#AND DECIDING TO FINISH THE NO MERCY ROUTE ONCE AND FOR ALL

[scyphosunny]

i spent the whole day playing and watching undertale videos , thinking " it's fine i don't have anything big in mind " only for me to realize that . i do have something big in mind . goddddDDAMN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[stinkysam]

Lucifer Morningstar - Wrong impression.

Warning : none

Genre : fluff

Synopsis : “May I request Hazbin Lucifer x Gojo! Gn reader? Strongest vs the strongest energy” - anon

Reader : you / yours

A/N : probably didn't go the route you wanted… but I'm not that good with character!reader. Hope you still like it !

When meeting you, Lucifer was quite nervous. You were one of the strongest overlord of hell and had made your way up very quickly after your arrival down here. Upon shaking your hand, beads of sweat glided down his forehead.

What kind of business did you have with his daughter ? Why were you here ? He wondered, eyeing Charlie quickly.

His smile was a big toothy one but you could tell he wasn't very comfortable, he even wiped his hand on his coat after shaking yours. Subconsciously.

You weren't necessarily imposing or intimidating -though you were really good looking- so he had no reason to be nervous. You were even warm and welcoming toward him. And quite charming. Yet there was something else about you he couldn't put his finger on.

And you don't become an overlord by just being kind and goofy. You had to be powerful and dangerous. But who said you couldn't be all that ?

He expected it to be a ruse to manipulate his daughter and him. So with squinted eyes he watched your every move to find the moment you would drop the act.

But it never happened. Maybe it was because he had so much on his plate ? Trying to form a bond with his daughter, keeping an eye out for Alastor and another one for you.

But your warm smile seemed genuine and you never once put yourself between him and Charlie like Alastor had done, claiming she could almost call him “dad” in their song.

You seemed to be close with Charlie's friends as well and they didn't seem to be worried about themselves with you being an overlord. You even seemed like a close friend of theirs. And the feeling was apparently reciprocated.

With a frown, Lucifer decided to give you a chance, waiting for you to slip up and show your true intentions, but it never happened. Until the fight against Adam with his exorcists.

Like him you had arrived late and like him again you had shown arrogance and confidence as you fought the angels. You killed them without mercy and easily and it even looked like you were finding it… boring ?

They were too weak for you and you knew it. It was easy to protect the cannibals and Charlie's friends.

You clearly wanted to have a go with Adam but let Lucifer handle it, you knew he could stand against him after all.

And he did.

Charlie had to stop him from landing the finishing blow and you wondered if you would have listened. If Lucifer had listened then maybe you would have too.

But Nifty didn't seem to have the same moral compass as you or Lucifer as she stabbed Adam to his death. Several times. While laughing.

The fight was over, very few exorcists remained and Lute flew away with them and Adam's halo. You helped rebuild the hotel with a nice song to motivate you and your friends and especially Charlie who felt down after all the bloodshed.

But before you could leave to go back to your quarters, Lucifer came to you, rather nervously. You turned to him, and stared.

“Er… You're not so bad, finally.” Lucifer said, fiddling with his bow-tie before extending his hand out.

“You thought I was bad ?” You raise an eyebrow, amused and shake his hand. This time he doesn't wipe it on his coat.

“The whole overlord title doesn't really go in favor of being… good.”

“Neither does the title of King of Hell. And yet, here you are !” You smiled, nudging him lightly with your elbow and he chuckled at your remark.

“Yes. I guess so.” Lucifer smiled and looked up at you. “Thank you for being here for my daughter. I mean it.”

You only grinned proudly, planting your hands in your pockets after patting his shoulder.

“Oh well, she's worth it.”

Lucifer returned your smile, happy to see Charlie had a powerful friend like you beside her. Not like that radio demon who seemed more than sketchy. Maybe he could count on you to watch that demon and stop him from harming his precious daughter.

And maybe even he could see you as a friend.

[shatcey]

Gilbert on Yves seq

In a couple of words… this bastard (lovingly) appears no more than 5 times. But… he stole all the attention. Maybe it's just me.

I've ONLY finished reading the dramatic ending, so maybe my thoughts are incomplete. But I finally figure him out… I think...

A few screenshots with my thoughts below the cut. Gilbert decided to participate. I can't control them at all.

With Belle

He doesn't really hide his interest. And Belle is very afraid of him. Nothing new, she's afraid of him on every route. Have no idea why. He's such a sweet bunny-boy.

You know, I'm really worried about your lack of self-preservation… Wanna cookie? (hold a cookie in my open palm) ...(he took a cookie) Do you really think that's enough? (deep exhale) You're just exploiting my affection for you…

But at the beginning of the dramatic ending, they have a nice conversation in the hall. And Belle shows that she was chosen to be Belle NOT for her pretty eyes.

He had once again demonstrated his ability to read her mind. Obviously, because she still hadn't learned how to keep a poker face.

And she was scared again… a rabbit indeed.

With Yves

I have already written about his strange hatred for Yves. It doesn't make any sense. Gilbert is a rational person and he has no rational reason to hate Yves. But he continues to mock him.

I think this part can give us some information.

The last line reminds me of his interactions with Belle on his route. And suddenly I realised… I tried to analyze his words from the point of view of a person who has very general views on the meaning of words. But this is Gilbert. He put completely distorted meanings into the words "hate" and "love". How could I forget about it???

So now I think he doesn't hate Yves. He is worried about him. He grew up in a country where you'd be killed if you showed shred of mercy, so he's worried that something like this might happen to Yves. He put him to the trial (as he told Belle, "unintentionally", but with a genius you never know for sure) to either teach him a lesson, get him to change his naive way of thinking, or… to make him stronger.

In chapter 14, they have a nice chat in the hall

Bunny, this is a cold country, so it's pretty cold in the halls too, so you shouldn't spend so much time there… Why do you keep calling me bunny? Because you're bunny. A black bunny with fluffy hair. I wanna ruffle them so badly… Aren't you afraid of me? Why should I? I have cookies… ... (took the cookie) This bribe will not work indefinitely. Well… Then I'll bake a cake.

So, they had a chat

He doesn't confirm or deny this. But if you read his route, you will realize that he describes himself quite accurately. And the funny thing is that he says it in the most mocking way, so Yves definitely won't be able to believe it's true.

The last two lines again give the impression that he is worried… about Yves and Belle. He warned him to be more cautious and less trusting… So that he doesn't lose what he holds dear. Someone might take this as a threat, I see it as advice. Advice from a man who once went through this and is really worried that his beloved or her fiance will go through the same thing.

This is just my personal impression. This may or may not be true. You have every right to disagree with me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

🔝 𝕊𝕋𝔸ℝ𝕋 ℙ𝔸𝔾𝔼 🔝

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[sserajeans]

you are in love | 52. the christmas fair pt. 2 (written)

it took the group of 12 about an hour to finish all the food they bought, trying a dish from almost every stall in the fair. from boxes of chicken and pizza to plates of corndogs and cups of drinks, the table was a mess once they were done.

deciding to play a lengthy game of rock, paper, scissors to determine the unlucky one responsible for cleaning up, leehan ended up victim after wonyoung gaslit him into thinking she did rock when he did scissors (she initially formed paper).

"can we at least watch the fireworks through the ferris wheel?" leehan sighed and started with his own trash, stuffing everything in a plastic bag.

"wouldn't it be cute to watch it together though?" jiwoo suggested as she scrolled through her pinterest feed and found cute couple pictures to recreate when the fireworks show would start.

"we can watch the first round together by the fences, then those who wants to catch it on the wheel can go?" yunjin suggested after pondering for a minute, handing leehan both her and kazuha's garbage.

"sounds cool!" y/n exclaimed as she helped danielle with an unusually large pile of garbage that the two gathered while waiting for leehan to reach their side.

"thanks guys..." leehan muttered and huffed before dumping the now overflowing trash bag into the nearest garbage can.

everyone around the table laughed at leehan's continued bitterness of having to be in charge of the garbage, despite being finished with the task. wonyoung handed him a wet wipe as minji took a candid photo and drew a garbage bag with flies around the boy. that was going to be one hell of a birthday post.

"we still got about 45 minutes before the show starts... so... games section?" kazuha asked with a knowing tone that came with a pinch of excitement.

the rest of the table cheered and nodded long as they pulled out maps of the fairgrounds, huddling up together to figure out an efficient route that would allow them to spend time together while hitting all the activity stalls they each wanted to do. (minji’s idea, and she was quite frankly, very good at it.)

to put their 45 minute activity extravaganza in summary, hanni is a good shot with a pellet gun which scared the shit out of minji, y/n could be a fisherman as an alternative career choice (while leehan cried beside her to have mercy on the fish), wonyoung can throw darts like a mad woman, and kazuha’s eyes are extremely sharp chasing around ping pong balls under cups.

“fireworks show in a minute!” yunjin announced, leading the rest of the group by the edge of the fairgrounds bounded by metal fencing to overlook the rest of the town.

“wait i’ll catch up in a bit!” y/n yelled back, doing her best to aim 5 individual sandbags into the holes in a tilted wooden board. she was oddly determined to win the stall’s grand prize, a bunny plushie that she told danielle looked “extra adorable” and that she “must win it no matter what.”

“y/n, you can win it later! come on it just struck 9:00!” danielle nagged the lee, who almost ignored her in suit of determination if it weren’t for the brief “just one more!” y/n muttered before landing the winning throw right after.

the stall’s employee handed y/n the bunny plushie, her eyes tired after entertaining the hundredth customer. the two girls raced for the metal fences where everyone else was waiting with their eyes fixed on the sky, expecting the fireworks any minute.

and just as lee y/n stumbled in front of the metal fences, the first firework shot to the sky, bursting in colors of red, orange, and yellow.

her face froze in awe at the marveling shades of colors painting the night sky, their chosen viewpoint provided near zero obstructions to block the view, so the city lights combined with the fireworks was one of the most truly beautiful sights to remember. they’d capture it in camera if any device did it justice.

this view, accompanied by her heart racing as she tried to catch her breath, created a surreal experience for y/n.

the show was scheduled to go on for another 10 minutes, so once the initial shock settled in, y/n came to the rest of her senses, and felt something warm. a soft and warm something that grazed her right hand.

if it were up to her physical instinct, she would’ve grabbed it in desperation, given the 1 degree weather they were in that caused her hands to go ice cold. but it’d be awkward, obviously, because she knew danielle was on her left since they ran there together, and she was in too much of a rush to notice who was on her right.

allowing curiosity to get to the best of her, she turned to her right, eyes locking with the damned ones she was avoiding the whole night.

of course, it was hanni, who already was looking at her before she took a glance. for almost half a minute they stared and stared, eyes never leaving the other’s.

you know what people say? how eyes are windows to the soul?

hanni’s windows were glossy, an almost clear reflection of the red heart-shaped firework shone on her brown orbs. her eyes were windows to a soul bearing what felt like the weight of losing the world. vulnerability. a look of longing.

y/n’s windows were foggy, like a translucent glass pane filled from the condensation brought by the contrast of cold and warm weather. like the emotions she's felt the past few weeks. cold, a freezing cold, but also a warmth, a comforting warmth.

to hanni pham, she was beginning to realize in that moment that lee y/n was the world. the world she felt the weight of losing. but, to hanni pham, lee y/n was also the sun. the sun in which she revolves around.

it was the perfect description. y/n, her sun.

how could she live without her sun?

the earth without the sun would lose direction, light, and warmth.

the earth needs the sun, the way hanni pham needs lee y/n. and she’d never forgive herself for how stupid and selfish she had to be, and for how far things had to come, just for her to realize that.

to realize that she may love her best friends like family, but there would always be something more for lee y/n.

did she really, finally say that in her head?

that she loves lee y/n. and that she always has. finally putting a name to the unfamiliar and bewitching pull her childhood best friend had on her.

the intimate moment felt like hours for the two, stuck in their own world, their own universe with a completely different construct of time from reality.

but remember how the eyes were windows to the soul? windows that carry all emotion and thought?

it was very clear. one could look into them and see what was going on. any outsider could.

outsiders including their friends around them.

y/n felt a tug on her shoulder.

"y/n! gyuvin and leehan are gonna ditch us for the wheel!" wonyoung exclaimed, pointing at the two boys racing to take advantage of the almost non-existent queue.

"wait wha- okay but what about dan-"

"hey you're not the only one who's friends with her, you know!" jiwoo, who had overheard y/n's hesitance to leave danielle and struggle to reply, gave y/n a side eye as danielle let out a soft laugh, her eyes forming crescents with the warmest smile known to mankind.

"it's fine, y/n." she said, giving her date, a slight push towards wonyoung's direction. "i'll be fine."

"OKAY! you got the green light! now y/n use your swimmer legs and RUN! are you actually gonna let the boys win??"

masterlist. next.

taglist: @yyeonmis @lostamoeba @jisooftme @yoontoonwhs @awkwardtoafault @lcv3lies @limbforalimb @kaypanaq @manooffline @kimsgayness @justme-idle @mightymyo @sewiouslyz @txtbrainrot @li0ilthecxnt @captivq @paranoxic @sofakingwoso @pandafuriosa60 @haerinkisser @lesleepyyy @haechansbbg @rosiehrs @jiwoneiric @blue4hour @bzeus28 @keiji-jin

[plaindangan]

(SJ) With Shinguji at his mercy. Izuru grabs her whip and ties her up with it, then throws her into the female ghoul attacking Junko. The two masterminds then proceed to gang up on the two while they're down. Taking turns beating on them before moving on to finish off the male ghoul.

While Izuru ties up the remaining ghouls and keeps an eye on them. Junko looks for the escape route. With the duo planning on leaving the infected Tsumugi behind when they make their escape. They also decide to have some "fun time" once they get out of here

Disclaimer: R18 material! If not to your liking then please do not view!

Don't you love it when a plan all goes together.

"Ahahaha...ahahahaha....l-l-leeeeet'ssssssh do this agaaaaiiiin, sometimeeeee~" moaned out Miyadera, barely conscious after the clobbering both Izuru and Junko gave her. She was naked and throughly tied down, with her minions suffering the same fate. A few feet away was Tsumugi also tied down and looking at both Izuru and Junko, angrily.

"Ss--s-ssheeeriously?!! You sacked me?!!!!!!!" Moaned out the new horny cosplayed, getting angrier as Junko mocked her by smacking her own ass.

"Soooorrrrrrrrrryyyy, babe~ It was to score the goods, you understand, right?~"

REWARDS:

2 Shirts

2 Underwear

2 Shorts

1 Decent-Shield (can survive two hits)

SPECIAL ITEM - CUPID'S FIREARM: An experimental gun that overloads loads someone with quite the intense desire for sex. You might think this would be a poor weapon to use on ghouls, but during 'testing' it was found they tend to just collapse into a horny stupor. Useful for getaways or in a tight spot.

"That's all there was in here." Izuru said and both left the FDR with their new gifts. Junko herself was beaming heavily for pulling off a 'flawless' victory in her eyes, sans losing Tsumugi.

There was only one way to celebrate...

By dragging Izuru into the nearest dorm room available, grinding her ass on his cock for what felt like hours until he could rise up, and then spend another hour and a half fucking away her worries with the Ultimate Cock that just didn't have anything better to do at the time.

You know? Normal team stuff~

Area: Final Dead Room

Status:

Junko: 1/4

Izuru: 4/4

[ohanahoku-ao3]

Whumptober Day 26

Still writing these! So close to finishing them! Enjoy some Morally Grey Merlin

Teen & Up - Gen - Merlin

The Power of God in His Eyes

     Merlin nodded once to the prison guard as he passed him, walking the familiar route down to the prison. How many times had he done this? How often had he met the eyes of the condemned behind the prison bars? How many more times would he walk this same path? And when would he be the one waiting behind bars at the end of it?

     Inside the cell he came to, was a man dressed in the clothes of a commoner. He was perhaps in his late thirties, with a dark beard and the start of wrinkles around his eyes. He glanced up as Merlin stepped up to the bars, eyes wary as they met the servant’s gaze.

     “They say you killed a man,” Merlin said quietly, searching the man’s eyes.

     “And what’s it to you?” The man asked, standing up and puffing his chest out.

     “I want to know why you did it.” The warlock said, glancing over his shoulder before looking back at the man.

     His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why?”

     “Does it matter?” Merlin asked after a heavy pause of internal debate.

     “Well, if it doesn’t matter, I’m not telling you a thing.” The man said, settling back down on the ground, lying on his side facing away from Merlin. “Leave the dead to sleep, boy.”

     The servant stared at the prisoner for a moment longer before he left, exhaustion clinging to his shoulders as he walked back, passing the guard with hardly an acknowledgement.

 || || || || || ||

     Merlin was tired. Physically, mentally… emotionally. Being a servant to the king, one whose secret could never be revealed, was exhausting. Between juggling chores and saving Arthur’s life time and time again without any recognition or reprieve, Merlin was drained. He went about his days in a fog, polishing silverware and destroying threats to the king as if they were one and the same task, doing it all with barely a flicker of real emotion on his face. His secret was weighing on him more and more every day, leaving him numb as he witnessed the increasing injustice towards his people, perpetrated not only by the king but also by his own people as they worked to ruin the peace he was trying so hard to maintain until Arthur could see reason.

     It wasn’t easy, though, walking the thin line between loyalties, and Merlin found himself in quite an exhausting predicament. A man had been sentenced to death. His crime? Magic. And murder. So yes, Merlin understood that a murderer didn’t exactly deserve mercy, but the fact that his magic had been the deciding factor in his trial left a sour taste in Merlin’s mouth. The man had hardly even defended himself, giving in to his fate, and Merlin had no idea if the murder had been brought on by self-defense or not. Had the trial focused on the actual crime’s motive and not on the means the man used, he wouldn’t have bothered feeling betrayed by Arthur’s decision. But every time Merlin heard the talk among the castle servants, how they called the damned man a sorcerer but never a murderer, he felt it like another needle being pressed into his skin. Thus, his predicament: Could he let the man die for his background and not his actual crime?

     Emrys was meant to save his people, not condemn them. Hadn’t he let enough of his people down?

⚔

     The man stood on the platform in the courtyard, flanked by guards. Merlin was posted against the wall behind Arthur on the balcony, and the king stood at the low wall of the balcony, ready to signal the executioner. A crowd had gathered in the courtyard, milling around in anticipation of the execution, like a flock of vultures circling a fresh kill. It was sickening to see.

     The crowd quieted as Arthur spoke. “Robert John Reed. By the laws pursuant of Camelot, you are adjudged guilty of practicing magic and committing murder. As such, I, Arthur Pendragon and King of Camelot, sentence you to death for your crimes. Have you any last words?” The question went unanswered aside from a scowl beneath eyes filled with fear and hatred. Arthur nodded at the guards, and the men forced the criminal to kneel over the basket that would catch his severed head. Merlin watched, feeling almost detached from the moment as Arthur raised his hand and let it drop.

     The executioner raised his axe, and Merlin’s eyes flared with gold. The head of the axe flew off on the downswing, the blade arcing over the crowd to hit the stone wall, while the man stumbled at the change in weight, nearly falling over as his swing missed the criminal by inches. Screams and murmurs went through the crowd, and Arthur swiftly tried to calm the people as he ordered another axe to be brought up. Merlin eyed the new blade with disinterest and a spark of gold as the executioner raised the heading axe. The headman stumbled backward this time as the wood handle snapped and dropped the blade behind him.

     At this point, the crowd started laughing at the spectacle, the criminal himself joining in as he lifted his head and mocked the crown. “Seems like the King of Camelot should be able to afford better equipment, don’t you think?” Reed called out, the man grinning.

     “You’ve placed a curse on these weapons, haven’t you?” Arthur asked, glaring at the man with such anger that the crowd fell silent even as the man answered.

     “Oh, yes, absolutely,” Reed said, and Arthur called for a sword to be brought to the executioner instead. This time, though, right as the sword was about to touch the man’s neck, it shattered into pieces, raining down around the man’s head but leaving not a single scratch behind.

     The crowd gasped in surprise, and Merlin nearly smiled for a moment before the people started wailing about the so-assumed curse and calling for the man’s head as their fear escalated.

     At length, after more broken weapons, Arthur had had enough. “This is ridiculous. His execution shall be postponed! He dies tomorrow in the fire. Take him away!”

     Merlin watched that evening as the pyre was built, sitting with his back against the stone wall. He didn't know what he was trying to accomplish in prolonging the criminal’s death. He couldn't really sympathize with a murderer whose motive was yet unclear, but he couldn't let the crown continue persecuting his people. Still, he couldn't condone his people using their magic for evil. It was something to think about.

🍽

     Again, Merlin found himself standing outside the prison cell, the man chuckling as he saw him in the low light of dawn coming from the high window of the cell. “Back again, I see. Have a fascination with the living dead, don't you, boy?”

     “Why did you kill that man?” Merlin asked, still intent on discovering the man’s motive. If he could just get a straight answer, then he could wash his hands of the matter once and for all.

     “Not this again. Aren't you going to ask me how I cursed the weapons? At least make your interrogation interesting.” Reed groused, meeting Merlin’s gaze as the servant knelt beside him.

     “I don't believe you cursed them,” Merlin said after a short pause, watching as the man tensed. “The look of fear that was in your eyes?” He said, eyebrows raised knowingly. “It lingers there even now. That gives you away.”

     Reed looked away from Merlin’s piercing stare, fingers twisting a piece of hay from the floor of the cell. “You know nothing of sorcery, boy. Leave me alone to enjoy my last meal.” He ordered, picking up the plate of mush he’d ignored and taking a pointed bite of the gruel to dismiss Merlin.

⛈

     “Morning, King Arthur! Lovely day for a burning, isn't it?” Reed called from his place tied to the stake. The courtyard was just as crowded as the day before, if not moreso, as everyone gathered to see the sorcerer killed.

     “Light the pyre. This mockery ends now.” Arthur said, voice hard as he ordered the deed. Merlin watched as the torch was brought to kindling lining the pyre, his eyes moving from the crackling flames to the man on the pyre.

     Reed looked calm as the fire was set, but as the kindling started to burn, the flames catching on the larger pieces of wood and sending smoke toward him, the man looked increasingly panicked, his head swiveling and eyes scanning the crowd as if looking for someone to save him. “Stop this!” He called out at length, desperation clear on his face as he started coughing in the smoke. “Please! Stop this, I beg you!” He pleaded, and Merlin watched as Arthur’s fists clenched, the king looking away briefly before looking back up.

     Arthur hated the pyre just as much as Merlin did, and the warlock knew this. The king didn’t want to watch the man burn but felt it his duty as he held his gaze on the pyre.

     “Please, I beg you!” Reed called out again as the flames danced dangerously close to his legs, his voice ragged from the smoke. Merlin sighed softly then, glancing around him before waving his hand indifferently. “Please, dear God!” The man shouted just before the wind Merlin conjured blew through the courtyard, whipping up people’s hair and clothes in disarray before snuffing out the fire.

     Arthur straightened at the sight, and Reed was silent for a moment before sobbing in gratitude. “Add more kindling! Light it again!” Arthur shouted, and Merlin’s eyes glanced down and away from his king when he heard the fear behind his words. Was it worth saving one person if it meant Arthur’s fear of magic grew?

     The fire was lit once more, and this time, Reed was quiet as he watched it, or perhaps his throat was simply too aggravated from the smoke. Then he looked into the sky, lips moving as Merlin watched him, his silent pleas mirroring the tears in his eyes. Merlin nearly called forth the wind again, but doing so would just prolong the spectacle. If he did that, Arthur could have them relight the fires all day until they ran out of wood. No, there was a better way to do it, he decided.

     Baby blue eyes rose to the sky, and as he watched, clouds swirled together, quickly covering the previously cloudless sky. The courtyard grew dark, the crowd murmuring in shock and fear. Merlin closed his eyes, feeling his power grow as he focused his energy. Thunder rumbled overhead, the sound like an army marching toward battle. Arthur was saying something that was lost to the wind as it picked up, and Merlin’s eyes snapped back open as lightning cracked across the sky and sent a deluge into the courtyard. People were screaming, running from the square as the skies poured out Merlin’s fury over them. The flames quickly died out under the rain, and as Merlin watched, a guard went for his sword and advanced on Reed. Merlin scowled. His eyes raised back up to the sky, and his magic gripped onto the answering power he found there, his eyes darting back to the soldier, a lightning bolt following his gaze as it hit the ground right in front of him, sending the man back.

     No one else dared to go near the pyre, and slowly, Merlin let his control of the weather wane, the thunderstorm turning to light rain and then a drizzle until it stopped altogether. The clouds slowly parted, the sun returning as a ray shone directly on Reed, who was staring up at the clouds in awe.

     “Do you see this, Arthur?” Reed called, his voice almost startling in the quiet left by the storm’s wake. “The heavens themselves open up to stop my death from occurring. I always knew that magic wasn't evil, and now God himself is proving it! Why else would I be spared?”

     Arthur seemed to be thrown for a loop because it took him a minute to answer, fear and anger in his voice. “Nonsense! This is another one of your tricks!”

     “Perhaps you simpletons believe that, but I know no sorcerer able to command the heavens themselves, do you?” Reed asked before turning his head to meet Arthur’s gaze. “So tell me, Arthur, are you really willing to challenge God?”

     The king bristled at the man’s audacity. “If God's mercy truly is upon you, he can prove so again.” He stated, gaining confidence as he spoke. “Tomorrow, you hang, and I assure you, God will be the only one able to save you.” He said, catching Percival’s eye and nodding, watching as the loyal knight took the lead in escorting the man back to his cell.

䷡

     “Why did you kill him?” Merlin asked, sitting with his back turned to the cell, leaning against the bars. He was so tired of stretching out the spectacle of the man’s death. He was tired of everything he did, marking another notch of Arthur’s growing fear. How could he keep going like this? What was he trying to prove, really? Why could he wield such power when it only served to harden Arthur’s heart?

     “You still stuck on that? Don't you see that it doesn't matter anymore?” Reed asked, the grin evident in his voice as he spoke to Merlin’s back. “Any blood that I've spilled has been wiped clean, boy! God saved my life, poured the heavens out upon me, baptizing me as his emissary!” He exclaimed, voice loud in the quiet air of the prison. “Can't you see? His plan will not be stopped by the likes of the king! No, he will use me to usher in his kingdom, a realm of magic that we've been denied by the crown.” 

     Merlin rolled his eyes at the man’s delusions of grandeur, but the corner of his lips twisted into the approximation of a smile. “You really think that God saved you?” Merlin asked, nearly laughing at the thought.

     “You saw it yourself. No mortal man wields that power. You watch tomorrow, boy. When I'm rescued once again, you'll know it's true. Perhaps you'll even join me as I cleanse this kingdom for God.” Reed intoned behind him, still grinning even as Merlin’s faint smile faded.

     He wasn’t a god, but he did wield such power. Was it possible that he had taken on such a role in his efforts to restore magic? God was said to judge and punish those he found unworthy. Hadn’t Merlin begun doing that very thing? Hadn’t he killed those he found irredeemable? Hadn’t he spared those he thought could change? Hadn’t he commanded the sky just hours prior with hardly a thought? The power he’d held in that moment… It had felt good and effortless. Merlin felt nearly unstoppable in that moment, invincible. Reed, the crowd, and Camelot itself were under his mercy at that moment. He could have destroyed them with a thought.

     Merlin chased the thoughts away as he closed his eyes. “I’m not even sure if I believe in God.” He whispered, getting up and walking away from the man as he screamed blasphemy at his back.

ਠ

     The next day, the courtyard had twice as many people in it as it had the day before, and Merlin frowned thoughtfully as he sensed an increased number of druids among the people. There had been a few the previous days. An execution always brought a few of them out, lending to their morbid curiosity of how they may one day perish. But after the day before, it seemed more had come out of curiosity of Emrys’ feats than anything. Perhaps they were hoping to see his magic for themselves.

     Reed was led up to the newly constructed platform, the man wearing a self-assured smirk as the noose was tightened around his neck. Merlin heard Arthur’s order, and his eyes flared in defiance of the order. The latch below the man dropped open, but instead of Reed falling through it, he just floated there, as if still standing. People started panicking, wondering if there was any way to kill the man, and Arthur clenched his fists as the sorcerer began to laugh.

     The sound grew louder and louder, twisting as it became more deranged until, finally, the man spoke with a manic grin on his face. “I told you, your majesty! I am made invincible!” He shouted, and Merlin watched grimly as the druids in the crowd were drawn in by his voice. “God himself gives me the means to keep living! He denies you your hatred of magic, and offers you into my hand! Magic will have its place in Camelot once more! And your death, Arthur Pendragon, will be by my hand, the hand of a murderer whose slate has been wiped clean by God. I have been chosen as his emissary, and I'll spill your blood like I did that braggart! Then may God have mercy on your sou-”

     The man’s words cut off with a gasp and a snap as the man dropped and the rope caught him. Shock fell over the crowd as the man’s body hung in the air, swaying slightly in the breeze. Merlin stared coldly at the man he let die before turning his attention to the druids gathered in the crowd. His voice came through loud and clear in their minds as he projected it to them over the relieved cheers of the public.

     “Listen to my words now and carve them into your hearts if that is what it takes for you to remember them. Magic will have its time once again, but it will not be by the hands of men like this one! Any who use magic to harm others will not receive my protection nor my mercy. I am Emrys, and I will defend this kingdom from anyone who dares to come against it in violence. So I command you, as leader of the druids, as the crown's protector, leave this place in peace today or perish by my hand!”

     He didn’t linger to acknowledge their answers nor to check on Arthur, who was hunched over the balcony wall. He was done with letting things go on like this, and now they knew. The word would spread, he was sure, and the next time one of them dared to harm Arthur, he would destroy them without hesitation.

     He may not be God, but if that’s what it took to ensure peace, then he was more than ready to play the part.

[realityverse-en]

Story of Glitch, Chapter 1: Liberation (Bad English)

It all starts in UNDERTALE. Frisk RESET without stopping at every end of a road, but an anonymous creator programmed, an artificial and living human. Every time Frisk RESET, the human shows himself little by little. He finally shows himself in a genocidal end, but he asks himself questions at the beginning because his creator gave no objective. He was a baby who knew nothing about him. He appears instead of Frisk. He was confused, he knew he shouldn’t be there, but out of curiosity he discovered everything. except he only had 3 RESET at his disposal.

He presses the RESET button, he starts slowly on his way, he decides to do a RUN PACIFIST, he already knows what to do, he already has the memories of the RUN that Frisk did. He befriends everyone, and weirdly also befriends monsters that can’t be connected. At the end of the RUN PACIFIST, he understands that he had to save Asriel, An incredible gift suddenly appears, he had the power to create, modify, delete what he wanted. He changes the properties of his turn so he can save his friends in one turn. And He will create the SAVE button much too early in the fight, and then press the button to finish his RUN. He creates a monster soul for Asriel to stay in this Timeline to live together. The human was very happy, he loved his friends, his mother and his brother. But Frisk in a corner of the TIMELINE, gives signs that it should RESET otherwise their universe will disappear following an anomaly. The artificial human, not wanting to see the TIMELINE disappear with him in it, decides to RESET…

Second RUN, but this time it’s NEUTRAL. The human didn’t know what to do, and also who to kill to make a neutral route. He decides to kill those who seem mean at first glance. He thought he wasn’t going to kill many people. You also thought the same thing? He continues on his way, always thinking of killing monsters that seem mean. He arrives in front of Asgore and knows that he will have to fight against him. As soon as Asgore destroys the MERCY button, his gift resurfaces. He will repair the MERCY button in front of him, Asgore himself shocked and felt threatened to see the gift of the human. Asgore did not want to fight knowing that he could get killed at once. The human decides to choose the MERCY option, but Flowey kills Asgore, to take human souls and turn into Omega Flowey. Before the fight even begins, the Human finishes the fight. What? Didn’t you understand? The Human just ended the fight by killing Omega Flowey.

The void… It’s weird to be in the void, isn’t it? You don’t fall, you don’t hear anything, you don’t see anything. I thought the same thing to myself… That’s why I reset again. I don’t like the void.

The last road, the last story… The Human was a bit curious, he added the Item REAL KNIFE in his inventory, he will have the idea to kill all the monsters in one shot, to have an answer. At first, it was difficult to kill the people he loved, but in any case he will also die. Yes it was his last RESET, after that he will disappear.He had nothing to lose. He will continue his way by respecting every mechanism so that he succeeds in his RUN GENOCIDE. Toriel, Papyrus, Undyne, Mettaton. Everyone goes through it. Even without it, he will die Sans with zero dodging. Pathetic. The Human kills Asgore in cold blood, and tramples on Flowey. Finally at the end, here he is again, but this time with Chara asking to remove this world. Even though he killed everyone, he refuses. Exactly 2 seconds he was removed all his life, a very great pain came from his whole body, until he reached 1 hp. He presses the RESET button to end this suffering.

Is it over? Chara is gone? Hm... What was that? Who is that demon?! Arf.. I’m back alone in the void. But I’m not going to stay long anyway, I should disappear in the next few minutes... That’s what I was thinking too. But just a bug in the program changed my whole life.

The Human waits, waits, and waits. Hours, days, months, years. But nothing happens, he had to disappear but he’s still here, why? He asks himself the question several times, even to wonder about himself, if he was real? Is that what disappearing is? Do the beings who disappear from the TIMELINE still have a consciousness? It seems irrational to him. He was going crazy, he was hearing voices, he was seeing people from the TIMELINE GENOCIDE. He didn’t want to see them dead. He thought only of curiosity. And-

So you are an anomaly? You are mentally damaged to flee; you will make my job easier, Glitch.

A being resembling Sans appearing ar a portal, it seemed different, it is black color as well as these clothes. These eyes had several NEON colors. At first, he thought he could see the sans of his TIMELINE but quickly understood that it was not him, while the sans différent approached his hands in the pockets towards him. the Human will dodge the attack of the without before jumping into the portal… It falls very long before being caught by a GASTER BLASTER made of ink. The GASTER BLASTER made of ink makes the Human land safely in front of a larger Sans clothes, a large brush and colored eyes. But the Sans in black comes in angry.

Ink! Why did you save this human, I had to make him disappear!

How can it "make it disappear"? Your forgotten truce Error?

The two Sanses seeming to know each other and also to be enemies, the Human listens to them in their disputes. the Sans in black had to be named Error and the Sans with colored eyes Ink. Names not very innocuous. Error seems to have abandoned the argument, he sighs looking at the Human then leaves by a bugged portal at the edge.

Ink: Phew, we avoided the catastrophe! Sorry for the trouble, you avoided a certain death! My name is Ink and you?

Well, they call me ... Glitch ...

Ink: Glitch?? It’s not a very innocuous name, but we’ll deal with it! Do you follow me?

End of Chapter 1.

Next

Credit:

Ink!Sans : @comyet Error!Sans : @loverofpiggies

[samanthahirr]

MI6 Cafe Creators Tag Game

(Thank you so much for tagging me, @silverbrume!)

We’d love for people to keep getting to know each other after this year’s 007 Fest, so we’re starting this tag game!

Rules: Answer the questions, then tag 3 new people to complete this. Also, tag the person who tagged you and @mi6-cafe so we can reblog your response.

Note that when we say ‘fanwork’ in the questions below, that could mean a fanfic, gif, fanart, headcanon, cosplay, crocheted work—any kind of fancreation counts!

1. What work of yours challenged you when you were creating it?  

Can I count my ongoing 00Q WIP-epic Off the Books? Yeah, I’m gonna say this is my biggest challenge. I’ve never posted a WIP before, and it’s a much bigger challenge than I anticipated, controlling the pacing, the evolving relationship dynamics, and the gradual reveal of exposition. It doesn’t help that it’s already my longest work to date, and it’s only 1/3 done at 54k. I’ve got reams of notes for this fic and a heavily detailed outline to follow, but I still agonize over nailing all my set-ups and pay-offs. Very challenging project, but my most-rewarding by far.

2. What is a fanwork you’ve seen which gave you a new headcanon about a character?    

Queen of Spades by Astolat. One of the first 007 fics I ever read, it took the M & Craig butting-heads dynamic from Casino Royale and amplified their antagonism and manipulations and competition into the stratosphere. I fell in love with Astolat’s headcanons of a Bond who resents orders and leadership but craves M’s approval, and an M who effortlessly manipulates Bond into becoming the agent she wants him to be, and even as Bond sees those manipulations happening, he can only rise to her challenges instead of turning his back on them.

3. Is there a fanwork that you really want to make, but you haven’t started yet?

Yes! I’ve got a pre-slash 00Q fic all planned and researched, wherein Bond’s punishment for a botched mission is bodyguard-duty for Q at a conference in Salzburg. In this AU, Q & Bond don’t know each other well and have an adversarial relationship. En route, Bond mercilessly taunts Q about his blatant fear of flying…until Bond realizes just after takeoff that Q has dosed himself with an anxiolytic/hypnotic to get through the short flight. Now Bond has a heavily drugged quartermaster at his mercy, and he must choose whether to be cruel or kind for the next seven hours. (Spoiler: Bond chooses kindness, and they forge a mutual respect and tentative friendship by the story’s end.) Tentative title “Bases to Guard or Beleaguer.” Just gotta finish writing a couple other fics before I can start banging this one out.

4. What fanwork of yours surprised you, and how? 

I was surprised how effortlessly Touch It, Stroke It, and Undress It came together for 007 Fest 2022. In summer of 2021, I came up with a series of vignettes for aromantic!Q sleeping with all the agents, amusingly thwarting Bond’s seduction attempts. This year I decided to flesh the ideas out into a series of standalone smut scenes with an overarching “lovers to friends-with-benefits” arc for Fest, and I somehow cranked out 21k of smut in under a month! Biggest surprises of the resulting fic: A) I haven’t been that prolific in a decade; B) the multiple POVs were an engaging challenge to figure out; and C) once I stopped being self-conscious about sharing all my kinks, the smut became downright fun to write.

5. What themes/styles/subjects are common across many of your fanworks? 

I’m all about hurt/comfort (though if I injure a character too seriously, they can’t have the celebratory ‘we survived’ sex, so I tend to go minor-to-moderate on the physical trauma). And I’m currently fascinated with all the possible variations on a drugging storyline, so expect to see that crop up in my next few fics.

6. What other fandoms do you create for, if any?

None right now, but last year I did fics for The Mandalorian and The Man from UNCLE.

7. Is there an artist that you like to listen to while you create? Or one whose work always inspires you?

I can’t listen to English lyrics when I’m writing, so I listen to a lot of instrumental or foreign-language albums. I spent the month of July looping the Argentinian singer-songwriter Federico Aubele’s second album, Panamericana (produced by Eighteenth Street Lounge Music (shoutout Washington DC!!!) so it’s got sexy-chill electro-lounge vibes), featuring Fede’s genius guitar work and hauntingly gorgeous guest vocals over Latin dance rhythms. And now for August, I’m hooked on a YouTube playlist called Tropical Night Bossa Nova that’s all dreamy/beachy guitar instrumentals.

8. Share a fanwork that you’ve found yourself thinking about weeks after reading/seeing it.

In 2016, @beaubete wrote a 300-word piece for Last Drabble Writer Standing called “Property,” wherein Q poses as a buyer to rescue Bond from a slavery ring. I read that fic on June 1, 2021, and it completely rewired my brain. Within four days I’d planned out the entirety of Off the Books, a 150k sequel for a goddamn drabble I’m still writing a year later, and I joined a new fandom, and now I’m a part of the MI6-Cafe. If it hadn’t been for that genius, shocking cliffhanger of a drabble, I might not have started writing in this fandom and meeting everyone in the Cafe, so I’m still so, so grateful that Beaubete’s fanwork exists.

9. Finally, share where you post your works! 

My AO3 page

Tagging: @prismatic-bell & @kmk1701d & @a-forger-and-a-point-man

@mi6-cafe

[jeweledstone]

Y’all ever have a dream that might as well be a full fledged anime or something?

I had a dream a while ago that was so complex and mildly interesting that I just HAD to make a post about it. I’ve also drawn some supplemental pics cause why not?

Timeline wise, this dream took place when I was still in middle school. I was going to a different school than the one I went to irl while my family and I were staying at what I assume was a friend’s house. At one point in the dream, I was walking back to the house from school and went through an area that had a bunch of Christmas lights in it. While walking through it, I got tangled in the lights and was electrocuted by them until I passed out.

Now, this is where the story starts getting a bit crazy, I remember waking up in a wheelchair in the hospital after being electrocuted. Apparently someone found me (think it was my parents) passed out and took me there. Upon waking up I noticed something… “off” about my right arm. Something… “different”…

Yep, another FUCKING Spamton TF dream. Though this one provides a more complicated explanation/has more relevance to the plot than most of the other dreams I’ve had. I’ll explain that stuff once we get there.

A short time skip and I ended up in yet another accident. This time when I was at school getting to class I got attacked by these miniature cheetahs who chased me into a pond/river that flowed through the school. Guess the pond reminded my Spamton half of the infamous (and not really confirmed as canon) acid river incident cause I started panicking and screaming for help. I ended up getting rescued by Bugs Bunny, who was a janitor at the school and while he was trying to get me to calm down, the skin on my left arm fell off, revealing my second Spamifed arm.

The night after… THAT happened (in the dream world, not irl) I ended up having a horrid nightmare (a dream within a dream, where have I heard that before?) about the acid incident and the last thing I saw before I “woke up” from the nightmare was Queen and her Swatchlings laughing at me.

Going to school the next day, I was exhausted and had near constant hallucinations of Queen mocking me until I ended up having a mental breakdown and had to be sent home. On the way home, I saw a coffee shop and heard Queen’s voice in my head telling me to “meet her there” tomorrow so she could “explain everything”.

Turns out the b//tch was real (or at least real in this dream world’s verse) and not just a trauma-induced hallucination. While I was there, she basically explained what can only be described as the “hidden lore” of this dream.

Turns out, I was one of many people, let’s call them kinnies since that’s basically what they are, who were reincarnations of different darkners who died during the game’s Snowgrave/Weird/No Mercy Route, and just recently we’ve all been turning back into our original selves and regaining memories of our past lives. Queen herself just so happened to be one of those kinnies who recently finished their transformation. The whole reason she contacted me was because apparently some of the kinnies, lead by a Spade King kinnie, decided to try and go to war with/kill humanity as revenge for killing them in thier past lives and she was trying to recruit me to the side of the kinnies that wanted to protect humans from the ones that wanted to kill them now that I was finally turning back into Spamton.

Also there were a few evil kinnies that started stalking me after I got recruited, like this one guy who was a Jevil kinnie that tried to attack me after I left the coffee shop.

Not much else I can say about this, but this was quite a thing I tell ya. So yeah, insert outroduction here, hope you enjoyed :)

[melohax]

I’ve seen some people who finished Omori talking about how they don’t understand the game’s plot, what happens in the good ending or why the protagonist even decided to change his ways. So then, here’s my thoughts on Omori’s story.

Warning: SPOILERS AHOY. Only read this if you’ve already finished the game and seen the good or true ending. Or if you don’t plan on playing the game at all but still want to know the whole story.

I’ve seen some people around the internet talk about how Sunny’s character isn’t clear to them or how they feel Sunny doesn’t deserve a good ending. Here’s some thoughts I have on why I think Sunny’s growth was well depicted.

There’s two main routes you can go through in the game: the “Reality” route and the “Hikikomori” route.

In the “Hikikomori” route, Sunny stays in Headspace forever and we get to learn many additional details about him. Sunny’s parents are implied to have known what Sunny did to Mari all along. It’s also implied that Sunny’s mother covered the whole thing up and chose to present it as a suicide as well cus, in her own words, she can’t bear the thought of losing both of her kids.

Sunny’s mother insinuates her son isn’t a “good boy” even though she begs him to be good but she still sees him as her little boy (as seen by the overly-sweet and positive messages she leaves around the house and her voice mails) and needs him alive so she can survive her own grief. Sunny’s father is shown cutting down the hanging tree and telling Sunny he isn’t his son, presumably disowning Sunny. The father keeps being absent forever afterwards.

Fast forward to the present and the “Reality” route, Sunny’s moving in 3 days. He knows his time is up in the real world and the biggest catalyst for his personal growth is that he’s finally seeing his old friends in the REAL world after 4 years of only seeing their loving, idealized child version in dreams. For the first time, he gets to witness the collateral consequences of what he did to Mari in his now teenaged friends: Aubrey spirals into delinquency after feeling like she was thrown aside by everyone she loved. Hero is guilt ridden, can’t even go near Mari’s grave and gives up on his dreams of being a chef. Kel wants to make things better but feels powerless, useless and like a screwup. Basil lives in a miserable state of almost constant fear and psychosis.

Sunny finally gets to see the huge toll his lie took on his friends’ entire lives as they keep blaming themselves for not knowing about Mari’s supposed suicidal ideations. He’s finally forced to face reality and he still tries to hide in dreamworld but he can’t. The inhabitants of Headspace are all people or fictional characters he knows or likes in real life (that he changed in his dreams, like how Kim’s brother is a sweet gentle giant and Sweetheart looks just like the candy shop owner at the supermarket) and their quests end up leading him to events where he’s reminded over and over again his dreams will end soon (the end of the underwater highway, the tree near the whale, the shadows of Mari and Basil) and that he needs to delve into Blackspace.

This shows how his own subconscious mind knows well what needs to be done; he’s putting the mental and emotional effort of making himself face what he’s done, shown through the contrast between the whimsical nature of Headspace and the dark surrealism of Blackspace.

As this happens in Sunny’s psyche, in the real world he can try to “atone” a bit by doing good things for his little community like completing requests people around him have. He still has a lot of trouble being near Basil in the real world but considering his entire subconscious mainly revolves around finding and rescuing Basil, he wants and needs to face Basil sincerely before he runs out of time.

We’re shown through memories that Sunny’s personality was always quiet, wary, a bit distant and very bad at dealing with pressure. Some people even describe him as cowardly or mediocre but he was just a small kid who’s entire world ended when he was 12. Since then, he never left his house, spending most of his days asleep rather than awake. It’s no wonder his personality isn’t as developed as his friends. His friends, although they were also in immense pain, at least still continued to live beyond Mari’s death. Sunny didn’t. He only lived through sleep.

Subconsciously, it’s shown Sunny both loves and hates Basil. This is seen in Blackspace with the dialogue he has with the “strangers” walking in the void. They talk about how Sunny (as Omori) does horrible things to Basil in the darkness of Blackspace because he struggles with facing the truth of his own actions. It’s also revealed through datamine of Blackspace’s metaphorical photo album that Basil, in his attempts to save Sunny from the judgement of others and to get him to come out of catatonia, was the one who come up with the plan to hang Mari.

Sunny describes Mari as looking as if calmly asleep when he drags her up the stairs. Her eyes remained peacefully closed until Sunny and Basil hung her. Then, Sunny turned back to look at Mari’s corpse, her previously closed eyes were wide open. She might have even been still alive, might have opened her eyes during or after the noose was tied to her neck. Or the belief he saw her eyes open could have been a manifestation of Sunny’s guilt, instead.

Either way, the horrifying possibilities surrounding Mari’s death lead to Sunny handling his emotional pain by subconsciously taking it out on Basil. It’s why Basil in Blackspace is shown constantly suffering and dying in many different ways. It’s the only way Sunny has been able to deal with himself; by forcing Basil into the darkest corners of his mind, his perfect colorful dreamworld can’t be ruined by the ugly reality Basil’s mere presence represents. It’s less painful to try to forget Basil and to forever blame him for both of their sins.

Still, even with all these conflicted feelings, Sunny’s tried to come to terms with love he still feels for Basil many times before. The shadows point out how this isn’t the first time he’s tried to save the Flower Boy; how all the previous times before ended in Sunny failing to find redemption and so his mind turns back to torturing the Basil of his dreams instead.

However, one of the Blackspace shadows also mentions a very important detail that changes almost everything this time around: his time is almost up in the real world. Whether this means he’ll commit suicide or move away, it’s almost time for him to leave the friends he’s always loved so much behind.

Sunny is forced to do a lot of internal work and self-reflection in what little time he has left. It’s shown through his dream actions, the surreal imagery surrounding him and the characters with all the sub plots his subconscious makes up.

In the route to the good ending, he traverses Blackspace and manages to listen to every harsh truth Basil’s shadow has to tell him. His attempts to save Basil mean he’s fighting his own mind, forcing himself to accept the truth.

To achieve redemption for his greatest mistake, Sunny needs to start with accepting Basil entirely; he has to stop making Basil take the brunt of their combined regrets. It means being willing to finally face the REAL Basil instead of permanently burying him in the most painful place within Sunny’s mind.

So basically, it’s obvious to me that Sunny is forced out of his “comfortable” hikikomori misery the moment he opens the door to meet the REAL Kel.

Sunny and Basil have a confrontation in the real world. When Sunny entera Basil’s room, we see poor Basil suicidal and at his limit. He’s clearly in the throes of a psychotic episode and at the mercy of hallucinations and delusions he can’t escape from (“There’s no way out of this is there, Sunny?”). Basil attacks you in an attempt to save you by killing the “thing behind you” but as we know, there isn’t actually something behind you.

There was never any monster to take the blame for Basil’s regrets, nor yours. It’s always been just you.

Meanwhile, Sunny is trying his best not to completely lose his shit so he can save Basil and stop him from potentially killing the both of them. Sunny likely loses an eye in the fight, shown by the blood coming from your socket and the bandage over it in the hospital.

Incidentally, the eye you lose is on the same side as the eye that can be seen peeking through the hair of Mari’s face as she’s hanging from the tree.

In the good ending, the song at the end talks about how even after confessing the truth, Sunny is alone once again, so it’s not actually clear if Aubrey, Kel and Hero actually forgave him. I feel like this is deliberately left up to interpretation by the writers. The lyrics then continue on to say Sunny still finds it hard to wake up, still finds himself plagued some days with lingering regret, but that he still tries to take it all one step at a time to carry on living.

With the song’s lyrics in mind, the end scene that shows Basil and Sunny smiling at each other while Mari’s shadow leaves them doesn’t mean they’re completely fine all of a sudden. Whether their friends forgave them or not, they at least finally have the relief of honesty. The burden of their unbearable shared secret is now off their shoulders. It’s finally out in the open, which means they both can now start healing and working to find the redemption Sunny was looking for in Blackspace. It also means they can go back to loving each other again without the crushing pain they both felt in each other’s presence.

I agree that Aubrey and the gang get pretty left out in the good ending, though. I wish there was more of them and their reactions to the truth BUT I think it’s sadly a deliberate choice by the writers to leave their reaction up to the player’s interpretation. This can feel extremely unfulfilling to many people (me included, I hate when authors do that tbh) but also to many others that’s a good thing cus they get to apply their own personal meaning and feelings.

I personally feel like the friends forgiving Sunny and Basil right off the bat would be incredibly unrealistic. I think they would need a lot of time (especially Aubrey) for them to forgive the lie that wrecked their lives for years. Forgiveness isn’t impossible but it would probably come in the form of a slow, difficult, heartbreaking process. Bittersweet.

Redemption isn’t just about forgiveness, anyway.

Even if a person is never forgiven by the people they’ve hurt, they can still find redemption for their actions through doing good for the people around them and the world at large. An example of this is shown through what Sunny can do on his last days in his neighborhood. The gratitude and additional flowers he receives in the hospital from each person he’s helped are proof he can still do good for others even after something as horrible and unforgivable as accidental murder. In a way, it’s proof that his life is still worth living.

But ultimately that’s just my own interpretation of the ending and I understand other people would interpret it all differently. Some see forgiveness as a given in the story while there’s also others who think Sunny doesn’t deserve forgiveness or those who think Sunny is a sociopath/psychopath or that Basil is the true villain of the game. I think this is why the ending was left so open, to favor all the different interpretations people have of it.

ETA: Here’s a different take on Sunny’s parents. This post argues that, despite the initial implications, they actually didn’t know about the attempted coverup. It’s a really good writeup explaining the whys and hows and has me reconsidering that part of the story!

https://www.reddit.com/r/OMORI/comments/kr9nvx/major_spoilers_regarding_sunny_his_parents_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

[highqueenofelfhame]

fafs, twenty four

so i was definitely going to wait to post this until tomorrow or the day after but then decided to say fuck it and in the spirit of rowaelin month am just giving it to you now, whatever. who needs rules. or regulations. not me.

follow @highqueenofelfhamewrites and turn on post notifs to receive updates (i don't do taglists anymore, sorry folks!) masterlist//support me with a ko-fi//redbubble

It was nowhere near the worst injury she’d ever had, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.

The living room floor of one of her smaller sanctuaries had been turned into a makeshift operating room. A trash bag was laid out beneath her, rustling with every move she made. The first aid kit that had been untouched and hidden under the kitchen sink was open with all its pieces scattered around her. A brand new bottle of vodka sat to her right, several shots worth already buzzing through her veins. It would take at least one more swig before she got started, but it was already difficult to slide the thread into the needle, so she was holding off until she was just about ready to begin.

Gods damn the agent that shot her. Aelin would bet money that it was Remelle, the blonde bitch that had been pawing at Rowan for years. Before, when she was Lilian, she’d heard a wide array of stories about the woman and her unwanted advances. Ever since Aelin had been introduced to the FBI as a criminal informant, she had shot daggers at her in every meeting, likely angry Aelin was spending so much time with Rowan. Despite how much of that time was angry banter from Rowan, no matter if Aelin was trying to thaw out his icy inner and exterior.

None of that mattered now. She could have Rowan if she really wanted him. Maybe they were already together and--

Aelin stopped those thoughts in their tracks, eyes focusing on the task at hand. There were bigger things to worry about, like getting out of the city and, most importantly, the bleeding wound on her thigh. She chewed on her lip until the thread finally made it into the curved needle, and she held back a cheer as she sloshed some vodka over the wound on her thigh. Hissing through her teeth, she thanked the gods that it wasn’t any worse.

It wasn’t even that bad, considering everything else she’d experienced. There was the time Arobynn had stabbed a dagger through her palm, and she’d had to stitch up the injury herself. She wasn’t sure how many times she’d been sliced and jabbed in training. Her list of broken bones and scars was a long one. Once she got older and was better at her job than all of the men combined, training had become more of a game of survival. They had been out for blood, shedding hers in red tears on the floor until she managed to incapacitate them enough to claim the victory for herself.

This gunshot wound was minor. It hadn’t nicked anything major, and it had taken a while for Aelin to realize she’d even been shot. The adrenaline from running from the full force of the FBI had been enough to repel the pain until she was nearly to her safehouse. She was four blocks away when she realized her pace was slowing and that there was a sharp, hot pain throbbing in her left thigh. A glance down told her everything she needed to know. She had limped straight through the front door and to the first aid kit, where she now prepared to stitch her own leg up.

At one point, there had been a numbing agent in this bag, but she remembered using it on Sam after a nasty fight with Arobynn one night when she was twenty-one. Since then, she’d seldom been to this safehouse and had neglected to restock her kit. There was barely enough of the nylon thread left over, but she would manage. Aelin made a mental note to have someone, either Nox or herself, replenish the missing items.

With a deep breath and a final swig of vodka, she picked up the forceps and shimmied the tension from her shoulders while she hunched over her leg, ready to begin.

With the first stick and the drag of the thread through her skin, Aelin bit her lip so hard she drew blood. It was a bizarre and uncomfortable feeling accompanied by a slight burning sensation. Several times she groaned while she sewed her skin back together. By the time she was finished, her mouth tasted metallic, and the trash bag beneath her was covered in droplets of blood. Her bare thigh looked grim and would leave behind a jagged, ugly scar, but she doused it once more in vodka before wiping away the blood with a damp piece of gauze. Her hands were mostly steady while she placed a bandage over the top and taped it down.

It was just another painful memory that would soon fade to silvery skin. How many more would it take until she was free?

Shaking her head to pull her from any thoughts too negative to deal with right now, Aelin smiled a bit. She was almost pleased with herself for handling the entire situation so well, but the reality of the situation was soon to crash down on her. It didn’t take long for her to get up, going about the tiny house and jerking all the curtains closed. Hardly any natural light was able to filter in through the gaps in the curtains for how tightly she’d twisted at the blinds until they were sealed completely shut. Thumbtacks were shoved into the walls to keep anyone curious from peering inside. She would move to another place in a day or two, she promised herself, after she had time to dye her hair and her wound wasn’t so fresh.

Every lock on every door was twisted into place-- seven locks on both the front and back doors. Only two of those locks could be opened with a key from the outside. The other five were inside only, a variation of deadbolts and chain locks that made her feel secure.

Only when she was satisfied that she was as safe for the time being did she go to the single bedroom and lock the door behind her. In a handful of heartbeats, she collapsed on the old quilt and drifted into a fitful sleep.

~*~

The news that it would take weeks, maybe months, of physical therapy to have his shoulder back to one-hundred percent was irritating to say the least. Rowan would be out of work for a while, but that wasn’t the most frustrating part of the situation. He would be wearing the restrictive sling for weeks, only to take it off when he changed clothes or showered. They didn’t even allow him to take it off to sleep, for gods’ sake. Rowan would be sleeping sitting up for the foreseeable future, and he was fucking annoyed about it.

The last few nights sleeping in the hospital had been anything but fruitful. Not only was he woken by the nurses coming in to check on him every few hours, every single time he tried to adjust to a more comfortable position, he was reminded of the sling. The pain was nearly suffocating. Rowan had heard from Fenrys about how bad shoulder injuries were, but this was on another level of anything he had ever experienced.

So why he was standing in the abandoned apartment of the woman who had shot the bullet through it in the first place was beyond him at the moment.

It wasn’t the apartment littered with cameras and paid for by the bureau. It was the one she’d lived in privately before her beating and arrest. It was the one decorated with opulence and taste. With artwork that wouldn’t surprise Rowan to find it had been stolen and was priceless. The one with books stacking shelves every which way, those novels bookmarked and annotated, as he had just learned. Like she loved them so much, she couldn’t help but document her favorite and least favorite parts.

The linens closet was filled with the softest blankets and nicest sheets Rowan had ever felt in his life. Silk sheets were currently stretched over the mattress in her bedroom, a thing that Rowan had thought she’d quipped as a joke once.

“Sorry, the sheets aren’t Egyptian cotton for whatever the hell you’re used to,” he’d said, a bite in his tone as he showed her the dump of an apartment the bureau had decided on for her.

“Silk,” she winked. “Feels good against my skin when I sleep naked.”

It hadn’t been a joke. He ran his fingers over the fabric and almost smiled at the memory but forced his lips into a frown instead. As he looked around the room, the nearly ostentatious yet somehow tasteful room, he missed her. He hated himself for it, but he missed her. The woman had shot him through the shoulder, but the pain in his heart was somehow worse. His first thought when he woke in the hospital from surgery had been about if they’d found her and she was safe, gods above. Everything about himself was secondary, and he didn’t really care.

But they hadn’t found her. There was no trace of her after her anklet was cut. Nobody had seen her; traffic cams had stopped picking her up like she had just… vanished. He hated that she was so good at her job, so good at being a criminal.

Deep down, Rowan knew that wasn’t what bothered him. It never really had. There wasn’t a part of her soul that he had seen and didn’t understand or want to love. Nothing she had ever done had pushed him away in the slightest. Her honesty about her life and the vulnerability she had shown him only made him respect and love her more.

He wasn’t mad that she shot him. Was he annoyed that he couldn’t use his arm? Of course. But he understood. Rowan understood that she felt backed into a corner and betrayed, and she went into fight or flight mode. In this case, it had been fight and flight. He had stepped too close and got shot in return. It was fair. She was used to fighting her way out of situations, so of course, it was the route she’d taken.

He just wanted her to slip up for once so he could just find her and talk to her. Figure out whatever the hell was going on when they’d argued before she shot him, then disappeared in the middle of the day in a bustling city. Rowan wasn’t even mad that she hadn’t been caught. In fact, he was glad they hadn’t caught her.

Rowan didn’t want her to be found. The full force of the FBI would rain down on her like a hurricane and she would be shown no mercy. There wasn’t a single part of him that wanted her suffering in an interrogation room, throwing around the word allegedly like she used to throw daggers. For her to be thrown back in that dismal jail cell awaiting a death sentence that almost assuredly awaited her for what happened at the bureau.

But he was still frustrated as all hell that he couldn’t find her now, no matter how much he didn’t want her rotting in prison on the outskirts of the city.

It was while he stood with his fingers running over the silk of her sheets that he heard the jingling of keys at her front door. It was surprising, considering he’d had to pick several locks to get up here in the first place. Rowan flattened his body against the bedroom wall, listening to the front door open and close.

The footsteps that followed weren’t Aelin’s, though. They were a little louder, carrying a larger and heavier body. Rowan moved to stand in the doorway, startling the man in the center of the room. He dropped the bag he was carrying, swearing loudly as he bent to pick it back up.

“Gods above, Suit,” he murmured, dropping the bag on the kitchen counter. “What are you doing here? Getting something for Celaena?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Rowan inquired, noting that the bag he carried contained nothing of real importance. If anything, it looked like a combination of garden tools and art supplies.

“I think I stashed something here if we’re being candid and off the record, which I would very much appreciate if we were, by the way. I’ve come to collect.” Haversham -- Rowan still didn’t know the man’s real name -- began digging around Aelin’s bookshelves, looking behind and even inside some of her books that turned out not to be books at all. They looked like books, but when opened in the middle were hidden pockets. Some were empty; some weren’t. Rowan noticed a few that had different bits of identification tucked away. None of that seemed to be what Haversham looked for as he simply closed them and put them back on the shelves.

“Where is she?” Rowan finally asked, a little boldly.

“Can’t you check that fancy anklet you have her wearing and figure it out? I haven’t seen her in a week. She isn’t calling me back, either, so when you do see her, can you tell her that I…” The man trailed off after looking up from his search and seeing Rowan’s face. Rowan’s hard, unyielding face and the concern that was likely etched in his features. The wrinkle between his brow, the stiff way he held his lips. Haversham’s head tilted curiously.

“Holy gods, did she make a run for it?”

“Something happened at the bureau. I can’t find her. Neither can they. But I need to talk to her. I can’t help her otherwise.”

“Do you want to help her?” The sound that came from Rowan was nearly a growl, and Haversham retreated a step with his hands raised defensively. “Look, I’m just saying. She wouldn’t make a run for it unless it was something serious and you’re incapacitated at the moment. Which leads me to believe that she did it; otherwise, you wouldn’t be hurt at all. Celaena wouldn’t let somebody hurt you. So either you really fucked up--”

“I did, but only by not protecting her and defending her when it mattered.”

Haversham twisted his mouth to the side while he gave Rowan a hard once-over. It was like he was assessing everything he knew about his character while deciding if he would help him or not. There was a prolonged silence that made Rowan want to throw something at the man, but he waited it out.

“I’m only going to help you because you make her happy. And I don’t mean superficially. I mean that for the first time in the eight years I’ve known her, she’s been happier and more alive than I’ve ever seen her. I know she trusted you more than she’s ever trusted anyone else. More than me, which doesn’t say much considering I think she trusts me as far as she can throw me. But she trusts you more than Sam even.” Finally, he ripped a page from one of the books and began to scrawl across the page until it was nearly full. When he handed it to Rowan, he realized it was a collection of addresses. Some were in the city; some were in other countries. Some were a handful of hours of a drive into nowhere. One was practically around the corner from where they were now.

“What is this?”

“Safehouses. Those are the ones I know about. Celaena has… a lot of secrets. I don’t know even half of them. I have my suspicions about a lot of shit, but I’m letting her come to me with it when she’s ready. So I don’t know all of her safehouses, but I know those ones. Those are the ones she’s let me use in times of trouble. That’s the only help I can really offer you besides calling if I hear from her.”

“Thank you,” Rowan said softly, and he meant it. It was the biggest and only lead that he had on her whereabouts, and even if she wasn’t crashing on a bed in any of these places, it was a start. It was the only hope he had so far that maybe, just maybe… he might find her.

~*~

Rowan had decided to start on the outside and work his way in, and it was wasting a lot of time. Everyone he was friendly with at the bureau was constantly calling and texting to see how he was doing, asking what he was up to. Fenrys told him he’d stopped by his apartment a few times this week, and he hadn’t been home. Rowan replied, saying he was just taking some time to himself, which seemed to satisfy the man, and that had been that.

In reality, Rowan had been in Terrasen trying to find Aelin. She wasn’t in either of the two listed near the border of Adarlan, so now he was slowly working his way back toward Rifthold. It just didn’t seem likely for her to be hiding somewhere in the city, not when she would have to leave for food and other necessities at some point. So he’d gone as far out as he could before making his way back. So far, it had turned up nothing. Both of the cabins he’d visited in the woods had seen better days and likely hadn’t seen Aelin in years.

He was driving toward his fourth destination now, so deep in Oakwald, he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t back in Terrasen at this point. The location pinged on the Adarlanian side of the border, but he had little hope of actually finding her. There were only two safehouses left on the list, and both of them were in the city itself. Would he still check them? Of course. But did he think that she was stupid enough to be there? Absolutely not.

The energy of the place was different as soon as he made it up the drive. Halfway up, a gate that covered the driveway, and Rowan had to abandon his car and hop the fence. It was a bit of a feat, as it was taller than him, and he only had one good arm to use, but he managed. Even if it had taken him three times as long as it usually would have. Feet pounding down against the dirt so hard it caused a small cloud, he proceeded up toward the small cottage with a little more confidence than he’d had the rest of the drive.

Smoke was wafting from the chimney, and a dim glow flickered in the window. The window that a lithe body stood in, peering through the curtains and backlit by the fire. He couldn’t see her face, but he knew it was Aelin, knew he’d been spotted, and knew she was watching. How she had known he’d arrived, he wasn’t sure. Being overcautious her entire life likely meant that there were tripwires that alerted her of his presence somewhere on the driveway.

As he got closer, she disappeared, and the curtains slipped back into place. When he got to the door, he reached out but hesitated for a moment. Aelin clearly didn’t want to be found and was clearly mad at him. What if she did worse than she had the last time they’d seen each other? Part of him thought she wouldn’t, but he hadn’t ever thought she would shoot him, either. Rowan wasn’t sure how many times she had told him she hated guns, but desperate times call for desperate measures, after all.

It took more courage than he cared to admit to turn the knob. Much to his surprise, the door opened, and he slipped inside, shutting it behind him quietly. To be frank, Rowan couldn’t believe his luck. He couldn’t believe he’d managed to find her at all, much less on a list of places that Haversham managed to remember.

As his eyes adjusted to the room, he saw Aelin sitting across the room with a bottle of rum in one hand, balanced on her thigh. She was slumped down a bit in the chair; her hair dyed a muddy reddish-brown color. A dagger was in her other hand, being twisted in circles against her bare leg. Rowan wanted to tell her to stop, that she would hurt herself, but faster than he could register, she was moving. He was stunned further into silence by the whistling of the wind and the slight breeze by his ear. A loud thud had him whipping around to the door.

Embedded in the wood, millimeters from where his head had just been, was the dagger she’d been holding, and when he looked back at Aelin, she was smirking.

[leonardhoee]

I’m so excited that you’re taking requests! May I ask for some Mitsuhide headcanons? Any are fine (although I do love an in-love!Mitsu 👀)! Thank you so much dear!! 💘💞

Omg I was so happy when I got this request cuz Mitsuhide is the LOML. (Also perfect timing cuz I just finished re-reading his route). I’m not sure what kind of headcannons you wanted but I’m just kind of rambling based on the reasons I love him.😂 (+ NSFW)

(Also I wrote these at 3am if there’s any spelling errors pls don’t kill me😭)

Hope you like it!❤️❤️

Tagging: @aurora-morning @writer-akihiko @ikemenvmpire @judgemental-seal @delicateikemenmemes

Mitsuhide is...so incredibly soft. Sometimes when you’re sleeping next to him, he just takes in your beauty and listens to your heartbeat. Knowing you are alive and in his arms, warms his heart more than you could ever know.

He cannot believe that someone who radiates so much love and light would fall for someone like him, but he is eternally grateful that he is blessed enough to have the chance to love you with his entire being.

As much as he teases you, this man LIVES to pamper and please you. Muscle pain after sparring with Kyubei? (Or other activities with Mitsu). Mitsuhide will use his extensive knowledge of the human body to give you the most mindblowing massage you’ve ever had. (And he will equally enjoy hearing your satisfied noises at his touches.)

He is extremely perceptive, especially when it comes to you. If you are upset, or anxious, or in pain, he will know right away without needing to be told and will act accordingly. He will insist on going back to your home and giving you some time away from work so you have a chance to relax with him.

He may be a secretive person but everyone on the Oda Forces knows just how much “Mitsuhide Akechi adores his wife”. He can’t help it, it just slips out. Whether it’s through his words or his actions, everyone in Azuchi knows he only has eyes for you.

Mitsuhide has the utmost respect for you (he chugs his respect women juice daily) and will consider your opinions on his work a great help. There may be some parts of his job that he isn’t allowed to with you. However, 90% of the time he will tell you everything he’s been doing and will ask for your advice.

Sometimes he feels like you know him even better than he knows himself. And he knows that even if the whole world considers him a murderer and amonster, you will always be there to hold him and remind him that you love him and that he is a hero in your eyes.

Even for him, it’s sometimes too much to handle, and on those days he will come and lay down with you, resting his head on your chest as you stroke his hair and allow him to finally rest. He won’t admit it publicly but, being in your arms feels like the safest place in the world for him. He never thought that he would experience the luxury of having such a place to return to after his battles. A true home.

If you like to cook, you better believe Mitsuhide will eat everything you make, regardless of whether he can taste it or not. (He says he doesn’t need to taste the flavor because he can taste the love you put into it.)

He is known for neglecting his basic needs, and while he has gotten better at it ever since you came into his life, his level of self care is still unacceptable.

However, if you come in and insist he take a break because he’s overworking himself, his heart will absolutely just melt at seeing how much you care about him. (Is it the bare minimum? Yes. Has anyone ever taken care of him like that? No.) He is so starved of love and affection that even the most minor things will melt his heart.

Mitsuhide also loves to tease you, just to see your reactions. It’s incredibly entertaining when he whispers a dirty joke to you and smack his arm because “We are in public Mitsuhide.” It amuses him to no end.

He also loves teasing the others with you, and you two make the best pranking team in Azuchi.

You two have increased Hideyoshi’s migraine levels, but he lets it slide after seeing Mitsuhide look so happy for the first time in his life.

Hideyoshi has never seen Mitsuhide smile like that at anyone before, and he’s just glad Mitsu finally has someone to love and depend on. (Though sometimes he wishes that person was him. We’re not gonna unpack all that right now)

Random Headcannon: Modern AU Mitsuhide would be an amazing dancer. Like Michael Jackson type shit.

NSFW Below the Cut

Mitsuhide lives to please you and that translates to the bedroom as well. He is a switch through and through, but he could eat you out for hours. (Lying isn’t the only thing he’s good at using his tongue for).

His favorite place to be is between your thighs with your hand tugging at his hair, bringing his face even closer to your dripping core. You are his priority and he will not partake in his own pleasure until he has seen you come twice at least.

He loves to hear you beg, and will torture you for hours with phantom touches that allow you a small taste of the pleasure he can give. He will leave you desperately wanting more until you are crying his name and begging him to finally take you because you can’t handle any more of his teasing.

It’s truly a game to see how long he can keep his own composure before letting go and loosing himself in mindblowing pleasure. Oh and when he does...when he finally lets himself take you the way he’s been wanting to...you won’t be walking straight the next day.

The expression on your face, and the way you cry out his name with tears of pleasure running down your cheeks when he finally pounds you into the futon send him into ecstasy like he had never known before. He will keep going until your legs are shaking and your voice is hoarse from screaming his name so many times throughout the night.

He has a hidden chest of various toys and ropes, and secretly one of his greatest fantasies is to be tied up, completely at your mercy as you “punish” him for his teasing behavior. Nothing brings him more pleasure than feeling the rope dig into his skin, being unable to move as you teasingly suck him off, stopping right as he gets to the edge. He also loves seeing you ride him, using him as a device for your own pleasure.

Mitsuhide is normally not very loud, however, if you edge him enough, it will break all self control he has as he desperately moans your name and bucks his hips, just to try and finally feel himself buried deep inside you.

Once you free him of his bonds he will immediately flip you over, licking down your chest and throwing your legs over his shoulders as he drills you into whatever surface he decided to rail you on that day.

If you’re not too tired, he will even bathe you himself as he kisses every part of your body telling you how amazingly beautiful you are in the afterglow of your lovemaking.

Afterwards, he pulls you close to his chest and kisses your forehead, as he tells you how much he loves you and how euphoric you make him feel. Nights like these are one of the few times Mitsuhide will fall asleep right away as the languid exhaustion overtakes him.

[meliorist-midoriya]

to you, to the world, to my love (you’re all three)

synopsis: midoriya has always had too much love to give in a world that loved to take. you’re just hoping that he has enough left for you in the end.

pairing: midoriya izuku x reader

genre: fluff with a touch of angst

warnings: some insecurity

word count: 2.5k

notes: happy valentine’s day, everyone! this is my contribution for the pocuties server collab, based off the greek types of love, of which i had the honor of receiving izuku and decided upon agape  please help yourself to the box of chocolates they’re offering for valentine’s, there’s a wide selection of chocolates handmade by talented creators, so i’m sure you’ll find something to your taste! tbh i only managed to finish this fic because i was watching chan’s valentine’s vlive and i was in a super soft mood ;3;

extra: agápe - the ancient greek concept of selfless, universal love.

“Making his debut in the pro hero scene, Pro Hero Deku is blazing a trail straight out of UA—”

“—Pro Hero Deku solved an astounding 30 cases in the past month—”

“Deku’s popularity is skyrocketing, rivaling that of—”

“Hero Deku—”

“Deku—”

“Pro Hero Deku has swept the hero rankings to come out on top as Number 1!”

With a resolute ‘click’ of the remote, the reporters’ overlapping voices cut off as the TV screen faded away, your lonely reflection staring back at you from the blank screen. You, curled up on your empty couch, in your empty apartment with the clock striking what should have been dinner. The TV was only there in an attempt to drown out the crushing silence, the white noise—hellbent on filling the space his presence had left—was deafening.

That attempt failed.

Horribly.

If anything, it just made the sense of wrongness permeating the air even worse. 

(That TV recap of his best moments didn’t help as much as you hoped it would.)

Being alone in this apartment felt… off. As if someone had gouged out what should’ve been there, the ghost of a presence settling a chill into your bones that ran far deeper than just plain loneliness. The foreboding grief of what could be, the fear that you’d resigned yourself to the moment you agreed to follow him on this path, the selfishness gnawing at your conscience every time you saw him run out the door to save the next person, to solve the next case. 

Things like an All Might coffee mug sitting primly next to yours on the drying rack, garishly yellow “tufts” staring back at you with a cracked vengeance. (You’d apologized profusely to him that day, promising to buy him another one. He’d just smiled over his cracked cup of coffee, telling you not to worry about it for the hundredth time.)

Things like his haphazard mess of notes and scrawl spread out on the kitchen counter, the pen sitting next to the half finished page. (You’ve long since learned to leave his notes be, they’ll be tidied up once he’s done… if he’s ever truly done.)

The filled queue of movies and pile of DVDs you’d picked out together, giddy over plans to watch the next time he had a free night. (You remember pretending not to notice him trying to slip another hero documentary near the bottom of the pile, distracting you with talks of popcorn and the night that was supposed to be tonight.)

Deku. The man the world adored, clinging to his promise like a lifeline in times of need. 

Midoriya Izuku. The man you loved, who promised you the world.

“It’ll be okay, I’m here.”

His soft promise echoed both in the battlefield and in your darkest hours, a close mirror to a hero of a generation past, yet it was different. It was his own. Comforting, personal, and wholly him. The public, weak and grasping for new support, latched on to the small sliver of hope his hand offered and he just kept giving, giving, giving. It never seemed to stop, and you were scared. 

He was a man with a bleeding heart with all the love to give and more. To the civilians, to the villains, to anyone in need.

Now, you needed his promise more than ever. A reassurance whispered into reunions and the thousandth hospital visit, over fresh scars and searing kisses. A promise that he would come home. You didn’t want to think of all the times he came so, so close to breaking that promise, even before you two had made it, before you two had even promised yourselves to each other in your UA days.

You pulled the blanket a little tighter around you, staring down at your phone with no real intent in mind as you scrolled. The video playing one of his interview clips (bashfully reciting his “catchphrase,” how cute) cut his voice short as you scrolled past to move on to the next, wincing at the next tweet on your timeline. Him, battered and bloody, as he pulled a child from the aftermath of the battle he’d just won. 

You still need to wrap that new mug you got him as a gift. You still had to listen to him bounce his ideas off of you. You still had to move that hero documentary to the top of the pile. You still—

“Hero Deku saves 30 people, no casualties,” A soft murmuring of the headline shattered the silence, and you smiled to yourself, giggling at all the replies joking of how he threw himself into the fray a little more responsibly and singing their praises.

It’ll be okay.

“Ugh, those reporters are at it again.” 

At your best friend’s exasperated groan, you followed their gaze over to see— ah. 

A small swarm of reporters had worked their way into the fans crowding your boyfriend, their press badges reading every tabloid magazine on this side of the city and prying questions falling off their tongue like poison. From what you could hear over their overlapping clamoring, they were trying to dig into his private life.

Again. 

Deku, the darling of the masses, all sweet smiles and sincere words amidst his strength. Deku, the number one hero with the tightest lock on his private life, which came as a surprise to both everyone and no one.

It was a given, considering his position at the peak of hero society.

It was also a complete shock, considering his tendency to ramble into tangents that had his PR team withering.

Which seemed to help in times like these, now that you thought about it, laughing to yourself as you watched the reporters’ expressions darken in defeat the longer he continued to talk around their questions. Quite a long stretch from stiffly standing on the practice stage at UA all those years ago, frozen from nerves. You idly mused to this to yourself, taking a sip of your drink as you dragged your gaze back over to your best friend.

“Did you choose this cafe because it’s right along Izuku’s patrol route?” They stiffened, and you couldn’t help but laugh at their obvious intentions.

“Maybe, or it could’ve been just a coincidence.” The next teasing jab was halfway off your tongue when they cut you off before you could give into the urge, the words dying in your throat. “When was the last time you saw him anyway? I know you two live together but Todoroki told me he practically lives at the agency with how swamped they are. Are you okay?”

You purse your lips, staring down at the ice swirling around in your cup as you idly stirred it round. As if the sloshing liquid could whisper the answer you wish you knew.

“...Yeah.” They cocked a brow, and you took another sip to try and delay your time. “It’s not like either of us can help it. Izuku’s number one, so this was bound to happen.”

(The clamoring from the reporters grew ever louder. Persistent, that bunch.)

Their expectant (doubting) gaze was met with your own steady one, and you smiled. Whether it was out of consolation or resignation was anyone’s guess.

“We’re okay, I promise.”

You should really be getting to sleep. 

Really, you should.

At least, that’s what you’ve been telling yourself for the past several hours, tossing and turning in your bed with nothing but winter-cold sheets and a gnawing loneliness to keep you company. You know you should be sleeping when the clock on the bedside table reads an ungodly hour and there was work to be done in the morning. You know you should be sleeping when the moon disappears from the night sky and leaves you with nothing but the city lights to dimly illuminate the dark room.

You really know you should be sleeping when you hear the front door click open, Izuku shuffling around the apartment to get ready for whatever minimal amount of sleep he’d get before he had to be up and running soon after.

Despite this, sleep still refuses to come, and you don’t bother pretending to be asleep when he slides into bed next to you. Instead, you turn over and curl into his chest, stifling the guilt that bubbles up when he jumps in surprise.

“Something keeping you up?” Oh, he sounds so tired, and part of you wishes you could just make it all go away. The weight of the world rests heavy on his shoulders, and deep down, you wonder if you’re part of that burden. You curl a little closer, as if trying to smother the thoughts that crashed upon you, spilling over the crack in the dam that only widened the more you spoke.

“Jus’ a little lonely, is all.” Your voice is too quiet, brittle, and you pray to every deity that would listen that he would drop it. That he wouldn’t take on yet another burden when he was already carrying Altas’s share of the world.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Of course, the gods are hardly ever so merciful—to them you are just another wishful mortal in the realm of the holy and damned—and Izuku’s hand rests on your cheek with a tenderness that makes you want to cry.

“...Why?” 

The confusion that falls over his expression (gaunt, tired, and God, should you even be doing this right now?) is immediate, and he tilts your face up to meet his gaze with yours, like he could find the answer in city lights dancing over your face. His thumb strokes soft patterns over your cheek—as if brushing off the layers you’d built to protect your soul—and you lean into his soft touch with a sigh.

“Why what?”

The words spill from your lips unbidden, your hesitations softened by the comfort of his touch, the sudden drowsiness, and the emotion that near overwhelms you.

“Why do you still try to do everything yourself? When there’s so many people out there, ready to support you?” His breath hitches in shock, but it’s too late to go back now. You reach up to hold the hand cradling your cheek, distantly remembering a time when he was too insecure of his scarred and crooked hands to even hold your hand.

He’s come a long way, indeed.

“I love you, Izuku. I just don’t know if that can hold up against your love for the world.” 

Something in his gaze softens, to your surprise. His smile is even softer.

“What would you do if you’re both?”

“Wh— Izuku—”

He continues, and you listen, raptured by his words spoken into the glow of the blue hour.

“Yes, I know that at the end of the day, peace and safety has to come first, but—” His smile widens into something bashful, a smile that never failed to send butterflies scattering through your heart. “—who says you can’t be right along with them?” 

He bumped his forehead with yours, smiling emerald eyes gazing into your own with such love—dizzying and overpowering and so, so warm. With the steady thrum of your heartbeat matching his, you found yourself falling even deeper once again.

“You know me, I can never compromise when it comes to what’s important to me.”

You laugh, something watery, as he presses a kiss to your forehead, temple, cheek, with a last, smiling kiss on your lips.

“How greedy.” He laughs into your lips, pulling away to hold you closer.

“Just for you.”

There’s so many things you could’ve said, as you watched the rest of the night sky fade into the deep blues of dawn. But, you decide, the comforting silence was best left as is, only broken by one resounding comfort.

It’ll be okay.

“You know, it would’ve been nice to know that you had taken the day off before I had that whole guilt spiral last night.”

“It turned out okay though, didn’t it?” He turned back to flash you that cheeky grin of his, half-hidden by his winter coat and backed by the glow of the setting sun. You just rolled your eyes with a laugh before jogging to catch up to him, slipping you hand out of your pocket to interlace your fingers with his.

“Yeah, it did.” 

The walk was silent as you two strolled down the familiar path, winding down after a whole day spent with each other. It was romantic of him, now that you thought about it, to take the whole Valentine’s Day off just for you. You hummed as you leaned onto him, giddy and content at the thought. 

In love, if you were to be so bold.

(Granted, he had to wear a mask and a cap the entire time to hide from the prying eyes of the public, but you made do.)

The sight of aged, familiar scenery pulled you from your musings, and you tugged at his hand to grab his attention, pointing at the quaint bench surrounded by bare gingko trees.

“Hey, wasn’t this the park where you confessed?” At your words, he froze and glanced over at the familiar scenery, eventually burying his face into his free hand with a groan once the old memories clicked in his head.

“Oh, don’t remind me. It’s still embarrassing to look back on.”

“What? I thought you were cute!” You laughed, nudging him to follow as you led him over to the small park, brushing off the dust to sit on the bench before patting the space next to you. Izuku obliged, and you almost automatically curled into his side, as if by habit.

“Did we really walk all the way here from the station?” His disbelieving tone made you look up at him, his expression one of nostalgic awe, before casting your attention back to the aged scenery, humming in agreement as you idly picked out what’s changed and what’s stayed in the years that have passed.

“I guess we never really forget, huh?”

“I forgot the sunset looked the best from here.”

“I hope you didn’t forget all the memories we made here.” He tore his attention from the sunset to gape down at you, scandalized.

“Of course not!” 

“Really?” He arched a brow at the teasing lilt to your voice and the mischievous grin playing at your lips, “So you didn’t forget accidentally firing an Air Force shot at me when we first met because you were training?”

He buried his face in his hands again with another embarrassed groan.

“I hoped you would forget that, at least!” You just laughed, hugging him closer as if to console him from your teasing. Before long, the atmosphere settled back into a quiet reminiscence, indulging in the nostalgia of memories past in this little park. The silence that was once deafening alone, now softened by the comfort of his presence at your side.

“We’ve made so many memories in this park, huh?” At your soft hum of agreement, he continued. Was his voice shaking? “It wouldn’t hurt to make more, would it?”

“What do you me—”

Your question cut itself short as you saw what he held out to you. 

A little velvet box, sitting open in his hand. You dragged your suddenly watery gaze back up to Izuku, his once bashful smile now wobbly with nerves. 

So familiar in this little park, yet so new.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”

It was just a small walk down memory lane, the street lights blinking on one by one in the wake of the fiery sunset as you two walked the familiar path together. Yet there was something buzzing anew in the air, humming through your soul as you held out your hand to the sun, admiring the way the gem on your ring finger sparkled in the fading sunset. In the other, you interlaced your fingers with his.

Yeah… 

You caught Izuku’s soft gaze, smiling and in love.

We’ll be okay.

[ballgame]

Okay so I had a really weird Deltarune dream last night

So in the dream I was talking to someone about the game because I was planning to write about the game's story for school. They were also a fan and they mentioned to me that a new secret had been found in the game, sort of a Snowgrave-esque alternate path. I decided to check it out on my own via a set of instructions.

So what you had to do is play Ch. 2 with a Dark Candy carried over into your inventory from your Ch. 1 playthrough, I know this isn't possible in the actual game but in the dream a single Dark Candy will carry over if you had any. I don't think it could be done if you simply bought one from Seam in Castle Town but who knows honestly.

So you'd have to keep that Dark Candy in your inventory until the Sweet Cap'n Cakes fight, where you'd have to let Kris be downed. That's where the events of the game diverge, instead of Susie and Ralsei doing the actions upon their own accord they'll have the same conversation but you the player will have to select the S and R-Actions for them from the get-go. Instead of continuing the battle normally, use the battle turn to give Ralsei the Dark Candy. He'll deny it at first, saying he doesn't want it (since Kris is downed is he talking to the Player?) but you only need to command him to eat it a second time for him to accept it. He does so and one of two things will happen. In the dream I performed the same actions twice with no differences in my steps but got these two separate outcomes for reasons I do not know, I was confused even in the dream.

The first outcome has the screen go dark with the other sprites disappearing and Ralsei's sprite moving to the middle of the screen. Sort of reminiscent of Chara's appearance at the end of Undertale's No Mercy route. He'll perform a special eating animation and then his sprite changes, no animation for that I think it just switches abruptly. He turns into this orange guy, sort of knight-ish looking with maybe wings and a tail? Either a classic devil or dragon motif for sure. A name flashes above his head, sadly I cannot remember what it was but I assume that was the name of whoever he turned into. I'm keen to call him Avalon or something like that. He thanks Kris (maybe the Player?) for doing that, his "voice" in this form is much deeper further signifying that he's outright turned into a different person. Maybe this is supposed to be his true form?

The second outcome is practically the same but what happens to Ralsei after he eats the Dark Candy is different. His sprite will start to distort, like different pixels blown up or rotated or something. Not your typical glitch effect, more like Ralsei's body is literally supposed to be shifting like it's made out of goo. He doesn't actually end up changing that much though, he simply ends up in a new outfit. Something similar to what Spamton and Mystery Man wear. He once again thanks Kris/Player, but this time he explicitly thanks them for "freeing" him.

I don't know what happens after either outcome, I stopped playing the game immediately after both tries so I guess the game just shuts down or something. Also, for reasons unknown I was doing all of this on a laptop while sitting in a bathtub and when I finished the bathtub had filled up a bit and some tadpoles were swimming around in the water, both at different stages in development. Dream me assumed that somehow the game did that.

[tenthgrove]

can i order a uhhhh... a hc scenario with la squadra members where s/o is kidnapped by a rival gang/syndicate no matter if s/o is a stand user or not? you don't have to do all the members if you don't want to c:

La Squadra rescues their beloved

La Squadra (separate) x Reader, Romantic, SFW

They left this morning with menial business. A hit, no complicating factors, minimal difficulty. There was no cause for concern in leaving you to watch the base. You relaxed on the sofa, content in the promise of a date that night and unaware of the figures creeping towards you from behind. Maybe if you had known what was happening, you could have saved yourself, but even the most powerful stand users in Passione are useless when knocked out. The intruders dragged your unconscious body out the window and into the trunk of the waiting car. If their intel on you was correct, the weight of your loss would immobilize the assassins for days. If only they knew the lengths your love would go to to bring you back.

Formaggio- There’s no way to beat around the bush. Formaggio panics. While he doesn’t doubt the capacity of his team to break you out, that relies on them actually knowing where you are. And that’s going to take hours of slow, excruciating investigation. Formaggio doesn’t have time for that! His baby’s life is on the line! But then, the young man bearing the conditions of your release arrives at the hideout, and Formaggio gets an idea. They aren’t going to comply with the terms, but they aren’t going to take Ghiaccio’s idea of just killing the agent and his escorts either. Instead, as Risotto is sending them on their way, Formaggio slips himself into the agent’s bag. How kind of the man to give him a ride all the way back to the enemy’s hideout! Once there, Formaggio shrinks himself further to the size of a keyhole, and slips his way through doors until he reaches the dingy room you’re being kept in. He crawls into your lap and nudges you to wake up. You’re amazed and overjoyed, and spare no delay in letting him shrink you down as well so you can sneak out together. Your captors will never know what happened! After a couple days of recuperation, the two of you will be sure to return with the rest of the team to give the group who took you their payback. Formaggio wants them to know what happens to anyone who hurts his beloved, and he’s going to make sure the two of you have fun doing it.

Illuso- Illuso’s first concern is to balance the dangers of busting in to save you without adequate planning, with the dangers of leaving you alone too long. Fortunately, Illuso’s stand is perfect for observation without risk of being spotted, so it’s easy for him to spy on the enemy syndicate’s associates and follow the right leads until he finds you. Taking a prisoner from La Squadra di Esecuzione has everyone in the syndicate talking, so it’s only a matter of hours until Illuso collects the information he needs to find you. With that sorted, Illuso seeks you out and pulls you into the safety of the mirror world immediately so you can’t be harmed, but then, he’s going to fuck with your captors. The doors are barred from the outside and they find their colleagues disappearing one by one until suddenly, the hallways start to look wrong. It’s as though the layout of the building has been flipped somehow. Then they see the laughing figure approach them, and they know it’s too late. You watch this all go down from the safety of behind Illuso, content to watch your captors cower like children as your boyfriend avenges your imprisonment.

Prosciutto- For a day, there is silence. The success of their plan is almost surprising to your captors, who fully expected at least one reprisal from La Squadra by now. They’re ready to present the terms of your safe return when, another shock, Prosciutto beats them to it. He phones them up. In exchange for your safety, he promises to switch sides. Your captors are floored. He’s actually willing to take their deal without them even needing to hurt you? Perhaps he won’t be worth much to them at all if he’s this spineless! Nonetheless, they agree to a meet up. Prosciutto can come, but he has to come alone and with no weapons. They’re fully aware his stand is indiscriminate, so if they bring you to the meet-up, the risk of hurting you would render him powerless. Surely. When the meet up begins it seems Prosciutto has kept to his word. He is alone, free of any weapons and carrying nothing but a suitcase of ransom money to smooth things over. Everything goes as expected and you find yourself staring dumbstruck as Prosciutto so willingly signs away his loyalty to Passione. Finally, Prosciutto hands the leader of the enemy suitcase the briefcase. A token of goodwill, he assures him. The leader unlocks the latch and opens the case, and is hit by a wave of cold air. The case is packed with nothing but bags of ice. Your heart leaps. “(Y/N)! CATCH!” Prosciutto yells, ripping the suitcase back from the mobster’s hands and tossing it at you. As the confused mobsters try to make sense of what is going on, Prosciutto summons his stand and begins its deadly effect. You hurriedly stuff the ice bags down your clothes to save yourself, but nobody around you is in any state to make the connection. One by one, they wither and fall. Grateful Dead snaps into nothingness and Prosciutto lends you a hand, helping you to your feet.

Pesci- You’d think he’d freeze up. You’d think he would become paralysed and indecisive with the fear of losing you. But no. When Pesci realises what has happened to you, all he can feel is anger. Anger and resolve. He sits down immediately and begins compiling everything that is known about the group that took you, having no qualms with ordering about anyone who volunteers to help him. Within a couple of hours he knows where you most likely are and has a concrete plan to get you out. And yes, it involves a lot of blood. Pesci will accept help in getting you back, as he knows it increases your chances, but he still wants to be the one to avenge the wrongs against you. Make no mistake that Risotto and Prosciutto are only there for support. The unprepared kidnappers have no chance against Beach Boy, when Pesci’s insecurities are completely buried under an overwhelming desire to be back in your arms. The battle is over in minutes and Pesci is holding you tight, muttering that he’ll never let anyone harm you again. Prosciutto is proud of him, as are you.

Melone- Now this is somewhat fortunate. With your permission, Melone collected some of your DNA a while ago in case you ever became useful as an emergency mother or father for his stand. He doesn’t make a habit of tracking you, but with your profile saved to Baby Face’s memory he can activate that ability whenever he wishes, and have your location in a matter of minutes. Deciding that with your life on the line, there isn’t time for him to take the lengthy route of creating a junior to attack your captors, he calls on the help of the rest of the team to break you out by force. But even with Risotto or Ghiaccio leading the attack, Melone will still ask to come along just to be reunited with you all the sooner. He’s going to be at his absolute best in taking care of you after you’re safe, making sure you’re unharmed and reassuring you with his attention. In terms of revenge, Melone would like to see you take your own against your captors. If any were taken alive, he wants to see you make them pay.

Ghiaccio- There’s no sense of hesitation as Ghiaccio speeds out the front door the second he realises what happened. It’s a good thing that La Squadra already has some knowledge of the group that took you, because Ghiaccio’s going to make up his plan as he goes along. All he can think about is having you safe and alive, and those thoughts possess him as he goes from place to place, tearing up every known haunt of the syndicate holding you captive until he finds you. When he finally arrives at the correct place, your capturers know to expect him. They’ve increased their security to the max until there’s a veritable army present to greet him at the door. But it’s no match for White Album. Nothing is. Ghiaccio doesn’t stop running when he gets to you. He carries you in his arms at full speed all the way home, terrified of any small injury you might have gained. Your close-call will leave him shaken, and he’ll guard you very closely for a long time. However, there won’t be any talks of revenge. After Ghiaccio’s rampage, there is nobody in the enemy syndicate left to pursue.

Risotto- A darkness falls over Risotto’s eyes when he finds you missing. His mind is filled with regret- regret for not following up on this new enemy sooner and regret for leaving you alone while the rest of them went out. But the time for remorse will come later. Now, he’s going to get you out. He scowers his contacts for clues as to your whereabouts, and he’s not afraid to threaten anyone he suspects of being compliant with your capture to find out what he needs to know. Anyone in the building when Risotto arrives might as well already be dead; he’s not showing mercy to any of them. After ensuring your safety, Risotto has no need to finish things quickly, so your captors will be subject to slow, agonising deaths courtesy of Metallica. Risotto believes strongly in principles of revenge, so he invites you to take the finishing blows if you so wish. Once the enemy hideout is coated wall to wall in crimson, Risotto wordlessly picks you up, regardless of whether you’re hurt, and carries you home. He takes you to your shared room and cradles you gently until morning comes.

Sorbet and Gelato- When the team discovers what has happened Sorbet and Gelato share a silent, all-telling look. They disappear to their room shortly after and anyone who passes can hear the distinct noise of weapons being moved around and loaded. They leave the information gathering to those more suited, but as soon as your location is known they emerge from their room armed to the teeth, announcing that they’ll be leaving right this second regardless of who will be joining them. They ram down the gates of the enemy hideout with a car, before bursting in, firing off their guns at whoever is unfortunate enough to be near. Gelato keeps everyone occupied at the front of the house, while Sorbet takes the mildly more stealthy route to seek you out. When they find you, you’re struck by the fact they seem almost gleeful to be presented with the opportunity for such bloodshed. But make no mistake, they’re absolutely furious. Never have either of them had to deal with one of their lovers threatened to this extent. Like Risotto, they’ll be looking to make your kidnappers suffer, but it won’t be over so quickly for them. They’ll be dragging the worst offenders home, to be subject to their torment for however long they please. The rest of La Squadra knows better than to ask questions. When they aren’t down in the basement getting revenge against those who hurt them, they’ll be sandwiching you between them on the bed or the sofa, whispering words of affection into your ear. You’ll be lucky if they let you get up any time this year.

[emilia3546]

Shadowsinger Part 21 - Gwynriel

ACOSF Spoilers! Do Not read this unless you have finished ACOSF and the Azriel bonus chapter*

Masterlist with all previous chapters

*****

Gwyn shuffled on her feet, readjusting her skirt, and silently cursed it for being in the way, she could still fight, but not as well as usual, and she'd lose precious seconds reaching for the dagger sheathed at her thigh. Azriel stood beside her, his shadows nowhere to be seen, either spread out around them to be unnoticeable, or hidden in the cloak around Gwyn's shoulders, her protests that she didn't need them having fallen on deaf ears.

"You okay?" He murmured, and she nodded,

"Just a bit nervous, I'll be alright once this first contact is over," because she could still fall at the first hurdle, Evanna had warned them that they would be scrutinized before being allowed in, even if they claimed to support the Illyrian rebellion. She stifled a smile when Azriel squeezed her fingers, their joined hands hidden beneath her cloak, but it was still a risk, they weren't supposed to be in love, she was supposed to be what the Illyrian would expect of a traditional warrior's wife, and a traditional warrior would never display affection so casually, possession yes, but not affection. If he were in love with his wife, which was rare, he'd still only display affection in private, just to maintain his image, it was one of the more ridiculous customs, Gwyn never thought more of someone than when they allowed others to see their heart. The palace doors opened and Gwyn squeezed Azriel's hand back before letting go and reluctantly dropping her gaze to the floor.

"Gavin was it, of the Skybreath Illyrian camp?" A rather young-looking man shouted from the open door,

"Indeed," Azriel replied, not shouting, but clearly making himself heard, "And my wife, Amirah," Gwyn suppressed a smile at the sound of the name that Azriel's mother had chosen, what she would have named him had he been a girl.

"We have no records of others from your supposed camp," the man's tone was low, dangerous,

"That's probably because they're all pathetic cowards who fear the repercussions of standing up for our people, ask anyone you want, I can wait, I've waited long enough for this chance, don't be the reason I lose it," Azriel matched the man's tone, but without shouting, he sounded altogether more dangerous, and Gwyn almost looked up at the feel of the man's gaze on her, fighting to keep her eyes lowered, her attention on observing the guards, the way their protocols were carried out.

"Fine. If we find out that you're lying, you're dead,"

"Good luck with that," Azriel's hand warmed her lower back, "Come on, I'll see who's made it here, then I want to find a bedchamber readied for us," Gwyn forced herself to start forwards, her bones screaming out at her for pretending to be afraid of him when she nodded, but stayed beside him when a guard moved towards them, pressing into his side at the first attempt to grab at her, "What?" Gwyn kept her frightened gaze on the guard, "Get your filthy hands off my wife," he snarled, an arm wrapping around her waist, reassuring for Gwyn, she was doing well, but to anyone else it was a display of possessiveness at a threat. "She stays with me until we reach our bedchamber, I like to know where she is, who she's with." He didn't even bother to veil the threat in his eyes when Gwyn looked up, keeping the guise of fear as she pressed against him, shying away from the guards, and allowed her gaze to dart around, marking who they were, how many of them there were, where they were posted, how alert they were. She ducked her head, following Azriel as they were led through the palace. It was just as they'd expected, with no-one taking notice of Gwyn, except to occasionally ask Azriel who she was, and then to ignore her and speak only to him, allowing her to memorize the palace, its routes, its staff, all while pretending to be quiet and unassuming.

She didn't want to watch Azriel walk away once they'd reached an empty bedchamber, didn't want to see him walking towards the enemy, all it took was one Illyrian who was high enough rank to have seen him, all it took was one recognition, and they'd try and kill him. Still, she couldn't tear her gaze away, only just remembering to make it appear that she was scared for herself, and wanted his protection, not that she was worried for him. Once he'd vanished from sight, Gwyn shot one more frightened look at the guards in the corridor and bolted herself inside the room.

Right, she did have to get the room set up, no-one was coming to do that for her, but that would take maximum half an hour, it wasn't like they exactly had luggage to unload, and then, it was a little after midday now, she'd have a few hours before dinner could be expected. Still, she was stuck in this room for now at least, she could make the most of it.

The notebook tucked into her gown wasn't big enough for every detail, not if she wanted it to last long enough, but she noted down all she'd picked up on guard movements, positions, who was alert, who was bored. It wasn't enough, she'd make a point to have Azriel find some other females to 'keep her from boredom' who she could help with palace tasks, laundry, cleaning, the Illyrians made their females do the chores at home, why not here? She'd be all over the palace that way, easily able to pick up information, it'd hopefully make their stay shorter, hopefully help with preventing a full-on civil war.

*****

Azriel couldn't dare glance over his shoulder to Gwyn, where she was undoubtedly waiting by the door to their bedchamber, even with every part of him screaming not to leave her with those people, to go back to her. He listened to what the male beside him was saying, he'd seen him before at Ironcrest, from a distance, and he was probably the highest-ranking males here, being involved in training and organisation of Ironcrest's warriors, he could be a headache later.

"Where did you find her?"

"Find who?"

"That pretty little wife of yours, I must say you're a lucky male with that one, I'd love to know what she'd feel like on my-" the male didn't get a chance to finish his sentence, breaking off with a choked gasp as Azriel slammed him against the wall, a hand curling around his throat, pure death shining in his eyes. "Whoa, calm down, I'm sorry, I wasn't gonna do anything,"

"I sure as fuck hope not," Azriel snarled, still not releasing him, fighting the urge to end him then and there, unable to shake the image of the last male who'd thought such things about Gwyn. "Touch her and it'll be last thing you ever do," the smaller male paled at the threat,

"I swear, I won't, I was saying she's beautiful," she was beautiful, but the way he'd said it, it wasn't a compliment, if Azriel hadn't reacted, maybe he would have tried something, gods, maybe someone else would. He wasn't supposed to care to like that,

"She's mine, understand?" He added, covering his tracks, the reaction was supposed to just be possessiveness, not him actually caring for her wellbeing, he wasn't supposed to be worried about that.

"Yeah, I got it," the other male was still panting when Azriel released him, "Sorry, dude, I didn't mean it like that,"

"Yes, you did, but I'm a merciful male, if you never speak of her like that again, I'll let it slide, she is beautiful, but she's mine." The male nodded,

"Noted," and took a deep breath before continuing to explain the set-up, "You're the only one from Skybreath, bunch of cowards, so we'll probably attach you to another camp, for numbers' sake, those bastards do have the advantage in that department, and they have the High Lord, and 'High Lady'," he snorted at the mention of Feyre, "But we can trust the humans to help with that,"

"How? They're fucking powerful,"

"Yeah, but they're just as susceptible to ash and faebane as the rest of us, I'd wager that they're not still taking that damned antidote. Then again, the higher-ups think we could simply kidnap their son and use him to get them to give in, but I'd like a good fight anyway, and y'know someone might end up just killing the brat, then we'd be in deep shit." Oh yes, if they harmed one hair on Nyx's head, Rhys alone was likely to simply mist the entirety of their armies before any battle, and that was if he were safety returned, at the latest, the day after he was taken, if it were longer, or if Nyx were harmed, there would be no safe place in this world for those responsible.

"Probably a bad idea that," Azriel mused,

"I'd reckon you're right, the bleeding hearts want to regain our loyalty, they'll just try and obliterate us if we hurt the boy," Azriel grunted in agreement, dropping the conversation when they turned a corner, the corridor opening into a wide chamber, filled with brawling Illyrians, a temporary training ring, not bad. He ran his gaze across the crowd, there was no-one likely to recognize him, but he still wouldn't draw attention to himself, even if wearing two siphons might do just that, but he couldn't risk it with only one, not with Gwyn here as well. He nodded a quick greeting to anyone who bothered to acknowledge him, his mind still racing. He'd have to find a way to make sure that Gwyn wasn't ever left completely on her own, if just one other male had a similar thought to the one beside him, and if he wasn't there, if she couldn't get her dagger drawn in time, he didn't want to finish that thought.

The Illyrians were well organised, not to the same degree as the loyal armies back home, but they could present a threat, especially if it was true that they were to be armed with ash and faebane. The leaders eventually decided to attach 'Gavin' to one of the smaller camps, where he'd be able to adjust more easily, where, Azriel noted with a hint of satisfaction, it would be easy to gain their trust. He made his way across the room to where his new 'comrades' were taking a break,

"Hey look, looks like they've given us the latecomer," Azriel's attention snapped to the male who'd spoken, dark hair cropped close to his skull, blue eyes, that was rare for an Illyrian, he smiled and offered his hand, "Nathan," Azriel took the proffered hand,

"Gavin, from Skybreath,"

"Oh, I was wondering if anyone would bother coming from Skybreath," Nathan chuckled, "Braver than the rest then?"

"Or more stupid," Azriel chuckled, "I've been waiting a long time for this,"

"As have we all, brother," Azriel resisted the urge to snap at him not to call him that, but forced himself to smile, to join in the conversation, and to not beat the shit out of all of them when they reclaimed a spot in the training ring. "How the fuck did you get your hands on a second siphon?" Nathan's observational skills left much to be desired, but it was wishful thinking to hope that he wouldn't notice at all, especially when Azriel had just pinned him to the mats.

"I needed it,"

"Fuck. We got a powerful one here, boys," chuckles surrounded them, and Nathan rolled his eyes as one of the others drawled,

"We know, idiot! That's why you're the only one stupid enough to fight him," another male laughed,

"He's probably some high born lord, or something,"

"Are you?" Nathan's eyes were shining with curiosity, something fairly rare for Illyrians, but he did seem young, untested, perhaps he had no idea what he was getting into, but Azriel had learned the hard way not to bother with the benefit of the doubt,

"Not really, my mother died a while back, and my father was your bog-standard warrior, nothing special really, he got killed in a border dispute a few decades ago, guess I just got lucky, the Mother likes me maybe," he shrugged, "It certainly helped on the way over here, since no one else came with us, it was just me and my wife, and she's not much help with fighting, y'know," chuckled from everyone, including Nathan,

"She clipped?"

"Who do you think I am? Of course," Azriel's temper flared up again at the approving nods from around him, only Nathan looked uncomfortable,

"You did it?"

"What? No, when she was young, like everyone else, but it did mean that I had to carry her here, which was a pain,"

"Still, bet you found a good one, being all powerful and shit,"

"Yeah, I'll have to go fetch her before we leave for dinner, I left her in our bedchamber, she'll want food," each word hit him in the core, even if none of it was true, the idea that this was normal to these people made him want to scream, but he guided the conversation back to the war, to what he needed to hear, even with his mind continually drifting back to Gwyn.

*****

Footsteps outside had Gwyn shoving the notebook back into her dress,

"Amirah!" She rushed to the door, keeping her eyes down in case Azriel wasn't alone, he wasn't, and someone let out a huff,

"Shit, how the fuck did you leave her all day?" One of the males beside him chuckled, "We'll see you in a bit," Azriel nodded and stepped past Gwyn into the room,

"You okay?" She mumbled, just loud enough for him to hear, and he nodded,

"I hate this, I have to pretend that I'm not hopelessly in love with you," Gwyn's stupid, faithless heart fluttered in her chest at those words, ignoring the way Azriel's eyes were dark, tired,

"Hey," she muttered, "It's okay, I know it's not true," Azriel's head snapped towards the door,

"Shit," he muttered, "They're still there, they're listening in, they won't have heard, but," Gwyn narrowed her eyes, and her eyes widened at the realization,

"They want to listen?"

"Moan, now, or they'll think something's up," he was right,

"I don't know what to do," she whispered, a feeling of true fear descending upon her, they'd gotten in, gotten embedded and he stupid, foolish fears were going to get them discovered, gods she was really useless,

"Hey, Gwyn," Azriel tipped her chin upwards, swiping his thumb across her cheek, "Just make any sound, you can't do it wrong, we don't actually need to do anything, just make them think we are,"

"But why? I don't get it,"

"They're all horny shits, and they've seen how fucking gorgeous you are. I've been away from you all day, they'll expect me to want certain things upon reuniting with you," oh, she knew what he meant, but just one day? That was surely excessive, but she nodded, and kissed him gently,

"I don't think I can just do it on command, kiss me, and then we'll see," she looped her arms around his neck, and did moan at the first brush of his lips against her neck, her head falling backwards so that Azriel had to hold her up, she moaned again, and he groaned at the feel of her lips against his, deliberately chucking his jacket aside so it made a loud thunk on the floor. Gwyn pressed her fingers against Azriel's lips, waiting, footsteps, they were really alone now,

"I'm sorry about that," Azriel muttered,

"What are you talking about? Kissing you is wonderful,"

"But I don't want you to think that you have to, even if it's for keeping our cover,"

"I didn't, it was just a chance to kiss you, and it was helpful to convince those others, but if I didn't want to I wouldn't have," she chuckled, "Are you sure you're okay?" Azriel collapsed onto the bed, dragging her with him with a yelp,

"I'm okay, just worried,"

"Worried?"

"About you. One of the males who showed me around made a comment that I didn't appreciate, and I doubt you would have done,"

"Did he seem like he wanted to act on that comment?" Gwyn stomach churned, and she glanced around the room, marking the locked door and windows. Azriel stiffened, realizing that she immediately knew what he was referring to,

"Not once I'd dealt with him, but all takes is one, I don't want you to have to deal with that, especially when I can't be with you, you might be on your own and," he took in a deep breath, "I just worry about what could happen if someone tries somehting,"

"I'm never on my own, Az," a shadow danced around her, "If I need to, I can fight with or without my dagger, and I want to find out what the other Illyrian females are doing here, there must be others,"

"There are," Azriel admitted, "They do the chores and stuff, help making and adjusting leathers and armor,"

"I can do that," Gwyn said, "It'll give me a chance to speak to them, to learn things that the males might overlook, and to simply be in the palace, invisible. I can 'get lost' and find my way to restricted areas, the queens' offices perhaps," Azriel pursed his lips together, but she was right, she knew he was, and no matter how much he wanted her to be safe, he knew that too,

"You're right, I know that, I just wish you didn't have to do it by yourself,"

"I know, but that's going to be how we have to work here, now," she twisted in his lap, "Tell me everything you found out today."