#So I figure why not have some fun with it and make the inflicted suffer even more!!!

[octomelona]

hanahaki disease.

I read ONE FUCKING FIC. And for the past three or four days I've been thinking about this silly little lethal flower illness, SO!!! I wanted to ramble about some symptoms I think would be cool(partially so I remember them all and can pick and choose for fics I write.)

Now, base hanahaki is pretty simple.

cough up blood and petals

die (unless cured via surgery or confession)

We all know it, love it, pretty peak ngl.

In the fic I read, the person with the disease also grew flowers on their face, which were the favorite flowers of the person they were in love with(both the ones that grew on them & the petals being coughed up).

I LOVE THE FLOWERS GROWING ON THEM THING!!! and I also want to make it a bit more uhhh??? idk deadly? like a real disease, I suppose. so!!!

My version!!!

The infected coughs up blood and flower petals

Their skin is covered in a painful itch from the buds

Flowers begin growing on their face, matching the petals

As vines snake their way through the infected's body, the person is inflicted with pain and heavy soreness

Fatigue and nausea spread, along with major headaches as more blossoms sprout from their face

Flowers may sprout from their eyes, causing blindness, on/in their ears, affecting hearing, and flowers grown on/near their mouth or nose would hinder breathing

Flowers can also grow on limbs such as their arms, deteriorating dexterity & physical strength

Coughing the flowers and blood turns to vomiting as death nears

The infected may occasionally pass out from lack of oxygen as vines and roots constrict around their lungs

Thinking of the beloved causes splitting headaches and chest pain

When death finally comes, one final, large flower sprouts from the victim's heart.

IF CURED, then instead the victim will cough up the flower that was growing in their heart(side note, the state of the flower can be used to determine how far along they were in their infection, and therefore helps ppl figure out the stages of the disease(just for some nice little worldbuilding))

Recovery from the disease can take up to a month depending on how bad it had gotten(the stronger the love the worse the symptoms and the sooner they die)

and for one last little nugget of whatever,

If the infected is touched by the one they're in love with, more flowers will grow in the place of contact

lemme know what y'all think

[stupditysholy]

I have to get this off my chest because the amount of Curly love on tik tok actually stresses me out and I’ll tell you why:

So to my understanding having experienced the game multiple times, Curly absolutely fails to advocate for/help Anya. She hides the gun to keep it away from Jim because Curly will not allow her to protect herself. He straight up calls her crazy to her face, too: “You never had to get psych evals like the rest of us. I should’ve known” or something along those lines. When Curly confronts Jim before Jim crashes the ship, he doesn’t say ANYTHING in defense of Anya, instead consoling Jim that they would figure it out, and he’d been in rough spots before.

For all intents and purposes, Curly does not see that Jim has done something inexcusable, and rather he has made a series of mistakes. He does not for one single moment consider how Anya’s life has been permanently altered, how her autonomy has been entirely stolen from her.

Until he experiences it himself.

Curly being reduced to a mostly immobile spring sausage is his way of experiencing the pain he allowed to be inflicted upon Anya, full stop. Even more ironic? Anya can’t bare to give him his pain killers, so he is left completely at Jim’s mercy, a fun-house mirror of how Curly could not bare to hold his friend accountable, and therefore left Anya at Jim’s mercy pre-crash.

Curly only becomes Jim’s victim because he allows Anya’s victimization to go on unchecked. He thought he was exempt from Jim’s abuse, and that is his biggest mistake.

Also, I have to say the idea that Curly get’s rescued and lives happily ever after does the narrative no justice. In fact, it completely undermines Jim’s entire character arc. Curly living happily ever after would, in some sense, redeem a little of Jim’s character—redemption he did not remotely earn because he did NOT take responsibility. At all.

Jim putting Curly in the pod at the end is no act of mercy. It’s actually the worst and most selfish thing he could have done. It’s the exact freaking opposite of taking responsibility. When he has his big talk with Polle before the very end, he is spouting complete and utter bullshit. Why?

The crash and Curly are NOT the things he is supposed to be taking responsibility for. The thing he is supposed to be taking responsibility for is ANYA’S TORMENT. That is the thing which started all of this, which lead to the crash, which fried Curly. That is the inciting incident.

That’s the freaking irony!

Anya get’s completely and utterly forgotten in this moment. In my opinion, this is why Polle says:

If all of that is true… why are you still so concerned with him?

Because right before that, Jim is about to say “Our worst moments don’t make us monsters.”

And Polle knows, then, in that moment, that when Jim thinks of his worst moments, he thinks of the accident, what happened to Curly, rather than the immeasurable pain he inflicted on Anya PURPOSEFULLY. Jim completely fucking ignores his worst moment, and that DOES make him a monster.

So when Jim puts Curly in that pod, not only is he righting the WRONG wrong, but he is actively choosing to believe this is what it means to take responsibility. He is making his amends to a man he accidentally hurt rather than the person who suffered the most at his hand.

It’s also pretty evil of Jim to put him in there because he knows: a good captain goes down with his ship. He makes Curly out to be a selfish and pitiful. He may even be setting him up for failure depending on how the authorities reason out what happened.

I just think at the end of the day Jim is the villian of the story, and Curly is a freaking bystander. Obviously post-crash this is inevitable, but that’s almost funny—not gonna do anything to stop him, Curly? Guess what, now you don’t even have a freaking choice.

Anyway please stop glazing the spaghetti man you can love his complexity but he is not a good guy or uwu cutie pie. He sucks. Straight up.

Feel free to start discourse in the comments I’m okay with being wrong about him I guess I just don’t think I am.

[dododan]

Thoughts about Alastor after the episode "Hello, Rosie"

Perhaps first such a small summary for those who haven't read my previous posts about Alastor.

Alastor's deal with someone has worked out. Officially we don't know with whom, but my theory is that it is Lilith.

Alastor is obliged by the contract probably to help/protect Charlie. His intentions are not clear, and he harbours many secrets.

He is not fond of Lucifer. Theories are that he either sees him as a threat to Charlie's hotel and dreams, or he is redirecting negative emotions about his own father and how Lucifer treated Charlie onto him.

Alastor enjoys being in the company of women and probably likes/appreciates Charlie. Perhaps he sees himself as her mentor.

His help, although chaotic and initially incomprehensible seems to be having an effect and actually helping the hotel and Charlie.

Alastor has a weakness for jazz and alcohol, but we don't see him ever drinking alcohol in the series.

His enemy is Vox, but he is more annoyed by Lucifer (probably because he is stronger than him).

Alastor doesn't like to lose or be wrong.

Here you have a link to previous thoughts if you are curious.

Alastor’s true motivations? - Why is he helping Charlie?

Dad beat Dad - Alastor, what the hell are you doing?

Traditionally, there are loads of spoilers here!

From the outset, Alastor seems interested/intrigued by Charlie sitting in the room and spinning another plan. Clearly he saw an opportunity in. Charlie was alone, so he could talk to her in peace. A plan was already forming in his head.

On Instagram, one girl made a fair analysis of Alastor's facial expressions. What expression on his face signifies what emotion. Which proved to be very helpful in understanding him! Here you have ig: @/sasha_draws.bg She did a really great job! But back to Alastor.

When Alastor feels some negative emotion, lines/wrinkles appear under his eyes. Which is true when you pay attention to the previous episodes, but in this 'Hello, Rosie' it is particularly noticeable.

For most of the time in this episode, Alastor seemed concerned to me.

When Alastor was talking to Charlie I had the impression that he was provoking her. He made Charlie painfully aware of how badly her plans had failed, which seems cruel. Initially this could be understood as simply an opportunity to take advantage of Charlie and make a deal, but I think this is just an added benefit. Alastor is bound by his contract to the hotel and Charlie, so he can't leave her. But Alastor has besides made Charlie realise that she can't idly brood on the bed because she doesn't have that luxury. Her friends were waiting for a plan, they were waiting for Charlie.

Charlie gave up at that point, and Alastor made her realise that there was still a chance to make things right somehow. He exasperated her, and showed her that she couldn't give up - in a rather cruel way but still, it's not always kind words or words of support that help you up.

Sometimes the painful realisation of the truth is the best motivator to undertake change.

For a moment, Alastor seemed annoyed that Charlie thought she had him figured out because she smiles all the time. He made her realise that the opposite is true.

A smile can be a weapon on many fronts. You could say that he gave Charlie some cue about his own behaviour. His lecture about smiling shows a lot about him.

Alastor hides a lot - his emotions, motivations or goals. He revealed to Charlie that he himself puts on a mask. The smile gives Alastor a sense of control.

The question is, isn't Alastor also lying to himself in this way?

He is creating himself as a cruel overlord, a person without a conscience who inflicts suffering on others for fun. It makes me wonder if he hasn't started to believe himself in the character he wants to pretend to be?

Nevertheless, no matter how good Alastor's goals may be attributed to him, or that his actions have a good effect on the hotel and Charlie, he still made a deal with her. He was aware that Charlie would not give up her soul to him and would not do anything against herself. Their deal is that Charlie is to help him like friend to friend when he needs it without hurting anyone, and he will give her information. Quite a specific arrangement and very narrow. To me their deal is a bit of a lifeline for Alastor when he finds himself trapped by his own contract.

[As an aside, I've noticed that a lot of people think that the stitches appearing on Alastor's lips are a sign that he can't talk about his deal. I doubt this because of the design of his character. Alastor was shown at many points to be dealing with voodoo or somehow connected to it. This is indicated by the green symbols that appear when he uses his powers, and the stitching that appears on his mouth probably refers to the very design of the voodoo dolls, which also had their mouths stitched in this way. Ironically in my opinion, voodoo is generally good magic, focusing on healing or helping, which doesn't really fit Alastor. Unless one considers the distinction between white and black magic as it is known in New Orleans. But I also point out that I'm not an expert, but I'm just partly familiar with the subject of voodoo and just wanted to show a reference to Alastor's appearance here].

I think Alastor's worry or uncertainty is most evident when he leads Charlie to Rossie. You can see the look on his face and those wrinkles under his eyes. This could be interpreted as:

he's upset that the angels are about to exterminate in the hotel and the only person who can oppose it is preoccupied with his love problems rather than more important matters.

He is upset/worried that he realises he won't be able to help Charlie this time, so he leads her to the only person who is more knowledgeable about love than him: Rossie.

He is nervous because he sees that he might fail if the hotel is destroyed, and that this might somehow breach his contract.

Alastor and Rossie seem to have a very intimate relationship, which was implied in the episode " Scrambled Eggs" when they were at the Overlords meeting. Now we have confirmation that they are very close friends. Rossie can afford a lot in Alastor's company and he allows her to do so. It also seemed to me that when he met Rossie he relaxed a bit, as the wrinkles under his eyes disappeared for a few scenes.

All in all, I'm not surprised that Alastor and Rossie are friends.

Rossie is the opposite of Alastor in a way. She seems transparent in her feelings and genuinely cares about her cannibals. But she also has the strength and power to allow herself to do so. Alastor, on the other hand, plays and hides emotions all the time, and gains power through fear. Despite this, he gets along very well with Rossie, which may mean he's not quite what he makes himself out to be.

I also think that Rossie's words about it being actions that show true nature and feelings may apply to Alastor and his role in season two in the future. But we can already see this now, for example, in the fact that his duet with Lucifer, where Alastor sang that he wanted to replace Charlie's father, ultimately led to a reconciliation between daughter and father which Alastor seemed to be happy with.

We also have it made clear that Alastor is asexual.

Rossie commented that Alastor could learn manners from Charlie. It is possible that what is meant is that when someone annoys Alastor, he does not mince his words. He makes his opinion clear - Susan is a perfect example of this.

Alastor and Rossie really seem close to each other, such as when they look at each other when Charlie panics, or how they dance with each other or their negativity towards Susan. Additionally, Alastor must have had a close business relationship with Rossie since she had an assignment for him and when she said that he never let her down. I got the impression that this gave him considerable satisfaction. Plus it helped the image he wanted to create for Charlie - that he was reliable.

Alastor also seems to put his faith in Charlie after all. Rather than believing in her plan of salvation for sinners, he believes more in the girl's ability to draw crowds and motivate people to action other than through fear or deals. It is hard to say whether he admires this trait of Charlie's, but he certainly appreciates her for it.

Alastor supported Charlie during her song when she had to convince the cannibals to fight - either by giving her the microphone or showing her a thumbs up. I further related that he was slightly worried/nervous, but also pleased after seeing his actions bear fruit.

Alastor also made it clear to Rossie that he valued Charlie and expected nothing less from her than to thrill the crowds. But the important thing is that he referred to her as the Princess of Hell, not Charlie. Alastor has made it clear for the first time that he wants to fulfil Charlie's potential, this shows that despite the faith he has in her, he still only sees her as the Princess of Hell and not Charlie as someone who is more than just a princess.

A break for now, as it's quite late at my place, so expect the rest of the analysis tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow at the furthest.

[in1-nutshell]

IM GETTING EVERY IDEA I GOT OUT WHILE REQUESTS ARE OPEN IM SORRY

also I'm sorry i keep bringing up chaotic teen Buddy and Megatron, but i love seeing this fucker suffer through forced adoption.

I'm still kinda trucking through the comics, but i know that at some point Megatron is essentially yeeted into a whole ass different dimension and spent 300 years there (i could be totally wrong, if so ignore.) long story short, i have been stuck on the idea of Megatron getting stuck there for 300 years, mourning his funny little human child after 80 years, cause he figures even if he does get back home, they wont still be there.

Luckily for everyone involved, that 300 years was just a few months for the lost light. unluckily for everyone.

Buddy - "My father is gone, therefore I am no longer responsible for the consequences of my actions."

Hello again! Don't feel bad for asking/ requesting. Requests are fun to do for me and I can write almost anything someone asks, almost. Still, ask if you want something written. It is time for the return of Fearless Buddy!

Hope you enjoy!

Fearless Buddy reaction to Megatron coming back from the other dimension

SFW, platonic, familial, bit of angst here and there, Human reader

MTMTE/LL

Buddy had conveniently slept when Megatron had left. Don't blame them, they had been running off of little to no sleep for weeks and their body finally had enough.

Rodimus had to break the news for Buddy.

"What do you mean Megatron is 'gone'?!"--Buddy

"He left, he just up and escaped! But don't worry we'll get him back on board in no time."--Rodimus

"He... He really just left?"--Buddy

"I'm afraid so."--Rodimus

"Well, you know what? Who needs him anyways! The big sorry pile of scrap can go rust in space for all I care!"--Buddy

"Buddy--"--Rodimus

"Who needs him! Thanks for letting me know Roddy, really. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some important things to go over with Whirl."--Buddy

"What important things? What could be more important than this right now?"--Rodimus

"We are going to put a bumper sticker on Minimus saying 'Kachinga'!"--Buddy

"... Carry on!"--Rodimus

Rodimus really wishes now that he had stopped Buddy from making it to Whirl's. The ship had become the two's playground for pranks and sillies.

No one was spared from their wrath.

Many bots on board got mad at the two. But it was the bots closest to Buddy to realize something was deeply troubling them.

Their enthusiasm seemed forced most of the time. Their laughter almost seemed... Robotic almost. And their eyes... they looked so hollow and lacked the usual twinkle they had before.

Whirl appointed himself Buddy's guardian in the meantime. There wasn't much argument there as being Buddy's Amica, it was probably for the best.

Whirl lost count of the amount of times he caught Buddy going into Megatron's habsuite and crying over some of his poems. He wants to hurt Megatron so badly for the pain he inflicted on Buddy. They became Rung's most frequently seen patient after talking with Whirl.

"You really think this is going to help?"--Buddy

"I'm sure of it! If Eyebrows here can stand me, then you'll be like a walk in the park!"--Whirl

"... Thanks Whirl. I mean it, you're the best Amica a friend could ask for."--Buddy

"Hey now, don't get soft on me yet. That's Rung's job. Now get in there and punch those feelings in the face!"--Whirl

The day when Megatron comes back after everything is settled Whirl is one of the first in line to deck him across the face.

"You sorry excuse of a tyrant!--"--Whirl

"I know you're upset Whirl... Buddy passing must not have been easy..."--Megatron

"Passing? What are you talking about?"--Whirl

"Surely they have already passed it's been more than 80 years."--Megatron

"Megs, it's been a couple months since your little disappearing act."--Rodimus

"...Is Buddy alive?"--Megatron

"Of course they are! Why--Hey!"--Whirl

Megatron sprinting pass him and to Buddy's habsuite.

Megatron had never sprinted as fast as he did at that moment. For the past 200 or so years he had been in a constant state of mourning. He thought he had lost Buddy forever. The biggest regret he had was not at least telling them good bye.

Now here he was... He almost backed out of knocking on the door, but he did it. The doors opened revealing Buddy in all of their morning glory.

"... Buddy?"--Megatron

"Ah man it's one of those dreams again. Listen fake Megs, I'm not in the mood right now. So if you'll just come back next week that'll be great."--Buddy

Megatron finally snapped out of his dazed and scooped up Buddy into his servos and held them close to his spark.

It took Buddy a solid second to realize this wasn't some fever dream.

"Megs?"--Buddy

"I'm here now. I'm here."--Megatron

"...How... How dare you! YOU LEFT ME HERE ALONE! YOU DON'T JUST CALL SOMEONE THEIR KID THEN LEAVE THEM HIGH AND DRY! WHY DIDN'T YOU TAKE ME?!? OR AT LEAST SAY GOOD BYE!? TELL ME! TELL ME WHY?!? DAD WHY DID... why did you leave me...*--Buddy

"...I am so sorry..."--Megatron

"...you better be... I will never leave your side again... You're worse than a toddler getting lost at a Walmart..."--Buddy

It wasn't an easy transition at first. Buddy had their friends always within arms length from Megatron. Buddy themselves put up some walls to avoid getting hurt again.

The two eventually decided to seek counseling to try and mend their relationship. Thank goodness that happened.

Now Megatron was sitting in his habsuite with Buddy telling him all the latest news on the ship while reviewing their latest poems.

These were the little things he missed most and was glad he had gotten a chance to get them back.

[frequenceraph]

"Z is a bad character"

Xenoblade 1 and 3 spoilers incoming Ok so Z. I've seen so many people, mostly on twitter and reddit, complain about how this man is a bad character. The thing is though they're missing the point of Z. Z isn't supposed to be complex, he's a force created by origin as a response to the collective will of people to avoid confronting the inevitable collision and dissolution into light that the two worlds are destined for. He's a corrupting influence; an embodiment of the concept of the endless now. Z is compelling by means of the characters he influences. N is widely considered in the fandom to be an extremely well written character-- through the lens of one of the main characters' past lives, we get to experience the pain of loss that made him want to never have to lose anything anymore. Z is the fear of loss, and Noah choosing to confront Z and refuse to give in is him refusing to be afraid of losing the people he loves. He's lost Mio over and over, he had to leave his son behind, he's been unable to defeat moebius and break the cycle over and over, and Z-- his fear of loss-- eventually gets to him. These kinds of interactions make Z compelling and threatening. Z is a representation of the fear and vice that lives inside every single one of us. Even people who are extremely young like Joran can self sabotage and want to stay in a comfortable eternity when that's not the state that anything-- the world nor your interpersonal relationships-- can stay in. Joran is so mired in his assumptions that everyone of the main Keves party thinks he's useless that for a while he isn't able to escape the genuine abuse that he suffers at the hands of Moebius D. And that's Z at work. He (Joran's own assumptions and fears) has paralyzed Joran in a state of self loathing that he's inflicted on himself. There's also another aspect I think people ignore with regard to Z's relationship to past games. And that's that Z is a direct consequence of Shulk's decision at the end of Xenoblade 1 to walk towards the future hand in hand with everyone. Without a god to rule over them, people falling to their worst vices can directly influence the world. Z acts as a foil to Zanza in a sense, both serving as a demonstration of the flaws of a world with and without gods. Shulk's choice didn't result in utopia. There's always going to be something to fight for, and sometimes that thing is ourselves rather than some made up enemy. And that, I feel is the core message of Xenoblade 3. Given that western media has imbued us with the idea that characters need to be compelling in the same way that-- as hbomberguy said-- games need to be fun, it's easy to see why people would write off Z as being a bad character when they don't understand the broader context in which he exists. Like sure Z sits around and watches the main party do shit in a theatre in the middle of origin and that's all he does, but Z taking direct action would be against the spirit of his character. He (our internal vices, fear of change) operates through others, both figuratively and literally. We had to come to him in the final encounter because he-- from what I understand-- primarily exists in people's minds. TL;DR Z doesn't need to be a compelling character in the traditional sense. He's compelling by means of the characters he influences and what he represents; the flaws of a world without gods.

[starry-bright]

Lemme get uh...

11, 23, 42, 56 for Miss Joy

48, 50 for Miss Kara

And 22, 37, 47 for Cliiiiiooooo

- xoxo your biggest fan

For Joy:

11. If someone was impersonating them, what would friends / family ask or do to tell the difference?

This is so tough cuz Joy is such a wild card 😂 you’d have to out-weird whoever was impersonating her. Ask her to touch an obvious trap or other stupid reckless thing, if she doesn’t /at least/ try for it, that’s not Joy. Alternatively, say sexually suggestive stuff around “her” and if she doesn’t make a single awful sex joke then you gotta kill on sight.

23. What do they feel guilty for that the other person(s) doesn’t / don’t even remember?

Joy so rarely feels guilt, but I think she holds a non-zero amount of guilt for her past ruining a lot of the underground network she and her ex partner (???) Norma built for ferrying refugees to safety. I don’t think she ever was able to explain the complexity of her past lives and twin soul, and so Norma doesn’t know the real reasons why it was broken down

42. If invited to a TED Talk, what topic would they present on? What would the title of their presentation be?

Joy’s TED talk would start as a fun lecture on music and performance, and then she would start bringing up really thinly veiled commentary about class inequality and she’d inexplicably intertwine kickass music with a very charged hidden message of “fuck the man.” She’d title it: “lo-fi beats to revolt to”

56. If they’re scared, who do they want comfort from? Does this answer change depending on the type of fear? (Joy)

Joy doesn’t feel fear towards “average” things, but when she was still facing the huge unknown of her lost memories of past lives, that scared her to an existential degree. She did find comfort in her party members, who for some reason stuck around and refused to be swayed by her bad choices. Without them, she’d probably seek the comfort of a good tavern and a nice lay, tbh. and sometimes she’ll do that anyway xD

For Kara:

48. Who would they say ‘yes’ to if invited to do something they abhorred / strongly didn’t want to do? (Kara)

Kara hates going to most large social gatherings, but would always go and keep Hua company as the setting’s companion of the avatar, and she never lets her little brother suffer alone. Sometimes her friends Sakiko and Shisui will talk her out of the air temple to participate in their weird wrestling events, and she’d always sweep the floor on everyone and leave as quickly as possible 😂

50. What belief / moral / personality trait do they stand by that you (mun) personally don’t agree with? (Kara)

Oh this is tough…well I guess for one, Kara is much more willing to go the “murder” route, even if she’s now a serene monk that does peace talks every day, than I am. I also think she’s a lot more devoted to a fault than myself, which I used to be 😅 but Kara has a single minded devotion that led her to some sad consequences and mistakes…

For Clio:

22. What simple activity that most people do / can do scares your character? (Clio)

This is so embarrassing for her, but being a rich kid growing up never having to do the most basic chores…Clio cannot figure out laundry. She’s terrified of ruining her fanciest clothes and is baffled about the concept of clotheslines. “I mean some random stranger can just snatch my stockings whenever they want!”

37. What’s a secret they haven’t told serious romantic partners and don’t plan to tell? (Clio)

Ohohohoh…I don’t think Clio would ever tell anyone, including romantic partners (even her lifelong crush & eventual partner Po), about the origins of some of the scars she has from childhood. Some are self-inflicted, while others were punishments for misbehaving or failing to meet expectations of her parents. Clio would have a very hard time bringing those memories up, and no amount of therapy would make it easier to talk about.

47. Who have they forgotten about that remembers them very well? (Clio)

I think there was a bard we met on the road in the campaign I played her in, and she really heckled him and gave him tons of shit. I bet he remembers her 😂 Alternatively, I think she probably bullied another kid at magic school and it really left an impression on them, but Clio eventually goes through her Redemption Arc (tm) and forgets she did that. Maybe they confront her 50 years later and she’s like, “oh, shit. Sorry, um. Here’s 100gp. Does that..make up for it?”

[akirakirxaa]

Oh boy, I get to info dump about whatever the fuck That is. *points at Akira's love life*

So the actual decision to ship with Haurchefant actually stemmed from my husband and I fighting over which of our WoLs got to date Aymeric. (It was all in good fun of course haha.) I relented because suddenly I decided to inflict horrible pain and suffering onto Akira. I also decided the moment I decided she would be into Haurch that she also would wait to tell him until it was too late. Because I have a bad habit of being mean to my main characters a lot. So up until my very recent Haurch Lives AU I've been playing with they've always just been a tragedy. This is not to say I never liked Haurch, btw, but Aymeric does ask us over for drinks and he has That Voice. >.>

Hien happened in Stormblood because I was determined to ship Akira with someone and Stormblood was somewhat lacking in options. He's also pretty and we all love a well intentioned himbo. I figured he would be a good place for Akira to start trying to open back up after Haurch. Originally when I had her break up with him right before Shadowbringers I intended for her to get back with him when she returned. That...obviously didn't happen. ^^; Sorry Hien, Shadowbringers just brought in a couple of juggernauts of ship material. That's why he's not on my current ship list.

I did not originally have her get with Emet. He's grown on me over time. Not in the 'I didn't like him and now I do' way, in the 'I liked him and now I love him' way. Originally I was going to have his and her soul's past connection being why her romantic life always seems to never work out, kinda like a darker twist on the soulmates thing where as long as he was around no other relationships would work. I ditched that idea some time ago but it was fun while it lasted. I decided to have them be a thing for a brief time in ShB just because Akira was under a lot of pressure and between being a shard of Azem (we'll get to my Azem), and her past life being the Empress (we'll get to her too), she was just drawn to him in a way she wasn't anyone else. She didn't get it but she had too much to worry about to also worry about that too.

G'raha seemed like a natural fit. It was such an echo of what happened in the Vault, that being able to save him at the end of ShB felt like a redemption. Between that, their former friendship during the CT questline, and everything he'd done for her to save her life and the life of everyone she cared about, it honestly would have been kinda weird if they hadn't gotten together, at least in my personal universe.

Onto my non-Akira characters with ships.

It should be obvious from the fact that I named my Azem Persephone that I always intended to ship her with Hades from the minute we saw the ancient in the light during the Big Cutscene in ShB. And then it was just solidified in the cutscene where we're given the Azem Crystal. And when Endwalker gave us some actual Hyth info, I could not imagine any pair of them without the third. It was the first time I was 100% sold on an OT3 that wasn't intended on being a poly ship in the first place. This is definitely a case of I felt the narrative demanded it even though I also love Hades and Hyth.

Valeria I literally created to be the first Empress of Garlemald and so I made to her to be shipped with Solus rather than the other way around. And in this case I can 100% say it was because I'm slightly obsessed with Emet-Selch. But it also gave another solid reason for Akira to feel inexplicably pulled towards him if one of her past lives (which I headcanon the Empress was) was actually married to him and they had a good relationship (which of course I'm going to make them have because that's a lot more fun for me lol). So Valeria happened as a plot device and self indulgence and I'm totally okay with that lol.

for people who ship their oc with an npc: did you decide to ship them with your OC because they were a favorite character of yours OR because you felt that npc genuinely went well with your OC? I'm really curious!

[deathfavor]

Out of the Nine Demon Gates , Jackal is one of the ones most prone to emotion. Typically his emotions remain along the lines of confidence, anger, or schadenfreude ( aka delight in other’s suffering ) simply due to what he does that feeds his bloodlust as well.

As much as Jackal is prone to anger though , he very rarely actually hates. He gets over things fairly quickly and it has to be something devastating that will stay with him. Lucy is really the only one he hates because of everything that happened after the Aquarius incident. He blames it all on her so she is his primary figure of hate. While Natsu will make him angry , he at least respects that Natsu can properly fight and go toe to toe with Jackal. I mean , he even nicknamed Natsu fireball while just using insults for Lucy. Respect is a big thing for Jackal , and one of the only ways he’ll listen. Lucy he blames though and for his sense of loss post-tartaros. The rest ? He butts heads with the other nine gates and others too , but give him a couple hours and he’ll probably be over it , the next day at the latest. (Though it doesn’t mean he won’t do something back to be even later just because he can. )

Jackal doesn’t tend to care much about others. Demon , human , doesn’t matter he doesn’t give a fuck. Which is why he was so accepting of Minerva being ‘ one of them ‘ and called her a comrade immediately. She is , but it doesn’t mean he cares. He delights in violence and adrenaline rushes and doesn’t tend to care how others see him or what they think. He basically tells Torafuzar to shove it after the other tells him what to do in regards to Lucy. Like him or hate him , it won’t change a thing. UNLESS he cares about you. Which is extremely rare and hard to do. Jackal will play that he doesn’t give a fuck. He’ll still be snide and aggressive , but he’ll also actually listen to you and is more inclined to obey or give things ( even though he’ll say it’s just junk or something. ) He’ll deny wanting something or threaten to bite a hand off if you try to pet him , but in actuality he won’t do anything if he likes you as a person besides grumble or threaten that you better not tell others ( and that he DOES mean )

He’s very confident in himself and his skills , and he has every right to be with his skills. He does what he does. Even if he’s shaken up , it usually only lasts a minute or two and then he’s recovered and adjusts his mood as needed , but it’s rare not to see him confident. Jackal also can be selfish in that he places his own goals as top priority over anything/anyone else in most cases. Like for him , there’s no real urge to return to Zeref, though instinctually he is aware of him. He has his goals and he’d focus on those first and foremost.

He’s not very prone to long bouts of ‘ good ‘ emotions though. Delight usually comes from inflicting pain on others ( which can be drawn out ) but just random delight is rare. Like calm. The only calm you get with Jackal is basically if he’s sleeping , he often needs to do something. He’s not especially patient unless it comes to combat. But he can have some harmless fun when it comes to the other nine gates and have moments of entertainment from it.

TLDR: Jackal is prone to more wide-range variety of emotions than most demons , rarely hates others but hates lucy , doesn’t give a fuck about others but if he does give a fuck he’ll pretend otherwise ( e’s not fooling anyone), confident demon, doesn’t like to stay still / do nothing, but also will mess with the other gates sometimes for fun w/o causing harm.

[sleeping-on-cracking-ice]

did i just bingeread everything you posted? absolutely. do i regret it. absolutely not. ✨you are an amazing writer!!!💕 And while we’re at it can i request a scenario where Niragi goes crazy and scares his s/o really bad but he gets kinda soft and tries to comfort them later? If that makes sense haha And also a giant thank you for writing in gender neutral!!🥺💕

Thank you so much for reading my fics! I’m honestly really flattered haha 😅 Here is you’re request!

Comfort From A Tormentor | Suguru Niragi

{Alice In Borderland Masterlist}

Character(s): Niragi (ft. OC)

Summary: Niragi tries to comfort you, his S/O, after you witnessed his murderous behaviour for the first time

Warnings: toxic relationship, blood, murder, graphic violence, pushy behaviour, reader watches someone being killed, going into shock, panic attack, quite intense trauma, slight abuse of power

Word Count: 2.4k

*reader is gender-neutral

You always knew that Niragi wasn’t the kindness at The Beach, which was quite blatantly obvious. When people heard you guys had gotten together and were now in an established relationship, you had many people express their concerns privately with you, labelling him as an evil and violent character. You always shook it off, because you’d seen nothing of the sort during the time you had spent with him.

The worst you ever saw him say or do was a threat, or a short punch to the ribs as a warning, but even then the victims usually deserved it. You hadn’t experienced one of Niragi’s ‘outbreaks’ that people have discussed with you about. You started to believe it was all rumours to keep you away from him until he lost it one night in front of you, causing you to believe everything you had been told about him.

It was a usual night at The Beach, people parading around the pool and filling their brains and sinuses with alcohol, allowing them to forget their shared hardships for the evening.

You sat in a small booth that was excluded from the rest of the crowd. Your head was leaning on Niragi’s broad shoulder as you watched everyone dance to the blaring music. You felt the bass vibrate through the ground and in your chest, making you excited from the fun atmosphere.

Niragi lifted his hand and pet your head softly. “You okay little mouse?” he checked, bringing his face closer to yours and placing his lips on your cheek. You turned your head towards him and brushed your lips on his. “Yeah, I’m just tired,” you whispered. Niragi smirked and rubbed his hand along your bare leg. “We can go to bed soon, let’s just stay a little longer.”

Niragi shifted underneath you and stood up, making you lean back against the cushioned backrest. “I’m going to get a drink,” he stated bluntly before picking up his rifle from the small table that sat in front of you. “Don’t let anyone touch you otherwise you’ll regret it.”

You felt uneasy at his threat, but you knew if you just listened to him he would never carry through his brutal promises. He wasn’t that hard of a personality to figure out.

You watched as he strolled away towards the bar, leaving you by yourself and cold in the booth. You moved your eyes from him and looked around to everyone else, watching a few people jump into the pool and laugh together. You wished Niragi had less of a important placing at The Beach so he could relax like everyone else instead of constantly having to deal with stupid drunken dickheads causing trouble.

You looked over towards the bar again to see if you could spot Niragi, but couldn’t see him from where you were sitting. You needed to go to the bathroom and you were wondering if you could make it before he returned. You shrugged your shoulders and stood up on your feet to leave. It wouldn’t be that long, and besides if he did some back to you not being there, you were sure he wouldn’t mind. It’s just the bathroom.

You quickly made your way past the few crowds of dancing bodies. The smell of sweat and alcohol filled your nostrils as you pushed through, making your face scrunch up in disgust. No matter how long you spend there, you would never grow used to the party smell.

You made your way to the lobby to get to the bathroom located there. It was a quiet walk and hardly anyone was in the halls. It made you more calm, knowing that no one was around to bring you a hard time.

But unfortunately, you thought too soon. As you arrived at the lobby and were crossing the main lounge area, a young man with jet black hair and blue board shorts stood up from one of the couches. You failed to notice him earlier due to him being hidden behind the backrest.

“Oh hey!” he exclaimed your way excitedly. “I thought you’d come here. I saw you drink a rather large cocktail earlier so I just guessed you’d show up some time soon or later.”

You froze in shock, looking the man up and down with confusion written on your face. “What?”

He shook his head as he slowly made his way over to your frame. “Forget it. I wanted to get you away from your psychotic side piece so I could get a chance with you without being killed.” His smile was a bit too creepy for your liking, bringing an unpleasant tingling feeling up your back.

You stepped back as he attempted to reach out and grab your hand. He slowly recoiled with a frown on his tanned face. You shook your head and hands, denying his movements towards you. “No thanks actually. I’m not interested,” you insisted, turning your back to try and escape into the bathroom.

You felt your heart drop from the sudden grip on your wrist, pulling you back towards the annoying man and into his chest. He lifted your chin so you were looking at him and crashed his lips onto yours.

You panicked, ripping your arm out of his grip and pushing him away from you. He stumbled back a bit before smirking at your angered expression.

“What the fuck was that?!” you screamed at him, wiping his saliva off of your mouth in disgust. “Did no one ever teach you what no means?!”

Before the man could respond, a piercing sound of gunshots rang through the room. You covered your ears and dropped to the ground in fear of being hit. You looked towards the man and saw him crouching as well with a few bullet marks scattering the carpet around him. They barely missed him.

You kept your head down low in case of another load being shot at any moment, but you were grabbed by your upper arm and pulled up roughly after a few short moments. Niragi stood there, angered expression on his face and tightening his grip on your arm. You felt your blood pumping with adrenaline from his movements.

“What the fuck did I tell you?” he hissed into your face, being way too quiet for your liking.

You didn’t know what to say. Your words were trapped in your throat, being held there by the shock of the gunshots and Niragi’s anger towards you.

“I told you to not let anyone touch you. And how hard is it to stay in one place for five minutes?!” His fist moved from your arm to your jaw, holding it tightly so you would face him. Tears were developing in your eyes. You tried to stop them from rolling down your cheeks in fear of angering Niragi more, but the pain throbbing in your jaw made it nothing but more difficult. This wasn’t the Niragi you knew. He’s never laid a violent hand on you before.

“Niragi, stop,” you whimpered out, holding onto his wrist that was hurting you. “It hurts.”

“I don’t care. You deserve to be hurt after not listening to me.” Niragi finally released his grip from your jaw. You dropped to the ground, clutching your face in pain and letting out quiet sobs. The look in his eyes was menacing, making him seem unpredictable. You were terrified, pushing your legs against the carpet to separate yourself from his tall frame.

You watched as he turned away from you and walked towards the young man, who scrambled to his feet to try and run away. But Niragi leaped towards him and grabbed his shoulder before he could do so. He pulled him back harshly onto the ground and placed a boot on his chest, keeping him there. The man struggled until Niragi held the barrel of his gun against his forehead, making the petrified man freeze underneath him.

You watched in horror as he leaned down and pressed harder and harder on his bare chest, making the defenseless man cry out in fear of breaking a rib. “You’ve made a huge mistake my friend,” he growled, sticking his tongue out and showing off his piercing. “You dare touch what’s mine, you suffer the consequences.”

You leant up against the concrete wall, feeling too weak and in shock to stand up. You cried and screamed as you watched Niragi stamp his foot incredibly harshly on the man’s head several times. Blood poured down the side of his face and he put his hands up in defense, which deemed useless against Niragi’s strength. Niragi didn’t stop, moving his aim from the man’s face to his chest, hands, stomach, groin and thighs. His screams of pain and suffering echoed around the room, ringing in your ears and making your heart ache. Yes, he did attempt to force himself onto you, but hearing another human screeching out for help when you could do nothing was one of the most painful things you could ever inflict on an empath such as yourself.

You shook violently and covered your eyes with your hands, not wanting to see anymore. You wanted to disappear, to evaporate into the wind. You wanted to wake up back at home, in your safe warm bed from before the Borderland. You felt sick from the contrasting differences between the world in your head and the one you were physically in. Why couldn’t you just fade away?

You felt a presence in front of your shivering form, and you slowly peeled away your hands to reveal the abuser in front of you, looking into your eyes worryingly. Your stomach dropped from catching a glimpse of the blood splattered lightly across his attractive features. You felt nausea building in your stomach, making you want to throw up.

“Baby? What’s wrong?” Niragi lifted a hand and tried to place it on your cheek, but you flinched away violently and screamed as you crawled onto your hands and knees, attempting to quickly escape him. It was deemed almost impossible to do considering the emotional state you were in at that moment. You just watched your lover beat a man until the light left his eyes, you weren’t going to recover from the shock quickly.

You cried as he grabbed your ankle and roughly pulled you back. You struggled against his grip and tried to shake his hands off of your shoulders and waist desperately. You were terrified that he was going to hurt you, beat you until you were dead just like his other victim.

“Baby! Why are you so scared?! Hold still!” Niragi cried, attempting to hold your thrashing body against his to quiet you down. He was feeling desperate and helpless, what was happening to you? You’ve never done this before. He thought maybe you were in shock and thinking that he was the man trying to force himself on you.

“Y/N! It’s me! I’m here, you’re okay!” he cried in a frightened tone. He managed to pull you roughly by your waist into his lap and held the back of your head against his chest area. He began to shake himself, being so worried about your emotional state. He felt you suddenly stop struggling in his arms, hearing your soft sobs of fear against his shirt.

“What’s going on baby? You’re scaring me,” he groaned into your neck. You shivered against him, feeling too weak to even push yourself from his chest. You could do nothing but sit in his lap, terrified of the man who was attempting to comfort you.

“It’s okay. He’s gone now. He can’t hurt you anymore,” he cooed, stroking your hair in an attempt to calm your rapid breathing. He let out a shaky breath, being on the verge of tears. He felt his heart rapidly pumping in his chest, thumping against his ribcage. He was at least comforted at the fact that you were back in his arms, away from everyone and everything that wanted to separate you from him.

He leaned his head back and looked at your face tucked into his chest. He saw your tight hands scrunching his black and white button-up into themselves, making him feel soft at how vulnerable and small you looked.

“It’s okay baby. I’ve got you. I’ll always protect you.”

You tried to level your breathing, listening to Niragi’s heartbeat to focus on something else other than the fact that he had just murdered someone in front of you.

Everything everyone had said was true. Niragi was purely an evil person, filled to the brim with violence and murderous impulses. You repented your doubts so badly, wishing that you had listened. But you chose to give him a chance to be a good person for once in his life, and he threw it out the window. Only now, you couldn’t escape him. You had to now live with being the object of a murderer’s desires.

You felt Niragi snake his arms underneath your knees and shoulders gently, standing up from the ground with you in his arms. You clutched onto him from around his neck, tears still slowly travelling down your face.

“Let’s get you to bed, hmm? My little baby must be so tired after all that.”

‘After all that’. He said it like it was nothing more than a bad day. Your boyfriend just killed someone in front of you and then just forced you back into his arms. This wasn’t a bad day, it was a traumatic experience that would stay with you for the rest of your life, remembering every detail and image of the event vividly.

“Niragi,” you mumbled. He glanced down to your weak frame, face going soft from the tired expression across your features. “Shh, don’t speak. Just go to sleep. I promise I’ll be here when you wake up.” He leaned down and placed a tender kiss to the top of your head.

You didn’t want him to be there when you woke. In fact, you didn’t want to wake up at all. You felt miserable and defenseless in his arms, wishing for nothing more than to wake up and for it to be all some horrific dream.

But you didn’t wake up, because it was your reality. Niragi’s delusional, obsessive and abusive mindset was nothing new anymore, it was normal everyday life for you from then on.

[random-thought-depository]

Tangent from my last post: reading over this and thinking about it, I’ve pinpointed a disagreement that I think reveals a fundamental disagreement I have with the ideas I was responding to there.

Seph’s essay talks about liberal sexual consent practices as requiring a shift toward a more Culture A style of social interaction; requiring a willingness to actively assert your own interests instead of engaging in Culture B accommodationism. And that’s true, but I immediately recognized that it’s incomplete in a way that I think fundamentally distorts what’s happening, though it took me a while to think out exactly how. Saying “no” involves a degree of Culture A type assertiveness, but respecting that “no” and pro-actively making sure your partner is enjoying things involves an attentiveness to feelings, an accommodationism, and an attentiveness to maintaining harmony that’s more Culture B.

Like, if you drew up two columns, one labeled “Macho Republican Dad Boomerpost Stuff” and one labeled “Softy SJW Stuff,” and started sorting things into those columns by which group they’re more stereotypically associated with (bacon, guns, capitalism, Christianity, complaining about “cancel culture,” and calling people sissies as an insult into the Republican Dad column, tofu, queerness, feminism, socialism, veganism, accusing people of microaggressions, and being a Wiccan into the SJW column, etc.), I think liberal sexual norms placing a high premium on explicit consent would definitely stereotypically belong in the “SJW” column. And in this context I think that’s revealing.

I think what’s happening here is fundamentally orthogonal to Culture A vs. Culture B. I think, like a lot of left vs. right divides, it fundamentally comes down to hierarchy vs. egalitarianism. Liberal sexual norms emphasizing consent are a rejection of the pecking order method of simply resolving sexual conflicts of interests in favor of the person with more power, whether that power is social status, physical strength, emotional intelligence, or just being more willing to press for their interests. Culture A vs. Culture B is fundamentally orthogonal to what’s really going on here; trying to understanding this issue through that lens is at best like trying to understand the US Civil War through the lens of doctrinal disputes between different types of Christianity (you may get some genuine insights, but you’ve mistaken the fringes of the conflict for its core), and at worst like trying to understand the US Civil War through the lens of doctrinal disputes between Sunni and Shia Islam.

Actually I think the “trying to understand the US Civil War through the lens of Christian doctrine disputes” may be a good analogy, because I think this does tie back to the “the left/liberal side of the culture war is waging a war against Culture A” hypothesis in a way that reveals how that idea is not exactly wrong but misses an important dimension of what’s happening. I think what’s happening is that hierarchy is more explicit and explicitly enforced in Culture A, and therefore as society becomes less like a pecking order hierarchy tends to assume Culture B characteristics.

Culture A is where you find the human hierarchies that look the most like actual pecking orders, which are maintained by literal physical pecking. It’s where you find the openly brutal world of bosses screaming “the leads aren’t weak, you are!” into a cringing subordinate’s face, cops quietly taking an uncooperative suspect into a convenient alley and roughing him up a little to “teach him to respect our authority,” gangsters beating somebody up for being insufficiently deferential to them, some 6′3 250 pound guy in the grips of road rage punching some 5′7 150 pound guy in the face over a smashed bumper, teachers disciplining students by giving them hard blows on the palm with a ruler, a swaggering thug threatening a woman with physical violence because she had the effrontery to object to him groping her, and jocks having some fun inflicting casual physical abuse on the nerds in the locker room and on the playground. Hierarchies in Culture A are often maintained by physical violence and the threat thereof and put-downs and other explicit verbal bullying. When somebody in Culture A thinks you’ve gotten a bit above your station and wants to put your in your place, they’re likely to either actually use physical violence against you, explicitly threaten you with it, or explicitly insult you. Abuse in Culture A tends to look like our stereotypical picture of some swaggering thug openly terrorizing somebody who has some sort of vulnerability.

By contrast, hierarchies in Culture B tend to operate under more polite fictions of relative egalitarianism, cooperativeness, and non-violence. Enforcement of Culture B hierarchies tends to be less overtly violent. Culture B hierarchies are more likely to be covert and legible only to somebody with inside knowledge (e.g. you’ve ostensibly got a group of equals, but some are more equal than others because of advantages that mostly aren’t explicitly acknowledged). Culture B tends to have more of an ideal that coercive power can only be legitimately exercised for moral reasons, while Culture A tends to have more of a “master morality” culture where power is seen as worthy of respect in itself (Culture A is what gave us “Chad” and “alpha” as aspirational ideals), which is why bullying in Culture B tends to have a moralistic and fearmongering nature (see: Tumblr call-out posts) while bullying in Culture A tends to follow a more “master morality” logic of “our victim is weak and aesthetically displeasing to us, and that in itself makes them deserve punishment” - though much like “Culture A rewards strength and technical skills, Culture B rewards social skills and popularity” that’s a dichotomy that can easily be overplayed; most human hierarchies come with a hefty dose of community-minded moralism (even if the community is a pirate ship or criminal gang or something like that), and social skills and popularity are hugely important in almost any culture. Culture B is for people who wouldn’t dream of doing anything so barbaric as yelling at you or punching you because they’re mad at you; they’d complain to the human resources department who’d force you to spend a Friday evening listening to somebody lecture you about the need to “make our store a welcoming environment for our valued customers.”

An archetypal abusive Culture A authority figure is the macho thuggish “respect mah authoritay!” cop. An archetypal abusive Culture B authority figure is the gaslighty Nice Lady Therapist. The former is more-or-less open about the fact that he sees himself as above you in the pecking order and if you dispute that he’ll be delighted to enforce the pecking order in approximately the way chickens do it. The latter pretends to be your friend (and perhaps believes themselves to be that), and expends a great deal of effort tailoring their pecking order enforcement to not look like pecking order enforcement - significantly, they might like to be as openly brutal as the “respect mah authoritay!” cop is, but in strong Culture B that social strategy just doesn’t work; their social strategy represents a compromise with socially influential ideals of egalitarianism and non-violence, a tribute that vice pays to virtue (less charitably, it may simply reflect playing to different strengths and trying to minimize different weaknesses, e.g. the thuggish cop may have chosen that social strategy because he’s a physically powerful but not particularly socially intelligent Biff Tannen type, while the Nice Lady Therapist may have chosen that social strategy because she’s a socially intelligent and Machiavellian but physically feeble 4′10 woman).

In short, Culture B tends to both meaningfully soften the blows of pecking order enforcement and obfuscate them. It follows that as equalizing movements gain ground and explicit pecking order logic becomes more taboo, hierarchy will increasingly take on Culture B characteristics. In 1700, if you angered your boss in some petty interpersonal way he might have whipped you, which was his right as your master. Today, if you anger your boss in some petty interpersonal way she might think a little about how to get revenge on you in a way that doesn’t risk blowback if you take it up with the union, and then find some excuse to arrange for you to have to attend some mandatory HR remedial training that isn’t officially a punishment but let’s be real, totally is. Maybe in 2200 you won’t have a boss because you’ll work in an officially egalitarian syndicalist union, but there will be some union members who are “more equal than others” because of personal connections or charisma or some combination of both, and if you anger one of them in a petty interpersonal way they might through whisper networks arrange a quiet campaign to make sure the union votes against your requests for your favorite foods on the workplace lunch menu.

I guess I’m staking out a position as a hedging kind-of partisan of Culture B here. There’s a lot of talk about how Culture B gets an undeserved good reputation and can be just as unfair and cruel as Culture A but in a more insidious way, and I’m sympathetic to that and I think there’s a lot of truth to that, but, y’know, if I had to choose between pecking order enforcement that has to maintain a plausible veneer of being something else and just open undiluted sadistic pecking order enforcement, I think I’d prefer the former. I think even just adding in a requirement of hypocrisy improves things, because it forces pecking order enforcement to optimize for plausible deniability instead of sadism and effective tyranny. Admittedly, as somebody who finds this very relatable I have a strong personal bias here.

An illustrative personal anecdote: the usual stereotype of high school is that bullied kids (or at least bullied boys) suffer a lot of casual physical abuse, but I noticed that in my school there was a lot of verbal bullying but mercifully little physical abuse; the worst that was likely to happen in terms of physical violence was somebody tripping you up or throwing a box of kleenix at you or spitting their drink at you or something like that. I suspect the reason was that blatant physical violence was pretty much the only form of bullying the school administration would reliably punish (though they’d likely punish the victim right along with the perpetrator), and that’s why it usually wasn’t done. I suspect what happened is that stereotype of chronic casual physical abuse reflects what schools were like when the baby boomers were growing up (and boomers then wrote fiction etc. that reflected that experience that shaped the pop culture stereotype), but then anti-bullying reforms came along and by the late ‘90s and early ‘00s they’d achieved one great success: mostly eliminating that schoolyard culture of casual physical violence. And that was a very incomplete fix, just addressing the tip of the iceberg of the problem and probably often redirecting bullying into psychological abuse rather than actually reducing it... but, y’know, I’m really glad my middle and high school experience didn’t conform to that pop culture stereotype of the school dweeb getting regularly beaten up by four or six bigger kids. I had an awful time in middle and high school, but judging from pop culture stereotypes it could have been so much worse, and if suspensions for kids who punched other kids is what created that difference, then I’m profoundly grateful for that reform.

I think the left is kinda-sorta waging war on Culture A as a side-effect of its war on pecking order culture, in which high-status people enjoy the advantages of Culture A while low-status people labor under the disadvantages of Culture B. It’s not an accident that Culture A is associated with men and Culture B is associated with women. Accommodation (sometimes to the point of self-harm) is a survival strategy for low-status people in a social structure that resembles a pecking order; if you’re going to lose the fight, it often makes sense to pre-emptively accept a settlement that favors the interests of the stronger person (often to the extent of trying to anticipate the stronger person’s wants, performing even the brain work of figuring out their preferences for them). Competitiveness is a social strategy for upward mobility in a pecking order society or defense of a place near the top of the pecking order (it also has more pro-social functions so we probably want to keep it around in some form, but social competition is very much part of its function). Women tend to be reluctant to openly advocate for their personal interests because for much of history a woman openly advocating for her personal interests was likely to provoke status-guarding retaliation from men. Men tend to be reluctant to show vulnerability and see doing so as feminine because for much of history other men were likely to perceive a vulnerable man as an opportunity to increase their own social status by lowering the vulnerable man’s social status, and as a rule of thumb to lower a man’s social status was to give him a social status more like a woman’s. In the context of a pecking order society, a lot of Culture B makes sense as social strategies for people at the bottom of the pecking order with little realistic shot of escaping its lower levels, and a lot of Culture A makes sense as social strategies for people at the top of the pecking order and people at the bottom or middle of the pecking order who have a realistic shot at using high-risk high-reward social strategies to move up in the hierarchy. I think there’s some complicating factors around reproductive dynamics that explain why this is a gendered thing instead of just a class thing, but I won’t get into that here. So it makes sense that as society becomes less like a pecking order that process will involve shifts toward Culture A in some areas and shifts toward Culture B in other areas, because those cultures are probably both somewhat maladaptive in a more egalitarian social context.

A relevant example is that for much of history vigorously advocating their own sexual interests was often very risky for women, so Culture B primes women to pre-emptively accept a settlement that favors the man’s sexual interests, so liberal consent norms work better if women develop more assertiveness about their own interests, which looks kind of Culture A-ish. At the same time, women now have more leverage to effectively demand that men perform pro-social Culture B behaviors of accommodation, empathy, and consideration for the feelings and interests of others in the context of heterosexual sex.

----------

Tangential aside: I think thinking of hierarchy as the fundamental tension point of the left vs. right conflict illustrates a way that post I was responding to might be kind of too meta and you might get an illuminating perspective by stepping back from all that meta-level theorizing about fundamental epistemological differences and looking at the object level.

If you analyze left-wing “cancel culture” at the object level, what does it look like it’s trying to do? It seems to me that it’s trying to lower the social acceptability of what leftists perceive as defenses of hierarchy. Who are the stereotypical targets of campus “cancel culture”? They might be a “race realist” who’s very eager to tell you about how he thinks certain human groups have lower IQs or other congenital traits maladaptive to modern society and darkly hint about political implications. They might be a business libertarian economist who wants to stump for the gospel of the free market. They might be somebody who has a habit of delivering the academic equivalent of boomerposts about kids these days with their coddling and their trigger warnings and their genders. They might be some principled “free speech” type who seems to spend a lot of their energy white knighting for neo-Nazis and other far-right types. They might be somebody who you’d think would be relatively unobjectionable to leftists but who’s said something that can be uncharitably interpreted as bigoted at some point. Besides raw factionalism, the obvious common point is something that can be reasonably interpreted as a defense of hierarchy. The “race realist” at least implicitly says “some groups are smarter or otherwise better than others and may therefore be rightfully deserving of privilege.” The business libertarian economist at least implicitly says “if you’re poor because you can’t get a job or can’t get a job that pays well, that’s basically your problem and the system working as intended; a society with great inequalities of wealth and status may not be ideal but it’s at least better than all the realistic alternatives.” The academic boomerposter at least implicitly says “some people struggle in our education system because of personal emotional sensitivities; their weakness is their own problem and us more functional people have no obligation to accommodate it, if that harms them it may be regrettable but it’s basically the system working as it should to weed out those unfit for it.” The principled free speech proponent at least implicitly says “wanting to kill the Jews and re-enslave the blacks and have white Sharia should be a tolerated opinion in our society, at least insofar as it should not be legally persecuted, and I am willing to devote considerable efforts to defending that principle.” The basically unobjectionable liberal who happens to have a dodgy comment or three in their social media record at least implicitly says “I don’t think I should get too much blowback for once implying that [insert group of concern here] maybe deserves the jackboot to the face.”

And sure, you can dispute the fairness of such judgements, but the over-arching project outlined by these targets seems fairly obvious: to raise the social costs of what leftists perceive as defending pecking orders.

And, like, yeah, there’s some meta-level differences about the role of tolerance and debate too, but I suspect a lot of the disagreement is really more object-level, over how objectionable certain opinions actually are, e.g. a lot of the dispute over “cancelling” the business libertarian guy is probably going to be over 1) how objectionable defense of hierarchy actually is, 2) whether libertarian beliefs are actually defenses of hierarchy.

[maddie-grove]

Little Book Review: Devil House

Author: John Darnielle.

Publication Date: 2022.

Genre: Technically a thriller, really literary fiction.

Premise: In the early 2000s, moderately successful true crime writer Gage Chandler buys a rundown house in Milpitas, California. He does this at the behest of his agent, who has found out that the house used to be an adult video store that was the site of a Satanic double murder in the 1980s. Despite his doubts about the gimmick, Gage is eager to start exploring the case; however, it proves to be more complicated than he expected.

(Spoilers below!)

Thoughts: Much like Universal Harvester, the other Darnielle novel I’ve read, Devil House is pleasurably enigmatic. It’s a kind of scrapbook novel, where Chandler’s more or less straightforward narration is interspersed with excerpts from his books, letters, a detour into faux-Arthuriana, and an epilogue from the POV of a seldom-mentioned childhood friend. The ending is rather open and doesn’t explain exactly what happened with Chandler’s manuscript. This is right up my alley; I was one of those kids who loved the conclusion of ASOUE and didn’t get why other fans wanted definite answers.

The book's message is also enigmatic. I saw a review online that called it "an indictment of true crime," but even that review seemed ambivalent once I got past the clickbait-ish headline. At a pivotal point in the novel, Gage gets a long letter from the mother of a murder victim he wrote about in his first book. She shares her memories of her son and the hopes she had for him, as well as the suffering inflicted on them both by her abusive husband; she also condemns Gage for making her son a minor figure in somebody else's story. Gage is chastened, and her words spur him to do something rather unusual with his "Devil House" book.

I don't think this is an indictment of true crime, so much as it is a word of caution about narratives. No story can center everyone it involves; certainly there are few stories where every single figure is written as though the author were their loving mother. And the novel offers other complications, such as:

Gage's first book was about a schoolteacher in the 1970s who killed two teenage boys who were her students; they broke into her apartment, hoping for easy money, and took hold of her when they found her in the kitchen, shucking oysters. Terrified and already holding a knife, she stabbed them both to death and frantically tried to hide the bodies. It was a senseless, tragic situation, but the district attorney decided that she was a predatory Satanist (based on a few books about magic in her apartment). She was found guilty, sent to the electric chair, and made into a sinister legend. Gage's book sought to clear up that narrative. Would it, in fact, have been right to make the story about one of the boys she killed? Or was Gage's portrayal of this boy (as a more or less normal teenager with a tough home life who fell under the sway of a dangerous peer) sufficient under the circumstances?

In his new book, Gage writes about some potential murder suspects in the Devil House case: a straitlaced teenage ex-employee with a key, his severely ADHD friend, a homeless runaway classmate, and a nice artistic girl. They're sweet, fun, and sympathetic as a group, and two of them are in truly heart-wrenching situations. He also writes, more briefly, about the murder victims: a well-known local slumlord and an ambitious out-of-town developer. The slumlord is cruel and grasping to her tenants, routinely using humiliating and unfair business practices, while the developer is a sleazy coke-snorting ignoramus. Gage clearly dislikes the former and drips with contempt for the latter. I won't dispute that such people often do more damage than impulsive teens committing property crimes; however, he's absolutely using them as minor figures in someone else's story, and in a much harsher way than he did in his first book. Is this right, because of the misery they caused? Or is it wrong no matter what?

This isn't even getting into the final twist, whose implications I have yet to sort out.

Hot Goodreads Take: "It should be called the 'Devils Store' as it's not about a house in all honesty." Look, no one said the good folks of Milpitas were great at naming things.

[laequiem]

Small Claims

/ Lorcan finally tells Elide that he thinks she’s his mate. Claiming follows. Fluff & Smut.

Fandom: Throne of Glass

Characters: LORD LORCAN LOCHAN / Elide Lochan

Rating: Explicit bay-beeeeeee

TW: a lil bit of blood

Lorcan Salvaterre didn't think he had any "firsts" left. Most of them had come to pass centuries ago. First fistfight when he could still count his age on his fingers. First real battle a few years later. First kill in his late teens. Those he remembered clearly. First kiss, first time getting drunk, first fuck—blurry meaningless memories he did not care to untangle.

Listen, my power went out when I sat down to finish this last week, so I decided that it’s cursed and that it needs to get out of my WIPs. So if it’s bad, please send your complaints to Hydro. Thanks.  

read on ao3 • masterlist

Lorcan Salvaterre didn't think he had any "firsts" left. Most of them had come to pass centuries ago. First fistfight when he could still count his age on his fingers. First real battle a few years later. First kill in his late teens. Those he remembered clearly. First kiss, first time getting drunk, first fuck—blurry meaningless memories he did not care to untangle.

In the last few months, he was surprised to experience new "firsts" with this force of nature he now shared his life with. Elide was the first person he cared about, the first person he loved. His first time having sex and feeling something more than pure lust.

And now, Elide Lochan was the first partner he ever had the urge to claim. Lorcan had bitten plenty of females before, but never broke skin. It was a part of his fae heritage that had never surfaced until he started traveling with her. He felt it first when they traveled with the circus and men kept hovering around her tent, trying to gage if they could bed the innocent fortune teller. He pushed the urge down, down into himself, refusing to acknowledge any feeling for her. He kept the urge at bay for long, even making fun of Whitethorn when he noticed the mark he had left on his Queen. But when Elide gave him everything, the need to claim her had flooded Lorcan's senses. It was not the time, though. Not when she was so insecure.

Since then, Elide has grown confident with her sexuality, initiating things even more often than he does. Still, Lorcan has not claimed her. He could not figure out how to ask her. 

His primal instincts are always stronger on mornings like this. When he wakes up and she sleeps peacefully next to him, hair swept away, exposing her throat to him.

"Lorcan?" she asks softly, tentatively, pulling him out of his thoughts.

Elide's voice is not as sleepy as he thought it would be. It sounds as if she has been awake for a while. She shifts to face him, hands coming up to rest on his chest.

"Can humans have a mate?"

Lorcan trails one of his hands up Elide's arm and inclines his head, a silent cue for her to continue.

"I dreamt of Aelin and her mate and I… I was wondering why you didn't have one." Her tone is so sad, Lorcan feels his heart twist. "If it is because you're demi-fae."

He lifts a hand to cup her cheek, his thumb stroking over her cheekbone.

"Not everyone has a mate, Elide. They're rare," she lets a little oh and he continues, "I used to think I couldn't have one. Not because of my human blood, but because of… Who I am. What I did."

"Used to?"

For so long, Lorcan had convinced himself that he didn't even have a heart left. That his power, like it does to his enemies, had rotted his insides to the point of rendering him heartless. Living only to inflict pain and slaughter. Then, he met Elide and his rotten heart had made itself known. Twisting and pulling, accelerating and stopping, until he had to admit to himself that he cared for her. At first, it was an inconvenience, a distraction from his mission and the Queen he thought he loved. When he betrayed Elide and sold Aelin to said-Queen, Lorcan could hardly live with himself knowing she hated him, that he had ruined what they had. Whatever that was.

And now?

"I don't… think that anymore."

"So why then?"

"Why what?"

"Why don't you have a mate?"

Lorcan removes his hands from her and rolls over on his back. He stares at the ceiling, trying to figure out what to say, how to say it. Words have never been his forte. Elide is so good with words, but it seems the talent is not contagious. She inches closer to rest against his side, head on his shoulder. Can she hear his heart thundering in his chest? Can she read the fear on his face? 

He inhales deeply, then exhales slowly.

"I think you're my mate."

There it is, the secret he has been holding for months now. He feels her still against his side and all his repressed worries to come flooding in. 

She doesn't want to be your mate. 

Who would even want that? 

You don't deserve her. 

You don't deserve anything. 

You've killed so much. 

You've brought on so much suffering. 

It would be unfair for you to have a mate. 

All she does, however, is ask, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't… I don't know how any of this is supposed to feel.” He rubs at his face with one broad hand. “I've never loved before, I don't know the difference."

Elide's fingers start tracing the outline of his pecs, toying with the dark hair there. 

"Neither do I. We're learning together."

Lorcan lets out a breath of relief. She isn't mad at him. She doesn't laugh at him. 

"It doesn't have to… change anything," he says tentatively, "I don't want to force this on you."

Elide shifts and leans on her elbow, staring at him with those devastating dark eyes.

"Lorcan, you never forced me into anything. I'm… honored."

He scoffs. As if. He already struggles everyday to remind himself that she does, in fact, love him. Thinking she would see being his mate as an honor was far beyond what he could imagine. She flicks his nose. He is not worthy of her and they both know it, the whole court—

"I'm serious," Elide chastises, "I wouldn't want anybody else."

Elide leans towards her husband and presses her lips to his. 

"Who wouldn't want Lorcan Salvaterre, second in command to Queen Maeve as a mate?" she teases, her hand trailing lower on his chest, "A strong fae male to scare my enemies."

"You're the only female fearless enough to want me," he replies, as serious as ever.

Lorcan shivers as her fingers slipped past the waistband of his underwear.

"Why would I be afraid," she croons, palming his semi-hard cock firmly, "when I have you wrapped around my finger?"

Lorcan snaps and rolls to be on top of her. This kind of talk always got to him. Of course, his wife's body is beautiful and perfect, but it's that cunning mind and sharp tongue that really made him lose his mind.

He nips at Elide’s lower lip and her lips part for him, allowing him a taste. She always tastes so sweet—strawberries and cinnamon, more addictive than any sugary treat. 

Lorcan groans as he witnesses her wide eyes, darkened by lust and need. He lowers his mouth to her neck, kissing and sucking the soft flesh. Her pulse rushes under her skin and his canines are aching to pierce and claim and—

He moves down to her chest before the feral thing inside him can fully surface. He focuses this energy on her breasts, knowing she likes him leaving marks for nobody but them to see. He palms one of her heavy breasts with one hand while the other seeks out her sex. Before he reaches his destination, however, she grabs his wrist and pulls him up to look at her.

"You're holding back," she simply says, "why?"

He must look absolutely savage right now—wild eyes, panting heavily, shaking slightly with restraint—for her to even bring it up.

"I want to claim you," he replies roughly.

Elide lets go of his wrist and for a second, Lorcan fears he drove her away. She understood that he doesn't deserve her and she doesn't want a life shackled to him and—

Her hand moves up to his nape and she lightly tugs on his hair.

"I want everything you can give me." 

Her other hand reaches between them and grasps him again, angling his length to line up with her.

Lorcan's breath hitches, "are you—"

"Yes. I want everyone to know you're mine."

Everyone knows, of course. He does not preside over meetings with her, but everybody notices the armored warrior standing in the doorway, a constant threat of violence etched on his face. The Lady's brute, he had heard some whisper. They're right. Her uncle had called him a brute as well. No amount of gentle kisses and magical braces would erase the centuries of pain he has caused.

Sensing her lover's hesitation, Elide bends forward to whisper in his pointed ear, "claim me."

Lorcan unleashes himself with a feral groan, any semblance of control he once had shattering to give way to the beastial fae half of him. He drives his cock into her heat in a powerful stroke, eliciting a surprised gasp and a giggle from Elide. 

With all his previous partners, Lorcan kept the kissing to the absolute minimum. But Elide's moans were a siren song to his ears, and he wanted nothing more than to drink them all up until he drowned. He claims her lips in a hungry kiss, so raw and unchained that their teeth clinked together.

Even with his lips on hers, his cock in her and a hand grasping her breast, he still needs more, more to touch, more to taste. By the way her hands roam his chest and claw at his back, his wife feels the same.

While he ruts into her, Lorcan reaches between them to toy with her clit, wanting—needing to feel her shatter on his cock.

She's mine, she's mine, she's mine. The words echo in his head with each slap of his hips against hers.

I have a mate.

Clap.

A mate.

Clap.

A mate.

As if she could read his mind, Elide echoes his thoughts in-between two short breaths, "my mate."

A shock passes through their bodies, heightening every sensation. The bond snapping into place, he supposes. It's overwhelming, better than any story Lorcan has ever heard. He feels her emotions, her love for him, as strongly as if they were his. He knows now more than ever that he wants to spend his whole life with Elide Lochan. That, no matter how short their time together would be, he could never live without her.

Lorcan hooks one of Elide's legs around his elbow while his other hand quickens its ministrations on her clitoris. The next thrust is deeper, angled just right, and Elide comes with a scream that will surely wake up the maids. He coaxes her through the waves of her orgasm, his eyes never leaving her flushed face. Beautiful.

As he feels his own release approaching, Lorcan leans towards her and drags his teeth down Elide's neck, inhaling her scent deeply. Just before erupting, he bites down, canines piercing the soft skin effortlessly. 

My mate, my mate.

Lorcan spills in her. Once. Twice. By the end of his climax, he is shaking all over. He finally pulls away from her neck, licking his lips, then running his tongue over the mark. He stares at it for a moment, admiring as droplets of blood start beading out again. Will she want to keep the scar, like Aelin did? The memory of it will live in his mind forever either way, just like their scent will always be intertwined now. The possessiveness is not a part of himself he is used to, and he feels quite ashamed of the primal nature of it all, but faeries are territorial creatures. 

Elide trails a finger up his throat and he leans into her touch.

"Am I supposed to… do it too?"

"Only if you want to," he says, brushing a strand away from her sweaty forehead.

She hums softly, considering. "Your throat does look bare without a scar."

"Do I not have enough scar for you, Milady?"

She laughs and Lorcan wonders if he will ever get used to the sound and how it makes his heart skip a beat. 

"I like your scars."

Elide pushes on his chest and Lorcan pulls himself out and twists to lay on his side next to her. She turns to face him and starts tracing a scar that spans the length of his biceps.

"Do you want one?"

"More than anything."

[taexual]

i’d love you to stay but that’s simply insane // JJK (14)

  jungkook is an uncontrollable lead vocalist of the campus band, and you’re a goal-oriented top student that’s known his rich and complicated family since childhood. you don’t want anything to do with each other, until each other is exactly what you want to do.

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

genre: college au

warnings: it’s time they got down to business… or isn’t it 😳

words: 6.2k

  chapter fourteen

You spent nearly the whole Saturday on the phone with Inna – because she refused to let you hang up until you gave her a play-by-play of last night’s party (and all that happened after) – and, by the time you finally ended the phone call, you were half-deaf from all of her—supportive but rather alarming—screaming.

And then, before you were ready for it, you and Jungkook had another Sunday night dinner at his parents’ house.

Admittedly, you thought you’d feel uncomfortable seeing his parents again after having learnt that they gave the push that convinced Jungkook to cut his ties with you off, but this feeling only clouded your mind for about fifteen minutes – or, in other words, for the period of time that it took for Jungkook to arrive from his house to your dormitory.

By the time he got here, all that was left in your mind – and in the air around you as soon as you opened the door to let him in – was ease. Routine.

Like you were supposed to spend every Sunday night with his family, holding hands with him under the dinner table. Like this wasn’t somehow weird or unusual, or even awkward. Like this was how it’d always been – with no seven-year-long gaps – and how it was always supposed to be.

Even touching Jungkook after the last time you’d seen him was, most surprisingly, not at all different from touching him before your last conversation. It still caused lighting bolts to explode inside of your stomach, and you were used to the sensation by now.

The only difference was that now you knew.

And knowing allowed you to truly come back to the life you were once a part of.

It felt like the last time you’d been to his house, you only allowed yourself to set one foot in, holding yourself back in case this would all go wrong and hurt you, but now you were ready to try again. Now you were ready to go into it with your whole body – open chest and all.

Sure, the possibility of getting hurt was still there – even if it didn’t feel like it when Jungkook joked about how his mom was more excited to see you than him – but sometimes you had to believe—not just hope—that nothing bad was going to happen, in order to make it true.

And truly nothing bad seemed on the horizon as Jungkook – true to the promise he’d made earlier this week – took you to the ice cream shop near his home as soon as dinner was over so you could pick up some desserts for yourselves. You found the chocolate-chip cookie-flavored ice cream – the one he knew you loved – and all was bliss.

“What is it with you,” you asked him when the two of you walked out of the shop and Jungkook was happily licking two different flavors on his cone – strawberry and mint, “and these flavors?”

“They’re good together,” he defended, pushing his cone towards you. “Want to try?”

You scrunched your nose. “No. I’ll stick with my chocolate—”

“Boring.”

“Hey,” you gave him a look, unaware of the chocolate around the corners of your lips and how utterly irresistible it made you look to him, “you’ve been picking the sweetest flavors of ice cream ever since we were kids. Don’t call me boring if I choose to postpone my diabetes diagnosis.”

“Neither of us is getting diabetes,” he said, absentmindedly extending his hand to wipe the chocolate from your lips and then sucking his thumb into his mouth.

You forgot what you were talking about for a moment as you looked away from him, your face burning hot at the sight, but your hands freezing cold from the ice cream.

Jungkook didn’t notice and carried on. 

“Do you remember when we used to collect those wooden popsicle sticks for no reason when we were kids?” he asked.

“I—yeah, I remember,” you said, taking a distracted bite your ice cream and then wincing when your temples froze. “I-I’m pretty sure we had a reason, though. You said you wanted to build a Trojan horse.”

“Oh, that’s right!” his face lit up just like it did that day when you were eight and you told him you’d help him build it. “I never had enough patience for a project like that. Why did you get on board with it?”

“Because you were really excited for it,” you replied as nonchalantly as you could manage – even though you could see it in his eyes when you looked at him, he did not think this was nothing; it was important to him – and then hid your face in your ice cream again.

Jungkook watched you for another moment, his heart beating peacefully but his mind buzzing with memories. You always ate your ice cream the same way – nearly all of it at once – ever since you were a little kid. He’d always made fun of you for it – not cruelly, because seeing the exhilaration in your eyes and your ice-cream-covered face always made him feel inexplicably warm inside – but now he wanted to grab your hand, stop you, and clean your lips with his own.

“I still have the popsicle sticks in my room,” he said while his ice cream melted in the paper cup in his hand.

“You do?” you asked, turning to look at him and making his suffering so much worse when you wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. “Why did you keep them all this time?”

Jungkook was glad you’d reached the gate of his house because that meant he could turn his back to you as he fumbled with the lock – it wasn’t a complicated mechanism, he just needed to look at something else for a bit – and tried to get his lungs to function properly again.

“I don’t know,” he said, finally opening the gate. “I guess I was hoping to still build that horse one day.”

You scoffed at this – Jungkook gave you a dignified look in return – and lingered by the gate for a second before you realized that he’d stopped to let you enter first.

“I’m not mocking,” you explained in response to the look on his face. “It’s actually great that you kept it.”

His mouth dried up when he closed the gate and turned around to walk towards the house before noticing how warm your gaze was. Then, to avoid you reading through him and figuring out what he was feeling, he stuffed a mouthful of ice cream into his mouth.

“It is?” he asked with a slight lisp and then hissed as the freezing sensation went straight to his brain.

“Yeah,” you nodded, a more wary look in your eyes now that Jungkook was in pain from the self-inflicted brain-freeze. “It shows that you’re waiting until you’re mature enough to be able to invest your time into something that requires a lot of patience.”

Jungkook exhaled shakily – you assumed it was from the cold – and lead you past the impeccably-kept bushes in his front-yard, and towards the entrance into his house.

“Yeah, no,” he said, finishing his ice cream in a few large bites that must have very literally frozen his throat. He tried not to let it show as he said in a very breathy voice, “I don’t think it’s that deep.”

You shrugged your shoulders, slowly finishing your own ice cream as you brought your free hand over the vines that ran alongside the front wall of his house. “Maybe you don’t realize it.”

“Or maybe I kept the sticks because they reminded me of you.”

You stopped in front of his porch steps, unsure if you heard him right.

Swallowing the final bite of the chocolate-filled waffle cone, you looked at him in confusion – that was easy to mistake for disbelief, “hmm?”

Jungkook climbed up the steps – two at a time because he was always too impatient but, this time, also because he felt like he’d spoken too soon and he needed to put more distance between himself and you – and did not turn around to look at you until he fished his keys out from the pocket of his jeans, and unlocked the door.

“Yeah,” he said then, only giving you a glance as he opened the door and nodded his head inside, waiting for you to walk in first. “I still have a framed picture of us from middle school on my dresser.”

“Really?” you asked, looking at him even though he was now obviously avoiding your eyes.

There was even more surprise in your voice and it stung – you shouldn’t have been surprised about the fact that he cared enough to keep pictures that immortalized your friendship; but you were, and that was his fault – making him feel more self-conscious than he already was.

“Yeah,” Jungkook said and, smiling nervously, he stretched his hand behind his neck to scratch a nonexistent itch. “You want to see it?”

“Oh,” you were still standing on his doorstep while he was inviting you to his room. “Sure, yeah.”

You’d been to his room before – many times, in fact – so you hated the way the hairs on your skin stood up in anticipation. This wasn’t supposed to be any different from any other time you’d been in his room – was it? – and yet, you couldn’t help but remember that this was what you’d told yourself the last time you’d been there, too.

You two weren’t even the only people in his room that day – to celebrate the end of middle school, he’d invited his whole class – but, in your memory, everyone else was blurred and so dim that, sometimes, when you thought back on that day, you weren’t sure anyone else was even there. Or anywhere, for that matter. It’d felt like it was just you and him.

Clearing his throat, Jungkook suddenly brought you back to the present – and helped you realize just how hot your body was in spite of the excited shivers that ran down your back when you remembered his invitation – and you blinked before staggering inside.

Unaware of the several trips down memory lane that you’d taken while simply standing by his door, Jungkook extended a hand for you to take – and you took it, the movement automatic, as though you were in a well-rehearsed dance – and lead you towards the staircase.

You walked into his father on your way up the stairs, but he was on the phone so he merely gave his son a nod – and a smile for you – and then went on his way.

“You know, usually,” Jungkook said, sneering at the dismissal from his father, “parents would tell their kids to keep the door of their room open.”

Shivering again – but acting like you were most certainly not affected by the feeling of his palm against yours – you cocked an eyebrow at him.

“They would,” you said, licking your lips in an unconscious attempt to conceal the effect his not-at-all-innocent observation had on you, “but you’re twenty-three years old.”

He peered at you over his shoulder as he lead you down the second-floor hallway – nearly tripping over his feet when he saw you lick your lips – and then turned towards his room.

“Yes,” he said, “thank you for the newsflash,” and, stopping outside of his bedroom, he explained, “I meant, my parents never said that sort of thing to me. Not once.”

“Oh,” you caught on and lowered your eyes. “So, you brought a lot of people over, then?”

Jungkook smirked – you didn’t see this at first, but, when you raised your head again a minute later, confused by his silence, the smirk was still there – obviously very pleased to hear the not particularly well concealed shades of jealousy in your voice.

“None, actually. You’re the only one of my friends who’s been here,” he said then. “And I’ve already told you, I’ve never dated before.”

You were still unsure if he was pulling your leg. “Well, you don’t have to be dating people to bring them over to your—”

He pulled you into his room by your hand, not letting you finish your question. He closed the door and, this time, you two were really the only people here.

“I’m not like that,” he told you then, “but I understand where you’re coming from.”

You weren’t sure what you were asking him when you spoke, “you do?”

“Yeah,” he said, putting the paper cup of ice cream – that was as empty as your mind when Jungkook kept on holding your hand even though, now that you were in his room, there was no reason for it – on his desk, and then leaning against it to look at you. “It’s a nice campus tale, me constantly having girls over. But the only times I did sleep with someone, I didn’t do it in a place I lived. Nothing against that, I’m just a private person in that way, I guess.”

“Okay,” you nodded your head once and turned away from him, choosing to watch the starved pigeons, which crept around his backyard, through the window. “That sure makes your reputation better.”

Jungkook snickered, reluctantly letting go of your hand – but only because you were unconsciously pulling away from him – and attempting to explain, “I don’t mean to say I have sex outside—”

“No, I-I…” you cut him off – your flustered state intrigued him further – as you walked over to the dresser that he’d mentioned before. “I get what you mean. It’s an interesting version of “don’t shit where you eat”, but—”

He laughed, the sound taking you by surprise and cutting you off.

“I didn’t think of it that way,” he said, his eyes glistening with humor. “But the saying fits, I guess.”

He plopped down on his bed as he said this and the conversation about how many people he’d slept with had run out – which was good, since you hadn’t braced yourself for a discussion about your experiences in this particular area.

Instead, you took a minute to take the rest of his room in; it had changed so little since the last time you’d seen it. But it was the picture – that was right there where he said it was – that really took you back to the time when you spent nearly every afternoon in this room.

Jungkook smiled as he watched you reminisce, but not because he liked to see the way your features softened as you admired the picture from your childhood, but because you fit in this room far better than he did.

“Are you here a lot?” you asked as if having read his mind.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you told me you moved out a while ago…” you said, “and the room looks just as I remember it, so I just—”

“Oh. No, I’m—I’m not here a lot,” he admitted. “But I do come when I visit my parents.”

“Which is once a year?”

He acknowledged the jab by pursing his lips and retorting, “a lot more than that now that I have you with me.”

You hummed in response but your mind was already elsewhere as you pointed at the ceremoniously locked nightstand in the corner next to his bed, “what’s this?”

It looked so eccentric and out-of-place – not the stand itself, but the chain that ran along both sides of it, a trusty lock in the middle – that you couldn’t help but feel curious.

Jungkook, however, leaped on all fours and crawled over his bed to guard the nightstand with his hands – as if you were Cyclops and were about to burn through the stand with a laser beam from your eyes – a defensive look on his face.

“It’s nothing,” he said even though this was obviously the most interesting piece of furniture in his whole room, “just a decoration.”

“With chains—?” you tried to ask but Jungkook jumped back to his previous position and patted the spot on the bed next to himself.

“Come on,” he said. “Sit. Do you remember the last time you were here?”

He knew this was the only way to change the topic – and the defeated look on your face confirmed his expectations – but, when you remained standing across the room, he patted the bed again, more eagerly this time.

“We celebrated our graduation from middle school with the other kids,” he said because you didn’t show any other sign to let him know whether you remembered or not. Jungkook could feel that you did, but, regardless, he still continued, “we played Truth or Dare. Remember?”

It was ridiculous he even had to ask that. Some days – and even more frequently now that you were talking again – your middle school graduation was all you could think about, even all of these years later.

“Barely,” you replied but you both knew it was a lie. “It was a long time ago, lots have happened since—”

“Someone dared you to kiss me,” he said with an innocent expression on his face – because he was just refreshing your memory – but it was quickly replaced by an amused grin when your eyes widened in surprise – not because you were shocked he’d said it, but because saying it aloud conjured up a much clearer image of that day; probably because now you knew that the memory of that day was as fresh in his mind as it was in yours.

“Sure,” you said, laughing weakly to hide how warm your hands, your face, and your whole body was. “That was a thing that, uh… happened.”

“So,” Jungkook was grinning but it was only an attempt to conceal his own anxiety – if he stopped grinning, he was going to have to handle the rapid beating of his heart inside of his chest, and he wasn’t quite sure how to do that just yet. “Truth or dare?”

The question sobered you up from the intoxicating memory and you narrowed your eyes at him.

“We’re not fourteen and in middle school anymore,” you said. “What are you doing?”

“Come on,” he urged you again, “truth or dare?”

You knew better than to insist he dropped this – there were barely any people more demanding and frustrating than him; you couldn’t even name one – so you didn’t waste your breath trying.

Groaning because you knew he wouldn’t be pleased with your answer – just like you weren’t pleased with him even suggesting this game – you said, “truth.”

Jungkook smiled knowingly because – just like you’d predicted – he was absolutely expecting this and had, therefore, prepared accordingly.

“Who was your first kiss?” he asked without wasting a second.

God, this was going to be a long night, you started to realize. Now you weren’t sure if the ice cream was even worth it – maybe you should have left after dinner.

Meeting his expectant gaze, you tried your hardest to convey all of your hatred for this game through your eyes – but Jungkook wasn’t watching them, he was watching your lips as he waited for your answer – and then you finally said, “you.”

You were almost expecting triumphant fanfares to go off somewhere outside of his house but, instead of that, Jungkook’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, indicating that your answer had surprised him – even though it really shouldn’t have; you may not have been his first kiss, but you had never even wanted to kiss anyone who wasn’t him.

He was obviously going to inquire about this further – but what was there to ask, honestly? – but you were categorically not going to let him.

“Truth or dare?” you fired.

Jungkook closed his mouth, decided – begrudgingly – that this was a fair play, and then, true to himself, replied, “dare.”

“Show me your mysterious nightstand.”

He looked disappointed and more than ready to refuse – good, now he knew how you felt – but got up from the bed nevertheless.

He walked over to his desk first and got a singular key out from under the fake-bottom of the top drawer – courtesy of his Death Note phase – before slowly sliding it into the lock on the nightstand across the room. Turning it until you both heard a pleasant click, Jungkook took the chains off and huffed as he looked at you before doing anything else.

You weren’t sure what you were expecting to see inside so you couldn’t brace yourself for anything but, as Jungkook opened the door of the nightstand, you realized there was no possible way for you to prepare for this anyway.

There were piles of pictures inside – polaroids, of you and him at the lakehouse your families used to rent out every summer – old cut-outs from the school newspaper, showing you, as the president of the Student Council, and the principal of the school. There were the old dog tags you two had gotten together at a fair one spring – because he kept accidentally ripping every friendship bracelet you two ever had – and there were the remote-controlled cars that you’d gotten him for his tenth birthday – you’d been saving up for them that whole year.

Scanning the contents of the nightstand – while Jungkook watched you, biting his lip – you noticed that he had a copy of almost every single movie you’d ever shown him – the DVD of The Sixth Sense, of course, resting at the very front – and, more than that, he had post-it notes glued to all of them with notes ranging from as obscure as, “She said it’s good” to direct quotes from you, “She said I would like it because it’s violent enough to keep me at the edge of my seat but it also has meaning. She smiled a lot when she told me about it.”

And then, as if your heart wasn’t already beating fast enough, you saw the popsicle sticks on the very bottom of the nightstand. Most of them were just scattered there, long forgotten, but some were glued together in what was supposed to be the base of the Trojan horse you two had never gotten to build.

You pulled back, feeling like every time you inhaled, a new memory returned to you, each heavier than the one before. When you finally removed your eyes from the mementos of the past and looked at him, your chest was so full, it was weighing you down.

“You—” you started but the words got lost on their way out of your throat. You tried again, “you kept all of this—”

“Of course,” he said, closing the nightstand now that you weren’t looking at it anymore – he didn’t bother with the chain – and then returning to his previous spot on the bed. “I couldn’t bring it all with me when I left the house because I didn’t know where I was going to go. And I couldn’t leave it all hanging around my room because… well, because I didn’t want my parents to turn the room into a home gym and throw everything out.”

“B-but why—”

“Because it’s important to me,” he replied, knowing what you were going to say, “because these are the things that you and I did together. It’s us. You and me. I kept everything that reminded me of you.”

His words soothed the old wounds but it opened up new ones, too, because, in the seven years that you didn’t have any contact with him, you’d done everything you could to erase him from your life completely – throwing anything that reminded you of him out, until your room and your whole house was void of any connection to him – while he did the complete opposite and attempted to preserve as much of your past friendship as it was possible.

“My turn,” Jungkook said, his voice shakier than it’d been before. “Truth or dare?”

You didn’t want to play anymore. You felt like you physically couldn’t play anymore.

“Jungkook—”

“Truth or dare?” he repeated, more persistent this time.

Sighing because this was hopeless, you replied, “truth.”

He shook his head. “You can’t pick truth twice in a row.”

You should have seen it coming and yet you still felt a pang of annoyance that completely broke you out of the blissful state the contents of the nightstand had put you in before.

“Yes, I can,” you protested. “You just watched me do it.”

He didn’t give in. “That’s against the rules.”

“There are no rules in this game.”

“Yes, there are.”

You rolled your eyes. “Who made them?”

“Me,” Jungkook said, crossing his legs to find a more comfortable position. “My house, my rules. You can’t pick truth twice in a row.”

“Fine, you dick,” you replied – he almost smiled at the name – and settled,  “dare, then.”

It was almost funny, really, how easily the words came to Jungkook as he dared you, “kiss me.”

If you’d have turned your head to the old clock on his wall by the desk, you would have noticed how the arrows had stopped – they stopped long before tonight but, in that moment only, they showed the right time. Almost as if Jungkook wasn’t the only one who’d been waiting to say this to you. Everything in his room had been waiting, too.

Jungkook thought you’d do it -- he thought you’d turn your head, look away. Look for an excuse to back out of this. 

That’s why he didn’t kiss you but gave you an opening to do it yourself, using the game as an excuse. And, in the quiet moment that passed, he waited for your eyes to leave his, refusing the opportunity. But they never did.

You didn’t think you could tear your eyes away from his yearning gaze – just like gravity prevented you from floating off into space, the force of his eyes prevented you from pulling away. Instead, they pulled you in. 

And so you kissed him again, seven years later.

It was just a touch first – you barely registered the feeling of his lips against yours – but, before a chance to pull away even presented itself, the touch melted, locking your lips together.

He tasted like the strawberry mint gum he kept in his car.

He tasted like the flavor of the ice cream he’d picked today.

And, although you’d refused to try it when he offered outside of the ice cream shop, you couldn’t deny it when you were kissing him – strawberry and mint went so incredibly well together.

He tasted like the best friend you’d day-dreamed of kissing before you went to sleep at night.

He tasted like everything you’d ever wanted.

And, belatedly, the triumphant fanfares did go off somewhere in the distance – although it could have just been the sound of your hearts, calling out to each other through your chests – but the only sound you could hear clearly was the sound of his mouth moving against yours as he deepened the kiss, standing up on his knees on the bed and gently pushing you forwards until you landed on your back and he was leaning on his elbows on either side of you.

There were many things you knew about Jungkook – your knowledge coming from all of the days you’d spend together as children – but there were also several things that you didn’t know.

For one thing, you didn’t know what his kisses felt like when there was no one watching.

And now you did as his tongue tenderly brushed against yours, growing more impatient by the second, until you had to hold onto his chest with one hand and wrap the other one around his neck to prevent yourself from completely melting under him.

Furthermore, you didn’t know how long he’s waited for this.

And now you did as his warm body pressed against yours, freezing cold and almost screaming in the parts where he couldn’t physically touch you.

Kissing him felt relieving because you’d waited for this, too, and uselessly tried to convince yourself that you didn’t need his arms around you as much as you did.

It felt freeing because now you could finally admit to yourself how much you’d wanted to kiss him and have him catch his breath against your neck before bringing his lips back to yours again.

But it also felt dangerous because you couldn’t stop – you didn’t want to stop – and, not being in control of your surroundings and, most importantly, of yourself, was something that you knew would have dire consequences. You needed to prepare for this beforehand, consider every possible outcome and—

But then Jungkook pushed one of his thighs between your legs, kissing you harder—deeper—and you no longer cared about being in control of the situation. 

Sighing into the kiss – until he nearly passed out because he’d imagined this before and, for half a moment, he was afraid this was all happening in his head again – you abandoned all of your inhibitions and held onto him tighter, kissing him back with matching intensity.

And that moment – the one moment when you gave in to him completely – was precisely when someone knocked on his door.

However, even though you had both heard it, neither of you reacted to it, your mouths not pausing for a moment and his fingers never leaving the spot under your shirt – right above your waist – where they’d come to rest.

A moment later, you thought you’d only imagined the knock – the sound was already so far away in the distance, it didn’t even feel like you’d really heard it.

In his case, precisely because this – kissing on his bed in his childhood room – was actually real and not just a figment of his imagination, Jungkook simply assumed that everything else had to be happening in some other world where he wasn’t kissing you. In a world that didn’t exist. In a world that didn’t matter.

And so, naturally, he didn’t pay attention to any foreign sounds, focusing on the feeling of your skin, your lips, your touch, you, instead.

But then the knock came again. Shameless, truly, because it had to be obvious what was happening inside; it was impossible not to hear someone knock on the door of a room that was as empty as Jungkook’s bedroom.

This time, you both paused. But Jungkook – who hadn’t lived with his parents in a long time and, therefore, couldn’t remember their habits – was curious if, perhaps, the knocking would go away if unanswered, and so he went back to kissing you a second later.

Much to his—and yours—irritation, however, it didn’t seem like the knocking was going to stop. If anything, it started to get more intense and your hand – the one that pulled him closer to you by his shirt – ended up having to push him away slightly.

“Jungkook?” his mother’s uncertain voice reached your ears, but when you saw his face when he pulled away from you, you felt like you may as well have imagined that sound, too, because the sight of his puffy lips and wide, blown-out pupils made you lean forward to connect your lips again, if only for just a moment.

Jungkook was convinced you hadn’t yet grasped the effect you had on him; he couldn’t just stop kissing you out of the blue like that. And so he leaned back in, pressing his lips to yours until he felt you kiss him back. And then you broke the spell by turning your face towards the door as you tried to speak.

“It’s your mom,” you said, completely out of breath. “You should open it.”

Growling with frustration, he pushed himself off of you and climbed off the bed, not giving you a second to get up and make your activities less obvious before he was throwing the door open a lot more aggressively than he’d intended.

“Oh, I wasn’t sure if you two were back yet,” his mother said, seemingly unfazed by her son’s obvious frustration. “I just got the pie out of the oven, so the dessert is ready. Your dad and I were waiting downstairs, are you two—”

“We got ice cream,” he reminded his mother in a surprisingly gentle tone – even if his body remained stoic – and then glanced over his shoulder at you. “Unless you’d like to grab a slice?”

“Uh, I—thank you,” you said, standing up from the bed and desperately attempting to fix your hair while still remaining polite, “but I still feel full from the ice cream. A-and your dinner was wonderful, too, of course.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” his mother smiled at you and then gave her son a nod. “If you feel like getting tea with us, we’ll be in the kitchen, okay? Sorry I barged in on you like that, you didn’t tell me when you came back home, so I didn’t—”

“Yeah, sorry,” Jungkook said, still in a hurry. “We ran into dad, though. He knew we were back.”

“He did?” this seemed to surprise her. “Huh. He didn’t tell me.”

Huh, indeed. Maybe his father had his own ways of making sure Jungkook kept the door of his bedroom open.

“Well, no matter,” his mother added. “I’ll leave now. Sorry again!”

She smiled at you once more before she walked back to the staircase. You couldn’t tell if her eyes had been glittering because of the few glasses of wine that she’d had with dinner, or because she was able to tell what had been going on in this room before she came in.

Or maybe she was just happy that you were both home, safe and sound, and hanging out in his room – just like back in the day.

“Well,” Jungkook said after closing the door of his room. He wasn’t trying to conceal his disappointment, “that was my mom and her perfect timing.”

You chuckled. “Ah, she could have come in later. That would have been worse.”

“Yeah?” he liked to hear that you’d been imagining what could have happened later, as he walked back to you. “What do you think we’d have been doing?”

“Anything,” you replied, ignoring the fratboy in him but allowing his arms to comfortably wrap themselves around your waist. You replied to his smile with one of your own but did not dare to close the distance between you, only choosing to carefully rest your hands on his shoulders. “Do you know what time it is?”

Jungkook groaned, knowing that you must have understood his mother’s arrival as a sign that it was time for you to go home. “No, don’t start with the time!”

“What?” you asked, surprised by his agitation. “Why not?”

“Because it’s always the time that interrupts us,” he said, knowing how pointless it was but still cursing the time, the place, and almost the entire universe. “The night always ends before I’m ready for it.”

“Are you ever ready for it?” you asked but, in all actuality, you were asking him something else.

“No,” he said, answering both of your questions. “I’m never ready to leave you. You could stay over, you know.”

He’d once called you the most ambitious person he’d ever known, and yet there was nothing you wanted more than to stay here. Stay for a night. For however many nights it was possible.

But there were too many things to think about, too many outcomes to consider. You’d barely grown used to your relationship as old-friends-who-were-fake-dating before you kissed – mostly unprovoked and largely because you wanted to, not because he’d dared you to – and opened up the door to a whole new world.

“I…” you spoke, swallowing slowly. You knew you were someone who had to learn how to maneuver the magical carpet first, before hopping on it and flying away. That was who you were. “Thank you. But I think it’d be best if I went home tonight.”

Jungkook nodded, knowing and fully expecting you to say this. He wasn’t going to object because you’d already taken a huge step—a leap, really—over your own self when you responded and kissed him, and he didn’t want to pressure you into giving in and making any similar decisions before you were ready, no matter how much he wanted you to make them. No matter how much he wanted you.

But he was still going to give you a hard time about this. Because that was who he was.

“Leaving me wanting more, yeah?” he teased.

“Not leaving you,” you said. “Just leaving.”

He loved the way this sounded like a promise – and he would keep replaying your words in his head until the next time he saw you – but he didn’t show it, taking you by the hand instead.

“Let me take you home then,” he said and then threatened, “you should know before we go, though – I am fully determined to make you feel bad for abandoning me when I needed you the most.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t expect anything else from you,” you replied, making him smile in appreciation before leaning in to press a quick—almost chaste—kiss to your cheek.

He pulled away to open the door of his room and then walked outside, taking small steps and deep sighs, his theatrics always very sharp.

“Off I go,” Jungkook began, “starting my journey of loneliness—”

“Is that from a song?” you asked, interrupting his improvised monologue as you followed after him.

“It’s from my life,” he replied shortly. You tried to suppress your laughter and he continued, more dramatic now that he’d noticed he was entertaining you, “off I go, into the dark cavern of solitude. All by myself, all over again...”

Each one of your involuntary giggles only encouraged him, so Jungkook kept this up all the way to your dorm and then he found a way to keep going over text messages, spamming you with his Shakespearean delusions until you threatened to block his number if he didn’t stop.

And then, after testing you for another half an hour, he finally did stop and went to sleep – alone, but with the memory of you that was so strong, it was like you were there with him.

keep reading | masterlist

[thebluestbluewords]

First Night Plans

(Mentions of murder, core four doing some wildly ineffective plotting, vague mentions of food issues)

*

“I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.” Mal says, grinning at her team. Her head is still throbbing a bit, but it’s much easier to focus now that they’re in the red-draped tomb of the boy’s room. Much better than the dining hall at least, and all of the curtains and shit will act as pretty good sound dampening barrier so they can plan without needing to worry about nosy royal brats in the hall.

Jay groans. “Because you’re an egotistical maniac who won’t let us suffer in peace?”

He’s not wrong, but it’s not exactly the vibe that Mal is going for here. Victorious young villains united towards a common goal, sure. Loyal pack gathered together to plan their next big heist, also more of what she was thinking.

Whatever. If Jay is too preoccupied with his own self-inflicted suffering to pay attention to her, that’s his loss. “Aw, you say the sweetest things!” Mal says, baring her teeth in his direction. She doesn’t do it too hard though, because Jay is flopped out on his back over the same bed that Carlos is sitting on, and their little tech genius is breaking into a tablet, which is useful enough that she doesn’t want to interrupt. “No, dipshit. For the first time in our lives, our parents can’t touch us!”

Beside her, Evie makes a little gasping noise. Joy, or fear, or something like that.

“No curfew, no evil summonings whenever her royal horniness wants me, no more playing their games!” Mal exclaims, waving a hand. “Sure, we need to get the wand for them,  but we’re the children of the worst villains there are, you think that’s going to stop us? We have at least a week of freedom before I figure out this spellbook, and we can finally take advantage of it without our parents bothering us!”

Jay lifts his head slightly. “Yeah?” he says. “You got a plan for doing that?”

Mal scoffs. Of course she has a plan. She is Mal of the Isle, and her crew is going to be the ones to bring down the barrier once and for all, and go down in history as the best isle crew ever to come off of the rock.  “I’ve been plotting, and I think it’s going to take us a little while to get our hands on the wand.” Mal says, voice syrupy sweet with false regrets. “My dear old mommy dearest is going to have to wait.”

Evie clicks her tongue. “And you’re going to let her?” she asks incredulously.

“It’s a valuable lesson in patience.” Mal says. Her mother can damn well learn to wait, after all the time she’s spent keeping Mal hidden away from the Auradon authorities. “After all, that’s what separates villains from mere criminals. It’s all in the…” Mal pauses, breathes in slowly, and imagines fire running through her veins. “Execution.” Mal finishes, spreading her arms wide, just like her mother does when she’s done delivering an especially melodramatic speech.

Her crew, because they’re a bunch of assholes, don’t even laugh. Jay sort of rolls his eyes, which is not the reaction that Mal’s best attempt at over-the-top villainous drama is supposed to get. Making fun of her mother is supposed to be fun now that there’s a magical barrier and a gazillion tons of water between them and any parental consequences. A cackle of agreement would be ideal, or a sort of adoring applause.

Whatever. They can work on it.

“So. Plan time.” Mal says, and slams her hands down on the table. It’s sort of bullshit that the boy’s get to have a real table in their room, and she and Evie have to make do with a little pink and white sewing table instead of this study thing, but whatever. Life isn’t fair, as her mother would say. Get over it or get even.  “We need to know where the wand is. That’s the first step no matter what we’re doing. Once we know where it is, and how difficult it’s going to be for us to get our hands on, we can decide if we want to grab it now, follow our parent’s plan, and stage our own coup once they’re out and distracted by destroying Auradon, or go our own way. My mother might be happy enough to have the wand that she’ll just give up and let us live for a while no matter what we do.”

“Really, Mal?” Evie asks. “She’ll let us live, just like that?”

Mal flips her hair back over her shoulder and looks at one of the paintings on the wall. They aren’t near the water, so why are there so many pictures of boats around? “It’s not… out of the question,” she says haughtily. “She may keep us alive to torture for a while instead of outright slaughter.”

Evie sighs. “It’s not very likely that they’ll just forget about us once they’re out,” she says. “We need a real plan to get that wand, and the sooner we can do it the better.”

“Agreed.” Jay says. He doesn’t even lift his head this time.

Mal takes a deep breath. She is not going to snap at her crew. She needs them all in one piece, and if she shouts and strangles them, they won’t be very much help with their ultimate goal here. “No. I know,” she says, very calmly and rationally if she does say so herself. “I’m saying, it’s an option here. We could decide to have our own plan.”

Jay pushes up on his elbows enough to get his head free to nod. “If we grab it now we could break them free right away and not have to go to class tomorrow.”

Hm. “Point,” Mal says. “But—“

“Mal—“ Evie interrupts at the same time. “We can’t go in without any plan!”

Deep breaths. They’re all annoyed from a long day. Patience is the key to good villainy. Hasty plans make wasted potential. “I don’t want to spend any more time here than we have to,” Mal says. “The food is cool, but we all met those prissy royals today, right?”

Even Carlos glances up at that one. “Yeah, we met them and you immediately got in a pissing match with one of them,” he says. “The sooner we’re out of here the better.”

“They’re a bit insufferable,”  Evie admits. “Especially the princes.”

Well then. If Evie’s willing to admit to it, maybe it’s not just Mal being a bitch, and the students here really are insufferable little jerks. “Exactly,” Mal agrees. “But it’s not like we’re actually going to be able to get the wand tonight, so don’t worry, we’ll all get to suffer through some princess classes. We just need to scope out the area, to make sure there’s no surprises coming our way for when we do want to make our move.”

“Really.” Evie says flatly, hands on her hips and nearly glaring at Mal.

“And maybe,” Mal says slowly, watching Evie’s face. “I also want to cause a little bit of trouble. For purely personal reasons. And we need to go to classes to make sure we’re doing things right.”

“We need to sneak out and scope the area,” Carlos says, glancing up. “So we can understand the castle. For important sneaking purposes.”

[c-is-for-circinate]

So as close as I am to fully escaping Hades for the first time, I figure I might take this opportunity to write down a couple of things I'm scared of from this ending. The story is so good so far! But I have seen good stories before! And there are patterns, right, patterns it's so easy for even good stories to fall into, so yeah, I have fears, and they mostly come down to Hades himself.

(Yep, this one got long again! People seem to be enjoying my game-reaction rambles, so, for your enjoyment under the cut: themes of separation and reunion, predictions for what Zagreus is the god of, and a whole lot of discussion of familial abuse dynamics, how they're depicted in fiction, and the work it takes to change them in real life. Stay warned! Stay safe!)

(ALSO, I still haven't made it past the first couple of chambers in the Temple of Styx, so no spoilers in the reblogs/comments please! Yes, even though the whole post is me going on about predictions and hopes and concerns about the path the story might take. I WILL GET THERE SOON.)

It has been really interesting watching some of the stuff the game is doing with themes of parting and reunion, and how that corresponds to life and death. So many of our social links are about reuniting estranged loved ones: Chaos and Nyx, Eurydice and Orpheus, Patroclus and Achilles. Hades is estranged from Olympus, Persephone left. And every time we leave, or try to leave, it is both an attempt at a parting (and Meg and Than are so hurt by that goodbye, or lack thereof) and an attempt at a reunion with our mother. Every time we die it's a reunion, every time we die it's fun, it's great, we get to go back home and check in with all of our friends and be impressed by whoever made Employee Of The [Timeperiod] and sell fish to the cook and put down yet more rugs. (My Zagreus has something of a rug addiction. What can you do.)

It's at the point where I feel pretty secure in stating that Zagreus is going to discover eventually that he is both life/death/rebirth god, and god of partings and reunions. Both halves of both of those things. People leave each other when they die and re-find their loved ones in death; you go away from one group of people to come back to another; you have to depart to return, and I really think that's where we're going to end up with Zagreus. He's going to reunite his various friends with their loved ones, he's probably going to restore communications between Hades and Olympus and even Persephone, he's going to reunite with his mom, and he's going to come back to the Underworld before he leaves to see everyone up top all over again. And of course the vehicle for all of this coming and going is death, because death is the ultimate departure and reuniter. (This is absolutely a religious concept containing a whole bunch of "oh hey our culture has a lot of Christian influence, doesn't it", Greek trappings aside, but that's fine, it's a game made in 2018 not 300 BC, these things happen. They keep calling the Underworld 'hell' and 'infernal'. It's all good.) Of course he's a cthonic god. Of course he bleeds, because you have to bleed in order to die, and Zagreus has to die again and again and again. That's his whole thing.

Thing is, though, looking at those themes, I am also continually aware of the fact that some partings are for a really good reason. Some partings should not end in reunion.

Yes, of course this is about Hades the abusive dad. I have been talking about Hades the abusive dad basically non-stop since I started playing this game, where did you think this post was going.

There are a few things I'm nervous about, separate but related, and at the core it all comes down to, I'm not okay with it if we learn why Hades got to be this way, and Zagreus forgives him as we-the-audience are meant to do, and Hades promises to do better, and nothing concrete about the situation is forced to change. Actual, meaningful, practical, logistical, non-hypothetical non-metaphorical change, not just for Zagreus but for Hades himself.

Because I know how this story tends to go, in fiction. Fictional abusive parents (especially in fantasy/sci-fi stories) tend to come in two types: 'coerced their offspring into actual murder with a side of physical abuse and optional unethical lab experimentation', or 'this was here to create character conflict, we didn't mean for it to read as actually abusive, this parent just has flaws to make them a good character, we swear!' Hades isn't the first type--we have never once seen Hades strike his son, or anybody, or even come out from behind his desk--which means that the fear is, always, always, in every piece of fiction, that he's the second. That the writers are going to decide that the right response to his abuses is remorse, forgiveness, and one really good conversation. That they don't realize it's abuse in the first place.

And, like. They have to know, right? They have to. They can't have done this by accident. (Sometimes, writers get so close by accident.) They can't have done so well at drawing out this situation simply by going, 'well, people are meant to fear this god, so they'd probably react like this, and I guess based on what I've seen in other stories or vague acquaintances they'd then do this,' and never put the name on the situation. Every single time we leave to the tune of a Hades word-flash, he's being dismissive, insulting, and sometimes downright cruel. He is cruel. They have to know!!!

But oh boy have I been consuming media for a lot of years, and oh boy have I run into a lot of writers who don't know.

Reconciliation is such a loaded word, but stories about dysfunctional families really do love it. Stories based around themes of reunion are primed for it. And of course, it's nice, it ties a happy ending off with a sweet little bow, everyone gets to be with the people they love and the family is safe and nobody gets hurt, but so rarely have I seen stories that show the actual work required to rebuild those relationships in a realistic or meaningful way. So rarely do stories trying to build that happy ending actually let the victim of abuse set and maintain boundaries. The character never gets to actually just cut the damn ties to the thing that hurt them. The character so rarely even gets to be safe.

And it's so hard in this game specifically, because "THERE IS NO ESCAPE", because every single thing about this game says that the story's not over when Zagreus gets to the surface, that no matter what he's going to have to come back. It's so hard, because this is a game about reunions. I am not going to get an ending where the abused kid trying to flee his toxic home and abusive dad actually gets to leave and stay gone, not in this one. And that hurts (I have watched and supported and done my best to help multiple real-life friends get the fuck out of homes like that, and stay gone, I have seen how hard it is, how complicated, how awful, and there are never stories for that), but I can live with it, if I get an ending where Zagreus is at least safe. Where things change. Where they really change.

Which is why I need actual, concrete, material changes in the logistics and power structure of the Underworld for this ending to be okay. Understanding why Hades is Like That doesn't cut it. Remorse doesn't cut it! Because look, even if Hades wants to do better, even if he admits he's at fault and tries to be better, he is still set up in a position as an all-powerful tyrant, and trying to become a better person is hard. There is nobody around who can keep him in check when he starts backsliding, which he will. Even if he doesn't want to, he will.

Because people are people, and it's really difficult to break patterns! Especially if everything around them stays the same. Hades is going to slip at some point, be cruel, be callous, be tyrannical, no matter how much of an effort he's making. Not to mention, it is STRESSFUL to face your own crimes and improve, it sucks, it feels bad. And what do habitual abusers do when they feel bad? What's the only coping mechanism Hades appears to have established for dealing with his own shit? That's right, it's inflicting suffering on everyone else around him. (This is why it doesn't really matter what circumstances drove Hades to act this way, why it can't matter--I believe that he is suffering, but he copes with that suffering by inflicting additional suffering on everyone around him, everyone who relies on him, and that's still true no matter what made him feel bad to begin with.) So then we just get a great old guilt-->lashing out-->more guilt-->more lashing out merry-go-round of abuse even as Hades is trying to change. That's how these things work. And yes, change is possible, improvement is absolutely possible, but the environment needs to change first. The system that enables and rewards Hades for acting this way can't stay in place. Things need to actually change, with people who are around to support Hades in his growth and also check his power, people who have power of their own to stop him. And however it happens, for this story with this protagonist with these goals to feel like a happy ending, Zagreus needs to be safe.

It would be okay, though a little disappointing, if those changes were mostly based in magic and fate and, idk, divine mind-control. (This story has been so grounded in actual human dynamics that a fantastical solution to a realistic problem would feel like a letdown, but if it actually solved the problem I'd be okay with it, more or less.) It would be okay, though a little disappointing, if the responsibility for bringing Hades to heel fell upon Zagreus and Persephone, if the two family members who he hurt badly enough that they felt the need to run away from him entirely now had to shoulder the burden of helping him fix himself. (There are definitely ways to write that dynamic better and ways to write it worse, and I think I trust these writers to land on the 'better' side of the scale, but I still don't love the implications.) I think I'd be pretty into it if Hades took a vacation off to Olympus to Work Out His Shit with his own family, while a coalition of Meg, Nyx, Thanatos, Zagreus, and Queen Persephone took over running the Underworld in his absence. I think we might end up getting some combination of those things. I'm hopeful. I think these writers might know what they've written. I think they might have a sense for what it'll take to fix.

But yeah, I'm nervous. (Nervous enough that I might switch to God Mode just to get through, combat has started getting really tedious instead of fun, I want to know what happens next, and this is a game and there is no shame in making it more fun for myself by making the boring parts a little quicker and easier.) I've seen so many stories go wrong. This one has done so much to earn my trust. We'll see if it breaks.

[laurore-stormwitch]

of almost failed heists and romantic advice

For the @grishaversebigbang mini bang! First time writing the crows, it’s been a challenge. I had the incredible and emotional honor to see some beautiful art made for this fic by @streckenweise-okay [here] , @j-wirth [here], @davonysus [here]. You are all talented and amazing <3  Summary: an easy undercover job becomes not only a chance to revisit some old friendships with Nina back in town, but also the perfect occasion for a romantic intervention and some dating advice for our favorite Bastard of the Barrel.

ao3 link

Kaz Brekker, the Bastard of the Barrel, a forgotten Rietveld. His figure hid itself in the many names he had been called, in the many tales of sorrow he had inflicted. He did not need a reason, nor to rob or brake, nor to wreak havoc on the filthy streets of Ketterdam. Swift as the sky-splitting dive of a crow on his prey. You would feel him coming, in the tense silence shattered by the rhythmic beating of a raptor-headed cane on bricks. Kaz Brekker, who did not need a reason, or concealed the ones who mattered. The same Kaz Brekker, however, who did not have a valid reason for choosing to bring the three biggest headaches of his life along with him on this wretched job. A sharpshooter with an absurd taste in fashion, a Grisha witch as annoying as his broken leg and a wayward merchant’s son he had spent way too much time babysitting. 

A strike of genius on his part. On top of that, he had chosen an undercover job, like they had the slightest ability not be noticed. Except for Nina; that girl blended everywhere like whisky. She was now strolling back to them with an excited gleam in her eyes, sipping on a glass of wine. She giggled happily. “Relax, Kaz. It’s a party.” 

He cut her a glare from the corner in which he was standing, stiff and broody. 

“Where the hell are the two lovebirds?” 

“At the buffet. Do you know they have a chocolate fountain?”

“If it doesn’t drop gold”, Nina arched a brow at him, “I am fairly sure I don’t care for it.”

They were interrupted by the brilliant flash of color of Jesper’s suit and his brazen laugh. He had an arm thrown around Wylan’s shoulder; the merchling’s  cheeks were flushed and his hair ruffled. He seemed slightly uncomfortable or about to throw up. For all the kruges, how much had Jesper let him drink? At least they did not have a particularly difficult role to play. Nina planted a kiss on Wylan’s cheek.

“This is so fun!”, she exclaimed, delighted by the situation. Kaz glared at her again.

“A job it’s not supposed to be fun.”

“Take your brooding mood out the window, Brekker”, Nina waved a dismissive hand at him. “What would a job be without fun?”

“Terribly dull”, Jesper winked.

“Annoyingly painful”, offered Wylan with a hiccup. They turned to Kaz. 

“Adequately profitable.”

His friends cast their eyes heavenward. Jesper snatched other glasses , pretending not to see Kaz’s threatening look. The party was grand, held in the home of a Council’s member from whom they were supposed to steal some documents held in a safe in his study. The job was easy to say the least, so when they had learned that Nina was in town, she had tagged along. Kaz wanted to wack himself on the head with his cane for this wretched idea; apparently, they had taken this as an excuse to party and reminisce old times more than an occasion to actually help Kaz make some money. Nina surveyed the room. 

“I wish Inej was here”, she whined. Kaz had never been one to pray, so it was not surprised when the Saints ignored his pledge to make Nina drop the argument. Instad, she turned to him with a smug smirk. 

“How is it going between the two of you?”

Kaz tapped his cane on the floor, avoiding the heartrender’s eyes. Maybe she would shut up if he ignored her. Was he not radiating a general air of murderousness and danger, enough to convince his nosy friend to leave him be? Well, not enough. It just made her do something even worse and refer to the other two headaches.

“Kaz is a hopeless cause.”

“He’s not asked her out yet? Not even a romantic snack in between threatening people and skewering them with knives?”

Jesper shrugged his shoulder, nudging Wylan closer. “We offered to do it for him”, he noted.

“You did”, Wylan peered at thim. “I want to keep my head on my neck.”

“Why hasn’t he?”, asked Nina, considering Kaz, still ignoring them.

“I don’t think he’s familiar with the concept of asking someone out. Or even asking someone for anything, mainly bossing people around.”

Kaz adjusted his tie. “I’m standing right beside you.”

“It’s not hard, Kaz. Just buy some flowers and smile.”

Jesper laughed at Nina’s idiotic advice. Were they actually trying to get assassinated right now? Another thought paved the way in his mind. Was it an idiotic advice, though? He could admit that anything not involving schemes or robbery was not an area of expertise for him. And he had been meaning to do something...nice?

“You’re asking Dirtyhands to smile?”, asked Jesper. Nina huffed.

“Can it be that hard?”

“You’ll see. Kaz, smile at me.” 

Kaz had two roads in front of him: for some reason, he chose the insane one and indulged Jesper, curling his lips upward. An uncomfortable silence dawned over them. 

“All the Saints and their suffering”, Nina exclaimed.

“Is he about to murder someone?”, Wylan asked. Nina burst out laughing.

“That is your i-am-asking-you-out smile?”

“It’s terrifying”, considered the merchling.

“Positively daunting”, his boyfriend confirmed.

“For the love of Inej’s Saints drop the smile. Stick with the flowers.” She eyed him from upside down, critical. “And fix that dreadful hair.”

Now the choice laid between leaving them all here or trying to find a way to finish this wretched job. Since the second option included a mouthful reward, he went with it. He eyed the owner descending the stairs with his guards. That was their cue. 

“You all know what to do.”

To their credit, they all snapped to attention when he called them. Nina strode behind the owner, fluffing her hair, while the three of them disappeared silently toward the upper floor. Silently. As silently as they could, Wylan being half drunk and Jesper being...well, Jesper. What one does for some kruge, thought sourly Kaz. He did glance at his reflection in the mirror, trying a half smile as they ascended the stairs. But no one needed to know that. 

***

The safe had scarcely even been fun to crack. Kaz slipped the document in his jacket, scanning the study. Who knows what one could find that people left unguarded. Jesper and Wylan were outside, keeping control on the stairs. The situation seemed under control, so he did have some spare time to search for something precious. He approached a drawer, flicked a pin in the keylock and - 

BOOM

A loud explosion resonated on the floor, rattling the walls. Definitely not a good sign. And definitely a sign that his henchmen raised some hell. Kaz sprinted out, only to find an absolute mayhem had been unleashed, and at the centre of this chaos, sure enough, stood his two royally idiotic friends, covered in dirt and pieces of furniture, gazing at each other with utter shock on their faces like they hadn’t just made a smoke bomb explode. The one that was supposed to be an emergency to cover their escape and was now invading the house. 

“What the hell did you do?!”

Screams rose below them; Jesper scratched some dust from his jacket and rolled his revolvers out, grinning in Wylan’s direction, apparently unfazed by how much they had just screwed up. 

“Wylan got carried away”, he shrugged his shoulders. Wylan flushed violently, jaw dropped in his boyfriend’s direction.

“You pushed me against a wall! I told you I had the smoke bomb in my pocket!”

“Were they making out again on the job?”, Nina rushed in their direction, her gorgeous face lit up with amusement as she struck down one of the guards running up the stairs with a flick of her wrist, a dart bone flying out of her cuff. 

“It’s Jesper’s fault! He’s always trying to...to…”, Jesper arched a brow at Wylan. 

“Yes?”

“Entice me!”

Kaz blew out an exasperated grunt, pushing them toward the background door. “Move!”, he seethed, running to work the lock. Dirtyhands getting killed on a saints forsaken robbery, perfect irony. With a quick look, he realized the damn lock had been reinforced with Fabrikator’s craft. He signaled Jesper, who practically squealed with amusement. 

“Do I get to use my powers?” The hard glare he earned from Kaz seemed to be enough for him to get on with his work. Nina turned, shooting other dart bones toward the stairs. Quick steps and screams were echoing through the buildings, and smoke was clearing. “You might wanna hurry up, Jes!”, she shouted over her shoulder. 

“We might have a problem”, the sharpshooter mumbled, as the lock literally melted on itself, effectively sealing the door closed. “I’m still getting the hold on - “

He was interrupted by another deafening explosion, as Wylan threw another device which detonated on the wooden stairs shredding them into pieces. 

“Do you all have to keep destroying our ways out?!”

“I’m sorry!”, screamed Wylan over the echoing thrum of the bomb, his gaze shifting to a window that opened up to the roof. 

“Do not even think about it”, Kaz pointed his cane at him. 

“Either we take a page from Inej’s book or we get arrested, what do you choose?”, Nina asked grudgingly, starting to climb on a cupboard. Saints, he was going to kill them all. Jesper and Wylan followed suit, making their way out on the roof and helping Kaz up. He shot a murderous look at Nina, who was eyeing him as he not at all gracefully moved up and shut the window closed behind him, swearing to every known Saints in Kerch.

“Since you are so bad at this, you should try to compliment Inej about it and maybe she’ll teach you something.” 

“Start fleeing before I catch you, Zenik.”

Shots began firing from below them, grazing Kaz’s arm. Nina erupted in a grin. 

“Time to run, Brekker.”

And so they did. Extremely far from how Inej would have done it. Loudly, stumbling throughout Ketterdam’s rooftops, helping each other - as much as he hated to admit it, mostly Kaz - on the slippery tiles and the narrow eaves. Ketterdam buildings left little space to breathe, being conveniently close that they could jump from one to the other. Kaz lost track of time, though his bad leg felt like they’ve been running for hours. Jesper stopped abruptly as they neared the docks, crunching on his knees and howling a breathless laugh. 

“That was fun.”

Nina giggled, slouching on the rooftop they had stopped on. “Ease up boys, we lost them ages ago”, she exhaled, closing her eyes toward the moonlight and leaning back. Kaz tentatively seated himself behind her, stretching his leg. 

“If this easy job ends up with me not being able to walk, vengeance will be coming.” 

Wylan and Jesper slumped down on his side, ignoring his dreadful look. Wylan peered at Kaz with a sly smile. 

“Jesper has stolen something fit to celebrate a successful heist.” 

The sharpshooter grinned, pulling out a bottle of cherry wine from nowhere and uncorking it with a whistle of joy. He passed it around as their cheerful chatter filled the night’s quiet. They were crazy. Crazy, reckless, and still idiots. Yet, Kaz couldn’t help but feel a little proud of his ragtag band of misfits. So he did not protest when Jesper handed him the wine, and he even threw a crooked half smile at him. The night began to wear off with every sip.

“So”, started Jesper at some point, snatching the bottle from him, “about our advice?”

It had to be the wine for Kaz to answer this. “I guess I can try it.”

Wylan huffed and gave him a knowing look.  “Just be yourself, Kaz. Inej likes you like that.”

“Ever the romantic”, Jesper winked at him, making him flush. Again. 

“Aside from that”, Nina propped herself up, turning to him, her lips quirked and her face lit up with happiness, cheeks red from the wine. “I still suggest the flowers. You know her favourites. And you might want to get ahead with those, Brekker'', she added, pointing her finger toward the horizon; over Ketterdam’s rooftops, the moonlight shone on the silent streets, reflecting on the waves that hit the docks. There, against the sky lit up by stars, stood the profile of a sharp ship, a flag Kaz knew by heart flying over the mast, its edges turning his stomach upside down as it entered the harbour. 

“Our Wraith is coming home.”