#I want to protect all the characters from this manipulative memory shit even when we only just met them 😭

[erytherion]

Why do all the Shining Nikki event plot lines always have to be so tragic?? Do they want my tears this much??

This dress-up game is always so dark LET THEM BE HAPPY SOMETIMES PLEASE!

Every event makes me want to go immediately write fix-it fics so they don’t have to be sad anymore but I also don’t want to undo the development they’ve had so I just sit here like 😭😭😭

[maxphilippa]

Nickel's sense of guilt and fear of change. [Character/II S3 Episode 14 Analysis, part 1/?]

Today, the longest episode of Invitational has dropped, and I have many thoughts of it as well. Might do more posts analyzing the events that ocurred as of now in canon, but I would like to talk about the heaviest part in the lore and how most people are not getting it completely (in my opinion), and that being: Nickel's current point of view of Balloon and his relationship with Suitcase and BB.

We all know that Nickel's actions hurted the Grand alliance, but what happened in the episode is that they showed how apparently, Nickel doesn't get exactly that things were completely fucked up.

In the episode, he mainly focuses on the good memories he had with BB and Suitcase, and doesn't even seem to hate Suitcase either, unlike what most people thought (me included to an extent, though I did see him being hurt mostly with their relationship and what happened in s2), but.

Nickel doesn't realize that he actually fucked up with them a lot, and that's the main issue.

Like, sure. He knows that stuff were messy at points but that's all he says. He mainly focuses on the good moments he had with them, maybe that's a product of him growing once he got eliminated and came to terms with himself that "well yeah there was a bit complicated shit but we still had fun together", but deep down he feels a sort of... guilt? Regarding Suitcase.

But even then, Balloon scolds him for trying to erase the times where Nickel made all of them feel bad. Hell! Even then Balloon recognizes that Nickel hurted Baseball deeply! And he says how Suitcase was the only one who had enough courage to stand up for her! Because hey! Nickel did use the same treatment that he used with Suitcase on Baseball! But the difference is that BaseBall kept making excuses for him!

The person who Nickel has been, alongside Baseball, "ignoring" of some sorts, has been Suitcase.

But here's the thing as well: Nickel doesn't know how to make things better again.

Nickel doesn't understand... feelings and complex emotions to put it shortly. He's afraid of change, and the way he just ignores the bad stuff that happened and tries to say that it's the only way that things can work, is... somewhat sad. Nickel doesn't understand a lot of stuff. He probably thinks that, at the end of the day, those were just little conflicts and that there was more good than bad.

But... that would mean he would also be running away from his consciousness over what Suitcase told him.

About how none of what they had was real.

He doesn't realize the damage he has done because hey. As much as you all like to think that Nickel didn't have his reasons to be a dick towards Balloon, he did. He actually did. He even mentions it in this episode, that if Balloon didn't try to manipulate everyone just as S1 started, maybe things would be different.

Nickel SAW and KNOWS Balloon's by his awful actions, and he wanted to protect BaseBall and Suitcase from him, since he thinks that Balloon CAN'T be trust-worthy after everything he did in S1.

That's why he was so aggressive as well towards Balloon. Yes, he cared for BaseBall, but he also cared for Suitcase deeply. The thing is that Suitcase was Balloon's friend, and Nickel can't bring himself to think that someone who he saw being such an awful person, could possibly be targetting someone who he cares about as well. So that's why he tried to push Balloon away for so long. He tried to keep his relationship with Suitcase and BB, he even says it in S2 when Suitcase confesses that she voted for him.

But of course, this is even more complicated. Both Nickel and Balloon fucked up, but Nickel fucked up for a longer time. Balloon was actually changing, and Nickel did only take the protective stance when this was happening. Which like, Nickel was right on that. He had his reasons to NOT trust Balloon. The problem is that he couldn't accept that Balloon was changing, and that he wasn't realizing that his actions were hurting both BB and Suitcase.

What I think that people don't get, or what hurts me the most, is the fact that Nickel is in denial. But it's merely the fact that when he hears Suitcase's voice, he doesn't get angry or mad, or even panics, no.

He's just... shocked.

What are you supposed to tell someone who went through hell, thanks to you, even if you tried to protect her from whom you thought was bad? What are you supposed to tell the friend who you tried to protect and instead hurted them in awful ways?

What are you even supposed to do in that situation?

It's not only that, but the fact that he didn't even think twice when walking towards her, didn't even question if she was truly Suitcase. Like, he immediately went on and tried to explain himself to her-

He completely forgot about everything because he wanted to talk to her and, I do think that he feels guilty for what he did, but he can't put it to words/can't understand it completely after all- but his first instict after seeing Suitcase is to talk to her about it.

He wants to explain himself to her- maybe even apologize, but he doesn't know how.

The thing is that Nickel is smart. With logical stuff, not feelings, according to Adam himself. And that fucks it all up for him.

Nickel can't handle change.

Suitcase can understand change.

Balloon is always changing.

And BaseBall can't keep up with it.

And that shows it here.

Nickel is a complicated character. Guilt is eating him constantly but he lacks emotional intelligence. He can accept that stuff went wrong, but seem doesn't understand what or why they did go wrong.

He regrets what he did to Suitcase most likely judging from his behaviour the mere second he saw her, but he can't tell why exactly. Same thing as Nickel probably realizing that he keeps on messing up the more he clings into that mentality. He tries to move on from the past, but he can't. He even says it. There's no way to make things feel better as of now, so that's why he pretends.

But there is a way.

He just... needs to talk it out with Suitcase and Balloon.

That being said, thank you for reading this.

[danmeiarchive]

Silent Reading / Mo Du by Priest -- a brief review (no spoilers)

Novel length: 180 chapters + 5 extras

My Rating: ★★★★★ / 5

This series has to be one of my top fave books / series of all time. I legitimately think I could and would enjoy writing a lengthy thesis about it. It's a series that I enjoyed so much that I put off reading the last volume for MONTHS because I didn't want the series to end.

Check for content warnings under the cut.

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What kind of story is Silent Reading?

First and foremost this is a detective story. It involves police and politics, corruption and manipulation, wealthy overpowering the poor, and the list of potential trigger warnings for it is quite lengthy. There are some genuinely gruesome and upsetting content in the cases though most of it is seen afterwards and not experienced by the reader-- for example there's a scene where a girl encounters a killer but we don't see what happens and only find out about the aftermath as you read on.

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This is also a story about love, friendship, trust, family, and relationships. The special investigation squad really feels like a found family and it is lovely to see them all working so hard to protect each other especially in the last volume when shit really hits the fan. There's positive and negative relationships of just about every kind. Some characters are close to their family and have a loving relationship while others despise or have trauma with theirs.

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Finally it is a story covered and intertwined with theming and allusions. One of my favorite things about this series is how each book / volume is named after and related to another work of literature. I have not personally read all of them before but I admit I am curious to do so and return to Silent Reading and see how that changes my impression of things. Real quick here's a list of the novels in case you would like to look into them before starting Silent Reading;

The Red and the Black by Stendhal (1830)

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

Macbeth by William Shakespeare (1606)

Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1871)

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844)

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Who are the main characters?

Without going into details here's a little bit about our main squad:

Fei Du - a rich young man with a traumatic past who is interested in psychology and has a keen analytical mind. He is incredibly intelligent and determined to figure everything out (from the cases to his repressed memories) with all he has even if it hurts himself in the process. He acts cold and calculating and is determined not to trust or let others too close.

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Luo Wenzhou - the head of the special investigation squad, he appears carefree and lighthearted but cares so deeply. He wants to protect his little family of investigators no matter what. (He also has a cat named Luo Yiguo who is hilarious every time he shows up).

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Tao Ran - deputy captain of the squad, he has strong big brother vibes. He's serious and kind and a good foil to the flippant and brash Luo Wenzhou. He's constantly shaking his head and hoping everyone can get along (at least for a little while).

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Lang Qiao - part of the special investigation squad, she may not be as quick on analyzing the clues but she makes up for it by being decisive and taking action. (I really appreciated her not being fridged or a damsel -- in fact she often would rush into action and saved Xiao Haiyang a few times).

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Xiao Haiyang -he starts out in another unit but gets transferred into the special investigation squad in the second book after having worked with them closely during the first book. He's new and has a lot to learn but his incredible memory helps him pick up on some clues that others have missed. His sense of righteousness is strong but his self preservation is weak.

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What is the plot of Silent Reading?

Each volume revolves around a certain case that the special investigation squad and Fei Du find themselves wrapped up in. The characters and cases that they work on are complicated and nuanced, I felt a little like a detective myself as I would take notes while reading and try to piece together clues. This includes not only the current case but the little tidbits we would get about the main character's dark past and puzzling how it has affected him into who he is today as well as hints at a large scale conspiracy manipulated by some shadowy force that was directing the characters around to their whim. After reading each volume I would have a list of questions that I had generated that still remained and I hoped I would get more clues to in the next volume.

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I also appreciated that the cases seemed to become more complicated and tangled as the series continued. Suspects and victims were not mutually exclusive, What seemed simple at first glance would be revealed to be a cover-up and the characters would pursue the loose strings and uncover what really happened.

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Adaptations

Also there is a live action adaptation of the series called Justice in the Dark which is sadly caught up in legal issues. The first 8 episodes were aired and you can most likely find somewhere to watch them online just beware of malware when you search. The adaptation was actually the reason why I started reading the novels! I highly enjoyed the episodes that were released and while there are some differences between it and the source material it was honestly pretty minimal. I really liked the actors portrayals in particular that of Fei Du, Luo Wenzhou, and Tao Ran (even if the characters names were changed slightly).

(I believe there is also an audio drama and there was talk of a donghua in the works but I have not experienced either of them at this time.)

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Click 'keep reading' to see trigger warnings.

content warnings: please note that all of these warnings ALSO APPLY TOWARDS MINORS AND CHILDREN: sexual abuse and assault, brutal violence and physical abuse, mental and psychological abuse, animal abuse, death, murder, drug use, torture, dismemberment, neglect, human trafficking, cult-like brainwashing, manipulation, conspiracy, corruption, police, politics, trauma, cycle of abuse, social standing as an excuse to treat people as lesser (rich targeting the poor, strong targeting the weak, men targeting women, women targeting children, etc.)

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I'm not fully sure if this falls under trigger warnings but I'm going to put it here anyway. There's a few times where FD acts cheekily towards LWZ and LWZ alludes to 'punishing' FD with sex. I believe both characters are aware that this is meant as a form of teasing and play between them and if FD did not consent LWZ would not continue. They both know if FD teases LWZ to this extent that he's egging LWZ on purposefully and is consenting (sometimes this is an attempt to distract LWZ from asking FD questions that FD does not want to answer). Ultimately we know that LWZ wouldn't harm FD but I felt it was worth a mention.

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This series also unfortunately falls into the trope of one male character always tops and the other always bottoms -- to the extent that when the bottom complains or suggests switching roles the top acts offended or like he doesn't hear the other. It's like some bullshit pride thing that pops up from time to time in gay media that the bottom is less masculine because he's on the receiving end. Personally I think LWZ would thoroughly enjoy any type of act with FD as long as FD was doing it with him. And that's not to say a person can't have preferences-- I just get frustrated when the tops act insulted at the mere thought or implication of being the one on the receiving end.

[leastdatablebracket]

SEMI-FINALS, MATCH 1

Propaganda under the cut!

Solas

Propaganda

He believes all mortal beings deserve to die. He is bald but in a very unsexy way. He exudes zero chemistry and talking to him about romance is like talking to a boiled egg. 

Described by major media as "elf hitler," he dumps you to destroy the world

He is a smelly know it all, and that's before you find out he is a deity in disguise who caused the rift you spend the game trying to fix in the first place and he betrayed you and chopped off your hand

Breaks up with you, disappears without saying anything, plans to destroy the world

Look. I’ll admit I have not personally romanced solas. I am baffled that anyone would WANT to romance solas. I know we all love a waify little elf wizard with questionable motivations but jfc look at him like im trying not to say anything demeaning about bald dudes but he does not wear it well. Also iirc you can only romance him if you’re also an elf and then he’s weirdly rude and dismissive if your character is Into Elf Culture. Look im a huge lesbian but Iron Bull is RIGHT FUCKING THERE why would you do this.

Vace

Propaganda

well you (the pollrunner) already know cause hes ur icon but i will say that at least he is meant to suck as a romantic partner with only one ending (two if you include astronaut) having him and sol (the player character) staying together on the other end tho there's three ways to start dating him one is to make him go to therapy n then start dating after he is no longer abusing his girlfriend (either breaking them up by convincing him to dump nemmie or convincing nemmie that hes the scumbag he is n she deserves better) another is to be his side piece and the third way is getting him so mad he drags sol off by the neck to beat the shit out of them with this event ending with either him n sol sleeping together (also causing him and nemmie to break up) sol getting the living daylights beat out of them (to the point they got knocked out n needed medical care) with the implicit threat of vace will do this again if they dont stay out of his way and sol avoiding both of those things but being so shaken by the experience that theyre struggling to breath until theyre outside and fully away from him which gives a very different undertone to hooking up with him in this event

the stuff from when i submitted him is entirely from memory so im directly grabbing snippets from the game files this time around (stuff from the game will be in italics like this spoilers for the game btw) starting with if solanaceae is dating vace during the green vertumna ending (warning for abuse cause he is like intentionally written to be abusive)

As the military gains more power under Lum, Vace feels ambivalent over the increased role he's forced take in adjudicating the pointless squabbles of colonists indefinitely trapped in a tin can- more akin to a police officer than a pround defender. This ambivalence turns to bitterness and resentment. He backslides even further during your relationship with him, eventually becoming violent. Your relationship with him ends in a protracted, messy manipulative break-up that occupies the gossip mill for weeks.

this is the only ending where he becomes physically abusive... to solanaceae at least as if you dont break him and nemmie up and dont manage to corral him to therapy this is a piece of his ending card

Vace loves the idea of having a family to protect. Nemmie retires from active duty when they announce that they're expecting their first child... and then second, and their third shortly after that. He and Nemmie are the picture of bliss for years... that is until it all comes crashing down. Vace is your friend, which is probably why you didnt see the cracks until their family was already broken. Nemmie takes the kids and leaves him in the middle of the night, and Vace never really tells you why... but judging from the way people rally around Nemmie so he can't get to her again, you can take a guess.

the snippet if vace does go to therapy isnt much better

You know that Nemmie was never the mothering type, and having kids is tough on her. (<- nemmie has been repeatively establish throughout the game to not want to be a mom and break up with you if you get the prolific parent career) and Sometimes you wonder if they're truly happy together or just... stuck with each other, but at least they've found some peace.

here are the snippets from if you're dating him first if he goes to therapy (good ending?)

Your relationship has its ups and downs. Vace has a lot of unpacking to do, and it takes time. On his worst days, he's just as he was before: quick to anger, and quick to fall back on intimidation tactics to get his way. You're able to see through to the struggling man underneath, but it takes a toll on both of you. You date on-and-off, fighting and making up often. He's never violent or cruel towards you, (sideeyes other endings) but after a while... you just realize you're unhappy. You're both unhappy. Your relationship feels more like an metaphor for his self-improvement than a beautiful thing you share. Eventually you break up for good. [if mem_ending_parent] He says he'll help with the kids... but he doesn't really have the patience for it.

and without it

Your relationship has its dizzy highs, but more than its fair share of horrible lows. You kind of like it though... it keeps things spicy. You've never been happier than when you and Vace are tearing into each other, whether it be on the training mats or in bed. It makes you feel alive. It all comes down when one of Vace's soldier buddies breaks rank and tells you... Vace is doing the same with other people. The fight is cataclysmic. You scream and throw things, but nothing gets through to Vace. Just like how things were between him and Nemmie, he doesn't consider your feelings at all. He's in it for only one person: himself. When word gets out you two are quits for good, Nemmie gloats about it for days.

here are some bits from nemmie's endings that relate to vace as well with them staying together

However... as the years pass, you begin to see cracks form in Nemmie's happy household. Vace's overbearing nature really leaps out when he had her trapped with three of his kids under their roof, insisting he doesn't want his kids to be raised in 'some hippie creche' like Nemmie was. [if mem_vace_therapyComplete] Nemmie is miserable. She tells you about how they fight all the time- about how every day, she's scared that he'll go back to his old habits and things will break bad between them again, but she's so hopeful because she knows Vace is trying his hardest to be a good partner. It doesn't last forever, though. Vace trusts you, (and not his goddamn wife??) and with you on Nemmie's side, you get him to change his mind on the creche. With more time to breathe at home, the Nemmie you love returns. (no therapy version ->) Eventually, their relationship takes a turn for the worst. Nemmie shows her physical wounds on her skin, but it's harder to see the emotional ones. When she flees to your quarters late one night with bruises, you welcome her in and give her all the support you wished you could have given her all those long years she couldn't see.

and if you break them up

Nemmie's relationship with Vace may have been brief, but it was formative. She doesn't throw herself into loving anyone that deeply again for a long time, instead focusing hard on her work. You're by her side during her misadventures in dating some of the other soldiers- and once, notably, Rex- howling with shared indignity and laughter with every awkward breakup.

for a bit more of a spotlight of how specifically formative vace was nemmie's first relationship and she was 16 going on 17 while vace was 20 going on 21 He Is 4 Years Older Than Both Nemmie And Solanaceae And They Are The Only Named Characters He Can Get Romantically Involved With solanaceae and nemmie were 14-15 when he first meets them i dont remember exactly how old cause i havent played the game in almost a year n the files im using rn (endings + vace's character file) dont have that specific info in them but in the game you can click on character portraits to see the info you have about them which includes their actual ages (+ in game birthmonth) in them anyway theres a lot more i can include but its late n this is already long so heres the specific event i was referencing in my submission i'll do this -> (...) <- to indicate that im omitting some lines for length

You're feeling self-destructive today, so you go looking for Vace. He finds you first. CLANG! Vace gets the drop on you, grabbing you around the neck and slamming you into the metal wall. You're dragged unceremoniously into a side room. Vace's hand clamped across your mouth. He throws you to the ground, and you take quick stock of your surroundings. It looks like a munitions room, though it's been mostly empited but for a few stacks of boxes. There's no one here except you and Vace. Vace stands over you, placing his heavy boot on your chest to keep you pinned to the ground. "It's time you and I had a little chat, Solanaceae." (... just two dialogue choices that lead to vace insulting you before continuing) "Here's what's going to happen," Vace says, deadly calm. (... vace explaing that is going to beat you up expects you to lie there n take it n then ->) "And three, you're going to wake up somewhere else knowing that if you ever mouth off to me in front of my men again, next time you aren't going to wake up." (... dialogue option of "screw me yourself, coward." leads to hookup n will break up him n nemmie if you havent already broken them up n then two skill check choices of Stop You Could Kill Me and Stop You Have More To Lose (ie his position n respect from others as a solider) Than I Do leading to the successful release ->) You close your eyes and wair for the blow to land. It doesn't. "Shit," Vace mutters, lowering his hand. He drops you back on the ground and steps away. "Get the hell out of here before I change my mind." You do that, fighting down the nauseating feeling of his eyes burning a hole in your back. It's not until you're back outside and gulping huge breathes of fresh air that you stop trembling.

you can cheat on vace with a nonromantic victim of his btw n you can be in like an actual polycule in this game n attempting to date anyone else while in a monogamous relationship you automatically break up with the other person but you can cheat on vace if you want to cause he sucks so much back onto the event though those are the successful talking options you can also start fighting him back n convince him to fight you fairly (n then also run away immediately if you dont have enough skill for the Kick His Ass dialogue option netting you the same line about taking huge breathes of air to stop trembling) but here's the text for if you lose talking him down

"Please, don't hurt me." "I'm not hurting you," Vace says. "I'm making you stronger." You close your eyes. It doesn't help. As foretold in the prophecy, you awaken in the medbay some time later. Your skull feels like it's full of buzzing blip bugs. One of Congruence's monitors lights up and she slides over to your bedside. "Welcome back," she says in her best attempt at a soothing voice. "Don't be alarmed, it's quite normal to be disoriented after a head injury. How are you feeling?" (... two dialogue choices that only add one word to the following) Congruence whirrs. "Yes, according to the report from Vace, you were in a training accident," she says. "You should use more caution when sparring, Solanaceae. Concussions are not an advised part of a healthy training regimen."

you can get this event at like almost any time it just requires pissing vace off n solanaceae to be 17+ (as vace n nemmie start dating during their 17th birthday party) you might even be able to trigger it while already dating him (would have to test it tho) cause the thing that triggers the event is ~ if mem_fight_vace > 2 and the things you can do to get that number up are like winning at space soccer n then punching him for insulting your friend and winning sparring against him things unrelated to whether or not you're dating him here's some photos i took of the former event when i got it as a treat for reading all of this no one who dates him is getting a good relationship

[cross-my-heartt]

Some thoughts on the first book in the Thrawn trilogy.

They're a bit messy because I'm going off of memory as I didn't take notes at the time but oh well.

[MAJOR SPOILERS FROM HERE ON, BEWARE!]

I'm gonna start by saying that I didn't expect the adventures of space Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson but I'm definitely not complaining. It's a tried and true formula and Nightswan as their Moriarty worked well while it lasted.

Also you know a book and its characters are good when it gets you to cheer for the 'bad guys'. And I'm only putting that in quotes because you get a genuine sense that despite the corruption and bias galore, a large part of the personnel are just regular people working a job and trying to go about their lives.

Arihnda's arc was really well done - you sympathize with her while she's an underdog, getting betrayed, manipulated and used by others. She's wily and ambitious and resilient and you're like yas, queen slay. But the more she plays the game the more you see her crossing lines until the final arc where you realize just how ruthless she's become, or maybe always was, and you get that sense of 'oh shit'. (Keep in mind I haven't watched rebels so I didn't know where she would end up.)

It's the same sense you get when you reach the Wookie slaves arc and it sinks in that the quirky duo you've been following are in fact working for the most evil person in the galaxy.

As for Thrawn himself, I didn't expect to enjoy him this much. His final conversation with Nightswan in particular - I always felt like there was something off about his motivations and his apparent ignorance in politics. That scene confirmed that he's even cleverer and craftier than he lets on and put that dissonance to rest.

He's persuasive to the point where you almost wish things would go his way too. I love how it's a running theme throughout the book for people to be frustrated by how much sense he makes and you even sympathize with that as a reader sometimes.

I'm really happy with the parallels the author makes throughout, something I'm seeing in Alliances as well. There's Thrawn and his art and Eli and his numbers, Thrawn's 'bigger picture' logic and Nightswan's principles. Characters really shine when they have a good foil in the story.

And finally Eli. Another character I didn't expect to like so much. Such a genuine plucky guy. It was fun to see him go from being ambiguous about Thrawn to constantly being shocked at how much he trusts him. And being so protective of him, bless.

I'm glad he got his own arc, going from someone who's charted out his whole future and desperately wants to stick to what's familiar to being willing to leave all of that behind and jump into the unknown by joining the Chiss (which was foreshadowed in Thrawn's conversation with Nightswan but still made me a bit sad).

Of course, I do have some complaints, the biggest one being the dialogue and how clunky and awkward it feels at times. Which is especially obvious when you have these supposed cunning politicians throwing the simplest most blunt threats at each other with no subtlety whatsoever.

The book's exposition also suffered because of it. I daresay that has improved in book two but that may just be because there's less politician talk and it's a mostly military setting.

Finally a lot of Thrawn's conclusions feel like a huge reach but I'm willing to let that one slide. Say we assume he knows more than he lets on to the readers.

But all things considered, those are minor complaints and I really enjoyed the book. Can definitely say I'm tempted to see all four seasons of Rebels just to get more of Thrawn.

[cto10121]

Finished re-reading Rebecca and I have Observations(tm)

It’s so obvious upon rereading that Beatrice doesn’t like Rebecca, lol. She never says anything positive about her other than objective facts, forgets that Gran liked Rebecca, and has uncharacteristic patience with the narrator.

Maxim keeping cool while Favell brags about being Rebecca’s lover but losing it when Favell merely insinuates the narrator finding a sympathetic “arm” with Frank is so revealing.

Also, the fact that it took Maxim so long (literally years) to confront Rebecca about her infidelities—practically only doing it when she took lovers at the boathouse in Manderley—says a lot. Maxim really did not give two shits about her.

Mrs. Danvers practically raising Rebecca (per Favell) and being with her from when Rebecca was at least 12-years-old really changed my perspective on their relationship. Less of a flying monkey to a narcissist and more of a mother/companion figure. The way she worried about Rebecca not returning home and staying up was especially mother-like. On the other hand, we don’t quite know how old Danvers is compared to Rebecca. It could be a case of younger servant / older madam, but Danvers does read as older by a lot.

Otoh, you could make a case that Danvers/Rebecca is a parallel to The Narrator/Maxim, both with servant/master overtones. The narrator does liken her love for Maxim as that of a schoolboy over an upper form and that Maxim is “father and brother and everything” to her. Du Maurier may be depicting (eroticized?) class dynamics.

Rebecca’s infidelity is made into such a big deal (‘30s after all) but Du Maurier definitely wrote abusive signs: Rebecca flogging a dead horse with a whip, her threatening to send Ben to an asylum, her mocking the servants behind their back chief among them. She reads as a female Iago—an excellent liar and manipulator expert at masking and mirroring people. It makes all the Rebecca defenders look really obstuse

The narrator believes that Colonel Julyan knows the truth, but I don’t see how he would. Rebecca committing suicide after a cancer diagnosis would be in character—Mrs. Danvers said that Rebecca had a horror of sickness and would have wanted to be quick about it. He may have had his suspicions aroused when Maxim punched Favell, but honestly, who wouldn’t? Either way, Julyan opted to protect Maxim. It also makes that awful Beauman sequel about his knowing and liking Rebecca all the more stupid.

Surprise, surprise, but I felt for Mrs. Danvers and even Favell at parts, particularly Mrs. Danvers crying and Favell shaken after learning about Rebecca’s diagnosis. But it’s clear they are awful people and so of course they’d like her, lol. It’s telegraphed that Mrs. Danvers would have been 100% okay with the narrator if the narrator had been another Rebecca clone and/or wasn’t such a pushover. Curiously enough Favell was still hopeful to get Maxim even after the cancer revelation…but we never learn how.

On Maxim’s love for/not love for the narrator: The narrator really is unreliable in the sense that everything is colored by her insecurity and her crippling shyness. She takes everything personally—every slight lands like a blow to a youth and all that. How much is Maxim truly being coldly callous—and how much is he genuinely panicked and triggered by the memories of Rebecca’s abuse?

I think a good example of the above is the narrator feeling slighted that Maxim set her up in the renovated east wing suite with the rose garden (usually for bachelor guests) when the original marital suite (the “best” and most beautiful rooms per Danvers) were in the west wing with the sea…only for Maxim to come in and cheerfully say he always loved the east wing suite with the rose garden and it was a shame that it was wasted as a guest room. Homeboy wanted his new bride to be in the rooms he loved and not the ones he was forced to share with Rebecca…aw

And then there is Maxim easily confessing the truth to the narrator and admitting he almost confessed earlier. Weirdly enough, I do believe him—but what a horrible risk! What if she turned against him, feared him, ceased to love him? Denounce him? Maxim knew her so little before they married, and yet he didn’t seem to fear any of these things. Curiously enough, he doesn’t even ask the narrator to help him, either directly or indirectly, and even seemed resigned to his fate. Was he that entitled, to take it all for granted, that stupid…that in love?

Usually I dislike typically the (typically) Christian theme of innocence/naïveté>>>>wordliness/just not being a clueless idiot. I think it works better here though as a basic but non-abusive>>>>beautiful but abusive type type of thematic messaging. Both the narrator and Maxim struggle to move on past their trauma, for want of a better word (the narrator as an orphan under that awful degrading Mrs. Van Hopper and Maxim with all the shit Rebecca put him through). To a certain extent they’ve internalized these survival instincts as mere habit. The narrator’s crippling insecurities follow her as a wife and Maxim doesn’t even think to change Manderley from Rebecca’s influence, renovating only the east wing suite. It took Rebecca returning, so to speak, for them to face their hang-ups squarely. The narrator realized just how much her insecurities have blinded her to the truth and made her unhappy and Maxim gained a true ally.

[many-gay-magpies]

1, 3, 20, 25 for the dbd ask game!!

ahh thank you anon!! these questions are so delightful to answer <3 (adding a readmore because i once again yapped like a madman. i implore my non-dbd followers to scroll down to the answer to the last question, which is me saying why i would recommend the show, because really i would recommend it to everyone all the time. forever)

1. Who is your favourite character?

I think Charles has pretty completely solidified himself as my favorite by this point, but Crystal is a close second.

Idk, with Charles, it's just like. not surprising at all, cuz I have a pattern of adoring characters with physically abusive dads and emotional repression issues, which is a bill he definitely fits. but also he's just so. sweet and silly and he has the prettiest smile known to man and the biggest brownest eyes on this earth. And he's SO INCREDIBLY PROTECTIVE and so devoted to the people he loves, and he tries to be so good because nothing was ever good enough for his dad, and he probably bases his worth on his ability to protect and defend his loved ones because if he can't protect them then what is he even good for? he's the brawns not the brain, build for taking the hits (because that's all he could do for his dad), and he's so so kind and loving, but also so angry, and I just love him so much.

Then Crystal is just... SO interesting and such a good character and thinking about her past makes me want to cry. She was born to parents who probably never should have been parents in the first place, who spoiled her with money and material objects but never gave her their attention, so she rebelled and started acting out because why would they care? theyve never cared about anything else she's done (but maybe, feeling their dissapointment when she did something bad was as close as she ever got to feeling loved). she was mean and cruel and manipulated people for laughs, but when all her memories of her life before were wiped away and she wound up in a situation with people who actually cared about her, she got BETTER. she had a shit childhood and was a shitty person because of it but she's also so kind and feels everything so, so deeply and I just adore her man.

3. A character you think is underrated/ underappreciated.

mannnnn i'd be inclined to say crystal but ive actually seen so so many posts talking about the exact same things i was just saying and touting their love for her in all her messed-up complicated teenage girl glory, so. crystal is nowhere near as under-appreciated as she could be and its a fucking BLESSING.

otherwise i'd say maybe tragic mick? he's so cool man. he's a walrus stuck on land looking like a man. he has an absolutely killer magic shop. is he immortal? idk but that magic shop is old as hell and he has the sense of having hung around a while. i think it would be fun if sedna cursed him to stay human but made him immortal while she was at it. he tried to stop esther from making the machine that drains ghosts, and yet all esther's torture couldn't have happened the way it did without him, because everything she had she bought from his store. where did he get all that stuff? does he buy from collectors? did he travel the world accumulating stuff to try and find a way to turn back into a walrus and realize it would make a killer business? he has untapped relationship potential if youre the shippy sort, like with the cat king and also kashi, which i am going to make a post about as soon as i finish this ask because ive just had a fucking EPIPHANY. tragic mick rocks

20. Which characters style do you like the best?

i think probably crystal and niko, with charles coming in after them. crystal feels closest to my own personal style, all artsy and thrown together and kind of thrifty-looking, and i respect it very much and also think we could swap clothes (or like, i could donate her my clothes, and if she had baggy jackets they might fit me. girlie is short as hell). then niko's style is more, like, organized and thought-out than mine, but i absolutely ADORE her bright colors and fully-coordinated makeup and hairstyles and accessories and god she is just goals. then of course charles is wonderfully underground 80's punk and i adore it.

25. Why do you recommend the show?

god why WOULDNT i recommend the show? i think literally my only gripe is how short it is, but that's the fault of modern streaming culture. literally everything else about it i can think of is fucking amazing, no notes.

in a more general surface-level sense, it is wonderfully campy and fun and just SUCH a great spooky, adventurous watch! but then it fucking battering rams you in the chest with excellent character dynamics and complex characterization and soul-grabbing devotion and character development. it has some of the best and most complex female characters i've seen on television—women that are allowed to mess up and do bad things but still be fundamentally GOOD characters—and some of the most heart-capturing friendships/relationships ive ever had the pleasure of witnessing, of course with charles and edwin first and foremost, but also with edwin and niko, edwin and crystal, charles and crystal, jenny and niko and crystal, just fucking ALL OF THEM. there's so much fucking LOVE in these eight episodes, clearly woven into every scene and snatch of dialogue.

it also has one of my favorite villains ever in the form of esther, just. full unapologetic morally irreprehensible evil badass of all time. yeah she feeds kids to her giant snake to stay young and beautiful, its honestly NBD. she is the most wonderful evil hot terrible villain of all time and i love her, and i love how EVERYONE ELSE loves her. also her downfall was so fucking satisfying and perfect and i adored it, really just peak justice being served in the wickedest way possible.

ive said this before but dead boy detectives has the sense of having some of the most REALISTIC characters and dialogue ive ever seen, with the way they speak and react to things and such, without having the like. "haha we're so REALISTIC and GRIM and GRITTY and DARK, look at how realistic we are. humanity sucks and no one is good and everything is ironic because nothing really matters" tone of some tv these days. it feels like real complex people got shoved into a fun campy supernatural universe and it's fucking EVERYTHING.

if anyone reading this has not seen the show, i say please please do watch it—not just to get us more views for hope of the cancellation being retracted or anything, i dont honestly have that much hope of it succeeding. but ill say watch it anyway, because its just so wholly amazingly GOOD and i think everyone deserves to see it—if it gets renewed, or if it NEVER does and this one season is all we get of it. its still just such a fucking fantastic work of cinema, and the ending is hopeful enough to feel like a satisfying closing point even without a second season to wrap up the more ongoing plotpoints.

[do-what-the-knight-tells-you]

I get that this is mostly humorous probs, but as another person said in the replies, the Allison Ben comparison here is not really about a character that was nice becoming a character that is mean?

Ben is a different character? Ben is explicitly the AU version of himself who didn't grow up with the Umbrellas, so it makes sense that his character would/could be different? This is the reason I am not bothered by him "suddenly" being "mean".

Allison IS supposed to be the same character.

And I concur that characters falling from grace are interesting and good entertainment etc and more women should be allowed to do it, but I also don't like where Allison goes in s3-

Partly in the way I'm not supposed to like her, she's doing stuff that harms the other umbrellas, but also partly in a way where I'm not sure if it's intended yet until we see all of s4-

Unfortch for Allison (and her writing, maybe, depending on whether this was intended or not) a very large portion of the things that she is justifiably upset about are things that she did to herself? Or at least things that she had some agency in and maybe just failed to think through the consequences?

And a character in that position can still be sympathetic even as they do bad stuff, but my personal sympathy wanes rapidly when they then blame other people and take out their grief and anger on people who very much didn't deserve that.

That's enough response there, but I'm thinking about it now so I'm going to list stuff under the read more here.

I haven't rewatched in a minute but to my memory:

* All of this with a grain of salt to preface because of course they all had a horrible abusive childhood under a very terrible father and so it makes absolute sense that their like coping mechanisms and self-regulation and self-esteem and all kinds of stuff is absolute dog shit. But this is an explanation, not an excuse for why it's all right to be shitty to other people and each other.

Allison:

- (was understandably upset and stressed because being a parent is extremely stressful) and used her power on her kid. It was not a planned action, but she did do it, and this is what sets her back on the path with the other umbrellas- her partner catching her doing it and being upset about it and wanting to protect their daughter from any further stuff like this.

So when we meet Allison and Allison is upset, this is because Allison made a mistake and did a potentially unethical/harmful thing to her child that her partner had a reasonable problem with, and Allison is apart from them at this time. Maybe they're able to make up in the future, maybe they're not, but we meet Allison as she is esstranged from her family because of an action she took. And she knows it! I don't remember her lying like to her partner or anything about it, unless she was lying about it only happening the one time, but she understands that it was her error that put them in this position.

It's hard very hard for them to be apart, and she knows that a portion of that is very much her fault, is the result of her action.

- (Victor was absolutely already a ticking time bomb being intentionally manipulated towards explosion, the fact that that whole situation was about to go off is not Allison's fault however) It is Allison's choice/action to try to incapacitate Victor before he has actually started an apocalypse that he reasonably perceives as a threat/betrayal and acts in instinctive self-defense that gets Allison injured. Victor didn't seek her out to take her out or anything- Allison made a choice to be proactive in incapacitating a sibling (a sibling who had more reason than the rest to not trust the rest of the siblings, a situation which she had arguably some agency in as well) and that sibling reacted defensively.

Following that, the thing that completely sets Victor off, is most of the siblings including to a certain degree Allison deciding to continue to handle Victor in a method that both highlights the ways in which Victor's childhood was worse than a lot of theirs, and also they absolutely should have known would be extremely scary and traumatizing and feel like a betrayal for Victor. If you are worried about a person acting in an out of control way and you're trying to get them to have control, then capturing them and holding them in a way that was torturous for them as a child It's not perhaps the best way to get them to calm down.

- Following this chain of events which Allison had a large hand in, this is how we end up with the apocalypse and everyone making the choice to jump to see if they can fix stuff on the other side.

It wasn't a lot of choice, but again it's a choice that Allison made. I don't know how much thought any of them but five would ever have given to how time travel and parallel universes work, so maybe Allison was completely ignorant, and so I won't put the fact that obviously if you're going back in time to try to change stuff then there's the chance that if you succeed stuff will have changed including potentially things you didn't want to change (like your partner and your child). The fact that Allison does not apparently think about this at all during the entire past timeline, or if she does she chooses to ignore / repress it, is further explanation for why she will be so upset in the future... But also is again not anyone else's fault. It is either her ignorance / shortsightedness or it is her repression / coping skill.

- (Allison is obviously not responsible for the additional stress she was under due to the time period and racism) Allison then in the past timeline makes her choices about getting into relationship, about what to tell her partner, about not using her power at all because she's sworn it off because of the damage it did, and finally about rescinding that previous swearing and then using her power, a result of which is the partner that she had been lying to (for good reason, but lying nonetheless) being upset about it.

The reasons she made the choices she did are understandable, but they are still her choices, and the one thing that I do not have sympathy about is that I think this is where she starts to pin her dissatisfaction with the choices that were available to her and potentially also with the consequences of those times when she made maybe the wrong choice, to pin that dissatisfaction and anger on other people who were Not responsible and/or similarly stuck with no good choices.

It can both be the case that there were no good choices and So she was doomed to failure in one way or another? And therefore the bad outcome is not completely her fault? And also true that that doesn't make it Viktor's fault or Five's fault or anyone else's except maybe Hargreeves.

- When Allison chooses to go back to the future, I very much interpret a lot of the reaction, specifically I remember a reaction from Diego after they're in the future and Allison says she's going to go look for her partner and kid, I very much got the impression that most everyone else had figured out that if they changed things in the past, and they have just now arrived in a future that is materially different in unexpected ways, specifically in the way that they did not exist, then it is absolutely sensible to assume that Allison's child would not exist?

Allison being upset that her child does not exist in a future where she left her is absolutely understandable, however, in a suite of bad choices Allison chose to go back to the past and Allison chose to leave the past to come back to the future. So when she gets upset about the idea of having lost a family twice, again, it's not like someone like Viktor held her down and took them from her twice. Allison made choices, sometimes where there were no good choices, but Allison made choices that have arrived at this point. Viktor did not make them travel into the past, Viktor did not make Allison user power on her daughter in the first place to estrange her from her family, Viktor did not make Allison lie to Ray in the past or choose to stop or start using her power again in the past, and Viktor did not force Allison to come to the future timeline.

- When Allison finally loses it and completely gives in to her grief and anger and decides that she does not care how people will now be harmed by her use of her power (again, the use of which is what originally estranged her from her family, and then split her a second time from her partner in the past), The people she chooses to harm are:

. Viktor, who was the weapon used to cause the harm but had extremely little to no agency in the matter, and of who's path of destruction Allison was a cause

. Harlan, who crucially was still a child when the event that prevented Allison from existing this timeline and therefore her child from existing this timeline occurred, who absolutely had Even less agency in this situation, particularly at that time.

And we cannot even say that it is a case of Allison believing that either one was like maliciously orchestrating this harm. When presented with information about how it was not the case, and I seem to remember specifically about how Harlan was pretty innocent in all of this, I distinctly remember Allison saying "I don't care".

The impression that I came away from this section with was that Allison both

- was choosing to punish Harlan even while understanding that Harlan was a child when the thing happened and that Harlan has little agency in how the power is used, under the pretext of theoretically stopping Harlan / preventing more destruction (Even as it is her escalation of the situation that is causing the power reaction that threatens to hurt people)

- was choosing to punish Viktor (for harms he did but which were almost completely beyond his own agency or reasonable ability to predict... A thing Allison should have and did in the past express a lot of sympathy and understanding about) to punish Viktor by murdering a person she knows him to perceive as his child. (And this is pretty clearly deliberate- Allison is grieving her own child and is choosing to make Viktor undergo a version of that same grief. She does not want Viktor to be able to successfully save his own child where she could not save hers).

Therefore:

Allison goes from a character who is trying very hard at various times to be kind, to a character who's doing a lot of harm explicitly not caring that is unjustified or against people who do not deserve it. Her path to this point is a very rocky up and down one where she appears to learn and forget the same lessons about her power and agency repeatedly. And though her upset at this point is absolutely understandable, her reaction is to punish people who did not deserve it and are also or arguably more so victims.

At the end of season 3, Allison has very much become the villain.

So when people are like sad or upset that she has become the villain, that makes sense, especially if they liked her the best of the siblings/thought she was the smartest / thought she was the kindest / thought she was the most moral or whatever for swearing off her power etc

I do not like her as a character, but it might be in a way that I am meant to. If we are meant to understand that she is lashing out to cover some of her own guilt, if we are meant to understand that she's punishing people who don't deserve it because she's too upset to care etc, then I am meant to dislike her in this way, and hopefully season 4 will resolve this in a way that either involves her downfall (Anakin style) or better involves her coming to terms with and admitting to / making amends about / etc the behavior that she did that was unwarranted.

If season 4 does not involve these things because the audience was meant to take Allison at her word, the audience was not meant to examine what agency she had in the situation she arrived in, and the audience was meant to find her to be equally in the right as other characters or more so, then I will likely continue to be annoyed / frustrated with her character because then it will be a case of poor writing - a failure to communicate to the audience The full context of the character.

.

I think it is absolutely the case that a lot of people have trouble sympathizing with flawed women in the same way that they would sympathize with flawed men? But I am not yet sure if that is the case across the board with Allison. I think there are a lot of reasonable explanations for being unhappy with her at this time, and I think that whether those resolve or not is very dependent on how fourth season goes.

"there should be more problematic women in media" you guys couldnt even handle allison hargreeves in season 3

[thenon-fictiondays]

IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT SOME OF YALL ARE INTERPRETING MY FAVE CHARACTERS WRONG-

no im jk this is not an attack post but. I have noticed some interesting takes on Ryuunosuke's and Kazuma's characterizations in 2-4 and 2-5 and I wanted to slide in my 2 cents as always. I feel like there's a fair chunk of the fandom that judge Kazuma (and even Ryuu) pretty harshly for what happened in that case, even to the extent of saying they're bad/immoral people. So here's some thoughts/rants on fanon interpretation and ways I feel these characters (and their relationship) are often misrepresented.

Something that I see tossed around a lot is the idea that Kazuma manipulated Ryuunosuke into becoming an attorney so he could defend him in England, and I just don't think this is an accurate assessment of the case. First of all, that's just a super unhinged plan for a number of reasons, and Kazuma isn't that reckless. Second, Kazuma fully intended to go to England as a defense attorney himself. He didn't manipulate Ryuunosuke to become a lawyer beyond just telling him "you'd make a good lawyer". We don't know exactly how he planned for everything to go down once they got to England, but presumably he'd work as a defense lawyer and investigate his father's death, possibly with Ryuunosuke's assistance. It only ended up the way it did because of Kazuma losing his memories and being made a prosecutor by Stronghart, and Ryuunosuke being similarly guided to become a defense lawyer by Sherlock. None of that was planned by Kazuma, so it doesn't sit right that people act like he was the mastermind behind all this and intentionally manipulated Ryuunosuke into enacting his schemes. Keep in mind, he had suggested Ryuunosuke come with him to England before case 1, when they were talking in the restaurant; in other words, before he had any idea that Ryuunosuke might make a good lawyer.

Then in the final case, knowing how dedicated Ryuunosuke is to finding the truth, Kazuma wanted him to solve the case together with him in court, because he knew there was a lot going on behind the scenes and that there was a lot of potential for the truth to be manipulated, and he trusted Ryuunosuke more than anyone else to be the opposing attorney. Yeah, he went a little bit off the rails during the trial, but at the end of the day, he is a righteous person, no matter how strongly he wanted to get revenge on Barok for Genshin's death. If he truly only cared about revenge, he wouldn't have asked Ryuunosuke to be Barok's lawyer; he would've let Barok go without an attorney. And, as I said in this post, I think he knew that his judgement was clouded by hatred, and that he trusted Ryuunosuke to not let him obscure the truth because of his vendetta.

And there's another point that can't be overlooked, which is that if Kazuma's goal of going to England to uncover the truth was the only thing he cared about, he wouldn't have put that on the line to defend Ryuunosuke–but he did, because protecting Ryuunosuke was more important to him than solving the case of his father's death. So I don't think the takeaway from 2-4/5 should be that "Kazuma is a manipulative, vengeful jerk that only cares about avenging his father's death" or that "Kazuma doesn't care about Ryuunosuke and only used him to cover his ass while he fucked shit up in England". The takeaway is that Kazuma is a deeply traumatized 24 year old human being with a strong sense of morality and justice yet is nevertheless prone to human error, that tries to be perfect but makes mistakes when emotional (but who doesn't?), that's aware of how messed up the situation is and how easily injustice might occur, and relies on his friend, who he trusts more than anyone, to help him get through it.

Also, I don't think the takeaway from Ryuunosuke saying "I'm not doing this for you" was that he hates Kazuma or doesn't care about him anymore, I think it's supposed to be that he recognizes that this is much bigger than Kazuma himself, and his priority is to find the truth and securing justice, rather than satisfying Kazuma's revenge plot (which is the same as Kazuma's, though ofc in the beginning he believes they're one and the same). "I'm not doing this for you" was such a powerful line, and it told us so much about how Ryuu has developed throughout the series. He's not defending Barok in this trial because Kazuma asked him to, he's doing it because he believes Barok deserves a solid defense. He's not pursuing the truth despite the danger of doing so for Kazuma's sake, he's doing it because he believes it's the right thing to do and it's worth the risk.

This is already way too long so I'll shut up now lmao I'm not gonna tell other people how to interact with canon, but I do think some of you do a disservice to these characters by simply trying to put them into categories of "good", "bad", "love", and "hate"

[thesunicarusfellfor]

WAIT WAIT— what if 👀 what if Yandere!Tubbo and Yandere!Tommy falling for the reader at the same time

BROO— THE ANGST POSSIBILITIES

ooooooOOOOO DAMN this one is gonna be good! I love the way you think! So I wrote this as headcanons, but I will write this as an actual story if requested. ^^

This is not exactly implied romantic??? I'm still scared about writing their characters as directly romantic????? I'll probably get braver about it but still lowkey worried.

Yandere!C!Tommy x GN!Reader x Yandere!C!Tubbo Headcanon/Fic

Tommy, at first, completely denied even acknowledging your existence.

Until he saw someone interact with you.

Then he would start pulling out his sword or glaring at them from across the room.

He would definitely pin them in an alleyway and threaten every single one of their canon lives.

Tommy, please. Niki was just trying to give you cookies.

He's the kind of Yandere that would greatly keep his distance both physically, emotionally and mentally. Basically, he would be a Tsundere Yandere.

Tubbo, on the other hand, would be extremely sweet to you.

Need netherite? He had an extra few ingots ready in his pockets!

Interacting with someone who wasn't him? Was he not good enough for you??? Fine. You don't deserve him.

He would cry to you and make you feel guilty OR completely ignore you for a week straight until you come crawling back to him and apologizing.

Straight up can flip emotions like a switch.

The first time either of them realized the other liked you as well, was when they were listening to Mellohi on their bench, watching the sunset when they saw you having a conversation with Ranboo at the bottom of the cliff.

"What're they doing talking to him?" Tommy growled lowly and leaned forward to glared at the enderman who was talking to you. He reached for his bow n' arrow before Tubbo grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks, "What? I don't want them talking to anyone but me."

"What do you mean 'anyone but you'?! You avoid them like they're a virus!" Tubbo stared at him, digging his fingers into Tommy's bicep a small bit to show his anger a bit more, "They should only be talking to me."

The blond turned towards his brunet friend and yanked his arm out of his grasp, "Excuse me?" He glared into Tubbo's dull blue eyes, gritting his teeth, "You do nothing but give them stuff!"

"And you treat them like shit and avoid them!" The smaller of the two retorted angrily, trying to keep his tone level enough to where you didn't hear.

Mellohi, the music that had been playing mere moments ago, slowly came to a stop and left nothing but silence and tension in the air. You had noticed them arguing from below, but Ranboo (who had heard their entire argument) decided to pull you away from them and bring you to the Tundra.

"Are you trying to take everything from me?!" Tommy tightened his grip on his diamond sword, although part of him knew that if Tubbo equipped his netherite armour, there would be absolutely no competition whatsoever.

"Take things from you?! They're a human being and you choose to ignore that fact when you ignore them or call them terrible names!"

"I treat everyone like that! You already have Ranboo, I don't understand why you're chasing after them with hearts in your eyes when you're fuckin' married! Loyal much! Oh wait, you aren't loyal, you EXILED ME!"

"It's platonic! I told you that already! And you're starting this again now, Tommy?!"

Ranboo actually felt nervous leaving you alone around both Tommy AND/OR Tubbo after hearing their entire argument that day.

Tommy, although now a lot nicer, became extremely clingy towards you and constantly would walk over and drag you away mid-conversation with anyone that wasn't him. ESPECIALLY if you were talking to Tubbo.

Man would bring you everywhere with him if you would let him.

Netherite mining? Get your pick.

To get new discs? Pack your bags, we're going on an adventure.

Straight up does everything he can do to get you away from Tubbo because he's petty.

He tried giving you as many gifts as Tubbo, but mans is broke.

Tubbo would get extremely annoyed by Tommy even just walking through the area when he was with you.

Would start to hold your hand or link arms with you (if you're comfortable), just so Tommy couldn't pull you away as easily.

Started to try guilt-tripping you into living in Snowchester, and even tried to get you to live in the mansion.

Ranboo actually lied to Tubbo, saying he was scared of enderwalking and hurting you, to convince Tubbo not to guilt-trip you further into living in the mansion.

Tubbo's constant gift-giving got so much more extreme.

Want netherite ingots to make armour?

Nope. No lifting a finger.

He already made you fully enchanted netherite god armour anyway.

Has definitely tried to convince Ranboo to let him involve you in the platonic marriage.

"Ranboo! My beloved!" Tubbo called jokingly, walking into their home. He kicked the snow on his boots before pulling down his hood and taking off his hat, hanging it on the hook as he took off his footwear, "I have a proposition for you!"

The monochrome-coloured man lifted his head and set down the journal in his hand, the ink likely still wet judging by the quill in his hand, "Yeah? What's that?" He placed the feathered pen in the pot of ink and turned to face his platonic husband.

"What would you say to extending our marriage to three people? Like a polyamorous relationship. Like Sapnap, Karl and Big Q?" Tubbo sat down in the chair beside him, watching as Ranboo was left reeling for a few seconds.

"W-well, one, I think you mean expanding. Two, with who?!" The tall male sat up quickly, bumping his leg on the table from his minor flailing, "A-and, and, what about Michael? Are you sure they can be trusted with him?"

Tubbo held out his hand to calm his friend down, making his friend put his hands down so he didn't accidentally hit something, "You know what I meant, and (Y/n)! Y'know... Like, the one with (h/l) (h/c) hair, (tall/short)! (Y/n), them!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know who they are, it's just..." He paused to gather his words, glancing away from his friend. In all reality, he wouldn't mind inviting you into the platonic marriage, even if he knew Tubbo felt more romantic feelings towards you. He didn't shut up about it. It was the fact that he was worried about what kind of mental manipulation Tubbo would do to you if you did agree to be in the marriage. Or even what Tommy would do to you or Tubbo!

"...Just?"

'Your relationship with Tommy is beyond screwed already... Imagine what would happen if both of his friends left him to be in a platonic relationship with me. Tubbo, all of us would be in severe danger.' He thought silently before taking a breath. "I-I don't have my enderwalking state under control... I'm already scared for Michael enough, and I don't want to hurt her as well... Give it some time and we'll see. Please.." He whispered, lying through his teeth. Ranboo knew you were damn good at protecting yourself and could knock his long and lanky ass to the dirt within seconds.

Tubbo's bright shiny eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment as his smile began to falter, "Ah... Yeah. I guess that makes sense. For their safety I suppose." His normal look returned and he gave him a smile, "Yeah, that does make a lot of sense. I'll ask again next month to see what happens."

"What... What about Tommy-"

"What about him?" He demanded sharply, his smile vanishing in mere seconds which caught Ranboo off guard yet again, "He doesn't need to be in their life. He would do more harm to them than good!"

Ranboo was left gaping, his mouth moving but not creating any sounds. He watched as Tubbo eyed him carefully before he got up, murmuring something about grabbing food then going to bed.

Once the goat hybrid was completely out of sight, Ranboo reached for his memory book and took the quill again.

'Protect (Y/n) from Tubbo and Tommy. Get them out of DreamSMP.'

Ranboo was scared for you.

He was stuck watching as these crazy two men fought over you, threatened you, manipulated you... It was worrying, to say the least.

Don't get him wrong. If he didn't have an adopted son, a platonic husband that he still cared about despite him being another Dream at this point, and a Syndicate to protect him from, he would've packed everything and ran, bringing you with him.

He was practically walking on eggshells around this man that he had once been extremely close to!

It practically sent shivers down his spine...

Eventually, it got to the point where Ranboo had gone to your house in the ungodly hours of the morning to talk to you.

This man LITERALLY crept into Tubbo's room AND Tommy's house to make sure they were both asleep before going to talk to you.

"Ran... Boo?" You asked, yawning softly as you leaned against the door, your hair all frizzy and messed up, "What's up? It'sssss... Like 5:30am. The sun is barely even up..."

"(Y/n)... Can we go inside? Please... There's something very wrong.." He murmured softly, his memory book tightly held in his grasp as he glanced around. Tommy could be waking up sometime soon, and he did not want to get caught talking to you. He would certainly be down a canon life before he could even say 'sorry'.

You watched the nervous man in front of you and nodded before stepping aside to let him in. Peaking outside, you looked around for what was causing him to panic but went back inside once you didn't see anything. "What's wrong?" Softening your tone, you gestured for him to sit at the table while you made coffee.

Once he had a fresh mug of coffee in front of him, Ranboo slowly began to gather his nerve and speak. He told you everything he could remember, and even opened his memory book to tell you about the things he didn't remember. Everything from the fight where Tommy and Tubbo's friendship completely went downhill a few months ago, to the threats Tubbo used against Tommy, the manipulation against you, the threats he had received by talking to you, and even Tubbo's violent mood switches when talking about you or Tommy.

The entire time, you just sat there wide-eyed as you listened to him ramble on about his fears and worries, and everything in between. He even mentioned wanting to actually divorce Tubbo because of how scared he was for you and his own life. "I don't... Not... Believe you... But this is- this is a little difficult to believe." You knew the enderman hybrid wouldn't lie about something so serious, and he definitely wouldn't be shaking like a leaf if it was a joke or a lie.

"Y-yeah, I expected that... But I really do care about your safety, honestly. You know I wouldn't joke about this kind of thing, especially about Tubbo." He murmured softly, looking at his crown laying on the table in front of him, "In all honesty, I came here this early because I was scared about Tommy trying to kill me if he saw me talking to you..."

"He wouldn't ki-"

The door slammed open dramatically and there was a cheerful shout of your name, "(Y/n)!!! Let's go mining for diamon-" Tommy walked into your kitchen, only to freeze mid-step and midfacial expression. His expression went from surprised to annoyance to a grim smile, "Hello Ranboo!" He gave him a smile that was more like baring his teeth as he twirled his axe nonchalantly.

He was going to hurt him...

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

thoughts on toga?

Sorry, I was putting some good music to do this 😌 our vampire princess deserves only the best.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON TOGA HIMIKO :

First of all, I still maintain that she's one of the best written female characters of bnha.

I used to think she was heavily sexualized on the manga, and while I still maintain that she is hyoersexualized on the fandom and still sexualized on the manga, I came to realize some of Horikoshi's choices are not that bad. Of course, it has a lot to do with certain common motives and symbolisms.

I think my main complain about the way some people write Toga (pushing aside the way the ship her with adults), it's that people either put her a a total child or a total woman.

Oh God, Toga is so smart. She's so under-appreciated, so so much.

"She's a murdered". She's what? 16-17 years old? Let's see the facts.

Toga was born in a family with money.

The first memory we got from her is Toga bitting a bird and showing it to her parents. They reacted pretty bad, like it was terribly spooky and told her to put that away, rejecting her.

After that, she created a mask for herself. She started pretending to be normal, smiling a lot, becoming the sweet overexcited girl.

However, the feeling never went away, because it was part of her quirk. The need to bite people to become them, the joy of wanting to taste the blood of someone she loved.

This could be a side effect like a person with wings wanting to fly, or a person with fire wanting to see the flames.

After stabbing her school crush, she ran away and began a criminal career of stabbing other people, hiding from the police.

This all means she lived in a lie for at least 13 years of her life, before becoming a criminal and loving on the streets at least 3 or 4 more years.

Toga has both taste the high-middle class class and the low class. She knows what is like to have too much money and be empty inside because no one sees you or accepts you, as much as she knows what is like being hungry and with cold, but living with people that love you for who you are.

This girl learned to erase her presence from a young age, before any of the UA kids ever dreamed about having that level of skill. She knows how to fight pretty well in close combat, how to fight with knives, how to trick people, how to choose her preys and when to retire from a fight.

She's extremely smart because she has successfully infiltrated in the heroes side at least three times: during the license exam, during the overhaul arc and on the war arc.

Her great goal is to live and live well. This is fucking magnificent because many people with her experience would reject themselves, thinking they're the problem. Toga knows she's not the problem, but society. She knows she deserves to live and love and have friends and family and she fights for it. In fact, even when so many people say she's insane, she's uses her logic all the time, way more than many other members of the League.

She see humans as they are. Not villains, not heroes. She was able to love Izuku and Ochaco even when they were heroes, she was able to hate overhaul while he was a villain. This shows she's outside the hero-villain toxic narrative, clever girl.

She's not afraid to face anyone when it comes to her rights. She faces Tomura more than once (overhaul arc, mva arc), she doesn't let Dabi intimidate her, she protects Twice and sweetly answers to Mr. Compress and Spinner's worry.

And God, maybe she doesn't have a mutant quirk, but almost. See her pupils, see her fangs. The reason why she makes people uncomfortable it's because she doesn't fit their standards. And she's perfectly okay with people not knowing how to categorize her. In fact, her fight in the MVA arc was because someone was trying to frame her.

I don't know how to make this clear but she's not crazy or psycho.

Toga Himiko would have passed the UA test with honors. She's so further above from the rest. She knows the older generations are full of shit and she knows they can't follow their paths, enough to outgrow Stain's legacy and make her own ideals.

I love how she shows that one can be totally feral and go against the system without stop being oneself.

Her speech to Ochaco on the war arc was incredible. She quickly questioned the idea that heroes can decide who deserves to live and who doesn't by saving only the people they think that deserve to be saved. She criticized the heroes decision to forget and dismiss and put away real people suffering just because they were not passive about their pain. She also make Ochaco see that she was a girl, just like her, not some type of hell demon trying to consume her soul.

She refused to say Shigaraki and decided to call him Tomura instead. This is so important!!!! From a narrative point of view, she's rejecting AFO's last name and accepting Tomura, the boy mourning for a father, a family.

She's observant, analytical, good at judging people, great at adapting and changing her mind.

I love how she kept being so happy and vibrant even in the worst moments.

And she's not just a victim, please. Toga Himiko is not some lost child, not a know-it-all woman. She's a teenager that can understand the situation but still needs tsome guidance.

She's actively changing the system. She's not passive or easy to manipulate. Like Spinner said, she's a free spirit.

So I'd love to see more fanfics depicting this. She's an amazing character at the level of most male characters on bnha, just like Ochaco, for example.

I'd love to see more headcanons about her with people her age. Real headcanons.

What about Momo and Toga talking about how boring can fancy parties be? How people with money are crazy sometimes?

What about Toga talking with Jirou about beinf girls that are considered "bros" by her friends?

What about Toga talking about being a little mutant and Tsuyu talking with her about hating cold weather?

What about Toga and Kirishima being overexcited and full of positivity together? About Denki and Toga talking about celebrities and TigTog? About Toga and the people from class 1-B bonding over being considered less when they're as good as class 1-A? Toga and Shinsou? Toga and Koda loving cats? Toga and Shoji playing card games? Toga and Tokoyami loving metal music? Toga and Bakugo loving romance stories?

What about Toga admiring female pro-heroes? Mirko seems loud and determined, Toga would adore her under other circumstances. Fuyumi helping Toga with her self-care because she ran away young. Toga showing Eri that they both have "scary" quirks and it's not wrong! They're both went through really bad moments and they're not bad! Toga being a big fan of the Wild Wild Pussycats. Toga adoring Vlad King and Present Mic.

The potential is there.

Anyway I just want more creativity, maybe. People writing more about Toga and the implications of her childhood, about how insane she is a fighter and a human being.

[call-sign-shark]

The way I jumped on this notification I swear...

Ah shit, her new life didn't last long. I know that's uncool but I couldn't help but laugh at her misfortune because... Sheesh, that's unfair. 😅 Nevertheless I was s h o o k when I learnt that Tommy was the one behind this chain of unfortunate events. Thanks, Polly for lending her Ada's room, she's a true hero. And here we have a scene with our three idiots. I swear I love John with all my heart but I couldn't help rolling my eyes at his drunkness because he's just sooo stupid. Like he hides the whiskey stains because he's afraid of Pol's reaction lmaooo. Nevertheless, we all should pick up this : "For once, he was the lesser drunk out of the three." ARTHUR BABE. That's a miracle! The reason why he drinks carefully is adorable. You know Brummie, I already love him far too much for my own sanity, you don't need to make things worst... Because Gosh, your portrayal of him is so in character and, at the same time, so soft in this series that I am SQUEALING.

" Nah, Y/N was an angel" Arthur said resting his hands on his stomach as the four glasses of sharp liquor started to weigh down his heavy eyes." It's the other one I didn't get. You had it all Tom, what the hell was that?" I swear he's the real king of Hopelessly Devoted. Say it, Arty. Your brother had been a dumbass with our lovely and truthful little Y/N. I love how he's always protecting his little sister, even against Tommy. Btw her violent reaction was unexpected but so deserved -- fucking with Grace only to piss off Y/N is childish asf. "Drunk, one arm bloody, hair disheveled, he looked a mess, a desperate pitiful mess." now that's what I like. Now he understands how he made her feel. This passage is a masterpiece -- the contrast of the elegant and cold Tommy being shitfaced, bloody, messy and vulnerable is really enjoyable. Serves him right for being a cunt. Her rage got me all excited! Is she going to spit facts right at his face? Oh God I hope so.

"I'm not your sweetheart anymore. I'm done Tommy." you cried turning around as Tommy's hand dropped from your face. Such a powerful line, my heart aches for her. Also when she explains that she might have broken his heart once but he did it all over again was brilliant. He's been stomping her freaking glass balloon for five damn years. I must admit that I also feel for Tommy, who might be an idiot but who is definitely suffering from the situation too. Like, the scene in which he drops on his knees and yells at the world to look at him begging was sooo dramatic but incredibly well written and emotional. I don't know why but it's so aesthetic??

AHHH CURLY. He's just a baby, please protect him at all costs. I don't know how you did it but I could see this in my mind. I could HEAR Charlie and Curly. Your writing skills are really at their peak with this new series, they leave me fucking speechless. "She still comes in here. Find her siting there watching Curly brush the horses like she did when she was a kid, like when you were both kids" I am delighted by the short mention of their childhood memories. It fleshes out Y/N and depicts happier and more innocent times. It also helps us understand her devotion to Tommy and how miserable he has been since they broke up. Also Uncle Charlie's quiet and eternally cold demeanor when asking if he had broken Y/N's heart again ... *chief's kiss*.

If I had to select one favorite passage it would be the difference between Tommy's posy flowers and the grandiloquent and expensive bouquet he gifts her now in a vain attempt to be forgiven. It speaks SO MUCH and it's one of a fucking brilliant way to highlight how much he has changed after the war. The word "pitiful" is also well chosen to describe what he's trying to do. At first I was rooting for her when she told Archie her plans! AND GOSH!! Tommy threatening everyone not to give her a job... It's pure manipulation and frankly Yandere. He really wants to corner her. "five years worth of pent-up anger coming his way too." Ouuuhhh Y/N isn't going to be easy on her and she's going to release the wild girl she was teehee.

Incredible chapter Brummie! From the plot to the writing to the portrayal of characters. When I tell you I'm disappointed when I finish the chapter I'm not joking. You have a real talent for creating suspense and you really leave us wanting more. I am really impatient for the next update! Just wow. Much astounded by this series. You're a gem, honey. 🖤

PREVIOUS PART

Hopelessly Devoted (PART FIVE)

Summary: After your tearful departure from Small Heath, you find your way back in the town you bid farewell to quicker than expected, Inevitably back to face the very man who told you to leave. Will your unavoidable confrontation with Tommy threaten to put an even heavier strain on your already fragile relationship?

Warnings: Language, angst, mutual pining, mentions of blood

" Fuck, fuck fuck!" you sobbed dropping your keys on the floor as you furiously wiped away your tears. With one sharp kick in frustration to the old wooden door at your current predicament you slumped down onto the cobbled floor as the clouds broke open and a deluge of rain poured down on you. Great.

" Y/N?..." You heard Polly's voice say in the darkened alleyway, her heels echoing loudly through the back row of house as she hurried over to you, holding her brolly up from the torrential rain now pouring down on the entire town. Yes that's right, Polly. You was back. Your dramatic departure filled with tears and sorrow in attempts to escape both your broken heart and Tommy's fury lasted all but one day. One fucking day. You quickly learnt upon your arrival in London after meeting with the Landlord that there had been a mistake or, what you had determined to be an absolute bollocks of an injustice. There was no letting, or at least there wasn't anymore. Greed knows no bounds and the Landlord your cousin had spoken of was no different. With little sympathy he quickly explained to you that he had let the property out to someone else, favouring their six months advance in rent over your measly one month deposit, leaving you on the doorstep of the flat you hoped you would call home with a puff from his cigar and a snide smirk as he slammed the door In your face. " Y/N?" Polly said as she helped you up from the ground, her eyes wide in confusion." You should be in London. What are you doing back here love?" She questioned as she pulled you under her umbrella, rubbing you arm up and down in attempts to warm you up.

" I was. But like everything in my life it was a disaster. I can't do anything right " you said as you sniffed back your tears bending down to pick up your keys.

" Disaster? You've only been gone twenty-four hours. What could have gone so wrong that you found yourself back in this shit hole?" She replied looking around her as she kicked a clump of mud off the end of her pristine black boots.

" Landlord had a better proposition, six months worth of rent in advance" you replied as you wrapped your hands around your body from the cold.

" Greedy bastard" she replied with an irritated huff on your behalf. "What about your cousin, you couldn't have stayed with her?"

"She's not there. Neighbour said she went to Hull on holiday. A holiday, In winter, who does that?" nobody does Polly thought to herself, especially not somewhere as bitterly windy as Hull. This was all too much of a coincidence for her liking. There was only one person that could have arranged all this within the space of twenty four hours and he was currently sat in the Garrison with her two other nephews and half a bottle of whisky in his hand. Deciding to spare you any further misery for one day she kept her suspicions to herself, but not without mentally taking note to give her meddling nephew a sharp smack to the back of his head the moment he had sobered up and the warm lull of alcohol had worn off. " I have two weeks left of rent on this place Pol. I kept a key just in case" you said turning to look up at your bedsit window. " He's changed the fucking locks on the back door, I can't get in!" you started to sob again as you looked down at the keys in your hand." Pol what am I supposed to do?"

" Come on, you'll stop at mine" she said hooking her arm in yours as she started walking you out the alleyway.

" Pol, Tommy...I can't " you said as you abruptly pulled away.

" Yes you can. You'll stop in Ada's old room. And as for Tommy, you let me worry about him. Understood?" she replied, not giving you a chance to argue otherwise as she took you by the arm once again. " I doubt you'll see him anyway love. He'll be in the Garrison until the early hours drowning in his sorrows"

" Sorrows? What's he got to be sorry about, thought he had everything made?"

"Y/N, there's something I need to tell you..."

" Bewitched, she bloody bewitched you!" John slurred as he raised his glass of whisky up to the ceiling whilst he precariously tried to pour a steady stream of the amber liquor down into his mouth, half of it inevitably spilling onto his freshly ironed shirt.

"No. Y/N bewitched me. Bewitched me since we were kids" Tommy said as he slammed his glass down onto the table, reaching in his pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes.

" Fucking hell, that good was it Tommy?" John laughed with a snort as Arthur threw a cushion at his head causing the remainder of his whisky to tip over onto the plush crimson sofa he was laying on. Polly would certainly have his head for that.

" Wouldn't fucking know anymore, it's been five years" Tommy mumbled under his breath lighting a cigarette as he let his body fall back into the arm chair. But he did know, he did remember. He'd thought about you every night since the day he boarded the train for France. Thought about the small whimpers he would coax from your lips as he rocked his body into yours. The way he'd wrap you tightly in his arms after as you drifted off to sleep, listening to the gentle sounds of you breathing as his own eyes became heavy, and he joined you in peaceful dreams. Now all he heard was the sound of shovels on the four walls of his room, reminding him of what he had lost, what he had endured in those lonely nights away from you. Not that he would admit it of course.

" So what's your plan Tom?" Arthur said as he looked down at his drink, swirling the amber liquor from side to side before downing it. For once, he was the lesser drunk out of the three. Polly had given him strict instructions to go easy on the whisky and watch that Tommy didn't drink himself into oblivion. What Polly really meant was to not drink at all, but all Arthur heard was " go easy". And he had, albeit within his own limits before he too was too drunk to stand and ended up as hammered as his two younger brothers.

" Bloody Plan. I don't have a plan" Tommy lied as he stood up, leaning his arm on the mantle of the fire place to keep himself steady as he looked into the flames.

" You not going to London after her then?" Arthur asked as a heavy feeling of guilt started to sit uncomfortably in the pit of Tommy's stomach. The truth was Tommy did have a plan, one that had started to play on his conscious like the many other things he had added in the last twenty-four hours.

" She won't be in London for long" Tommy replied as he flicked his cigarette into the flames.

" Jesus Tom, what you done now?" Arthur said as he stood up, handing him the bottle of whisky to further dull his guilt.

" Something I'll regret no doubt" he said taking the bottle, intent on finishing its contents before Arthur grabbed it back. Pulling out your gold watch from his trouser pocket Tommy rubbed his thumb over the front, the wear and tear of the years he had kept it by his side more noticeable the longer he looked at it. " Fucking women eh?" Tommy said as he cleared his throat placing the watch back in his pocket.

" Your fucking women. You don't half pick 'em" John replied as he sat up rubbing the back of his neck as he placed a cushion over the whisky stain beside him, hopeful Polly wouldn't notice.

" Nah, Y/N was an angel" Arthur said resting his hands on his stomach as the four glasses of sharp liquor started to weigh down his heavy eyes." It's the other one I didn't get. You had it all Tom, what the hell was that?"

" To piss Y/N off" Tommy said shamefully when the front door creaked open and you and Polly walked in from the rain.

" To piss me off?..." You said, standing their stunned having heard the entirety of their conversation.

" Y/N..." Tommy said stumbling your name out as he turned to face you, his eyes wide at the realisation you had heard his spiteful confession.

" What the bloody hell are you lot doing here? You're supposed to be in the Garrison" Polly said as she shook the rain from her umbrella, her eyes darting between you and Tommy and the death stare you was sending him. It was all about to kick off.

" Grace was to fucking piss me off?!" You shouted as you marched over, grabbing the bottle of whisky from Arthur's hand and launching it in Tommy's direction.

" Jesus fucking Christ!" John shouted as he jumped out the way, dodging the bottle that landed on the floor beside him as a barrage of other objects came flying Tommy's way.

" Y/N, darling, I didn't mean it like that..." Tommy attempted to say with his hands out as a vase of flowers landed on him, gashing his arm. "Fuck!" he yelled as he looked down at the shard of glass lodged in his skin.

" She got you good there Tom" Arthur chuckled, amused at the fact his little brother was finally getting his dues. " Stay still" Arthur said getting up as he rubbed his hands together ready to play the surgeon. Looking sheepishly over to you Tommy watched as you turned around and stormed out the house.

"Y/N wait!" Tommy shouted as he pushed his brothers hands away, pulling out the piece of glass stuck in his arm with a loud grunt. " Y/N it's pissing it outside, come back in!" he yelled after you as he ran through the living room, stumbling over the edge of the coffee table in the process. Drunk, one arm bloody, hair disheveled, he looked a mess, a desperate pitiful mess.

" Fuck off Tommy!" you shouted, arms crossed as you walked rapidly down Watery Lane.

" Y/N I'm sorry alright! I'm fucking sorry!" He yelled back in the middle of the street, awakening the whole neighborhood as the rain continued to violently pour down on the small town. " I thought it was you. Isaiah, Kimber's men...what, what else was I supposed to think?" he said coming to a stop as you continued to ignore him." You started all this you know, five years ago when you broke my heart!"

" Shut up, shut the fuck up! You screamed as you span around, storming back to him having had enough of hearing the same broken record non- stop for five years. Coming face to face with him, Tommy took a step back. He had never seen you this way, this angry this furious, the softness of your face replaced with a rage he had created. "Have you ever, ever once stopped to think that when you left me on that platform when you didn't look back, you broke my heart too!"

" I did look.."

" Shut up Tommy, just stop!" you cut him off unwilling to entertain anything he had to say as the whirlwind of anger stormed within you.

" Y/N" Tommy said reaching his hand out for you that got quickly slapped away by your own.

" I may have broken your heart first Tommy but every day since you have broken mine over and over again. I waited Tommy, waited five years. Watched you move on with that barmaid, stood there as you accused me of stabbing you in the back" you sobbed, the bitter reality of your unrelenting devotion towards him and all the years you had wasted trying to please him cutting sharper then any cruel passing comment he had ever made." All because I loved you...because I couldn't let go" you sobbed as the anger that had been building in you rapidly left, leaving you stood there deflated.

" Sweetheart please.." Tommy pleaded hearing the hurt in your voice as he gently cupped your cheek, slowly moving closer to press his forehead against yours.

" I'm not your sweetheart anymore. I'm done Tommy." you cried turning around as Tommy's hand dropped from your face.

" Y/N!" Tommy shouted, watching you walk away as he stumbled forward slipping over the wet dirt covered ground, the half bottle of whisky he had drunk dulling his usually sharp reflects. " Have a look everyone, take a good fucking look!" he yelled watching the neighbours curtains twitch from behind their windows, his yelling bringing the whole street's attention to the commotion he was responsible for. "Tommy Shelby on his fucking knees begging, happy now Y/N. Y/N!"

" Bloody hell, get up Tom. You're making a fucking scene" Arthur said looking around the street as him and John pulled him up from the ground.

" How much has he drunk?" Polly said storming over with Tommy's coat as Arthur and John held him up.

" I don't know half a bottle, maybe more" he replied as he brushed the rain off Tommy's face." His alright Pol, ain't you Tom?"

" Arthur, I told you to keep an eye on him. He's a miserable bastard when he's drunk" Polly said looking to her nephew as she placed the coat around Tommy's shoulders.

" Would you all just fuck off..." Tommy slurred, pushing his brothers off him as he walked off into the night.

" Tommy where you going?" John called out ready to follow when Arthur put his hand out.

" Let him drink it off John boy" Arthur said watching him stumble around the corner.

" Don't you mean sleep it off?"

" Drink it off. Tommy's barely slept a wink since him and Y/N broke up"

" Best we leave him to it. The drink will force him to sleep whether he wants to or not" Polly said as she ushered her nephews back to the house. " Come on, in" she ordered them as she turned around to shut the door. " One day, just one day I'd like us not to be the talk of this town"

" Tommy, Tommy! You sick Tommy?" Curly said as he bent down to Tommy laying in a heap of hay inside one of the horses stalls on Charlie's yard early the next morning, his hand grasped tightly around another bottle of whisky he had presumably found on his way there.

" Nothing the hair of the dog can't fix" Charlie said as he bent down lifting Tommy's peaked cap up as Tommy slowly opened his eyes . " Think he's had enough of the good stuff, get him a glass of vinegar instead Curly" Charlie said as Tommy grunted at the idea of his Uncles hangover cure.

" Vinegar, I'll go get vinegar for you Tom. We'll have you back in shape in no time" Curly said as he hurried off out of the stall.

" Tommy get up, you're laying in horses shit" Charlie said as he grabbed the bottle of whisky from his hand. "You won't find what your looking for at the bottom of a bottle Tom" Charlie said as he poured its contents onto the cobbled stable floor beside him whilst Tommy watched the only thing that dulled his self-inflicted guilt slip away. " Y/N?" Charlie said as he turned the tin water bucket upside down to sit next to him, handing him a cigarette.

" Written across my face is it Uncle?" Tommy said as Charlie leaned over to light the end.

" Always did find your way back here, sleeping with the horses when you two would have it off. That and a bowl of cold water on you when she'd find you the next day" Charlie said as Tommy let out a scoff of a laugh looking down at the cigarette between his fingers. " She still comes in here. Find her siting there watching Curly brush the horses like she did when she was a kid, like when you were both kids" he said as he nodded to the bench in the corner of the stall as Tommy rested the back of his head on the wooden enclosure whilst the memories of happier times flooded back to him.

" Started when her dad died. Would bring us here to get away from her mum and Polly's sharp hand on the back of my head" Tommy chuckled as he breathed out a cloud of smoke. " Just wanted her to enjoy the quiet" he sighed rubbing his thumb along his brow as last night's drinking started to catch up with him. How long would he keep doing this?

" Times changed" Charlie said as he looked over to Tommy's eyes fixed on the bench in the corner where you'd both sit " So what did you do this time then Tom?"

" What haven't I done?" Tommy replied as he stood up adjusting his coat around him.

" Still breaking her heart?" Charlie said looking up to Tommy as he watched him pat down the horse he had for company the whole night, thankful he couldn't repeat his drunken rambles.

" Since I boarded the train for France, so I've been told"

" You were too young Tommy. You were about to go off to fight. You could have left her a widow when she was still a kid herself. But I'm guessing that's not all you've done." Charlie said as Tommy listened and let his Uncles words sink in. " Make it right Tom. She's been good to you, she don't deserve this"

" Think I ruined all chances of that Charlie" Tommy said giving up, straightening his peaked cap out as he walked out into the bitter morning mist.

"Bollocks. Bite the bullet and do what you got to do Tom, else you'll spend the rest of your life looking down that whisky bottle" Charlie said as he walked off, throwing the empty glass bottle into the cut.

"Vinegar Tommy" curly said running up to Tommy as he squinted through the fog, watching his Uncle walk off into the yard.

" Save it Curly, for when I'm really down in the dirt, ey?" Tommy said as he patted his shoulder, forgoing the idea of drinking Charlie's sharp remedy to bring him to his senses. His words had been enough. It was time for him to pay the piper and own up to his mistakes if he ever wanted to win you back.

It had been a week since your return to the town you thought you had bid farewell to and a week since you had last seen Tommy, having avoided every one of his attempts to talk to you. After a sharp word to your landlord Polly handed you a new set of keys to your bedsit the very next day. But with only one weeks worth of rent paid left, and your unexpected return ticket from London costing more that you thought it would, your savings were dwindling. Polly had offered you help even asking you to come back to the betting shop, an offer you was convinced Tommy had been the first to suggest. Declining both propositions and adamant on showing Tommy you didn't need, nor want his help you decided to look for work elsewhere, and with three job interviews lined up for today you had high hopes your money troubles would soon pass. Fixing your hat in place, you pushed a small pin into the side firmly securing it from any gusts of wind that threatened to blow it over. With one last glance at your appearance in the mirror you turned around, the smile on your face dropping and a scowl quickly replacing it at the sight of the growing flower garden currently occupying every surface of your bedsit. Seven bouquets of flower for each day you had been back, each with their own card hand written to you from Tommy himself. Fuck sake. Gaudy, flashy, over the top. Not like the beautiful posy of meadow flowers he would spend time picking for you on your birthday. You thought to yourself as you glared at them opening your front door only to be met with another ridiculously large bouquet in your face.

" 'Scuse me Mam" the young boy said as he stepped back. " Delivery from Mr Shelby"

" Jesus fucking Christ" you mumbled under you breath. You had no space for them as was frankly getting fed up with his pitiful gestures. After the relentless messages he had left you it was time to send him one final of your own so he understood exactly what your thoughts were on his grand displays of love. Pulling the card out from within the bouquet of red roses you scoffed at the message before reading it aloud.

" Roses are red..." you said without finishing the rest of the card before ripping it up and placing it back within the flowers as the young boy shuffled on his feet, his eyes quickly darting away. " Send them back Archie" you said with a huff as you shut your door.

" But Mr Shelby he..." the young boy replied nervously before you stopped him.

" Archie it's alright" You said bending down to his level as you placed your hand on his shoulder " Don't you worry about Mr Shelby, he won't do a thing. The only person he will get angry at is himself after his brothers tease him about this, alright?" You smiled as he nodded his head in reply. "Send them back at noon when Arthur and John will be there. We can't let them miss out on the opportunity to get one over on him can we?" you giggled as the young boys muddy cheeks dimpled into a grin. " Go on" you said handing him a penny, winking to him as he ran to the stairs, jumping down the rickety wooden steps two at a time. That will keep him at bay, you thought to yourself as you too headed down the steps jumping off the last one, your mood suddenly brightened again. Little did you know your scheme to keep Tommy away would only backfire when the result of another stupid idea Tommy had concocted to get your attention was about to play out.

" What do you mean the position has been filled?" You asked as you stood in front of the manager of the postal office, having only just arrived for your final job interview that day.

" Sorry Mam. The Position was filled this morning" he replied clearing his throat as he shuffled the papers in front of him.

" But it's only eleven thirty, I'm the first to be interviewed on the list" you pointed out to him at the paper on his desk. This was your last hope. The two previous interviews, well, lack of interviews were disastrous. One only lasted all but three minutes and the other place was shut before you even arrived.

" We erhh, we found someone yesterday" he said packing his documents into the draw as he quickly stood up taking the other pile of files sitting on the side.

" Yesterday was Sunday"

" Mam I'm sorry. I can't help you, the position has been filled" he said as he looked to the door not wanting to be asked any further questions.

" Shelby Company Limited" you scoffed, noticing the business card on top of the pile of documents in his hand. " He's been here hasn't he? Told you not to give me the job?" you huffed crossing your arms as you bit your bottom lip trying to hold back the tears welling in your eyes. Your heightened emotions never failing to show themselves at the most inconvenient of times.

" He said you already have a job, he was quite adamant about it. He..." the manager replied as you put your hand up, stopping him from making any more excuses for him.

" Save it " you said wiping your eyes as you turned on your heel, heading for the very man you knew was to blame not only for this failed job interview but the two others as well. Thomas fucking Shelby. Was this his way of getting you to talk to him, for him to see you? Well he was going to get just that, and five years worth of pent-up anger coming his way too.

(Part Six coming soon!)

Tag list: @cosniffee @jonsncws @powellssaturn @jessimay89 @bruher @riseandreigns4u @mariaelizabeth21-blog1 @chimchimjiminie16 @gaslysainz @calicoootalks (unable to tag) @weaponizedvirtue @vlryexsworld (unable to tag) @shittyprofilebutfuckit @peakyswritings @kammsinn @mysticalbouquetwolf-posts @cherryslyce @esquivelbianca @taliawz (unable to tag) @answer-the-sirens @dielgonacoffee @cicilysgrace @nadloves @fanatics30 @httyd-marauders @beeposstuff @yeppaweshallsee (unable to tag) @ja-4-leyvam (unable to tag) @xmariakx @slighltyaboveaverageiq (unable to tag) @fairypitou @youngbananamilkshake @call-sign-shark @peakyltd @jeysbae @muhahaha303 @mornixgstar18 @adaydreamaway08 @artzyhobo (unable to tag) @atomicsaladapricotcreator (unable to tag) @1lellykins @duckybird101 @warrior-of-justice @amberpanda99 @ @mrstargayen09 @synx-h (unable to tag)

[preemshots]

the definitive post of WHERE IN THE WORLD IS JOHNNY SILVERHAND’S BODY?

AKA the post of HERE’S WHY I WANT TO BELIEVE WE ARE GONNA GET JOHNNY’S BODY BACK IN DLC. 

buckle up, gamers. it's time for some lore. this is a very long post. 

warning: this will contain a million spoilers. both for details of multiple game endings, a wee bit of the “where’s johnny” comic, and the cyberpunk RED book. if you want a sparknotes version this is the post for you. my main source here is the cyberpunk RED book as well as as some references to the cyberpunk 2077 world book to cross examine the lore. 

i have no idea if someone has made this post before or what anybody else has been finding in their own lore diving. this is just me documenting my own findings from the sources i’ve been using.

it would be disingenuous not to preface this with the ways in which cyberpunk 2077's telling of the arasaka assault differ from the version told in the TTRPG books. the books =/= the game. pondsmith acknowledges in the intro of RED that this is a bridge between the old cyberpunk world and the new world of cyberpunk 2077. 

we also know that johnny's an unreliable narrator and his memories presented to V are often different than real events. but on top of that we don't know if the reason why many elements are changed is simply CDPR editing/adjusting/condensing the storyline for their own canon, or if it's due to johnny's construct being manipulated by outside influences such as arasaka.

some of the main differences you need to know from cyberpunk RED canon:

in 2023 johnny doesn't bring the nukes to arasaka tower. he's solely there to free alt.

johnny and rogue and their team from the atlantis/the aldecaldos are actually hired by morgan blackhand. 

morgan blackhand is the one who plants the nuke, unbeknownst to many members of the team. 

morgan blackhand promptly disappears after this event and no one knows if he's alive or dead. (claire confirms this fact to jackie and v before the heist in 2077 canon)

johnny's silver cybernetic arm is its own character, separate from himself. it seems to have a mind of its own and johnny interacts with it and/or is influenced by it.

when he, spider murphy, rogue, thompson, shaitan, and a team of los lobos from the aldecaldos (who are there in place of santiago, as he’s busy as the leader of the aldecaldos at this point) are attacked by adam smasher, johnny and his arm actively choose to draw smasher's fire in a deliberately suicidal move. smasher downs him instantly, but the distraction is enough to also save his friends.

spider murphy shoves a mysterious chip in johnny's dying head as they escape that alt had downloaded to her a long time ago.

johnny's body is later "rumoured" to have been retrieved from the rubble by a full-body borg groupie that was a first responder to the ground zero of AHQ and then hidden away in a nearby garage.

here comes the political lore that makes my eyes cross, so hopefully this accurately summarizes it: the 4th corporate war begins to end. arasaka is ultimately blamed by the NUSA government to have nuked themselves in a political move to protect their secrets and promptly banished from the USA. arasaka denies this all the way back to japan, then eventually returns to “liberate” night city in the unification wars.

but what the public doesn't know is that kei, saburo's oldest son, had actually hidden an EVEN BIGGER MORE DEVASTATING NUKE at the bottom of the tower to, well, do exactly what they were being accused of doing, even though blackhand was the one who actually dropped the smaller nuke on them. and luckily the bigger one didn’t go off.

arasaka tries to find their nuke in the rubble so they don't get in even bigger trouble, only to discover that it was moved and hidden away to... surprise! a nearby garage.

to compare with 2077:

in RED: we have no johnny loading the nukes into the elevator. no johnny being carried off the premises. no meeting saburo. no johnny getting soulkilled.

in 2077: there's a parallel moment to RED's version of events right after johnny uploads "liberator" from alt's old cyberdeck with spider's help into the arasaka mainframe in saburo's office. adam smasher comes for him as he's trying to escape, knocking him off the second floor of the atrium into the rock garden below.

visually this is the same atrium we always meet alt in in cyberspace and also where V meets johnny for the first time. hmmm. meaningful, perhaps.

not unlike what happens in RED, johnny unloads a clip into smasher at that point, but from there the scene instantly cuts to him running to the roof attempting to board the AV with rogue, where smasher shoots him down again. it’s possible johnny actually died to smasher in the atrium and we have some fabricated memories going on. 

either way, in 2077, we lose the character beat of johnny dying for his friends, and the current-day general consensus from rogue and others is that he’s perpetually a selfish asshole with ulterior motives. 

and, just to wrap up the politics of it all: morgan blackhand is rumoured to have been secretly hired by the militech-backed NUSA government to help end the 4th corporate war by... you guessed it! nuking arasaka.

HERE'S WHERE JOHNNY'S BODY ENDS UP IN CYBERPUNK RED (SPARKNOTES VERSION):

RED ends with a story called "black dog" set in 2045. black dog is the last song johnny recorded right before the assault on arasaka tower, but the final copy is a bootleg copy of the song and only a fraction.

we're introduced to a fun group of cybernetic-enhanced characters that represent the classes in the TTRPG and based on/designed by real people in collaboration with CDPR.

this group includes trace santiago, santiago's son, who is a media that is curious about the mystery surrounding the circumstances around his father and the arasaka bombing. 

just connecting lore here: if you talk to saul at the aldecaldo camp in 2077, he confirms that santiago was killed for his involvement with johnny and the bombing, something that rogue and johnny reference when they talk about their now-dead crew from the afterlife, and in chippin in, santiago is a friend that johnny lists as someone he had disappointed.

the group sets off to find any info about black dog, and meet up with a full conversion chrome woman named samantha in a garage who is blatantly a johnny silverhand fangirl. trace discovers she has a history with johnny, having rescued him from a studio fire at some point in 2015 and speculates she could have been a groupie also.

she mysteriously has a more complete recording of black dog, though not perfect, and offers to trade it for a service: she wants the group to transport a large crate to a facility in new mexico, asking them not to open it.

shit goes down. evidently everyone in night city wants to kill them for this package once it starts moving. eventually they open it. it's the arasaka nuke that had been hidden and never went off, emblazoned with warnings.

trace inquires about the circumstances surrounding the arasaka assault with an older member of the lobos who had been present with rogue and johnny. the man mentions that it was weird, because morgan blackhand organized the whole thing and then ran off immediately with a mysterious bag that we now know contained the nuke. 

michiko arasaka intercepts the gang, explaining the situation around the bigger nuke, that other factions in arasaka want to utilize it for their own goals (presumably hanako and yorinobu) and her father's legacy, that she feels responsible for. she escorts them to new mexico so that the nuke can be dismantled once and for all.

they meet up with a woman named angel in new mexico that takes the crate from them, at a facility that specializes in nuclear material. she gives the group the full recording of "black dog". the group leaves successful.

this woman is also a johnny silverhand stan. once alone, she calls up samantha, who says, "i promised i would get him to you in the end" and reveals that she had already gutted/dismantled the original nuke and discarded the material into the bay.

angel opens the "nuke" to reveal a hidden cryochamber, and greets the face of the person inside with, "hello, my love."

i mean, holy shit. okay! so that’s DEFINITELY johnny’s body. cool!

now let’s go into all the references to this story in the actual game of cyberpunk 2077 that SUGGEST we are going to pursue this story AND johnny's body since it’s such a HOT FUCKING TOPIC. 

and i know many of the following can just be considered easter eggs. but my personal interpretation of this game is that it has a really delightful way of intentionally glossing over important story details—and not by ONLY putting them in shards (which people tend to dislike because lol reading) but by also hiding them in plain sight, constantly deferring to V's own ignorance, distracting us with shallower, shinier things, encouraging us to actually play as the fool hero of this story. 

so here's the fun list of “””evidence”””:

this one’s a reach, but fun. in the initial arasaka assault flashback in 2023: we can interact with the groupies at kerry's show as johnny. samantha doesn't appear to be present, but the first person and groupie you can encounter in the flashback has a passing resemblance to angel in that she has a cybernetic arm.

in chippin' in, where we go to johnny's "grave" in the oil fields: if we are to take the 2077 retelling of events as truth, the story could instead be pretty easily be changed that samantha procured his body from there.

mike pondsmith, who wrote these stories and created the TTRPG can be heard on the radio narrating various conspiracy theories. and sure, these can just be easter eggs, intended to reference the differences between the TTRPG lore and the game, so take it with a grain of salt:

johnny. bro. tell him it was morgan blackhand

to top it all off, mike also directly references the actual WORSE nuke arasaka had hid in another arasaka conspiracy: 

SPOILERS FOR GAME ENDINGS AHEAD.

in the rogue ending of the game we discover rogue has a son. it's possible her son is trace (edit: nvm NOT LIKELY, since in RED’s black dog story rogue is listed separately from santiago’s mom in conversation) OR possibly one of the other characters. she tells her son to "pull over and look at the stars" or something along those lines. maybe just details, so that screams nomad to me.

rogue also has a photo of herself and johnny with mike pondsmith in her apartment/office in the afterlife. i initially read this as a delightful cameo but it also can mean mike the CHARACTER knew johnny and rogue, and rogue therefore has some kind of relationship to him and these conspiracies on the radio. and why the fuck not make him a full on character? we have a smattering of streamers and personalities already integrated into quests in the game. the creator of all this should be no exception. fuck it! 

rogue and johnny constantly dance around this accusation of her “selling out”. it’s repeated over and over that she and adam smasher worked for "the same people". i'm beginning to wonder if this wasn't meant to imply only arasaka since smasher mysteriously disappeared after the AHQ assault in 2023 and returned to SOMETIMES take jobs from arasaka... but possibly morgan blackhand and/or by extension, the NUSA or any other greater influences. (like nightcorp? we still don’t know where all this shit with nightcorp/the peralezes/sandra dorsett’s discovery about their research into mind control is gonna go) this also doesn’t account for the multiple factions inside arasaka with VERY different motives. 

morgan blackhand and adam smasher are rivals in the TTRPG, a role that appears to be at least partially filled by johnny instead in 2077. in relation to the arasaka factions, it’s worth nothing that smasher specifically works for yorinobu as his bodyguard at the beginning of the game, in part i assume because yorinobu is avoiding working with arasaka security details as he stole the relic and is plotting against his father. he is then promoted to head of security by yorinobu when yorinobu assumes power. 

in the ending as you work your way through arasaka tower with rogue and shaitan and johnny, rogue remarks:

michiko at this point in 2077 is the leader of the more “liberal” faction within arasaka, so it’s possible we’re seeing that while rogue and smasher work for the same people/family, they couldn’t be more different. 

you can also encounter rogue more than once on the phone fighting with wakako, who has apparently crossed her. wakako also seems to have her own ulterior motives and works mainly with the arasaka-backed tyger claws. she notably gives v/takemura the parade security info for “play it safe” without asking for anything in return, enabling hanako’s kidnapping. my theory is that yorinobu intentionally leaked the parade info to her to give away to put hanako in danger or at least continue to destabilize arasaka. 

in the takemura/devil ending of the game, there is a point where violence breaks out at the arasaka board room meeting when yorinobu-allied security open fire on them. one of the only people that survives along with hanako is michiko arasaka, who was at odds with hanako’s decisions, but  very involved in the preceding discussion.

and now for is my favorite detail! in the afterlife AT ALL POINTS IN THE GAME (but it can only really be inspected in the rogue ending when we are allowed behind the bar), we can find a photo of the squad that transported johnny's body from samantha to angel on the shelf below johnny's tequila, of them hanging out in front of the afterlife sign:  

this implies rogue has some relationship with them, and sentimentality, if we're to judge by the placement. she maybe even took the picture. i don't know, it's charming, it could be all easter eggs. who fucking knows.

either way, rogue and these kids both have in common that they worked with or at least interacted with michiko arasaka. 

and you know what my final evidence is? more wishful thinking! black dog plays on the radio in game. we got a full recorded version of it by refused. if not an oversight, i go ahead and take it to mean the final version was finally released to the public by those kids that were looking for it. 

i haven’t the slightest idea how this is gonna wrap up in future DLC. who has johnny’s body now in 2077, decades after it was dropped off in mexico? what is the truth?? where the fuck is morgan blackhand?? from the devil ending, we know that arasaka stole jackie’s body and put his soul into mikoshi, so the idea that they would just toss johnny’s corpse has always been laughable. the “where’s johnny?” promotional comic was even about thompson unsuccessfully trying to find johnny’s body. i know i am biased here but i cannot fathom all this talk about johnny’s body ending off with us NOT finding it, whether it’s just to bury it, shove johnny’s engram back in it, make out with it, or WHATEVER.

if you made it through this slog, congrats. thanks for reading! 

[darlingbudsofrae]

Neil Josten Appreciation Post

Foxes Appreciation Series : 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 9 || 10 ||

Alright, let’s just start this by addressing the big elephant in the room: everyone loves Neil Josten. EVERYONE.

If you don’t, you’re lying. 

Okay, first up- I’m glad this is getting addressed more on AFTG tumblr but Neil is literally so much smarter than the fandom gives him credit for.

Like yes, he’s a little dumdum on the social aspect of things (you could argue he kind of has a low EQ but also not really, I would argue that later)

but that doesn’t dismiss that he is smart af and that he can kill you and make it look natural if he wants.

For example, he literally outrun and hid from the mafia for years. Like, that in itself is an obvious point but we often forget that he did this at a very young age.

Like, he was presumably what? 16?? (when Mary kicked the bucket?) And kid was already playing hide and seek pretty well with a freaking mafia.

He does not get enough credit for this.

The survival skills it takes- the mental strength to survive as a runaway and technically he’s also homeless- at freaking 16, that’s just insane.

Also, let’s not mention the fact that it takes skills to forge official papers and all that.

We also do not talk enough about Neil and how he freaking have to relearn an entirely new position just to play exy.

I don’t think most remember that he’s actually a backliner, but have to play as a striker because it was the only available position in that local high school he attended in Millport, and that was how Kevin saw him so he was recruited as a striker.

We also additionally do not talk enough about how Kevin “literal and figurative Son of Exy” Day found potential for court in Neil “I’m a backliner but I’m playing striker because it’s the only thing available and I’m an exy junkie” Josten who only played it for like a year or less. 

Like yeah, Kevin said he needs more training but it’s not even Neil’s official position. 

The talent on this man- I cannot, he is such an icon. 

Aside from his great survival skills and being literally great at picking things up- he’s also like freaking academically smart.

Like that also doesn’t get enough credit- I mean, he does math for fun.

Frankly, I think if you did Kumon or if you had an awesome teacher you could also do math for fun (I know I did) but this should be noted with the fact that he didn’t have proper schooling.

He went on a run at a really young age so there is no way he received formal education.

Which means he is naturally like really smart.

He’s also a polyglot. And the languages he has under his belt are all freaking difficult to learn- like, no kidding: French, German, and he can assumingly speak intermediate Spanish, and we don’t even have an idea if this is all the languages he can speak.

Also, he and Andrew learns how to speak Russian, right? Like, that’s crazy.

The brain on this man and the power that he has- my son, I am so proud.

I mean, for all we know- there’s more than that and the fact that he’s like 18 at TFC screams supremacy.

This is where I argue about his EQ but Neil is crazy perceptive.

It took him like freaking 3 seconds to figure out the team dynamics the foxes have, and how to work against it.

He later figured out how to make it all mesh together.

Like the way he do things isn’t conventional but reading him analyze his team despite his lack of empathy really makes me shudder.

Like, this kid is so freaking smart. I remember reading his thought process for the very first time and being like, okay- I definitely did not think about that.

The main problem with his EQ though is that he doesn’t know how to process positive stuff when he’s involved, but when he’s the outsider- his perspective is so amazing.

Like again, he kind of lacks empathy but the way he understands things and is just so sharp is just noteworthy.

I’d argue he doesn’t understand social cues and “modern teen things” but he isn’t so completely clueless on the social aspect in general as to not manipulate an entire team of misfits with issues to work together.

He’s literally the key to unity in AFTG. Even Dan says so.

Also, the way he puts things into play- like he’s a master manipulator, and I love that for him.

We do not talk enough about manipulative Neil, like I just really love manipulative characters in general so much- especially if they’re just owning it. 

I mean, he freaking manipulated Andrew and Aaron into therapy. Kind of evil but also wow. (just a sidenote, please don’t force people into therapy lol)

Going completely dark for a second, Neil also has a freaking high pain tolerance.

The amount of horrible things he went through in the books were just so sad and the fact that he just kind of moves on from it? That’s just completely oh my gods.

My poor summer child, even if you can kill me at any given time, let me just hug you for a second with consent.

Everyone also gives shit about Neil’s fashion choices and granted it is said he kind of bags the homeless looks but the fact that he values utility above all else-

Yes, we stan a resourceful king. 

Lowkey though, am I the only one who appreciate Neil’s average style?

Speaking of style- I love the way Neil narrates. Like, the way he doesn’t give much attention to how the character looks- it’s just so realistic?

Because if I’m talking to a person in real life, there is no way I am noting how his blue polo makes him kind of casual but clean-cut and how his brown eyes is as warm as my morning coffee. Like, who even does that?

The thing with Neil’s narration is that it’s just so authentic- like it easily engages the readers and the way he gives importance to every thing the same way, it really makes it easier for the reader to discern things objectively, y’know what I mean?

He just has that quality in a main character and narrator- he’s laidback and sarcastic but not trying too hard, and he’s just really easy to love.

Like, I normally don’t like narrators/main characters in books because I favor a side character more or just because they’re annoying, but Neil Josten is legit lovable. 

At the same time, he’s also a really well-written character. Like, for all the technicalities I point out in AFTG, Neil is an asshole. He’s not perfect and I don’t 100% love everything that he does and I love that.

He’s a flawed character but he gives you something to root for- and I just really want to appreciate his characterization for a second. Most books make their characters’ flaws not even their fault to put a check to the flawed character but at the same time still have that perfect character. Eeww, no- give me real flaws to work with.

He’s one of the realest protagonists I ever read.

Like people give him shit for wanting to hide but also choosing to play a nationwide-discerned sport on an infamous collegiate team but for me it’s kind of realistic.

Because I think we, as human beings, also do things we love too much regardless of logic. I don’t know, like it’s kind of funny the way Neil is written but I honestly didn’t see him joining Palmetto as a loophole.

Like, just think of all those successful people who hid their identities via pseudonym or other necessary means to do things they weren’t expected to do or weren’t allowed to do.

For me, his character was really just looking for excuses to play his favorite sport a second longer and if anything, that’s just kind of sad.

But also, his dedication and love to exy is really admirable- like I never understood it but the way he literally does everything to stay on the court for a second longer just makes me want to root for him.

On a random note, Neil may not have an eidetic memory like Andrew’s but the way he memorize most phone numbers by heart? 

Bruh, I don’t even have my phone number memorized and I freaking have it for two years now. 

He also memorizes every twists and turns at every trip, every exits at a room he enters, and most people’s tics upon the first meeting, and other things and that’s just crazy perceptive but also really crazy on another level.

Also, we don’t get much ace/demi representation and out of the few I’ve consumed, demi Neil Josten validates me. He’s legit my favorite character that belongs in the ace spec in books.

I just really love Neil’s character so much- he’s just so amazing.

One thing I always appreciate about Neil Josten is that while he’s not a total angel (sadly), the way he loves the foxes- like he legit tried to mend the team and make sure everyone is going to be okay before walking straight to his death- like I’m with Andrew on this one, what a fucking martyr. Why are you like this and why am I crying?

Neil Josten is by all means not soft, that much is established, but the way he’s just still as precious and must be protected at all costs-

"You know, I get it," Neil said. "Being raised as a superstar must be really, really difficult for you. Always a commodity, never a human being, not a single person in your family thinking you're worth a damn off the court—yeah, sounds rough. Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless daddy issues all the time."

I love him, your honor- where can I file this adoption papers and do I have anything else to sign?

[thefools-journey]

So. Some of you may be wondering why we haven’t written a whole ton about the secondaries or what have you. Here’s the reason: we were waiting for them to end before we really dug into the problems we were noticing. We felt that it was only fair to wait for the routes to finish so that we had an understanding of the writers’ vision. Who knew, we thought, maybe they would see the problems themselves and course correct, maybe they are building to something we can’t quite see yet and these issues will have actual payoff, maybe-

In light of Muriel and Lucio’s endings, and the general mess that has dominated Portia’s route for a year plus now, we are breaking our silence. We are actually going to talk about this shit show.

The fandom at large has talked about a bunch of issues with the secondaries but for me, the cardinal sin, the thing that really all the issues lead back to, is this: the writers lost sight of the tarot themes which so strongly defined and held together the primary routes. Let me explain.

The primary routes each center around three thematic cores:

The Love Interest’s Major Arcana and its Reversed/Upright meanings

The MC’s Fool’s Journey, both how it can go right and how it can go wrong

A question about the MC’s identity and their relationship to said identity

Asra’s route asks: Who was the MC? How does the MC navigate a past they cannot and will not remember? What do they owe a past they cannot remember? How do they handle the revelations of what Asra, Nadia, Julian, etc did? How do you right the past? Can you?

Nadia’s route asks: Who is the MC? The MC has no past. Are they the Fool only? Are they actually the same person they were? How can they tell? Who are they, really? Are they an imposter? No one can answer these questions for them.

Julian’s route asks: Who will the MC become? How does the MC see their future? Is there anything worth fighting for for that future? What will become of them and their loved ones? 

Now, if you notice, these themes are expertly woven throughout the primaries. Asra’s past dominates his route, Nadia is also missing memories and trying to construct her identity both with her family and with Vesuvia, and Julian’s fear of the future drives his flailing for control. Asra has to learn to take a broader view of his actions to get his Upright Ending, Nadia has to learn to trust herself and those around her for hers, and Julian has to learn how to let go for his. These lessons are the issues their cards stand for. The primaries are so dang elegant and delicate in their handlings of theme it is honestly awe-inspiring.

Thematically, the secondary routes have completely lost their hearts. First of all, the MC does not have strong, core questions which need to be answered. They just don’t. I suppose the writers did not want to retread old territory (which is weird considering how tightly bound the primaries are; it really tricks you into thinking you’re living the same events but from different angles depending on your route) but they did not replace the old with anything new. Muriel’s route is, on the surface, about discovering and owning his past, the good and the bad. Why not tie MC’s self-discovery to that story? Or they could have taken the angle that Muriel’s route is about convincing him to be present and active in the world while MC builds an identity for themself outside of Asra, the shop, and the memories they cannot retrieve. Why not tie the investigation themes running through Portia’s early route back to MC and their past? Portia has the unique angle of being as in the dark as MC about all of this, why not discover the past together? And for goodness’ sake, Lucio has no future when his route begins, why not tie that to his need for growth, responsibility, and MC’s own future between the Fool, the Devil, or something mortal and in between?

Secondly, the routes lost their tarot backbone. We have a primer on how to get specific endings for each LI and it still holds, but the writers did not follow through on the thematic coherence of each secondary. The Hermit is looking for something, be it perspective, insight, a solution to a problem, whatever. The key here is that the Hermit must find or learn what they are searching for, this thing must change their understanding of the world, and finally, they must bring this lesson back to the world from which they retreated. Can someone please enlighten me as what exactly Muriel learns then teaches the world around him? Nothing Muriel learns from Morga, MC, or even the Hermit ties back into anything. The Devil warns that you are out of control and exerting a lot of manipulative, destructive behavior on the world around you. It asks you to take responsibility for yourself and your actions. So can someone tell me why Lucio’s route actively avoids any interaction or reflection on two of Lucio’s biggest victims: Muriel and Julian? Why does the route only try to make amends with the “easier” of his victims in the cast? The Star is first and foremost the card of clarity, the light at the end of the tunnel. Perseverance, if you will. Yet Portia’s route has been the muddiest of the trio; the writers drop the investigation aspect of her route in favor just handing her and MC information they could have easily found and muddying the waters with Tasya (she blows up the palace but it’s all okay bc she has a secret daughter Julian never thought to bring up or mention) and the complete removal of the Devil as antagonist. 

So that leaves just the Fool’s Journey trying to hold this stool up with only one leg. And well...it doesn’t go well. At best, the secondary route books pay the barest surface level homage to the themes of the individual cards. At worst, they ignore the cards completely. Muriel's Moon book has nothing to do with illusions or delusions or lies or even an Alice in the Looking Glass upside down world. Portia's back half is a complete and utter mess, starting with her Temperance book being so badly mangled that Muriel's aftermath book does it better. Lucio's route too bungles the Tower and the Star. There just isn't enough here to carry the routes alone.

Add to the core loss the loss of intertextuality. The primary routes are very good, even great but they too do have their moments and mistakes. What helps strengthen them when the cores stumble is how the trio is woven together. Things you learn in Asra's route can inform the way you play Nadia's, for example. Julian's route informs what is going on in Asra's route and slots some missing puzzle pieces together. Nadia's route tells you of the power struggles she is facing and informs the other two routes' handling of Julian and his trial. On and on, the three routes support each other because they are built out of the same basic plot beats, just tackled in very different ways. Now, the writers are allowed to try and write whatever they want. They apparently wanted to be more experimental and less tied down to an overarching plot with the three secondaries. Okay, fine, they are allowed to do that. The problem is that they sacrificed one of the key strengths of the primary trio and didn't replace said strength with anything else. They also, on some level, harmed the very premise of the game, which is that only the player's choices and route selected change the overall plot. Instead of feeling like legitimate possibilities or offshoots of the same timeline/plot, the secondaries feel almost like Arcana AUs. The secondaries throw out all relations to the primaries and each other as quickly as possible and for what? 

It is probably the height of arrogance to suggest fixes for works whose behind the scenes I do not know. At the same time, some small, obvious changes could have salvaged Muriel and maybe Lucio's endings (rip Portia). Instead of having the Hermit appear as a disappointing cameo, why not have him say something cryptic to Muriel, then have MC start trying to seal the Devil. Then let Muriel use his forget me mark to cloak MC and hide them from the Devil's attacks. Protecting MC by hiding them from Lucio, keeping him focused on Muriel, seems to me a simple third solution between Muriel's desire to run and his desire to never fight again. It lets him stand up to Lucio and let him have it while holding onto who Muriel has become. The Reversed End would have MC try to draw Lucio's attention at some point, disrupting the sealing, and eventually leading to Muriel killing the Devil. With Lucio's Upright End, I just have to ask: why doesn't MC fully claim the power of the Fool instead of the Devil? We don't need the other Arcana involved in this fight; we have three routes that demonstrate that. Just have MC pull Scout into the conflict, then have Lucio tell MC he believes in them, then add his power to the mix. You got yourself a full Fool who leaves Scout guarding the realm until they and Lucio's mortal bodies fail and they return to the realm to be together forever. Boom, you're done, you can even add some ambiguous lines so that players can decide how happy their MC is with this arrangement, send me the check.

Here is the bottom line. Our group is full of aroace, and several combinations therein, individuals. We are the last group who should have gotten into a dating sim of all things. But the Arcana did something with the primaries that was special; they wrote a compelling plot with dazzling lore, complex characters, and strong themes wrapped up in a dating sim bow. The writers know better and we know they know better. I do not know what happened with the secondaries, especially around books 10-11, which is where minor issues slowly start spiraling into major ones, but it is clear that Nix Hydra needed some more planning before they released these routes. Hopefully they will learn.

TL;DR: Nix Hydra fired their tarot consultants about eighteen months ago and it has wrecked their secondary routes until they were just embarrassments. They never intended for the secondary routes to even exist and once they had to make them, they scrambled and threw out everything that made the primaries work.

- Mod Telos

[punemy-spotted]

The Price You Pay Chapter 3: Counteroffer

Pairing: Mob!Steve Rogers x Reader, Senator!Andy Barber x Reader

Warnings: Rape/Non-Con elements, Dub-Con, Dark!Fic, Abuse of Legal System, Murder, Character Death (minor, possibly major), Love Triangle, Political AU, Mafia AU, Workplace Sexual Harassment, Abuse Mentions, Possessive/Obsessive Characters, Other Chapter-Specific Warnings May Apply, Possible Dead Dove: Would Not Eat

Chapter Warnings: Rape/Non-Con Elements Continue; Dub-Con; Angst; Politics; Possessive/Manipulative Behavior; Spanking; Choking; Crying; The Dove is Probably Dead: Do Not Eat

Chapter Summary: The return of an old friend brings back the ghosts of old memories.

Chapter 1; Chapter 2

Notes: Shorter chapters my ass, these outlines are getting unreal. Andy Barber has arrived, Steve Rogers does not approve, the Reader bears the consequences. Things are going to be angstier from here on out and I can feel it in my bones. Please don’t yell at me — or do, your feedback is well-loved and appreciated even if it’s yelly.

Not beta-read, these sins belong to me and me alone.

You met Andy Barber fresh from the ashes of his divorce, escaping the gossip and scandal and pain of his past life only to dive into the gossip and scandal and pain of politics. Senatorial campaign, in need of an aide and a law student desperate to do more for the people than hours in clinics and mock trials. Hungry for something grassroots, angling for the impossible.

A match. Whether made in Heaven or Hell feels irrelevant now, long ago as it was.

It was then. This… is now.

Hey Sunshine, didn’t think you’d be able to make it.

He looks the same. Keeps the same beard. Same hair. It’s uncanny and familiar and safe all at once and you slide into the booth with your purse by your side and feel genuinely smiley for the first time in a long time.

It’s been a while since I heard that name.

Yeah? It’s been a while since I got to use it.

The silence is heavy, unwelcome, unwieldy, a reminder of the space between what was and what is.

How’re you doing? Last I heard you were making a name for yourself taking down the…

He trails off, eyes fixed on the slide of your gaze, the sudden interest in a drink menu you wouldn’t normally touch, the tremor of your lips. A man doesn’t serve as Assistant District Attorney for the many years he has without picking up tells.

Sunshine.

Andy…

It’s a warning, a plea, a… confession, all at once, and all the dogged determination in the world can’t hold against the break in your voice, in your control. You’ve cried more in the past few weeks than you can recall and now here he is, soulful eyes and a worried expression and he’s never hugged you really, but suddenly you might want it just that much more.

Don’t be an idiot.

It’s dangerous, your stress, and you know it.

Dangerous enough to send you into the arms of the next safe thing — this is why you don’t do this, isn’t it, this reaching out bit, but no advocacy group on the planet is going to save you from yourself today.

I saw… I saw you win that case. Pretty brutal, standing up to the Syndicate, and getting what you did. He steamrolls past the way you wince, his thumb on that metaphorical bruise and pressing, the Prosecutor’s dogged determination demanding answers, I have a friend in the office, he was convinced you’d be climbing the ranks.

Every word is a twist of the knife, couched in quiet concern, gentle admonition, a warm hug in a smoky tenor and you want to tell him everything, you want to break down in his arms and tell him every word, every buried piece of you he never learned, everything that’s led you to this.

You don’t.

You know better than to trust him too. No one’s going to take care of you but you so instead you shake your head and wave it off and Decided going into the private sector was the better option — one big win doesn’t really make up for the stress, you know.

Private sector. That’s what you’re calling the SHIELD Syndicate now? C’mon, Sunshine…

Look. It’s the Syndicate’s New York, when he made the offer it was… safer than saying no. It’s a cushy position anyway, and I didn’t want anyth—

He doesn’t believe you. He doesn’t believe you and you’re digging a hole trying to explain your way out of it so you just… shut up, shaking your head, It’s not important. I’m fine. I’m more curious about you — what year is it now, your fourth? What are you doing in New York?

The deflection works, but the look on his face is obvious — you’re not getting out of this so easily. He gives in for now, just for now, for you.

Almost fifth, gearing up for re-election. Had a meeting up here… about the organized crime situation for both states, and I remembered you were in the area.

Oh. You… it’s been a while since we talked, you remembered?

You expect me to forget you, Sunshine?

That stops you in your tracks, or whatever road your mind had been racing on, thoroughly not enjoying the defensive you’ve been on since you met with Steve, constantly under watch and waiting for yet one more shoe to fall on you.

That’s fear, sweetness.

Andy…?

You were the best campaign aide I had — I told you then too, I would have made you Chief of Staff if you’d let me.

It’s a good save. A clever save, and you want to believe it more than anything, want to believe it was all business and no pleasure because the alternative makes your nails bite into the table and want to turn tail before he can say another word and he… sees that panic flicker over your face so keenly it’s almost embarrassing.

You’re not used to this.

You’re not used to the warmth of his eyes when he searches your face for the answers you can’t give voice to. You’re not used to the way he reaches for your hand and rests it over your fingers, curling around your palm like he might actually keep you close and keep you safe and keep you free of the demons you made a part of yourself too.

Sunshine, why does his voice have to be so soft, why does it have to sound like molten honey on your senses, why does he have to say your name like it’s the very definition of the word hope, If you’re not safe…

No. No you’re not, tell him tell him the truth, tell him you’re atoning for the girl you could not protect tell him you aren’t worth it tell him this is your penance tell him you signed a death warrant tell him tell him tell him.

Andy, really. I’m fine. It’s a good job.

It’s a shit lie.

He drops it. Drops it just long enough for a waiter to finally come by, for his hand to leave yours while he talks through the wine menu. Drops it long enough for you to check your phone, realizing with horror that you must have silenced it absentmindedly sometime on your way here.

Ten missed calls.

All from Steve.

And one text, stamped from just five minutes ago.

[SMS] Either you pick up your phone or I pick you up, Counsel.

The next one comes right before your eyes, a picture of a map and a GPS pin. Your location.

You glance up at Andy, still talking to the waiter about the small plates options, feign a smile and Go ahead and choose, you have better taste than me, and return to staring at the picture and the three dots at the bottom of your screen, waiting to see his next message.

[SMS] Make your choice.

The haptic feedback of your keyboard feels like an electric shock with every letter, hurried fingers until you manage to tap out something that won’t immediately put the man in front of you in the crosshairs of the most dangerous organization in New York.

You can’t do that to him. You can’t.

[SMS] I’m at a dinner with a friend.

[SMS] And since I know there’s no emergencies pressing, I’d like my time, thank you.

You have the good sense to set it next to you this time, watching your screen light up with whatever furious response he sends next, glancing over only occasionally every time another one comes through. Don’t let him control you. Don’t let him think you’re at his beck and call.

You’re not.

You’re free, you’re free and you’re going to prove it.

Sunshine? What’s going on?

His voice cuts through the haze of panic like a knife and you swear you don’t mean to jump but you do and there’s no denying what he notices, eyes narrow and lips turned down in a sharp scowl, Sunshine…?

You are not that girl. You cannot be that girl, never again.

Steel. Steel yourself, flash him a smile, take a sip of the ice water left in front of you while you’d been checking your phone, reset yourself. Steady. Steady on.

Don’t let them know.

Nothing, nothing, just the boss — let him know I was busy.

Why is he texting you after hours? The Syndicate can’t be that busy.

He’s too watchful for your own good. Probably just making sure I’m staying out of trouble.

Are you?

Are you calling yourself trouble, Senator?

You like this. You can handle this, the trading of jokes, the crooked way he smiles. His eyes are a little more distant than you remember but you can still see them sparkle softly when he suppresses a laugh, lighting up properly when the joy reflects in them.

Briefly, you wonder when the last time he really laughed was.

By the time dinner is over, his hand, warm and steady, is back on yours as you talk — and for a moment you almost enjoy the way he runs his thumb over your knuckles absently, like he’s making careful appraisal of each one. Could use your skills for the re-election campaign, you know.

Really? You’ve got a gorgeous approval rating, what are you afraid of?

Not having my good luck charm on the staff.

Andy…

I’m dead serious, Sunshine, you ran that ship. You were what, a 2L? Rising 3? You had canvassing down to a science. We need that energy down on the Hill.

The curve of his fingers is a little tighter now, squeezing yours, like proof of his earnestness and oh, you want to keep believing him. You need to keep believing him.

There’s so much in New York I have to get done first. And besides, you know me. I want a life on the bench.

Justice Sunshine, and it sounds absurd when he uses your nickname and it sounds so real when he uses your nickname and in the warm smoke of his voice those contradictions can live together all at once.

That’s the one. Closest you’ll see me to Washington is when I’m appointed to the Supreme Court. It’s a dumb, arrogant, silly joke but it’s the same one you used to make with him over drinks, teasing him about his political goals and making him promise to “go easy on you” at your eventual Senate confirmation hearing.

It’s the one that makes him crack that too-beautiful crooked smile while he takes a sip of his drink — hiding the curve of his lips behind the rim of a heavy glass.

Well. If you ever decide to ditch—

Ever decide to ditch what?

The world moves in slow motion: hearing the low growl from behind you; Andy Barber looking up and rising to his feet, his hand slipping from yours with just the ghost of his comfortable touch to assure you; Steve Rogers coming into view as you turn, flanked by the not-entirely-unfamiliar faces of two of his enforcers — it looked like Wilson and Banner had been selected this evening — and the sudden pressure of knowing you’ve done something terribly, terribly wrong.

You stood me up, Counsel. Steve’s voice is a threat, a half-drawl as you stand up and face him, Andy right behind you, Something wrong with taking my phone calls?

She was busy, the sound of Andy’s voice is a balm to your soul and fuel to Steve’s fire, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he grits his teeth and resists the temptation to throw the first punch — you can see the fingers of his right hand curling into a fist, can’t you? The slow curve, the watching, wondering if you’ll make the right choice now that someone has chosen to try to lead you astray.

And who the fuck are you? If he can’t get you to respond, he’ll get something from the man talking for you, eyes trained on him like he’s debating whether his own frustration will make this interloper turn to nothingness and return you to his arms where you rightfullybelong.

Do you? Rightfully belong?

Senator Andy Barber. The title practically knocks the wind out of Steve’s sails and you can see it — he may be the Captain here, King of New York, ruler of his domain but he’s not stupid enough to openly attack a man with connections beyond the Syndicate’s web of influence. It’s a comfort and it’s not, all at once.

The room is still, vibrating with tension, the two men staring daggers at one another and you caught in the middle. I worked on Senator Barber’s campaign when he first ran for election, you manage out in some vain hope it might explain and mollify, only to be thoroughly disappointed — and judging by the way Banner winces, only to dig your grave further.

We’re talking about this later, Counsel. You’re coming home.

And what gives you the right to give her orders? You really are going to have to look back at Andy and beg him to not make this worse. You really are going to have to let him see your face, see that you’re afraid, sweetness. He’s not going to let you go easy and this should not terrify you as much as it does.

Senator Barber. It’s fine. Something must have come up,turning to face his burning eyes, until his face softens like he’s seeing you for the first time. And is he? Is he seeing how you just need him to let it go, let you go, drop the protectiveness and step back?

He has to, because he does, nodding before he grabs his coat and glances to the host station. If you say so, Sunshine. Take care of yourself. He doesn’t press, not knowing when he’s beat but knowing when you don’t want him to. When you’re not safe.

And Steve Rogers offers you his hand to walk you out.

And just what the hell did you think you were doing!?

Oh, and you control my time off the clock now too?

He dragged you back home.

No. Not to your apartment, that sanctuary away from all this you’d been allowed to keep as part of the “deal.” His home, the bedroom where you signed yourself away, the space he unraveled you and left you tangled in your new life.

He dragged you back home, in the grim silence of the backseat of his car and you waited. Waited for the inevitable explosion, the one prefaced by Wilson’s nervous looks and Banner’s cautious stare.

This explosion, where he rounds in on you, where livid is still too tame a term.

Meeting with a Senator? Ignoring my calls? I told you, you were mine tonight.

And I told you I had plans.

After I told you that you were mine, Counsel.

Okay. That’s true, even if you’re loathe to admit it.

Plans adjust. Andy wanted to—

Oh, Andy now? I thought it was Senator Barber? You’re really familiar with him, aren’t you, Counsel?

Just what the fuck are you implying?

Maybe you need a reminder of who you belong to.

He loves to do this. Wrap his big hand around your throat, remind you just how easily he can impose his power onto you, watch your protests die behind your eyes when you realize how useless words are in the face of his violence.

The furious look in your eyes is something to behold, the way you embed your nails into his wrist to try and drag him off you, all soft snarls and indignant huffs, You fucking asshole…

You’re mine, Counsel, and don’t you forget it. You gave yourself to me, remember?

Like I… like I had much of a choice, breathy, furious, and clawing at him.

Doesn’t matter. You’re mine, and clearly I need to make sure you know it…

Steve—!

Captain, sweetness, Captain, and don’t you forget it.

There’s a moment, when anger becomes transcendental, when it turns into something cold and calculating and prepared, when a plan forms behind his eyes and you watch as he looks down at you, so full of fury and fear all at once and you watch as he leans in so close and you feel his hand slide until he has you by the back of the neck, until his thumb is the thing pressing under your chin to keep your eyes on him, until the heel of his hand is the thing keeping you from shouting at him further. Such a stubborn little bitch…

You can almost see the words forming in his mind, the ones his mouth won’t say, I could be so good to you, but he doesn’t say them, sliding his lips over yours instead and it is… soft. A capturing of your mouth with his, not caring that you protest, only insistent on leaving you breathless and hazy-eyed from each tug of his lips on yours and there stokes the warmth of more than your rage, a different fire rising in your core, unbidden and unwelcome but yours to own and his to play with.

He can sense it, practically feel it, that mad serum racing through his veins and making his nostrils flare as he pulls back and watches you, lets the scent of your perfume fill his senses like a drug he can’t get enough of and, I should hate you too, for this, whispered low and hushed and you barely catch it, don’t you? Barely, but enough, enough to remember it was said just before he pulls you down with him into the depths of his own lust.

And into his lap, it seems, as he drags you down, sitting on the bed with you draped over his lap, an effortless shift in his skillful hands. You can protest, and you do, even daring to try to pull away with a kick of your legs and an indignant, What the hell do you think you’re doing?But you know it’s all futile, useless as he places one heavy hand on your back and lets the other slide over the smooth chiffon of your blouse, tracing a line along your spine with careful, practiced ease.

Would have preferred this with a little more… circumstance, sweetness, but you need to learn a lesson now and drastic times call for drastic measures.

You can turn your head slightly, to look at him, that wild-eyed fury so sweet on your face and you are still a wild creature he needs to tame but he is patient and he can do this for as long as it takes.

But you’re a sight like this, draped over his lap in a pencil skirt and blouse, so put together and proper and now so prone to him, helpless under the appraisal of his hands and the way he takes no time in hiking your skirt up around your waist. Captain! Your protest is met with a low chuckle, especially as he lets his palm curve around the round swell of your ass, before leaving a light swat on the soft flesh, to draw a yelp from your furious mouth.

If that’s all it takes to get you shouting, sweetness, you’re going to hate what comes next, smug and cruel, as you try to hold yourself up enough to look at him, met with his smirk and the simmering fury still bubbling in his eyes. To say you’re in danger still is an understatement, no doubt, and you know it.

I won’t make you count this time, but piss me off again, sweetness, and we’ll just see how much you can take, you hear me?

Oh you loathe him, really and truly loathe him, hissing with anger and embarrassment, so close to twisting in his arms and clawing at him but remembering his size and just how much worse it could get — but then there lies the undercurrent.

The one you loathe too, more than you hated him, that warmth. Seeping into your core, a low heat kindled by the sly softness of his lips on yours and the sure tenor of his voice, low and soothing even as he promised damnation. The one that — just like now — leaves you flushed and writhing while he purrs threats to you, massaging the soft skin and sliding the lace of your panties down to remove all barriers to the sex he owns so surely.

You open your mouth to argue with him but as you do, you feel his hand lift from your flesh and then the resounding SMACK of palm on skin, turning words into nothing but a sharp cry of pain, surprise, and lust. The heat rises just as your body tenses, reacting to the sudden attack on your delicate form, cheeks flushed. Even as your eyes well with tears your sex strives to betray you and — Oh do you like that, sweetness? — damn him for noticing.

Let me go, Captain, the threat is shaky, your voice wavering with something like want and panic all at once, and all it does is draw another laugh as he soothes the stinging mark left on your cheek, gentle as a lover and four times as cruel.

Do you know what I think, sweetness? And another raise of his palm, to strike you once more, listening to the way that cry of pain and surprise turns into a soft, involuntary moan the moment he begins to soothe the ache, I think you need this. Always so uptight, trying to be the head bitch in charge, aren’t you? Just looking for someone to take over, take control, remind you where your place is.

His fingers slip further, more interested in exploring the soft slickness of your sex, listening to your protests die in your throat with every press of his fingers into your plush folds. That’s why I’m here, to keep you in my lap, all fucked and soft, sweetness. Don’t you worry, I’m going to take care of you. Even if I have to teach you just like this.

You should hate the way he talks, hates how he finds your center with effortless ease, like he’s known your body for years. Holding you down in his lap still as he draws mewling moans from you with every curl of his fingers, finding the proof of his accusations in the slick need coating your thighs, soaking his fingers, You’re making such a mess of me, sweetness. Are you going to be good?

Hiss at him. Snarl at him, buck your hips and twist in his arms, push him away. Do something more than what you are now, with red-rimmed eyes and tears staining your face, do more than listen to him talk, feel his cock pressing against you as you lay in his lap, I’m going to ask it one more time, sweetness. Are. You. Going. To. Be. Good?

He punctuates each word of his question with a harsh smackagainst your ass, leaving little time for you to do more than cry out, until the last spank draws something like a moan from your perfect lips and therein lies your surrender for tonight, that soft mewl of pleasure born of pain and he soothes you again with soft shushes and gentle touches, back to inspecting the renewed slickness of your cunt, back to enjoying that plump tightness wrapped around his fingers and back to trying to control the shift of his own hips and you can feel him, hard against you, needing you as much as he is compelling your body to need him.

Captain… a low, desperate sort of mewl, the squirm of your body less to escape and more to enticeand he notices. Notices the way your fingers try to cling to him, notices how you look so very sweet when you’re so very desperate and in some way this is your own game of control, a push and pull and the curl of his fingers is suddenly so much angrier, driving you to the precipice of the fall and you are tumbling, tumbling down into a darkness of want you may never recover from.

Say it again. Tell me you need me, sweetness, tell me you need me and I’ll give you everything, and there’s an edge to the way he says everything, like he might meanit, like he might give you the world if you just gave in and you hate him, sweetness, you hate him but you need the things you hate once in a while and you can’t keep bearing his fury on your body and so you sob out your surrender and whine—

I need you, Captain, please…

And that is enough.

Let him believe you.