#THIS IS WHAT THEY'RE REALLY FIGHTING OVER | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nemesyaaa · 2 days ago

Text

sweet creature // truck driver!rafe x housewife!reader

summary : just a few mixed headcanons.

warnings : +18 content. minors dni. strong age gap. sweetheart x old man trope. smut. p in v. teasing. smoking. size difference. full nelson position bc big men lovers club here. hand fetish(sorry.). sleazy!rafe. squirting. loss of virginity. please, be aware of the warnings before reading.

author's note : muchas gracias a mi dulce @rafesangelita for giving me the idea bc i really loved to work on the concept of truck driver!rafe. shout out to crush by ethel cain too for give me the inspo of the story. <333

can't stop thinking about truck driver!rafe who's a proud working man. he's soooo bulky from charging alone some weighty goods on his eight wheelers everyday to deliveries driving for weeks and days. he's massive without forcing just because he's doing so hard with his hands on daily.

speaking of this, he's got such big sized hands. apparent thick veins on the back and calloused on the palms. large fingers with too much strength. easier for him to manhandle you or lift you up. they're very manly and rough. fat and round biceps with a strong size. he's tall and big, literally showing you without speaking who’s the man of the house, and who you belong to. you feel so secure every time he's around because you can be sure no one is touching you, no one is looking down at you, no one just dare to even glance at you. he doesn’t like to fight because he doesn't want you to think he's gonna hurt you one day, but if it's for you, he can do anything.

even if you don't like it, he's always smoking a bunch of cigarettes while he's driving and listening to some kind of old music. john denver or johnny cash are his favs.

he's always buying some new marlboro reds at the gas station with some gum when he's taking a break. if he's not smoking, he's chewing some gums until there is no flavor. he's just needs to get something in his mouth. just a bad habit.

he’s a loyal man that doesn't care about women hitting on him at the gas station. but sometimes, he's nostalgic because years ago , you were one of them. you were that pretty rebelious girl who's acting like she has no dad, no family and proudly flirting with him, doesn't give a fuck about getting away with a stranger. at first, you called him old man to joke. at contrary, he directly called you sweetheart, thinking that you're such a sweet thing.

both of you ended up in the motel. “ im curious of what you’ve got in your pants, old man. ” “ you're too young for that shit. ” “ huh, huh…don't you think it's more like you're too old for that shit, sir ? ” the smirk on his face at the moment was really something else. that fucking attitude of yours making him bite his lips.

the minute after, you were pinned down on the mattress, his whole body size over yours. “ repeat it. ” “ i said, you're too old to fuck, sir. ” “ isn’t a fucking virgin thing who doesn't even know anything about the word she's saying who's talking right now ? ” “ I'm not a virgin. ” you lied, rolling your eyes at the sight. “ i swear, I'm not ! ” he laughed softly. “ why are you lying, so eager to be a little slut ? that's why you ran away with strangers like me ?” it was the first time a man like that, and you were speechless. not in a bad way. it was just surprising. “ i think you're forgetting your manners. ” he said carefully, his blue gaze burning over yours.

“ if you want it, i will fuck you. but i need you to say it. clear and ‘oud. ” you turned your head away because there's no way you're gonna say such a thing to him. “ i will find someone else then. that receptionist girl was pre…” “ fuck me. ” you quickly said before repeating it slower and clearly. “ i want you to fuck me…” “ alright. spread those fucking legs for me, sweetheart…huh, look at you, being so wet for me…you really need me.” “ ugh, just touch me ! stop talking, old man. ” you gasped. “ remember that you asked for it. ”

“ yea, yea. ” he started to unbuckle his belt before taking off his pants. your mouth was gagging at his fat cock hanging between his heavy thighs. “ it’s not gonna suck itself. ” you gasped loudly, swallowing hard. “ i j-just don't know how to do it…show me please. ” “ fine. after all, it's my job as your eldest. ”

and that's how you consumed your first night with rafe.

truck driver!rafe who’s got such a pretty polaroid of you that stays and never leaves his truck. there is your lipstick stains on it and a sweet “ good luck ” written on the white space.

as a good housewife, you always prepare him some delicious meals to keep him fed even if he's away. you're always checking on your man' and loves when he's gaining more weight.

he's starting to get old, hitting his forties soon. he doesn't really care about his physic anymore but you still find him so attractive. when you met him, he was already a grown man so it didn't really change anything. he loves to wear a cap on his messy mullet, thinking that it makes him look cool. biggest tees with long sleeves lover. the fabric is not good enough to hide his muscular frame because his big size is so obvious. and he's wearing those blue jeans that fit his muddy boots.

he's not very hairy, but he's not the type to shave often like he used to when he was younger. he's fine with the apparent thick hair of his happy trail and mustache that makes him look like an 80's pornstar. when he's come home, shirtless and sweating, he's just serving you the best look to fuck.

you're obsessed with his scent after a long shift work. you don't care how strong he smells, you just want to hug him and never leave. while he's holding you tight, he's getting you locked on his hug, your face buried against his heavy and glistening chest. and you can't help but kiss his wet sweating tee.

even if he's tired, just knows this man gonna fuck you very hard, especially when you're so clingy to him. you can forget vanilla with truck driver!rafe, there's no way he's gonna be sweet on your fucking pussy, especially after you've been teasing him with dirty pictures of yourself while he was away and driving. also, he does need some stress relief so prepare to be dumb for at least one fucking day raw.

he's excited the moment he sees you. there is no more teasing. he's now in charge of everything and you better take everything he's gonna give you. this is not like he gives you other choices. at this moment, his favorite position to fuck you will be full nelson because you're trapped on his tight muscular hold, forced to bounce on the thickness of his dick. he's dicking you down so hard that you could hear the famous flap flap flap of his heavy balls slapping your skin.

“ don't fucking move. ” he treaths you with the raspy sound of his voice, while your body is bouncing at every of his thrusts. you're shaking loudly on his rocked abs, lips filled with drool and tears running down your heated cheeks. ” you're so fucking tight..! gonna give your pussy a big stretch…fuck ! ”

every back and forth is powerful enough to make your pussy throbs. the way his fleshy cock is moving and bruising your hole — going further and further to the point your stomach is filled with every inch of his shaft, the veiny lines of his dick pulsating inside your cunt and growing harder on your belly. all your whines and cries are nothing for the truck driver, nothing more than a sign to fuck you even faster and stronger. he still holding your twitching body against his toned chest, feeling every squirms of yours on his sweaty skin, and his hands grips at your back legs, while giving you the craziest thrusts. his hands feel so warm and huge on your lower tummy, fingers bruising at your belly while his length is striking to your spot each time. “ you're d-deep…fuck, rafe !! ah…it feels so good…” you cry out of emotions, tears bursting on your face again. “ yea, right ? fucking deep’. you really feel it inside you baby. ”

he's stretching your cunt so well that you can't stop screaming and quivering, feeling his sweat sticking to your body. his breathing is hard and heavy on the side of your cheeks, his jaw slacks but he keeps his mouth wide open loudly panting and getting deeper and stronger, lips tugging at your ears.

he's such a bully. i mean, his dick is. hitting and hitting your g-spot with any fucking breaks, always striking at it like a weapon. getting no mercy and pity on the way he's making you cry. he loves to see your face turning dumb, eyes wide shut, mouth leaking too much saliva, stupid babbles coming from your trembling lips. he's just pushing himself so deep inside your swollen core, breathy moans filling his lips as his cock hardly twitch between your walls, making your throbs even more. you can't even breathe without choking on yourself.

it's like he knows how to take all your energy with his thrusts. his cock won't leave your pussy alone, the veins still hard and bulged with pumping blood, and balls full even after your first orgasm. but not only he wanted you to come but to squirt too.

“ r-rafe, i feel it coming…nghh! ah stop. i c-ca…” “ just let it go, baby. can you do that for me ? ” and it happens just two seconds after, your stretched pussy opening bigger to splash a strong liquid over your folds and making a pool everywhere on yourself. you can't even process the situation that his dick is back into your walls again, merciless pounding your wetted hole. with the same fucked pace. you're such a shivering mess you can't feel anything except the length that's driving hard in your soaked insides. now that you're squirted, it's such a big wet place on your cunt. and he leads him to make you squirt another time. the sound of your pussy pumping his dick is so squishy and loud.

when he comes inside you, you can be sure it's gonna leak a lot from your slick. he's gonna fuck until his balls are empty, and your pussy gonna coats with so much of his sperm.

to be sure of his cock being dry, he's softly slapping at your lips with the tip, and making you clean it. he loves how sloppy you're sucking when you're tired, but he's a hard sucker for the look you give him when his dick weakly falls out of your mouth, and a stream of his sperm sticks at your lower lips.

and you're just off, laying your body back to the sheets.

you can't believe this man was soon forties. you simply can't believe it.

952 notes · View notes

nerdygirlramblings · 2 days ago

Text

Ren's adventures continue

a/n: the family pack is back!

"How's training going, honey? They're not pushing you too hard?" Mum asks.

Before you can answer, Mama cuts in. "Of course they're training her hard. This is an elite group of soldiers. Only the best of the best to serve Queen and country." She looks at you with a gleam in her eyes. "Isn't that right, baby?"

Dad rolls his eyes at their antics. It's clear they're all crammed into the nest where Dad's been since the doctor seconded your moms' idea for him to be on bed rest. Seeing them together, knowing Dad's due in a few weeks, it makes you miss them all so much more. Just as Mum and Mama start debating the merits of your service, again, Dad says, "You look good, sweetheart. Happy."

They see your unconscious smile. You haven't spoken to them much since you joined the task force, too tired most nights for anything more than a few texts, but you had a light day and wanted to check on how Dad was doing with the litter. Now you have a captive audience and weeks of stories to share.

You mention how well you fight hand-to-hand, joking how an old schoolyard bully "wouldn't be able to lay a finger on me now." To prove it, you send them a quick video Gaz took of you getting Ghost on his back a few days ago. "That's my Leftenant. He's an 18 stone alpha!" They watch the video, and you track their reactions: Mum's saucer-wide eyes, hand over her mouth; Dad wincing at the thwump of Ghost's back hitting the mat; Mama's nearly-manic grin.

You leave out how quickly he flipped you and got the upper hand.

The video is followed by pictures Soap took on the shooting range, several weapons artfully arrayed around targets with groupings so tight there are fist-sized holes in some. "They're training me on some of the sniper rifles, Mum, so I'd be watching their backs instead of breeching the building." You see the slightest drop of her shoulders as she exhales and know she'll hold tight to that kernel of hope for your safety.

You're most excited to tell them about the records you've set. "And Captain Price was the one who put my name forward. Kept me an' my secondary gender out of it entirely, jus' my call sign-"

"Your call sign?" Mum says. "What's that?"

"It's like a nickname. 'S what th' other soldiers call ya. Mostly based on the dumb shit-"

"Language, young lady," Mum says sharply.

"Sorry, Mum," you mumble, heat flaring along your neck at being scolded.

"Leave the girl be," Mama says. "She's an adult and can use whatever language she wants. Let her finish her story."

You smile gratefully and mouth thank you when Mum glances away towards some sound in the house. "So call signs are usually something you have to learn to deal with because it's a constant reminder of how you screwed up. But not always. An' the guys call me Ren because I'm good at lots of things."

"A modern Renaissance Man, er Woman, huh," Dad comments.

"That's what Captain Price said." You look at your dad and blurt out, "I think you'd like the Captain, Dad. He reminds me a lot of you and Mama."

"So about those records?" Mama asks, redirecting your focus again.

You glance at your parents then dart your gaze briefly down, bashful about bragging. "It seems I set a few base records on the shooting range and with my speed. An', like I said, they're up with my call sign, so no one really knows their mine, but that's not the point."

Dad takes the bait you don't realize you left. "Then what is the point, sweetheart?" he asks quietly.

There's no mistaking the pride in your voice and the joy in your eyes when you tell him, "They make me feel like I belong."

He smiles indulgently, and a loaded glance passes between your moms. The conversation continues a few more minutes, and you get the feeling your parents want to tell you something but don't. As you say your goodnights, you tell them you'll speak to Price about getting a few days of leave when the new litter comes. The call leaves you feeling both lighter and sadder, though you can't articulate the reasons for the second.

After the call to your parents, you start spending more time in the 141 barracks. The call home made you miss being part of something, and when you spend your down time with your team, the ache inside feels less raw, the hurt less sharp.

The easy camaraderie of the gym and mess becomes an uncomplicated cohabitation of video games and movies and parallel quiet time. One night you find yourself reading on one end of the couch in the barracks' rec room while Soap sketches. A tremor runs through you; the team keeps these rooms far colder than you're comfortable with, and you don't have an extra jumper today. Soap catches you rubbing your hands together and gets off the couch, heading to a small footlocker in the corner. You track his movements as he lifts the lid and pulls out a standard issue olive green jersey. He doesn't pull it on as you expect but drops it in your lap as he returns to his seat. "Nae point in bein' cold, Ren," he says with a smile.

You return the smile gratefully. "Thank you," you reply, pulling the jersey overhead. As you sink into its warmth, you take a deep inhale, breathing in the scent of sunshine and fresh cotton. You appreciate the smell of clean laundry. It's far more pleasant than the mothballs you were expecting.

You glance at Soap, surprised to see unbridled joy on his face. "Everything okay?"

He nods quickly. "Yeah, Ren. I'm aces."

You continue sitting in shared silence until the others come in from whatever they were doing. All three men pull up short at the sight of you and Soap on the couch. Looking between them, you worry you did something wrong despite having spent the last few nights with them until heading to bed in your barracks. "Er, what's wrong?"

Price quickly shakes his head as if clearing out cobwebs. "Nothin's wrong, Ren. Just a little surprised is all. Didn't think you-"

"The lass was cold, Cap'n," Soap blurted suddenly. "Figured if the jersey wasnae 'nuf tae warm 'er, Ah'd show 'er where the blankets are."

Price nods absently. "Right. The blankets." He takes one more long look at you, gaze assessing. "Well, glad you aren't cold, then."

The solitude you and Soap shared sits uneasily now with the others around. Something's shifted. You can smell it, like a bite of cold air preceding a storm. You try brushing off the unease, but you can't ignore it. It becomes nearly oppressive by the time you head to your barracks, waving goodnight to the team.

Once the door shuts behind you, Price gapes at Soap. "What were you thinking, giving her Gaz's jersey without telling her?" His tone is angry, but it's betrayed by the concern in his eyes as he looks at the beta.

"She was cold," Soap says simply.

"Yeah, but, one of my jerseys when you could have grabbed the blanket?" Gaz wasn't angry about you walking out with the jersey. He seemed nervous.

Price points at Gaz. "Yes, that!" He runs a hand down his face. "Giving Ren Gaz's jersey when we haven't broached courting 'er could backfire spectacularly."

"Ye were nae here, Cap. Took a big 'ole lungful a' 'is scent and held it. Wouldn't be surprised is she wears it tomorrow night." He looked from Price to Gaz and finally to Ghost, who met his pleading look with a hard reproach.

"It was a bold move, pup. Don't do it again without us all talking first." He voices everyone's shared desire. "We want 'er as pack, as ours. But she's smart, and she's wary, even of us when it comes to being our omega."

Price picks up the thought and says, "If we want this, and want to do it right, we need a plan."

taglist: @sirbonesly @z-wantstowrite @thriving-n-jiving @cecelia97 @theycallmevale @boogeysmoth

#cod #poly!141 #poly!141 x reader #tf 141 #tf 141 x reader #omegaverse #omegaverse 141 #omegaverse tf 141 #a/b/o #a/b/o 141 #a/b/o tf 141 #john price #johnny mactavish #kyle garrick #simon riley #nerdygirl says

204 notes · View notes

anomaliex · 3 days ago

Text

The Bad Kids Are Funny because they're all fairly violent and get really aggro really quickly (hey that's what you get for making a highly competent adventuring party a bunch of teenagers who don't go to therapy) but then Riz is somehow just two steps above everyone else and they barely acknowledge it. Fury of the Ball is the most wonderful thing.

The "face" of their party around school would probably be like Fig or Fabian, maybe Gorgug. Wow they're so strong aha. Hey who do you think is the most brutal, probably the half-orc barbarian who seems to mostly repress his rage until it's time to throw down right? Right?? No it's the little guy in the corner. Yeah, the one who just hid in the shadows and now you can't see him anymore. Yeah, he shot a pixie's fingers off one by one to get information, yeah, he ate a live dragon, yeah, he offered to tear someone's eye out for his best friend, yeah, he said the words "make sure his head is cut off so he can't be revivified" about another student. Yeah, he's a fucking goblin and so unapologetic about it at this point.

I always imagine his "fury" (which is a goblin trait which implies Sklonda has it too btw, never forget) being like oughhh pupils blown so wide, hair standing up, hissing claws out, kill maim stab. Just for a few seconds. You can elect to use it after hitting, I imagine him sinking his sword into a big meaty enemy and going "hm wow this guy's pretty tough. I need him dead though. Needs to die." and he twists the blade puts his whole weight in it and just drags it down no matter what's in the way. It HAS to be so gross and brutal every time and his friends are just like oh there he goes, the Ball cleaning up again.

Especially fun with the Kipperlilly thing. Oh two rogues fighting without sneak attack, that's gotta be a slow careful battle where they chip away at each other. Oh she does like seven damage rushing past him, oh he's gonna do the same wait never mind he uses his fury he stabbed her SO badly. No rogue finesse no show about it just the intent to kill. Kid with traumatic past does in fact end up fucked and it isn't actually fun or quirky or interesting, who would have thought. Shoutout to hold person over the lava that goes disgustingly hard and is also so gruesome, imagine being paralysed and watching yourself fall into a pit that will burn you alive.

The thing with classic rogues is that you're "dead before you know you're being attacked" and it's "quick and easy and possibly painless" but if Riz kills you it's gonna hurt. You're gonna know and it's gonna hurt but hey high chance you don't get to do anything about it still. Phenomenal character.

#rambling into the void #riz gukgak #dimension 20 #fantasy high #the bad kids

359 notes · View notes

rafesbabygirlx · 1 day ago

Note

jj x kook!reader enemies to lovers short story (could go like, they've always had a huge rivalry, always messing with each other, then one night at a party they're both drunk/high, they hook up and their chemistry is off the charts so they just keep coming back to one another)

I love any idea of JJ with a kook!reader!

𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚢 - 𝙹𝙹 𝙼��𝚢𝚋𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚡 𝚔𝚘𝚘𝚔!𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚛𝚒𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐

𝚖𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝

You hated him. The rivalry between you and JJ Maybank ran deep, like the marshy waters that separated Kooks and Pogues on the island. He was reckless, all salt and sweat, a boy who lived by the tide, while you were carved from privilege, groomed for a life of summer soirées and silk sheets.

You’d been at each other’s throats since middle school—petty pranks, heated insults, the occasional shove in passing. But it never mattered more than the game you played. A Kook and a Pogue were supposed to hate each other. That’s just the way things were.

So, naturally, when you saw JJ at the party that night, you were already bristling, ready for whatever bullshit he was about to pull. The backyard was packed—drunken laughter, the scent of weed hanging thick in the humid air. You took another swig from the bottle in your hand, the warmth settling deep in your stomach, making your limbs feel slow and heavy.

Then, across the yard, you saw him.

JJ, sprawled out in a lawn chair, the glow of the tiki torches painting him in flickering light. His usual cocky smirk was absent, replaced by something more unreadable. His eyes were hooded, heavy-lidded. Red-rimmed. Just as low as yours.

He caught you staring.

A slow smirk curled his lips as he lifted his chin, nodding toward the house. No words. Just a silent question.

You should’ve ignored him. Should’ve rolled your eyes and turned away.

But you didn’t.

Instead, your feet moved on their own, carrying you through the crowd, past the couples making out by the pool, through the sliding glass doors. JJ was already halfway up the stairs, throwing a glance over his shoulder, checking to see if you were following.

You were.

The house was quieter up here, the party reduced to a distant hum. JJ leaned against the wall in the dim hallway, arms crossed, his head tilting slightly as you approached.

“You lost, Kook?” he drawled, voice thick with smoke and whiskey.

You scoffed, leaning against the opposite wall. “You nodded first, Maybank.”

JJ exhaled a laugh, shaking his head. “You’re drunk.”

“So are you.”

“Fair point.” He pushed off the wall, stepping closer, a teasing glint in his bloodshot eyes. “So what now? You gonna call me a dirty Pogue and storm off?”

You should’ve. You should’ve thrown out some sharp insult, something to put you both back in your usual roles.

But standing there, your head buzzing, your pulse drumming in your ears, you couldn’t find the fight in you.

JJ studied you for a long moment, his gaze dipping ever so slightly, lingering. His tongue flicked out, wetting his lips.

“I don’t hate you, y’know,” he murmured.

Your breath hitched, but you recovered fast. “Yeah, well… could’ve fooled me.”

JJ grinned, slow and lazy. “You make it easy.”

You rolled your eyes, but the heat crawling up your neck betrayed you.

A beat of silence stretched between you. The tension was different now, charged. Your heart kicked against your ribs.

You didn’t know what you were doing. Maybe it was the liquor. Maybe it was the weed.

Or maybe, for the first time, you were finally admitting the truth—

That falling for JJ Maybank was a hell of a lot easier than hating him.

Your breath hitched as he took another step, slow and deliberate, testing you. Daring you.

“You’re quiet,” he murmured, eyes locked onto yours. “That’s new.”

You wanted to snap back, but the words wouldn’t come—not when his fingertips ghosted along your cheek, barely there, his thumb brushing your jaw.

“You’re really not stopping me,” JJ mused, head tilting slightly. “Maybe you don’t hate me as much as you think.”

That did it.

Without thinking, you grabbed the back of his neck and yanked him forward, crashing your lips onto his.

JJ barely hesitated before kissing you back just as hard, hands gripping your waist, pulling you flush against him. He tasted like whiskey and trouble, and maybe that should’ve been a warning, but you didn’t care.

The rivalry, the taunts, the history—none of it mattered.

Only the way he sighed against your lips, fingers tangling in your hair, your body pressing against his like you’d done this a hundred times before.

When you finally pulled away, breathless, JJ grinned.

“Well, shit,” he murmured. “If I knew pissing you off would get me kissed like that, I would’ve tried harder.”

You let out a breathy laugh. “Shut up, Maybank.”

His smirk widened. “Make me.”

And so, you did.

You and JJ busted through the door of an unoccupied bedroom. Lips stuck together and both of your hands exploring every part of each other. You pushed him down onto the edge of the bed and pull off his shirt. You brushed his sun kissed blond hair back from his face. His hand ran up your inner thigh, slowly reaching your core.

As you leaned down to kiss him again, JJ grazes his fingers over the wet spot forming in your lace thong making you let out a shaky breath, already feeling sensitive.

"I, a Pogue, turn you on this much?" He asks cockily.

"Touch me already," you tighten your grip on his hair you're holding back.

JJ wasted know time, pushing your panties to the side and rubbing your clit. He moved his finger down, coating them in your wetness and plunges two fingers inside you. Your hands drop to his shoulders to steady yourself as he pumps in and out of you at a steady rhythm.

The bubbling feeling in your stomach comes quicks making your legs wobble. You throw your head back and let out a loud moan. JJ grips your hip with his free hand and pumps his fingers quicker when he feels you clench around them.

"You gonna come for me, kook princess?"

"Ah- fuck, y-yes," you cry out.

In a rush of ecstasy you release all over JJ's fingers. He slows his movements slower and slower letting you ride out your high. Once you've finished, JJ pulls out and licks your come off his fingers.

You push him back onto the bed. JJ sits up on his elbows as he watches you pull your dress over your head and your thong down your legs. Next, you unbuckle the belt holding up JJ's tattered cargo pants and unbutton then pulling them off of him.

You straddle his legs and begin to pump his hard cock in your hand as you sit up to line it up with your entrance. You sink down onto him in a swift motion. You grind down on him before lifting back up and dropping yourself back down on him.

You bounce up and down as JJ digs his fingers into your hips. Your moves start to falter when you get tired and JJ notices. He pulls you to lay flush against his chest and he wraps his arms around your waist, planting his feet on the bed, and he starts to thrust roughly up into you.

You moan into the crook of his neck and he presses kissing into yours. You felt the bubbling feeling yet again. JJ doesn't let up on his trust, somehow going harder even if he sounded out of breath. You come hard and JJ is quick to follow.

You fall to his side, and begin to laugh a bit at how crazy what just happened was. JJ gives you a nervous look but you reassure him by pulling him in and planting a kiss on his lips.

You're pulled out of your trance when an arm wraps around your waist and pulls you into their chest. JJ's head nuzzles into your neck and you smile to yourself. You think back to your first encounter with JJ. That was 6 months ago and you still can't get enough of the boy. Breaking down the kook vs pogue war between the two of you feels so ridiculous to you now. You can't explain what this boy does to you and you wish you knew sooner so you could've been doing this longer.

tags + some moots 💗

@rafestoothbrush @weluvwbb @itsforeverandalwayz @butterfly-ibuki @megiiite @maybankslover @siredbtches @bigenergy777 @percysley @aupernatural-teenwolflover @slut4you @rafegf-real @skywalker0809 @snowtargaryen @kieeslove @leather-n-velvet @avada-kedavra-bitch-187 @rafesgreasycurtainbangs @diasnohibng @slut-4-gojo @akobx @jjmaybankmylovee @slurpdew @rafesheaven @cameronsprincess @littlelamy @nemesyaaa @inthelibrarybtw @frankoceanluvr11 @writingroom21 @v3n1ce-bxtch

115 notes · View notes

tuliptiger · 3 days ago

Text

I've been pondering why people are so adamantly hating on Caitlyn. I can't really understand it completely unless, from an audience's perspective, you plug your ears and ignore her when she's on screen completely.

It's so hard to talk about Arcane without talking about the characters like they're people because they're really well written. They're believable with their actions. That's what a normal ass person would do in that situation I'm sure, they'd probably act more maliciously in real life tbh.

Caitlyn does so much. She's not even my favorite and she doesn't need to be for me to acknowledge and appreciate how she was written, her character arc as a whole and her place in the story and the changes she helped usher in. And I don't understand why other people can't do the same.

I'm a 100% Silco hater in a "I think he was well written, compelling and interesting character. He loved with his whole heart. I still think he made awful and bad decisions and let his pain control him and refused to do better." kind of way. People LOVE Silco where they hate Caitlyn and I don't get it.

She did better, she improved the system from the inside out, she lived and got hurt and didn't let that drive the rest of her life. She had a weak moment, Vi also had a weak moment. Vi haters point out her punching Powder all of the time as if one moment of weakness ruins a character.

And this is all over the place but I'm pointing out all of these other characters because the common thread is that they aren't perfect. Caitlyn didn't handle everything perfectly as a person who didn't choose to be born into an incredibly powerful and influential family. She didn't disown her family and fight with the rebels, she didn't personally slit all of the councilors' throats herself. Short of self flagellation or self sacrifice I don't think these people would ever like her and even if she did do all of that it still wouldn't be enough. At least from what I've seen in the past.

I hate rich people as much as the next person because I don't think they are people anymore. I think they're less than human for the path they had to take to get where they are. That isn't Caitlyn though, she's not a real person but if more people acted like her who are in her position we sure as fuck wouldn't be in the world we are in today. She was born and raised into it, with all the ignorance it covered her in, all the misinformation and bias it tried to instill into her.

If she was a Zaunite none of these complaints would exist and I'd bet money on it and isn't that a double standard. She was ignorant, had weak moments, grew, ACTIVELY sought out information and a different mind set after being traumatized and did better. And that's not enough for these people.

I think Caitlyn is a well written character and I sympathize with what she went through. How she still came out on the side of the people, how she still learns, puts her pride on the shelf to do better. She's a strong woman who is written like a person and not a narrative vehicle for class hate. To me.

"I hate Caitlyn because of the system she represents. I'm so tired of people acting like we can'thate her for that."

Let's have a long, hard talk.

This argument IS made in direct comparison to the oppressive systems we see in real life, so let's first talk about how Caitlyn compares to real world oppressive systems, her faults and the ways she fails the people she serves, and then let's talk about how you're just fucking wrong about her and how you hate the wrong character.

Caitlyn is an enforcer. Stating the obvious. She is a member of a larger system she chose to be a part of, because she wanted to serve the people. She was ignorant of the system's corruption as we see throughout season 1. Her initial intentions with becoming an enforcer are because she wants to fight injustice, defy the stuff politics of Piltover that she was raised under, and have her own identity.

At the end of season 1, several things happen to Caitlyn. She is abducted naked from her home, held hostage for at minimum 24 hours, during which time an array of things could have happened to her but of which we know for certain left her TERRIFIED of the young girl with blue hair she was abducted by. She watches that same girl fire an explosive that kills her mother. Preceding this, she has been witness to the ways Silco has harmed the people of the undercity and how he had the enforcers in his pocket in order to do it. Ekko explicitly tells her this. He tells her how Silco has ruined lives and how the enforcers were the manpower that let it happen.

Caitlyn walks away from season 1 changed in many ways. She is brokenhearted and traumatized, but still holds a strong desire to protect the innocent people of both cities. Because of who she has been up to this point, her belief is that she can rectify the wrongs by using the power of her position to do good instead of aid corruption. Her asking Vi to become an enforcer to do as much is in bad taste, yes. Which she later apologizes for and takes ownership for. That doesn't remove the good intention behind it. And it doesn't negate that Vi can later see the logic behind it. Being able to take control of a bad situation and use that power to do good instead of abusing that power to do bad, is an incredibly shaky but important position to be in. And the whole point of Caitlyn's character is how she navigates that--can she use her position to do good? As per GOOD WRITING, she's not going to get it perfect until she learns and grows.

We can acknowledge the moral ambiguity of using the grey, how it does harm, while also acknowledging the WAY it was used and for what purpose was both smart, economical, and GOOD. Doing bad things for good reasons. That's what the use of the grey was.

I'm not going to get into the memorial much, but all I will say for that, is it's an excellent example of people twisting Caitlyn's words and underselling the pain she's going through. If you can't acknowledge the right Caitlyn has to be upset at the people who just violently disrupted a memorial for mourning the loss of loved ones, I don't think you care to have a conversation about the humane treatment of others. And using Caitlyn's anger and grief as a "see?? She hates Zaunites!!" is so fucking stupid I'm not going to entertain an argument for that.

Caitlyn's setback is her trauma, her ignorance, and her heartbreak. She still isn't a fully realized character throughout most of season 2. She's learning and growing and unfortunately that is at the expense of the people she lords over while enforcing martial law. But if we acknowledge that, we also have to acknowledge the ways she changed the system so that needless suffering and punishment didn't happen. Confronting Ambessa when violence is used unlawfully. Improving the prison food and banning the use of the most inhumane cells in Stillwater. Bare minimum? Yes. But still ways she showed that she saw the Zaunites as humans and not as flesh covered problems the way Salo does. Not as problems to get rid of the way Ambessa does.

If the reason for your ire is because Caitlyn is a figure in a corrupt system, then your hatred is misdirected. The point of Caitlyn is to show the ways the system needs to change, and how the people within it who want to do good can often be misguided, but that doesn't mean they aren't good people or that they can't do good within their position.

If you fundamentally disagree with that, there isn't much of an argument to be had, but I will say that your ire is still misdirected.

I never see you guys discuss Salo or Ambessa.

Salo represents true bigotry in the system. It's a position he maintains all the way up to when his mind is commandeered by Viktor and the hexcore. Salo is the type of person who functions on confirmation bias--he already has a prejudiced view of Zaunites, and will use any opportunity to say "see? Told you so! We should put them down." Compared directly to how Caitlyn talks about them, asks Vi to help fix the system, fights against the system going too far, actively makes adjustments to change the way the system treats Zaunites, the claims that Caitlyn is a bigot don't hold up.

Ambessa IS the system. She IS the oppressive force that indiscriminately will take and take and take and sees violence as a tool and not a consequence to be avoided at all costs the way Caitlyn does. And for some fucking reason, no one who criticizes Caitlyn gives any weight to Ambessa's actions, ever. They don't discuss the way she manufactures the attack on the memorial to manipulate public opinion on Zaunites, as well as manipulate Caitlyn. They don't discuss how she sets Caitlyn up to be pressured to take the position of Commander and uses her grief, promises her justice, in order to warm Caitlyn to her and keep her as an ally, a pawn she can use. They don't discuss how she sent Maddie to be a spy, to be in Caitlyn's bed and to be as intimately close to her as possible, to make sure Caitlyn still was behaving the way she needed in order to see her plan through.

When discussing the manipulative, exploitative, and violent nature of oppressive systems, Caitlyn has become the scapegoat, when it is people like Salo and Ambessa who deserve your blame and your ire.

You wonder why people don't take your complaints about Caitlyn seriously? That's why. Because the show gave you very bold examples of oppressive individuals in control of the systems you hate, and you ignore both of them for the sake of hating on a beloved lesbian character, who is beloved because she is flawed and good natured and whose journey we enjoy because it's all about learning what to do when you're within a system that pulls you at every direction to do evil, and you still find a way to do good.

Do some more think pieces on Salo and Ambessa. Then maybe we can have nuanced discussions on Caitlyn.

#you're eating with these posts OP #words #in the back of my mind #and I don't want to post this on the main body because I genuinely don't know #is it racism? because she's like some vague asian nationality? is it because shes a woman?#nobody shit talks mel #when she is defacto #number one richest person in piltover #but we ignore that in facor of hating on cait why?#sincerely why?#and like you said we're ignoring salonand Ambessa for #what?#why?

235 notes · View notes

tanadrin · 1 day ago

Note

how dumb am i if i think the political situation in the states in one that can be bounced back from. like im not convinced by the argument that this administration brings the end to america, but im also not totally convinced that it's the end of america as we know it. and not in the "it's been like this all along" cynical sense, in the "i kinda do believe the rule of law wins out in this fight" sense. not without effort, mind. (goes without saying it's a different case for the foreign affairs)

you're not dumb at all. most apocalyptically bad political situations are the result of a long chain of decisions and failures and whatnot, and there are frequently sequences of decisions and failures that lead to bad political situations which society then proceeds to recover from.

for all the ways in which trump II has tried to deliberately fuck things up, it has been lousy at, like, the actual consolidation authoritarian systems usually need to sustain themselves. the modus operandi of authoritarianism AIUI is usually

be popular (trump did not even win an absolute majority of the popular vote; as of election day he was more popular than he had been in a while, but he didn't have crazy high approval ratings)

do your gleichschaltung first, using your popularity as a cudgel. install loyalists throughout the institutions, rein in independent actors, woo important elements like the military onto your side

only then once your power base is secure, unleash your real agenda. this is when you can go nuts, because the opposition will be weak and disorganized, and you can use the security apparatus to brutalize them. obviously there's a whole range of authoritarianism between outright "elections are over forever" and competitive authoritarianism, but they all rely on some degree of conslidation

and this was sort of the plan! project 2025 was meant to be a long game, carefully rolled out and done in a way that would leverage a conservative-but-independent judiciary to give it the imprimatur of legality, to establish a lasting conservative victory that would be incredibly difficult to undo.

trump, uh. did not do this. both he and musk have really poor impulse control and no real tact. there are goals here, but the strategy is bad; they have no sense of how to consolidate power, even in the ordinary non-authoritarian way that involves just putting together a robust governing coalition. they've had to rely mostly on trump's cult of personality and popularity within movement conservatism to cow Republicans, the fact that things are generally still humming along with inertia from the previous administration so that most people aren't super tuned in to politics, and the fact that most people do not care about the eye-wateringly boring details of the management of the federal government to stay under the radar--but when you poll the shit they're doing, it polls bad, and the likelihood they will break something in a really dangerous way is high. dangerous for the country--and for them.

there's been some efforts to install loyalists, but they've come alongside efforts to gut the apparatus of institutions you'd actually need to be working at high capacity to really do an authoritarianism. he fired the cjcs but also is attacking the agencies that administer veterans' benefits (and he literally just wanted to replace the cjcs with a general he thought had a cool nickname!). people who are paying attention are pissed. allies are freaked out. we are only a month in to trump II!

there are lots of paths here that, with some difficulty, nonetheless end with trumpism failing. there are lots of paths that don't, of course. i don't want to be pollyannaish here. but i think this is genuinely a chaotic situation, a situation where teetering on the brink is an apt metaphor, because this is one of those moments where events that are minor at first glance can have really outsized effects, and nobody really knows what will happen next.

#us politics

190 notes · View notes

muqingslover · 8 hours ago

Note

Hello!! I absolutely love your take on the lads men as fathers, they make so much sense of their character!! That being said, I wanted to ask what pets you think they would own, if any?

I love your writing style!! I hope you have a good day!!!

[ this is such a cute request!! Thank you and I really hope you like it! ]

Xavier

He's snow-white fr fr

Xavier has such a tranquil energy around him that whenever he falls asleep outside you just find him covered in little birds, a random stray cat on his lap and a butterfly on his nose.

But he'd have no pets of his own because he just doesn't have the energy to give the care they deserve and the lifespan of most living creatures is too short compared to his own.

Oh not to mention if he had a pet you would probably be aaaall over it and he wants NONE of that.

He's the type that can't keep even a cactus alive because he's asleep the whole time he's not with you or working. (the official schedule post showed he sleeps way more than I thought it's crazy)

Zayne

Oh this sweet, sweet man.

He loves animals but animals do not share the feeling LMAO

He had a tortoise when he was little and we all know his passion for cats so he does like the idea of having a pet.

Because of his schedule as a surgeon I can see him having something that agrees with his busy lifestyle like those pretty fish tanks.

Not to mention the fish can't reject this poor guy and are as quiet as he is.

The plants he keeps in his house/office are like his children too and watering them is part of daily routine.

Sylus

He has Mephisto of course (and the twins jk) but I firmly believe he's one of the people who are blessed by the cat's universal system.

Here and there he'd randomly save or feed a stray and the cat would stick to him like glue.

They begin "multiplying" and eventually he has six different cats coming in and out of his house.

They're not really his but he lets them be as long as you're not allergic to them.

Mephisto is fighting for his life and staying in very high places so he's not torn to pieces.

The twins have multiple photos of Sylus asleep with the kitties and they send one to you every week.

He's like the dad that says "I don't like cats" and then he shows up with three different types of deluxe food.

Rafayel

Man's a whole fish he IS the pet.

All jokes aside, he seems the type to have a pretty bird like cockatiel or a white dove that has as much of an attitude as he does.

He definitely paints the bird and is extra enough to use the loose feathers for details to add authenticity to the piece.

100% will argue with it like the bird understands him.

"She likes you more than me! The one who raised her!" *cuts to the bird turning it's head away from him and nuzzling on the top of your head*

Strolling buddies. Every time Rafayel goes out for inspiration or just to clear his head the bird will follow him and he likes the company more than he'd ever admit.

Caleb

If he could this guy would own BIG dogs no argument.

And yes plural because he'd have at least two.

The dogs are all very well trained and absolutely adore you. Much like the owner.

He will often send you videos of them in goofy costumes he bought and he's just laughing his head off in the background.

I also feel like he used to collect bugs when he was just a brat.

He'd terrorize you and Zayne by running after you two with those big ass beetles like

"It's just a little guy! Look! :D" "*screams of horror"

94 notes · View notes

vashtijoy · 2 days ago

Note

Hi! I was wondering if you’ve translated the “this is no small potatoes” line from 2/2, where it later got changed to “this isn’t trivial” ? I love the scene so I’m curious if there is another layer of nuance in their discussion in the Japanese version

(Wow, this post was just hanging out in my drafts, totally written. Be free, little post. yeah, it's not little)

Hi anon! I currently have no thoughts of any kind and have forgotten most of what I ever knew, but I love this small sequence so much that I'm going to try to elaborate on it.

In short: these lines are the capstone of Joker and Akechi's arc. They run right back through the third semester to the Jazz Club, and right back to his confidant. They're the emotional heart of them.

Akechi 君は変わらず、丸喜と戦う道を選べばいい。 kimi wa kawarazu, Maruki to chigau michi o erabeba ii All you have to do is stick to your guns and challenge Maruki. [lit. if you choose a different path to Maruki without wavering, it'll be fine.]

First off, here's another instance of that "choose your own path" motif, elided from the localisation. This is not just associated with Akechi in P5, but he really does hammer it home.

now freeze: the callback to conf 7

Conf 7 is probably my favourite confidant stage, and I've discussed it before at some length. Specifically, we're looking at the phone call afterwards, where Akechi sums up what they've discussed:

Akechi 僕らにはお互い譲れないものがあって、そのためにも負けられない。 bokura ni wa otagai yuzurenai mono ga atte, sono tame ni mo makerarenai Neither of us can afford to lose, because we fight in service of our principles. It's the same for both of us. Neither of us can afford to lose, because of these principles we won't concede. ⋯だからこそ、もしも君が自分を曲げたりしたら絶対に赦さないよ。 … dakara koso, moshi mo kimi ga jibun o magetari shitara zettai ni yurusanai yo And that is precisely why… I cannot allow you to change. … And that's precisely why, if you betrayed yourself that way… I couldn't allow it. だって、僕が負けたくないのは『君』なんだから。 datte, boku ga maketakunai no wa "kimi" nan da kara As you are now, as you think now… I cannot allow you to win over me.

This phone call, which likely takes place the evening after Akechi's murder phone call, summarises how Akechi sees Joker, at the start of the Sae mission—and it's a remarkably positive vision. Conf 7 highlights the similarities between Joker and Akechi, before conf 8 casts their differences into sharp relief.

In fact, in his determination to illustrate why the two of them can never be friends, Akechi reveals something he may not quite have intended: the things he most admires about Joker are his loyalty and his devotion to his friends.

Seriously. Joker's devotion to his confidants is the thing Akechi sets alongside his own obsession that has driven him to murder. I don't have space to lay the whole thing out here, but you should check the conf 7 essay out if you have time.

january in the jazz club

This image of Joker as an impenetrable fortress with indomitable will comes up again in the jazz club, and rather indirectly:

Akechi こんな異常事態でも君がまともで助かったよ。 konna ijou jitai demo kimi ga matomo de tasukatta yo I'm glad you're still normal, even in this bizarre situation. Even in such a bizarre situation as this, you've saved your sanity. Akechi 君まで正気を失ってたら… まあ、その時は叩き起こしてただろうけど。 kimi made shouki o ushinattetara... maa, sono toki wa tatakiokoshiteta darou kedo If even you had lost it… Well, if that happened, I would have slapped you awake.

The logic of the first line has been slightly altered in translation. It's not a huge shift, but it's changed the emphasis—rather than being glad Joker hasn't lost it like the others, Akechi is observing it. He expected it. He would have expected no less of his rival. (That matomo de, by the way, is far more often seen as matomo de nai, and it means that someone is not sane.)

This follows straight on from conf 7—from the idea Akechi has that Joker is someone dependable. And more than that—if Joker should cease to be that way, Akechi views it as his duty to set him straight.

He said so in conf 7's phone call (that "I cannot allow you to change", which is actually far more like, "if you gave way, I couldn't allow it") And he's saying the same thing here: "if you lose yourself, I'll slap you awake."

This gives us a little additional context for 2/2.

back to 2/2

Here's Akechi's next line:

Akechi それとも、君はこの程度で意志を曲げるようなやつなのか? soretomo, kimi wa kono teido de ishi o mageru you na yatsu na no ka? Or, are you really so spineless that you’d fold over some bullshit, trivial threat on my life?

There is a small linguistic callback here to that conf 7 phone call—Akechi uses the same verb 曲げる mageru, meaning to bend or distort, or to give way on a point of principle. The localisation has it as "fold", which does call back to conf 7, but to the wrong part! In conf 7, mageru referred to Joker's principles yielding under pressure, giving way under influence; here, it's in the extended form ishi o mageru—literally to bend one's will, to have it give way or crumble.

This word 意志 ishi is the "will" of Will Seeds, of the will to rebellion; this is the thing Akechi is calling Joker out on sacrificing. This is the thing he believes is so much more important than his own life. This is the callback here, through the jazz club and the phone call to that November night outside Penguin Sniper, to "You're my rival."

Literally, Akechi's line here is "or are you the sort of guy whose will crumbles for as little as this?". Compared to his image of Joker, Akechi's life is nothing. Compared to his image of Joker, the whole world is probably nothing. Again, it's the ideal and the real; 2/2 is when Akechi's image of Joker runs headlong into the reality of him, of a real, breathing, living boy who hurts and cries and bleeds and dies, rather than an icon. Even 11/20 never truly brings this home, because Joker escapes—just as conf 7 suggests Akechi expected him to. It is integral to the pedestal Akechi has Joker on that he would never throw the world aside for Akechi.

This is why it's only rank 10 promise Akechi, primed for the third awakening, who shows up to Leblanc to defend that pedestal. This is why the translation I return to for this line is "Or are you telling me you'd throw away everything you believe in for nothing at all?" Akechi's life is not the point here; he barely mentions it. The point here is supposed to be what Joker is throwing away.

And it's Joker, of course, not Akechi, who refocuses the conversation to what—to who—is really being thrown away.

joker's response

Joker 『この程度』じゃない “kono teido” ja nai This isn't "trivial"! You're not "nothing"!

There are other responses, of course, but this is the big one. This is the one that used to be "This isn't small potatoes"—and I hope I've illustrated why that translation was so bad that Atlus went back in and changed it. Because as well as gutting Akechi's lines of their context, that line gutted this whole moment, the pinnacle of Joker and Akechi's story, of its emotional impact.

Joker simply was not saying that things were a little bit serious—not small potatoes. He was saying Akechi mattered. You could easily render that kono teido ja nai as, simply, "But you matter." and that really isn't small potatoes

An overlooked response here is the third one, the only one Akechi will accept:

[Joker] 意思は曲げない ishi wa magenai I won't fold. My will won't break.

Yep. This one bypasses all Akechi's complaints about mercy, about betrayal, as he cuts to the chase:

Akechi なら、もう分かってるだろ? nara, mou wakatteru daro? Then you already know what needs to be done…

Note that the Japanese is a question—"Then you already know what needs to be done, right?". And it leads directly into Akechi's final demand: "What do you intend to do?"

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.0 (22nd February 2025)—first posted.

v1.1 (22nd February 2025)—correct kanji for ishi.

#persona 5 #p5 meta #japanese language #shuake #2/2 #goro akechi #ren amamiya #i hate the marukiverse

97 notes · View notes

star-anise · 2 days ago

Text

Related to this video, though I take a while to get there, as someone who's worked in domestic violence shelters:

I realize Gabby Petito's life and murder have already been armchair-psychoanalyzed literally ad nauseam. I don't want to rake up old muck for the fun of it. But I had to stop watching the recent Netflix documentary about it when it got to footage of the police stop, and after listening to both of them, the officers concluded that she was the primary aggressor, and threatened her with jail. (After that I looked: an investigation into the incident said their biggest mistake was failing to arrest her for domestic violence.)

SO HERE'S THE THING: This is not an isolated incident. I've seen it happen so many times, in so many places. Dare I say, it is a truth universally acknowledged: police are, in aggregate, absolute dogshit at responding to domestic violence. Not because they're awful people or even bad at their jobs, but because their basic, essential jobs, their training and tasks and tools, are just not the things we need to solve the problem. Police work interacts with domestic violence the way a hammer interacts with the inside of a computer processor. Something sure happens, but it's probably not going to fix the problem you came in with!

Why? And what can we do differently?

The basic job of the police is to find evidence of a crime, and arrest the person responsible for it. Through this function, they also deter crime because their presence implies the potential threat of arrest. The end goal of this work is either to prevent crime entirely, or to focus on identifying a criminal who, if arrested, can be convicted of a crime. They care about the cases that will stand up to the scrutiny of a judicial court.

If you want a deeper dive into this, the aptly-titled No Visible Bruises by Rachel Louise Snyder is a good place to start. There are a lot of initiatives out there to try to make the police be less absolute dogshit about domestic violence. I commend the various attempts made with police departments all over a world, because even something that's just medium dogshit is worth the effort. Even small improvements still return a benefit in terms of lives saved.

My point is:

Police are extremely oriented towards detecting crime, and disregarding other factors in a situation. "I don't care if you're starving, it's against the law to steal from a grocery store" and all that.

The crimes police tend to focus on are the ones with solid evidence that will stand up at trial.

So, in 2021, police get a call because a passerby saw a man hitting a woman, next to their white Ford Transit. Later, an officer pulls over a white Ford Transit with two people in it, who are in fact the people the call was about! They are Gabby Petito, who will be dead in two weeks, and the man that will kill her.

To condense from the full, Gabby's description of their fight earlier is: "I was just saying I'm sorry if I'm in a bad mood. [...] I had so much work I was doing on my computer this morning. [...] I've been really stressed and he doesn't really believe that I could do any of it, so, we just been fighting all morning and he wouldn't let me in the car before."

That man's description is: "We see this gets worked up sometimes and I try and really distance myself from her. So, I locked the car and I walked away from her. What happened this morning is that she's trying to start up a little website [...] but she just got worked up, because we were trying to get going and get our day going [... she] was trying to get the keys from me. I was just trying to, I know I shouldn't push her, I was just trying to push her away."

The officers on site set about solving what is, to them, the critical question: Did a crime occur, and if so, who did it?

So they look at the available evidence: the cuts and bruises on Gabby's face and arm, and that man's face and arms. They get testimony that seems to say: Gabby tried to grab her keys, and that man pushed her away. That means she is the one who assaulted him, and he responded in self-defence.

(They actually go back and forth about whether it meets the legal definition of assault, and because she denies intending to harm him, they don't press charges in the end. All the same, they give that man a hotel room to give him space from his "abuser" for a night.)

So, in the video about DARVO above, Dr. Yudin describes how the basic problem is that the aggressor tends to miss how their behaviour caused the incident to occur in the first place, and only clock that something is wrong once they experience negative consequences. When, if you back up, you can see the bigger pattern.

For example, the police come in and perk their ears up at what I'll call Incident 1, when it reaches the level of "violence that leaves marks the police can see without trying too hard". That's when Gabby reaches for the keys.

So I have to ask Annoying Question #1: Okay, and she reached for the keys because...?

Incident 2: That man locks the van and starts to walk away with the keys.

This does not, as the police understand it, rise to the level of criminality. I'm not a lawyer, but I still think it's something they should have paid attention to. They should know, because she tells them: He wasn't just locking her out of a vehicle, which she could deal with by walking or calling an Uber; he was locking her out of her principal residence and place of work.

Annoying Question 2: And he locked her out because...?

Incident 3: Even he has to explain this one. She just "got so worked up" about her "little website" that he had to make her go outside and take a walk! So she can calm down! Because she just gets worked UP, amirite? Gabby even endorses this by blaming her "bad mood" on her "OCD".

Annoying Question #3: And she was "worked up" into a "bad mood" because...?

Incident 4: She was trying to work, and he wanted her to "get going" instead, while also expressing doubts about her competence at "any of it".

I'll stop here, but the thing is: Yes, it is very hard to pick apart the moving pieces when you get to see someone for 15 minutes and then have to figure out the whole trajectory of everything. But that's often the amount of time it took us at the shelter to decide whether or not someone was in an abuse situation that warranted giving them a bed for the night. Sometimes it's not the amount of information, but the lens you use to analyze it.

The full transcript actually goes on at agonizing length, as the police use the tools available to them to try to solve this problem, think about the laws and mandated policies, the potential effects of pressing charges... it takes them over an hour and fifteen minutes. I'll admit, I absolutely could not read the entire insufferable thing. I don't hate myself that much.

The officer in question later said, "I would have done anything to stop it if I would have known that was coming. If I would have known [Laundrie] was going to murder her, I would have taken vacation to follow them, because I care about people, to the point where he was going to murder her … and I would have intervened and citizens arrested him in Wyoming! I would have taken my own time. I would have missed my family to go do that."

In my opinion, that's the stupidest crime prevention plan I've ever heard. This cop is making up a demented action movie in his head based on having psychic superpowers because he cannot imagine a way to do his job differently.

Thankfully we don't need divine revelation and a good PTO package to be less dogshit. We just need to change the focus from "Who committed a crime?" to "Is everyone okay?"

(I mean, he did focus, once he decided Gabby was the criminal, on that guy's safety. But that's not the same thing.)

Things we would ask during a domestic violence assessment:

-Do you feel safe around your partner? Are you afraid they might hurt you? -Has your partner ever hit, choked, pushed, or kicked you? Do they keep dangerous weapons around you? -Does your partner ever try to control where you go, or who you see or talk to? -Does your partner interfere with your access to money or the necessities of life? Do they try to stop you from working or providing for yourself? -Does your partner minimize their actions or blame you for their abuse? -Do you feel safe leaving them? -Do you have people in your life you can turn to for support? -Do you have somewhere you can go? -How can I help?

Having written these questions out, it's obvious why the police didn't ask them. If they had to provide this level of care, and actually set people up with the resources they needed, they'd be completely overwhelmed. Waiting until the crimes are committed and deciding who to punish for them is soooooo much more efficient.

And who cares if efficiency costs lives?

(Author's note: ...Good lord, and I planned to do things this afternoon. I've been writing this for hours. I don't have a good way to wrap this up, except go soothe the fury somewhere else now.)

I just found a really great explanation of DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender).

youtube

I'm dealing with too much shit right now to expand, but... it's fucking everywhere.

#gabby petito tw #true crime tw #domestic violence tw #police tw #staranise original #femicide tw

224 notes · View notes

spreadyovrwings · 1 day ago

Text

Honey, I Can Feel Your Pain

A second, slightly more successful heart-to-heart since the world didn’t end. Or, two idiots try to talk about their feelings but they're both demons and not very good at it: part two.

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: some descriptions of injury/blood etc./my writing/me trying to navigate a complicated character and write a part two which i never really do

A/N: heyyy idk if you remember me, i’m the one who wrote a one shot and said there would be a part two if anyone wanted it and some very sweet people DID want it and it’s been… six months… anyway i hope it’s okay!!

You can read part one here!

Chapter Two

The tarmac hurtled up to greet you. Instinctively, you shot out your hands to break your fall and grunted upon impact.

“Shit…”

You rolled over, clutching your smarting wrists to your chest as you craned your neck back, trying to get a lock on the angel that had just sent you sprawling.

You heard your makeshift weapon skitter across the ground, a poker you’d grabbed in a panic from the hotel’s hearth just before battle commenced. Out of reach, it seemed even more useless now than it did before.

The ground beneath you shook as the angel landed just a few feet from you, its heeled boots fracturing the stained concrete. Blank and unseeing, its black mask remained impassive as it leaned over you.

With one twist of its wrist, the angel span its blood-soaked sword and tucked the point under your chin, lifting your head up.

The coppery taste of adrenaline filled your mouth but you didn’t dare swallow, you didn’t even dare to breathe, not when there was less than an inch between your throat and the steel bite of the angel’s sword.

Something, some ancient instinct, told you to get up and fight, but your body felt heavy as marble, and the concept of moving even a single muscle felt impossible and nebulous.

The angel tilted its head to the side, as if inspecting you, evaluating you, then narrowed its sharp eyes. It leaned forward, pushing the tip of the blade into your jugular until you had nowhere left to go. You shrank back against the tarmac, completely at its mercy, a total goner.

It smiled, then pulled the sword back and lifted it high above its horned helmet.

“At least make it difficult for me,” it muttered.

It seemed you were just as much a disappointment in this life as you had been in your first. The angels been looking forward to this for months, you supposed. You weren’t much of a threat. And this was how it ended, your brief second chance. Frightened and alone and with yet more unfinished business. You hoped whatever life came after this, if any, was more merciful than this one.

“My, didn’t you choose unwisely.”

Alastor’s voice cut through the steadily blurring world, sharpening it again with just a few words.

Both you and the angel looked round, shocked, though the latter wasn’t given any time to register his presence.

One of Alastor’s inky shadows shot out and drove itself straight through the angel’s hollow chest.

You watched as Alastor swept it up and flung its lifeless body far off into the distance, where it probably landed in a messy, crumpled heap.

Then red was all you could see. You weren’t sure what was Alastor and what was the blood dribbling down from a brutal cut across your forehead, but you’d never been so pleased to see someone in all your afterlife.

“Alastor…”

He knelt down in front of you. You wanted to stop him, he was so particular about his clothes and the ground was disgusting, but words failed you.

Alastor’s clawed hand hovering awkwardly by your shoulders for a moment before finally finding a home.

“Are you alright? Look at me. Look at me, darling.”

He wrapped his fingers around your upper arms and squeezed harder than was comfortable but it barely brushed at the edges of your consciousness.

“Did they hurt you? Who did this? What were you thinking, you stupid- I told you to stay away.”

He kept fussing but you hardly heard him. You were too distracted by how close his face suddenly was to yours as he searched for more injuries, and by the softness of his voice, edged with something dangerous and spiteful.

“No, no, I’m okay. I’m okay, really, Alastor, I just-”

You didn’t even get to finish your lie. Alastor’s hand slipped up your arm and found the exact spot where another angel’s sword had sliced through your sleeve and torn the skin. You hissed and jolted back, cursing under your breath.

Alastor immediately moved his hand away and stared at the smear of blood visible through your shredded sleeve. Suddenly, he wasn’t so chatty. Suddenly, scolding you felt brutish and wrong.

The wound wasn’t that bad, it didn’t even really hurt anymore, but it did make swinging your weapon more difficult. You’d almost forgotten it was there before Alastor’s talented hands unearthed it. For some reason, seeing your own blood in the harsh light of day made you feel like someone had pushed your head under ice cold water.

Words failed you, and Alastor’s inscrutable yet obviously disturbed expression made you feel sick, so you put your hand over his. You weren’t sure who you were trying to comfort more.

“It’s okay. I’m okay.”

Startled, Alastor’s sharp gaze switched to your entwined hands, as if noticing what he’d done for the first time. You so rarely touched, when it did happen, it felt like the world had stopped turning.

His long fingers were wrapped so tightly around your arm, you could feel the warmth of him through your sleeve, burning marks onto your skin you hoped would linger until you got a chance to admire them.

Alastor bared his teeth.

“You ridiculous… You’re so stupid sometimes. So careless. You have no idea-”

His grip tightened around your arm. You had to bite back a moan.

Not a cold, austere demon, then. Not entirely. Not always. There was still a warm-blooded human beneath that stitched-on smile, and for a moment, his mortal heart had flickered when he thought you might be in danger.

Alastor’s eyes narrowed to slits, like a cat catching sight of an unsuspecting mouse. He straightened up to his full, impressive height, letting his hand slip out from under yours with obvious reluctance.

“Time to put a stop to this, I think,” Alastor said, almost to himself. “That’s quite enough now.”

For an awful moment, you thought he might mean something else, something that cut you to your core.

Enough of you, enough lingering touches, enough whispered words when no one else was around, enough stepping around each other in this awkward, heart-squeezing dance that neither of you knew all the steps to but couldn’t bring yourselves to stop.

But Alastor stared at the blood streaked across his palm, then curled his hand into a fist, as if keeping it safely caged within his jagged claws.

“If not for your own sake then for mine, find somewhere safe to hide, would you?” he said. “I’d be unhappy if you were seriously hurt, chère.”

You just ignored him. Sweet as it was for him to worry, you weren’t going anywhere, not when your friends were still defending the hotel with their lives.

He didn’t wait around to listen to you argue, a rebuttal he saw coming a mile off. Instead, Alastor waved his cane and dissolved into the shadows, reappearing on the top of a nearby building to survey the scene.

Still flat on your ass on the ground, you cupped your hands around your mouth and shouted up to him,

“Be careful, please!”

You thought you saw one of his large ears twitch in your direction but Alastor just laughed and shouted back,

“I can’t hear you, darling, sorry!”

He definitely could, but he sank into the shadows again before you had a chance to squabble with him.

You huffed and leaned back on your elbows. Tilting your head towards the churning sky, you chewed up the argument sitting in your throat, working it around your mouth before swallowing it down. You’d have to shout at him later instead.

“Asshole,” you muttered, only just realising he’d left you sitting on the ground.

No sooner had the thought entered your mind when a dark shape swept across the street, hurtling towards you at such a rate of knots that you almost scrambled backwards away from it. But then you recognised the figure.

Alastor’s faithful shadow slipped behind you and hooked its clawed hands under your arms.

“Oh!”

Your shoes scrabbled uselessly against the ground as the shadow carefully lifted you and, with surprising gentleness, set you back on your feet again.

It had never been entirely clear if Alastor’s right-hand man was an extension of himself, something that had clung to him like limpet when he first arrived in Hell, or a weight someone had shackled to him. His shadow tended to express what he didn’t, or couldn’t, and you’d never had much interaction with it before, least of all without Alastor being present.

“Thanks,” you said, and managed a small, amazed laugh despite your grazed knees and smarting arm.

To your surprise, the shadow slipped its hands over your shoulders, just as Alastor had, but it wasn’t so quick to pull away, and its touch was warmer, firmer, perhaps even less self-conscious than that of its master.

Its wide smile stretched and arched into a jagged grin, and then it was gone, oozing across the ground and up the side of the hotel after Alastor.

You watched it go. A part of you hoped it might change its mind and stay with you instead. You would feel much more at ease with something of Alastor’s beside you, even if he couldn’t be with you himself, but he needed all the help he could get.

Somewhere in the distance, you heard Husk call your name, telling you to get your ass in gear and your head back in the battle.

When you found your poker, you attempted to spin it around your fingers as Alastor had with his cane but it got stuck halfway and you almost dropped it into the gutter.

Wherever he was, you hoped he was being safe. He was smart, more powerful than you dared to think about most days, but prone to showing off. You just hoped he didn’t do anything stupid.

Alastor did something unbelievably stupid.

It was so completely moronic, you almost couldn’t believe what you were hearing when Angel relayed the whole story to you later. There were a few details missing here and there, Angel had been a little busy at the time, but he’d seen Alastor square up with Adam and get his ass handed to him.

The general consensus seemed to be that Alastor was missing in action. It made sense, he was always so pleased with himself over the smallest things, he’d probably assume that valour in battle would earn him a damn parade. You knew that if he was okay, if he was safe, then Alastor would brag to anyone who would listen that he’d gone toe-to-toe with one of the most powerful angels and lived to tell the tale. But he was gone.

No one seemed eager to search for him. Alastor didn’t have many friends and there was a lot of clean-up to do. Your friends were sure that, like a stray cat, Alastor would just turn up when he was bored. If he didn’t, then he really was gone. But you weren’t so convinced.

Limping on exhausted legs, you slowly but surely made your way through the battle-worn streets, climbing over the seemingly endless piles of rubble until you found what remained of the radio tower.

It had fallen at an odd angle, leaving the hatch just low enough for you to climb through. You raised your hand to knock, but found the door already open, just like it always was for you.

At first, you thought the tower was empty. The sun was low but you could see that all the Radio Demon’s meticulously maintained equipment had been blown to pieces. All the windows had shattered in the fall, so now broken glass crunched under your feet as you carefully picked your way through the debris.

You almost called out his name, but then you heard it, laboured, shaky breathing in the corner of the room.

You found Alastor sitting on the floor with his back up against the wall, as if that was all that was keeping him propped up. His long legs were spread out in front of him, like he’d just collapsed in a heap, and his jaws hung open as he laboured for breath.

“Oh, Al…”

You spoke quietly, but the room was so still that your voice tore through the silence. If you didn’t know him any better, you’d have sworn you saw Alastor jump at the sound.

His expression brightened with recognition when he saw you but he did not smile. Even the plastered-on grin he always wore was muted, and his usually warm, olive skin appeared sallow and pale.

“I thought I’d find you up here. What’s wrong? Why did you disappear?”

“Ma chère,” he said, drawing out the name with his usual drawl, though now his voice seemed hollow and flat. “I’m so glad to see you survived.”

You smiled. He couldn’t be seriously hurt, not if he was making jokes at your expense.

“Thanks, Alastor.”

You moved closer, raising your foot high so that you could step over a dark tangle of wires, but stopped when you saw Alastor flinch.

Something was wrong. He was exhausted, that was to be expected, but you never thought you’d live to see the day where Alastor chose to sit on the floor, least of all one covered in glass and-

Despite the gloom, you caught sight of a dark patch on the floor, glinting in the last of the sunlight. Little puddles of blood led a messy trail to where Alastor was sitting, clutching his chest. His bright eyes were dull as they looked everywhere but at you.

“Come now, chère, there must be a hundred parties in the city tonight. You should join the celebrations. Don’t let me keep you, go on now.”

He tried to wave a dismissive hand but Alastor only got as far as raising his arm. His eye twitched, his smile growing a little more strained. He didn’t try to move again, he just clutched his chest tighter.

You hesitated, halfway to the door and halfway to Alastor, weighing your options.

You weren’t stupid. Just because you cared about him didn’t mean that he would be any more lenient with you than he would with anyone else. He appeared fond of you, but Alastor was like any caged, injured animal, likely to lash out. Self-preservation was his strongest weapon, and even if he did seem to care about you too, he could just as easily end your second chance at life as he could swat a fly.

That was what Angel and Husk were always trying to remind you, as if it was something you weren’t aware of. You knew Alastor, you understood him as much as it was possible to understand a man like him, and you weren’t frightened. Or rather, your fear was never stronger than your love.

Alastor’s sharp eyes watched you intently as you knelt down beside him, as he had beside you just hours before, in the heat of battle. That smile didn’t waver but his brows creased and folded inwards, his nose pinched in confusion. You weren’t sure what it was that confounded him more, the fact that you’d stayed or the idea of someone disobeying him.

With trembling hands, you reached out and took hold of the edges of his crimson coat, hooking your thumbs around the hem so that your knuckles just pressed into his ribs.

“Let me take care of you,” you murmured.

It was so quiet in the room, you could hear the unstable metal creaking beneath your two bodies. A slight wind whistled between the shards of glass still in the window frames, and the fizz of static echoing from somewhere in Alastor’s body filled your ears.

When you parted his coat, his ears flattened to his head and Alastor’s grip on his chest tightened. You were half afraid he’d sink his claws into himself, then you, so you covered his hand with yours.

“Hey, it’s okay. Trust me.”

Your reassuring smile fell flat but Alastor’s hand did eventually relax beneath yours, and you went back to moving his coat aside.

With your eyes down, you felt as if you were putting your head between the wide open jaws of a crocodile, but Alastor stayed completely still as you carefully opened one of his shirt buttons. The only sign that he was still alive was the shaky rise and fall of his chest, growing steadily more uneven as you unhooked a second button.

The wound across his chest was narrow but deep, splitting his chest into two neat halves. You gritted your teeth, pushed a wave of fear and sickness back down. You were by no means a nurse, but it was bad, far worse than you had feared and beyond your abilities. Cuts and scrapes you could handle but this was surgical. Still, you weren’t deterred.

“I need-”

“I can do it.”

Alastor’s voice was calm as he gently pushed your hands away and laid his palm flat across his bare chest. His hand was so much larger than yours, it covered almost the entirety of the wound. An eerie green glow began to seep from between his closed fingers, and you realised he was healing himself.

You looked up to find Alastor already watching you curiously. As strange as it was for you to be this close to him, to touch him in completely new ways and see him so quiet and still, you thought it must be a thousand times more odd for Alastor to realise that he was allowing you to.

With his hand pressed to his chest, Alastor let his body settle back against the wall until he’d completely relaxed, like someone was cutting all his strings one by one. Still he watched you but almost lazily now, his bright gleaming eyes focused but soft.

Unsure how to help, you leaned forward and undid another of his shirt buttons so that he could position his hand better. It earned you a slight raised eyebrow but Alastor didn’t comment. Perhaps he simply didn’t have the energy.

It was far too quiet, so you said,

“I thought I’d lost you, you know.”

Alastor’s gaze slipped, almost lazily, from his torn chest to you.

Face burning, you returned your attention to undoing the buttons of his shirt, slowly unpicking them for him so that he could breathe a little easier.

“Just for a moment. I… I couldn’t find you. And then I remembered hearing Adam gloating about- I don’t even know what - and then Angel said...”

You pressed your lips together, slamming the door on the pitiful sob that sat in your throat. Whether Alastor noticed the slight crack in your voice or not, you weren’t sure, but his eyes softened even if his expression remained stoic.

He held out his free hand and you took it without hesitation. It should have struck you just how easily you fell into his waiting jaws, but you were just so glad to see that he was alright, if a little worse for wear.

Alastor carefully guided you so that you could kneel between his open legs, keeping you safely enclosed by his body. He widened his gait, allowing you to sit more comfortably and even shuffle closer, and all the while his hand stayed in yours.

It ought to have felt intimate. You hadn’t been in this kind of position with another person in so long, even touching this much seemed foreign and overwhelming now. But it just felt right. Being near to Alastor was like kneeling on the hearth before a blazing fire, warming and instinctual, but painful, you often feared, if you got too close.

Alastor’s gaze followed you, steady and sincere but guarded, as if he half expected you to pull away. You could’ve scoffed at the thought. Like that could ever be a possibility, not after today.

“My apologies, darling,” he said quietly. “A hasty retreat was necessary. He packed a bigger punch than I anticipated. I had to… Collect myself.”

He turned your hand over so that it rested in his palm. He followed the lines in your skin like a fortune teller, and you wondered what he was looking for, and what he might do with it when he found it.

In your chest, your heart was thudding like a piston. This wasn’t the right time, this wasn’t the right place. You were both exhausted, injured, your patience wearing thin and your emotions all over the place. But this was all you had, this, here, right now, and for some reason, telling Alastor all you’d ever wanted to say to him suddenly felt as easy and as natural as inhaling.

“Do you remember that feeling we talked about? A sharp tug here…”

You pressed one hand against your brimming chest.

“And here…”

You dragged the same hand down to the pit of your stomach.

Alastor watched the motion as he always watched everything you did, with acute fascination, curiosity, and hunger.

“Yes,” he said, and looked down at his own, open, wounded body.

Hardly daring to breathe, you reached out and slipped your fingers under his angular jaw. Alastor often dragged a hand down the small of your back or put an arm around your shoulders, but you never really returned the favour. You just didn’t think he would enjoy it, but he seemed to need it now.

You lifted his head so that he had to meet your gaze.

“My chest felt like it had been torn in two when I thought he’d killed you,” you said, hoping he’d be able to locate the anger in your meaning as well as the love.

Don’t ever do that to me again. Don’t you dare.

Alastor’s gaze drifted between your eyes, your mouth, your heaving chest. The smile that haunted your dreams turned down, just a fraction, at the corners. That was a good enough apology for you.

“Did it go away?” you asked. “Like you thought it might?”

Alastor hesitated, then went to shake his head. He stopped when he realised it might dislodge your hand from his jaw, the last thing that either of you wanted, so he changed his mind and twisted his mouth instead.

“No. It did not,” he said. “If anything, it actually feels worse.”

His eyes were soft as he let his free hand drop to your waist. He ever so slightly pulled you closer, dipping his fingertips into you.

“After the battle? Or right now.”

Alastor didn’t answer for a moment. He seemed distracted by your hand under his jaw. He closed his bright, burning eyes, and with a sigh, let his head rest in your hand.

Biting back a smile, you turned your wrist so that you could cup his cheek properly in your palm. His hum of approval made your heart skip.

“Alastor?”

With his eyes still closed, he waved an airy hand. His wince of pain when it stretched his torn skin caught your attention, but then his hand found your waist again, as if he’d done it a thousand times.

“Oh, a little of column A, a little of column B.”

When he didn’t say anything more, you slipped your thumb across his cheek, smoothing it back and forth against his skin until Alastor sighed again.

His warm breath swept along the skin of your upturned wrist, a lightning bolt of a reminder of how close you were right now. You were holding the face of one of Hell’s most powerful overlords. He’d melted into your touch, eyes closed, heart literally open. Alastor couldn’t have been more vulnerable or exposed, and it was all for you.

“I didn’t think you liked being touched.”

You didn’t mean to whisper. The first word caught in your throat and sounded so harsh as it broke through the stillness that you immediately dropped your voice. Still your thumb smoothed across Alastor’s cheek, and still he sank deeper and deeper into your touch, almost like he was falling asleep.

“It’s alright when it’s you,” he said, and for the first time that day, the radio static was gone from his voice.

“Have you figured out what it is yet?”

“Hm?”

“The feeling we talked about. You didn’t seem sure before.”

“I think I might have. I’m not sure what to do about it, though.”

“Who says you have to do anything? I’m quite happy as we are.”

Alastor cracked an eye open.

You regretted saying anything but to your relief, he didn’t lift his head.

“You are?” he asked.

“Are you?”

Alastor did lift his head then, though with obvious reluctance. You tried not to look too disappointed.

He did something funny with his mouth. He couldn’t stop smiling but the corners turned down again, just a little, as he almost pouted in thought.

At his chest, the ghoulish green glow was still strong and steady. You itched to pull his hand away and take a look but you didn’t want to interrupt the healing process. Alastor knew what he was doing, though you didn’t think he’d ever been struck down quite so violently before. You’d have to keep an eye on him.

“I suppose,” he said, as if you were discussing a business deal or something as simple as the weather. “I had thought of trying something, though. Just to be sure.”

“What’s that?”

Alastor hesitated, then slowly lifted his shoulders, straightening up so that his back left the support of the wall.

“No, don’t…”

Immediately, your hands flew to his shoulders and gently pressed him back into the position he’d been in, but now you were so close that Alastor was able to incline his head and press a soft kiss to your cheek.

You froze, stunned. Then the world sped up again until your head span.

You reached out for something stable and strong to clutch onto and found Alastor. You wrapped your fingers around the edges of his coat again, unintentionally pulling him forward those last few inches, and now his chest was pressed against yours.

You were so dumbstruck, you couldn't even bring yourself to blink for several moments, and when you finally managed to speak, your voice was small and breathless.

“Oh.”

Alastor tilted his head as he looked down at you. You felt the tip of his nose brush past your cheek, then his forehead was pressed against yours. He was warm, inviting. You couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be apart from him again.

“My apologies,” Alastor said. “I couldn’t resist any longer.”

“No, no, don’t be… Sorry…”

You could’ve laughed at the bizarreness of it all, but all you could think about was Alastor’s large hand on your waist, his warm chest against yours, and the way he was looking at you. He wasn’t nervous, no, it wasn’t that. While Alastor waited patiently for your verdict, a wave of peace washed over his face. You realised it was the first time you’d seen him truly, candidly happy.

"I think..."

Your fingers tightened around the edges of his coat as you shuffled forwards on your knees, leaning into him so that Alastor could have no doubt of your intentions.

“I think we can do better than that.”

“Oh?”

“Can I?”

Alastor nodded, his gaze already dropping to your lips. It sent a shiver over your skin, the thought of this awful, terrible, wonderful man handing you the reins, allowing you to touch him in ways he’d never felt before, to speak to him in ways no one had ever dared.

Your mouths barely touched at first, your lips just grazing his, but it was enough to set your heart racing. Then Alastor’s hand slipped round to your back and pressed in, pulling you tighter against him, and your breath caught in your throat.

You kissed him gently, with no sense of urgency, like you had all the time in the world and nowhere else to be but right here. As Alastor’s mouth moved against yours, slowly, tentatively, you found yourself forgetting about the world outside. All that mattered was Alastor, just you and Alastor, everything else was meaningless.

Suddenly, he pulled back, hissing sharply between his closed teeth. You’d leaned against his hand, the one still pressed to his chest. Somehow he still had the wherewithal to focus on healing himself while kissing you senseless. He really was a marvel, you could barely remember how to breathe.

“Oh, God, Al. I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”

“No, no…”

You were so close that you were murmuring into each other's mouths, sharing one breath, one heartbeat.

Alastor hummed and kissed your cheeks softly, one then the other, then the tip of your nose. It was surprisingly sweet of him, something that was yours to see and yours alone.

“Quite the opposite.”

Master List

#alastor fic #alastor x you #alastor x reader #alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor hazbin x reader

62 notes · View notes

amxrany · 2 days ago

Text

!! CHAPTER 7 / DIASOMNIA ARC SPOILERS !!

I finally have time off and I'm really excited to this segment (Trey's Dream):

Now we're back at Heartslabyul and Ace is having fun with the dream hopping so far! Ortho notices that the Heartslabyul members haven't been feeling sick, but Cater explains that their dorm's nonsensical interior design choices certainly helped in getting to used to stuff such as dreamhopping.

Ace wonders as to how many dreams we've been to, and Silver replies that we have been to around 20+ dreams by now, which causes him to go to salty as to why Yuu didn't go to his dream first. But we had to explain to him that at first Silver had no control as to whose dream they were going to land in but managed to gain control after acquiring the help of the Shroud bros. The Shroud Bros also mention a systems of IDs assigned to people's dream, probably a way to gather everyone once it's time to fight Malleus. Idia was scared that the system might still be buggy, even bringing up that it's possible to get lost in the Dream Realm.

Anyways, Grim boasts to Ace that they've overcomed so much, but Sebek puts him down by saying that they got where they are with the the help of other people. But Silver actually defends Grim here, bringing up the time before they went dream hopping. Grim was standing in fron of Yuu and fighting the darkness on his own. We have the option to thank Grim, and he it's his job as the boss of Ramshackle but you can tell that he got flustered.

Leona just wants to get things over with and tells the others to hurry up. We get a clue that it's Trey's dream because Ace notes the smell of sweets in the air. While the group makes their way to the kitchen, Ace and Deuce could easily distinguish what Trey was making based on scent alone (now that's a talent I want /j).

But before we step foot into the kitchen, Cater stops us; pointing out that if we just walk in, then the darkness would immediately detect us anomalies. He proposes a plan where he uses his UM to trade places with his dream self to avoid suspiscion, he also gets the help of Leona and Idia. But Leona protests that it should be the first years doing it, because what if his dream self wanted to have tea 😭😭😭 and Idia's just whining about not wanting to they enter the kitchen and it's definitely something (in a good way) and Cater notices that it seems bigger than usual.

Alright so we get more Cater lore here, we learn that his family prefers to buy sweets because they found it difficult to make them. He brings that up to Trey but he just simply replies that they're not that hard to make and back then Cater just thought was just enduring it but looking at it now...you can say he must be having a lot of fun.

We finally get the man of the hour with CHENYA??? AS THE HOUSEWARDEN 😭???

Deuce is so real because he doesn't remember Chenya's name, even with Ortho pulling out his government name from the RSA records he still couldn't pronounce it 😔. Ace makes fun of him for it, but Sebek unintentionally defends Deuce, saying that his name is just like a tongue twister.

Leona and Idia are just throwing shade towards Cater and Trey for replacing their Housewarden in their dreams, Leona feeling sorry for Riddle while Idia comments that smiling guys who hide their intentions are scary. Ortho puts a stop to it, explaning that the dreams aren't the real representation of one's desires (using Kalim and Vil as examples). Malleus didn't make these dreams himself, he only makes the dreamer think of happy situations and resets it when something bad happens, and it goes on in a never ending cycle. The dreams the dreamer has are similar to those that they would actually have irl, having no control of the situation whatsoever.

Meanwhile, the others are just outside peeking into the kitchen with Grim climbing on Ace's back to get a better view (with Ace complaining that he's heavy😂). Sebek tells them to stfu cuz he can't hear but Ortho tells HIM to stfu cuz he's loud 😭.

Trey immediately notices that Cater isn't the actual one (if you get it, you get it), he freaks out as to how Trey caught him so fast and he replies that he's known him for 3 years so he would have known by now. We learn more about what happened to Riddle in this dream, who's currently just a card soldier. Just like in real life, Riddle tried to battle Chenya for the position of Housewarden but was defeated because of Chenya's UM. His UM is called "Not All Head", making his body (except his head) invisible.

So we get more Alice in Wonderland references coming up. Because Chenya's UM also affects his neck, Riddle's collar literally just flies past. Riddle who's just confused, doesn't realize that Chenya unbuckles his belt and flips him over causing him to flash everyone; it's similar to the scene with the Chesire Cat and Queen of Hearts. Trey tells him to knock it off because Riddle would get mad if he goes telling everyone but Chenya isn't scared of him lmao. We also find out that Riddle went easy on Chenya, because if that was anyone else he would have burned them alive already 💀.

Trey leaves for a moment to take the cake out of the oven, which leaves some time for the third years to discuss and they noticed that there isn't much of a difference compared to real life. But because of the few discrepancies, it would be a lot harder to wake Trey up.

Trey comes back and asks them if they're hungry and offers them some food, while also making sure that isn't too sweet so that Cater could eat it. At first, Cater was worried about the rule where the Housewarden has to be the first to take a bite, but Trey tells them not to worry cuz glass desserts are an exception (Chenya's really chill for a dorm leader). While giving them snacks, Leona asks Trey to join them (he really is having a tea party at Heartslabyul 😭), and he guesses that he wants them to taste test the dishes. Leona mentions that his palata is quite refined so he'll be tasting the food from the chef of Heartslabyul, which makes Trey nervous. Let's just say while they were taste testing Trey kept offering more and more food 😅.

Meanwhile, the others are getting jealous because they get to eat while they just watch, but they also came to the conclusion that Trye's dream doesn't seem too different from reality. Suddenly, Ortho tells the group to keep quiet because he and Silver hear something "enormous" approaching. That's when Ace and Deuce tell the others to follow them as they both lead the group into a hidden compartment behind the clock which changes locations depending on its mood.

Back to the third years, Trey's just bouncing back and forth between giving them more food and baking. Cater starts to feel bad about taking away Trey's happiness away, realizing that Silver and the others were in a really tough spot for doing so. He wonders what would have happened if Trey never had that encounter with Riddle's mother, if he could've been a pastry chef by now.

Once Trey comes back, he and Idia start talking about their interests that was influenced by their parents while growing up. Where Idia brings up that he's been into magical engineering since he was a kid. Trey just starts talking about how much he love science and baking is similar to that because of the need to be precise and the satisfaction one gets when an experiment/dish turns out well, and he also sees it as a way to make other people happy (aw that's nice). Leona's out here being like "nah happiness is simply a byproduct" but Trey disagrees. He likes it when people compliments his food as it gives him confidence.

Holy fuck Trey's dream has so much exposition that I can't just cut it out or else it won't make sense 😭. But what I won't cut out is the part where Trey talks about the event with Riddle back in his childhood. It all began when Trey and Chenya decided to sneak into the nicest in the neighborhood, which just so happened to be the Rosehearts. They meet Riddle who helps them when their ball gets stuck in a tree and was really smart for his age as he could name every insect and plant. They sneak him out of the house so that Riddle can taste a tart, but once his mom found out...oh boy. Apparently she bitched on his family for FIVE HOURS that's fucking crazy like she really went insane over Riddle's diet. Cater said that they also had this conversation at some point after Riddle's overblot, but Trey just brushed it off as he really didn't mind it anymore (but really that shit changed the trajectory of his life forever).

Now we have more dorm lore regarding the Vice Housewarden, in terms of how they are chosen. There are three ways for someone to be the Vice Housewarden which are through: being chosen by the Housewarden, volunteering, or vote from the other members. How Trey became the Vice Housewarden was because of the third method, where everyone voted for him because they found out about his history with Riddle (even though the latter treated him like a stranger once he got to NRC and took the Housewarden position later on). He even broke the rules at one point and got collared for it, which yeahhhh wasn't really pretty.

Cater reminisces about the past, knowing that Trey serving as Riddle's support must have been hard; he even thinks that Trey secretly wishes that Chenya was there to help him (this is making me sad) and he wishes he has done more to help him. But Leona asks Cater the real question, if he were to help Trey, would that still change the outcome?

Leona who's just tired of all this talk (same here bro) gets the group back to their main goal, starting with Chenya. But then they start hearing the footsteps again, in which Ctaer assumes that it's a hedgehog that ate a size changing mushroom but it was much worse (and funnier). We get to my favorite part of the update: really round Heartslabyul

Everyone's freaking out (obviously) which makes Trey check out all the commotion, but his he suddenly sports a happy mood when sees everyone and assumes they came for tea time. But he soon notices that there's two copies of Ace and Deuce (who start complaining that they aren't built like that irl) which causes the dream to start to distort.

Idia sees Round!Riddle and just goes "Is this what Trey meant when he said that Riddle was eating well 😭" and the round guy just taunts Idia cuz he's the tall one now (but at what cost).

They all come to the conclusion that sure Trey's dream seems normal, except all rationality/reasoning doesn't seem to exist anymore 😅. Even Silver comments that Riddle's bigger than a horse 💀 and Sebek just makes it worse by wondering how would Vorpal survive with Round!Riddle as its rider.

The Heartslabyul Gang tells Trey that he wouldn't let something like this happen in real life, because of spoiling ones appetite and possibly getting gum disease from overeating. This starts triggering the darkness to attack the others and bruh they turn into bowling balls, managing to knock down Silver 😭.

Meanwhile, Trey is starting to wake up, the darkness asks him about the food in the kitchen, with Chenya getting the first piece because he's the Housewarden. This causes Trey to realize that Riddle's the real Housewarden, not Chenya. The darkness starts eating again, which Trey puts a stop to. When asked why, Trey responded that yeah eating his food does making happy, but going overboard isn't something they'd actually do.

Trey starts to wake up by himself! I think that it is around here that his groovy in his SSR takes place.

But all of a sudden, the area is filled with sand. Leona used his UM to get rid of the darkness even though the area is quite small, which caused everyone to cough up sand. Now that Trey's awake, he gets a bit embarassed that the others saw his pathetic side, Cater's like "more of weird side but alright" 😭. But he promises to be careful when getting hands on a new cookbook, Grim adds that he can bring the extras to Ramshackle.

Trey asks why they got to him before Riddle, and they explain to him the rules of the dream world, where darkness always follows the dreamer. So they needed an ally that can get close to Riddle without setting the darkness off, and that is none other than Trey. Ace speculates that Riddle's dream would involve everyone remembering all the Queen of Hearts rules and they all just laugh 🤣.

Ortho asks for Trey's help and he agrees, everyone thanks him but Ace is being salty because Sebek thanked Trey and not him. Sebek not having his shit either was like "who tf wants to be saved by you?" 💀 (nahhh). Trey and Silver had to apologize on their behalf and Idia comments that it's like watching parents apologizing for their kid's actions.

Trey gets the invitation, and a new ally is added to the group. Once Ortho creates the model for the dream, Trey comments that his outfit seems flashy. But Cater thinks that red and black look cool on him. In typical Cater fashion, he takes a pic to save for later.

Before the group gets going, Trey brings a strawberry tart for Riddle. Sebek asks Silver if it's fine even though it will most likely look a bit funky cuz of the dream hopping, but the latter responds that it's okay because it will still taste the same; it's mostly the thought that counts.

Now that ends Trey's Dream, I know I promised this segment last week but it was my major exam week so I focused on my studies. I won't be making any promises but I'll find a way to release Riddle's segment as soon as possible!

Thank you for being patient!

Previous: Ace's Dream Next: Riddle's Dream

(Note: This post is a summarized version of the update, info and pics comes from @/MostroLoungeVIP, @/WitchDrug, and @/acesuuu on x/twt, give them some support if you can)

#rany talks about twst #twisted wonderland #twst #twst jp #twst spoilers #diasomnia #twst silver #sebek zigvolt #ortho shroud #idia shroud #leona kingscholar #deuce spade #cater diamond #ace trappola #trey clover #being in college makes me realize i suck at time management #but eh who gives a damn lmao

77 notes · View notes

butterflydm · 3 days ago

Text

Fractures in the Aes Sedai (WoT 3x01 cold open)

How incredibly heartbreaking all this is for Siuan.

I'm going to focus in this post on the reactions from our Aes Sedai and Warders, and just what a tragedy this day ends up being for Siuan, who thought that she was ahead of the game (I really see why they named this episode "To Race the Shadow").

This is show-focused and I am going to avoid anything that hasn't been revealed in the show, at least in this specific post, though I am going to talk a bit about some backstory that was brought up back in s1.

It's clear from the way that this was arranged that Siuan didn't think any of the Sitters were Black Ajah (any of the non-Red Sitters). I think that she's been thinking of the Black Ajah as a Red Ajah problem, and probably has been leaning in that direction that for a few years, or however long ago it was that she first heard whispers that the Red Ajah were gentling men without trials.

Because that's a Dragon Reborn hunt.

This is something that was revealed to us back in the first season - the audience has it confirmed for us on-screen -- that Liandrin and other Red Sisters were hunting down men and gentling them without bringing them back to the White Tower for trial. They did it to Thom's nephew, as he told Mat and Rand, and Moiraine and Lan watched them do it to another poor man while they were on their way to the Two Rivers.

And I think that Siuan's belief that the Black Ajah was centered in the Red Ajah has driven some of the factionalism that has been developing over the past few years (and that the Black Ajah surely encouraged). She's been thinking like a Blue, not like the Amyrlin. Because she was never actually Amyrlin because she believed in the job and duty -- she was Amyrlin as part of her plan with Moiraine, to guide the Tower to work with the Dragon instead of trying to cage him. She was an Amyrlin in service to her cause, not in service to her daughters and the White Tower.

We don't know how long this plan to catch Liandrin has been in the making (it's been one month since Falme) -- we walk in on the last few moments before the trap springs. What's made clear is that Siuan was briefed on the important events, about Liandrin and the Black Ajah (as much as Moiraine & co knew), about the Seanchan, and about Rand. I'm guessing this information was transmitted via Nynaeve, who probably volunteered, since she knew the most about Liandrin and to save Egwene & Elayne from needing to be witnesses in Liandrin's trial.

Siuan brought in other sisters that she was likely told by Nynaeve that Moiraine had said they could trust -- Verin and Alanna -- and also entrusted Leane with the plan.

They keep the Red Ajah Sitters out of the Hall, but want the rest of the Sitters there to see Liandrin exposed. Alanna, Leane, and Siuan were prepared for something of a fight, but the magnitude of the Black Ajah infiltration into their Halls was something they were deeply unprepared for. They weren't just facing Liandrin, but several other Sisters, from every single Ajah (including Blue).

I've seen some book-reader youtube reactors wonder why Ihvon and Maksim thought they would be of any use in an Aes Sedai vs Aes Sedai fight but... no one in the White Tower is used to AS vs AS fights! It doesn't happen! The one group of people who do go out and regularly fight other people who can channel are the Reds, and they're usually facing people who have only recently come into their power and can't do much. Against the sort of dangers that Alanna normally faces, Ihvon and Maksim can be helpful. They're there to watch her back while she channels.

And that goes for the non-Black Ajah Sisters as well - they are not prepared to use the Power against other Sisters (and they're limited by the Oaths as well). It takes them time to react once they realize what's actually going on because this is so far out of the sphere of what they're expecting.

It's a brand new world for all of the Aes Sedai now.

Okay, taking a step back and starting from the top. We start with the springing of the trap for Liandrin - Moiraine and Lan wait and watch on the outside, while Leane lets Siuan know that things are ready. The robe that Siuan is wearing here is gorgeous btw (all the clothes are SO gorgeous).

Our first dynamic is the three Reds, assuming that Liandrin is being unfairly targeted by the Amyrlin, and who assure Liandrin that they are on her side "no matter the charges". Given that all three of these Aes Sedai are confirmed NOT Black Ajah by the events that follow, this would not have actually been true, but it tells us the general vibe of the Red Ajah in the Tower. Now, something that I'm wondering is if any of these Red Ajah Sisters are aware that Liandrin has been gentling men without bringing them in for trial -- would they see that as extreme but necessary or would they disapprove?

At the same time as this, Verin and Adelas are traveling with Nyomi to unlock the 13th Depository -- now it seems that both Verin and Adelas are aware of their destination, with it being Nyomi's first visit (she thought it was a myth -- or so she claims here, but we do find out later that she was lying and this was her goal today). Verin and Adelas were both in semi-retirement and have been around for a long time. Is that how they know about the 13th Depository? The secret must get passed down -- maybe between the highest levels of the Brown Ajah?

Now Alanna heads towards the Hall and she is walking with purpose (to battle). She is one of the few people who knows what Siuan will be revealing today. Maksim worries that others are working with Liandrin and maybe she needs more backup but she tells him & Ihvon that they need to stay outside -- no men unless authorized. We see the three Yellow Sitters enter in a clump and see the White Ajah Sitters talking to some other White Ajah Sisters. Alanna assures them that Siuan "has a plan" -- which appears to be not letting the rest of the Red Ajah Sitters in with Liandrin. Again, going back to Siuan having the assumption that the Red Ajah is the source of the problem.

You can understand why -- at this point, Siuan only has confirmation that there is a single Darkfriend among the Aes Sedai, and she has a history of the Red Ajah acting beyond the bounds of their authority. She is deeply and painfully wrong, but I understand why she made the assumptions that she did.

"Only eleven Sitters are required by tradition" - that's the reasoning that Leane gives for excluding the Red Sitters from the Hall right now. That is a deep insult to give to the Red Sitters, who get shut away from the action just the same as the non-Sitters and the Warders, which had to sting.

On a rewatch, I notice that the camera makes sure to let us see each of the eventually-revealed Black Ajah Sitters as they enter the Hall.

The smug grin that Alanna gives Liandrin as they all walk in hurts on a rewatch. They were so certain that they had a handle on the situation and that they were about to nip this problem in the bud before it became unmanageable. Not knowing that it is all too late.

Once again, I really love the variety in the costuming of the Aes Sedai! There are just so many amazing outfits of all different kinds!

Both Alanna and Leane look towards Siuan as Liandrin lays out her case against Siuan -- neither of them look surprised, but they are keeping an eye on the situation and waiting for Siuan's cue. We cut to various short snippets of the Sitters gossiping about this, with the Black Ajah Sisters right in the mix of the gossip and doing a great job looking "concerned" over the "revelations".

Siuan lets us know here that if Liandrin had been able to prove her accusations -- that Siuan let a male channeler (one who has now declared himself the Dragon Reborn) walk free -- then she could face censure from the Hall, and possibly be deposed. This is something that Moiraine and Siuan also talked about back in s1 -- about how if the White Tower found out about their secret plans to find the Dragon Reborn but disobey Tower law when it came to handling him, that they would be stilled. In this instance, Siuan is able to swat the accusations away by declaring Liandrin a Darkfriend who is capable of breaking the Three Oaths, but she doesn't actually deny the accusations. She avoids them.

I am fascinated by the Yellow Sitter who laughs after Siuan declares that Liandrin is a Darkfriend and who seems to think all of this is a game, because she's not one of those who gets revealed as Black Ajah. Does she survive? I'm going to try to keep an eye out. (update: I think I see her on the ground after the initial attack, so she might be dead; she's definitely not the Yellow who healed Liandrin or the one who healed Siuan)

Once Nynaeve shows up and Liandrin realizes that Nynaeve was able to escape from the Seanchan, she knows that the game is up (we actually see her take a couple of steps back as Nynaeve enters the room). There's no point. If Nynaeve's account gets doubted, she can just take the Oath against lying and say it again. Nynaeve no longer being a prisoner of the Seanchan means that Liandrin's goose is cooked and it's time to change tactics.

Now the shredding begins.

When Liandrin initially tries to attack, Alanna is right there with a counter, since she was prepared for an attack. But their attention is 100% on Liandrin, who they believe is the only threat.

Given that Nyomi was working on finding a way into the 13th Depository (confirmed at the ending of the scene), Liandrin was definitely planning to flee at some point in the near future (probably with Jeaine and Chesmal), but maybe not with any Sitters, as having Black Ajah Sitters in the Hall would be a useful thing. But once Siuan threatens to still Liandrin and find out from her all the rest of the Black Ajah, their own covers are threatened, and they exchange glances and spring into action when Liandrin asks for aid.

There are four Sitters who stand up to defend Liandrin -- Yellow, White, Gray (Joiya), and Blue. We do have semi-confirmed names for the Blue Sitter, but it hasn't been said on-screen yet, so I won't say. But Joiya was one of the sisters who was in Cairhien last season.

When Liandrin calls out "Join me", you can see the shock on Siuan's face. She 100% believed that all of the non-Red Sitters were trustworthy. This is not just a Red Ajah problem.

Yellow-Black Sitter and White-Black Sitter immediately stand up and attack, and Leane moves to defend Siuan. Blue-Black and Gray-Black (Joiya) are the next to stand up to attack and now Alanna must shift her focus away from Liandrin and towards the new threats. So Siuan is now the only person focusing on holding Liandrin's shield.

The rest of the Sitters are pretty fucking stunned, as you would imagine. Nothing like this has ever happened before, so they are slow to react, as the Black Ajah Sitters now turn and attack their fellow Sitters.

One attack leaves one of the White Ajah Sitters covered in blood. One of the Brown Sitters is cut in half. Nynaeve tries to channel but can't get past her block. And the Blue-Black Sitter brings down part of the wall (it looks like she's trying to get Nynaeve).

So the rest of the Sisters who were previously out in the hallways in front of the Hall have left, but the Warders were still hanging around and are now trying to get inside. The three Red Ajah sisters from earlier try to get past them to get inside the Hall but Maksim and Ihvon are still assuming that the danger of the Black Ajah is entwined with the Red Ajah, and refuse them entry. And this is a place where the Red Ajah not having any kind of relationship with the Warders makes it so much harder for these two groups to find the common ground to help each other.

Joiya is able to get Siuan to drop her shield on Liandrin by using the Power to just chuck a huge-ass piece of rock at her. That's one way to do it! And both Liandrin and Siuan fall to the ground injured, and we get a neat moment where we see both of them getting healed by a Yellow Sitter.

Jeaine (and her two Warders) and Chesmal show up. Green and Yellow. Maksim recognizes them and greets them as allies but is soon disabused of the belief, and the two of them have gone mask off and aren't pretending anymore. They are ready to get out of here. Jeaine kills one of the Red Sisters, then her two Warders are killed and we see her disturbing reaction to feeling their deaths, and Maksim and Ihvon realize that it's Jeaine and Chesmal who are the Black Ajah Sisters.

At the end of this part of the scene, we do still have one Red Ajah sister standing against Jeaine and Chesmal.

Inside the 13th Depository, Nyomi reveals herself as Black Ajah and attacked Verin and Adelas with something that appears targeted at their minds -- Verin does seem to do something that helps counter it, but Adelas takes the full brunt and it appears to affect her memory (she doesn't recognize her sister). Then Nyomi loots the 13th Depository, taking several of the ter'angreal.

Leane takes down the White-Black sister, caving her head in with her staff, pretty brutally. Joiya gets knocked down by Alanna but is able to get back up.

After being healed by their respective Yellow sisters, Siuan and Liandrin face each other again, and Liandrin links with her three surviving Black Ajah sisters and creates a boom in the hall to open themselves an exit, while Leane and Alanna act to protect Siuan.

Liandrin's crew then all heads towards the docks. They meet up with Nyomi, who confirms that she got a specific thing they were looking for and "anything else I could carry".

I do think it's possible that at least one of the Red Sisters survived here, since we know that Maksim and Ihvon both survived and they were also in the hallway when it blew, but we will see! Yes, we see their bodies but, you know, they could be unconscious! Live in hope!

A very traumatic day for all involved, and it isn't over yet! We don't get a final death count in this video, but several of the Sitters are still alive and moving at the end.

Looking at the line-up of Black Ajah that we have at the end... Joiya is missing but so is the Yellow Sitter who stood up to defend Liandrin (there's a Yellow there, but she's Chesmal, who arrived with Jeaine). So Joiya and the Yellow-Black Sitter are doing something else. What are those two up to?

#wot #wheel of time #wot on prime #wot s3 spoilers #wheel of time s3 spoilers #wot 3x01 spoilers #the wheel of time #my wot meta #wot meta

68 notes · View notes

wholemeallbread · 1 day ago

Text

THE FIVE STAGES OF DATING HINATA SHOYO

a case study on how first year hinata acts when you first get into a relationship with him.

i | DENIAL

♡ if anybody tries talking to him, they should've even bother. hinata senses are pretty much switched off.

♡ instead of catching up on sleep during class, he's daydreaming about you. instead of the usual snack after practice, he's thinking about saving it for you. cheesy (and maybe creepy), he knows, but he can't help it. he wonders how you're doing, or if you're feeling okay, or just as shook up as he is. aren't you just perfect? and you're dating him! how is that possible?

♡ his entire body is buzzing even days after the confession, electric shocks and twitches, scoring all over his arms and legs. gosh, even when he tries to practice later on in the day, the amount of times he has tripped or froze up was laughable. no matter who yells at him, he just can't get you out of his mind.

♡ if anybody asks if you're dating, his immediate response is "it's not like that!" and then refuses to elaborate. it is like that, but he just can't believe it. he's embarrassed to properly say that he's officially your boyfriend. he's embarrassed that you're dating a guy like him.

ii | ANGER

♡ he's more than ready to fight anyone that even mentions your name. it's a reflex – a concerning one – but he can't help it. if any guy, especially someone who's conventionally attractive or in an older year, even utters something about you, it would be game over for them – if hinata wasn't being held back. he's really not making a great reputation for himself... people will point and stare saying: "isn't that [name]'s boyfriend...?" while he's in the middle of hissing and shooing someone away when they're already six feet away from you. talk about insecure...

♡ this is when jealousy starts to seep into his mind. all of a sudden, he's so much more aware of the people around you, who talks to you, how you react. now, he doesn't laugh along in a group setting. instead, he's glaring at whoever is making the jokes, whoever is making you laugh. that's supposed to be his job.

♡ it's confusing. he's happy one second, then annoyed and cold another. you know he's not the kind of guy to purposely act difficult or ghost you, but his mood has been so weird. luckily, it only takes one confrontation for things to return back to normal, talking him through how you'll always be one of his top priorities and he shouldn't be shy to ask for attention.

iii | BARGAINING

♡ this is the point where he wonders if he could've got into a relationship sooner. yes, he's happy that you're dating now, but how much time had he wasted? how much closer could the two of you have been if he made even the smallest difference in how he behaved around you?

♡ it's always questions of "what if he was smarter so he could he in your class?" or "what if you had tutored him instead when you offered?" or "maybe he should've skipped practice that one day when you asked him to hang out..."

♡ his go-to is "if only he hadn't yelled at you that one time..." it was an accident, and you were the unfortunate victim. the ball was well away from the court, and it wasn't like it was actually going to stay in if he hit it, but he still gave you his piece of mind for "being in the way".

♡ however, you saw the situation as something completely different. you saw that look in his eyes when you were face to face with him. it was captivating, unlike anything you've seen before. pure, passion. it was impossible to be annoyed or angry at him; if anything, you were extremely impressed and intrigued.

iv | DEPRESSION

♡ oh no... looks like your boyfriend has been feeling under the weather lately. what's worse is that he's not telling anyone why. his expression always seems to be gloomy no matter the time or occasion, and his usual energy has disappeared.

♡ the small, harmless jokes about your relationship are starting to get to him. he knows they're just jokes, and you even laugh along sometimes, but it's really been breaking down his self esteem. every time he gets teased, he does smile, but it's obvious that he's forcing it.

♡ he's also thinking back to all of the times he's messed up, despite being so early into the relationship. he's supposed to be making it perfect for you, but he's been doing nothing but messing things up. maybe you'd be better off without him? there's always taller, stronger, more talented guys out there. hell, even on his own team.

♡ in the end, everything just circles back to him feeling inferior to you. it truly broke your heart when he finally opened up about it and – seriously, how could he ever think of himself like that? he's got an amazing personality, amazing talents that are always getting better, he's the full package! minus height... but that doesn't matter to you.

v | ACCEPTANCE

♡ it's been a long, long few weeks. it's taken a lot of communication and trust, but now he's at a point where he's comfortable in the relationship, much like you. pretty soon, he's got a solid routine of his day that seems to benefit you more than him; walking you to your classes and sprinting back to his, sacrificing his bentos when you have nothing to eat or if he knows you'll enjoy it more than your own, trying to have a go at your hobbies so you can both enjoy them together... plus volleyball on top of that? you're just wondering how he hasn't dropped from exhaustion yet.

♡ he's an absolute bundle of joy. every day is filled with nothing but positivity. even if you're having a bad day, he knows exactly how to make it better. he'd drop everything to make sure that you're okay, and you'll always be his top priority.

♡ nowadays, he can proudly say that he is your boyfriend. no hesitation, no shame, no embarrassment. if he could write those words on his sleeve for everyone to see, then you sure as hell know that he would.

#tbh the idea was good in my head but the execution... not as much #monty writes / ꩜#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu #hq x reader #hq #hinata shoyo x reader #hinata shoyo #haikyuu hinata #hinata shouyou #hinata shoyuo #hq hinata #hinata x reader #haikyuu fluff #hq fluff #hq headcanons #haikyuu headcanons

86 notes · View notes