#I had no idea using 'he' so much would be such a pain that I would need to rewrite bits to avoid confusion on who was doing what

[nerdlvr]

not so little is it?

(MDNI)

younger jaemin x older reader , small age gap , jaemin is brothers best friend , ur brother is mark lee , big dick jaem , jaem is bigger than reader , size kink if you squint , kinda public sex (ur both in the kitchen & living room and mark is in his room) , harsh blowjob , cowgirl yeehaw , couch missionary , jaemin is cocky and mean , pet names like a lot , light mocking , degradation kinda , jaemin refers to himself and y/n in third person sometimes idk , jaemin knows how to use his dick damn... , requested here !

it  had been the fifth time that night that you had called jaemin baby. and not baby in a i wanna fuck you type of way, baby in a little boy type of way. If only you could go into his brain and see all the things jaemin would do to shut you up. maybe he’d stuff your mouth with his big, hard-

“babyy, are you listening? The popcorns ready!”

jaemin felt his eye twitch, a small fake smile directed at your pretty face. he shook his head softly, turning his head back to focus on the movie.

“dude you need to stop calling him that, we’re not even that much younger than you.”

jaemin could not agree more with your brother.

he was never one to hold grudges, it was childish, unlike him. but for some reason you had been more annoying than usual tonight, the high pitched ‘baby’ and the sweet toned ‘minnie’ only itching him in all the wrong places.

he turned to the clock in mark’s room, 2:00 AM, well shit. had he really laid here for 3 hours straight thinking about your annoying mouth? his eyes drifted down to his now tented boxers, well double shit. maybe thinking about your mouth right next to your sleeping brother wasn’t the best idea. he needed a walk.

.

the cool air from the fridge numbed his senses, his nipples perking up at the soft breeze.

ice cream, butter, cheese, ew. did mark have anything without milk? wait isn’t mark lactose intoler- “his fridge looks like something out of a horror film right?”jaemin felt the hair on his body rise as he jumped, the fridge shutting loudly behind him, a hand coming up to his chest, “jesus you scared me.”

you giggled as you poked his bare chest, "sorry didn't mean to scare you baby. was just coming out for a snack."

baby, did you like to test his patience? he pushed your hand away as he let out a loud huff, "don't call me that."

your soft giggle continued to ring in his ears, your hands now moving to pinch the fabric of his boxers, "call you what, bunny boy?"

his eyes drifted down to his boxers, small bunnies adorning the fabric. he grabbed your wandering hand, smirking as you let out a pained whine. "does your mouth do anything good besides spout nonsense?"

you ripped your hand away from his tightening grasp, your free hand coming up to massage the sensitive skin,"what's your problem jaemin? i'm being nice to you and you're acting like a brat!"

your eyes widened slightlyy as a scoff left his mouth, lips quirking up into a smirk, "nice? you're treating me like a fucking child y/n. i stopped being little years ago. maybe you've been too busy bitching to even notice!"

your heads turned quickly as you heard shuffling from mark's room, his sleepy groans muffled by the thick walls.

"whatever tough guy, i'm leaving, your attitude ruined my appetite."

his arms were quick to stop you, trapping you against the kitchen counter, "where do you think you're going? where's my apology?"

it was your turn to scoff, eyes rolling at his questions. "apology? grow up na jaemin, you're not getting an apology if i did nothing wrong." you pushed at his chest, muscles firm against your hands. when did he get so strong? you mumbled out a low move embarrassed by your lack of strength against him.

he chuckled, breath fanning against your face, "give it one more go baby, maybe this time you might get it."

you bit your lip, head turning to look anywhere besides his bare chest, "this isn't funny, move or i'll-"

"you'll do what y/n?" he licked his lips, smirking down at you.

damn you na jaemin, damn you and those strong muscles, damn you and those plump lips, damn you and this new attitude that is so so hot. you gulped loudly, looking away as you tried to sneakily squeeze your thighs together, heat building between you legs.

"something wrong?"he leaned in closer to you, lips just one breath away. you turned your head further away from him, edge of the counter pressing deep into your back.

"you think being immature is cute jaemin? get off of me!"

he pressed his forehead against the side of your head, breath fanning against your ear. "no-"

he lifted his leg slightly, using his his knee to gently press against your core. you bit your lip to stifle a moan, head lowering just enough to watch his knuckles turn white against the counter. "but you clearly do. been squeezing these pretty thighs together since i started raising my voice at you."

you kept quiet, eyes squeezing shut as his knee pressed further against your heat, "who's the baby now hm?" you ignored him, brain zoning into to light pressure being applied to your clit, only a light hum being your response.

"answer me when i'm talking to you." your eyes fluttered open as he gripped your chin, moving your face so you'd look at him, "m-me jaem."

he tilted his head, smirk growing wider, "what was that?"

you swallowed your pride. there's no way you're gonna miss this opportunity. "i-i'm the baby jaem." he could help but chuckle, leaning in to plant a wet kiss on your cheek, "good girl, you learn quick. now lets put that bratty little mouth to good use."

you sunk onto your knees like your body was possessed, hands coming up to tug at his boxers. his cock sprung free, slapping his toned stomach. he was big, tip flushed and leaking.

his hand was quicker than yours, grabbing onto the base of his length to slap it against your cheek."not so little huh? call me baby again little brat."

"b-bab-" he chuckled as your words came out gargled, his cock being shoved into your mouth to silence you, "you look better with your mouth full." your eyes squeezed shut as you focused on your breathing, jaw relaxing slightly.

he was heavy on your tongue, smooth skin rubbing against the sides of your mouth. you hollowed your cheeks, sucking him in further. "shit angel, mouth so good, keep doing that."

you bobbed your head against him, spit threatening to spill past your lips. the sight above you was heavenly, pink hair held up with his hands as his mouth hung open. he let out soft pants as he tried his best not to thrust into your mouth. "let me- fuck- let me do it."

his hands moved into your hair to hold your head steady, hips starting to pick up a rhythm. you batted your lashes up at him, soft moans spilling from your mouth as he pressed deeper into your mouth, "look so pretty like this- just wanna-"

you gagged loudly as he pushed the rest of his length into your mouth, tip hitting the back of your throat. he held you there, your nose pressed against his pubic hair as you swallowed around him.

his groans went straight to your core, thighs squeezing impossibly tighter. he pulled you off in one swift motion, laughing as you gasped for air, eyes watery and lips swollen.

"look at you-" he slapped your face lightly, "acting so grown and can't even take my cock- get up and turn around."

but you remained on your knees, whimpering as you wiped at your mouth. you hadn't noticed you were crying until jaemin leaned down, warms hands rubbing your cheeks, "awe you crybaby, minnie's cock got you all worked up hm?"

you pushed his hands away struggling to get up, legs sore from the kitchen tiles. his arms wrapped around your waist pulling you against his chest, "still so stubborn, baby just needs some good dick fucked into her so she'll learn hm?"

he laughed at your weak yelp, his arms lifting you up as he walked towards to living room, "now you're gonna show me how much you need this dick."

he sat on the couch, placing you right on his lap, face to face with you. "go on put it in." your cute pouts did nothing to him as he moved his arms to rest them on the back of the couch, head nodding to urge you to continue.

you whined softly as you hovered your hips over him, hand coming down to push your panties and sleep shorts aside. your cheeks burned as you both looked towards your heat, wetness dripping onto his length. he threw his head back as he let out a soft groan, "fuck baby, what would mark think about me having his big sis dripping all over me hm? like the idea of getting fucked by me that much?"

you nodded quickly shame evaporating from your body as you began to rub his tip along your soaking cunt. he hissed under you, his hands gripping the couch cushions, "don't tease baby, wanna feel you."

you sunk down slightly, hollowly fucking yourself on his tip. your bottom lip was trapped between you teeth, body leaned back as you gripped onto jaemin's thighs. he couldn't help but groan at the sight of you, body covered up by your pjs but your pussy on full display.

he moved his hand to your tummy, fingers slipping under your shirt to pull the fabric over your tits, "fuck, you little minx, look at you dripping on my cock- shit, keep going."

you whined loudly, soft pants leaving your desperate lips as you sunk down on him, the stretch hot against your walls."c-can't jaem, too-"

his hand gripped you breast, rolling your sensitive nipples against his fingers. he pouted up at you, a slight tilt to his head, "can't what baby, hm? minnie's dick to big for my little princess?"

you huffed in embarrassment, cheeks burning red as you threw your head back to hide.

"that's okay angel-" his hands traveled down to your hips, a light chuckle leaving his lips as he lifted his hips to meet yours. the loud slap of your hips vibrated against the living room walls, a soft cry leaving your lips as you leaned forward, stuffing your face into jaemin's neck.

"it's okay-" his hips began to move, your slick making it easy for him to slide against your walls, "you can take it baby see? you're so good for me- fuck"

you whined against his neck, walls tightening around his length as he slapped his hips up. "jaem, jaem, please, oh my- feels so good baby, so deep."

he laughed at your small squeak as he suddenly picked you up, placing you in the corner of the couch, your back pressed against the soft cushion,

"i'm gonna need you to be quiet now okay princess? don't want mark to know how good i'm fucking his big sis hm?"

you nodded quickly, mouth hanging open as he slid back into you without warning, a small moan leaving his lips. "fuck jaem i can't- just please, want it so bad jaem, plea-" your hand flew to your mouth to muffle your loud moans, his hips moving to repeatedly slam into you, his length angled in just the right position.

"fuckkk yes bunny, look at you. pretty pussy sucking me in so good." his pace was relentless, one of your hands having to muffle your moans and the other gripping his arm for stability. you sunk into the couch, cushions bouncing under you from each thrust.

he leaned down close to you, body radiating heat against your chest, "want you to cum baby, i'm so close, so clo- fuck yeah baby just like that, so fucking tight shit."

you squeezed around him your stomach tightening as his words filled your ears. all you could think about was jaemin. his strong arms surrounding you, his warm body enveloping you, his soft moans urging you to cream on him and- oh. he hand flew down to your core, finger pressing gently on your clit, "come on angel, cum for me, wanna feel it, need it baby, please."

you squeezed your eyes shut, teeth clamping around your hand as you arched your hips up. the tight feeling in your stomach radiating throughout you, body shaking as you let go.

he stilled inside you, head pressed into your neck to muffle his own moans as he came inside you, whimpers of your name leaving his lips as he panted against you, "fuck, fuck, fuck, so good, so good for me bunny, you did so good."

he kissed around your neck, lips trailing up onto your lips. the kiss was sweet, soft touch of his lips making your body tingle. his grip was warm against you as he held your trembling body.

"shhh, it's okay, you're okay-" he kissed your cheeks, hands rubbing your sides, "minnie's here baby, i got you, everythings-"

you sunk deeper into the couch as you heard the fridge door slam shut, watching as jaemin's eyes landed on the kitchen entrance, "jaem?" mark's sleepy voice broke the silence, "what are you doing out here?"

jaemin stuttered slightly, pink cheeks still evident against the dim lighting,"i- i was just-" you heard mark take a loud sip of something, clearing his throat after, "if this is about my sister- she's, she's just annoying, all that baby stuff is just her being annoying. you know- sometimes i even kinda feel like she might like you or something."

jaemin bit his lip, only a loud mhm being his response as his now soft length slid out of you, "yeah so, don't let it get to you jaem, get to bed alright?"

jaemin nodded, saying a quick goodnight as mark left his sight. he looked down towards you, a scared look on your face, "so you're into younger guys, huh bunny?"

your giggles filled the small space as you rolled your eyes, hand gently slapping his chest. he leaned down to plant a soft kiss on your lips, a wide grin on his face, "don't worry, i like bratty older women too."

[multipleoccupancy]

Sloane nodded thoughtfully and absorbed the single parent idea with just a small element of sadness, he knew she had lost her mother from their discussions on the constellations. He hoped it wouldn't be too painful for her to think about in the mission but he trusted her to say if it was the case. "We'll do that then, I am sure I can tug on the right strings to get them to let her in." He put on his very best sad expression, which was very convincing before he let it fade back into a warm smile for her.

"Yes I am hoping tonight will be a case of two birds and one stone." He looked to Killian and Violet, "maybe four stones, but that just means we can hit harder." He partly teased but he had promised they would do what they could to try and reverse what had been done to the student and it would start with catching and 'questioning' whoever it was behind the experiments. Fully understanding what it was Samantha was suggesting in her 'asking' idea.

He saw how he had made her speechless and he put a hand around her shoulder to pull her back into a small hug, caring and thoughtful hoping he had not upset her even as she thanked him. "They can still pick and chose who to send where," Sloane said of Delta Green and maternity leave, "perhaps you can be the person to start implementing the idea of maternity leave." He suggested with a flash of a smile. "But you should not put your life on hold for fear of things that might not even happen. You give so much to the missions and to the world that you deserve your chance to take a step back and live the life which you're protecting. You can put measures into place for your family. I have and when that time comes, just give me a clue and we'll talk through what you can do."

Theo was a little blown away at the idea of Fire Vampires looking and acting like bolts of lighting. He was struggling to work out if they were real or if Violet was perhaps being told something of a weird urban legend about them. But she had said she had captured them. It was very hard to believe, everything she said and had been through but for the rollercoaster of emotions already that night, he was happier to accept rather than question it as he went off to find the soda cans.

He picked up enough of them that they were spilling from his arms as he made his way back from the trash can. Not even batting an eye at having rummaged through it, too excited in the moment to at least feign disgust, but nice collage campus bins in the campus theatre were a safe bet compared to what he sometimes ended up picking through in New York. "Here we go," he said as he moved to the far side of the stage from her to start setting the cans out at different heights, some on the floor, some on a bench and desk.

Sloane gave Violet a smile and a very clear thumbs up for her showing him the crossbow as he nearly spoke out of the side of his mouth to Samantha. "We should probably limit the ammunition on that one." He suggested as he watched a fifteen year old waving around what had been a deadly weapon for centuries now. "I hope her aim is as good as she said it was." But Sloane made no attempt to stop either Violet or Killian, perhaps because he wanted to see if it would work and if he could and should let Violet use it in their plan.

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐎 & 𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐓 @multipleoccupancy

Yes, it would be a lot more fun. "You're right," she admitted anyway, "let's try to play the teacher card first. You could tell them that you have her for the weekend but have to work late tonight. The single dad angle should mellow out whoever's in charge of the dorms." She spoke from experience.

"I bet we can finish the mission tonight," she echoed, perhaps more optimistic, or too optimistic. But like Sloane had said so himself, once they had the monster trapped, they could easily lure the man behind this awful experiment! "Whoever did this to this poor student might even know how to undo it. It'll be worth it to ask him once we have him." And by 'ask', Samantha did mean 'use force if necessary'. Which Violet would not be allowed to witness.

Sloane's words left her speechless for a moment. She blushed, teary-eyed. "Thank you," she finally managed after a few seconds, "I would like that, you know. Be a mother. But as long as I'm on the field... Delta Green doesn't really offer maternity leave." She looked at Violet and thought about how she adored her father. Then she thought about her own father. She loved him too. But she had still raised herself, in the end. "What if something happens to me? What if my kid loses me?" Her eyelashes fluttered. "I'm sorry." She knew Sloane had kids of her own.

Oh, right. This Theo didn't know about Fire Vampires. And she hoped he would never have to encounter one. "Fire Vampires look like huge bolts of lightning," she explained, "once they touch something, it bursts into flames. But as it turned out, they don't just look like lightning, they work like it too. So, they were immediately trapped inside my lightning rods." She grinned. "They seemed quite unhappy about it.

Violet trusted that he knew where to find empty cans -after all, he had been posing as a student at this university. She waited as he trotted to one of the bins, excited to try her crossbow. When she seemed to notice Sloane was looking at her, she waved in his direction and proudly pointed at the crossbow.

Samantha's smile was a little bit tense as she waved back. "If her weapon-making skills are on par with her trap-making skills... I think it will." Which was good, right? And also very worrying.

[waywardducks]

I have a love/hate relationship with Batman and I need to talk about it.

I’m obsessed with the Robins and anyone that hurts them is on my shitlist, and this includes Bruce. He's a horrible father, he’s abusive, he's got some misconstrued morals, he's just an asshole altogether and he acts like a moody teenager more than a middle-aged man.

But he's such a fantastic character. He has done some fucked up shit, but he's also lived through some fucked up shit, and no, I don't just mean his parents. Despite losing his parents, he was still raised in a house built on love, and Alfred raised him the same, but differently. He didn't come from a bad home. Yet he still turned out the way he did. And that's fascinating to me!

I attended a Batman panel at a convention back in September and it has honestly stuck with me. The panel was on Batman’s traumas and how they affected him and shaped him. It was run by a group of licensed trauma-specific therapists and psychologists and the insight they had on it was amazing.

One of the speakers said that in the loss of his family, Bruce is trying to surround himself with a new family, all young boys who look similar to himself. I believe that one of them said he wasn't trying to make a family in the sense that he was the dad, but that it was just family. Like brothers maybe. They said that it wasn't even something he was doing consciously, it just started happening naturally for him. Because the boys remind him of himself. Batman is still a scared little boy in an alleyway, watching as the bad guy gets away and his parents bleed out on the floor at his feet. He trains them because he wants them to be strong, stronger than he is.

Something else that they said that really stuck with me was that the best way for Batman to heal is to not be Batman anymore, that Batman is so ingrained in Bruce that trying to get rid of Batman would do more harm than good and that the only option to lead to any healing for him was to help him shape Batman into something different. Slowly, help him use Batman to overcome his traumas instead of create new ones. But not to get rid of Batman.

I think of Batman Beyond. Bruce is so controlling still over Batman. He's old, lonely. There's no one left but Terry. This is what Batman did to him and he chose it. Its shocking.

Batman is a huge crybaby, a self-sabotaging man who does what he thinks is right, even if it's not always right. He's mentally ill, no one mentally healthy is that paranoid. He pushes his traumas onto his kids, he can't handle having to be emotional, because that means feeling and grieving the pain, and that's too much for him. (see: how he acted after Todd’s death) he’s stubborn, he can't take no for an answer half the time. He thinks everyone and everything is out to get him. He has lost himself in a persona to try and hide from his feelings. He hates himself for his parent's death and feels like he wasn't strong enough. He can't handle the idea that someone might love him because he hates himself so much that he ruins his relationships. Dick is such a good match for him because Dick is so loyal and will stay through all of his little freakouts. I think Dick realized that Bruce only means well at some point and that's why he forgave him.

I hate him. He's so stupid. I love how his brain works. He's such a piece of shit.

[loganhowlettshousewife]

logan howlett x disabled!reader with chronic pain (not specified)

series masterlist - my masterlist

you should have known better than to go on the mission yesterday, but there’s nothing you hate more than feeling weak and patronised. charles had told you to sit it out if you were in pain, and you’d snapped back that you could handle missions just as well as any other x-man which, while true, doesn’t mean you should push yourself past your limits.

you can’t even get out of bed, every small movement making you whimper and groan as pain shoots through you, unforgiving. after so long dealing with chronic pain, you sometimes think you should be used to it, but no matter how many years go by and how many flares you experience, it never gets any easier.

logan’s upset with you, huffy and fussing, repeating over and over how you should have listened to charles, how the professor only wants what’s best for you, and telling you that it’s idiotic to let your pride take over. he’s being hypocritical, but you know it’s only because he hates to see you this way, hates to see you vulnerable, worries that one day something will happen and the x-mansion will be attacked and you’ll be in too much pain to effectively defend yourself.

so you let him take care of you, because you know it makes him feel better. it allows him a modicum of control over an uncontrollable situation. he, unlike you, has not yet given up on the idea of finding methods to lessen your chronic pain.

he helps you take your medication, brings you food and water, goes so far as to feed you so that you don’t even have to shift your body in case it’s too much. he waits by your side until the drugs kick in, refusing to leave until you tell him to go.

he asks jean to check in on you, asks if there’s anything she can do with all of her medical knowledge - the answer is no, there is no cure to a condition like yours, only techniques to lessen the pain temporarily. he searches for the few mutants in the mansion with healing abilities and practically begs them for help; it’s the only time he lets anyone see him vulnerable, because he hates to see you in pain and would do anything to bring your usual smile back to your face.

you groan in annoyance when he returns to your room with a slightly scared-looking teenager that you vaguely remember teaching last year, but she takes some of your pain away and so you thank the kid. she blushes and whispers “you’re welcome” before skittering out the room, and you’re now able to move enough to turn towards logan with your arms crossed over your chest, an unimpressed stare leveled at his face.

“she asked to help!” he protests, “he overheard me talking to jean about your pain and she offered. i didn’t force her to do anything.”

you sigh. chronic pain can’t be healed even with mutant abilities, you’ve tried it all before. it can take away the worst of it in the same way that some medication can, help with the inflammation that comes with a flare up, bring it down to manageable levels. but you’ll never be free of this burden.

“come here,” you say, and he does, nearly tripping over himself in his haste to give you anything and everything you desire. it’s ridiculous and you laugh, the first real smile you’ve shown all day, now that every breath no longer feels like a battle not to cry out in pain.

you stay in bed the rest of the day. it’s better to take it easy for a while than to risk anything. and logan stays with you, massaging at your muscles until they relax under his strong grip, leaving only to bring you more meals and your medication. he kisses you every time you complain that he surely has better things to be doing, covering your mouth with his large palm as he reminds you that you’re the most important thing to him now.

main taglist: @raeinyourdreams @meetmypointlessaddiction @chubbyhedgehog @yxtkiwiyxt @isepod @dis-plus-fanfic-reblog-writes @deaky-with-a-c

[avelera]

hi! first off, i love your arcane meta, especially the jayce characterization and hextech details. you get it.

now second, (and feel free to ignore this wall of text for any reason):

if you're in the mood to talk about meta, i'm curious to hear your take on one season 2 thing that i've been scratching my head about

how much does post-anomaly jayce know about the future? my initial impression was that wizard viktor only told jayce what we see onscreen, and jayce was kind of improvising and trying his best without detailed knowledge of future events.

but some lines ("we're meant to lose this fight") and a comment from the artbook (post-anomaly jayce wearing armor bc he knows there is a battle coming) imply that he knows more than he lets on.

what's your (watsonian) take of jayce's knowledge of the future in season 2? is there any detail in the show that sheds some light on this?

i think jayce knowing or not knowing about certain events really recontextualises some scenes. is he following his own or wizard viktors plans? is he suprised about the events of act 3? i've been rotating this in my head but i'm not sure what interpretation i prefer.

Thank you so much!

As for your question, it's a really interesting one!

Unfortunately, I do think I need to start the answer with the Doylist one:

Jayce knows as much about the future as he needs to for the plot.

I think this is important to note because it informs an understanding of their choice not to show us him getting an exposition download of everything Wizard Viktor has worked out over the years as to how exactly Jayce can thread this needle of saving Viktor at exactly the right time.

Because, in theory, the amount of optimization could be infinite. It could get all the way down to, "Jayce needs to be scared into falling into this exact pit and spending no more than 3 months there because that gives him the suffering needed for his plea to Viktor to be heartfelt and informed by similar suffering, but not so long that Jayce goes insane from isolation."

Or even things like, "Ekko needs to go to the Happy Zaun universe or else he won't have the sympathy needed for him to prevent Jinx's suicide and without her present at the battle, one of Herald Viktor's mind-control arms snatches up Ekko too soon rather than grabbing Jinx instead, so he's not there to buy Jayce's those critical extra seconds for his appeal to True Love and also put a bomb in Herald Viktor's face."

That said....

I admit, part of me still sort of wishes that Jayce had been the one to go through multiple realities of optimizing, just because I think it answers... a few more questions? Like how did he suddenly get so comfortable with killing someone like Salo, if he wasn't fighting in other universes? Why does he look so aged if only 3-6 months passed? How does he know things like how exactly to get to Viktor's commune and the fact they're going to lose the fight, etc etc etc.?"

I think it would have been cool and very fitting for Jayce but I will admit, the story we got covers all of this too.

Jayce's aging could easily be the product of extreme hardship (I wouldn't be surprised if the animators referred to images of people who have been, say, stranded on desert islands or prisoners of war for long periods to inform just how much Jayce's face muscles wasted away while he was there and just how much extreme hardship can age you because it can be extreme even within a few months and between pain, starvation, dehydration, and magical gangrene, Jayce was going through it).

Jayce's comfort with the idea of killing Salo could just be a product of his hardship (killing and eating lizards with his bare hands lol yuck), or of understanding that assimilated people are already dead, effectively, and to stop that future he cannot hesitate at all. Also, maybe he just fucking hates that guy, which would be pretty understandable after Salo voted to banish him back in 1.02 and also is very funny to me, personally, that he was just a little more comfortable smooshing that particular Councilor than he would be literally anyone else.

And this is were I get to your question: how much does Jayce know? Presumably, if we go Watsonian, whatever Wizard Viktor believed he needed to know to actually thread this needle, because there's probably information he doesn't need to know too.

For example, Jayce might know:

He cannot let a Cultist get back to Viktor with Hexgems. Salo needs to go. Who knows what this prevented but I can easily see how Viktor having more power right now to prolong his healing/assimilation would be a bad thing regardless. Also just... having Salo at all as a potential power player that Viktor could work through.

He knows where the commune is. In theory, he probably could just ask someone in Zaun too I mean, I doubt it's a secret, and narratively we don't need to see that.

He knows he cannot under any circumstances let Viktor talk to him once they're face to face. He can't even look at Viktor after Viktor knows he's there. There's a heavy implication that if Cult Leader Viktor so much as smiles at him, Jayce will fold, if we believe the little flash of memory of Jayce remembering him smiling at him isn't just Dead Wive Vision but is actually Anomaly Future Jayce warning him about what happened to him to lead t that point, which I think is a baller theory.

He can't give into Viktor, ever. He can't let Viktor touch his forehead before the right time. Jayce fights like mad to get away from that robot once Viktor decides that Jayce will be his partner again or else.

He knows he needs to take all the Hexgems out of the base of the Hexgate, but is it to stop Viktor? Or is to buy a few extra seconds while Viktor plugs them back in again so that Ekko has time to wake up? This is the sort of thing where Wizard Viktor might know the real reason for something but doesn't need to get that granular with why because it's about buying time, not actually preventing the Herald from grabbing the Anomaly.

By the way, I have a theory that one reason Jayce needs to get the gem burned into his wrist is because there's universes where his bracelet gets cut off and he loses the gem so Wizard Viktor is like, "This is gonna suck, but you really need this thing embedded in your flesh so it's there at the right time." Though, it could also be so he can engage the magic in his Alt Universe hammer. Still, I am a little sad that it's not an effect of Jayce universe hopping where some battle got it burned into him, because that was my original theory and I'm still very partial to it.

Jayce knows that he has no chance of winning the fight, he just needs to survive it. Once he gets to the top of the tower, once he grasps the hammer, it's all over. From that point on, the only thing he can do is have faith and get his big Power of Love speech ready, that is his only chance.

As for what Jayce is surprised by, I do think he might have been told information but not shown it necessarily. I am still really sad we didn't get a visual of what Wizard Viktor told him but, at the same time, one of the fun parts of Arcane is that it doesn't spoon-feed us, which gives us the chance for discussions like this, so wanting that scene is me being a Jayce addict not because I think it would necessarily strengthen the story.

So I think Jayce doesn't know what Machine Herald Viktor looks like. It's possible that Wizard Viktor doesn't either, because that didn't happen to Wizard Viktor, he didn't get slowed down at the commune, Jayce probably joined him there and probably didn't fight him at all, there's a strong hint that Anomaly Universe Jayce surrendered to Viktor at the top of the tower (the explosion marks around him are behind him, which implies that the force of his conversion might have been in front and willing, like he was kneeling before his king, and we don't have the top of his head to know which direction the fingerprints are positioned in).

So basically, Machine Herald Viktor is a product of Viktor needing Singed to regain enough power to go get the Anomaly, which Wizard Viktor didn't need to do.

It's possible that Wizard Viktor doesn't know about Ekko, he just knows that something outside his awareness has to happen for MH Viktor to be caught off guard, and as MH Viktor says, "That device cannot be," he cannot in his infinite knowledge account for what happens in a world where Hextech never got beyond its infancy with Jayce and Viktor at the helm.

So, at a certain point, there may have been things that Jayce and Wizard Viktor just had to rely on faith to come about too.

But it's way more fun to speculate because I think we'd be punching holes in it instead of speculating on it if we had been given this whole download.

Hope that answers your question??

[confusedshades]

Sorry, I had the worst cough/cold that's still lingering around like the plague but I had a lot of ideas and inspiration from my fuzzy heating buddy so! Here's some more stuff!

Something tickled John's face, and he turned further into the couch cushions with a groan. He knew he shouldn't be sleeping there, but he was just too tired to walk the three feet to his bed in the next room.

The thing came back, except it was more of a soft pat than a tickle this time. John grumbled again and swatted at whatever it was bugging him. It seemed to work, because he was finally undisturbed as he'd been before. He felt himself slipping under once finally, when he came awake with a startled, breathless "Oooof" because a sudden weight with claws dropped onto his chest.

John looked down at the heavy fuzz ball on his chest and met Danny's green eyes. "Hey bud. you want to nap with me?"

Danny just meowed in response and butted his head against John's chin. And then kept butting him. Again and again.

After the fifth or sixth head butt, John groaned. "Alright, alright, I'm going to bed. Come along you goofball." John levered himself upright before trudging to his bed, the sound of self satisfied chirping mewls following him.

-----

Something was staring at John. There was a distinct lack of maliciousness - that much John could sense. He'd lived this long because he trusted his gut when it came to things like this. John slit his eye open; glad he slept on his side so the movement would be hidden by the pillow his face was buried in. Maybe it was just a passing stray bird at his window. It had happened before. Except all he saw was a blurry black shape that slowly resolved into Danny.

The minute Danny noted his state of awareness, he settled into a loaf, crossed his front paws and continued to stare, silent sentinel. Right. If the cat was just going to sit there John wasn't going to do anything either. John stuck one hand out of the blankets and dragged Danny under the covers - much to his squirming protests. Eventually John fell asleep again with a warm purring presence stretched out across his side.

-----

John had barely walked in the door and tossed his trench coat - checking the couch was empty this time - when he noticed that Danny was in a zooming mood. He kept jumping around from shelf to couch to floor to chair and running around like the energizer bunny. John, resigned to an evening of rescuing things in Danny's path, went to make a cup of tea. he'd barely made it to the kitchen threshold when Danny jumped onto his back. which would've been fine if Danny was using him as a spring board to some other spot or even as a landing spot to sit across his shoulders as Danny had taken to doing.

If Danny had had done that, that is.

No what Danny did instead was, cling to John's back with all his might and when gravity took hold, Danny did what all cats do when they wish to defy it. He dug his nails in.

John felt those sharp talons dig into his back, and tear through his shirt and skin when all six and a half kilos of Danny was yanked down by regular physics.

All the torture and mishaps that had occurred in John's life, he would swear to his dying day and beyond - this was the single most painful experience John had ever lived through. Lines of fire burned down his back, and John could feel the needle sharp nails Danny flexed as he desperately tried staying put.

John decided to follow his instincts and leaned forward as he stretched his arms backward to try and support some of Danny's weight. When that resulted in nothing but more clawing John just steadily dropped his body to the floor hoping that Danny would jump off. thankfully he did. John grumbled into the floor tiles before he went to inspect the damage.

The shirt was a lost cause - and his back looked like someone had dragged him over a bed of nails. Wonderful.

-----

John was lounging on the couch when Danny came trotting over with something in his mouth. "Hey mate, what do you have there?" John leaned over to inspect the jangly, feathered ball that Danny dropped at his feet.

Danny nudged the ball closer and John picked it up and tossed it a little ways away. Danny zoomed off to drag it back and dropped it at John's feet again with a distinctively feline grin on his face. John picked it up and tossed it again before standing to find the box with all the assorted toy's he'd somehow collected since Danny appeared.

He pulled out the fuzzy penguin that Danny always went bonkers over and before he could put it down, he suddenly had a hyperactive cat in hunting mode attacking the penguin. Danny managed to clamp all his legs around the penguin and John's forearm and went bonkers doing bunny kicks.

John winced and held onto the toy for dear life. He remembered the way his back had twinged for weeks after the last time Danny got his claws into him.

Suddenly Danny reared back before chomping into the toy. Even through the penguin, John winced when he felt the power behind the bite. If the toy hadn't been in the way, John was pretty sure those teeth would've sunk down to the bone.

-----

John startled at the loud cries outside the bathroom. "What do you want bud?"

There were loud scratching noises along with the crying, so John finished up as quickly as he could and flung his door open to find Danny laying on the ground, right where the door would be, making loud wailing noises that stopped the minute Danny noticed the door was open. He hopped up with a happy chirp and sauntered into the bathroom before jumping onto the bathroom counter and inspecting everything in reach.

John just stared open mouthed at the dramatics of his cat.

-----

John startled at the loud thump and chirping-clucking-meows coming from the kitchen. When he rushed there, he found Danny screaming at the kitchen window from his spot on the floor. "What are you up to bud?" John asked as he crouched to check on his cat. Danny just continued to wail his kitty indignation at whatever it was that upset him, before he trotted off. John shook his head and groaned as he levered himself up.

He'd barely taken a step before Danny came charging in and jumped at the window again. He hit the glass with a loud thump and fell onto the ground where he promptly began to make the strangest chirping-clucking-meows. John attempted to cough to hide his laughter, but he mustn't have done a good enough job because Danny turned his tiny scowling face at John and he burst out laughing loudly.

Danny huffed and trotted off again and John tried his best to get his laughter under control. Danny came charging in and tried his jump again - except this time he flew through the glass. John shot up in horror to see Danny clinging to the tree outside and batting away at some ornery pigeons.

John threw the window open and started yelling at his idiot of a cat. "Oi! You impulsive tosser! Get your arse back here before you decide to kill me with your shenanigans! You're a freaking cat not a damned bird so get your furry butt down onto the ground right this second!"

Danny's expression gave John the distinct impression that he was laughing at him.

-----

John woke up well rested and in bed - an occurrence that was becoming more and more common recently. Who knew all he needed was a cat to sleep with him. He frowned when he finally registered the soft snores in the room. He turned over and spied a lump under the bed covers. When John raised the covers, he found Danny curled into himself, softly snoring as he slept on the other side of his bed.

John smiled and slowly put the cover down. he finally realised why so many people went bonkers over the cute noises their cats made. Snoring wasn't that bad, especially snoring cats.

Danny likes hanging around John Constantine as a cat. Why? At first, because it would've been pretty funny but now, he's realized he's actually.... Kind of grown to enjoy it, oddly enough?

All he really does is lay himself on the man and Constantine just, has like, zero problem??? He wanted to mess with the guy for his reaction, so he did multiple things to test limits but Constantine still let him stay around?? He made threats of exorcising him but like, Danny came to realize they were just empty threats???

John Constantine is weird.

---

Now, Constantine is well aware there was something more to the little cat that decided to claim him as a piece of furniture one day. Not just for them being a ghost, mind you, but he has a vague feeling there's something more to little ball of fluff that sought to inconvenience him.

He's aware that the first thing he should have done was exorcise it. Release it to the other side so it could go on and reincarnate or whatever with the pleasantry that it would live a better next life.

But he didn't.

Why?

Perhaps because of the vague feeling there was something more to the little prat.

But really it was just because his days felt.... Normal. As normal as they could be for a person like him, anyways.

As much as the little twat tried to inconvenience and make his life ever so annoyingly harder. It wasn't any kind of way that Constantine couldn't... Well.

It was inconvenient and annoying yes, yet at the same time it was entirely inconsequential compared to what he's lived through his whole life.

Hell, if other people take shit from their live cats. He can certainly take it from his ghost ca-

...

When did he start referring to the little prick as his?

[reijamira]

Why hasn’t Fadel told Style about his former lover?

In episode 5, Style asks Fadel if he had a lover before, and Fadel lies and says no.

Why lie? Fadel was honest enough to tell Style about his murdered parents (which surely was painful for him to talk about).

Why not tell Style that he had someone special before? Was it because Style would have asked too many uncomfortable questions? Would it have been too painful to answer them? Because Fadel still is not over it, and the grief counseling group isn’t really for his dead parents, but rather for his ex?

Then it got me thinking just HOW much did Style get from that conversation between Keen and Fadel in episode 3?

I think Style, at the least, did overhear this last bit. So, he knows there was someone. Just not how much that someone meant to Fadel.

I wonder when this will come up again and how. Is Fadel’s ex dead? Or was he threatened by Mother to leave Fadel. Then, will he come back and cause trouble in paradise? (Imagine if he indeed came back, and Fadel has to decide between his ex and Style. And our precious, kind Style tells Fadel, it’s ok to get back with his ex, Fadel loves him, they should be together. All the while Style’s own heart is breaking! 😭🥺)

Or, on a completely wild and evil guess, was Fadel’s ex maybe hired by Mother to make Fadel fall in love with him, before he left him, just so that Fadel would realize, in this life, it’s better to stay alone because you are alone?

I have no idea where the show will take us. All I know is that I’m obsessively invested in FadelStyle and I don’t want them to hurt! I want my babies safe and sound (same goes for KantBison). I’m not ready for the shit to hit the fan. I have no coping mechanisms for the drama and the angst that will hit us soon. 😱😭

[thezombieprostitute]

Worth It

A/N: Written for @the-slumberparty's December Daze Challenge.

Prompt: putting up christmas lights isn't as easy as it looks

"Why the hell are we doing this again?" Frank sighs.

"Because Mary asked us to," you reply, unpacking a second box of Christmas lights.

"I blame you for this," he grumbles. "She was only okay with Christmas for her whole life and then she meets you. Now it's all 'we need a Christmas tree' and 'why do we never put Christmas lights'."

"You're the one who said you wanted to make sure she knew how to be a kid," you counter. "Kids are into Christmas!"

"I can think of at least five counterarguments for that, just off the top of my head," he gripes.

"And all of those counterarguments are negated by the fact that Mary asked if we could put up Christmas lights!"

Frank sighs. "Then why isn't she here helping us? Why'd you wait until she was with Roberta?"

"Because I want it to be a surprise!"

"If I get hurt doing this I'm blaming you."

"I'll happily accept the blame if you agree to share the credit when Mary loves it."

"Deal."

Several hours later you and Frank are panting and groaning and not for the usual reasons.

"Okay," you pant, "maybe putting up Christmas lights isn't as easy as it looks."

"Ya think?" Frank snaps at you.

"Hey, it's for Mary," you snap back.

He rolls his eyes as he continues to complain about all the work. You want to send a few more snipes his way but you need his help. Besides, he'll change his tune when he sees Mary's reaction. It'll all be worth it. You know it will.

The two of you finished up and opted to get some rest, and take some pain killers, before calling Mary and Roberta over. A shower would also be a good idea.

When it's finally time you send a text a Roberta, letting her know everything is ready. She brings Mary, who face is wearing that adorably confused expression you love so much.

"What's going on?"

"Frank and I have a surprise for you!"

You give Frank the signal and he turns on the lights. Mary's eyes widen with surprise. You've lined, pretty much, every line along the house. It's nowhere near perfect, but it's something.

"That's so pretty!" Mary compliments.

"That's not all," you wink.

You give Frank the next signal and the lights start blinking in time with the piano opening of Bruce Springsteen's "Merry Christmas Baby", making Mary gasp. Mary's favorite Christmas lights were the ones that were paired with music as she was entranced by the programming that went into them. Thankfully for you, Frank had a connection to help with that. One of the guys whose boat he fixed is a tech genius who was more than happy to help program the setup for you. Especially to Springsteen.

Frank's eyes are on Mary the whole time. Her obvious joy at the ensemble melting his heart a little. He doesn't even need to say it when he looks at you. It's written all over his face: Totally worth it.

Tagging: @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @irishhappiness; @lokislady82; @ronearoundblindly; @thiquefunlover63

[jaegersmoon]

what are ur steps to writing a complex character? i’m having so much trouble w that

✧ write the characterization out on paper so you can visualize it

write out their likes, their dislikes, their personality type, what makes them impatient, what scares them, give them habits and put the reason as to why the habits are there, is it a coping mechanism? a trauma response? did they get it from a parent that died and they don't even realize they adopted that habit until someone points it out? seeing all of this will help you make connections that maybe you were blind to when it was all in your head.

✧ let them be imperfect !!!

when writing complex characters, it can be so easy to fall victim to the concept of trying to make them perfect, of no flaws, because it is your creation and at the end of the day, you are the one making the choice for them but remember that flaws are what drive the complexity of a character. let go of the idea of them always being well versed (bc that isn't reality) and let them make poor choices, be stupid, have horrible coping mechanisms, shut people out, get them into situations other characters wouldn't touch and then let them struggle to find a way out.

✧ don't let the character think like you, but rather think like the character

it's extremely common to use certain life experiences and build them into events in your book. if you do this when involving a complex character, allow them to make choices that you wouldn't ever make. let them over react where you would under reacted or under act when you would over react. let them blow something out of proportion, snap at a character, and say things that you never would and then give it a ripple affect... let it take damage to a strong bond because of their inability to listen and then have them suffer the consequences of that choice in order to allow them to grow enough to fix their present flaws.

the more you write, the more you will learn how to embody what character you're writing and your brain will almost slowly turn into theirs and it will become easier to make choices that accurately fall around their flaws rather than your own.

✧ let them piss you / the readers off

as a writer who is publishing works to the public, it can sometimes be intimating to think about readers reactions when decides on certain choices a specific characters makes, weather you're going to make them mad or not or make them wanna throw their phone. if you do? then good bc you're making them feel something and in my opinion, complex characters are not made to be made to be liked 100% of the time. sometimes they do things they shouldn't or they make choices that makes their development spiral backward, but that's the point. take eren for example, he is a very complex character, has he done things to piss me off? yes. do i love him despite all of that? yes. do i love him because of that complexity and those flawed choices? yes. zuko is another good example of this.

another example, i hated how jean was at the beginning of ob, it was so painful me to write and is even painful for me to reflect on, his flaws made me so angry, but i had a vision as to where i wanted him to end up and i knew if i wanted to develop him and flush him out the way i have, i needed to start him in the trenches and give him a solid reason as to why he was stuck in the hole he dug for himself.

✧ complex characters need a reason that they are complex

where did they come from? what did they experience that made them this way? what triggers their anger? what things are they sensitive too and why? every complex character should have depth as to why they have become who they are. understand their triggers and create boundaries (i.e jean's back, yn's thighs). also give them layers upon laters of identity that you can later leverage out of them and say "this character hates this specific thing because of x y and z and because x y and z happened to them, this is where they fall short in this specific part of their life.

✧ allow them to contradict themselves and let it happen a lot

let them say something and then do something that goes against what they said and turn it into an inward battle. many times the biggest villain of a complex character is themselves.

for example, when keith called yn to tell her to come back to stohess because of lucas she was aware of his flaws and that she wants nothing to do with him but when he mentioned her brother, she took off running and reverted back into the little girl she used to be when they were at the dinner table and he was telling her that he loves her and wants them to be a family and she was inwardly questioning if he actually meant it even though in the back of her head she knows its not true. this is where her complexity comes in. it would be easier just to write her as a 'fuck you dad' type of girl but that isn't who she is. she loves people to a fault and at the end of the day, despite her horrible experiences with keith and all the suffering he put her through, she will always have a piece of her that yearns desperately for her father and the family she lost and will always be hopeful that vacancy will somehow be filled and that is something she truly hates about herself hence why she so often says she knows better than to hope (and yet, she still does).

; hope this helps bb, please remember i am not at all trained in any of this, what i know is what ive learned by doing so take it all w a grain of salt lmfao <3

[aonemanarmy]

So, that had been Mother's deal with Vincent. Sephiroth didn't understand why Jenova had thought it necessary to use the other man as a guardian for him – he hardly needed protection – but he was under the impression that it was more of a ploy to keep the gunman close in case he proved to be a nuisance. It was quite strange though for Jenova to go that far, but Sephiroth knew that her thoughts were far beyond true comprehension even for him.

Before Sephiroth could voice any response Vincent continued and finally made his request known which left him more than a little perplexed. Of all the requests Vincent could have made, Sephiroth had never anticipated the gunman to make the one that he had. It made him wonder why the ex-Turk would request that he meet someone out of all the things he could've asked for.

A part of Sephiroth was immediately suspicious, honestly expecting this to be some sort of trick, but he couldn't detect any sign of deception in Vincent's eyes. However, Sephiroth would be the first to admit he wasn't exactly an expert in human emotion, although he didn't get the impression that the other man would waste such a golden opportunity for the sake of an ill-conceived attempt at subterfuge. It didn't mean that Sephiroth was ready to trust Vincent – not even close – but he was still willing to humor him if only because the ex-Turk had piqued his curiosity.

The sense of curiosity he felt only grew as he felt the sudden resurgence of Jenova's presence at the back of his mind, the alien entity tearing at his thoughts in an attempt to reassert control over him. A splitting headache began to form behind Sephiroth's eyes in response, but he forcefully shoved Jenova back and bound her tighter, even if it did little to stop her venomous threats and the steady spikes of pain that accompanied them. He could bear it just like he had everything else – stoically and without any real expression betraying his inner thoughts or the mental struggle that he had fought.

Still, why had Jenova reacted in such a way?

Sephiroth knew that she was determined to seize control again, but this didn't feel like one of her typical attempts. It felt more...direct and daresay urgent. Perhaps the madman was simply overthinking things, but his suspicions remained as he listened to Vincent indicate that the person he wanted Sephiroth to meet was the very same that Jenova had told the gunman to seek out.

'Why did Vincent think that he was remotely interested in who that person was? The human that the other man valued so much meant nothing to Sephiroth and he'd never bothered to ask Jenova for further details about them. It wasn't as if Jenova was ready to offer him any details in the first place, but he wondered why Vincent was making the whole thing out to be anything more than some sort of transaction between the two of them.

The madman didn't voice his thoughts, instead watching Vincent as he paced past him and stared out over the horizon at something only he could see. It was of little interest to Sephiroth, but he humored the gunman as he spoke and mentioned what that person wanted. Sephiroth was set to brush aside all interest in it when the ex-Turk spoke those last words which immediately had him on guard.

So, Vincent wanted him to see someone that sought to lay claim to him again. It wasn't as if it would be the first time that someone had thought to do so; all of Shinra and its Science Department had done so at one point or another and he was hardly keen on the idea. To humans he was an object, a thing to be possessed, used, and then thrown away whenever it suited them and nothing more. That simply was how things were and he'd come to accept that fact long ago.

“And they would not be the first one to claim me as theirs.” Sephiroth said flatly, not sure why Vincent thought those words would mean anything to him. “I have had many that controlled me over the years and many more that would seek to possess me if they could, so your 'person' would be no different.”

Another sharp stab of pain struck Sephiroth behind the eyes and he scowled, dropping the hand holding Hojo's severed head to his side.

Jenova's persistence was becoming quite bothersome. It certainly didn't help his mood, but having Hojo's head in hand made everything but the most egregious pain bearable.

“I shall not trade one master for another.”

Sephiroth refused to be enslaved again. However, with his true form entombed in the crater and undergoing metamorphosis it would be beyond anyone's influence. All that would be available to Vincent and this person would be the avatar he currently possessed, and that could easily be dismissed or destroyed without any real negative consequences on his part. So perhaps he could slake his own curiosity by humoring the request and if all else failed he could always teach Vincent a lesson by killing his treasured person.

Drawing his sword, Sephiroth stalked over to the lip of the crater and using it sheered the limbs off a small tree. Then, without a hint of hesitation the madman took Hojo's severed head and impaled it upon the sharpened trunk with a sickening squelching sound that painted the snow black with ichor and clotted, old blood. It was a fitting warning.

“I will see your person, but know that I will belong to no one ever again.”

In a morbid sense, it was a twisted yet beautiful sight to see Sephiroth holding the head of Sephiroth in his hand—staring in the face of the man who had both created and tormented him; the true source of all of Sephiroth’s nightmares. Even if Hojo had been the cause of everyone’s pain, including Vincent’s, at least he had tasted the goodness that came with humanity, imperfections and all. Sephiroth, on the other hand, had been robbed of all of it before conception. However, was this truly Sephiroth or Jenova?

Sephiroth’s response gave Vincent that answer, and the gunslinger blinked in a mild confusion at first. So it wasn’t Jenova after all… the shift in essence was curious. But if this was Sephiroth, then what was this powerful sensation he felt atop the mountain? Had Sephiroth truly gained the freedom from Jenova’s control? Vincent didn’t immediately respond to Sephiroth and briefly turned part way to look up at the mountain. The power shook the mountain. He could feel a strong pulse growing steadily stronger. He recognized that pulse… Was this where Sephiroth’s physical body had been entombed the entire time? The one he had witnessed falling into the pool of Mako several years back? Realization slowly crept through his mind, and Vincent turned to meet Sephiroth’s figment once more. Though his eyes were still somewhat harsh, they had softened as he began to put the pieces together. He couldn’t be sure if Sephiroth had yet gained the victory over Jenova, but he could easily test that. At least from what Sephiroth had told him thus far, it seemed as though he hadn’t been speaking to Jenova at all… but Sephiroth’s true conscience. The test hadn’t been conducted by Jenova, but by Sephiroth. Perhaps Sephiroth had already broken free from Jenova long ago and the man with silver hair only feigned it up till now. The power that Jenova wielded was beyond belief—having corrupted and destroyed many planets in the past. For Sephiroth to break free of the most terrifying and manipulative entity known to humanity, it bespoke the power of will that Sephiroth possessed. It was more terrifying than Jenova herself. Who was the puppet-master, now? “I see…” Vincent mused allowed, indicating he had realized he was no longer addressing Jenova as he once thought.

This was very advantageous, yet Vincent was also aware that Jenova wouldn’t simply let go of her most valuable asset—Sephiroth. After all, she took on the form of those who the victim was closest to, someone they hated, loved, or feared. But Vincent would give Sephiroth the benefit of a doubt until those signs once again showed themselves.

Directing his attention towards Sephiroth again, he felt those piercing eyes searching his thoughts. As intrusive as it felt, in a sense Vincent wanted Sephiroth to know the truth. Perhaps it now was the time. There was a strong chance Jenova would try to thwart the effort, or Sephiroth would simply deny Vincent's request. Nevertheless, there was no better time than the present. One thing that kept tugging at Vincent's mind was what would happen if Sephiroth did agree to follow through with his request. What would be the consequences? Would he be putting Lucrecia in danger? There was a strong possibility. But keeping Lucrecia in the dark also seemed equally cruel. Sooner or later, Lucrecia would discover her son was indeed alive. What would she do then if he weren't present to protect her? How could he be sure the one he was talking to wasn't yet again Jenova just playing 5D chess and manipulating the gunslinger? And would Cloud and the others be exempt from what he was about to attempt? 'Let me see him. Just once!'

Vincent could remember hearing Lucrecia's cries towards Hojo from within the mako tank; Sephiroth had been separated from Lucrecia long before she could even hold him. Would seeing her son's face finally put her soul to rest? Or would it rip the wounds anew? Was Vincent going to deprive Lucrecia of her son's audience, also? “There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” Vincent began, his pair of crimson colors meeting Sephiroth’s with an equal measure of sincerity.

“In an effort to ensure your success and safety, Jenova made me promise to be your protector. And if I failed to do so…” His brows slightly furrowed, watching Sephiroth’s reactions keenly. “She would take what I cherish most.” Vincent turned in the direction of the cave as he continued to speak.

“Do you recall telling me to venture out? To find ‘my treasure’?” His voice lowered just above a whisper. “Jenova never told you who that was, did she?” Vincent asked, assuming that Sephiroth had been cultivating the seeds of doubt long before he had sensed it. Vincent began to pace and walk passed Sephiroth, looking out in the direction of the cave. “That someone…she wishes to see her one and only treasure, as well.” He then looked over his shoulder towards Sephiroth, only exposing his profile as long black strands hid part of his face. “That treasure... is you.”

[ghoulfuckersincorporated]

any thoughts on charon and virgin reader??

As with most questions to which this should not be my response, I have many. This actually isn't the only ask for Charon x Virgin!Reader content, and I'm happy to give you a taste of what I think he'd be like while I finish up the one-shot I have for it.

Charon (Fallout 3) x Virgin!Reader NSFW Headcanons

Pretty terrified of the idea of fucking a virgin. Charon does not fetishize virginity or inexperience, but he won't be disappointed if he finds out you're a virgin...per se. He's disappointed for you that you're choosing him to be the one to take your virginity, even if the concept doesn't mean anything to you. You deserve better than him. Then again, you'd deserve better than him if you weren't a virgin, and you want him anyway, so it's not a deal-breaker by any means. Just don't be shocked if he seems nervous or distracted.

If he doesn't see you take Rad-X with his own eyes beforehand, he'll make you take some, even if you already have. If there's none around, well. Tough. You won't be doing more than fooling around. He's stubborn, and if you've never had sex before, then you've definitely never had sex with a ghoul before and have no way to know how your body will respond. If there's no Radaway for you to use afterwards, same story. No radiation countermeasures, no love.

Tries his best to be sweet, or the closest he can get. It doesn't come naturally to him, kind words and soft touches and such. It never did in his pre-ghoul years so long ago, and the life he's lived since then has only made him harder, colder. Still, he can kiss you softly, pet and caress you as gently as he can. Maybe think of something nice to say (though that is a hard "maybe"). He'll hold your hand when you get nervous and even cuddle with you a little when it's all over, another move that isn't typical of him.

He's worried about how big he is, but he's also just worried about his lack of finesse in general. He's a large, lumbering guy with big, clumsy hands...hands it isn't hard to forget the strength of in the heat of the moment. That looming fear of his own strength isn't an unfounded one; you'll likely come out a little bruised no matter how gentle he tries to be. Spends a lot of his energy during sex holding himself up off of you so he doesn't crush you with his weight if he's on top.

He'll guide you if you want (or need), but by and large, he'll prefer if you're the one in charge. What do you like? How naked do you want to be? What position do you want to be in? If you're so virginal that you're both unknowledgeable as well as inexperienced, and thus unable to provide much input that isn't right in the moment, he's gonna keep things as simple as possible.

Secretly spends the entire first time the two of you have penetrative sex assuming you'll regret it sooner or later. You'd think that would ruin it for him, and it certainly...colors it, but overall he's determined to make the best of what he's been offered and try to show you a decent time. Hopes that if he can at least make it good for you, you might regret it a little less.

Has difficulty finishing. He normally does anyway, as he has trouble relaxing enough to be in the moment a lot of the time. But the problem multiplies tenfold if he knows it's your first time; all the fixating he's doing on you, monitoring you for signs of distress or pain, distracts him from his own pleasure. He might be able to relax enough to cum if you finish him off with your hands or mouth, but he likely won't climax otherwise.

Won't touch you again for at least a few days afterwards. Wants you to have time to properly recuperate more than he wants to feel you wrapped around him again (which is a LOT). Even if you came out of that first time rather intact, he'll treat you like he absolutely savaged you.

The possessive animal part of his brain is suddenly a lot more attached to you afterwards, and he's even more protective than he was previously. It's probably just a coincidence.

[httpsdana]

Maybe one for Xavi where he gets you name tattooed on his chest and you notice in when your in bed and he’s shirtless

Signed and Sealed~Xavi Simons

・❥・prompt list

・❥・masterlist -> part 2

・❥・who I write for

y/n and Xavi were sprawled on his bed, wrapped in a shared blanket as the two of them attempted to watch a movie.

Well, she was trying to watch it—Xavi, as usual, had other ideas.

“You’re not even paying attention,” she muttered, swatting at his hand as he lazily traced shapes on her arm.

“Why would I?” he teased, his lips quirking into a smirk. “You’re more interesting than whatever cheesy plot this is.”

“You don’t even know the plot because you’re not watching!”

“Exactly.” He grinned. “I’ve got better things to look at.”

Rolling her eyes, she snuggled back against him, feeling his chest rise and fall beneath her. But then he shifted beneath again, letting out an exaggerated groan.

“Ugh, why is it so hot in here? Are you trying to cook me alive?”

“Maybe I am,” she joked, smiling up at him. “What better way to test your resilience?”

“Yeah, sure,” he replied, sitting up and tugging his shirt over his head. “Let’s see how resilient you are when I make you walk home in the rain.”

“You’d never,” she quipped, but her voice trailed off as her eyes landed on his now bare chest.

There, inked just over his heart, was her name.

“Xavi…” she breathed, sitting up straighter as her gaze locked onto the tattoo.

He glanced down, his expression instantly morphing into a smug grin. “Oh, that? Took you long enough to notice.”

“That’s my name,” she whispered, almost in disbelief. “On your chest. My name.”

“Yup,” he said nonchalantly, like he hadn’t permanently marked his body for her. “Thought it was time to make my priorities clear.”

“Xavi,” she said again, her voice slightly shaky as she touched the tattoo lightly. “You got this for me?”

“For us,” he corrected softly, wrapping his hand around hers and pressing it against the ink. “Because you’re the most important part of my life, and I wanted a way to show it. Forever.”

Her heart swelled at his words, but she couldn’t resist teasing him. “Forever? What if I dump you for taking the last cookie again?”

He grinned. “Then I’ll tell everyone I got this tattoo because you make the best cookies. At least it’ll still be true.”

“You’re such a dumbass.”

“And you’re perfect,” he countered, his tone shifting to something softer as his free hand cupped her cheek. “Every time I see this, I’ll think about how lucky I am to have you. To love you.”

Tears prickled her eyes, and you leaned in, kissing him softly. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“Crazy about you,” he said immediately, grinning against her lips. “Come on, you set me up for that one.”

She laughed, shaking her head as she brushed her fingers over the tattoo again. “Did it hurt?”

“Not as much as I thought it would,” he replied. “But then again, you’re worth any kind of pain.”

She groaned. “Stop! You’re so cheesy.”

“Cheesy? Me? Never,” he protested, though his grin only widened. “I’m romantic. There’s a difference.”

“Sure there is.”

“Hey,” he said, tilting her chin up so her eyes met his. “I mean it, though. This tattoo? It’s because you’re my always. My everything. And if putting your name over my heart isn’t the best way to prove that, I don’t know what is.”

Her breath hitched at his words, and before she could stop hersels, she was kissing him again.

This time, it wasn’t soft or hesitant—it was full of the love she felt for him, love that words couldn’t always capture.

When she pulled back, he rested his forehead against hers, his eyes sparkling. “So… do I win boyfriend of the year, or what?”

She laughed, swiping at the tears in her eyes. “You win. But only if you promise to never pull a stunt like this without telling me again.”

“fine” he said, pressing a quick kiss to her nose. “But just so you know, I’ve got plenty more ideas where this came from.”

“Should I be scared?”

“Terrified,” he teased, pulling her back against his chest. “But admit it—you love it.”

She let out a content sigh, her fingers tracing over the ink once more. “I love it. And I love you.”

“Good,” he murmured, his lips brushing the top of her head. “Because you’re stuck with me now, name tattoo and all.”

[p0ckykiss]

i'd do it all again (if it was with you) - jeon jungkook

summary -> jungkook is faced with a tough decision, and you just want the best for him.

warnings -> angst, zombie apocalypse, major character death

jungkook slams the door behind him, throwing his body weight onto the rickety wood. his chest is on fire and his breathing is erratic. he looks across to see you in a similar state in front of him and grimaces.

the two of you are sticky with blood and sweat, just barely escaping a horde of undead with their bodies unscathed. jungkook sinks down, now sitting against the door. he takes in the state you are in, both of your chests still heaving from the chase.

“y/n that was fucking insane!” jungkook exclaims, a glimmer of relief flashes in his eyes. your expression remains vacant. jungkook continues on in enthusiasm .

“we were fucking amazing, that was such a close call, holy shit,” he groans in pain, but is quickly replaced with excitement, probably from the residual adrenaline still pumping through his veins.

“jung-”

“they almost had us! It was so close, but luckily we pulled through,” he’s almost laughing at this point, voice heightening in pitch.

“listen, I-”

“and near the end? when that one almost got me? fuck and then you pulled tha-”

“I got bit.” you deadpan. jungkook falls silent, staring at you like you just grew a second head.

you lift your left arm, just above your elbow, a bite the size of a tennis ball sat disgustingly. jungkook’s body goes numb and suddenly it’s so hard to breathe. he continues to stare at the wound for what feels like an eternity, shaking his head in disbelief.

“no, no no no no no no no no no.” jungkook repeats, now standing from the door, pacing in circles in the cramped bunker. he runs his hands through his hair in panic, aggressively pulling at the roots. frankly, jungkook has no idea what to do. he knew that it was always a possibility for one of them to get bitten, but he always thought it would be him, not you, and he sure as hell didn’t think it would happen anytime soon. fuck, this couldn’t be happening. a whine from you interrupts jungkook’s thoughts.

“listen to me, gguk, you know what to do.” you say between breaths, you groan as you reach at your waist, pulling out a small handgun. your head leans back, and you blindly shove the device toward jungkook.

jungkook’s world is spinning. he feels disgusted. the adrenaline from earlier quickly clears out and is replaced with a dismal dread that eats away at his mind.

“this wasn’t supposed to happen to you, fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. oh my god y/n, I’m so sorry, ohmygod.” jungkook’s words collide into one another in a jumbled mess of gibbering panic. his breaths are erratic and rushed as he sobs violently. he still hasn’t grabbed the gun from you. 

“this is my fault, gguk,I wasn’t careful. I guess you were right, I am gonna get myself killed one day,” you laugh, referring to jungkook constantly patronizing you for your recklessness on the field.

you both go silent for a moment, and all jungkook wants to do is vomit. this couldn’t be happening. you were doing so well, you could’ve lived through this. you were supposed to be happy. he laughs audibly, feeling so stupid for even thinking he’d be given the luxury. now, his whole world was laid on the metal floor of a rickety old bunker, in god knows where, with a deadly bite on your arm.

“just fucking do it, put me out of my fucking misery, jungkook.” you pause for a moment, breathing deeply before continuing.

“I don’t know how much longer I have.” jungkook legs give up on him and he collapses to the floor.

he reaches towards the metal contraption with shaky hands. jungkook’s handled guns plenty of times, loves the rush of it, but now, he’s never felt more disgusted with himself. the device felt heavy in his hands, he feels bile rising in his throat. he didn’t know if it was because it was the gun y/n never let him touch, the one you prided yourself in owning, or if it was because he was about to kill the love of his life. probably the latter.

he stands up once again, head pounding with pain. his body is sore, and he can’t feel his legs, yet he manages to stand straight. grimacing, he cocks the gun back, pointing it to you. you look up at jungkook, and smile.

“working with you,” your words cut off with a pained groan. jungkook’s lip quivers.

“…made everything worth it, all the pain,” you cough out violently, trails of blood following suit before continuing. “I’d do it all again… if it was with you.”

“keep living, for me. you have to.” you speak up one more time, choking between your words. “I love you… so much, kook.”

looking away from you, he shuts his eyes, and jungkook feels his soul tear as a deafening shot rips through the air.

[rhaellatully]

B-Side (Fanfiction)

AO3

FF.net

AN/ Congratulation to Arcane for making me write again after 4 years... I really need to get back to my WIPs...

Anyway, a very very big thank you to @beforetimes who beta this fic and made it some much better (and also went through the trouble of correcting all of my mistakes)

She looks at her father in the eye one more time before she pulls the pin. She doesn’t hear the boom, instead she sees this orb, and she is being torn apart by it. The world spins around her. It pulls her in all directions. She can’t tell where is up or down. She wants to throw up. It spins, it shakes, she can’t see, until the kaleidoscope appears. She doesn’t hear the boom, but she hears her screams.

Something escapes her hands, followed by a loud noise. Beer spills on a wooden floor. 

Jinx stares at her hands: something is... different. Are her nails shorter and-

“Everything alright, Powder?”  A familiar voice calls.

She turns around and looks up. And there he is, standing behind the bar, like he always did.

“Vander?”

He looks normal, but older. Grey hairs and wrinkles are accentuated by the frown on his face.

“Are you okay?” He says, a worried look on his face.

Jinx saw and heard him so many times before, but never like this. He looks like he should have been. Like the doctor never found him. Like she never gave him to the doctor. Like she never killed him the first time, or the second. Like she never jinxed him.

What is going on? They should be dead. They were meant to die together. To free Vi from all the pain and suffering they bring. All the horrors she created were meant to be blown away. Reduced to ashes. Nothing but a bad memory. One that the Piltie would kiss away and make better.

So, why?

Vander is stepping away from the bar now. He’s coming toward her. She doesn’t know how to move anymore. She can’t run, but she can’t stay. 

The bell rings. Her head snaps toward it and the air is gone from her lungs. Mylo and Claggor walk toward her. They’re different too. They’re bigger. Claggor’s cheeks are smaller. Mylo’s hair is shorter than it should, and he has this moustache. They never looked like this, she never thought of them looking like this before. They’re different but they’re good different.

Vander’s hand is on her shoulder. It’s warm, so warm. His other hand came to wipe away a tear she hadn’t realised was on her face.

“What’s going on Powder?”

Uh, she made it to heaven, somehow.

She’s good different too, she finds out, looking at herself in the mirror after Vander sends her downstairs. He thinks she pulled one-too-many all nighters lately. Yet, the bags under her eyes are the smallest she’s ever seen. Her cheeks also look fuller. Her hair is shorter- no longer, she had cut it, then Ekko fixed it shorter. And there’s this pink strand, the same colour as Vi’s hair.

And her eyes too, no more shimmer, probably no more use for it here.

She doesn’t get to look at them for long, because a hand comes to cover them. In less than a second she spins her attacker around and he’s pinned against the wall. 

“Ouch! Sorry! Sorry!”

With trembling hands, she lets go of him.

“Ekko?” She asks, and a part of her wants to be wrong, wants him to have survived the battle. He had his time loop thingy, he shouldn’t have been able to lose. He should be alive, he has no business being here. He’s the boy savior. Unless he sacrificed himself to save someone, or everyone. He shouldn’t have died. People like her should die, not people like him. He wanted to make a good world, a better world. That’s what he should be doing, not being dead here with her.

But then, he gives her that kind smile as he rubs the back of his neck.

“Okay, I won’t try to surprise you anymore.” He says, and she doesn’t care anymore.

He’s dragging her through the streets as she tries to keep up while having no idea where they’re going. He won’t let go of her hand. He grabbed it at the Last Drop, and insisted that they had to go. She wanted to ask where, but lost the ability the second they stepped out. 

Zaun is good different, too. There’s so much light. The air smells better and it feels easier to breathe, almost like Topside. The buildings are not on the verge of collapsing. The people are walking around carefree, the children are running down the street laughing.

Heaven is a nice place.

They reach the bridge, there are no barricades, just shops, people and enforcers who look... friendly. She remembers the bridge of her life. She passes the spot where her parents died. A man is selling food there. 

Ekko guides her to where they could have died together and she loses her footing. He catches her. 

“Sorry,” he says, an apologetic smile on his face, “Maybe we should walk.”

Jinx wants to say no, because if they are not running, why would he hold her hand? But he doesn’t let go. 

They reach their destination. It’s the academy. She doesn’t understand what they’re doing here. Or why so many people are trying to get there. Ekko keeps walking but she doesn’t move. He stops rather than letting go of her hand.

He smiles at her again.

“I’m sure we made it. They’ve increased the number of seats available again. And even if they hadn’t, we’re not the ones who need it.”

She thinks she understands what he’s saying, but it doesn’t make sense. It can’t make sense.

He starts walking, and she follows all the way to the walls where the results of the entrance exam are plastered. 

“Let’s start at the bottom.” he says, and she lets him. Because if their names are on the boards somewhere, it has to be at the bottom, right? They’re brilliant, she knows it, but the Pilties and their academies care more for prim and proper language than groundbreaking ideas. Even with all the brains in the world, all it takes is one Piltie with a nice bag of money and their sit goes to someone else. Why bother trying? Just to be stuck in a classroom full of Pilties and fancy professors trying to teach them stuff they could learn on their own from books. They’d have easy access to the library, though.

They make their way up and their names don’t seem to be there. He seems so focused, as if he was looking for the solution to a complex equation. She sees him swallow hard as his hand rises higher. Will she see his face break again?

Then he laughs his hand is at the top of the board, and so are their names. Ekko first place, her second. 

“How?” It escapes her lips before she can think ‘it’s heaven, of course they’re there’. But Jinx never wanted to join the academy. So, why?

“Did you fill out the exam in crayon?” He asks with that damn smile on his face. 

Right, it’s his heaven too.

“We’re in the fucking academy,” she says, and she hears him laugh again.

This time he grabs her and swipes her off her feet. He spins her around once, before putting her down, still holding her. His forehead pressed against hers. She’s crying again. She doesn’t know why. 

Ekko’s hands leave her sides to grab her face again. His thumbs wipe away the tears. And he looks at her, that same way he looked at her toward the end. There’s something she doesn’t understand in his eyes. Until he looks down at her lips. Is he going to… kiss her?

He leans toward her, she leans away. He freezes and looks at her, confused. She leans toward him. Their lips meet. It’s nicer than she imagined.

Heaven really is a nice place.

They return to the Last Drop. The second they walk through the door, silence falls, and all the heads turn toward them. Everyone is here; Vander, Mylo, Claggor, Benzo. She sees more familiar faces around, and even Babette is looking at her with hope in her eyes.

“We made it!” shouts Ekko, and cheers erupt all around them.

Mylo almost runs at her arms stretched out, she expects him to strangle her, but he hugs her. She doesn’t have time to react before Claggor joins him. Jinx feels warm, like the sun itself is holding her.

“Vi would be so proud of you,” Mylo whispers and she feels cold all over.

She thinks she’s going to cry again, but she hears someone say, “Let her breathe.”

She almost fights her way out of their arms to turn around.

He’s here.

And he’s good different, too.

His eye. He doesn’t need her to give him his medicine. His scar doesn’t look as bad as it used to. He stands straighter. His skin is pinker. 

His smile is brighter than she’s ever seen it.

“Well done, Powder,” he says as he hugs her, “I knew you’d do great.”

“Silco,” she doesn’t cry, this time she laughs.

Heaven really is a place worth dying for.

The next day she’s nursing a violent hangover.

“I’ve never seen you indulge yourself so much before.” Vander tells her.

“Oh, she deserves it!” Silco joins in, “Before long, the two of them will be sitting on the Council.”

“Or not, if they don’t want to.”

“Of course!”

“As happy as I am to see the two of you like this, can you go do it elsewhere? My head is killing me.”

“Of course, Powder.”

It feels weird to hear Silco call her that, but she could get used to it.

She feels better in the afternoon when Ekko comes to find her. He says they should go tell Vi. She doesn’t understand what he means. But ever since she died, she’s learned to go with the flow.

They go to her lair. Even that place is brighter and warmer. There are different trinkets everywhere, and railings. It still feels like her, but a different her. A happier her, maybe.

They go to the tent. There’s a shrine to Vi. Why is there a shrine to Vi? She survived, she made sure she survived, so she can’t be here, but why is there a shrine?

“She looks so young,” Jinx comments when she looks at the painting of Vi.

Ekko takes her hand as they sit down. “If she could see you…” He doesn’t finish, Jinx is grateful for it.

She will see me, she wants to say, when she dies too she’ll see all of this and she’ll love it.

Jinx is making her way to Benzo’s shop with food to share with Ekko when she sees her. Her hair is brown again. She’s running around with a group of children, laughing so hard as she does. She knew they would meet here eventually. She skips toward her. Her heart swells with every step that brings her closer to her. 

She sees her trip on the ground. Jinx gaps and starts running, but another woman gets to her first. She picks her up and starts whispering sweet things at her.

They have the same eyes.

It makes sense. It’s heaven, so Isha has her first family back too. She’s safe and happy. And she doesn’t need Jinx. 

That’s a good thing. 

So why does her heart ache?

“Are you okay?” Ekko asks her.

“Yeah.” She doesn’t want to talk about Isha with him, especially when she has no reason to feel bad. Isha is with her other family, and so is she. It would have been better if they had never met anyway.

“Pow-pow,” Ekko calls to make her look at him, “ever since the entrance exam result, you’ve been… different. Are you still unsure?”

“No.” Well, maybe I never wanted to go to this academy anyway.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I just think with it, we can accomplish great things. There’s still so much to do for the undercity. And I know that together, we can do anything.”

Jinx has heard that last one before, when they were getting ready to go kick some Noxian butts. She smiles.

I am glad we died together this time.

After a while in the tunnels she recognises the way they’re going. He’s taking her to the Firelight’s hideout. She remembers when he first took her there, after she had let the grenade fall beneath them and let him guide her out of her lair. He had shown her his mural with her face at the centre. To remember and honour everyone they’ve lost. 

“To keep them in our hearts and move forward,” he had said, handing her paint, “What did she look like?”

And Isha had joined the mural as close to her as possible.

Jinx wonders what this place is now. Maybe there are people living there. Ekko had built this place to be a refuge. People don’t need  a refuge like back when she was alive here, though. It could be a playground, there were so many children there. Maybe here it belongs to them, and they play all day, just like she and Ekko did in the junkyard.

There’s water on the floor, it’s not deep, but it splashes when they walk. Once they’re inside she looks up, and freezes.

This is Vi. Her Vi. She’s not supposed to- Why is she-? How is she-?

Her breath quickens and they all start screaming at her. 

What have you done? You’ve managed to kill one of us after all! Why are you surprised? You’re a jinx. You cannot change your own nature. Jinx! You will never belong in heaven! Why would any God let you in? So that you can burn the place to the ground! You’re going to jinx us all again! This is a special hell crafted just for you! You’re a jinx! You’re not meant to be happy. Murderers don’t get happiness. You jinx everything!

“Shut up!” she shouts, throat raw.

She runs away. When she hears Ekko shouting after her, she runs faster.

She ran but had no idea where to run. She couldn’t go to her lair, it was different, it wasn’t hers. Nothing here was hers. Not the Last Drop and not the wrong Vander, or wrong Silco, Mylo, Claggor, or wrong everyone.

She ran to the cannery, this was a place for her. The place of Jinx’s birth. That’s where she belongs. But as she got closer she noticed the people going toward it. They looked sick and broken. This should have been a good sign but when she got there she saw in large bold letters the word ‘hospital’.

They have hospitals, the fucking cannery became a hospital.

Jinx ran away from that too. She went into the fissures, where the Grey still filled the air. They hadn’t fully eliminated it, they couldn’t fix everything. 

She sat down where she could see it fester below without coughing her lungs out. That’s where he found her, because of course he found her.

“You’re not my Powder, are you?” She hears him call behind her.

She chuckles humorlessly, “Nope, I’m Jinx.” Now, go away.

“Are you from the same place as the other Ekko?”

She sighs, “I guess.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Was he ever going to leave? “I didn’t realise- he didn’t give me details, okay!”

She needs him to shut up. To stop talking to her as if she was Powder. To not be so nice to her. To not be here. She can feel him standing away from her. She can picture his face, with his eyes full of hope, just like that day on the edge of the turbine. She doesn’t want to see this fake Ekko and his perfect life with his perfect Powder. 

“Are you okay?”

Why does he have to be like this? Why is it that in every universe he’s like that? Always trying to save her.

“I’m not Powder, okay? Now leave.”

“Look, I’m just trying to help you.”

She turns to face him. He looks worried: of course he does. He doesn't understand that she's nothing like her.

“Just because I have her face doesn’t mean you have to care.”

“Actually you have more than her face, you are inhabiting her body.” He says with a cheeky look on his face, as if they were friends.

“Well, I don’t know how to leave it, so…”

“Powder, Heimerdiger and the other Ekko created a machine that could send him back. With their notes I’m sure we can figure it out.”

“Good for you.”

Powder and Heimerdiger aren’t here anymore. If he wants to build his machine, let him have a crack at it, but leave her out of it. Give the machine to her, she’ll probably find a way to blow the entire city up with it.

“Look, Powder-”

“Jinx! My name is Jinx.” She almost screams it at him. He flinches, and that’s how it should go.

“He did say you were different.” He says, not backing down, always the brave one.

“Oh, really?”

“He also said your ideas changed the world.”

She burst out laughing. That’s one way to put it!

“Do you know what I’ve done? Did he tell her?”

He looks at her with the same terror her Ekko used to. She laughs, almost manically. The way only a Jinx would laugh. The laugh that does nothing but scare people.

“I’ve killed them,” Jinx whispers at him and laughs some more, even when nothing feels funny at all. “Vander, Mylo and Claggor, all in one go. Silco too,” she pauses, “But that was later.” She gives him her smile and it makes him flinch. “And I killed so many of your friends in between.”

He stares at her and says nothing. 

“And I killed them on purpose! Unlike everyone else. Everyone who gets close to me dies… one way or another. Except you. The boy saviour always makes it.”

Jinx sits back on her spot. He should leave now: Jinx can tell that he’s scared. He should leave before she jinxes him, too. She can hear his footsteps, but they’re not getting softer. They’re getting louder.

He sits next to her. “I gave her the tip.”

Jinx looks up at him. 

“I gave her the tip, and they all went while having no idea what was actually up there. If I hadn’t they would never have found the crystals. They would never have fallen to the ground. There would never have been an explosion. If it weren’t for me, Vi would still be alive.” He sighed, it’s a heavy sigh, filled with sorrow. “Everyone tells me it’s not my fault, but there’s still a part of me that,” He pauses to take a shaky breath, “That still feels like I killed her.”

There are no tears in his eyes, but she hears them in his voice.

“It’s not the same. You couldn’t have known there'd be an explosion, it was a good tip.”

“Whatever you did to kill them, did you know it would?”

Jinx doesn’t have the strength to answer, so she just cries. Because she didn’t know. She only wanted to help. 

In between sobs, she lets out, “What about everyone else?”

“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask your Ekko.”

Going through the notes is more difficult than she thought. They don’t use big fancy words like Talys and his partner did, but the doodles, the discussion in the margins, all the little things in the pages tell her how much fun they had. He had more fun with me.

Or maybe, he only had fun with her when he thought of the other her.

Other Ekko works dutifully on the project. Seemingly unbothered by her, which still baffles her. He probably doesn’t understand what she is, and what she’s done. 

It’s better not to explain it to him. Just get back and then… 

The first night, when their stomachs start to growl, he proposes to go “home” to eat. She can’t. She refuses, and when he ducks out anyway, he comes back with food. Says he told the others they were working on a project, that they let him come back here, but are worried.

Powder doesn’t go around disappearing. Jinx hopes they finish this fast.

Working with this Ekko is not the same as working with her Ekko, but it’s close enough. There’s something about the way they bounce ideas off of each other. Like the gears inside her head turn faster. It brings her back to when they were children, when they were searching for books in trash, trying to understand mechanisms by taking gadgets apart and rebuilding them. There’s something comforting about it. But it lacks the excitement of working with her Ekko. 

She always ends up thinking of the days they spent preparing to fight the Noxians. Making her lair airborne had been a crazy idea that somehow worked. Jinx couldn’t have done it with this world’s Ekko; he wouldn’t have taken the risk. 

That’s the thing about her Ekko–he’s a daredevil. He’ll jump off an airship to reach his goal. He’d face an explosion again and again to save her. Was he always like that? Or is it just having her around that makes him as crazy as she is? 

She believed that when she pulled the pin, but now, with this Ekko, the one who has never met a Jinx before, she sees cracks. He will redraw the same schematics six times, perfectly identical, always. He will violently rip off pages of his notebook and throw it away when he realizes he‘s made a mistake. He forgets to eat. Apparently it happens when he’s focused and Powder is the one to remind him, usually. He starts breathing really fast and clutching his head one day, because he has just realized he made a mistake yesterday. 

Maybe that’s not something she screwed up, then. Maybe her Ekko was always a bit insane, too.

“It’s the power source,” she says one day, “We’re screwed.”

“What do you mean?”

“What they used were crystal shards, not a real Hex-crystal. That’s why Heimerdiger had to step out to make adjustments during the process.”

“To redirect the energy!” He exclaims before rushing toward Vi’s shrine.

“We don’t have an actual crystal, we can’t-”

Before she can finish, Ekko shows her a bag full of crystals.

“We had sworn to never use them,” he explains, “but given the circumstances, I think she’ll understand.”

She didn’t want to go back to the Last Drop. What would she do there? Talk to the other Vander, Silco, Claggor and Mylo, and pretend that she was their Powder? As if she had any idea how to be like her. She’d probably manage to kill them, too, given enough time. But then the other Ekko had told her, “why don’t you let yourself enjoy some of your time here? your me definitely did.”

They had been humour in his tone and she had no idea what he meant, but her curiosity had pushed her to take his advice. If spending time with those people had led Ekko to want to see her again, then she’d like to know what he had seen.

So now Jinx sits at a diner table with Claggor at her right, Mylo at her left and Silco and Vander across from her.  

“So what’s that project you guys are working on?” Claggor asks with excitement in his voice.

“Secret,” she answers before stuffing her mouth.

The food was rich in taste and homely, Vander must have cooked it, it tastes like something from a memory.

“Since when do you keep secrets?”

A cold chill washed over her. Coming here was a bad idea. They were going to figure out there was something wrong with her. They were going to get mad. They would be scared and confused, all shouting at her. And that’s when it’ll happen. That’s when they all die.

“I think she’s not making anything,” exclaims Mylo, snapping her attention to him “She’s just getting more alone time with her boyfriend!”

She stares at him and feels her cheeks warming. Laughter erupts around her.

“Really?” This time it’s Silco that calls her attention. “You’re about to spend the next couple of years locked with him at the academy, and yet you’d rather spend your time with him rather than with us?”

Mylo and Claggor laugh even harder and she can barely hear herself say, “I’m sorry.”

“Leave her be,” Vander comes to her rescue, “She spent more than enough time taking care of us, let her have some fun.”

She doesn’t know how to describe the look he gives her. It’s the kind of look he would give Vi. She thinks it means, ‘I’m proud of you,’ or something. Definitely not the kind of look he should be giving her.

“Seriously,” says Claggor, “it’s going to be weird not having you around all the time.”

She feels terrified. It must be visible because Claggor keeps sending worried glances over at Mylo.

“We’re grown men. It’s about time we stop holding you back and learn to take care of ourselves.”

Jinx manages to divert attention from herself for the rest of the evening. 

It’s a strange thing. One moment she’s laughing, smiling and content, the next she remembers that this is the life she could have lived, had she not fucked everything up. It’s like being built up and broken over and over again.

By the time Vander asks someone to clean the dishes she volunteers just to be alone. And yet she wants to go back to them: it hurts but it’s also so wonderful to have them alive. It almost feels worth the pain.

She doesn’t linger on this for long because Vander joins her. She’s scared of what he’s going to say but he just quietly helps her with the dishes. She’s not very good at it, mostly because she doesn’t always clean. Hell, most of the time she doesn’t even use dishes. Vander just chuckles and helps her.

“You know you don’t have to feel guilty.”

She drops a plate. It doesn’t shatter, just falls into the water with a quiet splash. 

“Joining the academy is a good thing, and if it means you have less time for your family it’s fine. We can manage on our own and we’re not going anywhere. It’s about time you use all your smarts to make something out of your life.”

Her eyes are watery, Jinx knows those words are not for her but she can’t help but reply, “What if nothing I make is good? What if I just make everything worse?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” He tells her with a smile. She feels the tears rolling down her cheeks and he quickly adds, “And if you struggle you can always turn to Ekko or your brother, or even Silco and me. I mean, we’re not geniuses but we can give good advice when it’s needed.”

She wraps her arms around him. The tears are still falling but they don’t feel like sad tears anymore.

“You’re not alone, Powder.” He says before holding her tight.

As she makes her way to her bedroom she spots Silco writing in a journal.

“Still working?” She asks.

“Yes, I’m afraid my work is never done,” he sighs heavily, “I’m going to have to leave again in a few days.”

“I’m glad you were here.”

He smiles at her, “Me too. And I’ll be back soon, don’t worry.”

“I’m gonna miss you.”

He gets up and walks toward her.

“Now, now, you’re a big girl, I’m sure you don’t need me anymore.”

She pulls him into a hug and hides her face into his shoulder. “I’m always going to need you.”

He hugs her back and says, “Please, I’ve always needed you more than you needed me. You’ll be fine.”

“Here.”

Ekko hands her a pendant, on it there’s a flower. It’s pretty, and it spins. Looking closer she can see their faces carve in the petals.

Before she can ask him anything he says, “He gave it to her, but she says she didn’t think it was meant for her.”

She stares at it again. It’s meticulous work, detailed but not excessive, his style. A small smile forces its way onto her face. Jinx puts it around her neck.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t blow up in our faces.”

First the lightning comes, like at the cannery, they all start to scream and she doesn’t know if she’s going to be able to stand it. But it’s all cut off when the sphere appears around her. She breathes in and this time, she’s ready.

The last thing she sees is the other Ekko holding the other her in his arms. He smiles up at her.

He keeps himself busy. It’s the best way to avoid falling apart. Scar tells him that they have no one to fight, and they are not alone in helping anymore, that he can take a break. Ekko begs him for a job, any job, instead.     

He needs something to do, anything. The look he, and all of the other Fireslights, gives him feels like a stab in the heart, because it’s just another reminder of what could have been.

He repairs the roof. He teaches the children how to fly a hoverboard. He helps cook dinner for everyone. He talks with Sevika about the meeting and what they could and should be doing. He tries to come up with a new and more efficient energy storage device.

It helps, but never for long. Because, they sat on that roof the first night she spent at the hideout. Because, one of the children has dyed his hair blue and swears he's going to be just like her one day. Because, they cooked together the night before the battle. Because, Sevika has to say that she was easier to deal with than the Council. Because, working on anything reminds him of the time they spent transforming her lair.

The nights are the worst, when nothing can distract him from his grief. It’s the third time. It should be easier by now. But it’s worse. It’s so much worse. This time he’s not just grieving what was, he’s grieving what could have been.

After having seen the other universe. After having convinced her to drop the bomb and step off the ledge. After rallying the under-city together. After fighting side by side. He had hope that they would get a future together.

He knew things would never be as they were. That they would never be like the other Ekko and Powder. But he thought that they could build something new. 

Maybe Jinx would have stayed with the Firelight, she had liked it there during the few days before the battle. It might have taken her some time. They could have worked on projects together. That had come to them just as naturally as it had before. Eventually, she would have started to play with the children. That would have won over the few Firelights that were still wary of her. They would have visited Vi together, if only to remind her that she was a Zaunite and always would be. She would have spent a lot of time with Sevika, much to the Council’s annoyance. 

She would have cooked weird things and forced him to try them. He would have fought her, but ultimately conceded, always. He would have taken her flying on his hoverboard, far above Zaun, even higher than the Hex-gate. She would have modified the overboard, in a seemingly superfluous and random way, but a surprisingly useful one. They would have fought about that, and about her idea of games appropriate for children, and about the priorities for the Firelights, and what music to play during the day, and the right flavour of pancakes. They would have laughed, too. About her hair, his clothes, Sevika, Scar, and about the Pilties. They would have spent nights awake making fun of Pilties. 

And on one of those nights he would have looked into her eyes. She would have looked back confused. He would have leaned toward her. She would have frozen at first, but then she would have closed her eyes and leaned back.

But none of that would ever happen. Instead, he would remember all the time they played as children. All the time they fought as teens. Eventually the childhood memories would fade and the only moments left would be those last few days. 

Three days, that’s all he had been given. Three days they spent arguing with the rest of undercity, and trying desperately to build everything on time. They barely had any moments alone together. They never even got to paint together. They transformed her hideout while shouting orders at everyone else. They only got to laugh when painting each other. He only got to hold her twice. Once right after she stepped away from the ledge. And again right before the battle. He only held her hand once, when he brought her to their sanctuary.

He got to kiss her once and it wasn’t even her.

Sometimes he thinks about what it would have been like to kiss his Jinx. It would have been more wild, he thinks, probably with more teeth. It makes him chuckle. Then the hurt comes back, because he doesn’t know, and he never will.

He never told Vi. He can’t. He doesn’t want to burden her with the knowledge of the happiness they could have had. He doesn’t want her to know that their world would have been better if she had died. He hates himself for thinking it, but he knows that, for him at least, it’s true. And he fears it would break her in a way even Caitlyn can’t fix.

He builds her a shrine, like Powder had for Vi. He prays and talks to her, like they had over there. He tells her about his day. About what Vi is up to. He tells her about the changes in Zaun. He tells her he wishes she was here. And some nights, when the pain is too great he begs her to come back. To pull another miracle. You’ve done twice already, why not a third?

He has a lot to tell her today. For starters, mister I’ll-be-just-like-Jinx-one-day thought it would be a great idea to try and jump off his hoverboard mid-flight. He broke his leg. Ekko tried to lecture him. He got too angry, though, and almost yelled at the poor kid. Thankfully Scar took him away quickly. He hates that he lost control like this, especially in front of a child. He barely had time to apologise to the kid before he was informed that Sevika was looking for him. 

Ekko knew that was bad news before he even reached her: Sevika only ever wants to see him when things go to shit. Turns out the Council thinks the factories need to reach their pre-war quotas before the end of the month. How they’re supposed to do that when half of their population is still wounded and recovering, he has no idea. She wants the Firelights to help her make a show of force in front of the Council, to remind them that the undercity is a united front. 

And there’s another problem: A few days ago, the Jinxers put on a little homage to Jinx, to celebrate her sacrifice. Ekko didn’t go. He didn’t want to see what a group of people who never knew her would do. Apparently they just threw a bunch of paint explosives around town, landmarks associated with Jinx, including the building she blew up on Progress Day and the Council chambers. 

Needless to say, the Council are not happy about that. As far as they are concerned this is “in very bad taste” and all those involved “need to be disciplined.” The little dictator that put Noxus on their doorstep can go home scott-free, but a bunch of kids throw paints on their precious building and suddenly there’s a need for discipline. Some things never change. 

After an entire evening locked with Sevika, Babette and her other “advisors” to try to find a solution, he returns home, skips dinner and goes straight to his quarters. 

He wants to go to her, pretend she can hear him, imagine her thoughts, her voice. Give himself whatever comfort she can give him. And collapse on his bed feeling a little bit less shitty about everything.

He pushes the door open and there’s someone before his shrine. She has her back turned to him, all he can see is a cloth wrapped around her skinny frame and short blue air, when she turns around his heart stops.

He thinks he is dreaming. She can’t be standing in front of him. But she’s here. She looks real. Like he had last seen her. His eyes run across her, trying to find a trick, hoping to find a confirmation. That’s when he sees the necklace.

She notices and touches it, “He said she thought you made it for me.”

His breath shakes and he throws his arms around her, his tears run down the crook of her neck. He feels her arms coming around him, Jinx clings to him, just like he’s clinging to her.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that. He is scared that if he lets go she’ll vanish.

Finally, with her voice shaking she asks, “Can I stay here, at least for while?”

Ekko sobs as he says, “Please don’t leave, not again.”

AN: I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, writing Jinx pov is difficult I hope I got it right. Writing the alternate universe is also fun, Silco and alt-Silco are two very different people...

[mixterglacia]

CONTENT WARNING: Vivziepop Critical/ Stolitz Critical below the cut.

This episode made me incredibly angry, so it's not going to be as well structured as I try to manage.

TL;DR The pacing and tone was a horrible mess, and this should have been split into at least two episodes to pull this off.

To start, we prove in the first five minutes how little these two actually know each other. They're surprised by very simple things and I don't like that. It tells me that neither of them, but especially Stolas, EVER asked about the other's interests. Cool, that's good to know I was right about that the whole time.

Blitz is WILDLY out of character in the bulk of this episode. I LOATHE how he's waiting on Stolas hand and foot. If we're being honest, he'd probably just say "figure it out yourself" and focus on his life, business, and daughter. Why are we always having to baby Stolas' feelings? It feels like he's the only one allowed to actually be doted on. (In a non-humorous way.)

And now he remembers Via? Sure, just run off without thinking about your family. You have never let that stop you before. And now Stella is being cartoonishly evil in front of her daughter? We've never had it proven that she's a bad mother. In fact, from what Via states later, that's the case! I really think they have no idea on how to be subtle with her.

In a similar vein to the moment with Blitz watching the family later. You didn't need to tell us who he was imagining in that window. The moment worked without you punching it down our throats.

Likewise with Millie's pregnancy. I wish they'd left that as an open thread, rather than taking time to fully confirm it. Like maybe all the way up to the point where she went into the bathroom and left looking a little fucked up? That way it can be an engaging thing to return to in S3.

The non-drama parts of the episode (especially the first five minutes) dragged HARD. They gutted any emotional moments and just felt like padding for the runtime.

I am so annoyed at the way this show is trying to lessen what Stolas did.

HE CHEATED ON HIS WIFE. HE DESTROYED HIS FAMILY. HE ABANDONED HIS DAUGHTER. HE IS A TERRIBLE MAN WHO GETS EVERYTHING HE WANTS BECAUSE THE SHOW BABIES HIM.

This is not some cute little quirk. His wife was never implied to cheat on him first. She was a bitch, but she didn't do anything to deserve this. I can't stress enough that if you showed her playing around too, it would immediately solve most of the hypocrisy with this.

Trying to weasel around that by Blitz trying to say cheating really so bad is fucking gross. It's not like they had an open relationship and Stella got jealous. Stolas is a slimeball. He doesn't deserve Blitz. He doesn't deserve Via.

He hasn't earned any of this.

While it came out of nowhere, the Via song is STELLAR. As a product of divorce, she owes her father nothing. She deserves to feel so hurt and betrayed.

"My tears won't fall upon your shoulder...I'll just get older and you'll only know my name." Hit me like a truck.

So imagine my outrage when we aren't allowed to sit and think about her feelings for more than a few seconds after the song. We aren't allowed to focus on her pain. If they staged a sequence between the number and her finding her dad's pills, I think it would work better.

Or even uploading the song by itself. But no. You have to CONSTANTLY remind us to feel bad for the stupid fucking owl. Feel bad because he's depressed. Feel bad because he's trapped in the same loveless marriage as his wife. But don't feel bad for her because she's a bitch.

Fuck. Off.

My dad was manic depressive, that doesn't mean he got to treat our family the way he did. Stolas didn't even think about her before throwing his life away over his booty call.

This show has so much potential that it just squanders. There are two different series being forced together and it doesn't work. You have the comedy series shoved into the same sweater as the soap opera. They aren't mutually exclusive, but truly the team seems incapable of making this work.

I'm done.

This isn't even fun to critique anymore.

If folks want my opinions on future Helluva Boss content, you'll have to directly ask me to watch the piece in question. I'm still going to give S2 of Hotel a shot, but as far as this?

I'm throwing in the towel. Of the two, I was so excited for Helluva. I loved the characters, I loved the idea, and I truly loved the first couple episodes.

But that show doesn't exist anymore.

Once again, I'm going to take a moment to remind you all:

You are allowed to love this series. I am just a dude on the internet. I am not trying to change your mind. I am not trying to ruin your fun. If you love it, that's awesome. I am so happy you found something that sings to your soul.

Don't let me harsh your buzz. Okay?

[marksofsympathy]

Chapter one!! Under cut!!

Her pen glided against the paper in gentle yet purposeful strokes. Words came to mind and she picked out the ones best fit for her writing. An iterator approached with a small content laugh. He was a happy iterator, and in all honestly the tan one wouldn't change him for anything.

"Writing again Mossy?" The blue iterator seemed to smile at her.

She looked up to see him, those bright multicolored eyes. One was blue, one was red. The iterator himself was a mix of blue and red, dark blue with red markings. He wore a skirt as well as a pretty top, the iterator was always unusual to her.

"I suppose I am writing Surreal, what have you been up to?" Her voice was steady and never shook, strong and formidable was who she would be.

"Mossy, Songs wants us back at base, we're gonna attack these iterators. Frigid returned with their info on the guys." Surreal spoke in a sickly sweet voice, too sweet for something so horrible.

"How do you do that? Do you not feel remorse for those who we kill? Do you find some sick enjoyment in their pain?" Mossy narrowed her eyes at Surreal, her gaze slowly softened in a mournful way.

"We are family, right? Why would you tear apart something you know you care about? I mean think about it Surreal..... how could you tear apart someone's family when yours means so much to you?" Mossy twirled her pen in her fingers slowly as if to distract herself.

"It's just what Songs wants- Mossy, we have to do this. Who are we to question our own senior? So.... Please let's not talk about it." Surreal watched as his tan sister got up holding her notebook close to her chest.

"I suppose so...." Mossy leaned against Surreal as they walked.

Upon reaching the group of iterators, Surreal instinctively took hold of her hand. A dark green and lime iterator jumped and bounced around in a giddy excitement. Mossy stared at them all, fourteen iterators in one local group. Songs stood among the crowd of blood thirsty iterators. Summer, Crescent, Erosions, Trophies, Hero just to name a few.

"Mossy, Surreal, why don't you two join us." Songs stared at the tan iterator with an unreadable expression.

Mossy formed several questions on why she should, combats for if Songs were to insult her. She thought of many things to say, many things to do. Looking over she saw the knife held by Hero was sharp, the blade a rusted color. Without much thought Mossy had already formed an idea on how to counter his attack if he were to try and harm her. And yet, despite everything she remained silent.

"We're traveling this cycle again, we'll reach them in time. From the information Frigid has gathered they all live in one place. Let's be off now, the cycle won't wait on us." And like that they walked forward.

Mossy stared ahead, the dry crusted earth beneath her feet crunch with every step. The world seemed dry with not a single trace of water. She wanted to write about this, every little detail. The world she faced brought forth a desperate need for greenery. The scorching sun lashed against the sky in violent yet still warmth. The tan iterator had seen so many things, written so many stories. Describing the world around her seemed to bring peace to her uneasy soul.

With the excitement faded out of the local group Mossy only grew more willing to turn around. But to her dismay they spotted an iterator. Small, teal, young and joyous. Without a second thought Mossy sprinted towards the iterator. They let out a shrill cry with a mix of fear and distrust. Songs narrowed her eyes at the two, throwing her spear to strike down the scrawny teal child.

The vicious howls and shouts of the local group pushed Mossy forward. In a rush of pure adrenaline she yanked the child aside. The tan one wondered how it felt to feel that spear brush across their face in an almost fatal blow. The no longer fierce battle cries took a harsh change into distraught.

"Mossy! What the hell is wrong with you!?" Songs snarled at the tan iterator who stood still.

As for the child, they ran as fast as their small legs would allow. The thought of a near death experience was hard enough, but to simply be of generation three? Maybe that fear was something she'd never know, but moving to the next cycle so early seemed horrible. Surreal stared at her for a long moment but even he turned his head away.

"They were but a child." Mossy simply watched as Songs stormed towards her in bitter yet not silent rage.

The white iterator stared with displeasure and disappointment, yet it did not phase her. Once close enough she placed her hand on Mossy's face, using her other to trace the infinity marking on her forehead. Songs's gaze did not soften as her affection grew rough. Although once she stopped she scolded the younger iterator.

"We are not here to save lives! We're powerful are we not? I do not care what anyone's age is! If they die, they die!" Songs shook her head to walk off in an aggressive fashion.

"Mossy you seem to ruin just about everything don't you." It hissed out its words which were usually silent.

Harmless, it was never an iterator that she would have seen to grow so agitated once violence was incited. It grew to hate Mossy, that was something she knew. Everywhere she went, it followed to try to call out her flaws and expose her for something she had not a single clue about. Mossy laughed a little at what Harmless had tried to insult her with.

"Why are you laughing!? Are you neuron dead as well!?" Harmless' tall form attempted to tower over Mossy with harmful intent.

"It's just funny to me, you hate me. Yet you spend your every moment thinking of me. There hasn't been a single cycle where you have not tried to do emotional harm to me. It's quite humorous that you keep failing, yet try all over again." Mossy's hums of amusement seemed to dig under its nonorganic skin.

"I'll fucking kill you." Harmless snarled, it tried to make its large and sturdy figure known.

"Why you're at it, kill yourself." Mossy simply walked away from the crowd of iterators who chirped and hollered with amusement at the argument, but all Mossy could think of was Surreal's worried face.