#I'm trying not to bring it up too much because I don't think I'm well-informed enough to say anything people aren't already saying better

[elexuscal]

I watchrd the murder bot show. I heard some book fans think it’s nonbinary and some argue it likes it pronouns. Why? Isn’t it dehumanizing? And is the guy who forced it to Murderbot to make eye contact, via orders ableist? I can see why book readers think it is autistic coded. I feel weird calling a nonbinary-coded, autistic-coded lifeform it. Does it really prefer those pronouns? I read on tumblr thay apparently it does. I personally don’t prefer it/it’s pronouns, but not all enbies are the same.

Hiya!

I suppose it's not surprising that an ask like this would show up, if not in my inbox, than somebody's! Murderbot's pronouns are something I've consistently seen lots of questions about over the years, and with an influx of new folks being introduced due to the show, there's going to be more than ever.

First of all: thanks for asking these questions. I think when first being introduced to a new idea, such as a set of pronouns you're unfamiliar with, asking open and honest questions shows great intellectual curiosity and interest in understanding others.

There's a few different questions in this ask, so I'm going to try and break this down into sections, and to tackle them one by one. (And for the record, most of my answers here will be in reference to the books, not the TV show, because a) I haven't seen the show [yet] and b) there's only 2 episodes of it out right now anyway. I have no idea how closely the two texts are going to align, but I certainly hope it doesn't take away the book series' queer themes and representation.)

1. What's Murderbot's gender, and what pronouns does it use?

Murderbot is agender/non-gendered, and uses it/its pronouns.

For the record, I don't think this is just a reading or an interpretation. Rather, this is canonical, and on the same level as saying, "Bruce Wayne is a man who uses he/him pronouns."

Admittedly, there's never a place where the character says "My name is Murderbot, I'm non-binary, and I use it/its pronouns." In my opinion, one of the the strengths of the books is that it has much more subtle worldbuilding than that, both in general and in regards to casual queerness. However, throughout its first-person narration, Murderbot consistently uses "it" to refer to itself, and shows a general alienation and distaste for gender stuff in general. Its friends/allies, even after long acquaintance, continue using it/its.

Textual examples include:

Book 1: Yes, talk to Murderbot about its feelings. The idea was so painful I dropped to 97 percent efficiency. Book 2: To initiate the meeting, I’d had to make an entry on the social feed, too. The system was extremely vulnerable to hacking, so I had backdated my entry to look like I had come in on an earlier passenger transport, listed my job as “security consultant,” and my gender as indeterminate. Book 5: "No, it says it's fine," I heard her relaying to others on the comm. "Well, yes, it's furious." Book 6: I posted a feed ID with the name SecUnit, gender = not applicable, and no other information. Book 7: I was as indifferent to human gender as it was possible to be without being unconscious.

And while I think it's unnecessary, given the textual evidence, we can bring in Word of God too, courtesy of the book's author Martha Wells:

So, okay, Murderbot uses it/its pronouns! Which leads into the next question...

Why does Murderbot use 'It/Its' pronouns? Isn't that dehumanizing?

Yes, and that's just the way Murderbot likes it!

I think the reason this is often a stumbling block for folks is that a main focus of the early series-- especially book 1, or as the case may be, first episodes of the new adaptation-- is establishing that Murderbot Is A Person. From there, it's an easy leap to go: Therefore, Murderbot Is Human. After all, it has a human face.

But the second part of the central theme is: Murderbot is a person, but not a human person.

It is half-bot, half-human, all SecUnit. It has things in common with both of those halves, and emergent properties unique to itself. More than that, Murderbot is deeply alienated from the human experience. It spent the majority of its life being treated like an object, and appliance, and a weapon.

Murderbot chooses to embrace those aspects of its identity by continuing to use it/its pronouns. And yeah, it's clear that this often makes other folks feel uncomfortable. But that's a big part of it too. Murderbot's arc is about learning how to exist, as itself, unapologetically. It doesn't need to sand off those uncomfortable parts of its existence that make the humans around it uncomfortable. They just have to deal.

Okay, but that's Murderbot, a fictional character. What about actual real people?

That's a great point! And indeed, I don't care so much about Murderbot's pronouns for its own sake. It's a fictional character, it can't and doesn't care what real world people call it. But I think respecting its pronouns is an extension of respecting real living folks who DO use it/its pronouns, so let's talk about it!

(And for the record, I am not nonbinary. I'm also not not nonbinary? But I'm a sapphic butch with an often masc gender presentation, so it's like, an Overlap. My point being I'll do my best to speak to this perspective, but really, you're best seeking out the perspectives of actual it/its users and nonbinary folks.)

Various non-binary, agender, and other gender queer folks use it/its pronouns. The reasons vary hugely. Explanations I've seen are:

Generally feeling alienated from the human experience

Feeling a greater connection to non-human identities, like animals or robots

Connection to the many beautiful things exist in the world which (in English) have it/its pronouns applied to them-- think the ocean, or food, or celestial bodies.

A gender neutral pronoun that doesn't introduce the plural ambiguity of 'they/them' and isn't a neopronoun set folks need to learn.

Reclamation of insults they've received

and idk, they just sort of like it? Sometimes things aren't that deep.

And probably a whole bunch more reasons!

And really, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what I think of it. While we can get deep into the theory of pronouns, at the end of the day, using the pronouns people prefer is just common courtesy. You can personally find it weird and uncomfortable, and you can work through it in your own time... But if someone asks, just use the pronouns they want!

Was the guy who forced it to Murderbot to make eye contact via orders ableist?

Okay, again, I haven't seen the show yet, so I don't have full context. But was the guy Gurathin? I bet it was Gurathin. While he didn't do that specifically in the book, he did pull some similar stunts.

In short, yeah, probably. It's a dick move regardless.

In long, I don't think he was being deliberately ableist. The guy is viewing the situation through a very different framework, namely, 'this SecUnit is a threat and a danger, and I am trying to control the situation'. Very likely, if he met a human colleague or acquaintance who asked not to make eye-contact, or just very clearly didn't like it, he probably would be chill and accommodating.

But the thing is, plenty of folks are ableist in day-to-day life without meaning to be ableist! You'll see folks be like "this person is so annoying because they do 'X thing', and it's not like they have an autism diagnosis or anything", as if the formal diagnosis is a magic wand to make certain behaviours okay. In general, things would be better if we just got better at accommodating benign behaviours that exist outside the norm without explanation.

[And frankly, my bigger concern here is less "ableism", and more "using his social power to force somebody who is a slave to follow his orders", but that's neither here nor there.]

Is it ableist to call a non-binary coded, autistic coded lifeform it/its?

Well, I mean, context matters?

A lot of shitty people will use it/its in a cruel way to various neurodivergent and queer people. They are deliberately intending to demean and dehumanize. That's shitty. Whether that's ableist or queerphobic would depend on the context, but it would be deliberately shitty.

And indeed, if you were to take another similar character... say Data from Star Trek, or Peridot from Steven Universe, and call either of them 'it', then again, depending on the context, I might call that shitty too! Their canonical pronouns are he/him and she/her respectively, and refusing to use those pronouns because "they're not really people" or "it's not a man/woman" would be a deliberately provoking move.

But if someone-- be it a fictional character, and even more so, a real person-- asks to be called "it"? That's their choice. The context has changed. It's not ableist, it's not queerphobic. That's just respecting them.

[aingeal98]

AU where instead of going back to Gotham after the end of her og Batgirl series Cass instead vanishes on a quest to revive Steph from the dead. Because she's died twice and been revived, which means everyone else in the world deserves at least two do overs as well.

Bruce panicks and represses, Babs openly panicks and freaks out, Tim is... Not fine but doing better than the other two, because Cass texted him about it before dropping off the face of the earth, basically letting him know she was going to try and bring Steph back from the dead and asking him if he could look after her rose in the manor. A second text came in ten minutes after that informing him that the rose's name is Bob.

So Cass, like in canon, ends up taking over the League for a bit. Only this time she's doing it to learn more about resurrection. She doesn't kill Nyssa, but she does fake her death in front of Talia, because she can clearly see that something isn't right. Cue Nyssa being locked up, Cass trying to figure out how to unbrainwash Talia, and Damian meeting his future sister absolutely disgusted that someone is daring to usurp his birthright.

Cass: Oh I don't actually want this job, no worries. But uh... You're Batman's son, yes? I will be taking that job later. Sorry.

So Cass uses the League's resources to find out ways to bring Steph back, while also turning the organisation into an entirely nonlethal operation. They do some good work, she's not willing to throw them all out. They're wounded damaged assassins, of course she's going to look at them and go "I can fix them."

She eventually tracks down a device that can warp reality, (personally I'm thinking a Kheran Dream Engine, because Cass would listen to the warnings of it possessing you and the only way to get free being torture and death and be like nice. Let's give it a shot) and uses it to rewrite the universe so that Steph was just recovering with Leslie, undoes Talia's brainwashing fully, and also makes it so that Bludhaven never got nuked. She tells no one that she's planning this of course, so it ends up being a very emotional and confusing day for Leslie and Dick.

She then buries the device in the middle of nowhere. Because wayyyy too much power. Heads back to the League where she gets Talia to torture her to death and then drop her in the Pit so that she's free from the influence of the reality warping device. This is not a pleasant experience for either of them. Damian tries to watch and Talia uses her mom voice for the first time ever to tell him absolutely fucking not.

It works in the end. Talia offers to take the League back from Cass but Cass can tell her heart's not in it and is like nah. You go do your own antihero espionage stuff, you deserve it. And Talia's like that sounds wonderful but what about Damian?

And that's how exactly a year and a half after cutting all contact, Cassandra Wayne, The One Who Is All, head of the League of Assassins, comes strolling into a Wayne gala with Stephanie Brown on her left, Talia Al Ghul on her right and Bruce's unknown biological son in front of her.

Bruce shatters his champagne glass. Babs drops hers on the ground. Tim passes out and Dick is in too much shock to catch him.

"Hi." Cass grins. "I'm home."

[marzipanandminutiae]

it's not confirmed that the couple is from Brooklyn, in which case saying so feels a bit off to me. like they're trying to link Jewish Americans- commonly associated with New York City -directly to the genocide happening in Gaza. I'm not here for that. what's happening there is absolutely depraved and evil, and I oppose it in the strongest possible terms. but antisemitism is unacceptable- the issue is the Israeli government, not Jewish people writ large

this is from an Al-Jazeera story and that story says nothing about where the couple now living in the house came from

(also, as a bit more context, the elderly couple was driven out of their home- the village of Izjim -by the Israeli army in 1948. not by the people in the picture directly. which does not make it better; the newcomers are living on stolen land and made extremely callous statements about "not feeling anything" when told that their house was built on the wreckage of the elderly man's home. but the caption implies that the Palestinians in the picture are facing down the exact people who kicked them out, and that's factually not the case)

(source)

This is so fucked up.

[celtrist]

Next thing you'll say is he doesn't have a tail

ref to this pic

EDIT: Just to keep things clear I didn't really think about bringing it up but not everyone's gonna click to see the first picture and might be confused. Alastor was stated to know only a little bit of broken French, the reasoning due to being from New Orleans. Speaking standard French is very much not a thing in New Orleans, so he would logically only know French-Creole. This is very different from the standard French language and a large misconception that people from New Orleans speak regular French. So yes, he does speak some French, just not as well as people make him nor would it, in theory, be the regular French that everyone makes him speak [but I wouldn't put it past the writers to not do that research but maybe I have too little faith in them]. I'm not from New Orleans, I visited it once so it's not like I'm an expert. But I HAVE looked into it and just bothering with one Google search will tell you it's not common and you'll even have a special term called "Louisiana French" pop up. With that all said, these were statements made on years past streams and could've been changed in the official series. However, as of right now, the official statement is that he speaks only a little broken French that should technically be French-Creole if they're going by and that he's from New Orleans to know that language. And again, I don't have a lot of faith in writers to do the research into it being Louisiana French rather than regular French, but now I'm rambling lol This is just a bit of context for this comic so people who were curious can understand it a bit more. And it's totally possible I got something wrong, so feel free to point it out when I do. I just like to dig into the nooks and crannies of information for things :3 2nd EDIT: Just for any future reblogs, I did get somethings incorrect in the above (not surprising), so here's some of the corrections I got:

@mangotangerine: "A tiny nitpick - it would likely be Louisiana Creole, which is one of the French-based Creole languages (Haitian Creole is prob the most well known as it has about 10-12 million speakers vs Louisiana Creole which has around 10,000 due to multiple factors but especially legislation in early 1920s outlawing it). Louisiana French is an umbrella term for the various French dialects/etc in the region (e.g., the dialect Cajun French)." (We actually had a whole conversation in the comments of this post and highly suggest looking down there in case you're interested in learning more!)

@alyssumflowers: "I am from New Orleans and a little bit of a language nerd. You're confusing some things here. Cajun French is a dialect of French. My great grandmother spoke it fluently, my grandfather in pieces.

Louisiana Creole is another language entirely. The word "creole" means mixed and a creole language is basically a mixture of two or more languages. Sort of, it's a linguistics thing. Anyways. Louisiana Creole has next to no speakers left and I've had a hard time trying to find somewhere or someone to learn it from because I really want to." (Always great to hear from someone who has more insider knowledge on the subject! So I wanted to give this it's share due as well, hope you can fine somewhere to learn it! /ᐠ > ˕ <マ ₊˚⊹♡ )

Thank you for the comments! My previous statement still stands about Al probably not speaking normal French, but I wanted these corrections still known and pointed out :3

[pnutbutter-n-j-elyy]

They Unknowingly Bring Up and Insecurity| Seungmin Pt2

Pt1 Pt3

Seungmin sat in the living room with the guys while you were in the kitchen with Lee Know preparing something for your guy's weekly hangout. You all decided on playing monopoly together, with you and Seungmin partnering up.

Bangchan carefully set up the board while Felix was handing out the money.

"Seungmin hyung." Jeongin asked as he handed his elder the thimble to him.

"Is Y/N okay? She's been really quiet. She won't even talk to me." Jeongin's face was droopy as he stuck his lip out. "I was wondering if she was upset about something?"

Seungmin took a breath and spoke quietly. His voice soft and rather sad.

"I think I said something that hurt her feelings really bad." His voice was starting to wobble a bit, and that told Jeongin all he needed to know.

"Did you say sorry?"

Seungmin nodded and his cheeks puffed out slightly as he pouted. "She said she was okay but I don't believe her."

Jeongin grabbed the hat and messed with it. "Well, what did you say to her?" He inquired.

Seungmin pulled out his phone and scrolled up to his texts with you. Which it didn't take long for him to scroll up because you hadn't been texting him as often. He only heard from you for important or urgent things, and he was missing the little random blurbs of somewhat unnecessary - but entirely endearing - information about what you were doing.

He handed his phone to Jeongin and the maknae quickly read it through.

"Hyung, you know why Y/N and her last boyfriend broke up right...?"

Seungmin shook his head and Jeongin opened his mouth to speak but you walked in with Minho with a tray of snacks.

"Did Minho teach you how to make something new?" Chan asked you. Seungmin could tell the rest of the guys had picked up on your odd silence, but you nodded.

"Kinda...he taught me how to set a charcuterie board. It's pretty."

You set it down and Jisung immediately went to go grab something.

"MMM Y/N THIS IS SO GOOD!!" He popped a piece of cheese into his mouth and his cheeks puffed up. "You need to teach me now!!"

The effort Jisung had given to get you to respond was in vain.

"Jiji, I just grabbed the cheese from a package..."

The wide eyed quokka boy scratched his neck. "Oh um. Its still good though."

Throughout the first thirty minutes of you guys playing, minimal conversation was made and Seungmin was feeling antsy.

He missed your voice.

When you stood up to go to the bathroom and go restock the snack supply all the guys turned to you.

"Seungmin apologize. I miss my baby girl..." Jisung whined.

Seungmin deadpanned and Jisung frowned. "What she was my baby girl before she became your baby girl..."

"I don't know how I'm supposed to fix it! I don't know what I did wrong really..."

"Hyung, her boyfriend broke up with her because of her tendency to overshare...and you know...talk a lot."

Seungmin's puppy eyes narrowed as his eyebrows furrowed. "What?"

"It was a stupid reason to break up really. She only told me because one time she was feeling insecure when we were hanging out and some lady told me that 'my girlfriend talked a lot'; which I told her that I wasn't dating her but also that it didn't matter because I talk a lot too." Jeongin frowned.

Seungmin blinked a few times and bit his bottom lip.

"I don't think she's upset at you Seungmin..." Changbin spoke. "From what I see it seems like she's trying not to be a burden."

"Burden?"

"She doesn't want you to break up with her so she's trying to change that aspect about herself. You're naturally a quiet person and she probably thinks she's too much for you and that you'll get tired of it."

Seungmin shook his head. "No! I could never get tired of Y/N-ie!"

Chan chuckled. "You guys really are perfect for each other." He says, marveling in his work. "But...tone doesn't translate over text."

"And you're a sarcastic motherfucker." Minho adds.

Hyunjin stretches across the floor. "You can say that again."

Jisung huffs. "Well go on and apologize! Because I want my gossip buddy back! She never finished telling me about the drama on her mom's side of the family! I was invested in which side piece got her cousin pregnant!"

Hyunjin shoots up, sniffing the drama. "Ya! Seungmin fix it! I want to know now too!"

Seungmin looked down at the board as he contemplated just how he could fix this.

Because sometimes words weren't the cure.

But actions were.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry for the short work 🫠. But in all the drafts of my 3 part angst series (oops theres more?) the 2nd part tends to be shorter since its the down hill of the plot.

[sigweiner]

⌁₊˚ Shiver ˚₊⌁ {P2}

Pairing: Jinx x Fem!/Gnc!/Reader

Word Count: 4.7k

Summary: You seek advice with an acquaintance before 'reconciling' with Jinx on Silco's office desk. Bonus fluff with Isha in the end.

Warnings!: fluff, smut, swearing, angst, t06!c relationship, substance use, mentions of dark ses and physical stuff.

a/n: I'm working on part 3 and 4 bc I had so much fun writing this. Also, I appreciate everyone that interacts with my posts ♡. English is not my first language, sorry for the weird punctuation and sentences. Minors and creeps dni.

{P1} {P3}

You haven't shown up at the hideout in a week. You've been staying at different places every day since that night as to prevent Jinx from tracking you down, even though you didn't believe she would try to since you were a major jerk to her after what was probably her first time with someone ever. You’ve been punishing yourself for that too even though you weren’t entirely sure you were her first. You’ve been drinking yourself to sleep every night since then. The irony in this whole situation is that that party was supposed to cheer you up and bring you out of gloomsville but it only managed to sink you further into a dark hole.

Maybe you should apologize and try to understand what really happened, but you’re pretty sure she’ll try to blow your head off after psychologically torturing you but at the same time you can’t keep up like this, it’s exhausting. So you think of the only person you know with a semblance of knowledge and that you can go fish for advice. Getting up from the dirty floor you slept on, you throw on your hooded cloak to go meet her and start to move through the shadows of the dirty zaunite streets without being noticed by anybody until you reach an alley where three people are sitting around a wooden crate, drinking, smoking and playing cards.

Sevika has a cigarette in her mouth and grins wickedly at the hand she’s been dealt. You try to figure out a way to alert her of your presence but in no time she’s throwing cards on the table and collecting her winnings for the night. She doesn't linger so you follow her around the maze of streets and alleyways. She keeps looking back, checking if anybody is following her, her instincts probably warning her that someone actually is. She stops to light another cigar and rests her back on a nearby wall so you take the opportunity to come out of the shadows, appearing in front of her.

“Damn, you look like death itself.” She says with a raised eyebrow. “Came to finish the job after all?” But there’s no real concern to her voice.

“Can we um… talk?” You ask, uncertain about how you’re going to bring this about with Sevika, of all people.

“Talk? You sure you’re not confusing me with someone else?” She lets out a dark chuckle and you roll your eyes at her reaction, she wasn’t about to make this easy for you.

“Yeah… have you uh… seen Jinx lately?” You hate how insecure you sound, being this vulnerable is making you want to give up and bolt.

“Jinx huh? Aren’t you two practically glued to each other?” She asks with an amused smirk on her face.

“We had a fight. No, actually I fucked up…” You say looking down at the floor. Sevika lets out a laugh.

“Well that’s not unheard of coming from you.” She teases. You sigh heavily and shake your head but you kind of deserve it. “She’s been looking for you, y’know?” Sevika says seriously now. You look up at her surprised to hear this piece of information.

“Really? Is she still mad? Do you think I should go back to the hideout?” You blurt out, hope growing in your chest.

“Slow down kid. Listen, I'm not gonna tell you what to do. Especially because I don't give a damn about your little lovers quarrel.” She starts explaining her line of thought before taking a break to puff out her cigar. “What I'm going to tell you is this: that crazy girl is obsessed with you and that kid. She's been nagging me about helping her find you this entire week. Which I don't appreciate one bit. So for the sake of my sanity and both of your safety, you should go and take care of this.” She finishes with an annoyed look but you appreciate her words greatly.

“We're not lov-” You star to retort but she gives you a death glare which makes you halt. “Okay fine, I’ll take care of it.” You tell her earnestly.

“Good.” She pushes herself off of the wall and throws the remains of her cigar on the floor. “Now fuck off, Shiv.” That's the first time you ever hear her call you by your alias which brings you a sense of respect. You chuckle, starting to disappear in the shadows.

“Thanks, Sevika.” Your disembodied voice reverberates through the empty alley.

“Tsk, creepy kid.” Is the last thing you hear her say from a distance before you turn around the next corner.

The familiar feeling of fear burns inside your chest when you reach Jinx’s hideout but you find it eerily quiet and still. There's no sign of the blue haired girl but you spot Isha snoozing peacefully on the orange couch. You approach her silently to move some hair off her face and kiss her forehead gently. She stirs a bit but doesn't wake up and you take a moment to just admire her easy slumber.

You're glad at least little Isha is safe and unbothered by this whole ordeal between you and Jinx, although you did cause more instability by leaving unexpectedly. She is the better part between the three of you and not being around her just made everything worse. You wonder if she even missed you because you’ve definitely missed hanging out with her. Before you leave, you cover her little figure with a blanket so she doesn't get cold.

You rack your brain for places where Jinx might be. You check the nearby bathroom and the next door building's roof where you very probably took her virtue, but there was no sign of her. You try not to think of that night, her soft lips, the way she felt around your fingers or your stupid harsh words, but it was all still very vivid in your head.

You wish you could go back in time and do everything differently but there's no point in dwelling on that, you need to find her. So the next place you can think of is Silco’s old office, Jinx had dragged you there before to retrieve something from her secret stash when you were still her prisoner, so you try to remember how to get there.

You move as fast as you can through the shadows but nights at Zaun were very much busy and filled with people, which makes you take longer than necessary just to avoid anyone. You finally manage to reach the abandoned office but you stop outside the door when you hear her speaking softly, then angrily, seemingly trying to process a lot of different emotions.

You take a deep breath before quietly stepping in, careful not to make any noise and alert her to your presence, so you wait for the right opportunity. From where you're standing you can see pow-pow holstered on her hip and that she's wearing different clothes. Striped purple pants and a black crop top, which are certainly new. You wonder what happened to her old clothes.

When you step into the light after she finally gets quiet, she sees your reflection on the big round window in front of her. A bullet misses you by inches, leaving a cut on your cheek that draws some blood. You don't react, shit if she wants to shoot you right through your chest you would let her, that's how much you believe you need punishment for what you did. Jinx lets out an angry grunt and uses her superspeed to come halfway close to you when she suddenly stops to scream at the voices to shut up.

“Where the fuck have you been?!” She screams at you now. “You're MINE Shiv! Don't you fucking get it?! Why did you leave me?!” Her voice cracks in the end and she starts crying, body shaking as she starts to sob uncontrollably. You chance a step towards her but she shoots by your feet making you freeze again.

“I-I know, I fucked up big time, Jinx.” You tell her desperately, tears also running down your face. “Please forgive me. I'll do anything you want. I'll never run again, fuck you can lock me up in a cage again if you want, but please… I'm so sorry.” You beg, reaching a hand forward from where you're standing several feet away from her. She grabs the sides of her head and shakes it, trying to shut down the voices.

“You're sorry? How fucking dare you toy with my feelings like that?! I gave myself to you completely and you treat me like I'm some... animal you can chase away when you're done playing with it… you made me feel so good… called me princess and then treated me like I'm some just street trash…” She rants between sobs and your heart shatters in a million pieces.

“I know, I-I was a total asshole loser. I didn't know you had these feelings… I didn't know you were a… that that might have been your first… everything really. I mean, was it?” You need to know, damn if it’s true you would’ve done everything differently. She huffs angrily and turns away from you, hugging her middle as if trying to close herself from you.

“Does it matter now? You can’t change what happened.” She says with a shaky voice and zaps back to sit on the wooden desk, propping a foot on the swivel chair that once belonged to her father. Her shoulders are still shaking from crying but at least she’s not screaming anymore.

“I guess it doesn’t. But I wish I could’ve done things differently. If I had known about your feelings… I guess I shouldn’t have been so stubborn and ignored my own.” You slowly start to move closer to her when she puts her gun aside.

“Try asking next time.” She says, seeming exhausted. You manage to round the desk and stand in front of her. She glances at you, makeup all smeared underneath her eyes, and looks away. You want to reach out so badly and hold her in your arms, but you don’t want to trigger her any further.

“Okay, then. Do you… like me, Jinx? As more than friends or whatever we have going on, I mean.” You question her honestly. Your face burns furiously though, being this forward feels foreign to you.

“Yes dummy, I’ve been in love with you for a while now.” She finally looks at you and chuckles at your reaction. You’re completely dumbfounded, the look of shock on your face practically comical. What does she mean she’s in love with you? Your brain is trying hard to add two plus two but it takes you a minute.

“You - you’re in love with me?” You ask incredulously. Jinx nods timidly, her cheeks starting to blush a deep pink. “I uh… wow. I really wasn’t expecting that but... if I’m being honest with myself… I think I’ve been in love with you for a while too.” You manage to say before bursting into tears. Jinx reaches out an arm to you and you take her hand. She pulls you towards her, snuggling you between her legs and you practically melt into her, burying your face on her neck as she embraces you.

“Oh my silly Trinket.” She purrs against your hair. She moves a hand to cradle the back of your head while the other rubs circles on your back. You’re both still crying, the weight of all that was said and done falling upon you.

“I should- should be the one comforting you.” You say between sobs. “I’m so sorry, Jinx. I’ll never hurt you ever again.” You promise her, lifting up your head to look her in the eyes. She gives you a teary smile and caresses your cheek, making you lean into her touch.

“You better not.” She says, chuckling. “I don’t think I can survive another one of these.” She gestures between you two. You laugh timidly, wiping under your nose when she leans in to kiss your cheek, the one cut by her bullet. Your eyes flutter from feeling the softness of her lips on your skin and you instinctively rest your hands on her waist.

Jinx wipes your tears and blood gently and pulls you in for a tight hug, snaking her legs around your waist and laying her head on your chest, close to your fluttering heart. You cup the back of her neck to caress it lightly, goosebumps rising to the brush of your fingers. She lets out a heavy sigh and tightens her grip on you. You swear you could stay like this forever, having the heat of her body warm up your soul. And to think you almost gave this up because you couldn't let yourself be vulnerable.

“My chaos princess, I'm so lucky to be yours.” You say against the top of her head. She looks up at you with doey eyes before leaning in to kiss your lips. You sigh into the kiss and cup her face with shaky hands. Gods, how you missed the taste of her so you graze your tongue on her bottom lip seeking entrance and she lets you deepen the kiss.

Your tongues dance languidly against one another very unlike the first time you two kissed, no desperation or urgent desire motivating your actions, just simply wanting to memorize every stroke and every breath and every shiver elicited. You can't help but let out a moan when her hands run up your back, breaking the kiss. She takes the opportunity to kiss a path down your neck, dragging her teeth on the tender skin of your pulse point. You let out a quiet ‘fuck’ when she starts suckling a hickey on the curve between your neck and shoulder. Although you definitely don't mind being marked by her, you pull gently on one of her braids making her move away from your neck so you can kiss her senseless.

Jinx is utterly pliant to your desires and lets you guide her wherever you want, you don't quite remember her ever being this willing to let go of any control except for that fateful night you had her writhing underneath you. In no time your hands start to wander, desperate for a reminder of what her thighs feel like. They're still firm like you remember but only now there was too much clothing covering them. She tries to pull you closer, tightening the grip of her legs around your hips. You smile against her lips before grinding against her crotch, making her let out a delicious moan.

“Getting a little excited aren't we?” You say close to her ear. She whines, seemingly frustrated that you're talking and not kissing her.

“You haven't earned teasing privileges yet, Trinket.” She says with a cute pout on her face. “Now, why don't you make it up to me by making me feel real good, huh?” She says planting that damn attractive smirk on her face.

“Anything for you princess.” You mirror her expression before connecting your lips in a soaring kiss. She hums in approval then lets you explore her mouth with your soft tongue. You take this opportunity to run your hands up her stomach and towards her chest.

“I like these new clothes by the way.” You digress, running your index fingers through her side boobs. “Though I prefer you in way less clothing.” You lick her lips playfully and she chases after your mouth.

“Yeah, I've noticed.” She loops a finger through the hoop on your choker to pull you close to her mouth. “I’ve caught up staring before. Several times.” She whispers and you can't help but feel a little embarrassed by that.

“Fuck, was I that obvious?” You feel your cheeks burn in embarrassment. The blue haired girl kisses your face sweetly.

“Yeah, but lucky for you I was really into it.” She giggles before closing the gap between you. You grind against her again before pulling up her top, exposing her chest to your hungry fingers. She whimpers when you pinch at her pierced nipple and tries to seek more friction on her core with her lower body, making your own arousal pool inside your pants.

You part from her mouth to whisper a suggestion in her ear. “I want to try something, will you let me?” She nods her head positively so you kiss the skin behind her year before looking her in the eyes. “I want to taste you, princess.” You say watching her reaction. Her eyes grow wide and her face turns red but she gives you a quiet okay.

“We don't have to if you don't want to.” You reassure her but she shakes her head furiously before grabbing onto your chest harness with shaky hands.

“No, please I- I want to.” She says timidly but plants a soft kiss on your lips. You hold her face with one hand.

“Okay, but just so you know, we can stop anytime you want, yeah?” You want to make sure she feels comfortable every step of the way. She nods again and it's your turn to kiss her tenderly.

You start to venerate her body by kissing down her neck, leaving a couple of bruises on her throat before showering her chest with attention. You loved on her small perky breasts, licking and biting her hardened nipples until she was a panting mess. Then you move to her stomach and her waist covered with the cloud tattoo you loved so much, not missing the opportunity to leave a few markings next to the line of her pants. You chance a glance up at her and you're met with a sight you wish you never forget. She has a frown between her eyebrows, her cheeks are flushed red and her lips are swollen from your kisses.

You untangle her legs from around you then lower yourself on your knees before hooking your fingers on the hem of her pants. “You okay over there?” You ask with an innocent smile. She lets out a frustrated whine.

“Fuck Y/N, please just take them off already.” She says impatiently. You chuckle but obey anyway, pulling down the offending clothes down her legs, boots going with it in the process.

You kiss her left feet and up her leg before reaching the inside of her thighs. Jinx is already trembling when you spread her legs further, entirely exposing her to you. Your mouth waters at what you find, her wetness already running down her inner thigh, engorged clit pulsating with want and outer lips are puffy from all the blood concentrated on her core. You snake your arms around her thighs and you pull her closer to the edge of the desk. She has a death grip on it, knuckles turning pale already.

“Can you hold my hair up for me, princess?” You ask politely, laying a kiss on her pubic mound. She complies and you feel her grip tighten when you lick a firm path through her pussy.

“Hoooly fuck.” She says, rolling her eyes inside her skull and dropping her head back. You smile at her reaction and continue slowly lapping at her with a firm tongue.

“You're so hot.” You tell her when you take a break to part her folds with two fingers.

“You should see yourself.” She replies, running her thumb through your jaw till it reaches your lips.

You open your mouth to expose your tongue to her, making her slide her finger on it. You smirk before wrapping your lips around it and start sucking and moving your head back and forth to cover the whole length of it with your saliva. She just looks at you, hypnotised. You take her hand, releasing her thumb with a pop, then guide it towards her own chest, smearing your saliva on her pierced nipple. “Shit, I'm gonna lose the rest of my sanity if you keep up like this.” She tells you in awe, pupils completely blown with desire.

“I definitely don't mind.” You chuckle before returning your attention to her dripping center. You massage her clit between your digits before pulling up its hood and wrapping your lips around it to give it gentle sucks. Above you, Jinx lets out an obscene moan that reverberates through your own body, making you moan against her as well.

“Oh fuck, I'm gonna - fuck, fuck, fuck, I can't hold-” She mumbles incoherently, unintentionally pulling on your hair so tight you let out a whimper against her. You let go of her protruding bud before she reaches her peak, making her protest with an impatient whine and she tries to force you back where she needs you by pushing your head forward but you diverge your face towards her inner thigh, biting down at it. She lets out a cry that sounds more like a moan so you soothe the bruise with your tongue.

“Be patient, princess.” You tell her before flicking your tongue lightly on her clit. She squirms and tries to close her legs involuntarily.

“Hah that tickles.” The feather-like sensation making her finicky.

“Humm. Do you prefer it more like this?” You apply more pressure when you lick her this time and you see her eyes flutter at the sensation.

“Yeeah, that's better. Just like that.” She drops her head back once more, mouth agape but still managing to hold your hair away from your face with one hand.

She's a true vision from where you are kneeling between her legs and you realise how close you already feel to your own orgasm just by pleasuring her. So when you tease two fingers on her entrance you decide to slide your free hand inside your pants to take care of yourself. Jinx looks back at you starved when your digits reach the back of her wall and you notice she's fighting hard not to close her eyes so she can watch you satisfy yourself while you fuck her. You finally give her throbbing bud the attention it deserves by sucking hard on it.

It only takes a few pumps of your fingers inside her until she's reaching her orgasm, shaking so hard around your head you need to reach over to steady her. You help her ride her high but you've got no intention to slow down and stop. On the contrary, you fuck her harder and graze your teeth on her clit a few times, teasing it. She gasps and looks at you surprised but doesn't try to stop you. You catch her clit between your lips again when you return your hand to your center.

You want to make you both come together and it so happens when Jinx lets out a long moan and squirts all over your mouth and down your throat. Your eyes roll backwards at your own pleasure coating your hand with your ecstasy. You two moan in unison as you ride your fervor for a little longer before you release her clit and slowly remove your fingers from inside her. She collapses back on the desk, chest heaving, and you also try to steady your breathing.

“You okay over there, Jinxie?” You ask after a minute, worried you might have broken her.

“Better than okay.” She slurs her words, sounding drunk. You chuckle and try to get up but it seems your legs have turned to mush.

“Wanna give me a hand then?” You ask playfully. She sits up and looks down at you with amusement but as she takes in the state you're in, her eyes darken.

“Didn't expect you to be worse off than me.” She says half jokingly and offers you her hand. You reach to take it but before you can she grabs your wrist and starts cleaning your cum off of it. “Hmmm, as sweet as I dreamed you would be.” She says after finishing her handiwork. You feel like a deer caught in headlights.

She manages to lift you up to your feet and pulls you in for a passionate kiss, licking up all of her fluids from your face passionately. Her wandering hands find the swell of your ass and squeezes making you moan her name. You knew where this was going but you didn't know if you were ready yet for it to happen. Jinx starts kissing your jaw and down your throat when you hear someone entering the room suddenly.

“What the hell is going on here?” Sevika says in horror.

After having survived Sevika’s wrath in what you now know is her new office, you and Jinx return to the hideout separately so as not to attract attention to yourselves. When morning comes and Isha wakes up to the sight of you sleeping on a thin mattress next to the couch and Jinx hunched over her workstation, tinkering away at some random project, she lets out a confused sound. The kid sits up and removes the blanket from herself, wiping the sleep off of her eyes before crossing her arms on her chest with an angry look on her face.

As if sensing she is awake, you stir into consciousness and open one eye to chance a peek in her direction but your vision is still blurry from sleep so you lazily throw an arm in Isha’s direction only to feel your hand being swatted away. Oh boy, here we go again. You sigh deeply before sitting up as well and resting your forearm on the couch. Isha gestures to you that she's angry you left and that Jinx was really sad, completely out of control and even burned up her clothes while laughing maniacally at the flames.

“Burned her clothes?” You whisper back. The little kid nods positively and like a tough loving parent, she gestures and demands to know what happened. “I-I know, I screwed up big time. And um… I didn't think I deserved forgiveness, so I left.” You try to explain without getting into what actually happened.

She huffs and looks about as disappointed as you feel for having left her. “I'm sorry Isha. I shouldn't have left you and I couldn't stand being away from both of you so I came back. I'm not sure if Jinx has forgiven me entirely but if you can, that would mean the world to me.” A tear rolls down her cheek so you reach over to wipe it away and this time she doesn't reject you.

On the contrary, Isha lunges forward and throws her little arms around your neck, burying her face in your hair. You cradle her head and make soothing patterns on her back as she cries quietly, wishing you could take all her sadness away. “It's okay baby. I’m never leaving you again. I promise.” You reassure her.

There's suddenly a light weight hugging you both as Jinx decides to join in your little moment of reconciliation, probably having overheard what you said. “Yeah, I won't let it happen.” she says resolutely. You smile because even though the implications behind her words are very dark, your heart can't help but flutter at her pledge.

“I've forgiven you, y’know?” She whispers now into your ear. You turn to look at her with tears in your eyes as she backs away slightly. You want to kiss her so badly but at the same time you don't want Isha to feel weird about whatever you've got going on with Jinx.

However she is the one to take the first step and lean in to kiss your cheek. You don't understand how a simple act of affection can make your heart beat so fast and your face burn so hot when not long ago you were doing much more lewd things to her that elicited this same reaction. She smirks at your flustered expression but looks away when she realises Isha watched the whole scene unfold. The little girl looks between you two and mimics Jinx by planting a quick kiss on your other cheek.

“Hey! I'm not willing to share, kid.” Jinx protests but Isha only giggles and sneakily gives the blue haired girl's face a smooch before snaking her arms around both your necks to pull you into a group hug with a huge smile on her face.

Dividers by @bernardsbendystraws and @cafekitsune.

[vroomvroomwee]

Reasons I think platonic Radiostatic will reconcile in season 2:

1. Wayy to many hints to their past friendship. Eg. the torn photo, Alastor’s distaste towards modern tech, Vox asking Alastor to join his team, Aalstor posing for Vox's cameras even though he hates having his visage recorded, Vox knowing Alastor will try to make a deal with Charlie - he knows him well, etc etc. As well as all of the parallels between them: sceatching the table, "what did you say?", the nun/proest and chef/waiter combos, the fake smiling, their similar looks, etc. And they wouldn't have put all those arbitrarily. Animation is difficult and every single shot is intended for a purpose.

2. The Lucifer/ Stolas parallels.

I know this is a weird one, but hear me out. Both Lucifer and Stolas started off as cruel, emotionless, rich royal bastards who didn't particularly care about sinners or hellborn. Then they turned into depressive dads who have problems with their wives and are estranged from their daughters. All of a sudden, the evil tyrants became "nice" characters who've never done anything wrong and who we should sympathise with.

I'm bringing up the Lucifer/Stolas parallels because another thing that happens in Helluva Boss is Biltz and Fizz's reconciliation. They drifted apart due to a horrible accident that was neither of their fault, then they detested each other for years. When they reunite, they do it under exigent circumstances where they realise their falling out was tampered with by outside parties. One of them (Blitz) would absolutely sleep with the other, while Fizz is not at all interested (sounds familiar)

Viv clearly has a pattern in her shows, so I'm hoping it extends to Radiostatic too.

3. Based on Viv's latest posts on blue-sky, she's really hyping Vox up. I don't think she would focus on him so much if he turned out to be plain malicious instead of the evil but pathetic capitalist we all know and love. If he really does hate Alastor and does something horrible to him, I don't think Viv would be cheering Vox up this much (especially not with all the rabid allegations that she supports or endorses SA). If Vox really is in every episode of s2, then the possibility of an emotional scene between him and another character is more likely to happen.

4. When asked "who is the person Alastor cares about most?" Amir opted not to answer and instead only said we should wait until season 2. I don't see a reason he would withold something like that unless it's a crucial piece of information that might spoil something. The only people that this could apply to would be Alastor’s mom, or Vox.

5. "Sad and complicated" I think this alone corroborates the existence of a past Alastor/Vox friendship that turned sour

Anyways, here's to me praying Vox doesn't do anything awful to Alastor in season 2, and instead, the evil men become friends again and cause mayhem for everyone else 🕯

[lazycats-stuff]

Hiiii! I was wondering if u could do an male reader x batfam, where the reader is deaf and has to use sign language? P.s I love Ur work

Of course I can. Thank you for loving my work. Also, a heads up, I'm not deaf nor do I know anyone who is deaf and I have done my research on this. So, if there are some inaccuracies, I would like to say sorry in advance and if something is off, please bring it to my attention so I can correct it. And yes, it's a bit short, but I think I might be getting a writer's block... I hope not, but I think I might.😭

Summary: (Y/N) is deaf.

Warnings: none, a quick mention of death

Being deaf is not that easy. (Y/N) was deaf from birth and had learned ASL to communicate with others. It wasn't easy, but he managed. When his mom passed away and we went to his father Bruce to live with, all the boys had to learn ASL. Before, they used yes or no question that were either on their phones or pads of paper.

Of course, that doesn't manage when a deaf person is living with them full time. Alfred already knew ASL, having it learned when (Y/N) was born. Bruce as well. Both Bruce and Alfred knew it fluently and had fun communicating with their son and grandson. Not to mention, Bruce supported anything that had to do with deafness. And he was even the advocator for the deaf community in Gotham.

The boys?

Well... It was a tad more difficult. Jason and Dick had a bit of difficulty learning, but they were trying. Although still relying on pieces of paper and something similar until they learn the ASL. They know that (Y/N) can read lips so that it something that they also use to their advantage. Also, they listened to (Y/N)'s preferences in communication.

(Y/N) informed them that it would be nice of them to focus on his face, to not turn their heads away because he needs to focus on their lips, as much as signing too. Jason and Dick understood, more so when they understood how much he needed to focus on communication, despite not hearing.

And more importantly, patience. Jason and Dick understood that hearing is something that a lot of people, them included, take for granted.

And I can hear you asking about Tim and Damian.

Tim had no problem learning ASL, in fact, it was a lot of fun for Tim. He, alongside Bruce and Alfred, was the most fluent. It was fun figuring out how to let (Y/N) know when he is coming into his room. They decided on the approach of opening the door just enough so he could flick the lights on and off quickly, just so let him know he is entering.

They saw that from a father on YouTube who has a deaf daughter. And everyone has implemented that if they are entering (Y/N)'s room. A nice alternative to knocking was the general consensus when it came to the matter.

Damian, on the other hand, couldn't really bother to learn it because he thought that (Y/N) was defective, not really valuable to the family. So, he wasn't very well liked in the family at first. The family had a simple rule.

Don't insult (Y/N) and don't mess with him. Sure, fights are normal with siblings, every single family in the world has those fights. Whoever has siblings can atest to that.

But insults about (Y/N) are unacceptable. And sure, that looks like favoritism, but everyone had a soft spot for (Y/N). That's why. And besides, does anyone want to insult a deaf person?

Without a reason, a good one as well, majority would say no.

But back to Damian.

His mindset was, if you are weak, you are not useful for the family. Bruce and the others tried to erase that mindset out of Damian. And Damian himself wasn't that rude to (Y/N), simply ignoring him. (Y/N) couldn't understand why, but the rest told him about Damian's mindset and what happened to him.

(Y/N) understood from then on and tried to not take it to heart.

And Damian was slowly but surely changing. He got all the rules regarding (Y/N) and started following them. And, he slowly started learning ASL. Damian, found this to be a bit difficult, since he never had to use his hands to communicate, but he actually enjoyed it.

And it gave him a perfect excuse to bond with (Y/N), practicing his ASL. And his understanding of it in general. (Y/N) knew that Damian was trying, giving him an effort and (Y/N)'s heart was happy to see his brother trying and not being... Cold.

(Y/N) was very happy.

It was one lazy morning, lazy Saturday more specifically, for everyone. Everyone slowly migrated to the kitchen to get some coffee and food from Alfred. Everyone was down expect for (Y/N), who now slowly woke up due to the sun light in the room, coming from a window above his bed and on the opposite wall.

He made his way down slowly, attracting attention from everyone, who signed good morning to him. (Y/N) signed back as well, sitting down onto his spot, Alfred giving him some coffee and some food to eat.

" How is everyone? " (Y/N) signed, looking at the reactions and signing from everyone.

The answers were varied.

From ' I'm great, you? ' to ' I want more rest, but my body can't take anymore.'

(Y/N) smiled, happy to know that he couldn't fall asleep as well. For some reason, it was difficult to fall asleep last night. He didn't know why, he just couldn't fall asleep.

(Y/N) nodded as he dug into his meal, the usual bowl of something light that Alfred whipped up in the morning. (Y/N) always preferred something more lighter in the morning. Nothing really greasy and heavy.

" What are the plans for today? " (Y/N) signed and everyone stopped to think, making sure to be in (Y/N)'s line of sight.

" I'm just going to be in my study, I have something to finish up in regards to the Wayne Enterprises. " Bruce signed and (Y/N) nodded, turning to look at others, sipping his coffee.

" I'm going to train. " Damian signed back.

" I'm going out with some friends, " Dick signed and then turned to Jason.

" I'm going to be doing spring cleaning of my weapons. " Jason signed back to (Y/N).

" And I'm simply going to be in my room. We can hang out later if you want. " Tim signed with a big smile on his face and (Y/N) smiled back. The two didn't really hangout much recently. And this Saturday is going to be the perfect day to do it.

[emacrow]

So you know the movie Ponyo

What I'm really trying to ask is do you know the mother and the father are like a little thing where the mother looks like an epic Sea Goddess cuz she is and he looks like a sad sickly old man

I'm just imagine that Klarion and Danny

Like Danny looks like an epic beautiful star Death god powerful in the way he moves but it's subtle like he's slowly comforting you to death

And Klarion looks like a crazy witch boy with a cat who look like he's out right feral and about to throw a pipe bomb at you just because he can

I'm just imagining what happens is Young/Dark Justice is worried about Klarion he's been gone for a while and they're wondering what he's planning I imagine they're surprised when they see him with a Lazarus pit

It's a specially surprising when electric entity sticks their head out of the Lazarus pit and starts talking to Klarion as the JLD and YJL hide there waiting for Klarion into demand help our power they watch this being completely start flirting with Klarion

I imagine Klarion and Danny's conversation going like this

Danny: Hello there my amazing chaos what have you came to talk to me about this time

He puts his hands up to pick up Klarion and bring him closer to his face

Klarion: It's that stupid Doctor Fate it's like he doesn't understand too much balance can ruin the order of the world I might love chaos but that would cause a chaos I couldn't even control

Klarion sits down and Danny's hands rubbing his head on one of Danny's fingers as comfort

Danny: Oh my love I could always talk to him and get him to try slow it down a bit if that's what you need

Danny's face turns into one of concern as he says that slowly starting to move around in the bigger than normal Lazarus pit that Klarion found for him

Klarion: No starlight me and Teekl have that old fart handled how about you tell me about your day instead did you find any more stars how is the balance between life and death doing for you

Danny puts him back down as a twinkle goes in to his eyes as he lays down in Lazarus water slowly starting to swim around as he say

Danny: oh Klarion life and death has been amazing and there's a new Star nursery that I found out there it's just wonderful

After Danny says that he pauses for a moment and presents to go underneath the water he comes out looking smaller with white hair and still wearing the same clothing he was wearing when he was larger surprising Klarion by grabbing his hands

Danny: oh Klarion my dear I have an idea how about we let Dr.Fate have what he wants for once in his miserable life let him have order without the balance that he needs that should show him that he needs you should it not

Klarion takes a second to think through It after he does he grabs Danny's hands right back

Klarion: that's an amazing idea Danny I'll stay with you in the infinite realms let's see how Dr Fate work without chaos helping him keep the balance

After that Danny kisses Klarion on the cheek using the the Lazarus pits to take him and Klarion to somewhere called the infinite realms

I'm sorry this is my first time really writing out Klarion I don't know how to write out characters that well I hope it was good that is what I really like is YJ and JLD was just reacting to this conversation since like the plan was listen and find information

You bet damn right that Dr Fate would have trouble keeping the balance, and would probably have the justice league trying to find Klarion because he thinks he up to something but in reality Klarion is in the middle of deep space, playing around with the stars as Danny is molding and feeding the baby star nursery to build a new universe in the making.

Dani is probably with him doing looping loops playing with star dust while Dan beat up any asteroids that had bad bacteria and let some of the good meteorites in that has good bacteria, and frozen water inside of them.

By the the time Justice league figured it out, probably the Green lantern, Hal. He probably gobsmacked and godsmacked straight back where he came form accidentally by Danny's star fueled cape.

[infizero]

an analysis of the new spamton sweepstakes pages (may 2025)

Now that things have settled a bit, I wanted to go through all the new Sweepstakes pages and just give some of my thoughts on them!

This acts more as a summary of these pages and the discussion surrounding them, rather than me putting forward a ton of new ideas, but I just wanted to write a bit about this new stuff to try and gather my thoughts ^_^

(Note: This ended up being very long...)

So! 14 new pages, making a total of 40. I'm not going in any particular order, but let's start with the one that's easiest to get to first.

deltarune.com/romb

At the bottom of the Silence Ending version of the main page, clicking on the large "WHAT'S NEXT?" text at the bottom brings you to deltarune.com/ramb, aka the Green Room page from the original Sweepstakes. However, if you click anywhere in this shop area, you will now get taken to deltarune.com/romb

The page's title says "No one will shed a tear for him." and there's a sprite of double doors.

They don't seem to line up with any area we've seen in Hometown so far, so it's unclear if these are doors somewhere in the Light World or within a Dark World. I think either is possible, though considering the greater contents of this page, I think Dark World is a bit more likely.

When you click on the door, a kinda "thud" sound effect plays (maybe the sound of it opening?), the page goes blank, and after a moment this text appears:

"If only you had the [blank], your luck might have gone another way. No [blank], no Crystal."

It's confirmed that the "crystal" here IS referring to a Shadow Crystal, as the Japanese version of this page uses the same specific word that's used for the name of the Shadow Crystals in Japanese.

Immediately, I assumed this was talking about the Shadow Mantle, since Seam told us that the next secret boss will be impossible to win against without it. Without the Mantle, we can't defeat the boss, so no Shadow Crystal.

I still think this is the most likely interpretation, since it just lines up really well with already confirmed information.

However, it is true that "mantle" is too long to fit in the blank spaces. I don't personally think this is important, but it is something to note. I've seen some other people posit that it could be "ring," possibly hinting that we won't be able to beat this secret boss unless we're on a Weird Route.

Again, I like the Shadow Mantle interpretation more, but I think this one is definitely possible as well, especially considering what else we got from these new pages.

The title here is really interesting too - "No one will shed a tear for him." I've seen some people say this could be referring to Berdly on a Weird Route and while I think that's possible, I personally don't think that's what this is talking about.

For one, this page seems to be focused on a future secret boss, and even if you think it's saying "No ring, no Crystal" it still seems odd to me if this was supposed to be referring to Berdly. Also, maybe it's supposed to be melodramatic but I think it's a bit mean to imply that no one would be upset about Berdly dying...

I think even if there isn't a huge reaction in Hometown on a Weird Route, it'll be because they don't know the extent of what's happened, not because they don't care. Like c'mon, Berdly's annoying but he's a kid. He's assumedly got parents, he's got a job... at least SOME people would be sad.

I think it's much more likely that this is referring to whatever secret boss is being hinted at here. After all, one of the reoccurring themes with them so far is being discarded/unwanted, so that would line up very well with this kind of line.

The fact that you get to this page from the shop in the Green Room is interesting. Perhaps the secret boss will be a shopkeeper like Spamton was, or maybe this is supposed to tell us that this dialogue is from Seam, since they're a shopkeeper.

However, there's still a bit more to be found on this page. If you click the blank spots, a weird noise labelled "ma.mp3" plays.

Even more interesting however, as soon as you open the doors, a small invisible image flies across the screen, only visible if you highlight it. If you manage to click it, the page title changes to "You will never defeat us!!! Let’s rumble!" and "ma.mp3" plays again before eventually taking you to deltarune.com/chapter3 (which we'll discuss later.)

This line and seemingly "ma.mp3" as well are directly taken from Link's Awakening, right before you fight the final boss "Shadow Nightmares." Which, along with some other dialogue at the end of the game, certainly does bring to mind Deltarune...

I don't exactly know what significance this could hold, but this dialogue is likely more hinting towards this future secret boss, likely Chapter 3's judging from the fact that it takes you to Chapter 3's page afterwards.

The use of "us" is interesting, as it implies that there's more than one person talking here... which does kind of support Woody Theory and the whole idea of the secret boss being controlled by some other force. "Friend inside me" and all that... We'll just have to see I guess lol.

deltarune.com/rain

The only other preexisting Sweepstakes page that was updated was deltarune.com/egg, the blog post where Noelle talks about getting a "SPECIAL" white egg in her Cat Petters game that ended up "leaving home due to happiness." Now at the top of the page, the phrase "secret cats" now contains a link which takes you to deltarune.com/rain.

This page is another blog post by Noelle with the "dark" blog theme, though it's not a private post as it notably doesn't have the big red banner at the top labelling it as such. (Like deltarune.com/kris_dreemurr_kris has, for example.)

In the beginning, she briefly describes a day where it rained so hard that her mom cancelled school so she wouldn't have to go out. Alongside giving us further characterization for Mayor Holiday, adding to the idea that she's rather overprotective, there's also a few statements here that seem... strange.

First of all, saying the rain sounded like someone was jumping on the roof could just be regular hyperbole, but it feels weirdly specific. I don't think this actually has any significance, but I do want to point it out since it sticks out to me.

Secondly, Noelle's comment about "deep-sea cave divers" is very interesting considering everything we know about the Depths and how the Dark Worlds are constantly connected to water. While I think this could be a vague allusion to Dess, or at least meant to remind us of her, I highly doubt Noelle was intentionally referring to her here lmao. She's not gonna make a lighthearted joke like that about her missing possibly dead sister's fate 😭

I've also seen people posit that Dess actually drowned in the lake, which I suppose is possible since it being water would still connect to the Dark Worlds. But I really don't think that's the case, and I think some of the other pages have given us even more evidence to support what most already suspect happened to her...

I do have to wonder if this anecdote happened before or after Dess' disappearance. I think it could be either since we don't have anything really pointing us to a specific age range like other things have, but I think it's probably after as that would explain Mayor Holiday's overprotectiveness. (Though she could've simply always been like that, we haven't met her yet after all.)

Anyways, Noelle mentions Catti coming over in the rain and then talks a bit more about Cat Petters.

The name "JONGLER" is mentioned once in Deltarune itself, that being in Kris' personalized room in the Cyber World.

Now, as to why this is what was produced from Kris searching "how to use magic" on the library computer is puzzling. Queen doesn't seem to have any connection to Cat Petters, so I don't think she'd be the one to introduce this here.

Noelle says that "JONGLER" is the name of a minigame you're able to play with your cats in the game, so maybe when Kris searched "how to use magic" it brought up something about that Cat Petters minigame? Maybe because they or Noelle had previously searched things about the game, the browser recommended something related? Idk, that's really all I can think of as to why this name would reappear here.

Considering this though, I've seen people bring something else up... could "Pluey" be a minigame? Specifically, the cat-related minigame in Castle Town shown briefly in the trailer? There really isn't anything specifically suggesting this, other than us now knowing that there's a precedent for cat-themed minigames to have silly names. But I think it's honestly quite possible.

Before I talk about the rest of this page in detail, I think it makes more sense to talk about the next page a bit first, as it gives a lot of context for what exactly this page is telling us.

Noelle talks about a certain minigame and how as a kid she made a list of the chances for each type of rare cat to appear. She also mentions that she thinks there was one more that only she has seemed to get. She then invites us to try for ourselves, and links us to the next page.

deltarune.com/rarecats

This page consists of small dancing cats that float across the screen. Clicking on them awards you points, which are tracked by the page title.

There are 5 regular cat variants that can randomly spawn, with assets existing for 3 more. Their file names listed as "cat-001.gif" through "cat-008.gif" - shown here in order:

These correspond with the rare cats listed in Noelle's old text file, though only the variants that are actually able to appear are included.

Here are the point values and chances in case you're curious: (I made up some of the names just for convenience's sake. Probabilities come from this Google Doc!)

Cat-001 (Normal): +10 points (70% chance) Cat-002 (Blue Aura): +50 points (17.9% chance) Cat-003 (Yellow Aura): N/A (doesn't actually appear) Cat-004 (Rainbow Aura): N/A (doesn't actually appear) Cat-005 (Rock & Roll): +250 points (8% chance) Cat-006 (Angel Wing): +1000 points (3% chance) Cat-007 (Super Holy Angel Wing): +3000 points (1% chance) Cat-008 (Ultra Holy Angel Wing): N/A (doesn't actually appear)

Clicking on Cat-005 (Rock & Roll) will play a guitar chord. This sound is identical to the sound that plays when you give Susie a CD Bagel in Chapter 2.

Clicking on Cat-006 (Angel Wing) plays the same sound that plays when you give Ralsei a CD Bagel, and Cat-007 (Super Holy Angel Wing) plays that same sound except slower with more reverb and an added "twinkling" effect.

Both Angel Wing cats also cause the sprite of a window to appear, but we'll talk about that later.

However, there's one more cat that can appear, Cat-009. It has a 0.1% chance of appearing, but is guaranteed to appear on your 101st click. And what do you know...

It's our good ol pal IMAGE_FRIEND!

This completely blew my mind when I first saw it, I still can't quite believe it. To me, this is undeniable evidence that FRIEND is in fact a cat. I really don't know how you could argue otherwise at this point...

FRIEND jumpscares you and "face.ogg" plays, the same laughter noise that plays when they jumpscare you on deltarune.com/chair from the original Sweepstakes. Immediately afterwards, you're sent back to the main Sweepstakes page and your score is reset to 0.

Something also of note here is that FRIEND's pink eye is more purple now, though this has never been a very consistent part of their design.

Their 1 in 200 appearance in an unused Berdly attack has a similar shade, and Spamton himself has also had this color used for the pink of his glasses before. So it's unclear if this is actually important.

With all this in mind though, let's go back to deltarune.com/rain and finish analyzing Noelle's blog post.

It's extremely likely that FRIEND is the strange additional cat Noelle mentions here that lowered her points and hasn't been sighted by anyone other than her. Or well...

Apparently someone else might've seen it. We don't have any direct evidence as to who this could be, but many people including myself have assumed this to be Kris. The way Noelle talks about them lines up with how Kris is known to act, and Kris is so far the only other person we know of who has indeed seen FRIEND, that of course being in Queen's basement.

I'm not quite sure what the significance of this is, but the idea that Kris has seen FRIEND before the Dark World is very interesting. Especially since this kind of weird gamebreaking secret/glitch thing is something normally exclusive to Noelle.

Something else interesting is that Noelle specifically mentions that these minigames appear in Cat Petters The RPG, which she notes is (in her opinion) kind of a ripoff of Dragon Blazers. We know that Dragon Blazers is meant to be a sort of parallel to Deltarune, so perhaps this is hinting that these minigames will appear in a Dark World at some point? (Perhaps the cat minigame in Castle Town shown in the trailer?)

Also it's great to see a bit more about Noelle and Catti's friendship. Honestly I wasn't really into the idea of Catti having a crush on Noelle before, but this blog post has changed my mind lol.

Also interesting that there's a cat named after her in Noelle's copy of Cat Petters. If we ever get a video game-themed Dark World that takes from Noelle's games and her experiences with them, I wonder if that will have any significance...

Going back to FRIEND though, alongside being a cat, this has only further cemented my belief in the theory that they're specifically related to the concept of RNG. In addition to all the prior evidence (image courtesy of @/wandydoodles on Twitter)...

...we now have yet another instance of FRIEND having a random chance of appearing and being specifically tied to Noelle's Cat Petters game. I'm even more confident now that this theory is correct and FRIEND is the cat hatched from the "SPECIAL" white egg that appeared in Noelle's game, likely from the Man behind the tree.

It's honestly just so cool that this was included, and to me it really feels like Toby wanted to make what he had already given us even clearer. He returned to the deltarune.com/egg page and gave us additional information that made all this more obvious.

That being said, we can finally move on from these two pages. Like I stated before, when you click the Angel Wing cats, they cause the sprite of a window to appear. Clicking on the window takes you to:

deltarune.com/windows

This page's title says "Aren't you forgetting something?" which is the same as deltarune.com/d_a_m_n_y_o_u_t_e_n_n_a after you get to the Ice Palace screen, though this time it's not in all caps.

There are 51 windows total. Clicking on them will take you to nonexistent pages with a jumbled-up phrase. The 36th window is slightly different, being labelled "wlndow.png" instead of "window.png" and having a more "egg-like" appearance at the top. (Left is window.png, right is wlndow.png)

Clicking on this one takes you to the page with the correct version of the phrase.

deltarune.com/lostwheretheforestwouldgrow

The page title is simply "ROOTS" in all caps, and a sprite of a tree floats in the middle of the screen. Clicking on it plays a single note called "chord.mp3".

This tree sprite doesn't resemble the trees we've seen in the Dark World that the Man hides behind, nor the trees in Hometown. The texture behind it is the same altered version of IMAGE_DEPTHS that is seen in this Chapter 4 screenshot from the Steam page:

Thus it's likely that whatever this tree is, it's also related to Chapter 4.

I believe that this screenshot is of some kind of "fortune-telling" room that shows predictions for the future, so my guess is that this tree sprite will appear here as some kind of prediction. Perhaps it'll be a hint on how to find the Egg room in this chapter?

That aside though, this page has a very melancholy feeling. Most important is the page's URL, "lost where the forest would grow." I think this can be interpreted in many different ways, but I personally think that like many have speculated, this is referring to Dess.

Dess is commonly believed to have disappeared within the bunker, and where is that bunker located? In a clearing within a forest. The bunker is in a place where trees would've once been, but were cleared out to make room for it. Therefore, Dess was "lost where the forest would grow."

The use of "lost" here connects to "Lost Girl," which in turn is of course associated with Dess. And it would match the very melancholy vibe of this page. I definitely think it could be referring to something else that we haven't learned about yet, but I think it makes sense to be talking about Dess.

Clicking on the tree for the fourth time, you're sent back to the windows page. Except actually, it's a different page this time, simply meant to look identical to the previous one.

deltarune.com/window

Just like deltarune.com/windows, the page title says "Aren't you forgetting something?" and there are 51 windows. Each brings you to a nonexistent page with a jumbled-up URL, except for the 18th window (once again wlndow.png) which takes you to the correct page.

deltarune.com/thepoorchildren

The page is simply titled "Therapy" and consists of a black screen. However, you can use your mouse to draw lines made of small white squares. Only a certain amount of squares can be on-screen at a time, so eventually your lines will start erasing themselves to allow for the new lines you're creating.

Eventually by drawing around the center of the screen, you can make a gif of the Man's tree appear. Clicking on it takes you to the original Sweepstakes deltarune.com/egg page, just like how deltarune.com/man does.

Despite not consisting of much, this page is INCREDIBLY interesting mainly due to its URL and page title. I think there are two main interpretations that make sense.

The first is that "Therapy" refers to couple's therapy between Asgore and Toriel, and "the poor children" are Kris and Asriel who are having to experience their parents' crumbling marriage.

The second, and the one that I'm more partial to, is that "the poor children" are Noelle, Kris, and likely Asriel, and that they were put in therapy after Dess disappeared.

Many have pointed out that being able to draw on the page could connect to the concept of "art therapy", which is often used specifically for children who have experienced trauma as a way of expressing their emotions.

Somehow I had never considered it before this, but it actually makes a lot of sense that the kids would get put in therapy following Dess' disappearance, especially if they were with her when it happened. I think at least Noelle and Kris would've gone through this; since Asriel would've been older, there's a possibility he might not have, or did something slightly different from them.

This is the interpretation I'm partial to, but there's one lingering question I have... why is the Man here?

We have to draw in order to make his tree appear and take us to the egg page, but what does that have to do with everything else here? Were one of the kids drawing a friendly man behind a tree giving them eggs in art therapy?? I seriously have no clue.

The Man in general is still a huge mystery and I still don't really know exactly what I believe when it comes to what his deal is. But maybe his existence somehow came from something drawn by the kids in art therapy? Not a regular Darkner obviously, since he appears not only in both Dark Worlds but even in the Light World.

A random guess: Maybe the Man saw the kids drawing something in art therapy and so he's imitating it in the Dark Worlds to... try and cheer them up? He's been shown to "maybe be happy to see us" and "wave at us happily" so he definitely seems like a positive figure who wants the best for us/the Lightners.

I really don't know, but this is probably one of the pages that's interested me the most.

Now, let's go over the final batch of pages. Going to the bottom of the main Sweepstakes page, there is next that says "What's next?" Clicking on it takes you to a new page called deltarune.com/chapter3, but for organization's sake, I'm going to go in order of the chapters.

deltarune.com/chapter1

The page is just titled "..." and consists purely of a black screen with the phrase "Not applicable." in white text.

deltarune.com/chapter2

Chapter 2's page is exactly the same, except this time the white text says "Applicable."

deltarune.com/chapter3

On the surface, Chapter 3's page looks identical to Chapter 1's, reading "Not applicable." However, scrolling to the left (if able) or inspecting the page's code reveals additional text reading "But..."

We'll talk about this more in a moment.

deltarune.com/chapter4

This page is totally blank, with "..." again as the page title. However, a small red square eventually appears in the center, and clicking on it takes you to the next page.

deltarune.com/chapter4/message

This appears identical to the previous, red square included. However, highlighting the page reveals a list of hidden links, directing you to either the assets page for "m.mp3" or "e.mp3".

"m.mp3" is a small sudden noise, and "e.mp3" is the same noise but reversed. If you line these links up with the keys on a keyboard and only use the letters from represented by "m.mp3", you can unscramble them to reveal the phrase "thank you" which leads to the next page.

deltarune.com/chapter4/thankyou

This page originally consisted of two slots to type something in, and a button to submit. The page title asks "How long did it take her to smile?"

Putting in a valid email address in the first slot but nothing in the second slot, text appears saying "She never smiled?"

Putting in nothing in either or anything that isn't a valid email address gives you text saying "Unknown contact."

Finally, if you put in a valid email address in the first slot and anything else in the second slot, everything disappears and is replaced with white text simply saying "Thank you."

It was initially unclear what this was for, but less than 24 hours later, those who had submitted something started getting emails from Toby Fox without any subject.

It's still a bit unclear exactly how all this worked, as it took a bit for some people to get theirs, while many people still haven't gotten anything. In order to at least be considered though it seems, the email you submitted needed to already be subscribed to the UTDR newsletter.

What you submitted alongside your email in the second slot results in different emails back. If you put in anything except a number, you simply receive a blank email. At the bottom, rather than the regular newsletter text, you get this:

"You are getting this email because you [blank] for the [blank] Mailing List."

If you submitted a number, then the email would be the same except for a single line of white text, which states "You answered [amount of time.]" The amount of time depends on what exactly you submitted.

If you just submitted a number on its own, the text defaults to seconds. If you specified minutes or days, then that will appear instead. If you specified years, then it will be converted into seconds.

As everyone realized once these were sent out, we were meant to answer the question in the page's title: "How long did it take her to smile?" As of now, no one has gotten a different response implying their answer was "correct," so this is all we have to work with at the moment.

Before we actually discuss the initial question, I wanna talk about the way that all of this was presented. A question being asked and everyone submitting their email to answer it, with the data being recorded... it's similar to a survey, is it not?

Everything about the presentation of this makes me think of the way Gaster has interacted with us, specifically with SURVEY_PROGRAM... except for the fact that none of the text is in all caps.

Still, I don't think that completely rules him out as being involved here. The interactive nature and the redacted text at the bottom of the emails feel connected to him, and the way it goes "Thank you." after you submit your response reminds me a lot of how the Sound Test room in Undertale closes with "Thanks for your feedback! Be seeing your soon!" after Gaster's theme plays.

Which in turn can be connected to SURVEY_PROGRAM and all that. So maybe this isn't directly written by Gaster, but one of his associates or something? I definitely think it's related to him, even if it's not actually him outright.

Talking about the actual question though, whoof. I think the most likely interpretations are that the "her" in question is either Noelle or Dess.

For Dess, I've seen people posit that maybe Dess was depressed and so this is about her? Which I think is possible, but we don't really have much to go off of.

What I think is most likely (unless this is referring to a character we haven't met yet) is that this is talking about Noelle. Specifically, asking how long it took for Noelle to be able to smile again after Dess disappeared.

What I don't know is if there was actually a correct answer (and if submitting it would've done anything), or if all this was just meant to serve some other purpose. (Like collecting all the loreheads' emails lol...)

This page now just shows the "Thank you." message by default, and there's no way to submit your email anymore. So I guess we'll see if anything else happens with it in the future. With this covered however, we can finally move onto the last new page.

deltarune.com/chapter5

This page consists of numbers of various sizes, with its title simply saying "back" in all lowercase. Initially only the 2, 4, and 5 are visible, but highlighting the text reveals the 1 and 3.

Clicking on the "1" does nothing, but clicking on the "2" takes you to the assets page for "d.mp3" AKA "d.ogg", the music that plays right before the fight with Berdly on a Weird Route.

This is INCREDIBLY significant as the Weird Route is almost never acknowledged, even within the game itself. So the fact that a Weird Route-exclusive track is being included here is huge.

Clicking on the "3" takes you to the assets page for "ma.mp3", the weird sound effect seemingly taken from Link's Awakening that we talked about earlier.

Clicking on the "4" simply takes you to deltarune.com/chapter4, which we've already discussed.

Clicking on the "5" takes you to the assets page for "h.mp3", a small snippet of an unknown song seemingly played on guitar. As many people have noticed, it sounds like a slower version of "A Town Called Hometown." (If you can't hear it, give this extended version someone made a listen!)

This + the fact that it's played on guitar means it might have something to do with Dess. Perhaps it'll play during a flashback featuring her, or while someone's talking about her? (Maybe when we assumedly go over to the Holiday manor in Chapter 4?)

Now of course, the larger question is what do all these Chapter pages mean? What does "applicable" mean? Why are the numbers different sizes, and why are some of them hidden?

There have been a lot of different interpretations and I'm still not quite sure exactly which one I subscribe to, but most people agree that at least some element of it has to do with the Weird Route. This is mostly due to the inclusion of "d.mp3" which again is very notable.

Chapter 1 has no Weird Route, so it's "not applicable" and its number is tiny and hidden. It basically doesn't exist. Chapter 2 DOES have a Weird Route, so its page says "Applicable." Its number is huge and not hidden.

For Chapter 3, its page says "Not applicable. But..." which I personally think means that while we won't able to do anything new in Chapter 3 to break the game, things will be different depending on whether or not we did a Weird Route in Chapter 2.

I'm still unsure of exactly what the size and visibility of the numbers is supposed to represent. It would make sense that it's also related specifically to the Weird Route, like how much the chapter can be altered, but it doesn't quite line up...

Like will things really be as different in Chapter 3 as they were in Chapter 2, just from the fallout? The chapter where we literally killed a reoccurring character? I wouldn't think so.

After analyzing everything, this is my best guess besides that:

Size: How much the chapter can stray from the intended path of the prophecy.

Visibility: Whether you have to have done a Weird Route previously to "unlock" new exploits.

Under this interpretation, Chapter 3's number is as big as Chapter 2 because it will stray just as much, but this time I think it'll be partly because of Kris making their Dark Fountain, in addition to anything that's different after a Weird Route in Chapter 2. (Which is why the number is also hidden.)

For Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, their numbers are both small but visible, meaning we'll be able to a Weird Route but it won't alter things as much.

I don't know if I really believe that, but it's important to point out under this interpretation that it only refers to the prophecy. So even if something seems like a huge deal plot-wise, if it doesn't interfere with the prophecy being carried out too much then it could be considered minimal alteration. <- I think that's convoluted and not a great explanation but idk how else to explain it lol

I'm confident that "applicable" means you can do a Weird Route and "not applicable" means you can't, with the "But..." in Chapter 3 meaning it'll just change because of Chapter 2. It's really just the numbers that I can't quite figure out the significance of. But I'm gonna stop trying and wrap things up here or else I'll drive myself crazy lmao.

Final misc. things I want to mention:

The audio file names likely have significance. we have "d", "ma", "h", "e", "m", and "w" if you count "w.ogg" from in-game. I saw someone suggest they could be spelling out "shadow mantle" and that's really all I can go with for now. (Maybe we'll get the rest of the letters via in-game files later?) (Also I don't think this deconfirms the whole "Gaster's name is being spelt out in one letter audio files" theory, since so far we don't actually know if any of these new files are actually in the game itself.)

The correct windows having a more egg-like appearance could be a hint for the Egg room in Chapter 4. Definitely be on the lookout for a different-looking window to interact with or clip through or something whenever we see these windows in-game.

Noelle specifically saying she liked to play Cat Petters while it was raining could have significance considering all the connections between Dark Worlds and water.

I think that's all I can say for now. Thank you if you read this whole thing! Feel free to leave your own thoughts and theories in the tags/replies if you want, I'm very interested in what everyone thinks of all this.

[moonydustx]

how they would react to F!Reader saying she's pregnant but with Shanks, Rayleigh and Law?

Oi oi! Turu bem? Vou deixar até o comecinho da resposta em português porque sim hahahahah primeiro, obrigada pelo pedido e segundo, eu acho que me empolguei escrevendo de novo, sou inimiga do resumo. O do Ray acho que pode ter ficado um pouco confuso porque tentei usar as duas eras (como pode ele ser tãão saborosíssimo toda vez que aparece, af). Mas é isso, obrigadão e espero que goste <3

And here’s the translation of the day: Hey Hey! How are you? I'll even leave the beginning of the answer in portuguese because yes hahahahah (for those who don't understand PT-BR, I discovered that the requester is brazilian like me) firstly, thank you for the request and secondly, I think I got carried away writing again. I think Ray's might have been a little confusing because I tried to use both eras (how can he be so delicious every time he appears, haha). But that's it, thank you and I hope you like it <3

Oh, and hello @badlandsx! I'm tagging you here because I saw your request about Law, but don't worry, I'll soon write the other part that you also requested. Thank you <3

requests open | one piece masterlist (other pregnancy stories are here)

Warnings are place individually in each story.

Rayleigh

Warnings: mentions of new and old Ray, like I said I love them both. Buggy and Shanks kids are one of my favorite things about Roger's era, so we have them here. Mention to F!Reader being an herbalist. Brief not-so-canonical mention of Sabaody's arc.

Acid temperament, answers on the tip of the tongue, a captivating smile. Rayleigh didn't have much of an option but to fall in love at first sight when you two bumped into each other in a random bar on a random island. It didn't matter anymore when he managed to convince you to be part of the crew. Your knowledge of herbs and medicines was just an excuse he used to get the captain to accept - and Roger knew Silvers Rayleigh enough to know it was just a pretext for you to get on board.

It didn't take long for the glances exchanged and toasts proposed to turn into hidden moments at Oro Jackson, kisses stolen when others weren't looking, that turned into a golden ring around your finger. Now, such moments had turned into a new life being generated in you.

"You should stay less agitated for now, please." Crocus asked. You had come up with a lame excuse for him to stay on the ship with you while the others had disembarked. "By my reckoning, these are still the first few months, it's the most sensitive period. Any more aggressive activity can bring risks."

"You will die?" Buggy's squeaky voice caught the two of you's attention. When you found the spot where the boy was hiding, you saw Shanks cover his companion's mouth.

"Nothing like that, come here." you leaned on the counter, calling out to the two who soon stopped in front of you. "How much of our conversation did you hear?"

"That you don't really know what to do, and that you need to be less agitated and that you're sensitive." Shanks took the lead, listing, Buggy came further behind, eyes attentive to your every movement.

The two boys already saw you almost as a motherly figure, always trying to hide and lean on you whenever they got into trouble, of course they would be scared to hear such loose information.

"I'll trust you two, but I want you both to keep your mouth shut." you bent down to his level. "I'm pregnant, but it's too early for anyone to know, okay?"

"Pregnant?" they both screamed and you covered their mouths. Further behind you, Crocus was deliberately laughing at the two boys' reactions. "Does that mean it's the baby that's hurting you?" Buggy completed.

"No one was hurt." the doctor took the lead, explaining to both of them. "A pregnant woman requires more care and is also more sensitive. Well, you knowing this can be of great help."

"What do you mean by that?" Just like you, the boys seemed to have doubt written all over their faces.

"Someone here loves to get into trouble, until Rayleigh finds out and can keep an eye on you, you two are responsible for it. No fights, no crazy adventures, no almost anything." the man laughed when he saw your indignant expression.

"I promise to keep her and the baby safe." Shanks puffed out his chest, taking pride in what he had said.

"What? I promise more than him." Buggy grumbled.

"As long as you both promise to keep quiet, that's fine with me."

When the two youngest saluted, you knew you were screwed.

It was difficult to disguise such a situation when in the following days the two of them became your shadow. The only time you could see yourself alone was going to the bathroom. If you went to your little corner to work, one of the two would be sitting next to you, following everything you explained to them - since they were there, they would learn something. In day-to-day tasks, one of them always set out to do his part. Rayleigh was already finding their little movement strange, but he knew how attached you were to both of them, so it wasn't something that bothered him.

"I'm going to take advantage of the fact that it's our last day here and I'm going to go down to the village, I need to get some materials." you announced. "Does anyone need anything?"

"Everything's fine here." Gaban warned and one by one, the other companions agreed.

"Wait!" a panting Buggy ran across the boat. "I'll go with you."

"Get out you fool, I'll go." Shanks shouted from the other side.

"Come on, the three of you, what do you think?" you suggested, before his little fight escalated.

"You two don't think you're stealing much of my wife's attention, do you?" Rayleigh proposed, seeing the two swallow hard and deny it. "Alright, enjoy the little walk."

It was supposed to be a quick visit to the island, if the boys didn't decide to start trouble with one of the sellers, you got in the middle and now you were lying on your ass on the floor - in the pushing and shoving, there ended up being a push for you while arguing with the seller . Before you could calm the boys down, you saw them running towards the ship, shit.

Rayleigh's attention was stolen when he saw the two crew members rushing into the Oro Jackson. Buggy burst into tears and insults directed at his friend, while Shanks seemed to be looking for someone specific. You, however, were not with them. It didn't take much to connect the facts.

"Where is she?" He approached the kids, completely ignoring them. "What happened?"

"A tragedy." Buggy, dramatically, started crying even more.

"You idiot! We can't tell them anything." Shanks poked Buggy, who immediately retaliated with a push.

"Crocus said we should keep an eye on her and now she's fallen and is going to die!"

"She fell?" Rayleigh was already impatient with their drama, unable to find any connection in their grumbling. "Explain this properly."

"It was just a fall, nothing big." the redhead tried to alleviate the situation.

"Boys, it was just a fall, she's definitely gotten herself into bigger trouble." Roger laughed, watching the two boys pushing each other.

"I don't want to know. Where's Crocus?" Buggy grumbled, ignoring the captain's own laughter and his friend's false calm temperament.

"What kind of fall was that for you two to be so worried about?" Rayleigh held out his hands, pushing the two boys apart by their foreheads.

"This idiot went looking for a fight." Shanks tried to reach the clown, stopped by the first mate's hand.

"And this idiot who doesn't know how to keep his tongue in his mouth." Buggy fought back, only hitting the air.

"First she said we were supposed to be quiet."

"You knock down a pregnant woman and I'm the one who has to stay quiet!" The words that came out of Buggy were able to provoke silence among the other pirates. "Shit!"

"She's going to kill us man."

"Where is she?" Crocus appeared, stopping in front of the boys and an astonished Rayleigh. "How did she fall? What's all that crying, Buggy?"

"Is she the pregnant woman?" Rayleigh asked in a much calmer tone than usual.

The hands were now no longer used to separate the boys, they just hung beside his body. Seeing the two kids swallow hard and look at each other, Rayleigh no longer needed any more answers.

"Rayleigh, Crocus go to her, now." Even with Roger's orders, Rayleigh was already heading in the direction of leaving the boat, not worrying about who would follow him.

Upon entering the village, it didn't take many steps for them to find you - only then did Rayleigh notice the doctor's presence. What was strange was finding you still lying on the floor, your elbows propped up to keep your face up while you were still arguing with the man in front of you. You didn't look hurt, you just looked mad at the man.

"It was just some herbs!" you shouted, excited.

"You idiot! If it was just some herbs, you should pay." the man shouted back.

Before you could respond, a body appeared in front of you and you didn't need much to recognize that it was your husband.

"What is happening?" his patient voice asked, looking at you over his shoulder. "I see that you seem to have problems with my wife."

"You see, she allowed two boys to steal herbs from my store."

"That is true?" he turned to you, finding a wry smile. Your permissiveness with the boys would still kill him. "How much does she owe you?"

The man spoke and almost as if predicting the problem, Crocus threw some coins to Rayleigh, who handed them to the man. A few seconds later, they were both around you.

"Did you get hurt?" the doctor asked, seeing your eyes dart from his to your husband's. "Buggy accidentally told him that little secret."

"Shit." your grumble was low, in a way you avoided looking at Rayleigh. "Maybe I spent my money buying some sweets for the three of us, but I needed those herbs too." you list, feeling your face burn with guilt and shame.

"Do you feel any pain?" Rayleigh asked, his voice almost forcing you to face him. Without finding words, you just denied it. "Great. Let's go back to the ship."

Crocus supported you by the waist and as soon as you stood up, you bitterly regretted having denied the question your husband had asked. The excruciating pain that shot up from your foot made you scream and fall forward, being held by Rayleigh.

"I was wrong, so wrong, what the hell." you grumbled, taking your aching foot off the ground. "It fucking hurts, it really hurts, Ray, do something." your teary eyes searched for his, who looked attentively in your direction.

"First I need you to calm down, sweetheart." he asked, wrapping his arm around you and providing even more support. "Crocus, what do we have?"

"Let me see." he bent down again, finding a swollen ankle. "It could just be a sprain or it could be broken, let's go back and that way I can see calmly."

"Go ahead, I'll take her."

The doctor took a few steps away and the two of you remained there for a few seconds, until Rayleigh took you in his arms and took you back to the ship. You knew he wanted to tell you something, but you also knew that that wasn't the appropriate place.

Before you could receive the necessary medical attention, you needed to calm both boys down. Maybe the explanation you and Crocus gave the two of them earlier had been too much for them to think that a little fight would bring you down. Rayleigh ushered them both out and closed the door behind him.

"When were you thinking of telling me?" he asked, still distant.

"To be honest, I still don't know." a light laugh escaped your lips. "They both found out by accident, hearing me talk to Crocus."

"I still can't believe those little idiots found out before me." his expression softened as he approached you.

"Are you mad at me?" His hands circled your waist, pulling you to the middle of the bed.

He gently created space for himself between your legs, taking care to place your bandaged ankle to the side. The fierce kisses this time were replaced by some caresses along your lap, some quick kisses on your lips.

"Furious?" His smile floated to your forehead, turning into a small kiss. "I just found out that the woman I love most is about to bear me a child. How can I be furious with such good news?"

His mouth once again met yours and despite the softness in which your tongues tangled, the gentle touch of his hand sliding down your side - curious fingers floating over the fabric on your belly - before your dress found a different path than your body, a small external noise caught the attention of both of you.

"Sure." Rayleigh pulled away just enough, allowing you to still feel his breath against yours. "You know it's Roger who's waiting, don't you?"

"Yeah." you laughed, seeing him groan as he let go of you.

"And that he's about to come out screaming with joy" he asked again and you nodded, trying to adjust yourself in bed and hide any evidence of what was about to happen.

Rayleigh barely opened the wooden door and Roger followed by other companions entered, a smile from ear to ear.

"A child!" He pulled you from the bed, hugging you tightly. "Another crewmate for us! This is incredible, get ready today we're going to drink, we're going to celebrate."

"Oi! She can't drink." Rayleigh pointed out and saw Roger let go of you a little and then hug you tightly again.

"Then let's eat, eat a lot. I'm going to order an incredible feast!"

If before your concern was to escape the needy and attentive claws of Buggy and Shanks, now the two boys seemed to have found company. Your other companions - being practically led by Rayleigh made you feel adorable all the time. Even with your hormones screaming at the top of your skin, even with all the strange desires and the constant need to be attached to your husband, everyone seemed to be ready and happy to see you pregnant. Rayleigh felt proud and a little overprotective of you, no wonder, since you had already returned to the boat covered in blood that didn't belong to you just because someone had tried to rob you or when you almost convinced Roger to loot a village because you wanted cakes from a bakery that was closed when you docked. You still preferred to stick to your herbs, but that didn't mean you were harmless.

Little Arthur came into the world calmly and quickly, as if everything was meticulously planned for him to arrive on that peaceful afternoon. Even though you were still uncomfortable and tired after giving birth, you couldn't contain your laughter when you saw the two youngest members of the crew fighting over who would pick up the little one first. Knowing the affection and care attached to you, you proudly allowed the two of you to carry the title of little Arth's uncles - provoking yet another argument over who was the favorite.

The bonds between you and Rayleigh became even tighter after the birth of Arth and, shortly after, little Dalia. A few years after the gang broke up and Roger was executed and on that day, you and your husband stepped back from the role of parents and allowed yourselves to cry on each other's shoulders. The tears of pain at the loss of Roger soon turned to missing your eldest son, a fruit doesn't fall far from the tree and of course, Arth never let you two tell him everything you knew, he would find a crew so that together they could find the One Piece.

The door to your house opened and you saw a familiar face enter. A mother knows very well what each child's traits could bring and when you saw an almost identical copy of Rayleigh rush through the door, you knew it was your boy back. He had finally found a crew - one that carried a straw hat familiar to the one you knew.

"What?" the voice of his companions shouted in unison as Rayleigh properly introduced the two of you.

"You mean you know everything?" Usopp turned to Arth, who just shook his head. "Oh, that's a lot of information at once."

"We never told him anything." you explained, holding your third child in your arms, a girl who had just turned four years old.

"You said your parents were pirates, but you never specified which ones." Luffy pointed out, his mouth full of food.

"My parents already had their time, now they have other priorities." Arth took little Lure from you, the girl's laugh echoed throughout the room. "Just like this little one here."

"You only have these two children?" Nami asked, interested in the difference between you and Rayleigh to the white-haired child.

"In fact, only Dalia and Arth were born to me. Ray saved our little Lure from being sold to those damn nobles. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to save her family, but we took it upon ourselves to take care of her."

"And Dalia is also a pirate?"

"Not for now, but she's on an island with some of our friends, training." you simply informed, seeing that Arth had understood the message.

That same day, you saw your son disappear before your eyes, into the hands of the tyrant Kuma. Luffy looked desolate and you followed suit, both screams echoing through the damp Sabaody forest. Only when Rayleigh managed to drag you back home did you understand that your boy would be far away, safer and according to Kuma himself, with someone you both would trust with your eyes closed.

Almost two years have passed since Rayleigh took on a mission and left you alone on the island, taking care of what was left behind.

"Father?" Lure's voice caught your attention. At the door, Rayleigh crouched down, waiting for the white-haired girl to jump towards him.

"My sweetie you are so huge!" he let the girl hang onto him, filling the top of her head with kisses. "If I took a little longer, you'd be bigger than me."

"I missed you so much." she clung to Rayleigh, who was walking towards you. "Mommy too."

"I bet she felt it too." With one of his free hands, he circled your waist, lightly kissing your lips. "I hope two of my favorite girls are okay."

"Dad, did you know that Uncle Duval asked Mom to stay with him?" The girl laughed at the little gossip told, earning a reprimanding look from you, even if it was a joke.

"Uncle Duval, hm? I'll have a little talk with him." Rayleigh placed her on the floor, yet the girl remained there beside you, paying attention to everything.

"Just a friend of the Straw Hats, we took care of Sunny while you were gone. I even tried to start the plating, but I'd rather focus on my teas." You explained, allowing yourself to hug him completely. "How are things over there?"

"By things, do you talk about our Dalia?"

"Perhaps." the passive tone in your voice became even calmer when your face was buried in his chest. "I miss my little girl."

"She promised to come soon and she's doing great, she's been one of Kikyo's right-hand men. She's so strong, you'll be proud." he felt you nod against his skin, the distance of two years seemed too far for a quick hug to satisfy. "Want to know about Arth?"

"Have you heard from him?"

"Is little brother Arth coming?" Lure clung to Rayleigh's leg, watching her father. Even without the blood connection, the black king found it comical to say the least how similar you two had become.

"Not yet, my dear. And I haven't heard from him exactly, but rather where he is." Rayleigh began to explain, meeting your curious eyes. "I only received a small note."

He took it out and handed you the small crumpled paper. The tranquility that had been missing for two years invaded you as you read each word.

I hope this reaches you and your wife, Rayleigh-san. Knowing her, I believe she is distraught over Arth's disappearance. He has been training with me and I promise that I will keep that old promise to keep him safe. No clumsy clowns this time.

Shanks.

Shanks

warnings: F!Reader and Shanks don't have a fixed relationship at the beginning of the story, F!Reader has a restaurant. Maybe wrong use of haki, brief spicier section and brief mentions of childbirth. Shanks is an adorable girl dad here. Emony, in some language that I don't remember, is a name related to treasure.

"When are you going to go to sea with me?"

That question had already been repeated countless times every day that Shanks decided to stop at your restaurant. He always made up a little excuse that his crew was hungry and that no other place in that city would be able to fulfill his orders. He repeated every time you served dishes wearing the apron he said made you look amazing, every time he convinced you to stop working for a bit and share a dish with him, every time he was on top of you. you on the bed, as you asked for more and more.

However, every time the answer was the same.

"Give me a good reason red-haired, one other than me ending up in your bed, and I will."

You had already lost track of the times he did this, that he asked and you refused, that you shared hours together and the next morning he left you to return a few months later. This time however, it was difficult to lose track of time, as with each passing day, you discovered a change in your body. It started with irritability, then the aching body, nausea and finally, the positive test on your hand and your shocked family right behind you.

The whole city already knew that you were the redhead's favorite person and at that point, no one dared to mess with you or insinuate anything. Knowing how quickly rumors could spread, you chose to keep it a secret until it became impossible. The secret only lasted four months before his jolly roger appears on the horizon. Already knowing the routine he used to have on the island, you prepared yourself to soon find him entering the door.

"Finally, my favorite cook." his voice hit you before you even saw him. "Long time no see you."

"Yeah, it's been a while." out of habit, you allowed his hand to hug your waist, but you tried not to tighten yourself too much in his embrace.

"Everything is fine?" he asked, noticing your more distant behavior.

"Yeah, it's just been a busy day. What can I get you guys?"

"What's good on the menu today?" Lucky Roux asked, his typical piece of meat at hand had already reached its end.

"A fish stew, we also have some pies. Did you bring any new recipes for me?" You reached out to him.

Since the first time you met the red-haired pirates, you and him had gotten along well and the little deal was that he would always bring new recipes and in return, he was the only one who didn't pay at your family's restaurant.

"Spicy noodles and oysters with honey." he stretched out the two papers in his hand. "Two recipes, two dishes."

"Okay, you win. Anyone else want some stew?" the men piled in, affirming yes. Before you could leave, you felt Shanks' hand grab yours.

"Wait a second." a chill passed through your body as his eyes analyzed you. "You look different, I don't know. It's like you're even more beautiful."

"Don't give me those cheap lines, redhead." you warned in your playful tone. "A stew for you too?"

"The day I deny this could rip my other arm off."

Like the other times they appeared there, Shanks and the others stayed almost the entire day. Much of the food at that point had already been replaced by drinks, which forced you to practically dodge the glasses that were offered to you.

The restaurant was already empty, even your brothers who used to help you had already left, leaving you alone with the leftover dishes and tables to organize for the next day.

"It doesn't seem very gentlemanly to me to leave a lady alone." Again, just like that afternoon, you saw Shanks enter the door, ignoring the "closed" sign.

"You don't need to worry about me, I'll sort it out in a few minutes." You gave your best smile, seeing that he wasn't convinced.

"Then I can help you solve something else."

Not giving you much room to deny it or to at least try to address the issue that was hovering between the two of you, Shanks revoked his right over your mouth. Amidst the scattered tables and trying to turn off the light in the room so as not to attract so much attention, you went unnoticed by his hands taking off your apron and immediately undoing the buttons on your t-shirt. When the piece became a small puddle of fabric on the floor next to your apron and Shanks slid his hand down your torso, you realized that he had indeed noticed.

"What is that?" his voice was low, even though there were just the two of you there.

"I think you're smarter than that, redhead." you tried to alleviate the situation, seeing that it had been in vain.

"It's mine?" His eyes met yours, his serious expression made chills run up your body. Shanks was adorable, one of the kindest people you'd ever served at your restaurant, but he was still a pirate. "Hey, look at me, is it mine?"

"What do you think?" you responded immediately, seeing him take a few steps back. "I found out a few weeks after you left here last time, so far it's been easy to hide with dresses and aprons, but it looks like it won't last long."

"So it's mine?" he insisted, making you huff in frustration.

"The last time you came here, I remember you making me scream a few times that I was yours. I am a woman of my word, there is no one else who is the father of this baby but you."

His expression soon contorted from something serious to a slight smile that turned into a loud laugh. His hand found your face, stroking it with some delicacy.

"You told me you needed a good reason to leave with me." he started, seeing you already look disbelieved. "And no, I don't want you just in my bed. I want you by my side, forever. I want you to leave with me so I can make you my wife. To make you the mother of all my children." his hand reached down and caressed the bump on your belly. "This explains so much."

"So much, tomato head?" You let your hand rest on top of his, enjoying the affection.

"Your bad mood when you saw my face or you refusing to drink with me." He approached, pressing his face to yours. "You look even more beautiful than the last time I saw you."

"Shanks…"

"Please say yes."

He used that entire night to convince you to go on board with him and the next morning to help you pack your bags and head to his ship. When the other companions saw your face, they were in disbelief for a while until the true reason for your presence was explained, to everyone's delight.

For a moment, it was too much information for your head, learning a little about the life of a pirate, understanding what Shanks was like as a captain and the changes in your body seemed too much for you. It wasn't surprising that you had practically hijacked the ship's kitchen all to yourself and it was very common to find you in the early hours of the morning, up to something.

"What's the recipe for today, mummy?" Shanks appeared, his face still crumpled indicating that he had just woken up from a good sleep.

"A cake, that's all." you just responded, feeling him press himself behind you and slide his hand over your big eight-month-old belly.

"And what's the name of the cake?" He leaned over your shoulder, still caressing you. "Is it "I'm worried about my baby's future." or "The baby woke me up by kicking me in the ribs"?

"How do you know that?" you laughed, taking some of the still raw dough for him to taste.

"Delicious." he muttered before he could follow up on any thoughts. "Daddy's Haki. I always know what's going on with my baby."

"Oh, of course." you laughed and immediately felt the same pain that had gotten you out of bed a few hours ago and had been recurring in the last few moments. You knew what it was, you just wanted to enjoy the time you still had with your baby inside.

"Honey?" Shanks asked as he saw you lean your body against his and groan in pain. "My love, what is it?"

"Didn't daddy's haki help you this time?" you tried to laugh but the pain hit you again. Before you could continue your sequence of laments, you felt your dress and as a result of the proximity, Shanks got wet.

"No, it didn't help, it's happening now, isn't it? Hongo!" he started screaming, trying to pick you up.

"Shanks, what if…" your eyes moistened with anxiety and accumulated tears. "What if I'm a terrible mother? What if nothing works? What if I can't bring our baby into the world?"

"There's no what if." he pointed out, gently pulling your chin. "Look at me, we're going to bring our first child into the world and everything will be fine. Come on, it's time to meet our baby."

Emony was born after long hours of labor. The small tuft of red hair was identical to Shanks's and her cry was celebrated by the entire ship who had woken up with your screams of pain and with Shanks running back and forth behind Hongo.

The girl was a little copy of her father, from her red hair to her attitude, which made you constantly laugh - after all, at the age of five she had already declared that she was going after One Piece alone when you two gave her a little scolding for her coming out of hiding during a fight you were involved in. You should also anticipate that the girl's strength would be derived from her father and not hers. A break on an island meant having the two of you spotted by enemy pirates while you were taking a walk with little Emony. After trying to escape and fight, you both ended up surrendering, you were on your knees, a gun against your head and little Emony was lifted by the collar of her dress.

"My daddy is going to finish you off, your shit" she declared, trying to kick the man, completely in vain.

"Will he really do that?" the man teased her, seeing the girl become even more nervous. "I'll be waiting for."

"You know this is his territory, what do you want on this island?" you asked and felt the gun being pressed even more against your head.

"Take it away from my mommy!!" Emony screamed and you felt something different in the air.

The man who was pointing the gun at you fell, fainted, as did the other men who accompanied the pirate. Their captain let out a loud laugh, pressing his hand even tighter against Emony's dress.

"Haki? At such a young age?"

"Mommy!" the girl jolted towards you, seeing you get up and walk towards her.

"I suggest you take your rotten hands off my daughter." Shanks' voice came from behind the man.

By dodging a little, you can see the crew approaching. Benn was already pointing a gun, almost glued to the head of the tyrant who had his hands on your little Emony.

"This here?" he shook the girl dismissively, turning to face Shanks. "You know, lately the navy has been investing a lot of money in Yonko's children." the man threatened, a stupid smile adorning his lips. "What's your offer for the brat?"

"Lucky, Yassop?" Shanks just signed. "You guys take my girls inside."

Without waiting for the man to respond, the redhead punched him in the face and before Emony could reach the ground, Lucky caught her. The two of you were taken inside a small store, where some vendors offered water and a place to calm down.

"Where are my girls?" Shanks' voice reached the two of you, but your daughter ran to him, hugging her father's legs, who picked her up. "Are you hurt, my little one?"

"No daddy." she smiled, victoriously. "You see, I'm ready to be a pirate." the joy in her voice brought some peace of mind to both of you.

"I thought you were already a pirate." Benn, who accompanied Shanks, commented and got the girl's response by sticking her tongue out at him.

"I'm going to be the greatest pirate! Just like dad." she replied, shaking herself off Shanks' lap. "Come on Uncle Benn, I bet I beat you."

"Bet? Let's see." The first mate let the girl hit him a few times, laughing at her effort.

"And you, love, were you hurt?" Shanks stood next to you, holding your shaking hand.

"I just got scared. Shanks, she…"

"I felt it. That's how I knew she was in danger." he replied before the question even left your thoughts. "She's barely trained and can already do this? She's really going to be a great pirate."

"Babe…" your warning tone made it clear that this was not the time for him to encourage such ideas.

"Imagine, she's a captain? Our daughter has a big future. In fact, we know who she takes after." the man boasted, earning a shove in response. "I think she needs companions."

"She can arrange it over time."

"Or we can help." the mischievous tone was already almost inert to the way he spoke to you. "Just a few more babies, a first mate, a cook." He started to list, seeing you deny it. "But you look so beautiful pregnant."

"Forget it Shanks."

"Daddy, mummy!" Emony's voice drew you both in. You watched the girl pose as victorious, on top of a Benn Beckman, Lucky, Yasopp and Limejuice piled on the floor, pretending to be defeated. "I won!"

"Now I challenge you, my little fire hair." Shanks joined in the game, going over to the girl.

Maybe some brothers for Emony would be nice - and maybe Shanks would have given you a good reason to accompany him every time you saw him love your little daughter.

Law

Part 2 here

warnings: angst, more angst, arguments with a fluff and happy ending. I mean, do I really need to inform you that our boy is going to freak out about the possibility of amber lead in his baby? Perhaps not very common uses of his DF, Law freaks out for a while, but then becomes the best dad in the world (we saw so little of Law with Lammy, but I bet he was an amazing brother and that he would be such a great girl's dad). And of course, Rosi comes from Rosinante. This text here is huge, sorry.

Being subordinate and companion to a captain who happened to be a doctor was one of the most practical things in your life. Did you catch the flu? He would solve it. Were you injured in battle? Just call the captain.

This meant not having any problems, especially after you decided to start dating. Law became even more attentive to every detail of your health, which made you realize that you didn't have much time to deal with the situation in your hands - more precisely, the situation in your womb.

The tests remained hidden in Ikkaku's drawer, with her being his only confidant at that moment. You wanted to know how many months it was, to be able to share such news, but you knew that as soon as Law found out, he would freak out and that's why you were avoiding him.

Avoiding, in the past verb, after all, he had already noticed something wrong between the two of you. Two knocks on your bedroom door startled you and your roommate.

"Hey." he looked dejected when the door opened, his attention automatically turned to Ikkaku. "Mind leaving us alone for a few minutes?"

"Of course captain." a pious look came from her towards you, before the woman disappeared from your field of vision.

Law, not knowing what to say, sat next to you. As you tried to grab his hand, you felt him move away. Damn it.

"How long have you known?" his cold tone dictated that he was probably not happy at all with the news.

"How do you know?" you answered his question with another, trying to buy time before the approaching storm.

"Today marks two months since you haven't asked me for help with any colic or complained about being sinking in a red river." he laughed, even though he didn't look happy. "By my reckoning, it's also been two months since that day in the kitchen."

Of course, the day in the kitchen. You and Law were always careful, even if you already used your contraceptive method, you preferred to use other types of protection. Except when you arrived at Polar Tang drunk and alone, which resulted in a unprotected sex session on the shared kitchen table.

"Quite a recipe we made." You tried to make fun of him.

"What do we do?" For the first time at that moment, you saw Law's eyes actually find you, worried and afraid.

"What do we do?" you repeated. "I'm pregnant Law, I don't know if there's much to do other than wait for the baby to be born."

"You know what worries me." his harsh response cut through any kind of excitement you held back. "You know very well what will happen to this child."

"What can happen." you corrected him.

"Would you rather risk waiting the nine months, giving birth and seeing your child die some time later? Sounds like a great idea to me." Cynicism echoed in his words just as your two voices were already much louder, taking your hatred to levels you didn't yet know.

"Would you rather I have an abortion and then spend the rest of my life wondering what if my baby had been born healthy?" his silence was the answer you needed at that moment. "You know what? Leave me on the next island, I'd rather take a risk and have my baby happy than have to abort it or even worse, my baby has to live with a parent who hates its existence."

"You don't understand what this could entail." He stood up too, trying to put something that looked like sense into your head. "You stay here until this is resolved."

"This has already been resolved and you don't need to have any involvement in my baby's life." you were sure the entire submarine was already listening to that argument between the two of you. "Get out of here, Law."

"But…"

"Get out of here!" you screamed even louder, seeing the man give up and leave. It only took a few seconds for Ikkaku to appear and allow you to cry for hours on her shoulder.

Anyone looking from the outside could see that you two were in pain. Law had become a shadow of the captain he was, only having small appearances to issue orders or to follow you - even without saying many words - every time you approached an island, fearing that you would leave the crew. Even though the two of you didn't talk anymore, you knew that his disappearance was related to studying everything he could about the disease that ravaged his country and was also present in him.

In the two months that had passed, Law had stopped being your boyfriend and practically become your doctor. Without exchanging many words, you only met when he decided to do some examination on you. To break the mood, you always took one of your friends along. The little information you had about Law came from Bepo, Shachi or Penguin, the only ones who were still able to invade his room and talk to him. Like that afternoon, when they insisted that you convince him to leave the room and have dinner with all his companions.

"Law?" two knocks on the door accompanied your voice. His tired look hit you immediately.

"How can I help you?"

"I wanted you to come have dinner with us." you tried to appeal to what you want. Many times, before pregnancy, that had worked.

"I am a little busy."

"I can bring something here." You suggested, approaching him. On the table, you saw accumulated papers, the vast majority of which titles were not related to Amber Lead.

"No need to worry, I'm fine." he simply replied, seeing that you were reading the papers on his desk. "I found some new studies."

"Law, I told you that you don't need to worry about that right now, we don't know yet…"

"When would you rather I worry?" the cynicism was once again there in his voice and he knew how much you hated it. "When you die on the table because for some reason this shit got to you? Or when I watch our baby die?"

"Now is he our baby?" you used the same resource as him. "From what I remember, I had made it very clear that I didn't want you to be involved in this."

"But it's my obligation."

"Your obligation as a father? I think you lost that right when you made it very clear that I had to take my baby away." you started to walk away from his desk. "Or your obligation as captain? As a boyfriend that isn't, I don't know what it's like to have a boyfriend for a good few months."

"I was busy, trying to find a cure for you two."

"We're both not sick." you sounded offended by what he had proposed. "But keep it up, sink into your books, don't worry when I disappear from this fucking submarine."

You left slamming the door, stressed. The looks that reached you seemed full of pity and concern. You only managed to get as far as the kitchen before a pang hit your head and stomach. Being supported by your colleagues, the only request you made was that no one tell Law about it. You wouldn't give him reason in his incessant search for something he didn't yet know.

Alleviating your worries, the diagnosis arrived quickly: just a spike in high blood pressure. A few hours of rest and an IV should do the trick. When you saw Bepo murmur an apology, you knew exactly what he was going to do and so did your friends, as little by little they left you alone. You remained turned away, even though you heard the door open. Something in the air had changed, it was as if you immediately felt more tense and prepared for another argument.

"Babe, can we talk?" Law's voice sounded much lower than normal, definitely attracting your attention. His affectionate way of calling you was an easy way to make you fall for his words. You turned around, facing him and started to adjust yourself to sit on the stretcher. "No, please, stay still there."

"I'm just going to sit down." You did so, your movement being followed to the millimeter by his eyes. "Just to be clear, I don't want to fight."

"I didn't come here for that reason." he approached, hesitating with every step he took. "Actually, I know you didn't want me to come here for any reason."

"I just don't want to have to hear from my doctor that I'd better have given up on the idea." you turned around, allowing your legs to dangle. "I understand your concerns Law and I would be lying if I said I haven't been terrified of the idea since I saw the first positive test."

"I know." He finally stopped a short distance away, but he still didn't touch you. "I… I-I, damn, why is it so hard?"

"Just let the words come, don't think about them." you suggested, figuring it was just pride keeping you from apologizing for all the previous argument.

"I-I feel like shit." a sigh came out along with the words. "You're right, as a boyfriend I've been terrible, as a doctor then, just look at the fact that you're in a hospital bed and the last person to be informed is me." his fists clenched and then loosened, his tattooed hands rubbed against his face, perhaps in an attempt to get the words out of him.

"Law?" your heart broke when you heard a sniffle come from him, it was the last gesture you expected after everything, it was difficult to connect the information like this.

"I can't lose you and I know it doesn't seem like it, I know I've been a terrible person, but I love this child. I can't lose this too." For the first time after so long together, you saw tears run down your loved one's face. His hands stuck to his hat, pulling in a failed attempt to hide his face. "I can't stop regretting saying that to you, what if our baby hates me for it? What if our baby knows that for a moment, even a small moment, I didn't want him or her to exist."

"My love?" You extended your hand, being accepted by him. Law fit between your legs and buried his face in your neck, even with the muffled sound, you only heard his murmurs and sobs.

"I'm sorry, please. For yelling and being an idiot." he asked, still not letting go of you. "I just can't deal with the thought of losing either of you."

"My dear, look at me." his irises remained almost hidden by the tears that accumulated at his waterline. Your hands dried his face and you didn't know how you weren't crying together. "We still don't know if our child will have amber lead disease, we don't know the scope of your fruit in the cure."

"What should we do in the meantime?"

"As I told you, wait. Make the best of this little time we have until the baby is born." you suggested while your hands traced caresses on his face. "And I just want, I need, my boyfriend back. I don't know how far I can go without you by my side."

"I promise to get better, I promise to take care of you." he replied, taking a deep breath and composing himself. With his hands rubbing his face, Law looked much more centered. "What happened today? When Bepo called me, he just told me it was a blood pressure problem and that you were resting."

"I said I want my boyfriend." you insisted with a smile on your face and saw a small ghost of what would be a smile on Law too.

Law first checked the serum that was being applied to you and then took off the hat he was wearing, placing it on your hair. With his face millimeters away from yours, he placed a quick kiss on your lips, followed by one more and another, until finally you gave way to him. The skin of his face was still damp against your face and your fingers caressed his scalp, the gesture he loved so much and god, how he had missed it. When Law pulled away, you almost pulled him back. Two months were too long apart - even under the same roof.

"I missed you so much." You confessed, not wanting to let go of his hand.

"I missed you too my love, I'm sorry for being such an idiot for so long." He sank against your skin again, this time stealing a few kisses along the way. "What do you think we make up for lost time?"

"That sounds interesting to me."

"No, no sex." he cut you off as soon as he saw you smile mischievously. "Room."

You were back in his room, now lying on the soft bed with gray sheets. Along with the two of you, only the serum and support tied to your skin had come. Law adjusted himself, sitting with his back against the wall and adjusting your body to be against his skin. You saw from the corner of your eye his hand go towards you and retreat, ignoring any complaint he would make, you pulled it back and placed it flat against your belly.

"I don't think you can feel it yet, but I've already started to feel some small movements. In fact, I thought I had stomach gas, until Ikkaku and I found a book explaining that it was the baby." You explained and looking over your shoulder, you could see bright gray eyes staring at you. "Right now, from what I feel, the baby is here." you slid his hand away, stopping next to your side.

"Can I tell you something?" he asked, using his other arm to hug you even tighter. You nodded and saw him smile at the likely thought that crossed his mind before the words came out. "The other day, I accidentally spied on you in your room. I think you had just gotten out of the shower and were in front of the mirror."

"Oh no Law, I don't believe it." you laughed, already knowing what day it was.

"I think you spent about fifteen minutes posing in front of the mirror, caressing our child in your womb. God, you looked so beautiful, so radiant." he allowed himself to almost melt against the wall behind him. "I'm sorry I wasted so much time, so much stuff."

"Can I tell you something too? I actually need to update you on a few things." you asked and felt his face move against your skin, nodding. "Did you know that our baby is already just like you? I can't even see a piece of bread before I'm ready to spill my stomach."

That night, the two of you spent a lot of time there. You telling him about the little news that Law had missed in the time you didn't talk and him explaining little curiosities to you, things that seemed incredible to him because they were happening in the body of the woman he loved and he didn't have the courage to tell you before.

In the fifth month - now with a new version of Law, one much more adept at the idea of ​​being a father and much more attached to you. You were dragged by him to a small room, finding Ikkaku, Shachi and Penguin sitting at the table waiting for you.

"What is that?" You sat down in the chair that Law arranged for you, he soon took the place next to you.

"You said you didn't want me as a doctor, so if you want and you have time to think about it, they will be your doctor."

"And you?" your voice was almost cornered, trying to connect the pieces of the situation that was presented. "Aren't you going to be at the birth?"

"I'll be there all the time and any problem, I'll take care of it. But I want to be there for you, for our baby. Instead of scalpels and speculums, I just want to hold your hand." Law chuckled as he saw your little pout that you made start to tremble. "Sound like a good idea to you?"

"T-This is in-amazing." despite Law seeing you get emotional, the loudest crying came from the other side of the table.

"Man, that was beautiful." Shachi was struggling, leaning on Penguin.

"It's so good that you guys are back."

"Idiots." the woman commented, turning to you. "Come on, tell me everything you expect from the birth of our little baby."

After spending the remaining months buried in books next to him, this time looking for good information and not just a cure for an illness, you learned that the stretcher was not a good place to give birth and that sensations were an important part of the process, in other words, goodbye Ope Ope no Mi's anesthesia powers. Law seemed to want to make up for the distance by always staying close to you and always reminding you how special you were to him, like when you looked adorable when the jumpsuit stopped fitting around your belly or when you and Bepo joined in complaining about the heat.

With the help of your own nature, the chosen doctors and Law behind you in that hot tub, your girl arrived into the world quickly and much less painfully than you thought. In the first few hours, little Rosi didn't let go of you and only when the water around the bathtub became cold did Law manage to take his focus off the little baby to take you two to a more cozy place.

In the early days, Law's hands seemed tied to Rosi. When the girl with eyes as gray as her father's wasn't on his lap, Law was following you like a shadow to ensure the health of both of you. Sometimes looking sideways, you could see Law observing every inch of the girl, in a constant search for signs of the cursed disease that had once taken his family from him. He would never allow that to happen to his little girl.

The worry lasted for years and there was never a sign of the disease or any other illness. Before, if everyone at Polar Tang had a strict health care schedule, with the arrival of the girl, attention redoubled.

Rosi was like seeing a mini-version of Law walking around, especially because of the copy of his hat that he had gotten for her. All the love that Law took to give you and her, when it was just a fetus inside you, the doctor seemed to make up for it with the girl, there wasn't something she wanted or asked for that he wasn't ready to do.

Rosi seemed to love accompanying her father in laboratories and studies, this seemed to change when she was once injured in an attack, in fact Rosi lost her balance with the Polar Tang speeding into the sea and ended up getting a cut on her forehead, patched by Ikkaku since Law was busy fending off enemies. That had been enough trauma for little Rosi to not want to know more about medical things.

"Please, my sweetie, it's just a small remedy." you tried to pull the girl out of the closet.

"No, no, no." she grumbled. The little gray eyes full of water. "It's going to hurt a lot."

"It won't hurt, my love." you insisted, seeing her deny it.

"My princess?" Law bent down, reaching her height. "Come on, this is to make you okay."

"Daddy, it's going to hurt a lot, I don't want it." she grumbled even more, knowing that Law was much easier to convince.

"Doesn't your throat hurt too?" he asked and the little girl nodded. "I promise it won't hurt anymore."

"But what about the injection?"

"Daddy also promises it won't hurt at all." he reaffirmed and saw the girl come out of hiding, heading straight into his arms. "Babe, she's a little feverish." he murmured to you, almost despair forming on his face.

"Law, it's just a cold." you warned him, following him as your daughter rested against his shoulder. You knew that when it came to Rosi's health, Law was the most concerned of all.

"Daddy, it's because I was lying on the ice with Bepo." the girl confessed the information, adjusting herself to reach Law's field of vision. "I'm just a little sick, that's it." she created a small space between her fingers.

"That's great, my love." He placed the girl sitting on the stretcher. "It means it'll only take that long for you to get better." he repeated the gesture she had made with her fingers. "Ready?" he saw her deny it, laughing. "Do you want mommy to hold your hand?"

"Yes!" She reached out her little hand to you. "Mommy, what is this?"

"It's dad's way of taking care of us." You tried to sum it up the best way. Maybe she was too young to understand how akuma no mis works.

"Ready? First take a deep breath…" Law imitated, holding the air for a while and making her laugh when she saw him puffed up. "And now…" he applied the injection to her arm. He knew it hadn't hurt at all, but the girl automatically started to pout. "My little princess, what happened? Did it hurt?"

"No." she said, her voice breaking. You both had to laugh when you saw her asking you to hold her without even moving the arm that Law had given the injection to.

"My love, what do you think…" Law bent down to look into her eyes as he spoke. "We can go to the kitchen and steal…"

"Bepo!" the girl stretched her arm towards the bear that appeared in the field of vision. "I want to be with Bepo."

"With Bepo?" Law pretended to be frustrated.

"He's warm and I'm cold." you passed the girl to Bepo, who was her favorite company. Law insisted that it was because the mental age was identical, but you always laughed at the accusations while the bear grumbled.

"What do you say we read a little?" Bepo suggested, letting Rosi climb onto his shoulder.

The two of you accompanied him to the living room, giving Bepo information about the girl being feverish. It only took a few words from the bear who started reading one of her favorite stories for Rosi to fall asleep. Law carefully took his daughter from him and started walking alongside you to the girl's room.

"I can't believe she chose to go with him."

"Well, you had just given her an injection, she harbored some resentment." you joked and saw him frown. "Maybe the next one will like us more than a huge, cuddly bear."

"Next, huh?" he spoke in a low tone, not wanting to wake the girl in his arms.

"Exactly. Or have you forgotten about the ten minutes hiding in your living room when Ikkaku was having a girls' night out with Rosi?" You saw his expression light up, a smile that you hadn't seen the first time you had this kind of conversation and that was one of your favorite things in the world.

"How long, is a month half?" he tried to hold back his louder, surprised voice.

"Yes, I took the test last week." you watched him open the door and place little Rosi on the pink bed. Before you could return to the subject, you felt him take you in his arms and lift you up, filling your face with kisses.

"I love you so much, I love you both." he put you down. "To be more exact, the three of you."

[snakeredbirdbatkatana]

Calling Dad it's something that Tim has witnessed from Dick and Damian to even Jason.

Backed into a corner scared slightly shitless and it's like an ingrained reaction. Something specific to being a Robin gun to your head and you just scream for Bruce.

Tim hasn't really ever had to do it.

When he was Robin especially after Jason, well say what you will about Bruce but he was never physically far away.

It was supposed to be a slow patrol all of them are out Dick working with Damian somewhere in the Diamond district. Jason in Crime Alley of course talking about a old lady who he helped cross the street. Bruce trying to get everyone to be quiet over the line.

Yet Ninja's are not apart of basic patrol unless your Red Robin. The first five go down quick none of his family is even aware, his breathing hasn't changed. Next seven slightly harder but nothing crazy.

Until he sees Ra's standing at the top of the old factory. He almost paused flashes of Paris, Wayne Enterprises, and the desert practically blind him. He didn't see the blade until it was too late cutting straight into his side.

Twenty more assassins begin to make there way. He doesn't hesitate.

"Dad, fuck...." he can't stop a slight hiss of pain as another cut ends up on his arm.

It explodes.

"Tim what's happening?"

"Red Robin Report."

"Replacement you better not be dying"

"Drake what is your situation?"

Ra's is making his way closer and although it isn't his typical move he starts running.

"Dad, uhm how do I put this I need like so much backup it's really not funny."

Where was Bruce he was about two blocks away if he doesn't turn around he can most likely ignore the swarm of Ninja that is running after him.

"Don't worry I'm bringing the problem too you but if everyone could convene at Bruce's location it would really be appreciated." 

"Red what's going on?"

Seriously? We're gonna need a bit more?"

"Drake if your are dying do inform us."

"Red Robin Report. Now!"

Apperently running for your life really takes a lot out of you he has to be max two minutes away he hopes at least. They are hot on his heels and don't look like they are slowing down."

"Lots of ninjas, also creepy Assassin Lord's who want to have my babies the usual, also I am slightly bleeding. So really I oh my god thank fuck I see you."

Tim's savior at long last a Batman grappling to the ground ten feet away he books it pushing past the woozy bloodloss and the slightly poison feeling because there is always poison he runs to Bruce and without a any real coherence dives behind him shouting.

"Dad thank fuck."

Now behind Bruce he sits down which usually isn't what you do when Ra's wants your bacon but it was either sit and pass out or stand so he is sitting.

Batman can handle it he thinks before his eyes start close ehh the grounds a good place for a nap.

[maleyanderecafe]

Predator's Syndrome (Visual Novel)

Created by: @predatorsyndrome

Genre: Romance/Horror

I'll be real with you, when I first played this game I literally missed the entire yandere section and then just decided to wait for an update, but then @clownboymcchucklefuck basically dragged me back in and became a tutorial guide for me, so now we're here! This is a pretty extensive r18 demo with voice acting and secrets and the Predator's syndrome itself is pretty cool- I love the concept of a yandere disease and I wish there were more works that covered this kind of idea.

You don't actually see too much yandere in action if you play the main route of Predator's Syndrome, but rather the alternative/bad endings of the game. So for that reason, I'm going to start out with those then go more in depth with the mainline of the story since it does give insight to what happens in the rest of the main route.

The story starts out with Phos driving out in the rain after work. They see what looks like carlights before swerving and hitting something. They wake up for a bit in what seems like a very long dark tunnel before passing out and waking up in a bedroom. Phos ends up meeting a man called Pierrot who helps them reorient to their surroundings. A doctor named Darsha comes in as well to examine them, explaining that Phos was in a car crash and was carried here by Pierrot to the place they are right now, Venus Grove. Darsha leaves and after a nice talk and painkillers, and Pierrot leaves soon after, leaving Phos to examine the house. Phos can explore the bedroom, the living room, the bathroom and the kitchen. Upon examining the trash can in the kitchen, Phos finds a wet paper band with the name Scaramouche on it. Phos goes to sleep and wakes up better, though they realize that there is no service. Phos resides in the living room waiting for them to wake up. Pierrot fulfills his promise of making breakfast for Phos and the two talk about how Phos is going to have to stay a while because their car is completely totaled and there's no one close enough to fix it. Phos starts to panic, but Pierrot calms them down talking about how nice the town is. He advises going to the tailor (his friend) to get some new clothes and they agree. Darsha comes in to check on Phos along with a teenager named Tartaglia. When trying to be friendly to Tartaglia, they find him to be very volatile and rude towards them, though Pierrot assures them that he's like that to any adults. They both go out to the balcony to leave Tartaglia alone and they meet Rosaura, the tailor who almost drops her box of clothing she was carrying. Pierrot fills Rosaura on Phos' situation and Rosura offers to make the clothes for free. Tartaglia comes to get Pierrot for his doctors appointment and Rosura brings Phos to her shop and starts measuring them for clothes. After some talking and making sure that Rosura doesn't overwork herself, Phos heads out. If they decide to head back to their apartment, they will find Darsha there and she brings them to her doctors office to make them tea. Darsha mentions that the room they were in was decorated according to their preference, leaving Phos very confused. Darsha seems confused as well, calling someone to get more information and Phos picks up the name Scaramouche when she calls. Phos mentions that they found a paper bracelet in the trash to Darsha with that name. After thinking for a bit, Darsha decides to get Phos out of there, revealing a hidden doorway. She tries to get them into it, but Pierrot comes from behind at hits Darsha with her metal teapot. Pierrot tries to grab Phos but Darsha is able to stun him with a stungun. The two duck into the mysterious hallway that Phos remembers in their dreams. Darsha is frustrated, as despite knowing the risks, she allowed something like this to happen and starts explaining to Phos the reason for this place existing, but Phos ends up passing out. Upon waking up, Darsha explains that the town they were in was actually a place to treat the syndrome called Predator's Syndrome, which causes someone to become violently obsessed to a person they're attracted to (basically a yandere disease). We can learn through asking questions through Darsha that Predator's Syndrome is often confused with other similar syndromes, that Scaramouche was the original patient that was supposed to come here, but Pierrot purposefully lied and use the armband to pretend Phos was that patient before trying to get rid of the evidence, that the names are all code names that the patients use for each other and that Phos has no recollection of ever meeting Pierrot before. Phos can also read through some folders found in this room which explain the following :

There are stages to Predator's Syndrome, with younger patients being more aggressive while adults are more manipulative and relaxed. The four stages increase the hallucination and danger that the patients are and in the last stage, they are temporarily stronger, though more sensitive to stress, as well as become much more violent. It seems that the last stage can immediately activate when the patient meets their "prey" (or darling) and there are cases where patients will essentially scratch and bleed themselves to death. Predator's Syndrome seems to be something that has been around for a while, though the origin states about a legend with a goddess trapped inside of a doll. The temple it was in was maintained by two orphaned siblings, and the brother started talking to the doll as a way to ease his loneliness. This causes the goddess to fall in love with the brother, though unfortunately one day, the sister ended up breaking the doll by accident. While they tried to hide it, the goddess ended up invading the brother's dreams, slowly weakening him. After finding out the two siblings were able to trap the goddess back in the doll, which lead to her cursing the sister, stating that any offspring she had will carry a curse. Finally, the last folder seems to be a diary of a Darsha who is taking care of the patients, noting things like giving an artificial ear to Pierrot to replace his missing one or her feelings on making Columbina and Arlecchino roommates.

The two are able to make their escape by going up an elevator and escaping to a nearby gas station outside of the town. There we meet up with two coworkers there, Judy and Toby, who seem pretty rattled seeing the state of the two there. After grabbing the medical kit, we can talk to one of the characters as Darsha uses the phone. After a bit, Phos will go to the bathrooms to splash some water on their face. upon this they start hearing a commotion outside including the sound of gunshots. The door is locked and Phos can either try busting through or giving up. If Phos gives up, they will hear three other gunshots and Pierrot opening the door covered in blood. He tries to reassure Phos who is angrily yelling at him though Pierrot takes them in the end. If they try to break though the doors, they will fail until the last gunshot is heard. After breaking out, they find a trial of blood and the sound of Pierrot muttering. Phos stands there horrified as Pierrot talks to them, stating that he was the one who locked them in the bathroom. Phos starts to freak out when Pierrot comes closer to them with the gun and eventually takes them.

Another ending happens after leaving Rosura's shop and following a sound that leads near the edge of town. There, they find Tartaglia trying to cut a hole in the wired fence to escape. He tries to get them to leave, and if Phos continues to pester him, he will end up killing them. As they die, Tartaglia yells out that this place won't stop him from seeing her. If Phos leaves him alone, Tartaglia will explain that he has someone he needs to meet and that his parents put him there. Tartaglia explains that he knows another way out of the town as he's been monitoring the place and knows that food trucks come in and out and knows that Darsha has a key to get out. Tartaglia assigns Phos to get this key while he distracts her. Phos is able to get into the office and is nearly caught by Darsha, though they manage to escape quickly. The two end up going to the secret passageway and Phos can initiate a conversation with Tartaglia. The most important thing we learn is Tartaglia's crush on a girl in his class, when he was locked in a classroom, she helped give him food and now he's determined to go back and find her. However, upon reaching the elevator, Tartaglia betrays Phos and uses the elevator on his own. Pierrot appears behind them, telling them that he was using them as a scapegoat so that they would get in trouble, and Pierrot forces them back to the town, happy that they will live together forever.

If you play the normal route, instead of going back or going to find Tartaglia, Phos will instead wander into the forest where they find someone following them. Eventually, they will meet another resident named Sandrone who tells them that they're walking the wrong way. We learn that he mostly resides in the forest and once we get back to town, Pierrot comes to pick us up. After doing some grocery shopping, Pierrot heads back and we find Rosura and Sandrone who have gotten some welcoming gifts for Phos where clean up happens afterwards. Upon attempting to sleep, Phos will wake up to a loud noise, like a scream and goes out to try to find the source of it outside. They meet Pierrot outside and tell him about it, though he seems to deny that there were any noises at all. Phos can either go back inside or decide to go on a walk afterwards. Returning back with Pierrot will have him making hot chocolate for Phos where we can learn more about his biological parents, like how his father was a musician or how he learned to be so perceptive over things. If Phos decides to take a walk, they will run into Sandrome who will bring them to an open meadow spot where he will talk about his family. Upon going to sleep, Phos will have a strange dream about going down a path, landing in the middle of the town and seeing a figure looming over them. Upon waking up, they hang out with Rosura who brings Phos to the town's cafe. There, they meet up with another character named Pulcino who discuss about Sandrome for a bit and how he always is able to help people who get lost find their way out. Upon reaching the cafe, the two talk about Phos's injuries and what happened to them during the accident and meets Columbia, the waiter of the cafe. After ordering, Rosura asks Columbia to hangout with them, but she declines as her boss Nella still hasn't arrived. Nella arrives and while talking, Phos gets a headache and Columbia helps loose then bandage on their head. Everyone chats for a while with people and we learned that Pierrot is taking a lot of pictures lately. Upon leaving the cafe, Rosurna and Phos hear Pierrot and another character, Arlecchino arguing, seemingly with Pierrot throwing a rock at Arlecchino, though Phos sees that it was actually Tartaglia who threw it. Afterwards, Phos walks way, where Arlecchino tries to comfort and apologize to Phos after yelling before eventually Sandrome had to take him away. Phos can either go to visit Columbia to help her with orders or with Arlecchino where they see both him and Sandrome chopping wood. Upon going back to the apartment, we can hear Pierrot, Darsha and Tartaglia talking about Tartaglia throwing the rock at Pierrot and Pierrot accepting his apology.

Pierrot and Phos talk about Pierrot's condition of getting hallucinations with Phos worrying about him. The conversation is interrupted by Pierrot's half brother Flavio, the two have a brief conversation and gift giving before leaving. Phos sends Pierrot home to sleep and they have a dream again in the hallway. This time they meet a shadow kid who warns Phos that their choices will have more consequences and tells Phos to check the roof tonight. Upon waking up, everyone is scrambling to find Tartaglia, who has disappeared. After looking around, Phos remembers the dream and goes up to meet with Tartaglia, who is moping, afraid of being adult as it's his birthday soon. They can decide to help him by talking to him or by leaving him be, either way, they eventually are met with Pierrot who talks to him before bringing him inside. We also end up hearing Pierrot, Phos and Flavio talk about someone in town that is kept away from everyone, explaining the scream that they heard a couple of days ago as well as a brief talk from Flavio's dad and Pierrot's stepdad. After a talk with Darsha, Phos heads back to bed.

The next morning, Phos wakes up to find a lady who gives her mail before running of and they find out its the clothes that Rosura made for them. After putting it on, and three days have past, we get to talk with Darsha and the others to plan for Tartaglia's birthday party. They all plan to do their part and hold the party at the church and Phos can decide on who to help. Each route will give more insight into a character and their backstory as they help prepare for part of Tartaglia's birthday, though since Pierrot is the main yandere here, I'll just focus on his route. After quickly getting the music and Pierrot buying Phos an absurd amount of pastries, they end up spotting a black cat with different eye colors. They decide to catch it and get some food to lure it (Phos also realizes that the cat reminds them of Shadow kid). After capturing the cat, Pierrot is able to clean the cut on the cat's ear, which seems to affect him as he himself has also lost an ear. It seemed to have happened in a car accident and Phos empathizes with him. They end up going to Pierrot's place and the two of them cook a meal together after hearing Pho's stomach rumble. The two of them talk for a while with Pierrot naming the cat Eclissi and Pierrot explains the legend of Rebis, a perfect god who was split into pieces, a legend he was obsessed with as a child. He talks about his past and how he was homeschooled and wasn't really able to socialize that much as a result. Pierrot talks about how his parents basically gave him up, basically leading him to be adopted by Flavio's parents. Pierrot gets scolded by Phos for thinking he really was worthless and they are given the opportunity to hug him. Another person named Malvina comes to visit Pierrot, and gets everyone to go to the church to celebrate. After talking to Malvina for a bit we learn that the two were essentially childhood friends, though she gives of the impression of being very distant towards Phos. After talking and meeting up with a bunch of people and the preparations end, Phos is drawn to one of the doors at the church and finds a gift that they decide to give to Tartaglia. The bookshelf nearly falls and Pierrot (or honestly, whoever Phos has the best relationship with) comes to save them and the two have a moment.

So as I said before, I completely missed the yandere endings when I first played the game and was going to just wait for some updates until Gab come in and made me play it. It is very easy to miss the endings if you don't know what you're looking for, and because I am utterly hopeless without a tutorial, that's what happened lol. The way that the story is written is pretty intricate and has a lot of mysteries, with Phos being able to interact with everyone in the town and seeing how they live lives. Most of the characters who have the Predator's Syndrome has some sort of injury, either a missing part of the body (like Pierrot's ear or Rosura's eye) or have scars or other markings on their bodies like burns, foreshadowing the likely more violent tendencies those with the syndrome have as well as the more tough times that they had in their childhood. There's also the mystery of the screaming/encaged person in the town, the dreams that Phos has with the child, how Pierrot knows Phos and what happens if you stay in the town. I like how we're able to learn more about the various inhabitants in town and their lives, seeing how complex their relations are with others.

Anyways, the general premise of the yandere in this one is that it seems to be some sort of syndrome, and implied to be caused by some sort of curse. Having a yandere disease (as best to put it) is always really interesting and I very rarely see it in stories. This means that in theory all of the characters that are kept in the town (besides characters like the doctors and other services) likely are yanderes in one way or another (though to who is beyond me), which means there's probably about eight or so characters that are yanderes with at least four of them being guys and two of them being confirmed to be yanderes (Tartaglia and Pierrot), which means that there's more male yanderes to come, yippee. There's also way more chance to see the type of yanderes that can come from this, with various behaviors such as being more violent like Pierrot or perhaps clingy, protective or delusional. I would love to see what variations of yanderes might come from those who have this syndrome and who their target (or targets) are and how it affects the narrative with Phos. How they will tie this to the legend is also something I'm curious about since it seems to be the place where it first was documented.

Anyways, we see most yandere behaviors from Tartaglia and Pierrot. We'll talk about Tartaglia first before going with Pierrot, since he has less to discuss than Pierrot. Tartaglia is the only teen in the entire town, and he seems to be very abrasive towards adults, generally cursing, swearing and being a bit nervous around them. He is usually paired with Darsha who watches over him, though most of the town seems to care about him and Pierrot acts as sort of an older brother to him at times and they all come together to throw Tartaglia a birthday, though it seems that none of them are really close enough to definitively know what he really likes given that they seem to be guessing in terms of what he might like (with respects to food and decorations). We also do see that much like any teenager, he is afraid of becoming an adult and is suspicious about the town as a whole. In the ending where we escape with him, it is possible to irritate him enough for him to kill Phos, showing he's not against violence given someone irritates him. We also learn that he has a crush on a girl in his class who gave him food when he was locked in a classroom. Based on the interactions we have with him in the tunnel, it seems his abrasive attitude extends to his normal life as well, being rather uncooperative with adults, which makes sense given he also doesn't seem to have the best relationship with his parents, though we do know that he has a big crush on the girl who saved him, given that she's the reason he tries so hard to escape, and knowing that he is one of the people who has the Predator Syndrome, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that he is likely yandere towards this girl. He also does betray Phos in the end by shoving them out of the elevator so that he can escape, so he pretty much has no qualms with getting rid of or betraying anyone who gets in his way of getting back to her. It is kind of interesting to see Tartaglia think fondly of someone because even in the main story, we barely get to see him really that happy, even when Phos is able to talk to him on the rooftop. The soft side clearly shows that this girl is very important to him, even to the point of escaping or even killing someone, due to that yandere behavior.

Pierrot on the other hand is generally really kind to Phos throughout the story. He is the one who takes care of them by cooking food. It's clear that he has feelings of abandonment and self-confidence issues, believing that it was right for his biological parents to abandon him as well as the fact that he doesn't take care of himself like not eating or not telling Phos about his condition of hallucination. I'm not sure if part of this is a kind of manipulation on Pierrots part (though I don't doubt that he was telling the truth about a lot of this) given that he seems to gaslight Phos into believing there was no screaming outside when they did hear it, as well as lying to Darsha about their identity so that they'd stay without question. One of the mysteries the story has is how Pierrot lost his ear (stating that it happened during a car accident but he doesn't seem to remember) and how Pierrot seems to know Phos or has fallen for them. It's possible that the two car accidents, the one that Phos got into as well as Pierrot's own car accident are related somehow, though whether it's because that they are somehow related or if it just made Pierrot sympathize for Phos because of it is kind of unclear. Still, even throughout the main story, we do see Pierrot react unhappily when Phos rejects him in one way or another, such as not holding his hand or otherwise doing something else, though its generally pretty subtle. There's also other things like Pierrot getting into photography or constantly doting on Phos that indicate other things too. In the bad endings, we see more clearly his intentions of Pierrot, especially in the ending where Pierrot chases after them after trying to escape with Darsha, with him trying to kill or incapacitate Darsha by hitting her over the head with a kettle, and eventually killing everyone in the convenience store. It's clear that even in this state, he doesn't really want to hurt Phos and wants to prevent them from seeing him kill the rest of the crew ( which is something he does do successfully). Though that being said, it does show that Pierrot is very good at hiding his intentions since he doesn't seem to show his unstable nature that clearly, at least until Phos realizes that Pierrot has been lying about why they're here. In the other ending, he "saves" Phos after Tartaglia ditches them and then drags them back to the town. While it is obvious that part of this is due to the "syndrome" itself, we do see how Pierrot tries hard to create a situation where the two of them can live rather blissfully together, and how sudden his turn is when they try to leave. It makes me wonder what will happen if Phos does try to leave at some point in the main story given that there are many choices that ask the player if they enjoy living in town or if they want to go back to their normal life.

Overall though, the game is pretty impressively long with a lot of detail to things (including a text file that appears in your folder that seems to indicate some sort of ritual, probably associated to the legend), and gets a good look at the relationship with many of the characters. I am curious to see how everyone's syndrome develops and if there will be many yanderes in this game. It is a decently long game, so please try it out if you are interested.

[assassin-artist]

Just found your blog today and really enjoyed reading about your OC. I'm curious about how some of the early fights would go with them working together.

Would Mercy also freeze up during the first Flaxan invasion? Would Allen keep fighting or is 2v1 against the Coalition's evaluation rules? Battle Beast... well she's probably going to need a new jacket.

Ellie visiting the hospital after the Battle Beast fight:

maybe that was her last jacket. maybe she finally had to phase the jacket out of her hero suit bc she didn't have any more... anyway, some rambling under the cut (:

During the Flaxan fight: She was there, of course - it was her and Mark's first real fight against the bad guys, and both of their first experiences with seeing civilians get hurt and die. I think she was just as terrified and overwhelmed as Mark had been during the fight, but instead of freezing up because he didn't know where to begin, she would have just gone for the closest/the first problem she saw that needed fixing. So she wouldn't have frozen up like her brother, but she was definitely making mistakes and not being where she needed to be. Mercy would have been pretty disturbed by seeing the aliens die, though, something that we didn't really see much of from Invincible or the Teen Team... Maybe because it's easy to differentiate between human = protect, alien = destroy for them.

During the Allen fight: I don't think Ellie would have been there for that one. She wanted to be there - when they got the news that an old enemy of their dad was approaching Earth, Mark and Ellie both volunteered to go in his stead because he was still healing. But I think Nolan would have said that he's not tough enough to need both of them - so Mark went alone simply because he volunteered first. I think the first time Ellie meets Allen in person is when Mark brings him to the dorm room to sift through Nolan's books for information - she gets a call from a very freaked out William that there was an alien in the room with her brother, and she hurries over. And the first thing she does is scold her brother for not locking the door and closing the windows when he had a whole ass alien in the room with him, and then Allen would say something like 'oh! you must be mercy! invincible has told me about you (:' just trying to break the tension but oops! Now Ellie turns to Mark and goes "you told someone my identity?!" and scolds him for that, too. No it doesn't matter if he's an alien and he's not gonna tattle to anyone, you still shouldn't have told anyone, Mark! And then only after all of that is done and Mark is hanging his head in shame, she finally stops to say hi to Allen lol.

During the Battle Beast fight: I was a little torn on this one because I was struggling to find a reason for Mercy to have been with Invincible on this day to be part of this fight, but I realized that at this point in time, they were still 'marketing' themselves as the twin heroes. So they likely would be going on jobs together still, so there we go, that's the reason she was with him (: Also I mentioned before that if Mercy was there with Invincible during the conversation with Titan, she would have agreed to help him right away. If Invincible said something like 'this is beneath us' she'd get mad at him and say 'you're gonna see people suffering and just ignore it? because it's 'beneath you'? it's not beneath me.' and of course, Invincible would follow after his sister instead of letting her go alone. I want her to be there during the fight both because I want her to have a brush with organized super-crime early on(so she can get a glimpse of there being 'players behind the scene' for her to think about), but also I am just a personal fan of Battle Beast so if I can have Mercy get into a scrape with him I would like to do so lol. "A scrape" as if she's not gonna get her ass handed to her... yeah, you're definitely right on the idea that she's gonna need a new jacket after that. The fight against the smaller guys would go better with her there than it did in the show, of course - two viltrumites is a significantly different fight than one viltrumite for a handful of people, powers or otherwise. But, um, the fight with Battle Beast? Yeah, that's largely staying the same. We've seen BB handle multiple fully grown, possibly hundreds to thousands of years old Viltrumites without breaking much of a sweat at all. He's going to thrash these two teenagers who are way in over their heads, and then still frown down at them and go 'you guys are pathetic, there's nothing for me here' and peace out. Get humbled by a space cat, kids.

[tteotlma]

Blurred Lines & Bright Screens

— movie night shenanigans turn into almost-kisses.

(Wolverine/Reader) 2.3kw

a/n: i couldn’t find the right gif i was looking for — also i hope this makes sense ALSO i wanna write sm*t SO bad but all i can think abt rn is domestic/mutual pining/slow-burn HUGH JACKMAN

TW: mild sexual tension, implied violence, mentions of alcohol, snoring if u think it’s an ick.

Btw: i wrote this at work enjoy! also pls reblog so i can share my writing w more people !!!

"I'm so glad you finally agreed to watch this movie with me!" You exclaim, giddy as you set a giant bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. Settling onto the plush velvet sofa, you rest your back against the armrest and pull your knees up, watching Logan trudge into the room.

"Well, it's only 'cause you kept buggin' me about it," he mumbles. Nonetheless, he plops his thick frame onto the sofa, the weight of his body causing your sock-covered feet to slide under his thigh.

You tense a little, giving him a quick glance before turning to the TV. He doesn't say anything, so you leave your feet under his warmth. Silence falls as you flip through the streaming apps.

"Um," you speak up, trying to cut the one-sided tension. You're pretty sure Logan is unfazed, but you want to be wrong. You mumble to yourself, filling the silence for your own comfort.

The room goes dark as the movie starts, and you try to settle in. Grabbing a giant blanket, you drape it over your legs, the fabric pooling where you touch Logan. You hope he might grab the blanket too, but he doesn't.

You scoff at the embarrassment creeping up your throat and try to focus on the movie. As you open your mouth to comment, Logan cuts you off.

"You don't gotta do that," he grumbles.

Sinking further into your seat, you bring your legs a little closer and grab the popcorn, attempting to pay attention to the screen. It works pretty well until you feel Logan shift beside you, and suddenly all you can think about is him.

You and Logan have been "friends" for about a year now, but have known each other for three. It took you two years to befriend the guy. Granted, your first year at the school was spent interning with Storm, and you were as timid as a mouse, always hiding behind her - especially when Logan came around.

It wasn't until the end of your first year that Storm felt confident enough in your abilities to loosen the lead. She began letting you go on missions with other people. At first, you avoided missions involving Logan; he was still too intense at times, and your self-confidence wasn't as strong as Storm's faith in you. But after a few big missions, you began to grow into yourself, and your confidence skyrocketed.

Missions evolved from involving handfuls of students and professors to solo projects as things got more serious. Then came one particular mission where Charles and the team felt it best that Logan accompany you. You protested right up until you left.

"Y/n," Charles stared at you intently as you stood by the door, Logan's footsteps thudding around the corner. "It's not that we think you aren't capable. We need your full focus on decoding the encrypted system."

"And I can-" You feel yourself getting fussy, as childish as it sounds. Scott grabs you by the shoulders, cutting you off mid-sentence, shocking you.

"Listen, Y/n," he sighs. "As much as you hate it, you're one of us now. The information you're going after is too valuable to risk doing it on your own. We need you to be one hundred percent focused on that, because once Sebastian Shaw realizes we're trying to get into his system, he will rain hellfire on whoever gets in his way. Logan is the only one who can be of service to you right now, so please." His voice softens as he begs. You see the worry sewn into his eyebrows and look at Charles, who is staring right back at you.

You sighed, just as Logan walked up behind Charles.

"Okay," you give a tight smile, and Scott taps his knuckle against your chin, trying to cheer you up. You let out an airy laugh and shove his hand away.

"You'll be fine," he tousles your hair before turning to look at Logan, who's staring intently at you both. Logan doesn't say anything and begins walking out the door.

"Professor," he grumbles as his figure fades into the dark of the night. Charles watches Logan walk off, then turns to you with a smirk on his face.

"Don't worry, everything will work out as it's supposed to." He gives you a wink, leaving you confused about his meaning.

"Uh, alright," you say, giving him a small nod as you head out following Logan.

After that mission, you and Logan became an oddly almost inseparable pair, which you deem as "friendship" even if he doesn't agree. Although you weren't glued to the hip, Logan was almost never far behind, and neither were you. Over the past couple of months, though, your relationship with Logan has evolved into something... complicated. There's an undeniable closeness between you, but it's hard to define. Sometimes, it feels like you're the little sister he never had - he's protective, gruff, and occasionally teases you mercilessly. Other times, there's a crackling tension in the air that makes you wonder if there's something more.

Like the time you were reaching for a book in the library, and Logan came up behind you to help. His chest brushed against your back as he grabbed it, and when you turned, you found yourself trapped between him and the bookshelf. For a moment, neither of you moved, your eyes locked, hearts racing. The air felt charged, and you could've sworn you saw something flicker in his eyes before he stepped back. You whispered a shy "thanks," avoiding eye contact by pretending to wipe dust off the book jacket. Logan straightened up, muttering "No problem, kid," as he walked away.

Or the time you were bantering in the garage while he worked on his bike. What started as playful teasing about him being demanding turned into something more when you challenged his ability to intimidate you anymore. He stood up slowly, moving close until you were almost nose to nose, growling softly, "Wanna bet?" The tension was palpable until Scott's voice broke the moment.

Then there's how you've fallen into these little routines without even realizing. Like how Logan always saves you a seat at briefings, or how you automatically grab two beers when heading to the kitchen after a long day. Or especially when, on every second and fourth Sunday morning of the month, both you and Logan have brunch (that's right) at this one diner that you insisted was to die for. It wasn't until Beast commented on your "domestic routine" that you both seemed to realize how couple-like you'd become.

And who could forget those late-night talks? Like the time you wandered into the kitchen at 2 AM, plagued by mission nightmares, only to find Logan there. What started as a few words of comfort turned into hours of conversation, sharing fears and hopes. As dawn broke, Logan squeezed your hand and said, "You're stronger than you think, kid." The look in his eyes made your heart skip a beat.

Moments like that leave you wondering if there's something more brewing between you and Logan, something beyond the boundaries of friendship or family. But neither of you has been brave enough to cross that line... yet.

You've tried to convince yourself it's nothing more than a close friendship, possibly a mentorship even. But there are moments - fleeting and intense - that make you question everything. You're stuck in this limbo, too afraid to push for more, yet unable to ignore the possibility that there might be something deeper brewing between you and Logan.

A guttural roar rips through the air, startling you out of your focus. Your head snaps towards Logan as another snore cuts through the silence. You don't know whether to laugh or look adoringly at the giant man sitting beside you.

He's sunken deeper into the sofa than when the movie first started. His arms are crossed over his chest, and his head lolls to the side, chin resting uncomfortably on his chest. His arms and head rise and fall with each breath, obviously so far gone at this point. You feel heat creeping up the back of your neck as you watch the usually stone-faced and stoic man sleeping beside you.

He's clad in comfortable clothes: black sweatpants, a zip-up hoodie, and his usual wifebeater clinging to his skin underneath. Your eyes focus on the bare skin that peeks out between the fabric of his sweater and the sleeve of the tank top. His hair is tousled and fluffier than usual, the air conditioning giving you occasional whiffs of peppermint and eucalyptus — his signature shampoo. The scent is never overwhelming, rather a subtle reminder of his presence.

You find yourself studying his face, softer now in sleep than you've ever seen it. The perpetual furrow between his brows has smoothed out, and his lips are slightly parted. Another snore rumbles through him, and you can't help but smile. It's rare to see Logan so unguarded, so... human.

A part of you wants to wake him, to tease him about falling asleep during your favorite movie. But a larger part revels in this moment of vulnerability, this glimpse of Logan that so few get to see. You wonder what he'd do if you gently brushed that stray lock of hair from his forehead, or if you repositioned yourself so you were closer.

The movie plays on, forgotten, as you lose yourself in contemplation of the man beside you. You're hyper-aware of every point where your bodies touch: your leg against his thigh, your arm brushing his as you shift slightly. The warmth of his body seems to seep into yours, and you find yourself leaning closer, drawn in by his presence even in sleep.

It's in quiet moments like these that the line between friendship and something more blurs dangerously. You know you should look away, should focus on the movie, but you can't bring yourself to break this spell. Instead, you allow yourself this stolen moment, committing every detail to memory, all the while wondering if Logan ever has moments like this about you. 

All of a sudden, Logan jolts and his head falls back against the headrest, another loud snore coming from his mouth and physically shaking your chest.

Alright, that's enough.

You shift closer to him while grabbing the pillow from behind your back and swing it towards his face. He instinctively grabs your wrist before you can make contact and pulls you in closer. He opens his eyes, staring at you threateningly as if asking "what the hell do you think you're doing," but when he realizes it's you, his gaze softens.

"What," he says, his voice deep with sleep. He unconsciously pulls you closer so your chest barely brushes against his shoulder.

"Get up, you're snoring and I can't hear the movie," you quip, trying not to let your voice falter - as if being this close to him had no effect on you whatsoever. Not like you were paying attention anyway. Logan sighs, lowering your hand from his face but not letting go of your wrist. Instead, he continues to hold it in his hand as he rests it on his stomach. Your hand tenses against the warmth of his body and - god, you hope he didn't feel that.

"Then turn it up louder," he says, closing his eyes and trying to make himself comfortable once again. You don't move. Instead, you... maybe... lean in closer? Logan doesn't notice.

"What, so you can yell at me for waking you up?" You give him a little nudge with your leg. "I don't think so."

Logan's eyes remain closed, but his grip on your wrist loosens, his thumb absently tracing circles on your skin. The gentle touch sends shivers up your arm.

"You woke me up anyway," he murmurs, his voice a low rumble that you feel more than hear.

You try to steady your breathing, very aware of how close you are. "Well, someone had to save you from choking on your own snores."

His lips quirk up in a half-smile. "My hero," he says dryly, finally opening his eyes to look at you.

The intensity of his gaze catches you off guard. There's something there, something beyond his usual gruffness. Your breath hitches as his eyes roam your face, lingering on your lips before meeting your eyes again.

"Logan," you whisper, not sure what you're asking for.

He shifts slightly, turning his body towards you. Your knees dig deeper into his hip and thigh, and he still hasn't let go of your wrist. With his free hand, he reaches up, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear. His fingers linger on your cheek, and you instinctively lean into his touch.

"Yeah?" he responds, his voice rough and low.

The air between you feels charged, electric. You're hyper-aware of every point of contact between you - his hand on your face, his fingers around your wrist, your legs pressed together. Your heart is pounding so hard you're sure he can hear it.

Logan leans in, slowly, giving you every opportunity to pull away. But you don't. You can't. You're frozen, caught between anticipation and disbelief. Is this really happening?

Just as his lips are about to brush yours, a loud explosion from the forgotten movie makes you both jump. The spell is broken. Logan pulls back, clearing his throat.

"We should, uh... finish the movie," he says, but he doesn't move away. His arm comes to rest on the back of the couch behind you, not quite touching but close enough that you can feel the heat radiating from him.

You nod, not trusting your voice. As you settle back to watch the film, you're hyper-aware of Logan beside you. The almost-kiss hangs in the air between you, unspoken but impossible to ignore. Every now and then, you catch him looking at you out of the corner of your eye, and you know that something has fundamentally shifted between you.

The movie plays on, but neither of you are really watching anymore. You're too busy wondering what might happen when the credits roll, and secretly hoping that maybe, just maybe, you'll get another chance to finish what you started.

[tactical-jellyfish]

Watcher 1-1

Warnings!: The 141 will be criminally stupid, fumblers, all of them. Death (canon-typical), Violence (canon-typical), loss of limb (no, I won't tell you who yet >:), but I will cover the symptoms as well as possible) They do get kissy, but no smut (that I'm writing, but it's very much implied).

Laswell's office is a familiar place to you. Be it for reprimand (lighthearted), or the ongoing search for an actual field team, you've never been a stranger to these walls.

She looks flat-faced, as per usual, but you sense a crackle in the air that wasn't there before, so when you step in, you set your bag down quicker. Just by a tad.

"Good, you finally figured out how to tie your shoes."

Her tease doesn't go over your head, but it isn't met with a snarl or a dare to say that one more time, I fucking dare you, it's met with a familiar warmth that encompasses your mind, comforts you after another round of brutal training.

"You're excited. Don't drop the pantyhose just yet, okay? Save that for your wife."

Had you been anyone else, you would have been met with a shouting so loud it shakes the very foundations of the building. But you're not anyone else, so it's instead a smack to the shoulder, and the soft swiping sound of manila folders on her pretty, dark-wood desk.

Despite your own rebellious streak, you don't touch any of the information until she opens the first, revealing maybe the single most Scottish name you've seen in a while.

John MacTavish.

She must read through your confusion, because she smiles in that way she thinks you can't see, a slight twitch upward of her lips, only the corners.

"I found a team."

Everything stops right then. The air flowing in the room slows, your heart skips a beat (maybe more than one), and you feel yourself single in on that information, feel your brain grind to an achingly empty halt.

"What?"

It's stupid, you know you heard her right, but you have to ask. You just have to.

"You've got a team, kid. I found a team, they need new intelligence, intelligence that works on the field, too."

You might have just came in your pants. Laswell pats your shoulder, trying to bring you back to the land of the living, smiling wholeheartedly.

"Kid. Kid."

You finally brought yourself back into your brain to realize your fists are clenched and shaking a little, too excited to physically contain yourself.

"I'm listening, Laswell. I'm up." "Good, because you've gotta learn, too."

The conversation that results is one of the longest you've had, but infinitely worth it. It's your in, a short synopsis of these men you're going to be entrusting with your life, something that even the most dedicated reader couldn't gleam from the clinical, militaristic profiles that Laswell has her paws on (though you know getting those must be an already-impressive feat).

Mentally, you start to assemble a list by age, giving yourself advice to learn and test. For science, maybe, or just to game-ify this new experience. To find how to "win" this, because there just has to be a way, if you play your cards right.

Price is firm, yes, and steady in applying pressure, but he's also very clear when he gives approval.

Ghost is his second in command. Quiet, sarcastic. Not open but expecting no vulnerability. Respectable.

Kyle Garrick. Sergeant. Formerly non-military, recruited just a short while back. Playful, but willing, obedient. If you should shoot to emulate anyone, it's him. At least, until you see this dynamic in play.

John MacTavish. Often referred to as "Soap", sometimes "Johnny". Bomb tech. Passionate and fiery. Useful, but he comes on strong. Only play your cards like that if you already have their favor. Being stubborn either makes you a genius or an idiot, and having people think you're stupid isn't a good first impression.

"You think you can hack it, hun?"

You smile at the endearment (doubtlessly acquired through Laswell's habit of picking up her wife's manner of speech), bite back your nerves, and nod.

"Yeah."

"Good. Meeting's next week, so you should start resting up now. Write your lines, make a script, do whatever you need. Just come off as well as you work, and you'll be fine."

Her voice is the finally thing that makes you stand from the chair, beaming at her like a little kid. You know you look silly, but you feel... excited. Much more than usual, and you can't help how you express it.

Laswell knows that, and it is a mercy she offers, but you shake your head, dig your nails into your palm.

She understands. Your new team might not. It'd be best to keep a handle on things, for now. "Thank you, Kate."

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