospect both thrilled and unsettled you, as you navigated the complex emotions and possibilities that Rhaenyra's presence brought into your life.

“Well, darling, this is your home now. Your Queen will make sure you feel enoughly accommodated in my court,” Rhaenyra replied, breaking the contact between them to cut the tension shortly after it. The Valyrian Queen cuts a piece of her meat and fidget her fingers on her cup, tracing the boards as her eyes rested on your features. You, on the other hand, smiled gently at her words, deeply touched by her kindness towards you. It was not supposed to feel right to yearn for a full desire of Rhaenyra, you had to get rid these ruminations from your mind and replace them with Jacaerys. But how could it ever be possible when she is just in front of you, cornering you to fully focus on you and your relationship with her?

“I should hope you’re preparing your cloak with your ladies-in-waiting.” Your marriage, however, was a sensitive subject. Jacaerys was a dutiful boy and the interactions you had with him were more than pleasant, still, he was not what you were looking for. His long, brown curls had its appeal, but his mother unveiled things she wished she felt for Prince Jace. “I was done with the embroidery yesterday. I can bring it and show you on our next encounter, Your Grace.”

Rhaenyra lifted her eyebrows and lowered her eyes, smirking at her food as she ate it, seemingly thinking about something. You laughed, nervously drinking your wine. Your hands felt sweaty and heart beating just as it was about to rip open your chest out. “I would be most glad, sweet girl. Are you nervous about your wedding?”

You nodded, with your eyes sly and cautious while lingering on the Queen and she smiled at you again, on an attempted shared empathy. “I was a little thing like you when I married my first husband, Ser Laenor Velaryon, Jace’s father,” Rhaenyra began. “He was not my choice of husband, earnestly.” She giggled and drank a sip of her wine. “But we had a good marriage. Laenor was a good man and provided me with children and good company. We loved each other in our own ways. Jace will treat you well too, sweet girl.”

“Thank you, Your Gr-...” The Queen lifted an eyebrow, reminding you of her request. “Rhaenyra.” You corrected yourself again and she mumbled something as ‘much better’. You giggled alongside her as she shook her head in amusement.

“A marriage is just a piece of paper,” Rhaenyra began. “You and Jace will understand you both can perform a duty and still find your happiness.”

Her words sounded suggestive, was the Queen motivating you to commit treason before your marriage? Was Rhaenyra testing you? You raised your eyebrows and Rhaenyra smiled mischievously again, her eyes gazing at you intensely and in quietude. You rummined what was going on within her mind. Rhaenyra's violet eyes held a depth that made you feel seen and understood in ways that no one else ever had. The silence stretched between you, charged with unspoken words and possibilities. Rhaenyra's touch was a lifeline in the vast sea of desires you were feeling. Her thumb brushed gently over your knuckles, sending shivers down your spine. You wanted to ask her so many things, but the words seemed to fail you in the face of her overwhelming presence.

"Sweet girl," Rhaenyra began softly, her voice a soothing melody, "My first marriage was also born out of duty. I can relate to the worry in your eyes. I want you to know that your happiness means a great deal to me, equally as my son’s. Your marriage to Jacaerys is a duty, yes, but it does not have to be the entirety of your existence."

By this point, you both had finished your plates and no desire for dessert rose for any of you. Rhaenyra had her wine by a window, feeling the cold breeze blow on her face with you by her side. The moonlight casted a silver glow, contrasting with her fair skin and silvery locks. Her words were a lifeline, pulling you from the deep core of your anxiety. The way she looked at you, with such intensity and sincerity, made you feel like you were the only person in the world who mattered.

"Rhaenyra, I..." You hesitated, unsure of how to articulate the storm of emotions swirling inside you. She squeezed your hand reassuringly, her eyes never leaving yours. “Are you testing me?”

Rhaenyra stared at you, grinning and confused. “Why would I test you, sweet girl?”

The proximity of her and the warmth of her breath on your skin, was intoxicating. You found yourself leaning closer, drawn to her like a moth to a flame. Her nearness was both a comfort and a temptation, stirring feelings within you that you had never dared to acknowledge before.

“Rhaenyra, what are you asking of me?” You finally managed to whisper, your voice trembling with a mix of anticipation and anxiety.

A slow, knowing smile curved her lips. “I am asking you to trust me, to let me guide you through this. Do you trust me, sweet girl?”

“I trust you.” You simply replied, sighing heavily. You should not desire her this much. However, being this close made you want to touch her, kiss her perfect lips and beg for her to claim you as his. She smiled at you, relieved and her fingertips stroked your hair, pulling it behind your ear. Her scent was a blend of lavender and something uniquely her. You felt the pull towards her, a magnetic force that you couldn't resist. Tentatively, you leaned in, your heart pounding so loudly you were sure she could hear it.

“Good.” She mumbled against your skin as Rhaenyra came closer. You never had been this close to her before. Her fingers reached your chin, lifting it to bring it closer to her lips, but her kiss was redirected to your cheek, so gently and delicate, yet so intense and slightly lustful. “Will you visit me next evening, my sweet?” Her Grace asked you, whispering words softly and close to your ear. It was a dangerous game you two were engaging in and you knew it well. But what is duty compared to what you are feeling now? You nodded in silence, quietly responding to her question as her hands embraced you slowly, bringing you closer, like a viper defeats its prey.

“I shall leave you to rest now.” You whispered at her, trying not to look into her eyes. Rhaenyra did not deviate her eyes from you, caressing your hair and staying close enough to feel her breath close to your face. “If you excuse me, Your… Rhaenyra.” You corrected yourself for a last moment and she giggled briefly to your face and finally let you go.

You were right in front of a windy window and your body was catching fire after having that moment with Rhaenyra. The cold breeze contrasted sharply with the heat that had built up inside you. As you left her chambers, your mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions.

Making your way back to your quarters, the corridors felt longer, each step echoing with the memory of Rhaenyra’s touch and her whispered words. You couldn’t shake the feeling of her fingers against your skin, the promise and peril in her gaze. It was a heady mix of excitement and apprehension, knowing that you were treading a fine line between duty and desire.

Once in the privacy of your room, you closed the door behind you and leaned against it, taking a moment to catch your breath. The room felt different, almost foreign, as if it no longer fit the person you were becoming. You moved to the window, looking out into the night, the stars twinkling like a thousand silent witnesses to the secrets you now held.

You changed your clothing for a simple nightgown and decided it was time for your slumber, laying on the mattress and allowing you to rest. However, your mind recalled the way Rhaenyra was too close to you, the way her hands had touched you, her soothing voice in your ear felt as the prettiest of melodies, made just for you. It was by far, the most erotic encounter you ever had and you found yourself silently begging for more. Her words echoed in your ears, a constant reminder that your happiness was just as important as your duty. Your hands wandered throughout your body, pinching your nipples, squeezing your breasts and closing your eyes to imagine it is her touch on them. Your hand then passed down on your clothed belly and thighs, teasing yourself before actually going all the way to your pleasure. A soft moan left your lips as you played with your nipples, fantasising about Rhaenyra taking over that liability.

When her body was enoughly worked up and her cunt ached, your hand had encountered your centre over the thin fabric of your dress and when you could feel a small trace of wetness staining on the undergarment, you hummed slightly. Your hand was not a regular tool, you tried it a few times only, but her touch was so recent and her scent was well alive in your nostrils, it felt logical for your body to demeanour in that manner, begging to be touched. You moaned lightly when your fingers pressed against your swollen clit, causing your body to shudder under your own touch. You reminded her sweet talk so close to you, how soft her lips were kissing your cheek and your mind screamed, pleading for those lips to kiss your lips, your chest, your cunt…

As you moved your hand south, your fingers circled around your clit in a slow, tortuous motion and caused your body to arch your back, mumbling words of ‘please, Rhaenyra’ , begging to release for her. Alternating between circles and light taps on your sweet spot, you drove yourself to madness, humping your crotch in the air. Traces of sweat fell down your face as heat grew inside your body. Your breathing was quick to become erratic, just as the pace of your hand became more urgent on your sweet spot. Soon enough, your moans were a bit louder and the pleading became more insistent, desperate. When you least expect it, your body convulsed violently, and orgasm hits you, making your legs quiver, spread wider, hips bouncing against nothing and lungs breathing heavily, your entrance clenched around nothing. You never came this strongly before, and all thanks to your Queen. Trying to gain consciousness, you stared at the ceiling, reflecting about what you just did. Not even a single trace of guilt had reached your body and you considered doing it again if your eyes were insistent to be closed and put your body to sleep.

———

a/n: missed writing and hell yeah i got inspired by THAT scene. please consider leaving likes, comments and reblogs. it’s very important for the writer! <3

Taglist: @princessanglophile @hiroikegawa @hiraethrhapsody @pet1t3

[beannoss]

Something I think about a lot and wonder if maybe gets overlooked in Twilight’s story and as vitally indicative of his character is actually in the very first chapter:

Anya isn’t needed for Strix. Twilight decides to adopt her anyway.

[Spoiler warning: Mostly this post deals with early chapters already in the anime but there is reference to chapter 62, which has not yet been animated and will be in season 3]

Twilight decides it — “I’m going to rework the mission so it doesn’t involve a child because that’s too dangerous” and he’s 100% right! Donovan Desmond is canonically a far right warmonger with fascistic authoritarian aims. His government made liberal use of the SSS — a group to mirror the Stasi — who continue to operate in morally dubious ways (much more likely they’re actively morally reprehensible, though we’ve mostly only had rumours of that so far). From what we can tell, Desmond is at best an absent father and likely actually worse than that: if that's how he treats his own children, imagine how he might treat others. And the timeline seems to indicate that the experimentation performed on Anya was done under Desmond's government — even if Twilight isn't aware of experimentation on children, he is aware of both human and animal experimentation under Desmond's government. Taking all that and also the complexity of Strix's aims, undoubtedly there were other things that could be done, more straightforward if not necessarily easier.

So. Why? Why entertain the change at all? And then, having entertained it, why go back when the reasoning is indisputable?

On the Doylist level, I think Endo wanted to ensure that Anya had some agency within the set up — Endo also does this with Yor. It would be much harder to be on Twilight’s side fully, or to trust him on an ethical level/take him as any sort of moral authority, if he were just straightforwardly using these two people. To have them be active and consenting participants (arguably to actually be affirming the arrangement: Twilight sets it up, but Anya and Yor actually make it happen) even if the audience only knows the depth of their knowledge/motivations/etc currently, shifts the power dynamic in important ways.

But it also the set up tells us important things about Twilight. He is largely impatient, cold, detached in chapter one. His overarching feelings towards Anya are, I think, real annoyance, real confusion, and real impatience. He just doesn’t understand this damn kid and it turns out she’s a person which is frankly unacceptable — he’d needed and anticipated an automaton, ideally of himself in miniature form. (Though I think one could ponder whether Twilight was, in many ways, an automaton himself at this point, but that's maybe for another meta 🙃)

He’s not entirely unmoved of course — we're given to understand he’s affected when Franky tells him how many times Anya’s been adopted and returned, and isn't amused by Franky's joke about names. Franky's comment — "Just don't get attached" — reinforces this. The prospect of “the future” perturbs Twilight when he’s reading the parenting books. His initial reaction to Anya’s kidnap is horror. All these are true too.

Then there’s also this, from earlier in the chapter:

It’s exposition, yeah, and it’s also exposing. "Hopes" and "joys" are very specific words to describe those events. It could simply have been "A marriage? An ordinary life?" but describing them as such — hope for marriage; joy in ordinary life — expose something of what Twilight feels about those two experiences and, on the flipside, they expose what he deems he's lacking. No hopes of intimacy; no joy in (an ordinary) life. There's an argument as well, of course, that he's being ironic but I don't think that actually invalidates the above analysis. Drawing attention to 'hope' and 'joy' at all are revealing, regardless of Twilight's tone in thinking of them. I think it's also interesting this panel, taken in conjunction with a pair of panels in chapter 62, Twilight's backstory. The above is almost a pulled out version of this below panel of Twilight's recollection of his childhood, and of course the returning image of not just a rubbish bin but a rubbish bin on fire when it comes to disposing of his identity:

Back to Strix. Both his final interaction with Karen and the whole everything of the framing of Strix is making Twilight think (and feel, ahem) things that he hasn't for some time. Twilight decides, I’m reworking this. It can’t proceed this way. Not because Anya is a pain in his ass, not because she’s not as (apparently) intellectually advanced as he’d originally thought, not even because he thinks he can find another child who would better be exactly what mission parameters called for. No:

And what changes his mind is Anya asking to come home.

One of the important parts of this to me is this:

He seeks consent.

This moment is a keystone, I think, to understanding Twilight. It’s also more telling than he maybe realises. Twilight is decisive — we all laugh because he spirals at the drop of a hat when his daughter or wife look even mildly upset but outside those (also very telling) scenarios, he makes decisions and he pursues them. Often he makes decisions quickly. He’s a dab hand at it; it’s a large part of why he’s as good a spy as he is.

He’d decided to change Strix.

Anya asks him, in essence, not to.

So, he doesn't.

But it's wild that he entertains keeping her request at all — why? Why even entertain it? It’s dangerous; it’s impractical; there are too many moving parts outside his direct control; Anya isn’t the sort of child he’d wanted for the mission if he’d spent any time thinking about what a child might actually be like; Strix is in many ways an extremely long shot anyway, Desmond could just stop attending for reasons unknown and unrelated; etc.

So, yeah, why? Maybe because of this —

In conjunction, I often think of this moment in the cruise arc:

Twilight first naming the feeling as lonesome, and secondly tacitly conceding that he perceives Yor as a companion and that that relationship is important to him, something to be missed. What makes this for me though is that Anya calls this out "Papa's you're so sappy" and Twilight's reaction is that of someone caught-out. He doesn’t say “nuh-uh!” but he may as well have. Essentially, something landed a bit close to home, hm? Maybe some of that hope for marriage? A soupçon of joy of an ordinary life?

Twilight’s loneliness underpins many of his decisions with his family — probably without him being fully conscious of it. I think he is at least somewhat conscious of it, but also if he looks too closely... Well, best not to. I could fill this post, I think, with images that demonstrate his loneliness throughout the series; that sorrowful/pensive close-up of his eye(s) is one of the abiding motifs for Twilight throughout. I'd probably start with this one from Twilight's backstory arc:

Anya's request plays directly off his loneliness. Still though, he doesn’t immediately capitulate — he emphasises Anya’s choice. Is she sure? The last day has been scary for a child (and for him, but he's ignoring that part) and Twilight, in his increasing recognition that Anya is a person, is probably aware in the back of his mind that he hasn’t exactly been warm or welcoming or at all patient with her. Things that people respond to — he's otherwise excellent at manipulating people, so of course he understands this. So. Given she'd just had this scary experience, given he hasn't exactly been great with her: Is she sure? She wants to come home — with him?

I think the moment may get a little lost because Anya says something riffing off his own earlier thoughts and self-revelation (featuring that shadowed, lonely eye motif again!)

Were this a post about Anya, I’d talk about how it’s an important character moment for her as well by way both of demonstrating her agency/choice and also that she isn’t nearly as dumb as Twilight thinks (and the audience, maybe, also thinks).

But in my view, she didn’t actually need to say anything about it making her cry. I think she could simply have said yes in that moment and Twilight would have agreed.

Twilight’s an unreliable narrator; he’s disconnected from his heart and that shrouds his own motivations from himself — something he actually also concedes in this chapter!

And it shrouds from us just how much he actually understands himself. He’s also a master of deflection. Easy to assume or say that bringing Anya home is just to align with Strix. Nothing more to see here; nothing else going on. But also that ripping off of the mask in the panel above — and the literal 'riiip' sound effects — also indicate to us that this is an unveiling to himself.

In my view, Twilight agreeing to Anya's request, deciding to go back to original mission parameters, actually shifts his motivations, subtly. Now he’s committed not only to the original mission goals, but also to Anya. He needs Anya to succeed at Strix, not only for Strix's sake, but also because otherwise the mission will end and she’ll have to go back to the orphanage, and he’s just agreed with her not to do that (not right away, in any case). I don’t think at this point he’s thinking it’s forever — his thoughts throughout the manga indicate he still expects the Forgers to be temporary. I don't think the shift in motivation is necessarily even conscious, but given the set up, I think something inside Twilight recognises that agreeing to bring Anya home is a compact, jointly engaged. Mostly all this has become subsumed into Strix: he makes decisions. He pursues them. He deflects, even from himself. Of course it's just for the mission; this saved him the trouble of reworking it, of figuring out something else. Nothing more to see; no need to think any more on it. And to be fair to him, Strix is very high stakes, resting pretty solely on his shoulders, so of course that is, objectively, motivation enough. Why even consider beyond that?

But I personally think that to the extent he's aware of it at all, there is something else going on, that he wants to have Anya for as long as it takes him to work something else out for her. If that's the case, then of course, we have Occam’s razor: the simplest solution may be the best one.

Maybe Twilight should just keep Anya himself, eh?

[Image description: gif from Spy x Family season 1, episode 1. Twilight and Anya have just found out Anya passed her entrance exam and are overjoyed. Celebratory, Twilight picks Anya up and swoops her into the air as they smile at one another. End image description]

[foursaints]

fanonwise i sometimes feel that we don’t treat barty crouch jr’s relationship to his father with the amount of nuance that it’s given in canon.

i see more evidence for their dynamic as one of a prodigal son‘s unexpected betrayal, rather than him being openly defiant from the beginning. barty jr disdains his father more than he fears him.

barty’s character is more about being Stifled than it is about being Penalized, if that makes sense. he is a docile thing on the outside. for a counterexample: sirius continuously rebelled against his parents and was punished for it, over and over. barty is more the case of a child dutifully abiding with something spiteful and ugly growing underneath his surface, larger each passing year.

barty’s revenge, and his anger, and his suffering, are all quiet things: the secret burying of a bone, the forced muteness of imperius. barty doesn’t react when he speaks about his father or sees him in disguise. he admits to never truly considering him a father, seeing more of himself in tom instead.

this is more compelling to me than casting him as a sirius-variant!! it’s a slow type of resentment— leading to torture and ending in revenge— and i like the idea of barty as someone in Waiting. he’s the deferential mirror of a man he doesn’t respect (but never truly, not inside). barty jr was a son raised to take the place of his father: obeying to the letter until he suddenly didn’t, and finally usurping him in the most violent way possible with patricide. his father wanted an heir to replace him and he created a perfect one, in the most tragically ironic way possible!! this will always be more interesting to me than a barty who is plainly defiant from the outset— it flattens him!!

[classygreydove]

kkob/obkk fic recs

5 kkob fics that are criminally underrated - obv we all love rocks fall; scene end, Kamui Blues, and New Recruit, (if you haven't read those, I highly recommend them) but these works deserve some appreciation too!

kakaobi fluff series by Eye_like_trauma - 6k, ONGOING

G, No Archive Warnings Apply. Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito. Just a lot of fluff, crushes, and pining.

[dove's notes: Every single on of these one-shots is just precious. And also makes me laugh so hard. Peak content for this ship.]

2. Hey, Wouldn't It Be Mortifying If We Both Survived This? by Eye_like_trauma - 4k, COMPLETE

T, No Archive Warnings Apply. Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito, Kakashi & Minato & Rin & Obito. Kannabi fix-it, love confessions, feelings realization, first kiss, fluff and angst, hurt/comfort

Obito can’t hear anything beyond the cave crumbling around them, thousands of tons of rock cascading down and crushing everything it can. Can’t see beyond the dust in the air, the vibrations of the world around him. Couldn’t, anyway, because he can barely keep his eyes open. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispers into Kakashi’s hair. He knows Kakashi won’t hear him. Wouldn’t, even if he were conscious. That’s okay; the words are as much for him as they’re for Kakashi. He presses himself closer, focuses on the warmth of Kakashi as the world fades in and out, as every bit of remaining light is snuffed and he can feel debris falling on every side of them, huge and heavy and deadly, if they’re hit. He can’t feel Kakashi’s heart beat past the world falling in on itself, but he tells himself it’s there, tells himself that Kakashi’s not dead.

[dove's notes: literally my favorite confession fic. i laughed, cried a little, and felt many fuzzy feelings. bb tsundere kakashi is adorable.]

3. The Things We Found in the Ashes of Our World by shefrommo - 40k, ONGOING

M, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings. Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito, Sukea/Tobi, strangers to friends to enemies, identity shenanigans

Ironically enough, Kakashi didn't start having treasonous thoughts until after he'd already committed treason. __ Or, during a mission gone wrong, Kakashi discovers Obito's alive. He never comes back from that mission. Five years later, Team Seven stumbles across a pair of Akatsuki members--both of whom are working under false identities, both of whom were declared dead years ago.

[dove's notes: Incomplete, but so so good. Tobi and Sukea (and their headspaces) are both very well-written, as is the relationship chemistry. The identity shenanigans are great.]

4. Quiet Revolutions by Anjelle - 68K, ONGOING

T, No Archive Warnings Apply. Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito, Sakumo & Kakashi, Sakumo & Obito. Canon div, dogteeth!kk, Hidden Cloud Village worldbuilding, Identity Shenanigans, Secret Identity, anbu!obito, enemies to friends to lovers

Tensions are running high between Kumo and Konoha. Between the targeting of the Hyuga clan for their Byakugan and an unknown ANBU running interference on missions, their tentative alliance is strained and war is just one slip-up away. Not wanting any part in this, Obito is dragged into it anyway when he's given a mission to find out who instigated the attack. Instead, he gets more than he bargained for when a certain Kumo-nin lies in wait on the other side of Kamui. OR: Due to extenuating circumstances, Kakashi grows up in Kumo and decides that this strange, masked ANBU skulking around his village would make for a fun distraction from his boredom.

[dove's notes: I really enjoyed the dynamics here. obito is bamf but also an idiot. kakashi is bamf but also an idiot. so canon dynamic, pretty much. also identity intrigue, worldbuilding, this fic is full of good stuff.]

5. Truth and what it takes (and what it gives) - 11K, COMPLETE

M, Graphic Depictions of Violence. Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito, TW for mentions of suicide/suicidal ideation, Hurt/Comfort, Blood & Gore

"Kakashi's pupils are wide and fixed, like those of dead animals. The Uchiha has never seen him with that expression before. Obito wonders if he’s dreaming it, then he notices the metallic edges around his frame. The sink. A mirror. He’s looking through Kakashi’s eyes."

[dove's notes: very good relationship study of obkk during kakashi's anbu era, and the writing style is riveting. Dark, so not for fluff fans.]

[plansexualford]

As a long time billford truther (this blog may be new but I’m not.) I’m so happy to see the revival of a ship that was once so misunderstood.

Below is my not so little rant about my frustrations with “but it’s toxic” people and the disservice it does in undermining not only fans’ intelligence but lowkey the writing of the content we’ve been given. Also, a bit on how fandoms in general seem to dismiss the use of ships (unless canonized/written directly into the story) as a medium to tell complex, and sometimes uncomfortable stories.

The frustration I have towards the people that act like they’re high and mighty for saying “billford is ironic, you shouldn’t actually ship it cause it’s toxic” or some variation of treating it as a joke or untouchable that piss me off for multiple reasons.

1. We know, you are not smarter or superior for acknowledging a fact that is crystal clear to see and is literally the most common way that dynamic is explored. Like wow, congrats on providing such valuable insight that none of us saw before. The only times I ever see it not explored in that way has maybe been through pre-betrayal interactions and what ifs.

Not to say there are NEVER clear misreadings (not aus/or fixits/etc. just poor understandings) of their characters that are devoid of what makes them—them, but I fear I truly dgaf and just wince and move on.

2. It is in my opinion, infinitely worse (edit: and honestly a sign of immaturity) to want the allusions to a toxic relationship to be jokes instead of simply accepting that a relationship did happens in canon, whether it happened platonically or romantically (though there is more subtext that 12 y/o me would have never I’d ever imagined reading as an adult for that latter recently.) It should be taken seriously, given that the book clearly wants us to, otherwise the allusions in the book and thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com would not exist in the way that they do. Why would you rather something like that be a joke instead of allowing yourself to sit with and accept discomfort?

Ultimately billford is twisted, it’s horrifying to imagine, it’s a tragically awful train-wreck we can’t look away from. After all that, Ford’s resolve is honestly healing. And if we see interesting, complex stories/art/musings to tell from this dynamic, what’s wrong with that?

Lastly, the source material is a Y7-V Disney Channel show that premiered over 10 years ago, we’re (I assume mostly) adults now. Unclench.

P.S. I’m being unserious when I say this but “toxic yaoi/yuri ” is apparently trend and y’all can’t handle a yellow triangle demon and a grown man from a Y7-V series? Smh. Take every variation of that phrase out your tumblr bio immediately, you don’t deserve it.

[silentsneezes]

since seeing the d/eadpool and w/olverine movie i’ve been obsessing over their dynamic so much and of course my brain made it about snz

firstly, do l/ogan’s claws extend when he sneezes? do they extend fully with a let out sneeze or a fit and only partially extend if he stifles?

also w/ade is canonically kinky so i feel inclined to headcanon him as a snzfucker, but i also really love the idea of l/ogan having the kink (and w/ade indulging him, if you ship them) - or alternatively, w/ade adopting the kink after inducing l/ogan

after learning about l/ogan’s kink i feel like w/ade would purposefully make his hitching overly dramatic and announce his sneezes (even in public, which would both piss off and turn on l/ogan)

w/ade would get up and go to whichever room l/ogan was in as soon as he felt a sneeze coming on and joke about “putting on a show” whenever he had a fit

this is purely an indulgent thought, but w/ade sneezing in his mask and struggling to rub his nose/get full relief whenever he’s wearing his d/eadpool suit

i know they both have regenerative/healing abilities, but im choosing to believe that doesn’t apply to allergies 🙏 (i think l/ogan having a cat allergy would be ironic given his hairstyle in the earlier movies)

anyways i’m just rambling, and i have a lot more snz thoughts about them if anyone’s interested! my asks and dms are open :)

[theeyeofeverything]

Brainworms cannot be contained so I need to confess to you one (1) thing...

Yes. I have au where sols can be saved but there is a lil thing I need to mention... not all of them will survive... ACTUALLY THEY MiGHT BE HAPPY ONLY FOR A WHILE ONLY TO DIE AGAIN. Ooops!

So let's call this thing "out of spite AU".

Basic premise is Yi saves as many sols, as he can and all of them have a lession to learn. They given a chance to grow and redeem themselfs. Not in front of apeman or remaining solarians (if there id left any), no. It's a redemption before oneself. Because yes, they will be safe for a while, but the end is the same. Kuafu will be the only solarian to survive in the end... or does he?

Mainly trough this exist to explore 4 things: 1. Dynamics between Sols 2. How they will face their inner conflict (most of them remain their initial core traits, don't worry, but some aspects of them might change a little) 3. Sols interacting with ShuanShuan (it also ties to their inner conflict! He helps others like he helps Yi to understand that life good on its own. Mainly tho its a self-indulingent cute bonding stuff between Sols and ShuanShuan) 4. Jieyi (AM SORRY I HAVE SEVER CASE OF BEING REALLY INVESTED IN GUYS OBSESSED WITH PROTAGS I AM WEAK)

Who will be saved?

- Kuafu. Same as in canon.

-Jiequan. Well, I said it would be really funny concept for him to be saved first of all people. Yi doing exactly that, initially out of spite. But it's ironic that in the literal sense Jieqan did not win - Yi just broke all of his teapods and did not let him die like a hero become a gooquan - but he won the spiritual battle. His torture made Yi better. Well, it's not but it made Yi mad enough to do the opposite of rampage. He is restraind in the pavilion at the time (but not for long)

-Goumang. After thinking (and being really pissed) abou his and Jiequan similarity he desides that he might gone a little bit rough on Goumang. When he is back at the agrocurtual hall she is alive, but gravely injured. It's a miracle she didn't bleed out by the time they arrived at the pavilion. He and Kuafu tend her wounds, but she is NOT happy to be here. At least, at first

-Nuwa. At this point in story Yi is finally giving a rest to his killing rampage. Nuwa is a strange case because she is no use to Yi. Jiequan is a fighter, Goumang is somewhat of the healer in this au. Nuwa is a spoiled mean brat. Kinda just like him! No one deserve to die like...this. He will not let her go near Fuxi, when he's down. She would cry, crawl and bite her way out, but to no avail. I will say she is safe in this au for sake of exploring her personality and how it would change with absence of her brother around. How she would become independent.

-Ji. He is the intresting case because he is wanting to die. He is tired of life. He wants to rest and join dao. However I think he might stay for a while because his hexagramm... lied to him. Jiequan has to much impact in this AU huh. Well, I think he knew Jiequan and Yi's fight would not end good. He forsaw Jiequan die... but now Yi is telling him that the last member of the jie is alive and well! I think that would intrigue Ji, actually. Why would hexagramms lie to him? Did the Yi changed course of history? And additional layer to this if certain someone once also made a hexagramm prediction untrue.

Or, maybe, hexagramms want him to preserve this story too? His last story to tell.

Who will not survive:

-Yanlao. First, at this point Yi was not ignited by spite and did not reconsider his choices! And second - he is a lesson to learn for Yi. A irreversable mistake, that can't be take back. Not that he is greiving for this loss but it kinda make jiequan with his "do you think saving me does you a good guy automathicly? With other you was not that merciful, young master Yi" sting harder. And that is making Yi pissed, but... pissed Yi is a Yi how does rethink his decisions so maybe this is for the better

-Lady Etheral. Well she is no longer in a condition to be saved. She is basicly a brain in a jar and can't be brought back. All they can do is honor her properly. Let her rest at last.

-Eigong. This is intersting case because I belive she is long lost. At least, I think she is beliving herself to be a lost cause. She will not let Yi and Goumang save her. She will go with this ship, because her role is played already. So she would go on her own terms and would not be swayed. I love her so much as a character, but this the vibe I get from her. Besides I need more drama and angst for this AU sooo...

Let's stop for now. There is a couple of aspects I want to talk about more, but I think some of my ideas will translate better trough my art!

Not now, tho. Because I need to finish funny haha comics first and THEN do serious shit.

Feel free to ask about this AU tho!

[sifloopboning]

braindumping here. come into my study and sit down by the fire withbme. ill be busting my actual load under readmore preemptively bc i know im a wordy mf

also prefacing by lettin u know i dont know much about like. 24/7 Bee-DSMV dynamics / rules / established lore / meta decks etc. however i do think this makes me qualified to talk abt siffedloop in one because you know good and damn well they dont know shit OR fuck either. actually they prolly know even less. anyways

siffedloop can have little a 24/7 ds rship with a dynamic that makes both of them feel way more secure, reassured, and loved. as a treat. tbh kind of like an expansion pack to my Poasts from yday where i talkd abt loop claiming ownership of sif's body and soul in a fun and sexy way? i think it'd be good for loop, who lost everything they had inlcuding the person they used to be and their physical body.

like listen. we'll have to do a character analysis before we get to suckenfucken. edit this is 95% chara analysis i think i actually didnt even say a single sexy thing. ANYWAYS. i have locked the doors and windows listen to me. listen. loop has NOTHING. they lost everything they had, everything they were, all of their relationships, even the clothes off of their back that they've had for as far as they can remember. loop didnt get to keep anything they care about once they made the wish that made them into what they are now and created the current siffrin. the current siffrin who they helped escape the timeloop that destroyed them, even as they had to watch him get further than they couldve ever dreamed of, even as siffrin got everything that loop suffered for. died for. wished and destroyed themselves for. loop gave everything they had and were, and they got NOTHING for it!

so! the headspace situation vis a vis the Dynamic is that methinks it would give loop a good sense of security, satisfaction, and safety to get to Have / "own" something that is undeniably Theirs. that they have an indisputable right to have on all levels. since again, the current siffrin was made specifically to fulfill loop's wish. his body was created by the universe either using loop's own, or in loop's image at the very least. so!

and that's before getting into the fact that siffrin, as they themselves state, only managed to get out of the timeloop thanks to loop. he would have given up far before managing to get to where they needed to be without loop at best, and gotten frozen while being tormented by the manifestation of their Agonies for eternity in act 5 at worst. sif owes it all to loop and they very much know it! even more than loop does!

so! loop may not have their their cloak, hat, body, or old rship w their friends anymore, but they do have siffrin! not just that, but they have a right to siffrin, which would be soothing in on itself to loopie methinks.

on the siffrin side i think it would provide them frankly insane amount of comfort and security to be "owned" by someone who knows him inside and out (the canon selfcest enjoyerrrrrrrr). like they forced themselves to keep an iron grip on their emotions, reactions, and body during the loops for so long, under what they felt like was the threat of smth worse than death (perceived abandonment / disappointment). having someone who they love and trust, who thinks in a way that is very compatible w how he thinks (& whose thinking process does take into consideration 99% of the things he feels are relevant) that makes the decisions at the end of the day would be like heroine to that gay little neurotic prey animal i think.

like! i think just the knowledge that they dont have to make every decision, or control their behavior to Make Himself Palatable/Not Fuck Up Everything Irreversibly would be immensely relaxing and anxiety-easing to him. if loop owns their body, soul, and life (as is their right) then siffrin doesnt have to constantly be Alert and doing 486374 mental calculations at once to make the Right Decisions. (from actual decisions to super minor stuff like socializing bc keep in mind this is the guy who happily says he can just Kermit to redo a social interaction they think they Failed in like. act 2.)

ALSO siffrin tends to convince himself that theyre manipulating / forcing people into liking then or giving him what he wants (affection, friendship, touch, etc) and well. being in a rship dynamic where their partner has all the power and chooses if/when touch happens and to what extent would greatly reduce that anxiety for them. & loop as this partner knows sif's boundaries, wants and needs pretty well, along with being able to read them so well sif thought they might be able to read his mind.

lastly (for now) due to the sheer amount of trust this requires on both ends, imo the only person either of them would feel comfortable having this kind of rship dynamic with would be each other. THANK YOU FOR COMING (hheh) TO MY TED TALK

[seriousbrat]

minor death eaters active during the first wizarding war

I've created a list of my interpretations of the Death Eaters who we know participated in the First Wizarding War, specifically the ones we don’t have much canon info about because they’re very minor characters. For this reason I won’t include: Bellatrix, Lucius, Snape, Peter, Regulus, and Barty Crouch jr. (Reg and Barty are arguably minor but there’s soooo much meta on them, I can’t be fucked to add to it tbh lol)

This is loosely organised by rank or relevance to the story, which may be somewhat subjective. With each Death Eater I’ll start with what we do know or can infer from canon, then add my own personal headcanon and interpretations for each character— but I’ll still try to explain how these are based in canon. If you interpret them differently that's obviously fine haha, that's why it's an interpretation.

Quick note about Bellatrix and Lucius: I think it’s telling that they were both entrusted with Horcruxes, this points to them being very highly ranked among Death Eaters during the first war. So if they were included in this list they’d be at the top over Travers and Dolohov, for the record. I’ve also written about the fact that I think Bellatrix’s rank was unusual among female Death Eaters here.

DEATH EATER LIST -----------------------------------------

(If a first name is small and unbolded, it’s the name I’ve given them and not canon.)

JAGO TRAVERS:

I think since I just ended up liking his character, I’ve given Travers more importance than he may have actually had haha, but it is true that he addresses Bellatrix (or Hermione as Bellatrix) with familiarity and fearlessness, as an equal rather than a subordinate. He's even affronted when Hermione is rude to him, suggesting that this isn’t their typical dynamic— interesting since Bellatrix usually has no qualms being rude and impatient with other DEs.

We know he was responsible for the murders of the McKinnon family. Karkaroff names him as an important Death Eater, and he was sent to Azkaban at the end of the war.

My version of Travers is first and foremost a pragmatist. In canon he comes across as more composed, more rational than other Death Eaters. He has a "cool" "sharp" voice, he's much less emotional and more practical than Selwyn at the Lovegood house, and he displays moments of ironic, callous humour with 'Bellatrix.'

The way I see him he’s strategically-minded, cold, calculating, and intelligent; and unlike the sadistic Mulciber or self-interested Lucius, he is all about the mission, which he puts strictly before his own personal pleasure or status. He’s not motivated by passion like Bellatrix either, he simply believes Voldemort’s way is the correct way and seeks the most efficient way to achieve it.

This quality is what leads to his advancement in the ranks and makes him a very competent general. However, this also causes a rift among the higher-ranking Death Eaters; Travers and Rosier believe in a straightforward, warlike approach, whereas Lucius and Mulciber are more partial to subtlety and manipulation.

ANTONIN DOLOHOV:

Dolohov was among those sent to Azkaban after the end of the first war, a loyal supporter who didn't renounce Voldemort. Karkaroff tells the Wizengamot that he witnessed Dolohov torturing “countless Muggles and non-supporters” of Voldemort. He was involved in the murders of the Prewett brothers, along with four other Death Eaters. He's the first name given by Karkaroff.

A Dolohov is among the original Death Eaters mentioned as waiting in Hogsmeade when Voldemort interviews for the DADA post, I think it’s probable that this is the same Dolohov, so he was already serving Voldemort around the late 60s to early 70s.

His “twisted face,” proclivity for torture, glee after hurting Hermione, and particular hatred of Muggles all point to me towards a sadist who is nevertheless intelligent and competent.

‘Dolohov’ is a Russian name and it’s likely he was named after the character Dolokhov from War and Peace— which I’ve never read, but from some brief research, Tolstoy’s Dolokhov delights in causing misery in others, is clever, competent, ruthless, but reckless. I think this fits pretty well if we extrapolate these traits to Antonin Dolohov.

“…the very process of dominating another’s will was in itself a pleasure, a habit, and a necessity to Dolokhov.”

The way I’ve used Dolohov is that he’s responsible for bringing in supporters from abroad, one of these being Igor Karkaroff— in W&P Dolokhov manipulates young men into joining his gambling circle, so I see this as a fitting role for Antonin Dolohov, who I think was of Russian ancestry but born in Britain, though still able to use his connections abroad. Despite Dolohov’s sadistic nature, I also see him as strategic, pragmatic, and dedicated, and so he falls more into Travers’s camp than Lucius’s.

EVAN ROSIER:

Evan Rosier is among the younger generation of Death Eaters, because he’s mentioned by Sirius as having gone to school with Snape. However this could make him either closer to Bellatrix/Lucius in age, or closer to Snape/Avery/Mulciber. There’s also a Rosier who was one of the original Death Eaters (I’ll talk about him below) and it’s possible that this is Evan’s father. The Rosiers are part of the Sacred Twenty-eight.

As for Evan himself, he’s the second name given by Karkaroff as an “important Death Eater.” We also know that Evan Rosier “preferred to fight rather than coming quietly,” and managed to blast a chunk of Moody’s nose off in the struggle before being killed.

Building from the fact that he fought to the death rather than being imprisoned, managing to permanently injure Moody, my version of Rosier is a proud, skilled, merciless fighter. He has a single-minded commitment to his cause— the supremacy of pureblood wizards. He will stop at nothing to achieve this and is fiercely loyal to the Death Eater cause and Lord Voldemort, even over himself. He is traditionalist and reserved, but violent and remorseless.

Being that Karkaroff names him as important, I think he rose quickly through the ranks after leaving school because of his skill and dedication. His impatience with what he sees as “frivolity and mind games,” as well as his preference for straightforward violence and direct action put him at odds with Lucius Malfoy, and in allegiance with Travers.

EVELYN MULCIBER (MULCIBER JR.):

My personal favourite Death Eater after Snape, though for very different reasons lol. We know he went to school with and was friends with Snape and Avery. Curiously he’s not named by Sirius in GoF, but I think this can just be put down to Sirius listing names as they occur to him rather than being wholly accurate. Mulciber and Avery’s sense of humour is described by Lily as ‘evil,’ and she describes Mulciber himself as ‘creepy.’ He attacked Gryffindor Mary MacDonald with unknown dark magic, for “a laugh,” according to Sev.

Personally, I think this is implied to be an attempted Imperius Curse, since Karkaroff tells the Wizengamot that the Imperius Curse was Mulciber’s speciality and that he “forced countless people to do horrific things.” Mulciber is sent to Azkaban at the end of the war.

From this we can conclude that he was either notorious enough not to be given the benefit of the doubt like Avery, or that he was loyal enough to not renounce Voldemort. We also have my favourite quote of all time— jkr said in an interview that Snape “wanted Lily, but he also wanted Mulciber.”

The Mulcibers are not part of the Sacred Twenty-eight, but as I’ve said previously, there could be various explanations for this. A Mulciber is part of Voldemort’s original Death Eaters, this is possibly Mulciber jr.’s father.

I think it’s pretty easy to deduce that Mulciber was sadistic and manipulative. I’ve written a lot about my interpretation of Mulciber on here— I see him as a narcissist, an opportunist, very skilled at identifying potential assets and manipulating people to his advantage. I think that Mulciber spotted Snape’s ability and put considerable effort into securing his friendship and loyalty, positioning himself as a sympathetic, understanding figure that Snape would admire and want to be friends with. The Imperius is just a literal form of manipulation, so the fact that this is Mulciber’s speciality leads me to think that he himself was a natural manipulator. He sees people as tools but is nevertheless very adept at preying on their desires and insecurities, he’s clever and has well-developed social skills.

His proclivity for the Imperius was no doubt incredibly useful for the Death Eaters, which is why he was given importance despite his youth, and he would have been more aligned with Lucius’s subtle, diplomatic approach rather than Travers and Rosier.

PRESTON AVERY (AVERY JR.)

My other detestable fave. Along with Mulciber, we know that Avery was friends with Snape in school, and that his sense of humour was ‘evil.’ There are a few things that distinguish Avery from Mulciber: for instance Mulciber was the instigator of the attack on Mary, not Avery, and also Avery escaped Azkaban by saying he was under the Imperius curse and did not attempt to seek Voldemort out.

In the graveyard, Avery flings himself at Voldemort’s feet and begs his forgiveness, specifically in a ‘shriek,’ before Voldemort tortures him. In OotP Avery gives Voldemort incorrect information about the prophecy in the Dept. of Mysteries, and is tortured for this mistake. Haha poor Avery never catches a break (he deserves it tho.)

An Avery is mentioned as being part of Riddle's gang in Slughorn's memory, this is possibly Avery's father. Karkaroff does not name him, meaning he was either unimportant or unknown to Karkaroff, or both.

Sirius says that Avery ‘wormed’ his way out of Azkaban, and given that Sirius knew him at school I think this is indicative of Avery’s character, as is his shrieking and flinging for Voldemort’s forgiveness. So in my mind he’s sly, devious, and self-serving, since unlike his fellows Mulciber and Rosier, he isn’t willing to die or be sent to Azkaban for Voldemort.

It's unclear why he would have told Voldemort that Bode could steal the prophecy-- perhaps he worked for the Ministry after the war.

I’ve leant quite heavily into the ‘evil sense of humour’ for Avery, and given him a very twisted, specifically misogynistic humour, as this is common in teenage boys (and I think it's a vague possibility that Mary’s attack might have been sexual in nature.) For Lily to mention him, Avery had to have pulled his own weight in the evil sense of humour department.

There’s a pathetic element to him too, he’s not quite as clever nor talented as Mulciber and Snape, though still conniving enough to avoid Azkaban. His begging for forgiveness in the graveyard suggests to me that he thought speaking up would be a strategic way to avoid Voldemort’s displeasure, and he was sadly mistaken. I think his claiming Bode could remove the prophecy was a similar, and similarly misjudged, attempt to gain favour.

AUGUSTUS ROOKWOOD

I actually think Rookwood should go above Avery, but Avery in my heart is a more relevant character, so there you are. But Rookwood is named by Karkaroff, right after Travers and Mulciber, and we know he was a spy based in the Department of Mysteries, a fact which was unknown to the Ministry until Karkaroff’s trial.

Ludo Bagman also describes “old Rookwood” as a friend of his dad’s, meaning he was probably an older gent, and Bagman also says “Rookwood kept talking about getting me a job in the Ministry later on.”

According to Karkaroff, Rookwood had a network of informants inside the Ministry and out— since we know one of these was the unwitting Bagman, it’s likely other informants were also unaware of what they were doing. Rookwood uses the promise of a Ministry job to wheedle info from Bagman, meaning he was presumably well-placed enough in the Ministry to be able to offer a job, and also clever and conniving enough to know how to manipulate people into giving him intel. (tbf Bagman was probably an easy mark, but Rookwood was able to spot that.)

Since Rookwood’s identity was unknown for so long and only given up by Karkaroff post-war, I think it’s safe to assume he was very competent as a spy, intelligent and careful. It’s likely that not many Death Eaters knew about him (as Karkaroff states, many of them didn’t know about each other) and I doubt the Order would have, either. It probably was just bad luck for Rookwood that Karkaroff somehow did find out at some point, since I think it’s most likely that Snape didn’t know— or else Dumbledore and the Wizengamot would have already been aware.

This for me means I can’t really include him much in my fic in anything other than hints and cameos. Since Bagman and his father both like him, I think his outward persona at least was probably charming and friendly. In his mugshot he's leaning against the frame and looking bored, which I think is indicative of his true personality: ruthless, cold, indifferent. The charming persona is a carefully and cleverly constructed mask.

RODOLPHUS LESTRANGE

The reason Rodolphus and his brother aren’t higher up is that I don’t think they were as nearly as important/relevant as Bellatrix. Outside of the Pensieve trial they’re barely ever mentioned, they’re present at a few battles but never given any protagonism. Tellingly, Bellatrix herself doesn’t mention or interact with her husband once. We know he was ‘tall and thickset,’ that he and his brother participated in the torture of the Longbottoms, and were among Voldemort’s loyal supporters who didn’t renounce him after the war.

A Lestrange is in Riddle's group at school- this is either the father/other relative of Rabastan and Rodolphus, since Sirius implying Rodolphus was in school with Bellatrix means it can't be Rodolphus himself.

My view of Rodolphus is that he followed his wife’s lead, as she was the dominant partner. I don’t think he was clever or talented or ambitious enough to distinguish himself as a leader in his own right, and that he was primarily useful to Bellatrix for his wealth and pureblood name. In my opinion Bellatrix didn’t really like her husband, in fact she almost just tolerated him while having affairs not only with Voldemort but other men (when Voldemort didn’t pay her attention) and Rodolphus was largely oblivious to this lol. The Lestrange brothers were decently ranked, but this is owing more to their wealth and pureblood name (and association with Bellatrix) rather than their ability.  

RABASTAN LESTRANGE

A lot of what I’ve said for Rodolphus goes for Rabastan, but I'll add a few things. First is that I think Rabastan provides an explanation for why Sirius names Bellatrix and Rodolphus as part of Snape’s group in school, even though this is unlikely given their ages. Rabastan was almost certainly the younger brother since Bellatrix would have married the Lestrange heir, he’s described as thinner and more nervous than his brother in the Pensieve, which also fits with him being younger.

So, my theory is that Sirius was just describing a specific ‘group of Slytherins’ as a whole throughout the years, and that there was some overlap and changing of members as people entered the school or graduated from it. Bellatrix was perhaps the leader of that group when she was at school, which would have included the younger Rabastan— then, if either Mulciber or Avery were slightly older than Sev, they’d have potentially been in Bellatrix’s group but almost certainly in Rabastan’s.

About Rabastan himself, the description of him being thin and his “eyes darting around the room” make me think he's slyer and more unassuming than his brother, easily overshadowed by Rodolphus and certainly Bellatrix. There’s something more calculating about him too, but his subservience to his brother and sister-in-law means he stays somewhat in the background.

WALDEN MACNAIR

We’re introduced to Macnair as an executioner working in the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures— however, it’s mentioned in the graveyard that Macnair wasn’t doing this job during the first war, and Voldemort then offers him “better victims.” It’s possible to interpret that Macnair was younger, since he wasn’t yet established in his career during the first war. This isn’t necessarily the case but Macnair is also described as muscular in PoA which gives the impression of a younger, fitter man.

Macnair is one of the Death Eaters who was sent to liaise with the giants. He didn’t search for Voldemort after the downfall, and the other thing to note is that Macnair is genuinely frustrated about not being able to execute Buckbeak.

So I think we can infer that Macnair is violent and bloodthirsty, with a particular penchant for cruelty towards animals/magical creatures. A connection can be made between Macnair being an animal executioner and the fact that he was sent to the giants. Personally I’ve used Macnair in a similar way, involving him in the recruitment of Fenrir Greyback and other werewolves.

The fact he uses an axe instead of magic to execute Buckbeak is odd; either this is a very outdated, inhumane practice of the Committee itself, or Macnair's choice because idk he just loves violence. I tend to think it's the first, though I'm sure Macnair has no complaints about it.

I’ve characterised Macnair as being generally smooth and swaggering, kind of debonair and very full of himself, literally just because of his muscles and moustache lol. But he has a cruel sense of humour, liking for violence and deep disdain for non-humans especially but also Muggles and Muggleborns.

FULGENCE NOTT

Not(t) much is known about Theodore Nott’s father, who is described as a ‘stooped man,’ and this plus his single line of dialogue (‘My Lord, I prostrate myself before you, I am your most faithful –’) paint a picture of a sycophantic, obsequious, pretentious but fairly pathetic man haha. He was likely decently ranked, like the Lestrange brothers, due to his family name. He escaped Azkaban.

Not only are the Notts part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, their ancestor Cantakerus Nott is also believed to be the author of that list. We also know that Nott Sr. was friendly with Slughorn and an old favourite of his, and that he’s a widower, having lost his wife when Theodore was young (this is probably supposed to be the death that Theodore witnessed.)

A Nott is also one of the Death Eaters waiting for Voldemort during his interview with Dumbledore, and in this case it’s likely the same Nott, meaning he was already serving Voldemort by the early 70s.

I don’t have much to add about Nott, his being an old favourite of Slughorn fits with his sycophantic personality, and with the idea that he was in Voldemort’s gang at school and part of the original Death Eaters. I've given him the unfortunate name Fulgence because he's so pathetic in such a pretentious way lol.

CORBAN YAXLEY:

I don’t think Yaxley was particularly high-ranking until around DH, when the power vacuum left by Lucius’s fall from grace provided him an opportunity. Snape names Yaxley in HBP as one of the Death Eaters who avoided Azkaban and never attempted to seek Voldemort out, and he wasn’t at the battle of the Dept. of Mysteries, but he was arrested at Hogwarts after Dumbledore’s death.

He has a 'heavy, brutal face' and 'blunt' features which I think gives a clue to his personality, but of the DEs in the Astronomy Tower he also seems to be the most sensible and focused on the mission. He also comes across as confident and self-assured when he speaks at Malfoy Manor in DH, while 'determined' to gain Voldemort's approval.

In the Astronomy Tower, he appears to be the senior Death Eater as he gives Greyback orders— however, I think it’s worth noting that the Death Eaters present on the Astronomy tower (except Snape) were not high-ranking in general. I think this is purposeful; Voldemort sent in expendable soldiers whose job it was to keep the Order busy while Draco or Snape assassinated Dumbledore, and it's also true that many high-ranking DEs were arrested at the Ministry at the end of OotP.

So, I think during the first war Yaxley was really a foot soldier, though one of the more competent ones. I think he was probably ambitious and sought to rise in the ranks, but it was the fact that he was lower-profile than someone like Mulciber or Bellatrix that allowed him to get close enough to Thicknesse to Imperiuse him in DH, then later become Head of Magical Law Enforcement.

Because of her notoriety the general public might have had a harder time accepting Bellatrix in that post, but since Yaxley was a relative unknown he was a good choice, even more so because he proved himself by Imperiusing Thicknesse. I think the same mostly holds true of the Carrows teaching at Hogwarts but I’ll get to that.

IGOR KARKAROFF

I almost didn’t include Karkaroff in this list because we do see quite a lot of him as a character, but I think there are a few things worth pointing out. First is that Karkaroff flees when the Dark Mark burns in GoF, and he gives up fellow Death Eaters to avoid Azkaban— inherently he is cowardly and disloyal, and also not wise enough to realise that he would certainly be tracked down in the end.

Second is the fact that Karkaroff is foreign. In DH before the Gringotts break-in, Travers treats ‘Dragomir Despard’ with distaste and obvious xenophobia, so I think the same would have applied to Karkaroff. On the other hand, Travers quite easily accepts the idea that they’d recruit a foreign wizard, so this is probably something they’d done in the past.

Like I said in Dolohov’s section, I think Karkaroff was recruited by Dolohov, since both names seem to be Russian. This personal connection also explains for me why Karkaroff would name Dolohov first.

Draco claims that Lucius knows Karkaroff, but this is likely Draco exaggerating his father’s importance, plus the fact that as Headmaster of Durmstrang Karkaroff would be of more relevance to Lucius than during the war.

Karkaroff doesn't name Lucius at his hearing; I think we can infer that the Death Eaters that he does name are those that he worked with, or else he would have named more people when he started getting desperate. In fact the order Karkaroff names them in (Dolohov > Rosier > Travers > Mulciber > Rookwood > Snape) might be somewhat indicative of who he knew best and considered most important. Karkaroff's testimony has been much more useful to me than it was to the Ministry haha, thanks Igor.

DEVEREUX WILKES

Pretty much nothing is known about Wilkes, other than the fact that they were a contemporary of Snape and died in the first war. Not even their gender is known.

So we’re free to do literally anything with Wilkes. I’ve chosen to interpret the fact that he died (my version is male, since there are very few female Death Eaters) as being due to incompetence rather than nobly going out fighting the way Rosier did. He’s sycophantic, entitled, and ambitious but all around rather pathetic, and not as skilled nor clever as he thinks he is. I don’t think he’d ever be more than a foot soldier. Again though, there’s no canon info to base anything off other than the fact that Wilkes was youngish and died— and also arguably the lack of information itself might imply Wilkes just wasn’t ever very important haha.

ALECTO AND AMYCUS CARROW

Lumping these guys together. The Carrows are fairly established characters so I won’t talk much about Alecto and Amycus themselves. Their speech comes across as more working-class than other Death Eaters, they’re present in the group that infiltrates Hogwarts in HBP (see Yaxley’s section for more on this) and they’re not mentioned in the graveyard despite avoiding Azkaban, so I tend to think that they were very low-ranked during the first war, basically expendable foot soldiers.

Like Yaxley, I think they were given their positions at Hogwarts because of their lack of notoriety, but unlike Yaxley I think they were relegated to a relatively easy job, under the guidance of Snape, because they weren’t useful or talented enough to be needed elsewhere.

It's also possible that Snape asked for the Carrows because they'd be easier to control than other Death Eaters.

Alecto Carrow is the only named female Death Eater apart from Bellatrix. Alecto is one of the Furies from Greek myth, vengeful goddesses who punish mortals, which I think is fitting.

JERVAISE CRABBE / TITUS GOYLE

I’m putting these together too because I’ve recently written an entire meta about Crabbe and Goyle and their dads and that’s already way too much for me. Also they’re basically indistinguishable from each other. Find that post here, the main thing is that I think they were also low-ranking foot soldiers. Beats me why Voldemort decided to specifically call them out in the graveyard.

Crabbe Sr. is present at the Department of Mysteries, Goyle Sr. is not, that's literally the only difference between them, so maybe Crabbe was a bit more important/talented/something than Goyle. Who cares, honestly.

FENRIR GREYBACK

Yes, Greyback is more relevant than many of the above. However, he’s almost certainly the lowest-ranking, as he never has a Dark Mark. In fact, I think that while he was aligned with the Death Eaters during the first war, he wasn’t actually formally recruited until around HBP, and he never had full Death Eater status. In Snape’s memory, Dumbledore comments that Voldemort has recruited Greyback, implying he hadn’t been recruited before that. Mainly I just wanted to point this out, because we do know quite a lot about Greyback as a character.

The other important thing is that Greyback is treated with contempt and revulsion by other Death Eaters, he’s generally subservient to them, even though some of them seem to fear him. My theory is that the Death Eaters were considering using Greyback during the first war but were not willing to afford him even informal Death Eater status-- they only did this later, when the reduction in ranks following the arrests at the Dept. of Mysteries necessitated more recruits. This is also why the Carrows and Yaxley would have become more important around this time.

-----------

If you made it through all that I am very surprised. Obviously this is how these characters appear in my series The Darkest Days and in fact this list really started off as a way to organise my characters haha. But maybe it can be useful or interesting to someone, i don't know!

OTHER NOTES:

There are also Death Eaters known to have participated in the second wizarding war, but it’s never mentioned whether they participated in the first. Since I’ve already got way too many characters on my hands with the above, I’ve chosen to just not include them or bother fleshing them out lol. They may or may not have been there, in general I think it’s likely that they were.

These are: Thorfinn Rowle, Selwyn, Jugson, Gibbon. I think Jugson, given he was at the Dept. of Mysteries, and Rowle, given that characters recognise him from wanted posters, are the most likely to have participated in the first war. With the possible exception of Selwyn, all seem to be pretty low-ranking.

The Three Dads: so these are the fathers (or other relatives) of Avery, Mulciber, and Rosier, who are all part of Voldemort’s original Death Eaters. They are mentioned in Pensieve memories but never in the context of either war. My view is that in these cases (Rosier, Avery, Mulciber) the sons were more active as Death Eaters during the later years of the war, on the battlefield and otherwise, whereas the fathers acted more as shadowy benefactors/financial backers for Voldemort’s interests, using their money and social influence and sending their sons to fight for them, but also having plausible deniability if their sons got caught.

Even though they’re not very relevant themselves, I actually have fleshed them out a bit just because their sons are important characters in my fic. None of this is really directly based in canon, since there’s no info, rather I’ve built their characters around their sons. So this isn't canon, just read if you're interested:

Aymeric Rosier (Rosier Sr.): I see Rosier Sr. as cold, distant, and domineering. He is cruel to his sons and inflicts harsh punishments on them, and is also an avid Nogtail hunting enthusiast. Their house is filled with hunting trophies, dead and stuffed animals— many of them exotic animals hunted on holidays abroad, mainly to India and Kenya, where he has business interests. You can see where I’m going with this— an imperialist, basically.

Erastus Mulciber (Mulciber Sr.): I mentioned that the Mulcibers aren't part of the Sacred 28, in my mind this isn't because the Mulcibers aren't a prestigious and wealthy pureblood family, but because a specific relative ruined it for them in recent history by marrying a Muggle-born. All members of this branch of the family mysteriously disappeared on holiday in 1942. Mulciber Sr. himself is for this reason very proud, haughty, defensive of his family's superiority, and he has passed down these traits to his son.

Enoch Avery (Avery Sr.): I mentioned that I characterise Avery jr. as a misogynist, and this comes from his father, who is a known rake and frequently conducts extramarital affairs. He is distant from his family and has high, unreachable expectations of his son, who is eternally trying to please him to no avail. Unlike his son, Avery Sr. is charming, charismatic, competent. Avery jr. simultaneously resents his father and seeks his approval.

There’s also a Lestrange mentioned in Slughorn's memory, but personally I think it’s quite possible that he’s dead since Rodolphus and Bellatrix are in possession of the Lestrange vault and fortune by the time Voldemort hides the Horcrux.

[stirringwinds]

ngl, i'm a subscriber to the "yong-soo is older than kiku" club too...i know canon says he's 15 or 16 but...eh. i do like some aspects of canon, like its depiction of him being tall and capable of projecting a photogenic image (more so than yao and kiku). but...is there justification for him being that young? old man yong-soo feels like it fits in way better with Korean history imo, and please i cannot resist the whole "the old master and his rival apprentices" dynamic between yao, yong-soo and kiku, with yong-soo being the "older" apprentice—given Korea's tremendously important role as the route through which several Chinese cultural elements were transmitted to Japan in real life (kanji, for one). that is on top of other elements of Korean culture that Japan imported, or Korea being the source of iron weapons and armour during japan's kofun period (300 to 538 AD)—and later, also advanced ship-building techniques.

i feel like it adds further dimension to how we might otherwise have a simplified view of the sinosphere as a universe where yao is the one who turns the wheel of "civilisation": it's also yong-soo taking those influences in. not passively, but actively incorporating his own cultural elements, before they're all passed on by his monks, traders, philosophers, mariners and soldiers to kiku. and in the modern era, Japanese imperial ascendency and ambition isn't just a yao-kiku dynamic of a weary old master and his talented, regicidal protégé, but with yong-soo, about a total inversion and desecration of the confucian hierarchy of seniority too. more than one older nation has had to endure imperial subjugation to a younger one—but in the shadow of meiji japan's naval power, there's the additional sting that it was him once teaching kiku ship-building a long time ago.

[restitutor-orbis]

Me, defending Daenerys Targaryen: Her existence is meant to break the shackles that is often associated with Targaryen madness and tyranny. Just as Aegon the Conqueror came and reshaped Westeros, Daenerys is meant to do that and go further. Aegon did not radically changed the dynamics of the Seven Kingdoms, though his and his sisters' unification did lead to a lessening of yearly wars that the kingdoms were often associated with, but Daenerys goes beyond that. She seeks to dismantle ancient institutions that keep man enslaved and submissive--she is a revolutionary. Attempts to degrade her actions against slavery should be taken under suspicion, for no other character calls for greater reform, not even the common-born Davos. Daenerys' Meereen arc is meant to display the reality of leadership, something which male characters such as Tyrion, Robb, and Jon deal with, to a variety degree of success and failure. Yet, only Daenerys and her actions are held to higher scrutiny, meanwhile Tyrion, Robb, and Jon's fates all occurred by their own choices and actions - Tyrion actively maintained Shae at court, and though he meant well, pulled political blunder when he threatened Cersei, even though it was a noble cause to defend Alayaya; Jon's choice to remain reclusive regarding his designs weakened his overall support in the Night's Watch, especially as he received it under very peculiar situations. Meanwhile, there is less focus on the community about those political blunders and consistent critiques regarding Daenerys' actions, and given the show's canonization of Jon as a "legitimate" son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, any nuance toward her and her potential claim to the Iron Throne is often discarded and forsaken as Jon is considered the "rightful" heir to many members of the fandom. Referring to her as the potential mad queen not only fails to recognize that Daenerys likely is meant to break the common traits of her kin, but also simply ignores the parrallels between Cersei and Aerys. Having two mad queens is reductive, and ignores Martin's anti-misogynistic attempts through Daenerys. The Dance of Dragons only occurred because of misogyny, not because Rhaenyra herself was unfit to rule. That is meant to be something in which Daenerys is expected to break.

Me, defending Queen Marika the Eternal: Yes, she committed multiple cases of genocides...but she was a hot MILF while doing it, soooo

[oh-no-its-bird]

Just wanted to say I adore all your au's but the idea of Tora and Shisui are sending me my two favorite boys interacting

They'd be so fun together!! I honestly think they'd have really good chemistry

I see them as one of those dynamics where people take turns looking at them and going "oh ok so HE'S the sane one, right?" but switching who they're talking about depending on the hour of the day. (The catch is neither of them is normal they're just so good at acting it that they've managed to trick even themselves)

They have to take turns being in charge in the trio with Itachi bc if either one of them is left in charge for long periods of time it inevitably goes to shit

They have a lot of genuine respect for each other (which is somewhat rare coming from Tora, who, while gives a lot of surface level respect to people bc ettiquite, doesn't actually tend to really respect a lot of people)

They have the perfect personalities to play off eachother as the "straight man" and point out when the other is being insane or just plain weird

Meanwhile, Itachi is looking at their individual crazy going "this is a perfectly normal idea told by two perfectly normal upstanding members of the community and I have no issues with anything u are saying right now"

<- which also makes Itachi the perfect tie breaker/in-between for them bc he is blind to any crazy they may say and will take them very seriously no matter how stupid or outlandish the idea proposed

I think Tora existing and kind of dragging Shisui into this dual partnership for "who's in charge" between the three of them also eases a lot of stress off of Itachi. He just has to sit there and eat his applesauce in the back seat of the car as Tora and Shisui argue ab how to take care of any given problem and occasionally ask if he has any ideas.

Personal take here: I don't think Itachi likes being in charge! That boy is a born, built, and bred shinobi who follows what he is told to a perfect T, no matter how blatantly horrifically awful the order is! Even if hates it with all of his heart! He'll still fucking do it! And then only blame himself for it and not the guy who fucking ordered it! Because he'll still obey that guy after!

Which also adds another fun layer of irony bc hes supposed to be clan head one day!

To me, Itachi is a fascinating subject of having an unshakable, unbreakable iron will— and also having absoloutley no spine

To be fair tho was also like. Fuckin 13. He was fucked up and was tricked at a very, very young age and unfortunatley that one mistake came to chain him to that one specific way of thinking. If he came to grow out of that way of thinking, he'd first have to admit he'd made a mistake, which wasn't gonna happen bc it was too late for regrets.

But anyways:

With Tora here Itachi has another "voice of reason" to help steer him away from other voices who might otherwise bind him. There isn't as much pressure on only him + Shisui to here and now choose what they (and only they) will choose to do to save the entire clan or Konoha

Tora is a natural leader and quick to take charge, and Itachi is ok with that. When Itachi chooses to speak, he is listened to carefully and his opinions are taken seriously, which is all he can ask for tbh. Otherwise he's allowed to sit there and look pretty till given a nice, neatly wrapped plan approved by 2 people he can really, truly trust.

So he's doing a bit better mentally than canon

Anyways, in this AU I think Itachi should actually get to semi-retire as a shinobi and actually Sasuke gets to be clan head bc his brother ain't built for it. Plus it can play more into the stuff I was talking ab earlier about Sasuke struggling a lot more than those around him to learn different stuff (sealing especially) only to come out as one of the most terrifying in what he eventually masters.

Let the second son inherit!! Let Sasuke have a defining character moment where he decides he wants to help guide the clan, and he's forced to kind of get over his brother worship to confront Itachi to say he doesn't think he'd make the best clan head. And Itachi let's out this sigh of relief he did not know he has been holding for his entire life and tells Sasuke he's proud of him.

Fuck right sorry we were talking about Tora and Shisui let's get back to that—

They're a terrifying, hyper competent duo who are here to get shit done. I've been thinking about Tora's chakra affinities latley, thinking it's mostly wind with a weak water affinity (and boy do I have thoughts about the implications of him having lost that strong connection to water in this life but that's for a different post) so his wind moves can feed into and off of Shisui's fire for some cool combo attacks. Just them fighting together really well in general is fun to think ab tbh

Tora has a decent (honestly kind of mean) sense of humor, but when he makes jokes he says it with a totally straight face. (Itachi is similar so when they're joking with eachother no one can ever tell bc neither are even laughing about it as they banter w dead faces)

But Shisui, having grown up with Itachi, can totally tell when he's joking and thinks he's funny. He's a pretty upbeat, smiley guy, but he always seems to be laughing about something around Tora for some reason (the reason is that Tora is funny you just can't tell)

Shisui is in general just really good at reading him. He catches on to what he's thinking really fast and will sometimes react to Tora's plans before he even explains them. Or he'll see some scattered clues to something and go "Hmm. This means nothing to me but it feels like something Tora would notice, so I'll make note of it"

I think over time both Shisui and Itachi would start to make similar expressions to Tora

(I love when friends subconsciously pick up on eachothers expressions and vocabulary)

Tora catches Shisui's "I'm going to cause problems on purpose" smile and Shisui catches his in turn. Tora catches Itachi's quietly smug gleam in his eye and Itachi gets his own (very punchable) smug smirk

Funny scene where Shisui makes the exact expression Tora always makes before declaring something terrifying and Kakashi instinctivley slaps him upside the head bc of it. Shisui goes ?????? What the fuck was that for ????? As Kakashi apologizes and stares at his own hand in confusion

Tora and Shisui are a comedy duo you can't change my mind

[amywritesthings]

Operation: Battlepass (AKA the Totally Awesome Plan to Play Wingman by Yuuji Itadori) / a Choso x OFC story

After choosing to live together as brothers, Yuuji decides to introduce Choso to the wonderful world of gaming. What he didn't expect is for Choso to fall head over heels for his online friend. Naturally, hijinks must ensue, and the gang comes up with a plan to make this romcom a reality.

word count: 3k (part one of ??) tags: au - canon divergence, fluff, romantic comedy, told in yuuji's pov, ultimate big brother!choso, gaming, online friendshipcredit: dividers by @saradika-graphics

read on ao3 here.

PART ONE: THE INTRODUCTION

disclaimer: this is a very crack slice of life story. everyone's alive. itadori is friends with an adult through online gaming. their dynamic is very much 'you're a kid and i have to protect you from weirdos in gaming lobbies'. iris is inspired by my own older online friends growing up. it's nothing nefarious.

Yuuji Itadori has never been a wingman.

Well — kind of.

If you scratch all of the times that Itadori went along with the ‘Save Megumi’ plan conjured up by the brilliant (and twisted) minds of Gojo-sensei and Kugisaki, then he’s technically never been a wingman.

Come to think of it, he’s never really given the act of dating much thought.

It isn’t like he’s ever had much skin in the game. 

Itadori’s never had a partner, for one.

Fushiguro is smooth enough to flirt without anyone’s help, two.

Kugisaki can be a little intimidating all on her own, three.

So it leaves… well, Itadori to cheer on his perfectly-capable friends as they navigate what it means to be a teenager.

It also leaves him wondering if one day he’ll know the tv-show-butterfly feeling of helping two lonely souls get together.

(He really should focus on his own love life, but given the whole Sukuna ordeal? That’s a mess he hasn’t quite ironed out yet.)

Enter: Choso, his alleged big brother from another mother.

(Or another father? That’s another thing he’s gotta iron out. More at 11.)

Getting a two-bedroom bachelor pad with the guy you only met, like, a few weeks ago wasn't on his year-end bingo card. 

"Really?" If Fushiguro and Nobara question something simultanously, that usually spells danger.

"Yeah!" Itadori exclaims, sipping on his tea. "I mean, why not, right?"

"Wasn't he the guy trying to kill you?" Fushiguro grunts.

"Then he changed his mind on a dime and demanded he protect you with every blood cell in his body?" Nobara adds, lips trembling from her attempt to hide a smile at her pun.

(Neither of the boys catch it.)

Itadori grimaces. "Well, when you put it that way..."

Fushiguro leans back. "Trying to kill you—"

Nobara leans forward. "—to defending you—"

They come together again, and Itadori sinks in his booth.

"—in a few hours."

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Itadori whines. "But it'll be fine. We're great pals and figured it out. He's totally normal now."

So normal that Choso's in the booth at the other end of the restaurant, sipping a coffee black with a newspaper upside-down, waiting to take Itadori and his friends to the shopping district later.

(It's a little weird admittedly, but Itadori thinks it's endearing. He cares!)

So, yeah.

He ditched living at Jujutsu High in order to move in with his brother under the approval of his instructor.

Maybe it was a hasty decision, but Itadori will take the blame on that one.

Call it excitement or stupidity, he doesn’t mind.

After spending a lot of his life wishing he had a sibling of his own, it’s kinda cool to live a brother.

Not even a brother, but a big brother who takes his job very seriously.

For starters, Itadori always gets to order wherever he wants for takeout dinner, which never got to happen back at Jujutsu High.

Fushiguro used to be apathetic about what they’d order, which meant Kugisaki took the liberty in steamrolling every decision.

Now?

Itadori gets to show Choso every single one of his favorite foods and then some.

The guy doesn’t eat much — apparently something to do with being a curse, not that Itadori judges — but he thoroughly enjoys the nights watching Choso squint over a takeout box trying to figure out what the heck is in the thing.

It’s nice teaching someone else the ropes, rather than feeling clueless in his own life.

He shows Choso how to cook; how to clean, though they’re both fairly great at lifting furniture to get into those hard-to-reach spots; how to pay bills over the internet — or just to pay for bills in general.

However, there is one important item in life he has to show his big brother:

Video games.

Apparently all he ever played when he was with Jogo, Brains, and Mahito were board games.

Snooze.

Boring.

“Today is your lucky day,” he tells the man with tightly-coiled space buns one day while Choso's watching television.

Itadori thrusts a coveted console controller into his view with excitement.

Choso blinks down at it with confusion.

“Because I — Yuuji Itadori, your little bro — am going to show you the wonders and joys of gaming.”

“I know how to play games, Yuuji,” Choso flatly replies, though there’s a warmth to his tone no matter when he speaks to Itadori.

The pink-haired boy shakes his head.

“I’m not talking about Life or Trouble or, ugh, Monopoly — though you can technically play them on a console.”

Choso’s brows slide high: really?

“Yeah, really.”

“Huh.”

The man with the black strip over his nose tests the weight of the console controller in his hand, lip slightly pouted.

“So what do you… do?”

“Press buttons, mostly.”

Itadori holds up his own decked-out controller — a modified neon blue and black masterpiece that glows in the dark — and presses a few of the buttons to show him.

“You’ll get used to it. Trust me, it’s way easier in practice.”

Sitting beside his brother with crossed legs, he triggers the console to wake up to its dashboard.

The game show disappears, and a brilliant burst of color takes over the screen.

The reaction is priceless — Choso’s eyes widen to the size of saucers.

Aw, yeah, he has him interested now.

“Do you play these games with your friends?” Choso asks quietly, poking at a button with his thumb.

“Sometimes,” Itadori replies. “Fushiguro isn’t a fan of them. Nobara gets way too competitive. Like… scary competitive. We limit her screen time.”

Choso snorts. “I can picture that.”

Itadori grins and opens up a few window menus so he can set up a profile for Choso on his console.

He hands over his main controller and gestures to Choso.

“Pick whatever profile photo you want.”

Sticking his tongue to the left in the exact way Itadori does when he’s concentrating, Choso flicks over the right joystick to search through the images.

“Itadori?”

“Yeah, Choso?”

“I don’t see my face.”

“Huh?”

“The photographs.” Choso points to the screen. “Where am I?”

Itadori blinks before he realizes.

“Oh! You… don’t, ha. You pick a character.” He pauses. “Like how you choose a thimble or a car and stuff in Monopoly.”

Choso sucks in a sharp inhale and nods in understanding before fluttering through a few more options with more confidence.

He settles over a photo of Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series before clicking it.

“Like this?”

“What, you like Lara?”

“Is that her name?”

“Yeah, she’s kinda super badass.” Itadori takes back the controller to finish up his profile. “My one online friend really likes those games—”

Then, brilliance hits him.

It doesn’t happen often, but today?

Itadori strikes gold.

“Oh, hey — if you want, you can kinda see how me and my one friend play. She’s usually on at this hour. Here.”

He pauses to reach around the couch only to hold out a headset for Choso to take.

“Wear this. It’s my spare.”

With that same inquisitive squint, Choso observes at the headphones with scrutiny.

Itadori showcases how to put them on, popping his RGB headset over his head and squishing his pink hair to his head.

It takes a little finessing with his hairstyle, but Choso does the same. He lets the headphones sit on his head and doesn’t move.

“You good?”

“What?” Choso’s voice shouts over the noise-cancelling feature.

“I said are you—” Itadori pauses, holding up a thumbs up.

Choso blinks. Then his thumb raises.

Good.

Itadori blinks back to the television screen where he signs on as himself — YuuMasterGeneral — before searching for a particular name on his friends list.

Truth be told, he’s only ever talked to this girl.

He has no clue what she looks like in person because he’s never met her in person, but she sounds pretty nice.

After Grandpa got sick, there wasn’t much to do around the house.

Sitting in a quiet house wasn’t cutting it, so Itadori tried his hand at online gaming lobbies.

Most of them sucked.

Most of them were full of assholes.

But he got lucky — an older girl that went by the moniker of Iris was nice enough to join his team.

That first night, they talked for hours about nothing in particular. Eventually he told her about his grandpa, and she added him as a friend. Iris told him to poke her whenever she was on so he had someone to play with.

Honestly? It was exactly the kind of lifeline he needed at the time.

After that, he gamed with Iris pretty regularly. Although they mostly game, sometimes they chat about their other hobbies. He's learned she has a full-time job, just recently graduating from university. A few times she's given a sprinkle of real life advice, from an adult figuring it out a couple of steps ahead of a teenager.

He felt safe. Seen.

He and Iris have been friends ever since.

Iris was good at gaming. Like, impossibly good.

So good she’d probably even beat Nobara.

But she wasn’t obnoxious about her wins, which was why Itadori enjoyed chatting with her so much.

Last time he talked to her was maybe six weeks ago. She’d been busy with her day job, but Itadori had been really busy with… well, everything to do with sorcery.

Surely she wouldn’t get weirded out about showing his older brother the ropes, right?

Iris was a private person, something Itadori could very respect, but he felt comfortable enough to invite her into this little debacle of his life now that Choso was going to be a permanent member of his family.

IRISSIRI IS ONLINE.

“Oh, cool, she’s on.”

“Who?” Choso asks, pushing a headphone off of his ear so he can hear Yuuji properly.

“My friend, Iris,” Itadori explains as he clicks to invite her to a party chat.

He then adds Choso, whose eyes widen at the magical sound of his little brother’s voice suddenly coming through the headset clear as day.

“This sounds…” 

Choso trails off, blinking as he hears the echo of his own voice.

Itadori laughs and leans over to mess with his settings once more. 

“Sorry — gotta mute yourself, buddy, otherwise we’ll get an echo going.”

Then a tiny chime sounds, and the brothers simultaneously stare at the television.

“Hello?”

Her voice is smooth as honey and soft, like she’s surprised to get the call.

Itadori immediately perks up, but he notices how Choso doesn’t move.

He just… stares, lips parted.

“Iris!” he greets excitedly. “Hey! Long time, no chat.”

“Yuuji,” she greets in return with a small smile in her voice. “Hey, no kidding. How’s it going? And who’s this…. Guest, person?”

“Oh — I haven’t given him a username yet. Iris, I wanted you to meet my big brother, Choso. Choso, this is my online friend Iris.”

He turns his head to look at Choso in the glow of the tv, but his brows furrow when he notices the pale complexion of Choso’s face turn a warm pink.

“Choso?” she asks, and Choso’s throat bobs.

Maybe he’s nervous about new people?

He’s never really been that nervous before.

“I didn’t know you had siblings!”

“Ha, yeah, it’s a complicated situation,” Itadori explains before flicking up his microphone stick so he can whisper directly to Choso: “You can speak in the microphone, you know.”

Choso clears his throat, his pink face turning scarlet in stark contrast to the black stripe across the bridge of his nose, before nodding. 

“....I’m his big brother.”

“Cool, cool,” she chides in return, and Itadori can’t even believe what he’s seeing:

His older brother practically melts in his seat as he presses a hand gently to his headphone as if to push it closer to his ear.

"It’s super nice to meet you, big brother Choso.”

Choso bites his lower lip and glances up at the screen. “You… have a really pretty voice—”

Uh oh.

Abort mission.

Itadori flies off of the end of the couch to quickly flick his microphone up to mute them both for a little familial aside. “Dude!”

Choso’s surprised, still sporting the blush. 

“What?”

“You can’t hit on my online friend!”

“I wasn’t hitting anyone, I was talking!” Choso hisses right back under his breath.

“Hitting on, not hitting!"

"Whatever!"

"Look: telling my friend she has a pretty voice is a little weird, okay?”

Suddenly the man looks a little worried. “It is?”

Itadori nods. “Yeah. Girls get bothered online all the time. Just… be cool.” 

He slowly drops his microphone back down.

Choso deflates and nods.

“Sorry about that! Yeah, no, he’s never played video games before so I thought we could show him how it’s done.”

“It's fine. But wait: he’s never played video games before?” Iris asks over her mic with a little laugh. “Seriously?”

Choso smiles small at that.

It’s lopsided and goofy. 

Itadori feels like he’s in the twilight zone.

“Did he live under a rock?” she adds in a gentle tease.

“Something like that.” Yuuji tells her, quickly loading up Fortnite for a game of Duos so Choso can listen and watch. “He’ll just hang with us while we play, if that’s cool with you?”

“So long as he doesn’t mind me asking him questions while we play,” Iris replies, sending a quick game invite to Itadori’s screen.

Both Itadori and Choso stare at one another.

Choso points at himself.

Itadori nods and points at him.

“Me?” Choso asks in a bit of a confused voice.

“Well, I’ve known your little brother for two years now, but I don’t exactly know you, ” Iris explains. “In a way, I kinda felt like his far-away big sister, so I'm happy to know he's got someone looking after him. So how old are you?”

Choso sits up a little taller.

“I'm one hundred and fif—”

“The same age as you!” Itadori chirps, cutting Choso off. “He’s twenty five.”

He can not have his normie friends find out about curse spirits and all of that insanity.

Itadori’s just grateful Sukuna never appeared cackling at his cheek in the middle of an intense match to make a pass out of bad taste.

Choso looks absolutely confused, but he slowly nods in tandem with Itadori’s pleading nod.

“...yes, I am... twenty-five years old.”

“Sweet, same age,” Iris chirps, and that goofy little look shows up on Choso’s face again.

(What gives, dude?!)

“And you’ve never played a single game before?” she asks as they load into the next lobby.

“I like Life.”

“The board game?”

“Yeah.”

“I was so bad at that game.”

“The spinner can really put you in debt,” Choso agrees with a solemn nod—

And Iris giggles.

Itadori blinks.

As he departs his character from the sky bus at the location Iris placed on the map, his lips begin to pull down to a grimace.

He’s never heard her laugh like that.

Not even when she's put toxic guys to shame and made them rage quit in Call of Duty.

“How did you meet my younger brother?” Choso asks, suddenly emboldened by the laugh.

“We met in a Destiny 2 lobby, actually,” Iris explains happily. “He helped me with a few of my bigger raids. When I found out the kid was fifteen-something, I felt like I had to make sure no one was a jerk to him in any future lobbies.”

“So you protected him?” Choso murmurs with surprise.

“More like shepherded him through games, sorta like a—”

“—big sister would,” Choso finishes for her.

“Kind of! Like I said earlier, Yuuji’s a good kid. And he’s really solid at playing games.” Iris clears her throat. “Yuuji, six o’clock. There is a drop over there.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

“Yuuji.”

“Miss!” Itadori corrects. “I mean Miss!”

“Jesus, he acts like I’m fifty sometimes,” Iris bemoans, and Choso smirks.

“Yeah. He acts like I’m a hundred and fifty,” the older man cheekily replies, and Itadori scowls.

On Itadori’s screen, they watch as a potential enemy rounds the corner of the building Itadori’s looting —

He doesn't act fast enough to attack —

But suddenly they fall to their knees, before bursting into confetti with all of their items strewn about.

K.O. 

They both hear Iris whistle from her microphone. 

“Respect your elders, kid.”

“Thanks, Eye. I didn’t realize there were people on my spot,” Itadori chimes.

Yeah.

Because he’s too busy listening to Choso act like he’s going to eat the mic to get closer to Iris —

And the fact that his online friend, his very normal friend, is giggling the way some girls giggle whenever…

They look…

At Gojo-sensei.

Itadori stops moving his thumbs on the controller, too deep in thought to play as Iris carries them.

She's scoping perimeters while he's busy putting the puzzle pieces together.

He's blushing.

She's giggling.

His Mikasa Ackerman avatar gets shot down, and Iris is shouting that she's coming back to save him —

But his eyes are on the guy opposite to him on the couch staring intently.

Not at the game, no.

At Iris’ little avatar that shows up every time she speaks.

Her icon's a little chibi Lara Croft.

Kind of like his generic Lara Croft icon.

Some weirdly-fated choice in a sea of happenstances.

Huh.

Wait a second.

"Hey, Choso, do you mind taking over for me in the next game?"

Choso whips his attention, eyes widening with uncertainty. "Me?"

Iris laughs again, and Itadori sees it in real-time: that butterfly-in-your-stomach goofy face, smack dab on Choso's lips.

"I'm down if you're down, Choso."

Quickly he takes the glowing controller from his younger brother and straightens up. "I can learn."

"Just don't go running off on me on the map, alright?" Iris requests playfully. "Stick with me and we'll easily get to last twenty."

"I won't fail you," Choso promises with a nod.

Itadori crosses his arms, observing and listening to Iris explain the game gently to Choso.

Although she was just as gentle with him, Itadori can hear something different in her voice. It's like she's trying to get Choso to answer her so he can talk. She asks him questions that will get him to talk more and more, until they're having a full-blown conversation without Itadori in sight.

Interesting.

He likes her voice, that much he's deduced.

But does she like his voice, too?

Something's happening here.

The cogs are turning.

Maybe —

Just maybe —

Yuuji Itadori can actually be a real, bonafide wingman.

.