#I don’t see why they’d want to make a live action version if they’re just going to remake the animation 100%

[sapphicsaints]

that's when she knew she lost her

Tamar Kir-Bataar x f!Reader

Word count: ~3.4k

Warnings: Character death

A/N: This is based on the books! nsfw version here

Summary: She saw the look in Tamar's eyes when the Sun Summoner took her second amplifier, and that's when she knew she lost her. Not that she was hers to keep in the first place.

Kostya’s wind carries her, and she lands on deck with a thud grunting before rolling out of the line of fire, breathing out a sigh of relief. She made it off the whaler, back on the volkvolny. Her relief is short-lived as Tamar yells, “He’s up.”

The Darkling’s shadow monsters rise up from the deck of the old whaler. She curses but takes position, listening for Sturmhond’s whistles and orders. The next minutes go by in a blur, she doesn’t have time to think, no time to mourn, just barely enough time to breathe and take the next action. Her hands move rapidly to manipulate the water surrounding them. 

She collapses in exhaustion once they’re out of range, she notices there’s only two tidemakers left, including her. The others must’ve been up on the rigging. 

Her breaths come heavy, but her skin is glowing with the tell-tale flush that comes with using her powers. Her back is up against the rails, the cool metal digging into her spine, when Tamar leans up next to her. Her hand clasps her shoulder. 

“I’m glad that's done.” She says. 

Y/n turns to look at her, “Thanks the saints. I never want to see him again. Maybe his dead body.”  

“Maybe we’ll get that lucky.” 

“It’ll take more than luck.” She mumbles. Tamar’s arm wraps around her shoulders, pulling her into a hug. The action feels strange after so many weeks without any contact, but her arms wrap around her lower back, pressing herself into her. Tamar always runs hot, and her heat is welcoming this time. 

“We’ll celebrate later.” She says, her voice low enough so only y/n can hear. Her cheeks flush pink and her heart beats rapidly, the promise is enough to make her nerves tingle. She remembers the last time they ‘celebrated’ together.  

Flashback

They’d finally dropped the last of the slavers they’d captured off in Kerch and set sail again. Tamar practically dragged her back to their room and she was laughing the entire way. The laughter stopped when the door shut behind her, her body slammed into it. Her eyes widened and she bit her bottom lip out of nerves. Tamar’s thumb brushed lightly across her lip, tugging it free from the bite. Y/n’s eyes gaze to the floor, nerves starting to get the best of her. Tamar’s thumb presses under her chin, tilting her head up so their eyes will meet. 

“Are you nervous?” she asks

“No.” She replies a little too quickly, and grimaces, remembering Tamar can always tell when she’s lying. “Maybe a little.” 

“Why?” 

Y/n sighs, her palms coming up to rub at her eyes. “I don’t know.” Tamar tugs her hands away, and pulls her away from the door, yanking her flush against her chest, moving them towards the middle of the small room. Her breath catches and she freezes. Slowly she moves her arms so they’re wrapped gently around Tamar’s shoulders. She studies every inch of her face, but still avoids eye contact. 

“Look at me.” Tamar’s tone tells her it isn’t a question. She tears her eyes up from her lips to meet hers. “You’re fine. We don’t have to do anything tonight. Or ever.” 

Her eyes narrow at the last two words, and her hands come up to cup her cheeks, pressing their lips together with urgency. Tamar’s hands dig into her lower back, drawing their hips together. Y/n has a feeling this is the reaction she wants, and she gives right into it. 

End Flashback

“I’ll be looking forward to it.” The grin on her face is infectious but thankfully hidden, her face pressed into Tamar’s chest. Once her heart has calmed a little she pushes back. “We should get back to work.” 

“Probably.” Tamar sounds reluctant but presses a kiss to her forehead, and heads back to talk to Sturmhond. 

Y/n presses two fingers to her forehead, the spot where Tamar just kissed. She hears a snicker from behind her and whips around. Kostya, one of her closest friends on the ship, is laughing at her. She sends a spurt of water to his face, and that knocks the laughter off of him. He retaliates with a small gust of wind. 

“Oi.” Privyet’s voice comes through, “Quit that.” 

They start laughing, both looking slightly chastised. They stand to the side as the sea whip is hauled on deck. Her hand drifts nervously to her left wrist, the space where her amplifier hides. Taking a second amplifier sounds like absolute insanity to her, but thankfully that’s something she doesn’t have to worry about. She doesn’t move when the scales are offered, just exchanging a small glance with Kostya. Scales still freak her out somewhat and she shudders. For once, he doesn’t make fun of her and she’s grateful for it.

–

She knows her jealousy is stupid, but it’s reasonable to be upset that she’s kicked out of her room with barely any notice. Not to mention, nobody bothered to ask her, just “Tamar’s sharing with the Sun Summoner.” And now she’s in one of the old closets normally saved for less welcome guests. Her one bag is moved over quickly enough. At least she has her own space now, and doesn't have to listen to Tamar snore or sleep talk. In her opinion that’s a weak consolation prize, and not really much of a prize at all. Her things are quickly shoved away and she heads up to grab her rations while she can. There’s only two tidemakers now, and she has a feeling her schedule is about to get a lot more packed. She stops after a few drinks, keeping herself sober enough to post a reliable watch. 

The first half is quite calm. She missed the quiet ease on the Volkvolny, the relative safety of knowing you’re surrounded by people you trust. The waves are gentle, the ship gently bobs side to side. Y/n pinches her cheeks a few times to stay awake, making small talk with her partner. The lanterns and voices on deck catch her attention. Alina’s taking the amplifier. Her eyes widen, and her heart beats a bit faster - hopefully this won’t be what kills her, there’s much more poetic ways to go out. Her eyes immediately find Tamar standing next to Tolya, the two of them looking the part of solemn sentries. Sentries for a Saint. 

The power and light that burst from her is undeniable, and y/n finds herself taking deep breaths to find her calm again. She’s lucky she didn’t fall off the rigging. Her face feels like it’s been freshly sunburnt. As always, her eyes search for Tamar first. And that’s when she knew she’d lost her. The look in her eyes. Y/n didn’t know exactly what it mean’t, just that Tamar belongs to someone now. Well, Tamar never belonged to her in the first place, and theres a strong chance she’s reading into this too much, but she’s always been particularly perceptive, and her hunches usually turn out to be right. Angry tears prick the corner of her eyes.

‘You’re a mercenary,’ she thinks to herself, ‘not a jealous, petty school girl.’ She takes a deep breath and schools her features back into a look of awe, before anyone can catch on. Someone replaces her and she takes up post at the stern, ready to help move to ship along. It’s likely someone spotted the light show Alina put on, and the best they can do it get as far away as possible. 

–

The next few weeks go by quickly, and she barely sees Tamar. Well, she sees her everywhere, but rarely interacts with her. Is y/n avoiding her? Or is Tamar avoiding y/n? They never got to celebrate. Whispers say that they may be leaving to do something with the Sun Summoner and Nikolai. Saints, she feels like a whiny child. She resolves to find out more on her next watch with Tolya. 

Later that day

“Do you think you’ll go with him?” She asks, staring out into the horizon, keeping her voice just loud enough so he’ll hear. 

“With who? Where?”

“Captain. To Ravka, with Alina.” 

Tolya’s eyes are alarmed, like he didn’t expect her to know what was going on, or what was to happen. 

“Saints Tolya, i’m not stupid.” 

“Nobody called you stupid.” 

“Maybe someone should’ve. That’s besides the point.” She turns to face him, taking her eyes off the water momentarily. “Are you going with them?” 

He sighs. “Keep looking.” 

She rolls her eyes but listens. She’s surprised when he keeps speaking. “You’re not asking about me. You’re asking about Tamar.” 

“Well, you both go everywhere together.” 

“He thought about asking you along.” Tolya says. He’s talking about Sturmhond. Or Nikolai. Depends on the situation. I know they’re going to Ravka, but to do what i’m uncertain. 

“Really?” I hummed, trying to sound as disinterested as possible, it’s not working. 

“But after we lost Hendrik and Dmitri.” 

It feels like an iron fist is gripping her heart, and she chokes out her next breath. The other Tidemakers lost against the Darkling. It’s only her and one other now.

Tolya pauses. “After we lost them, you’re needed here.” 

“Needed.” I let the words roll around my tongue. Needed here. But wanted? What if I want to be somewhere else? “Thank you for the heads up.” She gives Tolya a terse smile, trying her best to look content. I can tell he isn’t convinced, but he does smile back. 

End Flashback.

–

Three nights later, Tamar finds her. It’s dusk, and she’s sitting up on deck, deep in conversation with Kostya. She feels a tap on her shoulder, and doesn’t turn around and hesitates before turning around. Kostya glares at her and she finally does. Tamar’s standing behind her, one hand outstretched. 

Tamar doesn’t miss the side eye y/n sends to Kostya, but chooses not to comment. It shouldn’t feel like she’s headed to the gallows, but somehow it does. She takes her hand, and lets her heave her up to her feet. She shakes her hand off as soon as they stand up, and sees the hurt flash through Tamar’s eyes. It’s enough to make her start chewing on her bottom lip, 

“Come on.” She says, taking the initiative and leading them below decks to somewhere more private. They end up in her room this time, and she chooses to stand on the opposite side of the small room, awkwardly scratching the back of her neck. For once, Tamar doesn’t speak right away, instead it seems like her eyes are taking in every inch of her - memorizing every detail. Y/n keeps avoiding eye contact, leaning up against the wall and tilting her head up to stare at the overhead. 

“We’re leaving tomorrow.” Tamar says finally. 

Her heart jumps, and the same tears from a few weeks ago threaten to prick her eyes, “are you excited?” She asks, keeping her eyes trained on the ceiling. 

Tamar sighs before crossing the room. Her hands cup her cheeks, guiding her back down to try and meet her eyes. “Why don’t you ever look me in the eyes?” She murmurs. Y/n doesn’t have a good answer, what’s she supposed to say?

‘I’m scared i’ll cry if I do. I know you don’t feel the same way. I’ll quite literally get lost in your eyes. It’s too intimate. It scares me.’ Instead she doesn’t say anything. 

“Give me something, please.” Tamar says, this is the most desperate she’s heard her voice. She cringes at herself when the desperation gives her a sick sense of satisfaction. Give her something? It’s been weeks and they’ve barely exchanged a word. If she wants something she can have her fury and pain. The sting that comes with feeling abandoned, discarded, tossed aside for the next big thing.  

“You want something?” She spits out through clenched teeth. Tamar takes a step back, her eyes widening slightly at her tone. Normally y/n is level-headed and calm, it’s rare to see strong emotions leak into her voice. “Weeks. You’ve rarely spoken to me. Granted I didn’t try very hard, I know you’ve been busy with your new Saint.” She struggles to keep her tone kind. “I’m happy for you, by the way, that you’ve found a purpose. And I get it, your life has changed. That doesn’t mean you had to …” Her voice breaks and she can’t finish her sentence. 

“Leave please.” She croaks. Tamar doesn’t move and y/n opens her mouth to tell her to go again, but instead she’s wrapped in a bone-crushing, enough that she can barely breathe, let alone move her arms and hug back. She doesn’t make a sound, doesn’t complain, relishes in the touch and contact. Her body melts into her, leaning slightly. Just one hug and she melts. ‘Pathetic.’ she thinks to herself. ‘You’re being pathetic.’ 

“I’m sorry.” She whispers, pulling back, and running a hand through her short hair. Y/n’s never seen Tamar like this, lost for words or confused. She always seems so self-assured, so strong in her conviction, fearless. 

“Sorry for what?” She knows the answer, but she wants to hear it - needs to hear it. Hear Tamar admit it, validate what y/n felt these last few weeks. 

“Neglecting you. I’m sorry that we didn’t get to celebrate.” 

Y/n laughs, not an amused chuckle or a happy belly laugh, one of disbelief. “If you think that’s all I cared about then you’re much less perceptive than I thought you were.” She tries to put the emphasis on ‘cared’, but it doesn’t come out that way. Care is more accurate, she still cares. 

Tamar seems confused, “I don’t understand.” Her tone is genuine and honest. Y/n feels herself soften more, a little bit of the ice melts away. She finally meets her eyes. 

“I care about you dimwit.” Tamar’s eyes narrow at the insult, but she doesn’t break eye contact. “I wanted … I still want more for us. I want to get to actually be with you, beyond just ‘celebrations’, and the occasional hug or kiss on the forehead when you remember.” 

“Why haven’t you said anything before?” 

Her voice raises slightly, “because you outrank me and I don’t want to be fired, because I thought it was obvious, because I thought you’d have said something by now.” The outranking part is true - not that it matters too much on the ship, but enough for her to be nervous. Rogue Grisha have difficulty finding safe employment in this world. Safe in the sense of nobody forcing her to serve an army or enslaving her. Her job isn’t safe by any means, but it's freedom.

“Quiet.” Tamar hushes her. 

She takes a deep breath before speaking in a normal tone. “Tell me I'm delusional.” She’d have laughed at Tamar’s expression if the situation was different. “Tell me you never wanted me. Tell me you’re leaving and not coming back.” Tamar reached out and held one of her hands. 

“You’re not delusional, I do want you, I am leaving, but I don’t know if I’m coming back.” 

“Three out of four, not bad.” 

Tamar huffs, evidently tired of the argument, before pulling her into a bruising kiss. It catches y/n by surprise but she returns the same energy.

Later, they're cuddled in her hammock together as Tamar whispers sweet things into her ear. Y/n is lost in her own world, but a pinch to her side brings her back.

“Hm?” She mumbles. 

“You need to get dressed.” 

She groans but stands up, getting some new clothes for herself. One hand braces against the wall to keep herself steady, she looks into the small mirror, her neck and chest are covered in small but deep purple bruises. Her jaw drops as she turns to look at Tamar, who just laughs at her. 

“Sit. I’ll heal them.” 

She jumps up on the chest, scooching until the back of her knees hit the edge. 

Her hands are gently as she grazes over the spots on her neck, and chest, leaving just one behind. Y/n rolls her eyes, it’s typical of her to do that - leave one in an area she can easily conceal. She heals the bite on her hand as well. The silence after becomes uncomfortable. 

“I don’t know what to say.” The words come out before she can think twice. 

“I’ll say I don’t regret a single moment of this. Of anything.” 

She lets out a small, sad smile. “I don’t either.” And brings her arms up to pull her into a gentle kiss. Nothing else needs to be said, they’ve come to an understanding. They both know it’s a goodbye kiss - a goodbye for now. 

–

The next early morning, she’s on watch as they leave. 

“Saint’s willing, we’ll meet again one day.” Her words came out low, almost like a whisper or prayer. They thankfully went unheard, and she waved to the dark sky as Tamar flew off in the hummingbird. 

Kostya clapped a comforting hand on her shoulder, “They’ll be alright.” 

She turns back, giving them a terse smile. He’d mistaken it for worry, probably a good thing. 

The crew makes themselves scarce for a while, keeping careful tabs on every hint of the Darklings location. If they were caught by him they likely would not survive, and likely would come to very painful deaths, something none of them were particularly interested in. She wonders if he would spare Grisha, she hopes not - if they were to be captured she’d rather get the same treatment as the rest of the crew, as morbid as that sounds. 

The next few months go by pretty quickly, and when she gets offered the chance to go to the Spinning Wheel, she takes it. A break from the seas will do her good. The idea of seeing Tamar doesn’t cross her mind, surprisingly. She’s become a memory - a good one, but a memory. 

– 

Spinning wheel 

It’s strange being with her crew on land. Everyone's the same, but a bit more tense. There’s a certain safety at sea - it’s more difficult to be ambushed. She’s surprised when Alina remembers her - even her name, and cheers along with the rest when she cuts the top of a mountain off. 

Y/n noticed the connection between her and Nadia almost immediately and it didn’t hurt like she thought it would, she offered her congratulations instead. 

An argument starts when Sturmhond tells her she’s going on the mission to hunt the firebird. Well, asks her, he knows he can’t really tell her to do anything. She supposes she should call him Nikolai now. 

“You’re the best tidemaker we have.” Nikolai says. 

“They could bring anyone else.” 

“Tamar asked for you.” 

“That’s the problem.” She whispers. 

He sighs, walking around the table to clasp a hand on her shoulder. “I know you two have history, but I’d feel better knowing you’re there. Tamar asked for you for a reason, and I doubt it’s to have a sordid tryst in the middle of the night.” 

Y/n’s eyes narrow and she glares at him as he laughs. “They’re taking Ana.” Ana is another friend from the Volkvolny, a Materialki that put the last amplifier on Alina. Her eyes light up, and the look on his face tells her he knows he’s won.

“Fine.” She says reluctantly. “I’ve always wanted to visit there.” 

“I doubt that.” 

“No, but it makes me feel better.” 

“Whatever it takes” he winks before leading them out of the room. 

The ambush surprises them all. She takes another look at the crew, a tidemaker isn’t completely essential, and there’s too much weight already. She can tell Nevsky is thinking the same thing. Despite her being Grisha, they became fast friends. 

“One last time?” he whispers to her. Not that they’d had times before, but she guesses he likes the dramatic effect.

“Lets do it.” She replies. He says something quiet to Alina before yelling, 

“For the 22nd.” He leaps over the side with his soldiers. 

“For Sturmhond.” She whispers before following them. Tamar’s scream is lost in the noise. 

[trippin-over-my-fandoms]

This is the version of this post I’m going to reblog. Because what the person above states is correct and reflects that this situation is NOT as black and white as everyone wants to make it out to be. Yes, I agree with defending dark media. No, I do not believe in it’s glorification.

It’s already been said that some will write certain themes as an outlet of things that happened to them. Some write it as an attempt to broaden their skills in writing dark themes- flexing said skills as they attempt to handle characters in such a different situation. They teach a lesson, they have a moral- sometimes its “not all bad guys are caught and that sucks for the victim” or “what goes around comes around”. Write dark media. Read dark media. Remember that it’s not real. Remember that, whole not real, it does often reflect real life situations. Remember that sometimes people enjoy these dark themes because they’re thought provoking, not because they find it sexy.

On the other side of this- yes! Hide darker content from yourself. Dark content is by NO MEANS for everyone. And there is nothing wrong with that. We as a society need to purge the idea that every media that ever existed is specifically going to be catered to us and our tastes. I didn’t enjoy Endgame but my dad did. There’s nothing wrong with that. It wasn’t for me unlike some of the other movies, that’s okay. I may enjoy darker tones in my medias like Dexter, RE: Biohazard, the Conjuring, literal horror genre, while my friends may prefer more romantic and light hearted things in their media or comedy or no general plot at all and that is okay!!!

I’m not saying all dark media should be defended and I’m not saying avoiding it is bad. I’m saying that not everything is going to fit everyone’s idea of what is right and what isn’t. The fact that people keep trying to force all media into a perfectly correct box is giving post apocalyptic book franchise in which only 100 books are allowed ever because they fit the collectively deemed moral criteria. It needs to stop, and at risk of sounding like a broken record, because not everything is going to fit in that box. Snowflake is an insult thrown at people who want to stand out and be different and who go out of their way to do so- because snowflakes are known to never be perfectly identical.

People’s views and opinions are never going to match up 100% and instead of shaming someone who thinks differently from you right away, GRACE needs to be extended because you never know why someone can or can’t engage with that media.

Maybe your friend enjoys dark fiction because something bad has happened to them and they need to get it out or maybe they’re processing something deeper. “I enjoy dark fiction” may also mean “I enjoy dark fiction because while I don’t agree with the actions of the characters it is incredibly thought provoking to what society has in place” and they can’t say that if you jump all over them the moment they mention it.

Your friend may not be able to handle dark media similarly because something happened to them. Or they may not enjoy it because it makes them sad or upset and they’d rather not have that in their lives. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t capable of handling difficult situations at all but as far as media and internet spaces go they have the power to curate what they see.

I dunno I think it boils down to this topic being a fine line that can’t be put in a box of “right or wrong” and this reblog is just a really long way of saying that. Good people with good intentions and normal beliefs exist on both sides. Bad people who take things to the extreme wanting to defend their ideal also exist on both sides. Just remember, it’s a conversation, not a witch hunt.

like. yeah avoiding dark themes in literature or films is totally working out so well for you. the lack of compassion and lack of understanding of difficult subjects is really making you a better person than the people who actually acknowledge nuance. 👍

[classic80sand90smovieloves2]

Meeting and Dating Casper McFadden

(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)

- Moving into a new home was never easy. Oftentimes, it meant packing up everything you owned, leaving a bunch of good memories behind, and traveling across the country to a new town where you’d have to make all new friends and renovate old fixtures.

- But there was something about your new house that made it both easier and harder to live in: the fact that it was haunted.

- Obviously your family didn’t find out about the ghosts until after they’d signed the papers and even if they were warned about it, they probably wouldn’t have believed the realtor, but none of that mattered now. Now you were stuck in a old house with a bunch of spirits, stuck until your parents save up enough money to move again.

- So what made the manor easier to live in, you may ask. Well, the fact that it came with a friend….

- You and Casper meet the day you move into the Whipstaff Manor. You’re wandering around, exploring the home and trying to figure out which room you want to live in, unaware that there’s a specter following you.

- The minute Casper sees you, he’s head over tail. You make his undead little heart race and have him second guessing his every action. Which is the main reason it makes him a while to formally introduce himself, he’s too scared that he’ll ruin his first impression.

- Sadly for him, his first impression still doesn’t go over well, regardless of how much he practiced.

- In his defense, it wasn’t anything that he did, it was more the fact that you were suddenly face to face with a phantom. Anyone would have freaked out in response to that, and they would have freaked out to any ghost as well; no matter how friendly.

- So, like the rational young woman that you are, you scream and take off like a rocket, dashing out of the room and down the hall to find a more secure and safe looking room to hide in until your parents get back from the store.

- He follows behind, attempting to calm you down and feeling downright awful for scaring you. Once you’ve locked yourself away into a broom closet, he gives you a minute to breathe before he calls out to you, telling you that he’s sorry and trying to coax you out so that you can talk.

- It takes you another minute to be convinced and to trust him when he says he isn’t gonna hurt you, but eventually, you do brace yourself and open the door.

- Once you do, you find that he really isn’t as scary as you’d originally though he was. In fact, he was actually sort of cute; in a cartoony sort of way, and he’s friendly to boot; so you wind up feeling a bit silly for being so frightened of him. And after you begin to think like that, the two of you begin to develop a close friendship.

- While his uncles might be incredibly obnoxious and annoying, you can’t deny that you enjoy having the ghostly presences in your home; especially when school roles around and you find yourself feeling like an alien with no one to turn to. You might not have any living friends in your town but you at least have a few see through ones at home that ensure you’re not completely alone.

- But, compared to your primarily platonic feelings, Caspers feelings for you were a lot more complicated. He valued your friendship and enjoyed having you as a pal, but he also had more romantic feelings towards you. In simpler terms: he’d had a massive crush on you from the moment you walked in.

- And though he’d have loved to confess his feelings and see if you felt the same, he knew that it was practically impossible for the two of you to be together; at least until you’d died …or until he was alive again!

- The minute he remembers the Lazurus he immediately erupts into a fit of excitement and joy. If you could get it to work, he could be alive again and the two of you could be together for the rest of your lives, either as friends or as something more, he honestly didn’t care which; though he hoped it was the second one.

- So he tells you about the invention and the two of you get to work. You take the wild trip down to his fathers lab, search around until you find what you’re looking for, load the contraption up with it’s necessary elixir, and pull the levers with bated breath.

- You don’t know what you’d expected to walk out of the machine but it certainly wasn’t this. Perfectly done blond hair, shining blue eyes, and a face that made you suddenly flustered to be in your best friends presence. He looked like a Disney prince and you were captivated.

“How do I look?” He asked nervously.

“Perfect,” you responded a little too quickly. “I mean, human, normal …living.”

- His face broke out into a smile and he threw his arms around you, pulling you into a tight hug. The action caught you off guard and made your heart race but you didn’t mind in the slightest.

- Once you’d finished hugging, he pulled away slowly and you found yourselves locking eyes. His gaze flickered to your lips and before you knew it, the two of you were leaning forward and sharing a kiss.

- His uncles may or may not have interrupted you but the “damage” was already done. You were just as hooked on him as he was on you and neither of you could be happier.

- Casper loves pda. He loves being able to actually touch you and be out in public and show the whole town that the two of you are together; even though half of them are confused as to who he is. 

- He touches you and holds you close whenever he can. He’s waited to do it since the moment he met you and now that you’re together; and he isn’t ice cold and only semi-solid, he enjoys every little ounce of affection he can provide and obtain.

- Handholding.

- Cheek kisses. 

- Long, soft kisses. They’re sort of a contrast to his usual hyper behavior, which is why, if you ever need him to calm him down and focus, all you have to do is ask for a kiss or make it obvious that that’s what you’re going to do. He skids to a stop and happily complies as he gives you an adorable little smile.

- Pet names aren’t really his thing but he does call you by fun nicknames that he’s come up with; usually a shorter or longer version of your name.

- Cuddling is a must with Casper. He absolutely loves it, no matter how the two of you do it. Sometimes you’ll lay on his chest, other times you’ll spoon, and other times you’ll face each other on the bed and talk until one of you dozes off.

- Speaking of: he definitely watches you sleep every now and again, which sounds far more creepy than it actually is. Like, you’ll be talking late at night and you’ll fall asleep and he’ll just look at your peaceful face for a while.

- If we’re going with the assumption that Casper maintains some of the aspects of being a ghost, I think it’s safe to say that he’s occasionally at least a little cooler than a normal human, which makes him the perfect companion for hot days.

- Being carried and flown around.

- Sometimes; especially prior to him being in the Lazurus, he forgets that you’re not a ghost and gets you into some uncomfortable situations. And after he turns human again, he definitely has to get used to not being able to go through walls and have things go through him when they’re thrown or fall.

- Testing out exactly what he’s still capable of doing and if there’s any limits to his new life. Is he perfectly normal? Does he have ghostly powers? Do the effects occasionally wear off during certain times or seasons? It’s all stuff you have to figure out.

- For a while after he’s brought back to life, he spends all day experiencing everything he missed when he was still alive. All the smells, sights, and touches; he runs around like Jack Skellington while you sit back and watch with a smile.

- Going to the mall. It’s one of his favorite places to visit, he just loves the entire atmosphere of the place; especially since he wasn’t really able to go and enjoy everything about it before he turned human again.

- Tv dates.

- Playing different games with each other. Board games, pirates, video games, you name it, he’ll do it.

- Sitting on top of the lighthouse with him.

- Enjoying the view from outside of the manor. You have the perfect view of the ocean from your garden so the two of you can always throw a blanket down and stare out at the sea together.

- Just goofing off with each other. Running around the house together, sliding down the stairwell, having him push you in a chair down the halls, etc. You’ve got a huge house to mess around in, why not take advantage of it?

- Dancing together. He told you he was a good dancer.

- Late night conversations. You can always talk to him about anything you want or need to.

- Catching him watching you a lot. He always has such a loving gaze when he’s looking at you, just seeing his face when he’s watching you do something or speak is reassurance that he really cares about you.

- Always having a warm and excited greeting when you return home from school. He also probably occasionally goes with you or at least walks you there or visits during lunch.

- He loves making surprises for you. Throwing you little parties or coming up with different ways to make you smile or cheer you up after school or whenever he can see that you’re feeling down is one of his favorite hobbies.

- He wants to be with you like 25/7 so don’t be surprised if he’s constantly bothering you with his presence. It’s a good thing you love him because if you didn’t he’d become very annoying, very quickly.

- Him just appearing at random is commonplace so your parents and you definitely have to take some time to get used to it. I mean he lives in your house and now that he’s human again, it’s definitely a bit easier than when he was a ghost, but still.

- Getting chairs pulled out and doors opened for you. He likes being a gentleman.

- Him cooking for you. He definitely tries to impress you with his skills and all the inventions he uses; and he just likes doing something nice like that for you.

- Discovering all his dads inventions and letting him tell you about them. It’s really quite fascinating to see how they all work and how excited he gets while showing you how to use them.

- I have a feeling that he doesn’t like winter; for obvious reasons, and whenever it comes around, all he wants to do is stay inside with you and do indoor activities. If you were to want to go out, it’d take you a while to persuade him and even if you did; or were only going out by yourself, he’d spend forever bundling you up and making up a bunch of rules to keep you safe.

- Probably dealing with his ghostly self every now and again. I have a feeling that the Lazurus machines effects occasionally wear off for a little while from time to time so while he’s alive most of the time, you do have moments of spooky transparency as well.

- Pranking each other and other people. He might be a sweetheart but he also has a bit of a mischievous streak.

- Him always wanting to show you whatever cool thing he sees, does, finds, or hears about. Just being able to share things with you makes him happy.

- Listening to his stories from when he was alive or the decades he wasn’t.

- Fixing up his room for him and hanging out up there with all his toys.

- Being gifted some of his mothers things. Dresses, jewelry, stuff like that.

- His uncles bothering the two of you. They’re constantly harassing and teasing you; just try to pay them no mind.

- Standing up for him when his uncles are being more awful than usual.

- He might be the only person you can really bond with in your town, considering the fact that whenever you have anybody over, they’re almost always harassed by his uncles and scared away. Which Casper may or may not be sort of happy about.

- Casper gets jealous pretty easily. Anytime another guy takes interest in you, he always feels the need to mock them behind their backs or be passive aggressively not so friendly whenever they approach you when you’re out with him. It’s best to not bring up guys in your class unless it’s obvious that they only like you as a friend; but even then he’d wonder why you need friends (even if they’re girls) other than him.

- He’s sort of overprotective of you. He just got his life back so he certainly doesn’t want anything bad happening and putting yours in danger.

- He absolutely hates fighting so whenever the two of you have an argument, he’s always quick to try and settle it and apologize; even if he doesn’t really think he’s done anything wrong.

- Saying “I love you” isn’t really his forte. He prefers saying and doing other things to show you that he does.

- The two of you sort of just have to go with the flow and see where your relationship takes you. You don’t know how exactly the rest of his “life” will go so you just try to enjoy the present and what you have right now.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

So...Misery style, how would you make Tomione work? (Or how would you do a Tomione story?)

Thanks, Anon, this might be harder than the Dramione one.

Well, again, to please my deranged captor, I'd likely follow the plot of your standard Tomione fic and hope it passes muster. "Oh yeah, Hermione's back in time and she's doing back and forth mind games with Tom and it's really intellectual." With any luck, my feet aren't smashed into oblivion.

But I think you're trying to get at what I would really do if I really had to write Tom/Hermione and I had to make it something I would read. At least, that seems to be the spirit of this ask.

So, we're going the thriller route people. A lot like Misery, actually.

Instead of Ginny, twelve-year-old Hermione picks up the diary. Like Ginny, Hermione quickly becomes besotted with Tom Riddle trapped inside. However, unlike Ginny, Hermione goes straight to the library and starts asking pesky questions.

Hermione's never heard of memories stored in objects before, the theory behind portraits and pensieves are completely different, what spells did Tom use and where did he find them? Did Tom Riddle invent an entirely new branch of magic at the age of 16 without anyone noticing? What was Tom's special service to the school?

Tom starts sweating when it becomes clear that Hermione's stumbling a bit too close to the truth (that this is not ordinary magic and highly dangerous shit) and that she's clearly going to start asking around about Tom Riddle (to Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Hagrid, who were all near Hogwarts at the same time Tom was going to school).

Tom confesses that he may have created the diary using something very... illegal. Hermione is appalled and asks if it was gasp dark magic! He admits it is but points out it's a bit late now, like it or not, he's stuck in the diary and running to Dumbledore isn't going to make that go away any time soon. And it wasn't like Tom asked to be shoved in a diary either.

Hermione's very conflicted, on the one hand, Tom's the first real intellectual friend she's ever had. Harry and Ron are nice, but they're morons and they thinks he's a nerd. Tom encourages her intellectual pursuits and confirms her concern over various what not and what have you happening in Hogwarts.

Eventually, Hermione decides that Tom in the diary can't help being a diary (though the other Tom, the real Tom, she'd have words with), and decides that she'll try to help him get a body.

Great, that's great, Tom says.

But it keeps getting worse.

Tom tries to possess Hermione, but unlike Ginny, Hermione knows that Tom is a dangerous, dark, artifact. If she's suffering negative health effects, losing her memory and ending up in the girl's lavatory, she's going to research this and decide that either a) she's suffering ill effects of using dark magic b) she just got possessed by Tom.

Either way, she tells him she can't use the diary anymore, it's affecting her health and she must research. Well, Hermione researching does Tom no fucking good, but he can't stop her.

The Chamber of Secrets, as a result, is never opened.

Instead, Hermione continues researching, and Harry and Ron... begin to get on her nerves. It's not like last year, there's no Flamel to research, no over-arching mystery, and they seem to be growing tired of her. In turn, Hermione's getting a little tired of quidditch, getting detention, etc.

She's a little tired of Hogwarts, if she's being honest with herself.

Hermione's now had a taste of having a friend who isn't there to simply use her brains. And it's very addicting. She decides not to tell Ron and Harry about Tom, they'd just get needlessly concerned (the irony of this isn't lost on her but what can you do)

In the end, she opens back up the diary, and point blank asks what Tom needs to get a body. Before Tom can tell her, Hermione lists out her own theories. Life cannot be created from nothing, golems and puppets cannot last in the long term, to get a real body... human sacrifice is on the table, isn't it?

Well shit, Tom thinks to himself. He tries to assure Hermione it isn't but ends up confessing that, well, yes, it kind of is.

They have another huge row about it, Hermione slams the diary shut, but the wheels in her brain are spinning.

Does anyone deserve to die?

Hermione, at first, adamantly tells herself the answer is no. No one deserves to be sacrificed. Tom's fate is cruel, but the original Tom made his bed and should lie in it. It's unfortunate, but that's just life. Not the diary's fault, of course, but nothing that can be helped.

But then she keeps thinking about it.

Malfoy struts through the school like a peacock, sneering every time he sees her, laughing every time Snape deducts points from her in Potions for being a 'smarmy know-it-all'. Every time he can get away with it he's shoving her in hallways, calling her a mudblood, and assuring her that she's worth less than the dirt beneath her feet.

She watches as Malfoy torments and bullies Harry, she looks at Draco's father, and she asks herself if the world would really be so much worse off if Draco Malfoy were to disappear?

Draco Malfoy's being groomed to use dark magic, he practically brags about it at every opportunity, why is his life worth more than Tom Riddle's, someone who has paid the price for dark magic?

Isn't Hermione, in a roundabout way, only giving Draco what he deserves? The fate he'd meet at some point in the not so distant future?

Draco does something phenomenally cruel and stupid to the trio, likely to Harry, and that settles it. Hermione's going to murder that motherfucker and get Tom Riddle a body.

Hermione tells Tom the plan, she's passing off the diary to Draco, she has her full blessing, her permission, and whatever help he requires from her to eat Draco Malfoy alive.

Tom is unwillingly impressed, he was a vicious gremlin as a twelve-year-old, but even he wasn't committing murder in cold blood.

Tom's not sure how he feels about murdering a Malfoy, that's bound to get noticed, but Hermione's unyielding. Draco Malfoy, or Hermione goes to Dumbledore.

So, Draco Malfoy it is.

The rest of the year is spent with Tom Riddle murdering Draco Malfoy and coming up with some excuse for his disappearance. The chamber isn't opened as Hermione reminds Tom that this would make it entirely too obvious who is behind this. Instead, Tom likely has Draco partake in increasingly erratic schemes to humiliate Harry Potter that end up endangering himself.

Near the end of school, Draco disappears into the Forbidden Forest to find acromantulas to put in Potter's bed and... never comes back.

A huge search is put on, Draco Malfoy is never found, and the acromantula infestation in the forest is now actively battled by ministry employees. Dumbledore is sacked as headmaster, Hagrid fired for having been responsible for the acromantulas in the first place, and Hogwarts is closed the following year.

Hermione is... conflicted about all of this. She certainly didn't mean to fire Hagrid (had no idea he was even remotely involved with the acromantulas) and certainly not Dumbledore. It wasn't Dumbledore's fault at all.

Tom, who is now a free man but has no idea what to do with himself, meets up with Hermione and points out that Dumbledore should have been sacked ages ago: he let kids get away with this stupidly dangerous shit and the year before actively endangered his students and lured a dark wizard into the castle. As for Hagrid, he raised a dragon illegally on school grounds, did release his pet acromantula into the wild, and more. They were terrible at their jobs.

Hermione, ever so reluctantly, agrees.

It's too bad though, Hagrid was very nice and Dumbledore's a great wizard (don't even get Tom started).

As for Tom, well, he had such dreams. Of course he planned to either meet up with his glorious self or (upon learning that Voldemort was blown up by a toddler) take the mantle of Voldemort for himself. But now that he's out, he has no idea where to start. Murder Harry Potter, certainly, but after that?

Tom only has the vaguest idea of who the original Death Eaters were, and they seem to have effectively scattered. More, how does he go about this? Sure, Tom had ideas when he was in school, but they were just ideas. He's never led a revolution before, has no idea how to impersonate an older, more knowledgeable, version of himself. He barely understands the political climate in this new, post-Voldemort, Britain.

Tom keeps hanging around Hermione because, well, inertia. He has no idea what else to do. (Hermione, while still torn over the consequences of her actions as well as the distant thought that she enabled murder, is quite delighted to have him around).

Tom tries to wheedle Harry's address out of Hermione and gets a lot more information than he bargained for. Harry lives with abusive muggle relatives, Dumbledore is apparently keeping him there, all of this sounds bizarre. Tom is officially weirded out.

Still wants to murder Harry, of course, but also wants to dig into this a little further...

And before this becomes a full on fic outline, eventually this will lead to the murder of Dumbledore, probably the murder of Ron when Ron inadvertently discovers 'the truth', Hermione telling Tom they're now an item, Tom trying to escape the relationship, only to learn there's no escaping Hermione.

Hermione becomes the next dark lord. Tom has no idea how this even happened.

[oneyeartoparty]

The brothers react to discovering they’re MC’s biggest fear

Wow the last few weeks have been hectic for me. Been feeling incredibly alone and don’t have anyone to talk to and found out I need surgery which will happen sometime soon. I’m glad to have gotten to motivation to get this out for you guys. I’ve a request coming next so keep an eye out. This one is based on how MC has been through so much and what if this affected MC greater than they realized? I hope you all enjoy this =)

WARNING: This react has spoilers for all of Obey Me up to Chapter 60

This story contains: Blood, mentions of death/murder, traumatic experiences.

Lucifer

Lucifer is cautious as he enters the room the bogeyman is hiding in with MC in tow.  Few things scare him, but what does are things he’d rather MC not know about.

Still, above all else he wants MC to be safe. If that means they find out something about him he’d rather them not know about, then so be it. Their safety and happiness are his priority.

As the bogeyman before them begins to warp its shape, he puts up his guard. With their combined power, Lucifer is sure the bogeyman, no matter which form it takes will be a triviality to deal with.

MC is too consumed by fear to see the shock and guilt consume Lucifer as, surprisingly, the bogeyman turns into him.

“Did you think you wouldn’t face consequences for your actions, MC? You’ve broken so many rules, interfered so much, that it's time you paid for your insolence with your pathetic human life!”

The real Lucifer was quick to banish his fake as it pounced on them. With it gone, he focused his full attention on MC, who was completely still, gazing at where the bogeyman once was.

He knelt, taking their hands in his own, rubbing them gently to slowly calm MC down. He told them he was sorry he’d scared them so badly. He would do whatever it took to fix his horrible mistake.

With a kiss to the back of their hand, he promised for as long as MC loved him, he would never do something to make them so scared again.

Mammon

Mammon was already terrified at the thought of facing the bogeyman again. Even a fake Lucifer was terrifying, and it was something he didn’t ever want to see again.

Still, with some gentle coaxing from MC, he followed them to face down the bogeyman. Once they enter the room, he moves behind MC to hide, while simultaneously bragging about how unafraid he is.

A rumbling begins that causes Mammon to jump. He sinks behind MC, awaiting the appearance of Lucifer, but to his surprise, nothing happens.

At first, Mammon is ecstatic! They’d easily banished the bogeyman without a scratch or scare. He is soon brought back to reality when he hears MC’s panicked cries.

“Mammon? Mammon can you hear me? Please don’t leave me again. Lucifer said you’d look after me and I’m confused and scared. Please come back, I won’t be annoying anymore. Please.”

At that moment Mammon comes to the horrible realisation that his abandonment of MC during their first few weeks in the Devildom when he saw them as nothing more than a burden had taken its toll.

He hugs them desperately, telling MC over and over that he is here and that if they wish it, he will never leave their side again. He tells MC that he’s sorry and that he loves them.

From then on, Mammon sticks to MC like glue. No matter where they go, he’ll follow unless they say otherwise. He promises to always be there to make sure they know they’re adored and never, ever alone.

Leviathan

It takes a lot of convincing to get Levi to accompany MC to confront the bogeyman, but he decides to go because the thought of MC going alone is something far worse than a fake, albeit horrifying copy of Lucifer.

Instead of Lucifer, however, what appears is another version of him in his demonic form. It looks furious, its tail flicking back and forth, knocking over lamps, leaving holes in the wall and smashing the window.

Levi though it would target him. After all MC had protection right? But it became clear and the creature turned to MC, its rage only increasing as it began to shout at the scared human.

“YOU CHEATED MC! I’M THE BIGGEST TSL FAN, NO ONE CAN BEAT ME IN A TSL QUIZ WITHOUT CHEATING!”

His copy keeping screaming at MC, looking ready to pounce at any moment. The real Levi for his part wanted to scuttle out of the room and forget what had happened. But he was spurred on by his love and need to protect MC.

Using his considerable power, he banished the bogeyman, the false version of him fading with a shrill shriek, leaving only MC cowering in fear.

Levi rushed to them, hugging them, peppering them with kisses (something that will later bring a blush to his face) and promising them he’ll never do anything to make them that scared again.

He keeps his word and is also careful to manage his temper when it comes to his passions while MC is around. He also does his best to work with them to help them overcome their fear.

Satan

Satan isn’t fearful of the bogeyman as he entered the room with MC. He wants the creature gone, especially after it scared his brothers so badly. Upsetting his brothers like that is not something he will let go of so easily.

He wonders what the creature will become when they encounter it. He doesn’t have any fears, at least any he will admit to himself, and MC has the blessing of Luke. Would it even be able to do anything against them at all?

As the door closed behind them the creature begins to morph. Satan decides to take this moment to banish it, wanting to be rid of it before it caused them problems. He pauses though when what appears before him is none other than himself in demon form.

“How DARE you compare me to Lucifer MC! How foolish I was to expect anything more from a sniveling, weak human. Now you’ll pay fo-.”

Before the copy has a chance to do anything more, Satan acts, banishing the creature from sight to some distant unknown realm.

The threat gone, he turned his attention to MC. They were still as stone, still scared of the image of him. Guilt floods him, and he rushes to MC, profusely apologising and begging them to forgive him. He has done so much damage to his love that he can’t forgive himself until MC is happy again.

Being the Avatar of Wrath, he will always have an angry side, but he does his best to calm down and refrain from getting out of control while MC is around. He also becomes far more affectionate, often snuggling with them as he reads them stories or watching cat documentaries.

Asmodeus

Asmo is worried about how ugly the bogeyman will make him. He knows that his greatest fear is being ugly, and it brings him genuine fear thinking of all the horrible, ugly versions of him the bogeyman could conjure.

The form the creature creates is of him, but he’s his normal, beautiful and dazzling self. He thinks it’s a trick for a moment, and he waits for the form to shift. Instead, it speaks, looking directly at MC.

“Why would I love someone like you? I’m perfection incarnate. You’re my plaything, someone I’ll discard like the rest. Don’t think my affectionate words are anything more than sweet nothings.”

Asmo turned to MC, who was now backed against the wall, their hand covering their face, but doing nothing to hide their sobs.

Asmo rarely becomes as enraged as he did at that moment. He isn’t one to not get angry, but true rage from his is rare. With all the fury and power he can muster he summons a portal and forces the bogeyman through, sending it somewhere it will never return from.

With the bogeyman gone, he turns his attention to MC. He approaches them slowly, moving beside them. He isn’t sure how to proceed. His heart is aching at seeing MC so upset and he wants them to smile that beautiful smile again.

He starts to name each and every part of MC and why he loves it so much. From their nose to their toes, he doesn’t stop until MC is smiling again.

From then on he showers them with affection and love. Every morning starts with a compliment and a loving kiss, and he always makes sure MC knows he couldn’t live without them.

Beelzebub

Beel enters the room first, wanting to shield MC from anything the bogeyman might decide to do. He’ll gladly endure whichever one of his fears the creatures summons if it means MC stays safe.

Despite his effort, as the bogeyman warps its form, what appears is him in his demon form. This form is angry, its stomach loudly growling also drowning out the angry words being spoken by the creature.

“WHY DID YOU EAT MY PUDDING, MC? THAT WAS MY PUDDING AND YOU’VE GONE AND EATEN IT. NOW WHAT AM I SUPPOSE TO EAT?!?”

As the creature screamed and shouted the sounds of shattering plates and crumbling brick echoed around, though nothing in the room was touched.

MC was terrified, backing away until their back touched the wall, too overtaken with fear to move any further.

Not wanting MC to suffer any longer Beel focused on banishing the creature. Focusing his power, the creating began losing shape. It fought him, but eventually, it faded from sight, banished back to where it had come from.

After the bogeyman is defeated, Beel approached MC. They’ve calmed down now the bogeyman is gone, but it has affected them. He apologises for allowing his hunger to overtake him so much that it caused them to fear him so much.

He gently hugs them, promising he’ll do whatever he can to help them overcome their fear and to never let his hunger overtake him so badly again, two promises he seals with a kiss.

Belphegor

Deep down Belphie knows what he’ll see if the bogeyman targets him and shows him his greatest fear. But he doesn’t want to admit it. The reality of admitting it is too much for him.

He accompanies MC regardless. He knows that together they can overcome whatever is waiting for them.

But Belphie didn’t fully realise exactly what the bogeyman would become. It began to take shape the moment the door shut behind them, forming into him in his demon form, fresh blood dripping from his hands and tail and splattered all over his clothing.

“Guess you are just a stupid human, huh? Falling for my silly trick you deserve to suffer and die like this.”

MC is petrified, begging him to not hurt them. It was MC’s fear that inadvertently spurred on their magic, banishing the creature without them realising.

With the bogeyman gone, Belphie could only stare at MC. He didn’t realise how much what he had done hurt them, and now that he did, he feared no matter what he did he would only make it worse.

Everyone waiting outside bursts through the door after hearing MC’s cries, and goes over to comfort them. Belphie decides to leave and return to the mansion and begins avoiding MC, thinking it better he stayed away.

It takes MC approaching him with Beel for him to talk with him, rather than leave the room. They talk and both agree to work together and heal so they can move forward, starting their journey with a hug and a kiss.

[lordcephalopod]

Sorry, not to jump on ur reply out of left field BUT i live to info vomit on people and you can totally still sue in small claims court! Etsy’s TOS has a specific exemption for suits in small claims. And many (most??) other agreements like it do too. The problem is whether it’s worth it. But if a company owes you personally like a few grand? Go for it! I mean, it’s a pain in the ass, so it helps to be fueled by spite, but people can/do totally win.

Class actions really come in when they dick thousands of people out of small amounts or in difficult to litigate ways, making it not worth it for individuals to sue. That’s what these shit court decisions and “arbitration agreements” really hurt. 

But there’s an opt out here! Which is why it’s important for as many people to opt out as possible! Etsy is, as mentioned, sketchy as hell, so if a class action happens you want to be in it! Will they retaliate against your shop for opting out? Idk. It would probably be wildly stupid if they did, as they’d be retaliating against the only people clearly allowed to bring a class action against them??

BUT anyway I didn’t see anyone explaining how to actually opt out soooo here’s the relevant section of the TOS as far as I can find:

“If you are an existing user of our Services, you can opt out within 30 days after the effective date (listed above). To opt out, you must send a timely email to arbitrationoptout@etsy.com with your name, the email address for your account, your username and your shop name (if applicable), and a request to opt out of arbitration. If you validly opt out, neither Etsy nor you will be required to arbitrate as a result of this (or any prior version of the) Arbitration Agreement, but the Terms (and any other agreements between us) will otherwise apply to you.“ [full thing here]

the “effective date” is apparently July 24, 2023, so got till Aug 23 as anon said.

you can figure out what your user name/shop name is through this info: https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000337387-How-your-Username-Shop-Name-and-Preferred-Name-Represent-You

Also if you have a larger case and are stuck in an arbitration agreement? Don’t just give up! Sometimes there’s ways to fight, and you can win in arbitration. Corporate shill arbitrators are a thing, but they’re not a guarantee. Corporations will usually want to arbitrate even with a fair arbitrator. Trials are expensive as shit, so even a win at trial can still be a massive loss for them. That doesn’t happen in arbitration.

But proceed with caution, some of these agreements also try to do really hideous shit, though some of those clauses have been stuck down in court. Small victories I guess...

have you seen that article about etsy's new terms of service that prevent you from participating in a class action law suit against them? (you can still email to opt out of the arbitration agreement by aug 23, 2023, there's a post with instructions somewhere.) this seems like it would impact a lot of digital artists, so i figured i'd check in that u knew about it!

ahh honestly i’ve never used etsy bc of how awful n shady they’ve always been but this might help out others!

[thistle-01]

KRS as Cale Henituse + traveling back in time + having to do it all over again

except he goes farther than maybe the god of death was intending bc he blinks his eyes open and a little boy with red hair and brown eyes and a scowl on his face is standing over him

the boy says, “you’re sleeping on the road. Do you want to die? It’s worse because you look like me,” and drags him over to a very familiar mansion

KRS through og!child!Cale’s eyes fixing all of og!Cale’s crises and KRS internally despairing that he won’t see the family he knew again so og!Cale sees him drinking sometimes and sometimes withdrawing into himself but he doesn’t know why

og!Cale living thru KRS’ crazy stunts and self sacrificing bullshit and paling and squawking and trying to make him take better care of himself

og!Cale and KRS saving the world

og!Cale now tall and grown, nursing a drink and reflecting on how KRS looks so much like an older version of him, how similar they look to each other

“tell me,” he demands of KRS when he hunts him down one day and KRS is looking like him and has a book open on his lap because he gave up drinking after Cale threatened to follow in his footsteps and they both knew that Cale on the glass wouldn’t pan out very well.

KRS telling og!Cale after some hemming/hawing

Cale crying for him, crying angry hot tears of indignation and wrath for a loved one’s unfair circumstances and curling his fists into balls and resolving to kill a god

”so I’m…?” “Dead, I think.” “Good to know,” and cale just balling up that information and deciding to chuck it out the window because it’s not like it can happen again. They’ve changed too much for that.

og!Cale eventually figuring out a way for KRS to return to his time, his world, his place where he’s surrounded by people he loves and who loves him back in turn and hesitating before he can put the recipe for the spell/ritual/whatever to action and actually use it

og!Cale having a chat with KRS

”if you could go back what would you do?” “Anything,”

and KRS looking mildly wistful but bored and Cale knowing he’s hiding a lot of repressed nostalgia/sadness/heartache in that expression

og!cale following through

KRS leaving, literally packing all his stuff which isn’t much but he can’t forget the overflowing pocket dimension of riches and gifts his fans have given him over the years that’s a lot of money, and turning expectantly to Cale before he leaves and Cale’s like ?? *glare glare* “get the fuck out of here already,”

KRS looking at him like he‘s lost it and “you’re coming too,” and it’s not even a question? Like wtf?

and Cale looking at KRS and KRS looking at Cale and KRS blinking and cocking his head like he’s just realized, “unless you don’t want to.” And over the years they’ve both burned and built bridges, they’ve made alliances and made allies and they’ve cultivated a web of resources, even the counterparts of KRS’ family but they never really let anyone get super close because it just felt wrong. they weren’t meant to be here.

Well, KRS wasn’t meant to be here, he’s not from this time after all but for og!cale it is his world and it is his time so he could never truly figure out why it felt like he never fit, why his own family felt like a mile away sometimes

og!cale thinking of all the people he’s met, all the people he’s attached to only in the barest sense, like they’re velcro stitched by the flimsiest threads, one strong wind and they’d be separated, divided like fhey were never joined to begin with

og!Cale thinking of them, and thinking of KRS. Thinking of all the things they’ve been through and how far they’ve come

og!Cale taking KRS’s hand

them jumping through the warp/circle/spell/whatever

og!Cale meeting KRS’ family

og!Cale giving up his name to live as Cain Henituse, long lost cousin or distant relative or random doppelgänger who just happened upon KRS!Cale and decided to stick to him like a burr

Cale introducing Cain to the people in his life and them, after some surprise and confusion and “wtf who is this is he safe,” welcoming Cain into the fold

Cain feeling like he finally, finally belongs?!?

Cale still pulling the same self-sacrificing false-slacker bullshit he did in cain’s original world

Cain suffering but having others to suffer with him because here they all know what Cale is like “omg let me tell you about this one time-“

KRS!Cale never getting that slacker life

Cain finding happiness

Cale and Cain and everyone else settling down, finding peace, what passes for peace in Cale’s time and world and with Cale around anyway, and Cain and Cale growing old together

Cain coming to find Cale one day,

”hey, what are you doing sleeping on the floor, old man? You wanna die? It’s worse because we look like each other- but obviously I’m the better looking.”

And Cale laughs

the end

[rosesastrology]

THE MOON SIGNS

In astrology, your moon sign represents your emotional nature, habits, reactions, wants and needs. The way your moon sign manifests will differ because of the house it's in and any applying aspects to the moon. If you don't relate to the description, that can be why. The whole chart should be taken into account, nonetheless if listed things I’ve seen commonly represented by these Moon signs!

Click here for part 2 (Libra - Pisces)

�� By @rosesastrology on Tumblr.

Aries Moon

Very emotional, but may choose to show another exterior (Sun/rising).

Usually grows more mature as time passes, but keeps their intense emotions and occasional childlike energy. They often want to do things on their own, without help. Even when they're growing up, they're quite independent.

Anger is explosive but often short-lived, although they can be the type to want revenge and hold a grudge- the actual anger doesn't last long. It comes up in waves. They can be quite nasty during that short time though, often saying things they don't actually mean just because they're in the heat of the moment.

They have waves of sudden inspiration and deep passion, but also of nostalgia and deep sadness. Their mood can change quite quickly.

Often, these people will be inclined to do some sort of physical activity because they want to see the best version of themselves and vent those intense emotions. This can also manifest in a fast-paced, busy lifestyle or just a brisk walking pace.

Their careers are often a form of self-expression.

They tend to go with whatever feels right in the moment, which can make them quite impulsive.

Their humour is quite childlike. They also tend to get embarrassed quickly (but they'll say embarrassing things all the same).

Tend to start working at a young age, or do something else that you’d usually expect from an older person.

They have a big sense of pride and ego, which can make it almost impossible for them to ask for help. The way to comfort them is often just by listening to them. Talking is not needed, unless you're reflecting back what they said. They enjoy feeling heard. They don't want you to make it better, they want to be heard.

They want to be recognized and acknowledged. They enjoy helping, even if it's just for them to feel better. They stand up for themselves, they will defend their emotions. They refuse to get crushed. In the same sense, this will make them help the underdogs.

Often, they have a sense of empathy but only if the mood is apparent. They can become very ticked off or confused by things like passive aggression. It can be difficult for them to put themselves in someone else's shoes, unless the other person reminds them of it. Then they will be more than glad to help. Direct communication and reflection books the most results with them.

They have a tendency to only help if you ask them directly.

They're quick to jump into things and tend to have strong opinions (feelings) even if they don't show them outwardly. Most do show them outwardly and can seem temperamental.

They tend not to have a filter and can seem quite savage, often immediately saying what's on their mind (whether good or bad). This is not to say that they can't control themselves, though.

Tend to feel impatient.

Are actually very undiplomatic.

They go through fire for those they're close to, and won't hesitate to sacrifice themselves. They tend to want to be someone's saviour or hero. This can come forward in their career, too.

They always want to keep moving. They want to make progress and continue. This is why letting go is often not the easiest for them, especially if they have a prevalence of air and earth in their natal chart.

Later in their life, they can be very autonomous and great leaders.

They can almost seem to be drunk on their own self and pride but in reality they’re just confident.

Thoughts tend to be superficial, thinking about practicalities or beauty unless other topics are stimulated.

Can be insecure, especially early in life.

Good at performing. Often their talents lie here.

They don’t necessarily struggle with letting go, but with loss itself.

They’re do-ers.

Persistent to reach goals. Very motivated.

Taurus Moon

Often, these people are artistic or at least have an appreciation for the arts.

They often enjoy cooking, if not they will enjoy eating. They have a very peculiar taste and opinion about how food should be. Often it's not too complex, and they tend to order the same thing at restaurants. They enjoy those types of routines, even if they like variety in their daily life.

They can come across as soft-spoken, sheltered people who enjoy staying in.

They tend to fixate on the past, or at least do a lot of reflection. Reflecting is their source of motivation.

Sacrifice breaks them apart. It's one of the things that will truly, truly touch them.

They just have a general sense of maturity and kindness, even if they have a childlike humour (depending on their placements), they will always have a sense of reliability and resilience.

They always strive for greater heights and can be hard on their past self, often linking their worth to their skill.

It's hard for them to shake off their emotions.

Not as materialistic as everyone makes them seem. Most Taurus Moons I know are actually the crash and burn type of people and have no attachment to their materials. Comfort goes above anything for them, they don't need much- they just need the right things. They tend to have strong opinions about that.

They always seek to understand their partners, even if it's in a situation where they didn't do anything wrong.

Can seem distant or hard to reach.

They're very sentimental and nostalgic.

Tend to have a pleasant voice.

They can have a very hard time letting things, people or experiences go.

They're very hard to convince.

They have a lot of emotional strength and resilience. They're always growth-orientated.

Escapism can be an issue because of their emotional need for comfort. However, this tends to lessen eventually.

They have a great love for nature. Animals, plants, space, people- they love all these things. They are fascinated by things that are bigger than them, the whole picture. That's why nature and space fit so well with them.

They tend to be mature and laid-back in relationships- some will find this boring but it actually gives a sense of home and comfort that you won't find anywhere else. Compromise is key.

They tend to believe that humanity as a whole can improve. They want to make the world a better place in a tangible way. This is why they're the type to donate to direct charities- they're generous and love seeing a form of tangible improvement. Tangible good.

Extremely loyal.

Direct in communication, often they talk about their past. Past experiences and nostalgia stand central in their emotions. They focus on growth.

If someone says they can’t do something, they will go out of their way to do it just to prove the other person wrong.

Self-sufficient. Good at handling criticism.

They can actually be quite moody.

They often talk about their past.

Grounded but they tend to want to know reasons. This includes reasons for their feelings.

Gemini Moon

Emotions and actions are rationalized.

They think before they talk (although they can snap).

They can be more unruly with their emotion when they're young, as well as when they're very stressed or feel as though their conclusions contradict one another.

Their intelligence is admiring, even when it's not traditional.

Tend to be apolitical because they see it as a promotion show rather than an exchange of ideas.

They find education/their work very important and prioritize this above their health.

They often follow traditions when it comes to the educational path, but tend to be more extravagant when it comes to creativity and self-expression.

They often enjoy reading one way or another, whether it's literature, poetry or manga or visual novels doesn't matter.

Very communication-orientated.

They tend to know a lot of psychological facts and tricks, which they use for self-betterment but also on others.

Confidence comes and goes as it pleases.

Doesn't do well with contradictions, especially if it's a contradiction about their own issues. They need reasons and conclusions to fix the issue, even if it's about emotions. This is both a blessing- they are focused on fixing the issue to grow, and a curse- they rarely ever go with the flow or go with what they truly desire.

Strong opinions that they love to discuss. They're not necessarily the type to start the discussion, but they will engage.

They’re extremely curious about a wide variety of topics.

Everything is based on their logic, so if it's faulty they feel like a failure.

Tend to be uncomfortable with risks and change, although they enjoy variety.

They're planners, they're generally not spontaneous.

They have a lot of different sides that they show to different people, it's like their personality has archetypes- but it's still all them.

They tend to know a lot of random facts.

Often enjoy mental stimuli in the form of media, movies, videos, video games, reading, studying, etc.

Quick-witted yet scatter-brained, they tend to confuse themselves.

Not the most organized people, even though they're planners, it doesn't directly correlate to their surroundings.

If they can't find a viable solution they can end up feeling as though they're crazy.

Inventive although they'd never call themselves that.

Can be the tough love type of people, which doesn't work well with everyone.

Because they're so good at analysing and articulating their emotions, they give good advice.

Flighty.

Will close themselves off if they're hurt.

Has a need to find comfort within their daily commute, whether that's through family, friends or a cafe doesn't matter.

They are connected to the sky- the intelligent yet structured patterns of life give them their smarts. Their intelligence is practical and physical, whereas Sagittarius' intelligence is surrounded around the higher conscience, Gemini revolves around earthly concepts.

The house where the Moon resides often shows what the individual struggles with but will eventually grow immensely through.

They tend to understand themselves better if they write down, or say their conclusions- even if they are very obvious.

They don't want to be controlled by their emotions, but it doesn't mean they don't honour them.

They tend to analyse everyone and enjoy being able to openly talk to someone about that. There is an inherent need to understand everything.

Sensitivity for the abstract.

Defensive over their opinions.

It's hard for them to just feel emotions and be in the moment or go with the flow.

Cancer Moon

Actually very secretive about their emotions, especially towards strangers and people they're not close with.

Changes their personality to fit with the people around them, even if that mans compensating low confidence for seemingly high confidence. Although they do this, they don’t see those friends as true friends, they know it’s fake and see through that.

Will act nice if they want something from you, like buying something for you or straight-up begging.

Family-orientated even if they don’t seem like it. Family means a lot to them. If their home is unstable they’ll be more likely to stay away from their homes, trying to find love and company elsewhere. Nonetheless, the situations hurt them deeply on the inside.

Can be quite moody.

They have a very nurturing and caring side but they won’t show it if they don’t have a connection, in fact they can seem very detached to strangers.

This supposed detachment is solely because they seek to protect themselves.

If they’re not convinced about your intentions or can’t gauge you, they’ll put up a front or wall. This can lead them to ignore people, even if they actually like them. Another reason is because they don’t want to disrupt someone’s life with.. their presence or the depth of their emotions.

They can play push and pull, like how the moon pulls on the ocean.

They go with the flow and the moment which is one of their best skills.

They believe what they believe, they trust their feelings and intuition. This makes it easier for them to understand things on a deeper level, rather than a superficial one. They can persevere very well through hardships because of this too.

They have great memory.

Tend to be very

They apologise for everything.

Tendency towards introversion, they actually prefer quieter places but when they’re younger this is not always apparent because they want to fit in.

Criticism tends to hurt them because they feel like they know best, criticism seems to devalue them in their eyes.

They don’t have a lot of true friends often. Even those who are very popular only see few of their friends as true friends they can count on.

They get antsy when they have to open up because they feel so deeply, they’re often misunderstood.

They’re very responsive to their environment.

Very proctective and defensive (on guard) about their emotions. You may notice they’re upset but they won’t vent. They’re emotionally quite mysterious (outwardly).

If they don’t like you or something you said, you will notice it.

Deep down they’re very emotional.

They often become more family-orientated after having children themselves.

They’re not weak, whatsoever. Mentally, they’re some of the strongest people I know.

They use their emotional resilience to their advantage.

Need a lot of validation and reassurance to truly feel self-sufficient.

Their anger is like a wave and it lasts longer than you’d expect it to. It takes a lot to push them past their limit, but watch out if you do.

Sensitive to outward stimuli such as bright lights or bright noises.

Often attracted to water or the sea in some way.

Can become very selfish when they’re in a bad mental space.

In time, they find their true emotions to be deep and more human than most, in a way. They can deal with these emotions, which is what makes them so resilient.

Can actually accept and feel their feelings without having to understand them which is very admirable. They can just be and feel.

They feel everything on a deeper level, which is why they can also manifest deep happiness into their life.

Leo Moon

They’re very creative and tend to be talented at many things.

Often, they’re good at acting or doing impressions.

Performing is one of their vocal points, whether it’s through music, acting, sports, or their individual talent doesn’t matter.

They can be very insecure and feel as though they don’t matter, aren’t good enough, aren’t pretty enough, etc. In fact, superficial (physical) inscecurity is a real issue with them.

They’ll only be outward (performing, being in the spotlight) when they’re confident. If they’re insecure, it’ll be quite the opposite. They’ll still enjoy attention, but in lesser doses and often with less people.

They’re very empathetic.

They’re generous, giving to others makes them feel better as well (whereas Taurus moons do it to leave something good behind that’s tangible).

Enjoy sharing their forms of self-expression with others.

They can be extremely motivated and persistent to achieve their goals. “Someone has to do it, so why not you?” because of this attitude, they can achieve great things.

Very endearing because they’re so childlike, they’re just so lovable yet bratty.

Validation makes them thrive harder and insults tend to wear them down. They often expect validation, and forget to give it back at times but not out of malicious intent- just out of cluelessness.

Can be a bit dramatic and vain.

They’ll throw a tantrum and then pout and honestly you can’t deny their apologies.

Have an aura of warmth and genuineness. Their warmth just spreads happiness and it’s magical.

Bad at handling criticism, even if it’s constructive it still tends to hurt their feelings. It makes them feel like they’re failures, often because they take things very personally.

Sensitive.

Can be passive-aggressive but won’t admit it.

Can be arrogant but in a way it’s endearing because they’re so forgiving and generous.

Enjoys looking nice physically.

Often, they’re hopeless romantics.

Hard to stay mad at because they’re very charming.

Can be very cruel when they’re angry.

They feel very powerful a lot, you’ll hear them say “How dare you?!” quite a bit.

Doesn’t and cannot hold back if something pisses them off. Very feisty.

Often they have a lot of friends despite their insecurities.

Very energetic and passionate.

They’re like an adult child. They carry all that childlike charm and wit with them. They’re so endearing and kind, yet just as sensitive. This is not to mean that they can’t be mature and serious, because they can and if you treat them like a child then they’ll likely say you’re infantializing them.

The unfortunate sides of the ego can take over when they’re upset. They tend to be straightforward, yet they want to people-please as well. When their ego takes over, they can be annoyed very easily.

They’re impatient for results, better things, people, etc. Practicing patience can help calm their ego.

Rich imagination.

They tend to get annoyed easily, but with the right people they’re annoyed very rarely.

They get especially angry if they feel the action was personal and purposeful.

Virgo Moon

High standards, especially when it comes to themselves.

Extremely sceptical of everything and everyone. They can have big trust issues.

Sensitive to outward stimuli such as people’s energies.

Destructive perfectionism and anxiety is common here.

They’re not emotionless but it’s very difficult for them to express emotions outwardly because they can’t understand them. Since they can’t understand it, it’s difficult for them to articulate those emotions without getting stuck. As such, they tend to repress their true emotions and sometimes motives.

Pets and kids tend to love them.

They’re extremely attentive to every flaw, regardless of if it’s truly a flaw or not.

A big pro of Virgo Moons is their power to pick up on any flaw or difficulty and change it or themselves. As such, they can work on themselves more easily. They’re always changing, growing and striving for the best version of themselves. That’s the true power of Virgo Moons.

They’re very critical, and judge themselves a lot.

Because they’re so analytical, they can pick up on cues, signs and little things other people won’t notice. This serves them greatly in their quest to be useful.

They want to serve or at least help others in one way or another because it makes them feel useful and fulfilled. Even if they’re leaders or performers, in their head they’re working for the purpose or future of someone else. If they’re bosses, they’ll still feel as though they’re working for their employees or family. Performers with this placement tend to feel as though they work for their fans.

They’re intelligent and seek intellectual stimulation through material things like fitness, health and work.

They live from day-to-day, hence why it’s important for them to feel useful in their work.

They naturally give of a reclusive energy. This is partly because they have a tendency to feel that they are better than someone else because they did something better or in a neater matter.

They’re generally mature at a young age and were forced to go and grow through many difficulties.

They feel like they have to control their emotions, or at least something or someone. Whether it’s health, a relationship, education or something else.

It’s hard for them to let loose completely, unless they have a fire sun sign.

Extremely dependable in crises.

They have a very dry, sarcastic and dark sense of humour that doesn’t work with everyone. They can overcompensate humour to feel more liked.

They’re always focused on their health and weight.

Actually very neat and generally organised.

Can be very on guard about their emotions.

Rather than rational, I’d describe them as reasonable. There’s a reason behind all their actions, and they seek reason behind actions of others.

They make boundaries for themselves, but at the same time they have a tendency to limit themselves.

They seek to always be useful and needed; to be auto-sufficient.

They seek for functionality and practical efficiency.

Methodical.

Have very soft skin.

They follow routines and systems as well as having a tendency to follow routine, they tend not to believe or follow the “impossible”.

They let their skill and work do the talking, whereas Gemini Moons tend to talk a lot about their skills and intellect.

Incredibly self-aware.

They don’t want to make their internal struggle seem apparent on the outside. They express their emotions in private, and seek to control them for the sake of their image.

They don’t want to repress their emotions but at the same time they don’t want to make it a big deal. They want remain “strong” and “under control” because otherwise they feel vulnerable, which makes them uncomfortable.

They spend a lot of time analysing other people’s emotions.

They often spiral into self-criticism because they find their emotions irrational.

Sensitive to scents and outward stimuli.

They make to-do lists when they’re stressed.

They often feel as though their emotions are a burden to others.

They feel distressed and lost when they can’t find the words to express themselves or their emotions.

Even though they put on a smile, they often seem like an open book aside from their anxieties or sadness.

It takes long for them to open up and they feel stressed when pushed, it works best to wait for them instead.

They crave emotional stability from others.

They always feel the need to be productive and learn new information.

Quite conservative in how they come across.

They often just think about their emotions.

[growup-thatbeautiful]

Mobius x Variant! reader

Warnings: Foul language, Kind of Loki spoilers but not really, Violence

“Don’t leave me! I don’t want… I don’t want to be alone.” It doesn’t mean to slip out, but it does. It’s too late now to take it back, though. She’s heard the words, and I can see the thinly veiled disgust flash across her face before she smooths it over.

The hard lines of the female TVA agents face show no room of sympathy, but some part of me must’ve touched the other one. Mobius, I think.

“Mobius, I know that look. You’re not going to get and answers from this variant. Do the right thing and just kill her here, yeah?”

“I’m not known for making the easy choice, now am I? You go ahead, I think I can still get some answers out of this one.” Ah, the kinder looking one speaks finally.

She grabs his arm and forces him over to the side where supposedly I can’t hear them, but they’re both shitty whispers. She obviously doesn’t trust me, she’s smart like that, but he seems to be convinced I’ll talk.

He wouldn’t have to pry too hard. She was rude and treated me like I wasn’t worth her time, but he’s different than her. That was clear since they brought me in. They’re wearing the same uniform, the sharp jacket, but he wears it softer, less angular. He also doesn’t have those TVA signature cruel eyes or sagging shoulders. He seems to like it here, which is completely foreign to me, but to each his own. 

He comes closer to the table and holds out his hand, standing above me. “I’m Agent Mobius. Sorry about her, she’s under a lot of stress right now. You’ve done a good job of making our lives here extremely difficult, you know.”

“Yeah, well it’s easy to run away when you’re crime is, what was mine again? Oh, silly me, it was that time when I decided to surprise my best friend for their birthday.”

The Agent across from me in the opposite chair, leaning back casually. The file on me is thankfully small when he flips through it, his eyes drawing in confusion. It’s almost enduring, or it would be if I wasn’t under interrogation.

“So, Agent, can you tell me why that was so terrible. Why did you have to come get me because I decided to do a nice thing.” He flinches as my tone, maybe my words too.

“She was supposed to die that day. When you came over, she was going to cancelled her plans for that night because she preferred your company to…Lucas? Was that his name? The short brunette?”

“Yeah, they’d been dating for a few weeks. I didn’t care much for him.”

“You’ve got good instincts, then. That night at their date he was going to get into a fight with the wrong people. He would make it out alive, she wouldn’t. I’m sorry, I know it can’t be easy to hear.”

If I was in the room with anyone else I don’t think I would say what I’m about to say, but he has such kind eyes, and he seemed so truly apologetic. “That can’t be right. I’m sorry, but you’re big guys in charge have to be wrong. She was a good person, she had a cat, so I just- I can’t fucking accept that.”

“He changes. He’s going to go on and save people, be a hero. He can’t be that if she doesn’t die, and she doesn’t die unless she goes on that date.” Oh, his earnest, deceived eyes.

“And that’s worth more than her?”

“That’s not a question I know how to answer.”

“You seem unfazed for someone who just killed a girl.” Sure, they’re harsh words, but I’m not in a compromising mood.

“You seem unfazed for someone who’s just been told that there’s a version of you that’s responsible for your best friends death. Look, I’ve done this enough times to know when you’re going to try and blame this on me.”

“I would never. You’re obviously blameless in this whole situation.” Mobius looks unfazed, and he pulls out some sort of device.

“You’ve obviously got a lot of things to think over, so why don’t I just let you stew for a while. Couldn’t risk you escaping again.”

“That was one time.”

“Which is one time more than most. Honestly, you’ve got it pretty good for someone who made it out in the first place. Most of the time we would stop you in your tracks.”

“Yeah, well I’m not like the other girls.”

“Oh, come on, I had faith you wouldn’t be so cliche.”

“I’ll do better next time you decide to interrogate some version of me.”

“Maybe you won’t have to.” The joking tone is gone, replaced by something more sincere. “We at the TVA have a program for, uh, non-violent variants.”

“Try and say that five times fast,” I mutter, just light enough for him not to hear.

“What?”

“What qualifies as non-violent?”

“Maybe a better word choice is selfless intentions. You didn’t have anything to gain by going over to your friends’ apartment, so you’re in the clear.”

“How do you know that what I did was selfless? You can’t read my intentions?”

“No, but we know your actions. At the end of the day-”

“Intentions don’t mean shit, actions do.”

“Bingo. You up for it?”

“I don’t have any alternatives. Not-dying seems like a good option.”

Mobius let’s himself smile. It’s brighter than any of the other ones I’ve seen here. “You can join my team if you want.”

“Who else is on your team? I won’t have to deal with any others like that one.” I nod my head towards the door, where the other Agent left.

“No, it would just be us. You seem like you would be good at convincing people to listen.”

“Thank you. I think I’ll have to accept your offer, Agent.” I shake his hand, smiling when he raises an eyebrow at my uncuffed hands. “I was able to pick ho a few tricks during my stunt running from you guys. What made you offer?”

“Huh?”

“What made you offer for me to be a part of your team?” I clarify, straighten the jumper they put on me.

“You’re prettier than any of the other variants I’ve had so far. Plus, you seem like you’ve got a good heart.”

“Is that all it takes?” It comes out more a genuine question than I mean, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“No, but it helps.” We walk out of the room, and the guards at the door have the decency not to look surprised.

“The pretty looks or the good heart?” Mobius hums in response, motioning for me to follow him.

“I’ve got both, so I wouldn’t know which one works more. Come on, I’ll get you a uniform.”

“I’m y/n, by the way.”

“I know,” he says simply, “I’m Mobius.”

“I think we’re going to have a lot of fun here Mobius.”

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you want a part 2, or something else! I’ll do most characters lol.

[ejcaswelll]

thoughts on the outfits in this ep?

i’m prefacing this review with the fact that i’ve seen maybe two thirds of the animated batb when i was like seven, 37 mins of the live action and have zero knowledge of the broadway version. that being said all my thoughts are 100% correct and i am inviting no discussion so buckle up baby!

if u think i’m going to go through every costume individually then u assume i have much more patience than a normal human being. instead i will be picking and choosing with no rhyme or reason and you’ll just have to like it.

first thought: the wrist brace works, don’t ask me why. second thought: don’t be fooled by your brain going haywire at the sight of ricky in a crown, this costume is only ok. for some reason they decided to make it two sizes too big for him instead of going for a dreamy narrow cut which is maybe the greatest tragedy of our time. the cloak’s fucking sick though.

the fact that east high has the budget for three belle costume changes is insane. however, ashlyn deserves it for having no actual screentime this season as the literal lead. the lace on this is terrible. like i get it. but it’s still terrible. the sleeves are also bad but that could just be the lace. the rest of it is gorgeous obviously, the pleating on the skirt, the different tones of soft muted greens, etc. if they’d thrown away all historical accuracy i would’ve lost my shit at a bardot neckline.

gina porter flounced on stage in this number and singlehandedly caused the gay awakening of at least twenty seven students. on the one hand this is perhaps the messiest costume i’ve ever seen: the polka dots, the lace, the varying shades of white, the mismatched (also polka doted) apron, the weirdly risqué corset. on the other hand, you could put a trash bag on sofia wylie and she’d elevate it to couture. kids watching this show today will be daydreaming about wearing this costume when they’re teenagers. i’m daydreaming about it right now.

that is a $250 jacket and it shows. would i wear this jacket? no. do i like seeing jordan fisher wearing it? yes. this jacket says he’d pass you the first hit of a joint at that shitty party you didn’t want to go to anyway and he disappears into the crowd before u get his number even though you would’ve never worked up the courage to ask for it. what was i saying? cool jacket basically. the jeans are ugly and we won’t be talking about them.

i’ve only had nini in an all black outfit with a leather jacket for a day and a half but if anything happens to her i’ll kill everyone in this show’s wardrobe department and then myself. this marks history as the first outfit they let nini wear that wasn’t from the juniors section at h&m. this is the nini that stole a garbage bag’s worth of stuff from gina and apologized with a version of ‘that’s just how it be sometimes.’ this is the nini that passive aggressively outsang ej with eight hundred different riffs in the span of ten seconds. this is the nini we deserve.

here i’ve highlighted the best part of the costume without subjecting you to the rest of it. i don’t think i need to elaborate on this.

[sapphicsaints]

that's when she knew she lost her

Tamar Kir-Bataar x f!Reader

Word count: ~4.4k

A/N: This is based on the books! I've posted this one previously but here's the full nsfw version, minors dni! sfw version here

Summary: She saw the look in Tamar's eyes when the Sun Summoner took her second amplifier, and that's when she knew she lost her. Not that she was hers to keep in the first place.

Warnings: angst, fluff, smut, praise kink, oral sex, fisting, rough sex, power dynamics, character death

Kostya’s wind carries her, and she lands on deck with a thud grunting before rolling out of the line of fire, breathing out a sigh of relief. She made it off the whaler, back on the volkvolny. Her relief is short-lived as Tamar yells, “He’s up.”

The Darkling’s shadow monsters rise up from the deck of the old whaler. She curses but takes position, listening for Sturmhond’s whistles and orders. The next minutes go by in a blur, she doesn’t have time to think, no time to mourn, just barely enough time to breathe and take the next action. Her hands move rapidly to manipulate the water surrounding them. 

She collapses in exhaustion once they’re out of range, she notices there’s only two tidemakers left, including her. The others must’ve been up on the rigging. 

Her breaths come heavy, but her skin is glowing with the tell-tale flush that comes with using her powers. Her back is up against the rails, the cool metal digging into her spine, when Tamar leans up next to her. Her hand clasps her shoulder. 

“I’m glad that's done.” She says. 

Y/n turns to look at her, “Thanks the saints. I never want to see him again. Maybe his dead body.”  

“Maybe we’ll get that lucky.” 

“It’ll take more than luck.” She mumbles. Tamar’s arm wraps around her shoulders, pulling her into a hug. The action feels strange after so many weeks without any contact, but her arms wrap around her lower back, pressing herself into her. Tamar always runs hot, and her heat is welcoming this time. 

“We’ll celebrate later.” She says, her voice low enough so only y/n can hear. Her cheeks flush pink and her heart beats rapidly, the promise is enough to make her nerves tingle. She remembers the last time they ‘celebrated’ together.  

Flashback

They’d finally dropped the last of the slavers they’d captured off in Kerch and set sail again. Tamar practically dragged her back to their room and she was laughing the entire way. The laughter stopped when the door shut behind her, her body slammed into it. Her eyes widened and she bit her bottom lip out of nerves. Tamar’s thumb brushed lightly across her lip, tugging it free from the bite. Y/n’s eyes gaze to the floor, nerves starting to get the best of her. Tamar’s thumb presses under her chin, tilting her head up so their eyes will meet. 

“Are you nervous?” she asks

“No.” She replies a little too quickly, and grimaces, remembering Tamar can always tell when she’s lying. “Maybe a little.” 

“Why?” 

Y/n sighs, her palms coming up to rub at her eyes. “I don’t know.” Tamar tugs her hands away, and pulls her away from the door, yanking her flush against her chest, moving them towards the middle of the small room. Her breath catches and she freezes. Slowly she moves her arms so they’re wrapped gently around Tamar’s shoulders. She studies every inch of her face, but still avoids eye contact. 

“Look at me.” Tamar’s tone tells her it isn’t a question. She tears her eyes up from her lips to meet hers. “You’re fine. We don’t have to do anything tonight. Or ever.” 

Her eyes narrow at the last two words, and her hands come up to cup her cheeks, pressing their lips together with urgency. Tamar’s hands dig into her lower back, drawing their hips together. Y/n has a feeling this is the reaction she wants, and she gives right into it. 

End Flashback

“I’ll be looking forward to it.” The grin on her face is infectious but thankfully hidden, her face pressed into Tamar’s chest. Once her heart has calmed a little she pushes back. “We should get back to work.” 

“Probably.” Tamar sounds reluctant but presses a kiss to her forehead, and heads back to talk to Sturmhond. 

Y/n presses two fingers to her forehead, the spot where Tamar just kissed. She hears a snicker from behind her and whips around. Kostya, one of her closest friends on the ship, is laughing at her. She sends a spurt of water to his face, and that knocks the laughter off of him. He retaliates with a small gust of wind. 

“Oi.” Privyet’s voice comes through, “Quit that.” 

They start laughing, both looking slightly chastised. They stand to the side as the sea whip is hauled on deck. Her hand drifts nervously to her left wrist, the space where her amplifier hides. Taking a second amplifier sounds like absolute insanity to her, but thankfully that’s something she doesn’t have to worry about. She doesn’t move when the scales are offered, just exchanging a small glance with Kostya. Scales still freak her out somewhat and she shudders. For once, he doesn’t make fun of her and she’s grateful for it.

–

She knows her jealousy is stupid, but it’s reasonable to be upset that she’s kicked out of her room with barely any notice. Not to mention, nobody bothered to ask her, just “Tamar’s sharing with the Sun Summoner.” And now she’s in one of the old closets normally saved for less welcome guests. Her one bag is moved over quickly enough. At least she has her own space now, and doesn't have to listen to Tamar snore or sleep talk. In her opinion that’s a weak consolation prize, and not really much of a prize at all. Her things are quickly shoved away and she heads up to grab her rations while she can. There’s only two tidemakers now, and she has a feeling her schedule is about to get a lot more packed. She stops after a few drinks, keeping herself sober enough to post a reliable watch. 

The first half is quite calm. She missed the quiet ease on the Volkvolny, the relative safety of knowing you’re surrounded by people you trust. The waves are gentle, the ship gently bobs side to side. Y/n pinches her cheeks a few times to stay awake, making small talk with her partner. The lanterns and voices on deck catch her attention. Alina’s taking the amplifier. Her eyes widen, and her heart beats a bit faster - hopefully this won’t be what kills her, there’s much more poetic ways to go out. Her eyes immediately find Tamar standing next to Tolya, the two of them looking the part of solemn sentries. Sentries for a Saint. 

The power and light that burst from her is undeniable, and y/n finds herself taking deep breaths to find her calm again. She’s lucky she didn’t fall off the rigging. Her face feels like it’s been freshly sunburnt. As always, her eyes search for Tamar first. And that’s when she knew she’d lost her. The look in her eyes. Y/n didn’t know exactly what it mean’t, just that Tamar belongs to someone now. Well, Tamar never belonged to her in the first place, and theres a strong chance she’s reading into this too much, but she’s always been particularly perceptive, and her hunches usually turn out to be right. Angry tears prick the corner of her eyes.

‘You’re a mercenary,’ she thinks to herself, ‘not a jealous, petty school girl.’ She takes a deep breath and schools her features back into a look of awe, before anyone can catch on. Someone replaces her and she takes up post at the stern, ready to help move to ship along. It’s likely someone spotted the light show Alina put on, and the best they can do it get as far away as possible. 

–

The next few weeks go by quickly, and she barely sees Tamar. Well, she sees her everywhere, but rarely interacts with her. Is y/n avoiding her? Or is Tamar avoiding y/n? They never got to celebrate. Whispers say that they may be leaving to do something with the Sun Summoner and Nikolai. Saints, she feels like a whiny child. She resolves to find out more on her next watch with Tolya. 

Later that day

“Do you think you’ll go with him?” She asks, staring out into the horizon, keeping her voice just loud enough so he’ll hear. 

“With who? Where?”

“Captain. To Ravka, with Alina.” 

Tolya’s eyes are alarmed, like he didn’t expect her to know what was going on, or what was to happen. 

“Saints Tolya, i’m not stupid.” 

“Nobody called you stupid.” 

“Maybe someone should’ve. That’s besides the point.” She turns to face him, taking her eyes off the water momentarily. “Are you going with them?” 

He sighs. “Keep looking.” 

She rolls her eyes but listens. She’s surprised when he keeps speaking. “You’re not asking about me. You’re asking about Tamar.” 

“Well, you both go everywhere together.” 

“He thought about asking you along.” Tolya says. He’s talking about Sturmhond. Or Nikolai. Depends on the situation. I know they’re going to Ravka, but to do what i’m uncertain. 

“Really?” I hummed, trying to sound as disinterested as possible, it’s not working. 

“But after we lost Hendrik and Dmitri.” 

It feels like an iron fist is gripping her heart, and she chokes out her next breath. The other Tidemakers lost against the Darkling. It’s only her and one other now.

Tolya pauses. “After we lost them, you’re needed here.” 

“Needed.” I let the words roll around my tongue. Needed here. But wanted? What if I want to be somewhere else? “Thank you for the heads up.” She gives Tolya a terse smile, trying her best to look content. I can tell he isn’t convinced, but he does smile back. 

End Flashback.

–

Three nights later, Tamar finds her. It’s dusk, and she’s sitting up on deck, deep in conversation with Kostya. She feels a tap on her shoulder, and doesn’t turn around and hesitates before turning around. Kostya glares at her and she finally does. Tamar’s standing behind her, one hand outstretched. 

Tamar doesn’t miss the side eye y/n sends to Kostya, but chooses not to comment. It shouldn’t feel like she’s headed to the gallows, but somehow it does. She takes her hand, and lets her heave her up to her feet. She shakes her hand off as soon as they stand up, and sees the hurt flash through Tamar’s eyes. It’s enough to make her start chewing on her bottom lip, 

“Come on.” She says, taking the initiative and leading them below decks to somewhere more private. They end up in her room this time, and she chooses to stand on the opposite side of the small room, awkwardly scratching the back of her neck. For once, Tamar doesn’t speak right away, instead it seems like her eyes are taking in every inch of her - memorizing every detail. Y/n keeps avoiding eye contact, leaning up against the wall and tilting her head up to stare at the overhead. 

“We’re leaving tomorrow.” Tamar says finally. 

Her heart jumps, and the same tears from a few weeks ago threaten to prick her eyes, “are you excited?” She asks, keeping her eyes trained on the ceiling. 

Tamar sighs before crossing the room. Her hands cup her cheeks, guiding her back down to try and meet her eyes. “Why don’t you ever look me in the eyes?” She murmurs. Y/n doesn’t have a good answer, what’s she supposed to say?

‘I’m scared i’ll cry if I do. I know you don’t feel the same way. I’ll quite literally get lost in your eyes. It’s too intimate. It scares me.’ Instead she doesn’t say anything. 

“Give me something, please.” Tamar says, this is the most desperate she’s heard her voice. She cringes at herself when the desperation gives her a sick sense of satisfaction. Give her something? It’s been weeks and they’ve barely exchanged a word. If she wants something she can have her fury and pain. The sting that comes with feeling abandoned, discarded, tossed aside for the next big thing.  

“You want something?” She spits out through clenched teeth. Tamar takes a step back, her eyes widening slightly at her tone. Normally y/n is level-headed and calm, it’s rare to see strong emotions leak into her voice. “Weeks. You’ve rarely spoken to me. Granted I didn’t try very hard, I know you’ve been busy with your new Saint.” She struggles to keep her tone kind. “I’m happy for you, by the way, that you’ve found a purpose. And I get it, your life has changed. That doesn’t mean you had to …” Her voice breaks and she can’t finish her sentence. 

“Leave please.” She croaks. Tamar doesn’t move and y/n opens her mouth to tell her to go again, but instead she’s wrapped in a bone-crushing, enough that she can barely breathe, let alone move her arms and hug back. She doesn’t make a sound, doesn’t complain, relishes in the touch and contact. Her body melts into her, leaning slightly. Just one hug and she melts. ‘Pathetic.’ she thinks to herself. ‘You’re being pathetic.’ 

“I’m sorry.” She whispers, pulling back, and running a hand through her short hair. Y/n’s never seen Tamar like this, lost for words or confused. She always seems so self-assured, so strong in her conviction, fearless. 

“Sorry for what?” She knows the answer, but she wants to hear it - needs to hear it. Hear Tamar admit it, validate what y/n felt these last few weeks. 

“Neglecting you. I’m sorry that we didn’t get to celebrate.” 

Y/n laughs, not an amused chuckle or a happy belly laugh, one of disbelief. “If you think that’s all I cared about then you’re much less perceptive than I thought you were.” She tries to put the emphasis on ‘cared’, but it doesn’t come out that way. Care is more accurate, she still cares. 

Tamar seems confused, “I don’t understand.” Her tone is genuine and honest. Y/n feels herself soften more, a little bit of the ice melts away. She finally meets her eyes. 

“I care about you dimwit.” Tamar’s eyes narrow at the insult, but she doesn’t break eye contact. “I wanted … I still want more for us. I want to get to actually be with you, beyond just ‘celebrations’, and the occasional hug or kiss on the forehead when you remember.” 

“Why haven’t you said anything before?” 

Her voice raises slightly, “because you outrank me and I don’t want to be fired, because I thought it was obvious, because I thought you’d have said something by now.” The outranking part is true - not that it matters too much on the ship, but enough for her to be nervous. Rogue Grisha have difficulty finding safe employment in this world. Safe in the sense of nobody forcing her to serve an army or enslaving her. Her job isn’t safe by any means, but it's freedom.

“Quiet.” Tamar hushes her. 

She takes a deep breath before speaking in a normal tone. “Tell me I'm delusional.” She’d have laughed at Tamar’s expression if the situation was different. “Tell me you never wanted me. Tell me you’re leaving and not coming back.” Tamar reached out and held one of her hands. 

“You’re not delusional, I do want you, I am leaving, but I don’t know if I’m coming back.” 

“Three out of four, not bad.” 

Tamar huffs, evidently tired of the argument, before pulling her into a bruising kiss. It catches y/n by surprise but she returns the same energy. Normally Tamar’s a tease, takes her time, taunts her, but this time everything moves fast. She lets out a moan as her neck and chest are covered in small bites, she’s being loud but doesn’t care this time. Two of Tamar’s fingers are shoved into her mouth, and she sucks them eagerly, gagging slightly but that just makes the other girl’s fingers dig into her mouth further. Her shirt is ripped off, thrown halfway across the room, followed by her bra and her knives tossed into an open chest. Normally she’d throw a fit about that, but right now she doesn’t care. Y/n reaches for the bottom of Tamar’s top, starting to tug it over. 

“No.” Her voice is low and firm. Y/n’s eyes widen slightly before she removes her hands. Tamar flips her around, pushing her hands up against the wall, her body flush against it. The cool wood digs into her nipples, causing them to stand on edge. She moans as a hand comes around to rub circles into her clit. She shifts to try and reach for the other girl but Tamar’s body pushes forward to pin her back against the wall. 

“Did I say you can move?” Her lips graze across her ear. 

“No.” She gulps. 

“Are you going to stay still?” 

“Yes.” It comes out as a whisper. 

“And quiet?” 

She nods. 

“Good girl.” 

Y/n swallows a moan, biting harshly on her lower lip, as two of Tamar’s fingers push into her from behind, setting a brutal pace. She pants, her breaths coming rapidly. Another finger pushes into her, it’s taking most of her energy to hold back a scream. All she wants is to beg, beg for more, tell her how good it feels, but she knows if she opens her mouth it’ll stop. She’s nearly over the edge, her walls starting to tighten around Tamar’s fingers when she stops. A small whine escapes her lips. 

“Can you take my whole hand?” Her voice is back in her ear. Y/n’s breath catches. She’s done it once before, and it was incredible, but left her legs shaking for nearly an hour. She wants it, Saints she wants Tamar so bad that she’ll take her in any way she can. She nods. 

“Words.” 

“Yes please.” “What’s our safeword?” 

“Butterfly.” It comes out without hesitation, this is a routine they’ve danced several times before, and she loves the question. Something else pops into her head, and she turns over her shoulder to look at Tamar. The expression on her face surprises her, it’s full of lust, want, and maybe something mournful? She ignores the last part. 

“Can I do something first?” 

Tamar looks surprised but nods. As quick as she can on shaky legs, she turns and drops to her knees in front of her. There’s a small pain as the wood digs into her bare knees, but she ignores it, tilting her head up to make eye contact. Tamar’s jaw drops. Y/n had never gone on her knees without prompting before, and it isn’t something she loves, except with her - not that she’d ever admit it. 

There’s no hesitation as her clothes come off. One hand braces herself against the wall, and the other cups the back of her head to guide her forward. Y/n’s hands grip her thighs and her tongue comes out slowly, licking up and down her folds, savoring every taste. Tamar is soaking wet, and it makes her smile. She sucks lightly on her clit and Tamar moans quietly above her, Y/n has her coming undone quickly, she knows exactly what she likes, and one finger stroking the space just behind her pussy sends her over the edge, her hand twisting violently in her hair. She feels herself soaking, leaking slightly onto the floor. As soon as the other girl’s finished her orgasm, she yanks y/n back to her feet, barely giving her time to steady her legs underneath her, before giving her a rough kiss. One of her hands moves to slam her wooden chest shut, and she gasps as she’s bent over it. 

She bites her hand to keep back a moan when her fingers slam into her without hesitation. “You are so fucking good.” is whispered in her ear and she bites harder. 

Another finger goes in, that’s four now, “so good for me.” 

She whimpers, already feeling her legs going slack, her entire body weight shifting to lean on the chest. 

“Almost there love.” Her final finger slips in and she feels like she might cry from ecstasy, Tamar moves slowly giving her time to adjust. Y/n doesn’t want it, and breaks the rules - breaks her silence. Part of her is a brat after all. 

“Saints Tamar fuck me like you mean it.” One hand fists her hair, pulling her up so she’s looking right at the other girl. 

“Say one more thing and I'll leave you on edge for the rest of the night.” It’s an empty threat and she knows it but she nods anyways 

“Good girl.” Shivers run down her spine, and her toes curl. Those two words have so much power over her. Tamar’s hand releases her hair, letting her head rest back on down the chest, her fist pushes in and out of her brutally, and y/n draws blood on her hand from biting down so hard. One hand reaches back to try and grab Tamar’s free hand. She didn’t say not to move after all. She reaches it and grips it like a lifeline. Tamar rubs circles into the back of her hand. How is it she can hold her so gently with one hand and fuck her brutally with the other? 

Her walls pulse around Tamar’s hand and she finishes violently, her back arching and screams muffled by her hand. Y/n doesn’t move, knowing her legs would immediately give out from underneath her. It doesn’t phase her when Tamar moves and y/n hears the sounds of her dressing, and the door closing behind her. Part of her fears she’s just left completely, but she comes back with a bucket of water and a rag, and makes quick work cleaning them up. Her hands gently scoop her, wrapping around her stomach, and lift her into the hammock so her head is resting on her chest. 

She whispers sweet things into her ear, the words seem to blur as she’s lost in her own world. It could’ve been ten minutes or ten hours when Tamar’s pinch on her side brings her back. It must’ve been closer to an hour because her legs aren’t shaking quite as violently anymore. 

“Hm?” She mumbles. 

“You need to get dressed.” 

She groans but stands up, getting some new clothes for herself. One hand braces against the wall to keep herself steady, she looks into the small mirror, her neck and chest are covered in small but deep purple bruises. Her jaw drops as she turns to look at Tamar, who just laughs at her. 

“Sit. I’ll heal them.” 

She jumps up on the chest, scooching until the back of her knees hit the edge. 

Her hands are gently as she grazes over the spots on her neck, and chest, leaving just one behind. Y/n rolls her eyes, it’s typical of her to do that - leave one in an area she can easily conceal. She heals the bite on her hand as well. The silence after becomes uncomfortable. 

“I don’t know what to say.” The words come out before she can think twice. 

“I’ll say I don’t regret a single moment of this. Of anything.” 

She lets out a small, sad smile. “I don’t either.” And brings her arms up to pull her into a gentle kiss. Nothing else needs to be said, they’ve come to an understanding. They both know it’s a goodbye kiss - a goodbye for now. 

–

The next early morning, she’s on watch as they leave. 

“Saint’s willing, we’ll meet again one day.” Her words came out low, almost like a whisper or prayer. They thankfully went unheard, and she waved to the dark sky as Tamar flew off in the hummingbird. 

Kostya clapped a comforting hand on her shoulder, “They’ll be alright.” 

She turns back, giving them a terse smile. He’d mistaken it for worry, probably a good thing. 

The crew makes themselves scarce for a while, keeping careful tabs on every hint of the Darklings location. If they were caught by him they likely would not survive, and likely would come to very painful deaths, something none of them were particularly interested in. She wonders if he would spare Grisha, she hopes not - if they were to be captured she’d rather get the same treatment as the rest of the crew, as morbid as that sounds. 

The next few months go by pretty quickly, and when she gets offered the chance to go to the Spinning Wheel, she takes it. A break from the seas will do her good. The idea of seeing Tamar doesn’t cross her mind, surprisingly. She’s become a memory - a good one, but a memory. 

– 

Spinning wheel 

It’s strange being with her crew on land. Everyone's the same, but a bit more tense. There’s a certain safety at sea - it’s more difficult to be ambushed. She’s surprised when Alina remembers her - even her name, and cheers along with the rest when she cuts the top of a mountain off. 

Y/n noticed the connection between her and Nadia almost immediately and it didn’t hurt like she thought it would, she offered her congratulations instead. 

An argument starts when Sturmhond tells her she’s going on the mission to hunt the firebird. Well, asks her, he knows he can’t really tell her to do anything. She supposes she should call him Nikolai now. 

“You’re the best tidemaker we have.” Nikolai says. 

“They could bring anyone else.” 

“Tamar asked for you.” 

“That’s the problem.” She whispers. 

He sighs, walking around the table to clasp a hand on her shoulder. “I know you two have history, but I’d feel better knowing you’re there. Tamar asked for you for a reason, and I doubt it’s to have a sordid tryst in the middle of the night.” 

Y/n’s eyes narrow and she glares at him as he laughs. “They’re taking Ana.” Ana is another friend from the Volkvolny, a Materialki that put the last amplifier on Alina. Her eyes light up, and the look on his face tells her he knows he’s won.

“Fine.” She says reluctantly. “I’ve always wanted to visit there.” 

“I doubt that.” 

“No, but it makes me feel better.” 

“Whatever it takes” he winks before leading them out of the room. 

The ambush surprises them all. She takes another look at the crew, a tidemaker isn’t completely essential, and there’s too much weight already. She can tell Nevsky is thinking the same thing. Despite her being Grisha, they became fast friends. 

“One last time?” he whispers to her. Not that they’d had times before, but she guesses he likes the dramatic effect.

“Lets do it.” She replies. He says something quiet to Alina before yelling, 

“For the 22nd.” He leaps over the side with his soldiers. 

“For Sturmhond.” She whispers before following them. Tamar’s scream is lost in the noise. 

[erazonpo3]

WOWM

so What Once Was Mine came out and I read it.

My General Thoughts are that this book was something of a rollercoaster but in like a pop up carnival with dubious safety regulations and diseases in the DIY log flume water kind of way. I had some fun reading it but I also feel like I picked up a rash.

If you're like me and you enjoy picking a book apart for morsels of interesting concepts then you might enjoy it, if you think holy shit why the fuck is a literal real historical serial killer in this book I need to see this then you might enjoy it, if you care about engaging plots and character beats then you probably won't.

If you want to ask me anything specific go ahead, but otherwise for more in depth thoughts: spoilers ahead

Basic Summary of the Plot

Okay so here's the deal. The story has the framing device of two siblings in a cancer ward, where one tells the other a story. I'll get into that later, but that's how it starts. Our actual story starts with a pretty long prologue: We learn that the King & Queen got the Moonflower thinking it was the Sunflower, Rapunzel was born with silver hair, and then baby Rapunzel kills a maid who accidentally hurt her when brushing her hair.

Oh, by the way, Max is a human man named Justin Tregsburg. Yeah.

Anyway, the royal family puts out feelers for legit witches who can safely take care of Rapunzel because the baby is too dangerous, and Gothel shows up to take her away. Queen Arianna visits Rapunzel once (but is only allowed to watch through a peephole) and decides watching another woman raise her child is too painful and throws herself into restoring the kingdom's orphanages instead.

Now we're in the present. Rapunzel is nineteen and she wants to go and see the lanterns (a mourning tradition of the Dead princess in this story). She tries to argue with Gothel but gets shut down, and Gothel makes her kill a chicken to prove the point that she can't go outside because she's too dangerous. However we as the audience already know Gothel plans to sell Rapunzel off as a bride or a servant or a weapon to some other nobles, because she's evil.

Also by the way Gothel still has access to our Sundrop Flower and is using it to live forever that's just a thing that happens in the background.

When Gothel is gone Rapunzel watches as a man (Flynn) stores a satchel in a tree outside of her tower, and that motivates her to leave the tower for the first time. Then she goes back inside the tower with her prize of a crown, and a skink she found and named Pascal. Rapunezl and Gothel have another spat, and Rapunzel decides she will run off to see the lanterns and she will find Flynn and make him her guide.

She ends up at the Snuggly Duckling and she doesn't find Flynn but she does find Gina, a young career criminal girl looking to break the glass ceiling. Gina agrees to help her find Flynn. They find Flynn, and he agrees to help guide Rapunzel to see the floating lanterns for a split reward of the crown with Gina.

The Snuggly Duckling gets burned down by Countess Bathory (yes that Elizabeth Bathory) and the Pub Thugs are pissed about it and also they're helping Rapunzel even though she didn't sing the I've Got A Dream song don't worry about it. We learn that the nobles that wanted to buy Rapunzel are now hunting her down so she can go to auction.

Gina takes them to her adopted mother's cottage. Gina's mother is a white witch, who goes by the name of Goodwife. She doesn't get an actual name she's just The Goodwife. Anyhow, the cottage is a magic safe space (for now) and Goodwife teaches Rapunzel that her hair isn't inherently evil and may not even be all that deadly! Rapunzel learns that her hair has other powers too, like the ability to turn skink Pascal into a sentient Chameleon. Yeah.

Also Goodwife tells Rapunzel she's the dead princess but this isn't like, an immediate call to action. Not a lot happens until we get this story's version of the Mother Knows Best Reprise where Gothel finds Rapunzel again but has to flee, but this Rapunzel has a bigger support network and isn't buying it. Flynn and Gina decide the safest course of action is to bring Rapunzel to the castle, but along the way she gets kidnapped by the Countess.

Gothel is pissed because she still wants the money for Rapunzel, so she rallies the armies of all the opposing bidders. Flynn and Gina convince Max the Man to send for his troops, and he joins them in going to the enemy castle. Flynn tries to sneak in, gets caught, and meanwhile there's a bloody battle out the front between the noble armies. Max jumps into the fray, Gina turns around and rallies the Pub Thugs.

Rapunzel uses her shrinking magic (!) to disappear half the castle and escape with Eugene, and the Pub Thugs arrive and basically end the battle. The Captain is dying but it's okay! Rapunzel turns him into a horse :) Also Rapunzel sees Gothel and tells her to fuck off.

The story ends with a tearful reunion between Rapunzel and her parents, Eugene and Gina are implied to be biological siblings, and things are good but of course in direct parallel to Cass Gina leaves at the end to become an adventurer. The end.

(There are a few other smaller plot beats, but you get the idea.)

MY THOTS

So here are my thoughts™.

Framing Device

I'll just state that I didn't like that the story was told via the vehicle of an older brother telling his 16 year old sister a different version of the Tangled Movie in a cancer ward. From what I've heard it also isn't normal for the Twisted Tales series to use a framing device for the AUs either.

I sympathise with the author's personal story, of course I do. That doesn't mean I'm stirred with compassion every time the flow of the story is interrupted to remind you to be sad because this is a story being told to a girl sick with cancer. It feels more than a little tragedy-porny rather than emotionally touching, and maybe that's because I'm too burnt out on real life tragedy to waste emotional energy on fictional cancer patients but we don't need to do Fault In Our Stars discourse again.

Real World References

This story goes heavy with Real World references. And another issue with the framing device as above is that you do feel like this is a story being told by someone namedropping every historical figure they know which makes it harder to get into the story.

There's like... a lot of references to Christianity, particularly in the prologue. There's a priest that thinks Rapunzel's hair is the work of the Devil or whatever. It's a lot. The Patriarchy is a thing. And that's not even getting into the Countess. I put it very succinctly in my notes so I'll paste it here:

I wish she’d just been an OC who could exist to chew scenery because the fact that she was a literal historical serial killer is super. Off putting. Like, she could have been an obvious reference to Bathory, but it feels like Miku Binder Hamilton levels of uncomfortable to me.

I miss Lady D.

Which basically sums up my problem with trying to take the setting of Tangled and put it somewhere in the Real World and somewhere on the Timeline. Who thought this was a good idea.

Misc. Thoughts

So, I used the five highlighter colours my ipad allows to organise my thoughts and organised them accordingly: Yellow for out of place IRL references, Blue for worldbuilding/character points that aren't plot relevant but still interesting, Pink for when something I find personally amusing happens, Purple for when the story feels like it's trying to 1-up the movie in some kind of way and Green for Heterosexual Nonsense. I'll touch on those last two in the Character sections but be prepared.

Also: for a book about giving Rapunzel killer hair, her hair isn't very dangerous. I wanted to see Rapunzel kill someone, and I'm disappointed that I didn't.

Characters

I'll do a deep dive into my thoughts about the characters before wrapping it up. I'm starting with Gina because she's honestly the easiest to get through.

Gina

Gina is a new character introduced for the story. She's a young woman trying to make it as a career criminal but keeps hitting that glass ceiling. So here's the down low, for all those who want to know: Gina is basically Cass, only not really. She's implied to be Eugene's biological sister, as previously mentioned, but you can imagine she's Cass the entire way through without breaking your immersion because if you imagined Cass if she were adopted by a Goodwitch rather than the Captain and had a looser, more wilderness survivor than trainee guard upbringing then you get Gina.

I liked Gina! I think she's fun as her own character too, and her best moments are when she's interacting with her mother Goody Goodwife, and she of course picks up a natural sibling rivalry with Eugene, but I was disappointed with how little she really bonded with Rapunzel because she needed to make room for Eugene and Rapunzel's romance.

Rapunzel

Okay, here's our protagonist. There's a notable effort to make Rapunzel more active in her destiny and whatever, and sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn't. I was worried they'd try to go full butt-kicking girlboss with her but I was pleasantly surprised that Rapunzel was pretty useless in most scenes, genuinely love to see it.

With a more intimate look into Rapunzel's psyche through the medium of prose, we see Rapunzel really questioning Gothel's behaviour even before she leaves the tower, and while I appreciate that she can develop her own cynicism I feel it starts unnecessarily early. This is my purple colour; the movie needs to be "fixed" by showing the readers that this Rapunzel is quicker to distrust Gothel. She's also quicker to hatch a plan to go outside of the tower on her own, and she makes a plan to make Flynn her guide for the lanterns even though he never stumbles upon her in the tower- and even though she has a perfectly rational reason not to trust him which is that he is a stranger and a Wanted Thief.

In the moments where it does work is when Rapunzel is surrounded by her new support network: Flynn, Goodwife and Gina, who encourage her to question Gothel's sincerity, and Rapunzel comes up with her own defences for Gothel so that she can poke through them herself.

I have some other thoughts about Rapunzel's hair and her powers, like how the story provides the interesting concept that her hair gets different powers with the different phases of the moon, but a lot of the powers are uhhh stupid and also I feel like it really robs the story of the whole gripping conflict of "Yes I'm Rapunzel Yes my hair kills people what of it".

In as far as just Rapunzel herself though, she still felt pretty in character nonetheless, and maybe that's all I can ask.

Flynn Rider / Eugene Fitzherbert

My boy I am so sorry. They neutered my boy.

Long story short: Eugene in this story is the sexy lamp. He contributes nothing to the plot except to be there for Rapunzel to drool over. And of course because he won't get any character development, he starts from the very beginning as a sweet soft boi with none of the Flynn Rider characterisation from the movie because we don't have time for that, he needs to be husband material stat.

His whole character is the colour green for Heterosexual Nonsense.

So, here's the problem. In the movie, there's not a lot of time for ~friendship~ between Rapunzel and Eugene because they kind of immediately see each other as a romantic prospect. And whatever, it's a movie and there's only so much time. But this book had the opportunity to take things a bit slower and instead chooses to make Rapunzel get jealous whenever Eugene and Gina interact and for her to be constantly wishing he was holding her hand.

Say what you will about Lost Lagoon, but it tells a good romance story just by virtue of not intending to be a romance story, because the author is trying to convey a strong bond between Rapunzel and Cassandra without using "and they kiss" as a cheatcode. What Once Was Mine says "he was a boy, she was a girl, could it be any more obvious?" and leaves it at that.

Now as for how this all pertains to Eugene's character? Well, it just robs him of any flavour. In the movie there's a clear distinction between Flynn and Eugene, when we learn Eugene's real name about halfway through. We see a clear difference between the Flynn we knew- kind of an asshole, wanated to drop Rapunzel off at the Snuggly Duckling and get rid of her- and Eugene, who is sincere and chooses Rapunzel as his New Dream in opposition to his Old Dream of living alone on an island with a bunch of money.

This version of Eugene is basically Eugene all the way through, because the plot doesn't really need Eugene there but he has to be there because it's a Tangled AU so there's no Rapunzel rescuing Flynn from the guards and healing his hand scene, he just loves her immediately and that's that. They have a little spat at one point but it's cleared up later and not because they actually communicate but because they kiss.

Rapunzel only learns Eugene's real name at the very end of the story, and gives a speech about how Eugene is the real him, but it's just so flat because 'Flynn' has been sincere this whole time? Anyway he does nothing of value for the entire story except be there for Rapunzel to lust after. Eugene I'm so sorry.

Gothel

Gothel's sort of the Big Bad and is characterised as an abusive asshole, the usual. I wish there were a bit more nuance to her character but then again in this story she's not just being passively evil- taking care of Rapunzel for selfish reasons but nevertheless maintaining the status quo- she's being actively evil in trying to sell Rapunzel off.

It's notably funny that Gothel sees the Countess Bathory and is like "what the fuck".

Anyway Gothel in this story also feels very weak in part because this Rapunzel is more critical and in part because this Rapunzel has a new support network. It's for that reason the Mother Knows Best Reprise scene doesn't really work, because the original has Gothel pit Rapunzel against Eugene, whereas she can't do that here so it remains a Gothel vs Rapunzel thing.

She gets a boring death as an epilogue addendum that someone rips out the Sundrop flower, which tbh? lame. It would be a lot more fun if it were open ended but I am also preferential to Rapunzel actually using her killer hair to kill someone. Please

Captain Justin Tregsburg

It's Max. He was a human but then he got turned into a horse. what the fuck you guys

[slowly-writing]

Get Through It

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Word count: 3.2K

Requested by anon: Hi, could I request a natasha romanoff x fem reader where reader is from the red room and was trained to become a 2.0 version of the black widow and is well known for how successful and deadly she is. She is Natasha's long term girlfriend and informant inside the red room, which is unknown to the red room, the other avengers and SHIELD (maybe asides from Clint or Fury) until she breaks in the Avengers tower, with the avengers perceiving her as a threat until natasha tackles her, confusing them.

“I don’t want you to go back,” Natasha’s voice is quiet, not wanting to break the bubble you’ve formed in the few minutes you’re able to spend together.

“I know love. Just a few more weeks and we should be able to take them down for good, then I’ll be able to leave. I’ll be with you,” you promise and she nods, tightening her grip on your waist as you pull her impossibly closer to you.

“Just five more minutes.” You smile at Natasha’s words.

“Five more minutes,” you agree.

You’d met Natasha at a young age. You were brought into the Red Room a few years after her, she even trained you for a while before she broke out. Not long after she left she showed back up on one of your missions. She told you about the people she worked for now and how they needed your help. You immediately agreed. You’d do almost anything to end the program that ruined your life, you wanted out. Unfortunately for you, the plan involved leaving you there to be a mole for an unspecified amount of time. Neither you nor Natasha liked it, wanting you to be safe, wanting to be together, but you made it work. She’d come find you when they sent you on missions, and you’d steal a few moments together wherever you could. She helped you cope with the people you had to kill in order to maintain your cover, collateral damage, Fury had called them. It made you sick, but it was the only way to survive. If the instructors of the red room even vaguely suspected you disobeying their orders they’d kill you as soon as look at you.

Natasha didn’t know exactly what was happening inside the red room anymore, all she knew was that they had upped security since she left and things had gotten a lot worse. Fury wouldn’t let her in on the briefings he had with you, he said it was a conflict of interest and you refused to talk about what you were going through. When Natasha left the instructors had been furious. She was their greatest accomplishment and they knew it was only a matter of time before she returned with an army to take them down. So training was doubled and punishments were tripled. Everyone’s life became a living hell. Well, more of one. They were determined to be ready and you, having been the only one trained by her, got the brunt of the attention. They decided you’d be the new project and while Natasha didn’t know exactly what was wrong, she knows it’s bad, and it breaks her heart.

xxxxx

“Y/l/n, stand,” you’re startled out of your slumber and you’re on your feet in seconds, standing at attention. You know not to speak as you wait for instructions, if they decided to wake you up before everyone else then they weren’t happy, and you’re not about to piss them off.

“You will be training the new recruits today. They are sloppy and undisciplined, we expect you to fix that,” you’re told and you clench your jaw, not letting the words you want to say slip out. Not snapping that the new recruits are all below seven years of age, of course they’re all undisciplined. Of course they’re sloppy, they were brought here against their will to become killing machines. You know the nightmare they’re living through. You’ve been there before, and it’s because of that experience that you know anything you say won’t be taken against you. The children will receive the punishment. So you hold your tongue.

“Yes ma’am,” your voice is firm, hiding the pain and anger with an ease that only comes from years of experience.

“Training starts at 0500. Get ready,” they say before leaving your room. You look down at your watch, you have half an hour.

xxxxx

“Again.” your voice is firm, your face emotionless. You’re watching the young girls spar and pretending it doesn’t break your heart. You don’t remember much about your life before you came here, the instructors made sure of that, but you know these girls do. They remember the parents they were ripped away from, the normal lives they had, and even if they were bad, they were nothing compared to this. The sound of sniffling catches your attention. You look to your left, seeing a small girl trying to hide her tears. You kneel down in front of her and she stiffens, “hey, you can’t cry.”

“I’m sorry ma’am. I didn’t mean too,” her voice is shaking and there are more tears welling up in her eyes. She looks to the floor in an attempt to hide them and you find yourself fighting tears as well.

“I’m not mad,” you promise and she looks up, a sliver of hope in her eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Jackie,” she whispers and you nod.

“It’s going to be okay, Jackie.” You feel eyes on you and you look around, seeing everyone staring at the interaction and you wave them over. “Everyone come here, and be quiet.”

The girls half dozen all gather around you, sitting in a circle and looking every bit the young children they are. You glance behind you, ensuring the doors are closed before you turn back. “You all need to listen very carefully. I know you don’t want to be here, I don’t either. But I’m here to help you get through. I want to help you, but you can’t tell anyone, alright? I know you’re scared but you have to hide it, or you’re gonna get in a lot of trouble. It’s scary but you can get through this. I know you can.”

“I want to go home,” Jackie says and you sigh.

“I know. I do too, but it’s gonna be okay. You hide your emotions from them, but you’re allowed to feel them. Whenever you feel scared or alone, you lean on each other, or you come find me. You’ll get through this together.”

“How did you do it?” another girl asks and you smile softly.

“I had someone to help me through,” you say simply, memories of you and Nat working together to get through everything. As you look at the girls here you promise them silently, you’re gonna shut this down. You’ll get them all home, even if it’s the last thing you do. You hear footsteps coming and your heart stops.

“Everybody up!” Your voice is firm again and they all snap back into attention, knowing it’s time to work. “Again.”

“Y/l/n,” a voice comes from the doorway and you make your way over, “you’re done here for the day. You have a mission.”

“Yes ma’am.” you know not to spare the girls another glance, but you can tell they’re watching you go. You hope you’ll be back soon.

“There is an individual out there who poses a threat to everything we do here, more than anyone in the past. This mission requires a firm hand, that’s why you have been chosen. You will find your target and you will take her out, before she destroys everything,” the instructor says as you walk. When you enter the briefing room you see the photos of your target, and you feel sick.

xxxxx

“Intruder alert! An unidentified individual is in the elevator, approaching the common room.” Friday’s voice announces throughout the tower and everyone snaps into action, the movie they had been watching instantly forgotten as they prepare for a fight. Tony’s suit assembles around him and Clint grabs one of the many bows he has stashed around the tower. Steve’s shield appears out of nowhere and Natasha grabs a knife out of her boot and they all wait for the elevator doors to open with bated breath.

When the doors open there are three very different reactions from the people in the room. Natasha drops her knife and practically jumps into the intruder's arms, Clint lowers his bow and rolls his eyes fondly, while everyone else tenses up even more.

“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Russia. Did they send you on a mission here?” Natasha rapid fires questions, and the grin on your face only grows.

“I’m out. All the instructors from the red room are with Fury, on the way to the raft. All the girls are going to headquarters for interrogation,” you say proudly and Natasha steps out of your arms, taking both your hands in hers and trying to hide the tears in her eyes.

“It worked?” Her voice is barely above a whisper, and you nod.

“It worked.” With that she’s crashing her lips into yours, only pulling away when someone loudly clears their throat.

“Not to break up whatever this is but…what is this?” Tony asks and you try to stifle a laugh at the fear on the faces of Earth’s mightiest heroes.

“Agent y/l/n, nice to meet you,” you say simply and they all continue to stare.

“Uh, yeah. We’re gonna need a bit more than that because we all know who you are. We want to know what you’re doing here and why you’re so...friendly with Romanoff,” Steve says and you don’t hold back the laughter now.

“I’m y/n, I work with shield. I’ve been undercover in Russia the last few years taking down the training facility Natasha and I got our start in. I earned the reputation you all clearly have heard of, but I’m working on changing that, same as Nat. I would’ve left sooner but Fury ordered me to stay there,” you explain and he furrows his brow.

“The most prolific assassin of our time appears in our living room and says she’s on our side. You understand that we can’t believe that, right?” Bruce says and you shrug, attempting to remain calm about the situation.

“I mean, it’s obvious I’m not a stranger. You really think I’d still be standing here if Nat thought I was a threat? Seriously, have any of you met her? She’s the second best assassin in Russia,” you tease her and she rolls her eyes. “Anyway, you can call Fury if you want. He’ll back me up.”

“Why don’t you call him?” Steve is still skeptical and you let out a slow breath. This interrogation is getting really annoying.

“I’ve lived within an underground school training as an assassin for the last sixteen years of my life, three of which I spent undercover trying to take them down from the inside. Do you really think I’m dumb enough to have something as tracable as a cell phone?” your voice is calm but you’re anything but. Natasha takes your hand, trying to pull you out of the glaring match you’re engaged in.

“Alright. Sounds good, see you then,” you all catch the end of Clint’s phone call as he steps back into the room. None of you had even seen him leave. “Fury’s on his way. He had to stop at the raft but he should be here in the next few hours. It’s nice to see you again y/l/n. You okay?”

“You too Barton, and yeah. Just a few scrapes and bruises, nothing some time won’t fix. How is…everything” you trail off, unsure if the people around you know about his family.

“Laura’s good, the kids too. Don’t worry about them. They all found out a few weeks ago,” he explains and you nod.

“Now that I’m out I’d love to meet them sometime, put some faces to all the stories,” you suggest and Clint smiles, nodding in agreement.

“Okay, enough questions. I’m sure you’re exhausted, I’ll take you up to my room. You can rest there until Fury arrives,” Natasha pulls you away from the group and down a few hallways, effectively ending the conversation. She enters what you assume is her room and you smile softly as you take it in. It’s pretty simple, almost no decorations and it’s perfectly organized. You know where that habit came from, and you think about how tidiness has been beaten into your brain as you remove your shoes and carefully set them next to a pair of hers by the end of the bed. When you turn to her you see several emotions crossing her face.

“I know you must have questions,” you say quietly, sitting on the edge of her bed.

“I mean yeah, I have questions. You show up here out of nowhere? We weren’t supposed to take them down for weeks, what changed? I was supposed to help, I was as much part of this as you were. I should have been there,” her voice is shaking, a mix of fear and anger making its way through and you sigh.

“I know you wanted to be in on it. I wanted you to be there, you deserved that closure, but my next mission-” you cut yourself off, shaking your head. You grit your teeth as you try and push your last meeting with your instructors out of your head. “We couldn’t wait anymore.”

“I understand you wanted to leave, I was trying to convince Fury to move up the date as well. I just don’t get what made you feel the need to keep me out of it!” Natasha yells and you’re on your feet in a second.

“You were my next mission!” A heavy silence falls over the room. You’re practically shaking, tears of anger gathering in your eyes as Natasha stares in silence. “That’s why I couldn’t wait.”

“I don’t…” Natasha trails off. You can see the confusion on her face and you step forward, gently taking her hand, but avoiding her eyes. You may be angry, but not at her.

“They’ve never forgiven you for leaving. I was called into a briefing a few days ago. When I walked into the room and they had pictures of you on the board, from missions, here in New York, from the times you met me on my missions. They’ve been trailing you for months. It’s a miracle they hadn’t seen us together. They knew they’d never get you back. They’ve been trying for years and so it was decided if you wouldn’t come willingly we’d take you out. I’d take you out,” you clarify with a shaky breath. “You’re too big of a threat and they knew I was the only one who could…That’s why it had to be now. That’s why you couldn’t be there.”

“Y/n,” Natsha tries but you shake your head, releasing her hand and stepping away.

“I’m tired. Can we talk about this later?” you ask with your back to Natasha and she sighs. She knows she won’t be hearing anything about this anytime soon. Not from you at least, but she nods.

“Of course, get some rest.”

xxxxx

“Now that this is all cleared up, you’re free to go. I think you have earned a vacation,” Fury finishes and you laugh.

“What, you mean all of your agents don’t spend sixteen years on assignment?” you tease and he smirks a bit, it’s the closest you’ve ever seen to a smile. “Thank you sir. I’d like to follow up with the girls if that’s all right, especially the younger ones. I promised I’d get them home.”

“You’re welcome to. Several of them have been asking about you. Other than that you’re free to go. You’ll be contacted with any further questions,” he says before walking out the door followed by the team, leaving you and Natasha alone in the conference room.

You relax into your chair and let out a sigh of relief, “we did it.”

“You did it,” Natasha corrects. “I knew you would. Now, I think it’s time to properly introduce you to the team. Ya know, now that they know you’re not here to kill them.”

Natasha offers a hand and you let her pull you up following her into the kitchen where the team is now gathered.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Steve is the first to speak up.

“I understand. I would have reacted the same way, you were trying to protect yourselves. I was trying to do the same,” you explain and everyone feels the tension begin to release. As you settle into conversation you hear a voice coming from the hallway.

“Miss Romanoff!” the unknown voice yells and you instinctively step between Natasha and the threat. A teenage boy comes running into the room, a backpack on his shoulders and a sheet of paper in his hand. A girl around the same age follows him in, much calmer and you stare, they don’t seem like a threat, but you aren’t taking any risks.

“Hey, it’s alright,” Natasha whispers to you, taking your hand before speaking loud enough for everyone to hear. “This is Peter and Wanda, they’re on the team.”

You spin to face her, a look of anger across your face, but she recognizes the pain in your eyes. “They’re kids.”

“Oh god. Another person to make fun of my age? I swear I can keep up, I’m not that young!” At Peter’s complaints you turn back around, looking the two up and down for a moment.

“You’re here willingly?” You ask and Peter’s head tilts to the side, resembling that of a confused puppy.

“Well, yeah. I was gonna show Miss Romanoff my chemistry test, she helped me study for it. I got an A,” he says and the girl behind him, Wanda you remember, steps forward.

“She means on the team,” Wanda looks at you intently, like she knows more than she should and it’s unsettling.

“Wanda, get out of her head,” Steve’s words startle you but he just keeps going. “This is y/n, she trained with Nat.”

“Their training facility had child soldiers, similar to hydra. That is why she was afraid we were here against our will,” Wanda says and you notice her accent, “I was raised in Sokovia. I was brought into Hydra at ten. I came here after.”

“So you just-”

“Know everything you’re thinking? Yes,” she cuts you off and you sigh.

“That’s gonna get annoying. On that note, I have to get to headquarters,” you say and Natasha speaks up.

“Do you have to go now?” she asks and you nod.

“The younger girls...I promised I’d get them home. I promised to be there when they were scared, and I know this is the scariest thing yet,” you tell her and Tony speaks up.

“Surely they’ll be okay for a bit longer. They have to understand that you’ve done enough for them. They may only be teenagers but-”

“They’re seven,” you cut him off, “some even younger. I won’t leave them alone.” The room falls silent as they all stare.

“When you say you’ve been there for sixteen years…” Bruce trails off and you nod.

“I was brought in when I was seven, same as most of the girls there.”

“What kind of sick organization is this?” Tony sounds angry and you smile sadly.

“Why do you think we fought so hard to take it down? Now if you’ll excuse me, I really need to go. Nat, we could use some help if you’re willing?” you ask and she smiles.

“Like I’m letting you go without me.” You smile at her words, taking her hand gently. “Now come on, we’ve got work to do.”

tag list: @rvgrsbrns @rororo06 @prizmix-and-friends @worlds-in-words @5aftermidnight @im-salt-but-not-salty @riotmaximoff @xxxtwilightaxelxxx

[cinnamonest]

Makoto Naegi (DR) - Yandere Profile

Me? Producing non-genshin profiles? Releasing two profiles in one day? It’s more likely than you think!

I’ll probably do my boi Hajime eventually too. I got several dangan requests so I’m gonna start with this one and do those gradually too.

Makoto is the perfect classic, traditional yandere. He fits every trope and aspect of the archetype so well, so I just had to make him a delusional, split persona type. It's a bit ooc of course but I just see him being that type to really snap and have a whole new persona underneath. Bless him. I love soft sweet boys and turning them into nasty lil obsessive gremlins. Also I couldn't decide on a setting/version of him, so I talk mostly about a normal Makoto in normal school life, but also what he'd be like during the killing game as well as a side of Mastermind Makoto bc I'm a sucker for mastermind AUs. Note, he's 18 or older in all of these, of course.

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Tws: stalking, obsessive behaviors, manipulation, nsfw mentions, mentions of permanent mutilation, voyeurism Tws: (below cut) - voyeurism mention, noncon, Makoto being awful Additional warnings: very minor spoilers for Danganronpa 1

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What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?

Bounces between lucidity and delusion. DR1 Makoto is probably largely influenced by the stress of, you know, threat of imminent death, but even outside of such a situation, he'd be a very well hidden yandere. He's just so sweet! So gentle! You can't really seem him as threatening at all, so a lot of subtle things might go unnoticed, like how touchy he can be, how his stares linger, how people seem to avoid you when he's around. However, while the yandere side isn't obvious, the crush certainly is. He's a blushing boy, will get flustered the moment you speak to him, is constantly stumbling over his words, nervously scratching the back of his head, looking all over everywhere except at you, eyes darting away.

Obsessive. It defines his yandere side. Everything is about the obsession, the worship, it's overwhelming. The desire to kidnap you is partially protective, sure, but really? He also just wants you close, he wants you all to himself, he could just be happy looking at you forever. Stalker for sure. He's a classic style stalker, one to take lots and lots of pictures. His phone is handy for the ones that need more of a... secretive approach, but for the ones that he can take safely, from a distance, or the ones of you sleeping, they look best in polaroids.

He would definitely be one to steal things, particularly clothes. Wait until you go to do your laundry, and when you're there he'll do something like pull the fire alarm, cause something to fall over, and wait for everyone else to leave or investigate before slipping in - surely you won't notice just a few pieces of clothes missing, right? Just some gym clothes you worked out in, they smell so much like you, and some underwear you won't miss. They're just cute is all. Not for any perverted purposes, nope. He'd have a shrine, too. He'd steal creepy shit like soda cans you threw away, pens you held. He'd use his phone or one of those cameras from the mono machine to get as many photos as possible, running over them late at night, going through each one and rubbing one out to every photo he can get of your soft, innocent expression.

Deceptively intelligent. It's his number one trick. He comes off as a very... average person in pretty much every way, it's literally his character trope at first, but as we know, he's actually particularly intelligent and perceptive. Most people don't realize this, though, and it gives him an advantage. He is aware that he's perceived as a bit of an innocent, naive airhead, and will utilize that perception, which allows him to get away with quite a bit by feigning ignorance or innocence.

A split personality bouncer. Classic yandere style. Sweet, innocent, happy, but if you just keep fucking pushing the limits he'll - no, forget that, it's ok, he understands :)  ....THAT kind of yandere. He spends the majority of the time on the sweet side, but, especially as time goes on, can easily snap to a much meaner, darker persona, but it's not how he is the majority of the time. It's only brought out by excess stress from all of the... complication of things involving you.

Speaking of how he has all the makings of a classic yandere, delusional regarding love as well. Highly convinced that you'll love him eventually, convinced that everyone is out to take you away from him, and convinced that he knows what's best for you. Perhaps a bit surprisingly, he falls into this delusion pretty easily and quickly. He's likely got a bit of an inferiority complex given, you know, being the "normal" person among some of the best people in their fields. He likes the idea of anything that can give him a sense of importance, of value, of being needed, and he chooses to project that into your protection.

How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?

Normal schoolboy Makoto, well, he'd have to find a way. He wants to, really, the moment he meets you, but how can he do that? He lives in a dorm. If you went missing, surely they'd investigate the dorms right? He'd ultimately probably end up running away with you, finding some way to get by while he keeps you safely locked up in some tiny apartment somewhere.

As for the how, he would take a very traditional method. Ask you to meet him at a certain place and time behind the school, and you'll never see it coming, be it chloroform or a blunt object or whatever he chooses. You wouldn't suspect someone as sweet as him to ever be planning anything of the sort. He feels bad for hurting you, but it's for a greater purpose. Within minutes he'll have you stuffed in a sports bag or instrument case or something of the like, carrying you off, and no one will no where you could have gone.

Will definitely be that one that gets interviewed by the news on TV, the best friend of the poor girl that went missing, and he's all sniffly and teary while talking about how much he misses you, how he's so worried about you. He's actually a very good actor when he really, really needs to be. It's also his way of atonement, in a sense. If he can show how much he cares about you, even if it's in a situation where he's lying, it makes him feel better.

DR1 Makoto, well, he'll be virtually immediate. Don't you understand the gravity of the situation? You could DIE! He can't let that happen. You may be insistent that it's ok, that you want to all try and work together, but in his mind, you just don't understand how serious this all is. You're just too naive. The only solution is immediate action. He'll be gentle about it, probably lacing your tea or coffee with something he found laying around in the nurse's office to make you just a little bit sleepy, so dazed you won't even realize he's guiding you back to a room that isn't yours, won't even hear yourself being tied up.

If the others ask what happened to you, well, he'll say he has no idea. They'll likely assume you're simply dead. After all, if a body isn't discovered, how would there be a trial? They search and search but no one ever finds a body. How strange.

He might simply tell them you're paranoid and holed up in your room. It's ok, though, you trust him to bring you food, so they don't need to worry about you. As for the trials, well, you can't participate in those if you're unconscious, now can you?

As for MM! Makoto, well... Who's to say this isn't his way of kidnapping you? You're separated from that awful awful outside world. That's The whole point of it all, all of this was for you. To isolate you, and the game is simply to strike some fear in you, make you understand how evil and traitorous humans are. You'll never want to leave. And of course, he intends to play until there are two students left. Unfortunately for the others, the winners have already been... predetermined.

How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape? 

Unfortunately for you, Makoto is one of those yans that is perfectly ok with your life consisting of being tied, 24/7, in one place. He'd keep you restrained at all times, with something soft of course! He doesn't want to hurt you, but it's for your own safety.

DR1 Makoto would constantly be coming back to the room to check on you, make sure you haven't left, make sure you're ok. He'd neglect all of his free time opportunities to talk to others and opt to come be with you instead.

Normal Makoto would invest in some special security measures, namely, a very special shock collar that he bought off of some sketchy site. It's made for humans! It has a lock with a code and everything. You honestly wonder why there's even a market for such a thing. It's not just light shocks, no, it has settings. It syncs to his phone, with a built in remote app, one he can push and it'll give you a nice shock of whatever level he sets it at.

However, the collar is also synched to a field of range that it will detect your location in. It's set perfectly to the boundaries of your little home. If you were to step outside the door or the window... Well, it's not going to kill you, but you'll be out cold, and he'll get a notification telling him you tried to leave. The first time, maybe, you can calm him down and convince him it was an accident, you tripped and crashed against the door and it just ever so lightly pushed you over the boundary. He'll believe it... Once.

Unfortunately, he's also one of the ones who sees no issue in permanent bodily modifications to deter you from leaving. He's not like some of the previous yans I've discussed, though, because it's not out of sadism or a lack of care for your feelings, it's a delusion thing. He'll be so sweet about it, reassure you that it's ok, it's for your own good, you're too precious and innocent and the outside world will hurt you, but this way you're safe from yourself and your own naivete. He'll be so, so careful and take such good care of you, he'll give you something strong so that you don't feel any pain at all.

He's also perfectly fine with you living in a constant drugged state, out of your mind, drowsy and completely unaware of anything in the world except him. And things are better that way - really, you can't say you're not happy, you seem so content like this. You don't complain, you don't get angry, you just giggle and smile and loll your head back and forth. You don't fight him. You just smile.

In other words, regarding escape, you might as well give up. Your only real chance is being rescued by someone else, someone who might just notice his increasingly odd behaviors, but if they believe you're dead, which he will go to great lengths to ensure you do, it's unlikely to happen. Any attempts will just be met with a sweet smile, a little laugh at how dumb you are to think that would really work, and quickly taking you back, where his demeanor might get significantly angrier once he can really let loose.

MM! Makoto is an equally unrealistic chance, the worst of all, really. It's just not happening. He'll also likely convince you, much like as the DR1 and V3 did, that the world outside is nearly destroyed, or somehow unlivable, that you're lucky to be here, and that this is the only place where you're safe. 

If you try, he'll crack down on however the hell you managed to escape because... how would you even go about that? I mean, the whole environment was designed to be inescapable, and if a whole class of students couldn't find a way out, it's unlikely you will either. Any attempts will likely be dumb and unsuccessful enough that he can't even get mad, it's just amusing.

How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?

Oh, easy. We see in Chapter one of DR1 just how easily he will bend to the will of a girl he likes and nearly end up getting himself falsely accused of murder and all, so safe to say he's pretty easily manipulatable and if you're looking to survive, you can use that to your advantage. However, really, you're better off manipulating him into being a meatshield - he'll guard you 24/7 and be more than willing to die. Poor baby. 

However, if he catches onto manipulation once, and it doesn't involve your safety, he'll learn pretty quick. Deep down he's a highly intelligent young man, and you may find the tables turning pretty quickly - he can easily manipulate your paranoia and mortal fear, convincing you that if you just stay with him, you'll be safe, convincing you that everyone else is out to get you, convincing you that this or that person is plotting to kill you. He's so sweet and innocent looking, you'll believe every word.

Bonus: If he were the mastermind, he'd be so deceitful and do it so well, you'd never know. An excellent actor through and through. In a way, it's not acting at all - he loves you and wants you to be safe. This is all so that you'll just understand that you need to be kept away from the outside world - you're actually perfectly safe, he's taken measures to ensure that, but you'd have no way of knowing. Even if you feel like those cameras in the rooms at night almost seem like they're staring right at you.

How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?

Very few. He'll baby you and prevent you from doing most things for yourself. He'll be one to try and keep you entertained, though, most likely get you some kind of tablet or laptop you can use to write, let you play all of his games, let you watch anything, and get you any kind of materials for any hobbies you have, provided he's deemed it non-dangerous. So, given all of that, you don't need to do anything else, right? He'll see anything more as just you pushing your limits, because you're trying to be difficult again. Complaints go in one ear and out the other.

DR1 would be the worst Makoto to have, because he can't provide you with much, and can't lock you in from the outside... so, his primary go-to is gonna be keeping you completely restrained all the time. Don't worry, though, he assures you that once you guys get out of here, he'll take you away to a much nicer place with much more to do! But for now, you'll be getting very acquainted with his ceiling, left with nothing to do but stare up at it. He'll try to be around as much as he can though, and won't leave you for too long, only leaving when necessary. And for the trials you'll just... have a little nap, so it'll feel like no time really passed at all.

Ironically, MM! Makoto gives you the most leniency. He'll make sure anything dangerous is taken away, but then, he'll let you roam the abandoned, hollow shell of the school, whenever he has to work on something, which isn't too often. Of course, this is partially because he's got an eye on you via cameras every waking moment, so really, you feel his presence even when he isn't there.

What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?

For a normal Makoto, he'd be one to give you a "schedule" to help you adjust. He doesn't want you getting depressed and laying in bed all day, it's bad for your health! He wants you happy and lively and that way you can have more fun together! He'll give you a list of very simple tasks to complete throughout the day. If you don't do them, that's ok, you can do them together when he comes back, but they will get done. Other than that, of course, no running away, no attacking him, and you know, just try to be a bit grateful and nice.

If you make him mad enough, he needs time to cool down, and he presumes you do, too. He's one to pull psychological things -- locking you in a dark, dark room with no light or sound for a long enough time, all alone, ignoring your cries and whimpers until he knows you've learned. But once you have, and if he sees the results have turned out as expected, he'll be sweet and affectionate when he takes you out, and tell you he's glad you see things his way now.

How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?

Normal Makoto, once again, we have a very classic yandere trope. He's delusional and in love and anyone who gets in the way will suffer. He's, again, very deceptively intelligent, and he can easily commit a murder, even a string of murders, that no one would ever be able to put together, and certainly that no one would ever suspect someone like him of committing. You could say it's like a talent of his. He has no guilt or remorse, either, and no value for the lives of people who are his enemies.

DR1 Makoto, He's limited to two people, unfortunately. If he had it his way, he would kill them all. But still, that's enough to win. He'll bide his time, setting things up so that hopefully, the more intelligent students get eliminated early. He has masterful ways of pulling strings here and there, planting ideas in people's heads, off handed comments that might just inspire a killing. Once there's only idiots left, well, once two of them go missing, in the most elaborate, confusing murders in the game thus far, they'll never figure it out. 

Of course, he'll certainly find a way around the rules. He'll force the mastermind to have no choice but to let you both live. Injured students can't participate in trials if they're out cold, no? So if you have some minor bone breakage, get drugged conveniently before a trial begins, you can't participate. And if you didn't participate, it would really be upsetting to everyone watching if Monokuma killed off a student who couldn't even partake in the trial. After all, they might have been able to turn it around! So really, the mastermind has to let you both live.

Or maybe, he'll convince you to do it with him. Force the weapon into your hand, force it down on the poor poor victim, holding your hand in his. Monokuma can't prove you weren't putting some exertion into it, that it was all his force. Therefore, really, you both killed them. Therefore, the trial is against you both. Therefore... He can get rid of everyone in the way, all at once, with only one left to go - the person behind that bear. And he will find a way - you'd be foolish to underestimate his capabilities. After all, you always thought he was just a lil empty headed guy, shy and flustered, and look how wrong that was.

How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?

In the "developing stages" of obsession, not so much. He's generally a sweet, easy-going guy, even a little bit of a doormat if we're being honest.

Normally, he gets pouty-mad, not violent-mad. Almost what some might call a girl-sort-of-mad, the kind where he huffs and pouts and pretends to ignore you. It's either kinda cute or infuriating, depending on your mood or how you view it. In that state, all you have to do is give him what he wants, of summon a quick apology, and he'll bounce back to normal and loving and affectionate nearly immediately. It's part of an immature streak he has.

He has his snap moments, and will snarl and growl at you with the most furious expression for just a mere moment -- but he snaps back to sweet and soft as quickly as he changed the first time. It's a little bit of mental whiplash for you, really. You almost feel like you imagined it. In those moments, though, he may just for those few instants get a little violent.

If he's truly furious, he gets quiet. It's a little terrifying, really, you know something is coming, and it's not pleasant. He'll likely just grab you and slowly, tortuously drag you to whatever he has planned. He'll give you a very grim, cold expression, and coldly tell you this is what you deserve, and if that's locking you up, he'll tell you you can come back out when you're ready to behave.

So they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?

Above. He's a worshipper. He can't even believe he gets to be in your presence, even look at you, he's unworthy and it's all so overwhelming.

It... Gets annoying pretty quickly, actually. He's not gonna sit around and degrade himself all that much unlike SOME certain lucky students cough cough, but he'll constantly grovel and remind you how perfect you are. He's not good enough for you, he doesn't deserve you... a bit ironic to hear, since that certainly didn't seem to stop him from taking you away against your will, but there's a lot of hypocrisies that don't really line up with Makoto. 

How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?

Highly so, but also deluded into thinking you do pretty easily. Even if you're screaming and yelling, he just thinks you're having a bad day, throwing a tantrum. He thinks you do love him, if you're in the later stages of things. Anything that conflicts with this delusion is explainable otherwise, usually the default being that, as usual, you're just being difficult, but that's ok -- he really loves you anyway.

Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?

Ironically, what makes him unique compared to my other yanderes is that he's more fitting for the traditional yandere type - a very cute-faced, psycho sweetheart type. He's highly prone to the classic yandere tropes and attitudes, as well as the mental and emotional instability traditionally associated with yanderes - smiling no matter what, even as he does awful things, but also snapping to a dark, angry state over the smallest things.

Guilt tripping. It's his specialty. He's so cute, so sweet, you wouldn't want to make him cry and make him sad... Would you? You're not that cruel, are you? You wouldn't throw away everything he's done for you and leave him all alone with no one... Right? He'll easily manipulate you this way, it's his specialty.

General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?

The thing about those soft sweet boys that are just so innocent? Half the time they're the nastiest, horniest little pervs there are. He's sweet, he'll help you with everything you need! You're struggling to reach that shelf so he'll just put his hands on your hips and squeeze you and lift you up! But he'll stumble a bit, and when you come down you'll kinda land on him just a bit, chest pressed up against his face, and you'll be the one embarrassed - but it's ok. He says he knows you didn't mean to. And he's so sheepish and embarrassed about it himself, clearly it must have been unintentional.

And he's so innocent and kind, you know he doesn't mean to be so touchy, doesn't mean to cling to you so much, so you can brush it off. After all, he's just so nice, you wouldn't want to offend him.

Will jerk off on every single thing he has of you. Every little polaroid, every article of clothing he's stolen, every little thing. It's gross. He's gross. By the time you're kidnapped you might even find some of your clothes that went missing, and they're hard as a rock. Ew.

Like a lot of yans, will get significantly bolder once he has you all to himself. Much more touchy, much more suggestive, boldly, openly horny and just, constantly begging you to just fuck already, whining and even rutting into you if you're still in denial.

MM! Makoto will also 100% watch you get undressed through the cameras every night. Save the video feed and just watch it over and over again, taking in every little detail. Cum all over each little video, watching it drip down the screen. He can almost pretend it's actually dripping down your face, and not just the image of it.

How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?

I... within the first hour of your confinement you're gonna know what this boy's dick feels like. He has no restraint. He just loves you so much! Hell, you might even wake up to him just, grinding into you, jerking off to you. You're just so pretty. You can't expect him to be too restrained, you know? He's so overcome by love for you that he can't help it.

High-level delusional. Will make up every reason in the world as to why you might be rejecting. You're nervous, it's ok, he'll help you get over it. You're insecure, and he'll help you get around that too. Ultimately, in the end, you're not getting out of it, nor putting it off at all really. It'll be the first thing you do to start off your new little lifestyle.

What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?

D/S dynamic

Except... in a really weird way. It's the sub without the dom. Or not really submissive at all. It's a very bizarre dynamic you'll have going on - the way he talks to you is so submissive, so sweet, constantly asking you if you feel good, constantly whimpering and making the cutest little noises, constantly worshipping you, you'd almost forget he has you tied up and is forcing you through it. He acts submissive in his own way, and yet he's completely controlling you. In fact, you're pretty certain he wouldn't actually let you top him in any way, and any attempts to do so will be met with him denying you, telling you to just let him do what he wants take care of you. His attitude and words are submissive, yet he insists on controlling you completely. It's, again, bizarre in its own way, but what isn’t bizarre with this man.

Oral fixation

A guilty one for him, with his whole service attitude and all, because he really likes to be on the receiving end of it. Cumming down your throat is fine and all, but really he's one to pull out and cum all over your face. Bonus points if you wear lip gloss to smear all over his dick, wear glasses he can get cum on, or anything that makes it feel special.

In his rare angry, more dominant moments, he can get kind of rough with it. If he's really mad at you, hearing you choke is a rather satisfying feeling.

Paizuri/Thigh fucking/outercourse

The boy's seen too much porn. Just, pleeeeeeease let him cum on your tits. Please. He begs for it over and over, doesn't matter if you tell him yours are too big or too small, he just really wants to cum on them. He just wants to feel your smooth skin on his dick you know? Maybe he can get the tip in your mouth while you do it too!

And while you're at it... Let him fuck your thighs. Please? Just hold your legs together, not hard right? There's just something about actually seeing his dick against you that makes it so nice, and so temptingly close to your holes. But if you've agreed to it as a way of preventing actual sex, it might just... accidentally go in anyway. It was just too slippery... but now, he's already fucking you so... might as well keep doing that instead.

Cockwarming/activity-sex

Our boy likes his vidya. And you know all those jokes and references to, you know, getting sucked off under the table while he plays games....? He just... really, really would like that. It's a big fantasy for him. He's probably the type of guy to be way too into league of legends dammit and he just, would love to have to try to be quiet, try to get off down your throat while trying not to alert anyone that can hear through his mic. Or just sit on his dick, it's heavenly, he'll gradually just lost control and start losing his game, before eventually cutting it off and exiting altogether in favor of rutting up into you. He likes it, but he doesn't have a whole lot of self-control to actually do it for long before giving up and just fucking you.

How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?

He's one of the ones that really wants it, he thinks it would be so cute, so precious, and of course the benefit of it tying you to him. He might be one to get a bit jealous, though. He likes your attention, and can be a little bit immature about it. Unfortunately, though, he's not actually aware of his own immaturity, so this can present a problem.

What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?

(Insert "iiiiits punishment time!" joke here)

If he's in this mode, an angry mood, his demeanor for sex changes significantly. The weird pseudo sub attitude isn't really there, it's more of a quiet neutrality, a frustrated, but calculated anger that brings out the worst in him. It's honestly frightening for you in and of itself because it's such a dark expression and rough voice and so unfamiliar that it would freak you out just to see him like that.

The go-to is impact pain. In this rare-ish mood, he can actually change pretty significantly -- normally, he'd never dream of hurting you, would feel awful if he did, and would not enjoy it in any way, but now? He kinda... feels like you deserve it, and he'll undeniably get off to it a bit. Something about watching you cry and squirm really helps alleviate the anger. He'll be soft about it later, wipe away your tears and softly murmur nice things... but he won't apologize. You deserved it. If it's that bad, then you'll just have to not do it again.

What body parts of their darling do they like the most?

A thigh boy. Let him use your lap as a pillow, and he'll be a very happy boy indeed. He likes feeling them wrapped around his hips, or his head, likes squeezing the flesh in his hands, likes running his hands up and down.

[shadowfae]

We’re all pretty aware that the tumblr otherkin community is at a huge decline; I was wondering if you have any theories as to why that is?

American Protestantism, the decline of queer oppression in North America and the AIDS crisis, helicopter parenting, web 3.0, morality politics, and  Tumblr’s porn ban; roughly in that order and rolled up into one bombshell that was a few years in the coming but nobody really saw it and understood it until it was far too late.

That was a mouthful and probably only made sense if you follow current cyberpolitical theory. For some of you reading this, as with every other hot take I have this has a chance of being passed around, that alone is enough. But for others who had no idea what I just said and need the ELI5 version, let me explain that. Buckle up, this’ll be a long one, and will go into fandom history a bit as well because it is actually relevant.

As we know, tumblr is a very American-centric platform. Twitter is also this way, but less so, but tumblr has it bad. Now, I’m ‘lucky’ in the fact that I’m Canadian and a twenty minute drive from the American border, so that puts me in the ‘privileged’ majority. (I say privileged because I’m not really sure what else to call it. Most of the information going around about politics either directly affects me or indirectly affects me approximately one or two links of contact away. Someone who’s only influenced by American politics because it makes their sister’s online friends sad is not going to be privileged in that way.)

This means that American politics and their social climate overwhelmingly affects tumblr’s social climate. This also bleeds through into other fandom spaces, on twitter, instagram, and Pixiv to name a few places; but here’s where I spend the majority of my time so here’s what I’ve witnessed.

America’s main religion, as far as I understand (from the raised agnostic and currently neopagan view I have), is some weirdass capitalistic-Protestantism that is so many miles from what the actual Bible says that if I were a betting man and knew more about cults than I did, I’d say it’s some weird fucking cult and never set foot in the country again for any reason that isn’t gaming free shipping through a PO box. If you have no idea what I just said but are at least vaguely familiar with Christianity, this graphic explains it pretty well. So we can see there’s some glaring issues with that ideal.

The decline of queer oppression and the rise of queer rights in North America, which is to tenderly include my own country but we all know when people say ‘in NA’ they mean ‘America, and Canada where it applies because the right-wing Republicans are really good in the propaganda department to convince everyone that Mexico is a drug-lords-and-anarchy wasteland to the point where even I don’t actually know what’s down there other than bad drivers and heat’; means two things. One, it’s a good thing by a long shot and do not mistake this as me thinking queer oppression being lessened is a bad thing. But two, it means that thanks to the AIDS crisis, queer folks lost a lot of first-person sources as history.

The queer elders in NA who survived are typically either a) bitter anarchists who are often POC, probably still dirt poor and do recreational drugs or b) university-tenured TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists). Category A are the people who Republicans have deemed worthless in every way, because racism, queerphobia, ableism, and all the other ways to be wrong and different and Evil that they can’t handle, because Jeezus would never want them to actually learn to love someone who wasn’t just like them, and they don’t have the compassion to do better. Category B are the people who want to be different in just a teensie little bit, typically with TERFs they want to be lesbians, but they don’t want to challenge the status quo. They’re fine with the way things work, they just want to be on top oppressing others over ripping the whole damn thing down and building a more forgiving system.

Now, due to all those ‘isms and the cheerfully malicious aid of the Republicans, pun not intended but drives home the cruelty of it all, we also see the rise of helicopter parenting. The invention of the internet did not really help this. Basically what you’ve got is a whole bunch of parents who saw the civil rights movement, just got access to the internet and things going viral, know the world is changing, and like all parents, they’re scared for their children. Now instead of parents knowing one or two people in their classes who just went missing one day and everyone assumed they ran away, they hear about eight homicides in the city of kids going to parks at night and dying. The Satanic Panic was another event around this time that contributed to that, but I’ll let you research that one.

This means that all of these parents, instead of doing what their parents typically did and let their kids wander off for the day so long as they’re back by sundown, they can’t let their children out of their sight. There might be a freak accident where their child is decapitated on the playground swing! Their baby might get murdered by an evil Satanist walking home from school! Their dearest darling might go online and tell their address to someone who’s got a 100% chance of being a pedophile who will show up and kidnap them in the night!

…You get the idea. 

Combine those three things I just established, what we’ve got is a lot of queer kids who have a lot of internalized shame for being different and wrong, because they’re queer, and they can’t find spaces offline to be themselves, because all of the elders who would do that are dead and/or inaccessible and their parents won’t let them go to any clubs that aren’t school-related, which they’ll never find a GSA or queer club because Republicans, ‘isms, propaganda, and the war on Category A queer adults have all done their best to ensure that those spaces don’t exist.

So you have a generation of kids who I am the youngest of. The first generation on the internet. The late Web 1.0 (usenets and Geocities) and early Web 2.0 (livejournal was the big one, ff.net too, also 4chan but fuck those guys) generation. What we were taught was: trust nobody on the internet with your real info no matter how much you like them, this is a wilderness and any crimes that happen won’t be punished or seen so don’t put yourself in a position where you’re going to be the victim of one, and everything you put online is never getting taken down so don’t put anything up that you’re not willing to have on the front page of your local newspaper.

This worked out pretty well, actually! You had kids who knew that if they got in trouble, there was no backup coming to save them. Because the form that backup might take - parents and police - wasn’t going to help. Best case, they’d be banned from their friends and online support groups for being queer. Worst case, they’d be jailed and put in juvie and conversion therapy and turn to drugs and become evil Satanists just like everyone says they secretly are already. So they learned very quickly to take care of themselves. Nobody was going to save them, so they learned to not need saving.

And then, well, Web 2.0 shifted to Web 3.0. Livejournal died because parents - the Warriors for Innocence was the big name - went��“gasp how horrible my children are being exposed to the evil pedos and homosexuals they’re going to do drugs and die of AIDS!”. Which is uh. It’s filled with a lot of bigotry, and I’m not excusing them - absolutely I am not - but you can kind of see where they’re coming from, if you tilt your head and squint.

Either way, LJ died, tumblr took its place, Facebook was fast taking off, and the fandom folks who had seen mailing lists go inactive, web admins take their fanfic sites down due to copyright, entire fandoms burnt to the ground in flame wars, said ‘fuck that we’re making our own place’ and that’s how AO3 got made.

That’s important. A lot of folks move to AO3, because well, the rules let them. The rules say ‘you can throw literally anything up here so long as it’s fan content and is not literally illegal, so we don’t get taken down’. It’s a swing for the first generation internet users, those kids who know this place is a wilderness and are carving out our own sanctuary.

But. The children under us. The children for whom AIDS is a nightmarish fairy tale, for whom the ghost stories are conversion therapy, for whom know they can’t really talk to their parents about being queer but can trust they probably won’t get kicked out over it. The children who haven’t spent ten seconds without supervision except online, and their reaction isn’t ‘oh thank god I’m finally free to express myself’ but ‘if I get in trouble, who will protect me?’.

And there’s nobody there. Because we went in knowing there was no backup. And that was fine. But now, the actual adults have figured out that hey uh, maybe we should make cyber laws? Maybe we should make revenge porn and grooming children over the internet crimes? And they grew up with that. They grew up learning that no, even if your parents are suffocating and controlling, they’re always be there for you! Some adult will always be there to protect you!

That isn’t the case. It’s not. But they expect it, because it’s always been done for them. They don’t really want to change the status quo, because that means doing it themselves. They can’t do that, because they don’t know how, they’ve been controlled for every single part of their lives thanks to helicopter parenting and without that control, they don’t know how to keep their lives together, and they demand someone come and control it for them, without restraining them.

Effectively, they want someone to ensure they never face the consequences of their actions. Helicopter parents will rescue you from whatever you did, because you’re their precious baby and it doesn’t matter if you punched a kid, you can do no wrong and the other kid clearly started it.

But being queer is doing wrong. Being queer is something Jeezus doesn’t approve of. So they want to make it something he could approve of! But if it’s too off what they consider to be okay, if it’s too different and weird and wrong and evil, that can’t do, that’s still bad, and they’re precious angels, and children, and minors, why are we the adults not protecting them and letting them see it? Why aren’t we being just like their parents  but queer-friendly, why aren’t we protecting the children?

The adults who taught us were the children of those who died as a result of AIDS. The eldest of my generation knew some of them personally. My therapist’s younger brother died at 20 of AIDS, and she told me what it was like. But they don’t have that. These kids of web 3.0, they don’t have that. What they have is over-controlling parents, and the expectation that someone will always be there to protect them but hopefully in ways that don’t hurt them this time, no real understanding of why Category A queer elders are the way they are, and so much internalized shame that they have to do some pretty fancy logic-leaping to keep them from collapsing entirely.

They can’t turn into Category A queer youngsters, because they don’t know how to unravel the system around them, because they’ve never had to actually make choices in their lives and live with the consequences, because they don’t have the example of how to do it. They can’t unravel their internalized shame because again, that’s hard and they don’t have their parents to take away the consequences and pain. It doesn’t come easy to them, so it may as well not come at all.

But, you ask, if Category A queer elders aren’t around to teach the kids, then how are they learning anything positive at all? Well, Category B, our university-tenured TERFs, who don’t want to change the status quo but want to just be at the top of it instead.

For a lot of kids who don’t know how to make hard choices but want to be queer, this is an extremely attractive option. But when they go online to queer spaces, a lot of them say fuck terfs, we don’t support your hate, and they go ‘yeah okay that makes sense’. They can say fuck terfs without ever actually questioning why terfs are bad. They’re Bad and Evil, just like drug addicts, just like fairytale nazis, just like the evil homophobes.

And we saw them say ‘yeah fuck terfs’ and we were like, ‘aight you got it’ and we never questioned if they actually understood us. They didn’t. They didn’t, and we didn’t do enough to fix it, because not enough of us realized the problem. So terfs got a little sneaky. They hid behind dogwhistles and easy little comments, hiding their rhetoric in queer theory that you’ll absolutely miss if you just memorize it and never actually question it and understand why that point is being made.

This goes back to America sucking, because their school system is far more focused on rote memorization over actual logic and understanding of the text. They’re engaging with queer theory the way they’ve been taught, which is memorize and don’t think, don’t question. Besides, questioning and understanding is hard. Being shown different points of view and asked what they think is not only hard but requires them to go against all of the conditioning that says to just listen and agree and never question it, which goes back to tearing the system and internalized shame down, and we’ve established they can’t do that so naturally they don’t do that.

This begets, then, the rise of exclusionary politics. They’re turning into Category B queer youngsters, because we told them ‘hey that’s a terf talking point what are you doing’ and they never questioned why. They learned you can do all sorts of things, just don’t say X, Y, or Z, because they never thought deeply about it.

The children who have grown on Web 3.0 do not want to do any heavy lifting to make things easier for themselves long-run. They want to do as little as possible and have things get better for them. There isn’t enough of us left in Category A, because Category B terfs are very good at recruiting young folks and Cat. A is overwhelming poor, dead, and easily dismissed in the system as evil and bad, so we can’t exactly convince the young folks to listen. If all of the young kids could agree to tear down the system, a lot more older folks might listen. Change always starts with the young, and there’s a reason for that.

But Republicans have figured out, if you get people fighting, they never put together a force that can actually stop you. TERFs, who want the exact same thing as Republicans but with themselves on top, are doing this to queer youth, and Cat. A elders can’t fight back because there isn’t enough of them and the odds are against them, and the young folk like me who follow their lead.

People can kinda handle gay people. It’s not so far from the acceptable normal that it’s impassable. But you want them to handle kinky people? Gay people of colour? Kinky gay people of colour? Trans people? Those are bridges too far to step across. The original idea was to get the foot in the door with marriage equality and inch our way through with racial equality, sex positivity, dismantling ableism and perisexism (forgive me if that isn’t the word for anti-intersex ‘ism), and see if we can’t patch up the system instead of inciting a civil war over this and have to tear down the system entirely.

Well, we might’ve managed that if not for AIDS being the perfect ‘Jeezus is killing all the evil gay people for being sinners’ propaganda machine. As it stands now, not a chance in hell. So long as Republicans and terfs keep everyone fighting, nobody has the power to dismantle their empire, and they stay in power.

So then, you ask me, “Lu what the fuck does that have to do with the decline of otherkinity on tumblr???” and now that you’ve got all that background knowledge, here is your answer.

Those children who want their experiences curated for them and the evil icky content they don’t like to be gone because it disgusts them and anything that disgusts them is clearly sinful problematic and should be destroyed, are what we call ‘antishippers’, or anti for short.

They like being progressive. Sort of. They learned what Republicans and terfs have honed to a fine talent: keep people fighting, hold them to a bar they have to constantly make or risk being ostracized, and harass the people who don’t play along into getting out of your sight forever. Sound familiar?

They learned of otherkinity, and particularly fictionkind, because web 3.0 means if something goes viral on one site, it doesn’t just go viral on that site, it makes it to worldwide newspapers and twitter and nobody ever, ever fucking forgets it. They realized the following: “Hey wait, if I’m this character for realsies, not only does it help me deal with the internalized shame I’ve done nothing to actually fix because that takes work, I can also tell these people who draw gross content I don’t like they’re hurting me personally, and that actually sounds credible, and I can shame them into stopping”.

If this is your first time here and that sounds sickening, it damn well should, and I am so, so sorry that any of us had to witness this, and I am more sorry I and everyone else who personally witnessed this didn’t realize what was going on and put a stop to it. I answer asks and browse the tags and clear up misinformation and it isn’t just a genuine desire to help. It’s damage control, and my own way of trying to deal with the guilt of not stopping this. I’m well aware I couldn’t have seen it coming, I was a teenager myself still learning and no one person has that much power. I still feel like I should have done more, and I’ll do what I can to fix what’s within my power to fix.

So back to the story. This all culminates around 2016 or so. Trump wins the election, and every queer person ever knows they’re fucked, and the younger generation’s only ever heard horror stories, never seen actual oppression that this could bring. We’re all scared. We all don’t know what to do. Nobody has any answers or any control over the situation.

So they lash out. They attack others for drawing things they don’t like, for challenging them in literally any way, for asking them to reconsider the vile shit they just said, for so much as defending themselves from the harassment they just got. And when challenged, they yell “But I’m a minor! A literal child! How dare you attack me, clearly you get off on this, you evil pedophile!” and they sling around every insult in the book until one sticks. Pedophile is a pretty good one, so is abuser, and sometimes zoophile works out too. Freak is great, everyone gets right pissed off about it.

The fact that Category A queer elders were called pedophiles and freaks is not a fact they know or care about. The fact that they are quickly making every fandom community super toxic is also not a fact they care about. The fact that the ‘kin community has words and terminology and they actually mean shit, and the fact that they’re spreading misinformation faster than we can keep up with, are not facts they care about.

So they come in, take our terms, make it impossible for us to find new folks. They realize our anger is easily a power trip, because we’re already made fun of, so they get off on the little power they can find and make fun of us too, and then when we get rightfully annoyed and pissed off, they can hide behind being minors.

Then tumblr implements their porn ban, because nobody’s stopping them, because it isn’t profitable to have porn on here. Considering most of the otherkin community, and most fandom communities, are full of adults who do occasionally talk about NSFW things, and the fact that they’re just banning everyone who so much as breathes wrong, this begins the start of a mass exodus, scattering already fragile communities to twitter, pillowfort, dreamwidth, and a few other places. Largely, twitter, where you can’t make a post longer than a snappy comeback and where the algorithm is literally designed to piss you off as much as possible.

So community elders have largely left, because they can’t stand the drama and the pain of what’s happened, and that’s if they didn’t get banned for being kinky furries who do talk about how their kintypes merge with their sexuality. Most community members have also left or stopped talking about being ‘kin, because they get associated with antishippers and toxicity and it’s just not worth it. Those of us who are left get drowned out by misinformation and trolls and wishkin and antishippers who appropriate our terminology because it supports them getting a power trip, and whenever we argue, we get called pedophiles and freaks and worse.

And now there isn’t much left. I hope we get to find a better place. Othercon was a good place to talk about it, I did a whole panel (it’s on Youtube!) about what we want to do about it. But I don’t really have any answers. 

But to sum it all up... America’s political climate ultimately culminated in destroying queer spaces, and we survived, and then people who wanted to destroy smaller communities to get on top showed up and we were all but defenseless against something we had never, ever dealt with before on this scale.

One of my twitter mutuals mentioned how kinning and otherkin are now completely separate communities. It’s really the best I can do to keep hoping that continues, until nobody realizes the words are at all connected to each other. It’s the best anyone can hope for, now. I hate it. I hate every part of this. But maybe we can salvage what’s left.

[irisbleufic]

Hi! Just wanted to drop this real quick because I am but a simple lass who adores your powers of analysis.

I found this on Pinterest and what immediately struck me is that yeah, Jerome isn't the craziest version of himself here, but he's still highly dangerous, still decidedly not sane. Yet, his knife isn't even touching Bruce's neck, his hand is. Like a lover softly brushing their knuckles on a partner's throat. His left arm is wrapped around Bruce to keep him in place, but again, take the knife away and this is a tender embrace. And if I were being held tightly by someone holding a dagger to my neck, I'd be clawing at them. I'd be angry and scared, of course. And Bruce is afraid, very much so. Nonetheless, he's clutching at Jerome in a very peculiar way.

Nada, just thought you'd find this interesting. Hope all is going well and you're getting some sleep (writing And teaching, how do you do it?) !

Hi there, @shippinggirl2424!  The trick to this situation is just that: it’s a trick. At this point, Jerome is so eager to please Theo Galavan (and to be a star, which is what Galavan’s promising him via this holding-up of the televised gala) that he’s maintaining this as a measured, controlled performance. The audience and Bruce both need to believe Bruce is in danger, which he is to a degree—but it’s not immediate danger. At this stage, maybe after a year or slightly less of doing time in Arkham and then being freed by the Galavans, Jerome is willing to take directions since acting rashly on his own (i.e. killing his mother and getting caught) didn’t work out so well for him. He can’t hold onto Bruce too roughly and can’t risk letting the knife actually bite into his neck because he might actually kill him if he does that…but that’s not what Theo has told him to do, is it? All he’s really been asked to do is play the actions of menace in this context until Theo arrives to save the day. Jerome doesn’t know Theo is going to kill him; if he had known, Jerome’s actions in this context might have changed drastically. Casting an actor so physically intentional in this role was necessary. Those tiny, subtle distinctions need to be perceptible—and Monaghan delivers.

As for how Bruce carries himself in this scene, that’s not surprising, because Mazouz shares that capability with his co-star. Alfred has likely impressed upon Bruce that struggling in a situation like this carries no advantage unless you’re sure you have the upper hand. Bruce knows he does not; that’s the choice I see in how it’s acted. Keeping one hand over Jerome’s like that shows an unusual amount of poise under duress; he knows he can’t do anything to prompt Jerome to handle him more roughly, but he also knows he needs to have his hands in positions that could let him fight back at a moment’s notice. Like, jeez, they’re both just teenagers here (probably about 13 and 18, or 14 and 19, depending on how much time Jerome did in Arkham before the Galavans busted him and the Maniax out to cause all this trouble), and they’re both under the tight control of others around them. They both stand to lose their lives if they make one wrong move (and Jerome is going to lose his no matter what he does, but again, he believes if he does what he’s told, he’ll get what he wants).

This is all to say, there are absolute reasons why you perceive “gentleness” in the contact here. It’s not so much gentleness on either of their parts as it is restraint. They just each have completely different reasons for showing a measure of restraint. If you compare this encounter to the night of Jerome’s resurrection and the fun fair, which is another year or so beyond this incident, none of this restraint applies. Jerome wakes up thinking the desire to kill Bruce was conceived as his own notion, when really it was Galavan’s design, and Bruce by that point has lost many of his illusions and reservations surrounding his own use of violence. I always end up in a place, in my stories, where, out the other side of this hate that’s been set up for them, they realize they have a lot more in common than they’d admit—and it’s so interesting to make them cooperate in matters surrounding the fact they’ve fallen for each other’s “siblings” (Jeremiah doesn’t merit quotation marks, but Five does both due to the lack of specificity in canon surrounding his creation and to the manner of specificity I’ve built for my stories to fill those gaps in his origins).

Strip away the strings controlling Jerome and Bruce, or the remnants of strings, and they have the potential to end up in situations where they’re of more help to each other than hindrance (I mean, look at the diner scene in S4). They don’t have the same kind of complicating spark, by which I do mean a crush, that Bruce and Jeremiah form from the moment they first see each other. Get on the bad side of somebody you love or somebody you’re in love with and it’s far, far worse than getting on the bad side of somebody you’re just stuck with. Bruce and Jerome kind of just get stuck with each other, and after a while, every time they cross paths, it’s like, oh, right, you again. The first time you put Jeremiah in the mix with Jerome and Bruce is the one time it arguably ends worse for Jerome than it ever has before, and it’s at least partly because Jerome and Bruce each feel something far more complicated for Jeremiah than they feel for each other.