#after all Duty and Spite have a lot in common

[svartalfhild]

My Rook is an elf, so when the deep lore on the true origin of the elves dropped, I couldn't help but imagine Rook casually talking to Bellara and Davrin like "So, if we were spirits, what concept do you think we'd represent?"

Bellara would get very excited by this idea and immediately start speculating. I can just hear her "Oh!" as she jumps from one possibility to the next. Then Rook suggests Creativity and she goes all starry-eyed.

Davrin would be mildly uncomfortable with the topic but unable to resist the fun of choosing something that represents him. He'd think on it while Bellara was going off and then be like "If I get to pick, then Tenacity or Determination or something like that."

And then Bellara's like "What about you, Rook?" and Rook's like "Oh, I dunno..."

And then Emmrich comes into the conversation like "Duty." and Rook's like "What?" and he's like "You're Duty, Rook. I've never met anyone who lives so strongly by the words 'Someone has to do it.'"

[bats-and-birds-24]

Okay, so I know that we're all mad at Gege, and for good reason. But I don't agree with the fandom that he's wasting good characters by killing them off.

JJK is an allegory for the terrible pressure placed on people to be the best, or to be useful, which makes people stop seeing them as a fellow humans. And the characters in the show represent that.

For example, Gojo is labelled as the strongest, and as such, no one sees him as a person other than Geto. They always either put him on a pedestal or find him to be a nuisance that they deal with because he's useful to jujutsu society, such as the jujutsu society elders. Even in death his body is used as a tool.

In Geto's case, the honor of being powerful enough to save humanity from curses was dashed because he saw how the non-sorcerers they were trying to save treated them, in spite of the sorcerers facing heavy casualties. Jujutsu society didn't even send someone to check up on him, and he just spirals after the failed mission. After realising that this society didn't care about him, he tries to create a society that does care about sorcerers, at the cost of normal people, the same people who didn't care about him.

Yuta was sentenced to death because of the dangerous curse that was attached to him. Jujutsu society dehumanized him because of factors that he cannot control, same with Yuji.

Gojo sees this and realized that he can't let them be dehumanized like Geto was, gotten rid of if they were deemed pests or used until they were broken if they were deemed useful.

Yuta himself adopts this view in this chapter, risking his life so that they can defeat Sukuna. Yuji also adopts this mentality when he declares himself a cog in the machine that kills curses.

Hakari, Maki, and Noritoshi, are all an exception to this rule, as Hakari refused to let himself be merely a tool and have things decided for him. He enjoys passion and passionate people, while jujutsu society may admire his cursed technique, they don't respect him as a person. Maki and Noritoshi only achieved their full ability after cutting ties with their respective clans.

The Zenins viewed Maki as useless as she was both a woman and had no Cursed Energy. While the Kamo clan only viewed Noritoshi as useful for being male and inheriting a powerful cursed technique.

Megumi had a lot of potential with the ten shadows technique but when he gave up, the elders would have had him executed in order to kill Sukuna.

Sukuna himself stands in opposition to all of this, seeing everyone as equally worthless in a world where the strong have every right to make the weak suffer. In this sense, him and jujutsu society share the common view that only strength matters.

Yuji and the rest of Gojo's students stand in contrast to both Sukuna and jjk society here. They spend more time trying to save Megumi, because they see him as their friend. They spend more time protecting the people close to them not out of some sense of duty or usefulness, but because they genuinely care about each other.

Yuta takes Gojo's body not out of a sense of duty to kill Sukuna, but because he cares about Gojo and doesn't want his sacrifice to be in vain. Gojo died not by doing his duty, but by trying to care for his students.

Gege is saying that following orders and doing your duty until you burn yourself out isn't good, and neither is making yourself out to be better than everyone else because you think that the world revolves around the logic of "survival of the fittest". Which is Sukuna's line of thinking.

I think the story is going to end with only Yuji surviving and him beating Sukuna not because he's just a cog in jujutsu society, but because he's Yuji and he loves his friends and family.

The curse of "die surrounded by the people you love" from his grandfather is reversed as Yuji learns to live for the people he loved.

He's saying that people work best together, but not when they are forced to for some nebulous idea of duty or justice, but because of simply caring about each other.

That's why Gege made us care about these characters in the first place, so that we can fully understand the injustice that these characters are going through.

[turtleboyo22]

Cyno is not known for his capacity for joy. Whether cracking jokes or saving lives, Cyno never displays even an ounce of emotion on his face. For this, the General Mahamatra commands fear and respect across all of Sumeru. After all, it's hard not to cower away from a man whose expression lends nothing of itself to anyone.

As for Cyno himself, he is not ignorant enough not to have noticed how those around him act when he's there. He's hyper aware of the effect his entrance will inevitably have on a room, tense silence sucking the air from everyone else's lungs. Though this can be useful for a great many of Cyno's duties, he can't help but feel somewhat resentful of the reputation he has cultivated.

In spite of what the majority of people may believe, though, Cyno spends most of his free time quite content, joking around and enjoying life's leisures. Still, those who witness him outside of work from a far may assume that he's as serious as ever due to his perpetually neutral expression. It is only those who truly know Cyno that understand that the man does not lack emotions, but rather he merely displays his in an abnormal way. In fact, for the people who know Cyno, his joy especially is not only obvious, but also exceedingly common.

The only problem is when Cyno's job requires him to comfort those who don't know him. His expressionless face and toneless voice aren't the most soothing, and his blunt way of speaking certainly doesn't help the issue. Even his jokes can't save him, as most people just stare at him blankly afterwards. This is also what made it so difficult when the general rescued a young girl; he had no idea how to make her feel less scared of him.

When Cyno first brought Collei back to Sumeru, the young girl couldn't help but fear him. After all, ever since she was a young child she had been surrounded by people who wanted nothing more than to harm her. She underwent experiment after excruciating experiment day after day for the first 10 years of her life, all while battling a life-long illness and finding out her parents had died. When Cyno had found her, Collei was still adjusting to the idea of people treating her with kindness. Her past combined with Cyno's stern disposition compounded into Collei being afraid of the man who was trying to save her. She thought it was silly, looking back.

Collei first saw Cyno happy a week after she was brought to Sumeru. Cyno had come to visit her and Tighnari to see how she was settling in and Collei found herself playing card games at a too small dinner table with her newfound guardians. Cyno had been telling puns throughout the evening, a past time of the man's that Collei had yet to become accustomed to, but Tighnari's defeated expression told her it was commonplace.

In any case, one joke in particular caught Collei's attention: "I don't think we should play poker today," Cyno said. "Why not, Cyno? You usually jump at the opportunity to beat me at everything," Tighnari snarked, making Collei smile. She'd adjusted to her new master's occasional sass over the past week, meaning she'd learnt there was no malice behind his words. "Well Collei has already been through so much, I wouldn't want to hurt her more."

A beat of silence.

"Do you not understand the joke? You see, poker sounds like poke her. As in I'd be poking Collei, harming her further. But also it's the game's name," Cyno explained.

Another beat.

"Cyno," Tighnari groaned, covering his frustration with a hand over his face. "I thought it was funny," Cyno said, stoney tone and twin expression both very much still intact. "It was insensitive to Collei," Tighnari argued, "you can't just say things like that."

"But why not? All three of us know that she's had to endure a lot of pain in the past. It's not a secret," Cyno argued back.

And as their bickering continued, Collei found herself smiling. She was fond of them, she realised, fond of the men who had rescued her and fond of their playful arguing. Her smile grew until a small laugh escaped her mouth, more and more following until she was giggling. She couldn't remember the last time she laughed.

Cyno and Tighnari immediately shut up, snapping round to look at Collei in shock. She'd barely spoken since she arrived at Tighnari's hut, and now she was giggling. "Told you it was funny," Cyno gloated and Collei couldn't help it. She was full on laughing now, arms wrapped around her torso as her cheeks ached with joy.

Tighnari started to chuckle a bit then, so endeared by Collei's antics. Cyno just watched the two. From afar, anyone would've thought it cold but typical of the general mahamatra. He did not smile nor did he laugh. In fact, he was so expressionless that he seemed almost detached. But Tighnari knew better, and Collei was starting to as well.

Cyno's shoulders had relaxed, Collei noted, not realising they were ever tense until they weren't anymore. As her laughter died down, she also noticed how Cyno's eyebrows were less bunched up now, highlighting the newfound pink of his cheeks and red of his ears.

"Proud of yourself?" Tighnari teased the man, but there was no bite to his words. It was clear Tighnari had noticed Cyno's sudden change in demeanor, attempting to prolong Cyno's (and Collei's) joy for as long as possible by jabbing further. The softness of Cyno's movements as his hand found its place upon Tighnari's put Collei at ease. Perhaps she could find a home here with these two afterall. After all, this was the safest she'd felt in years.

[defira85]

Thedas Tuesday

Just over a week to go! And I've done introductions for all 8 of my Rooks (if you fancy, you browse the tag here to see any you might have missed) so today I'm posting my predictions as to who might romance who. This is just a guess, I've been trying to avoid a lot of the early access stuff that went live in September, so I really don't have a huge grasp on the companions' personalities for the most part, and it's entirely possible I'll get wrenched in a completely different direction by the muse once I get into the game proper.

But for now, under the cut because it's long:

Vaaran: Qunari Grey Warden, warrior class. This is actually the easiest one to predict because Vaaran has been a Grey Warden since the siege of Amaranthine in 9:31 and is actively hearing her calling at the onset of Veilguard. Who better to woo the stoic warrior who has embraced her own death and is only lingering to ease her sister's guilt but the charming necromancer and master of death himself? How much will it hurt Emmrich to realise that for once he finds death to be a hindrance, a horror, an enemy ready to snatch his new love away? How much will it hurt Vaaran when she realises she wants to live, but it might be too late?

Kasaanda: Qunari Grey Warden, mage class. Bubbly and boisterous, excited to be alive and to experience everything life has to offer, who else would catch her eye but the equally bubbly Bellara?

Micaela: Human Mourn Watch, mage class. A member of the illustrious and mysterious Gottschalk family on her mother's side, the more common Ingellvar on her father's side. Cousin to the infamous Jo Hawke. As a Gottschalk, Micaela has been raised as a member of the Veiled Brotherhood, and has an intimate relationship with spirits, demons and blood magic. Of COURSE that means I'm going to throw her at Lucanis (and Spite) because they're going to annoy each other SO MUCH it'll be delicious

Hedrobella: Dwarf Lord of Fortune, warrior class. The infamous Captain Brand is a world-weary grump with a heart of gold hiding under many, many layers of scars and snark. She is going to find common ground with Neve, two snarky women fighting to do the right thing for the little guy and finding comfort in each other

Dhraoibhan: Elven Veil Jumper, warrior class. I think I want to go elf for elf, and head for Davrin. We've never had the opportunity to have a Dalish elf romance a Dalish elf before! It's exciting! And with my personal little headcanon that Dhraoibhan is a worshipper of the Forgotten Ones, I can write it as a little antagonistic, a little culture clash, which will be fun. The only problem, it's also warrior for warrior, and now that the party size has been cut down, that makes it difficult to justify having him in the party with them

Luciaane: Human Shadow Guard, mage class. TECHNICALLY SHE'S INQUISITION, NOT SHADOW GUARD. Again, I get why there's not an Inquisition faction as a player background, I do, but I want one. For many reasons that I went into in her backstory post, but also because it'll be hilarious having her romance Harding knowing that Luc, her father, was a member of the Inquisition and a member of Inquisitor Corinne Trevelyan's inner circle, and he'll do fucking anime murder sparkle eyes when he realises Harding is dating his baby girl

Nomi: Dwarf Antivan Crow, rogue class. She's gayer than San Francisco in the spring time, and she's devoutly religious and bound by how important duty is. So of course that means she's going to have a CRISIS over Taash, who has left the Qun and has no loyalties beyond coin and is just the most extraordinary (BIG) woman Nomi has ever seen

Which is all 7 companions accounted for! Which leaves...

Beren: Elf Shadow Dragon, rogue class. Look. We all know my brand. I'm going to go after an unromanceable, it's just going to happen. I'll write a 300k fic about an unromanceable character yet again, it's just what I do. Will it be Solas, now that he's unattainable? Perhaps. It might also be Elgar'nan. Maybe it's Manfred, because Elissa's canon romance is Justice the corpse, so why wouldn't I romance a skeleton in this game? Who knows. We'll see what happens and who my wretched soul latches on to in 2 weeks time....

And in 2 weeks time we'll know just how wrong I am and how badly I messed up these predictions!

[shmowder]

Hello! Firstly id like to say how much I enjoy your writings. And I was wondering your opinions on Stanislav Rubin, and if you have written anything about him yet?

Thank you very much. I'm glad that even though I post a lot of memes and silly things, people still remember that this is a writing blog at its core.

Ah Stakh, the man, the myth, the legend Rubin himself. I absolutely adore him. He's like what happens if you drop the soul of a 90' anime tsundere into a survival horror middle age man.

Rip Stanislav, you would've loved going Hmp >:/. You would've loved posting blank black screens on your snapchat with a single dot in the text bracket. You would've loved getting away with throwing heavy-duty physical objects at Artemy in the name of comedic effect during fillter beach episodes.

What's so interesting about him is how much the narrative is out there to get him. How much his story tells a complicated relationship about bline love, trust, and abuse.

At times, it seems like Rubin loved Isidor more than his own son ever did from the amount of faith he held in him. Especially when that said person took advantage of his willingness to serve in order to do the dirty work.

That's probably why Rubin is acting extremely difficult during the game. He's grieving deeply. He seems lost and devoid of purpose, so he clings to whatever new problem he can find to give himself purpose. He works himself to an early grave just so he doesn't have time to think, and if you don't interfer as Artemy, he's successful.

Rubin's extremely devoted to his own set of morality, even when it contradicts itself and hurts him in the process. It's like he's willing to dig himself further into a mess even if he knew the chances of him solving it alone are very slim.

He'd rather do it himself than ask for help.

But it doesn't feel like pride, more like spite. That's the thing him and the bachelor have in common. They're both moved in spite of the universe and not because of.

Meanwhile, Artemy does things out of love for the universe. It explains why Rubin was described by the developers as being Artemy's rival.

Stakh was the best student Isidor ever had, the most diligent and quickest to learn, even a better student than his own son.

But that's exactly the problem. That's all he was great at, being an excellent student. Isidor didn't want a student for life. He wanted a new Menkhu to replace him, to pave the way for the future. How could he let someone who always looks to others for guidance ever take the lead?

Rubin decided to follow the bachelor when it came to curing the plague. In P1, Rubin used to be a soldier and an extremely good one at following orders too before he had to come back hom from a head injury.

In P2, when Rubin is devoid of purpose again, he doesn't try to be his own person and pave his own path. No, instead he sticks with the familiar and goes to join the army.

In the marble nest where Artemy is dead, Daniil says that Rubin has already joined the army and he could be behind any of those soldiers' masks.

What's the alternative future for him? Remaining a student. But for Artemy this time, who successfully took his father's place in p2.

Rubin and Bad Grief were the first ever people to fall out from the friend group after Artemy left, and it makes sense with how opposite they are in nature.

Grief saw how good he was at doing what he is, how excellent he is at being a gang leader and how easily this life came into his hands with very little work. He almost seems perfect for the job of being a glorified sketchy shopkeeper with a dangerous front as a gang leader.

He saw that, and he hated it. He wanted out. He wanted freedom and to break from the narrative. He acted out of script and went to the Inquisitor with his own two legs, closed shop, and threw away that perfect life, which was designed especially for him.

Meanwhile, Rubin longs back for that life. For Isidor to crawl out of the grave and tell him what to do next, even if it meant he will be mistreated and forced to bear the sins of his master just so Isidor keeps his own hands clean. He wants someone more knowledgeable to direct him again, tell him what to do, where to go and what to say.

Grief adored freedom, but Rubin loathed how terrifying it was. Grief understood the way of the world, how everyone is masquerading as their roles, how the whole of humanity is a game of pretend we play with each other, a mere facade. He understood that, and he climbed up as a result of playing his cards well. Or at least, life handed him the perfect hand for his role.

Rubin's black and white view of the world was his doom. Isidor was right and could never do anything wrong in his eyes, even when it was Rubin suffering because of him. Grief was bad. Therefore, he could never do anything right no matter what explanation he gives.

Artemy abandoned his father, therefore he is forever responsible for Isidor's murder in Rubin's eyes.

It's almost funny how throughout the whole game, as Artemy, you keep getting reminded of how much Rubin hates you and wants you dead.

Yet when he invents the panacea after you neglect your job, he fully credits it to you as your invention. The inquisitor even says so.

Love and hate are like dusk and dawn, different angles, but still the same sun.

Rubin's hate for Grief and Artemy proves that he still cares about them above all.

Even then, it doesn't take much convincing for him to abandon that hate. Almost as if he wants to be rid of it himself but can't do it on his own, he requires you to talk to him and give him that one final push. Aware of it or not, he has always looked to others for help despite him trying his best to handle things alone.

-

Now, as for writing something about him, I haven't yet. I would love to, he seems very fun to write. Emotionally constipated characters usually are.

But do you mean as a ship or x reader?

If it's a ship, something with Artemy is my first thought.

I know Isidor was in the process of adopting Rubin and that he refers to him as father sometimes. But all of that happened after Artemy left the town and not before.

So while Rubin and Isidor saw themselves as found family, Rubin and Artemy never did. Their last time together was spent as childhood best friends, and not once do they refer to each other as siblings or imply it.

To me they will always be just childhood friends. Artemy was estranged from his own father for 10-5 years depending on the game and Rubin filled that spot in the meanwhile. The sole reason for the adopting thing was just to get Rubin the right to cut bodies and nothing more in Isidor's case.

Rubin might have seen him as a father figure, but I doubt Isidor saw him as anything but a student, let alone a son.

In his dairy during his last days before death, Isidor only speaks of Artemy. Wishing his son was by his side.

And in Artemy's case, he immediately forgives Rubin for so many things during their first meeting in P1. And in P2, he still attempts to talk and have a resemblance of a friendship with him.

Artemy literally follows him like a kicked puppy, wanting his best friend back and desperately attempting to mend things with Rubin. The fics practically write themselves at this point. Stakh clearly likes Artemy but he won't let himself easily give into the temptation because he is just angsty like that.

Maybe that "rivally" was extremely one-sided in Rubin's case.

-

But for x reader, you're not Artemy so you'll get very favourable treatment.

He's already willing to let himself burn at the stake for someone else. Rubin and Eva both share the passion to sacrifice themselves for the sake of someone else, ironically enough.

The only difference is that Eva took the hopeless romantic path whole Rubin took the selfless devotion one.

He'd do well with someone who is soft and caring, that man requires a hug that lasts a century. He needs someone to be patient with him, someone wise who understands him better than he understands himself. Someone be there for him to fall back on.

Stakh is the type of person who will mould himself to your expectations and needs rather than just let himself...be himself. He will think the way he is just isn't enough to get you to stay in love, and so he will try to adapt what you deem impressive and love-able.

Breaking himself in the process.

A reader who gets him out of that cycle would be perfect. Someone who reassures him that he is enough. That he doesn't need to set himself ablaze just to keep you warm.

He will be extremely awkward in love. He doesn't have a single romantic bone in his body. But he's nothing if not a fast learner.

it's clumsy attempts at the start, but eventually, he learns to speak his feelings more. Words of sincerity and promises of devotion acting as his flirting.

He stares at you a lot with his big round, lovely brown eyes. Across the room? he's looking at you until you come talk to him. Suddenly, he's not slouching so much. It's endearingly embarrassing how honest his eyes can be when his lips won't admit that he needs you.

He will cling to you as time goes on. Why exactly can't he go out with you when you're hanging out with your friends? Listen he knows this is just a grocery trip but he wants to walk there with you and carry the bags.

One time, you took too long in the bathroom at night, and he woke up from sleep just to knock at the bathroom door and ask when you were going back to bed. You found him half-asleep sitting on the ground near the door when you opened it.

[xenonsreturn]

In Another Life

A short story of Garrus Vakarian and Commander Shepard

I need to do . . . something. I need to get out of here. If I stay in the battery any longer, I think I'm going to explode. Why does this room have to be so damn small?

But where the hell am I going to go? No matter where I go, I have to bring my head with me. What I really need is to get out of my head.

Where is this coming from? I've been doing fine . . . well, as fine as any turian on a suicide mission can do. But now, I can't seem to think straight. I'm nervous. Which is new for me. I can't concentrate on my calibrations and they seem to go on forever. I find myself pacing. There's a buzzing all over my skin. Maybe I'm sick. I could go see Dr Chakwas . . . no. Bad idea. She'd remove me from duty – or worse, give me medicine.

I'm heading for the mess. Maybe just having something in my stomachs will help me settle down.

When did this start, anyway? Hmm. Illium. No, it was after that. Hell, I don't know. I know I was fine when Shepard and I tracked down Sedonis. I still wonder whether I could have taken the shot. Is that what's bothering me?

No, that's not it. Even if I could have, I saw what Shepard was doing. She didn't want me to take it. Saving me from myself, she said. Hmm. She's done that a couple times now. She's always trying to pull me back. I don't know why she cares so much. It's really irritating.

Still, I have to admit, I make better choices when she's around. And when she's not – well, I turn into Archangel. It's a lot easier to be Archangel, but . . . well, I feel stronger, somehow, here on the Normandy. And it's good to have some familiar faces around sometimes. Joker. Tali. Even Liara for a bit there. Shepard, of course. I probably have more in common with her than anyone else on the ship. Hell, than anyone else in my life. I liked it when she used to come down and talk, before Liara came back. Somehow, she made the battery feel a little larger, even though there were two of us in that tiny space. But now, she and Liara are back together, and she hasn't been around since, and I -

Oh.

Oh, damnation.

How did I not see this happening? And now it's too late, isn't it?

I thought – I guess I thought . . . that she . . . maybe . . . ah, hell.

Can I go back to not knowing what's bothering me? That was better than this.

Great. Now I'm talking to myself. Or hearing voices in my head. Whatever. But I'm right. I can't go into hiding – not from myself. I turn around and get a seat at the end of an empty table.

I'm going back to the battery. I need . . . cover. I do not want company right now. No, Garrus, dammit, you're going to the mess!

I'm not alone long, however. Tali shows up. Great.

"Is this seat taken?" She asks – then, without waiting for a reply, she sits down anyway.

"Uhh . . ." I look the length of the empty table. "Doesn't look like it." None of the other seats are taken, either – why don't you try that one way over there?

She just looks at me. Well, at least I think that's what she's doing. That damn mask makes her hard to read. Actually, come to think of it, I wish I had a mask. Lucky lady.

"What are you having?" She asks.

I pretend to be relaxed. I am sure I suck at it. "I don't know. Whatever Rupert's serving that won't kill me, I guess."

Tali chuckles. "Well, whatever won't kill you, won't kill me, either. Let's split an order."

So much for no company. Back to the battery, I guess. "Actually, I'm not hungry after all," I say, and start to get up.

With surprising speed, Tali reaches across the table and grabs my wrist. Not only is she fast, she's strong. In spite of my shock, I have to admit, I'm impressed.

"Don't. Go. Anywhere. Garrus."

Well, this is . . . unwelcome. I slowly sit back down. I have a bad feeling about this.

"You've been acting . . . strange, Garrus. Distracted."

This is worse than I thought. People can tell.

"Ah, I don't think – "

Tali cuts me off. "Don't deny it. You haven't been yourself since we left Hagalaz."

"Well – "

"I've seen you pacing."

"No, I – "

"Your aim was off on the last mission."

Okay, that's too much. "Now, wait just one goddamn minute – "

She sighs. "Garrus, calm down. It's obvious you've got some knot you're trying to untie, and we feel – "

"WE?" This day just keeps getting worse and worse. "Who's we?"

"Oh, you know, Miranda, Jack, Samara, Chakwas, Gabby."

Just when I think I've hit bottom. At least Shepard's not on the list. And -

"Not Kelly?"

"No, not Kelly. I know it's her job, but . . . well, quite frankly, none of us can stand her."

I don't understand that at all, but I'm really beyond caring at this point.

"Look, Garrus, we just want to help."

Help. Fantastic. Not only can people tell, not only are they talking about it, now they want to help. I'm Archangel, goddamn it.

"Tali. Go hack some other project. Right. Now."

I stare into that mask. She seems to stare back for a moment, then shrugs and stands up. "Fine. I tried. Chakwas said you'd do this." She turns away, but then turns back and says, "Take care of it yourself, then, Garrus. Good luck with that. You need it."

I just look at her until she's gone. I wish I could take some satisfaction in hurting her feelings, but it's clear that she's not hurt. She's just pissed. And also, well, I don't want to hurt her, not really. She's a good person on the team. I like her. It's just . . . don't go trying to get under my skin like that! You're not invited!

"So – " A voice right next to me. I look up and Rupert is standing there.

"What do you want?" I growl. I am kind of pleased that he backs up a step.

"Uh, that's what I was going to ask you, Garrus," he says, a little breathlessly. He holds out the day's menu. "What do you want?"

I take it out of his hands. "Just . . . give me something that will kill me."

It has not been a good day.

Back in the battery. I am, in fact, hiding. I don't want to go out there. Where they know. I just wish, in here, I didn't know. I must have been blind. And now, I wish I still was.

I look around the little space. I don't have much of mine here. Because I don't have much that's mine. I never thought about it, never thought I was missing anything, but right now, I do. Damn, do I.

At my terminal, there's my dad's old insignia from the fleet. I wonder, did dad ever have to deal with this sort of thing? I can't imagine it. But then, we were always so different. He had discipline. I have . . . what? Lack thereof, I guess. I can't help but rush in . . . and maybe that's why I feel this way. If he could have felt something like this, Dad would have damped it down. But I can't. Not anymore.

The only other time . . . well, there she is. Her dog tags hang next to Dad's insignia. Scout Lidia Misuraca. I wish I didn't have these tags. Because that would mean she'd still be alive. She might have been halfway across the galaxy – hell, she might even be fighting us; we are with Cerberus, after all – but she'd be living. I've run it through my head a thousand times and I still don't know if there was anything different I could have done during that raid, something that might have saved her life – but I still wonder. And maybe that's why I'm out here now.

And maybe she's not all. I take off my visor and run my finger over the ten names carved in the frame. Yeah. I had a team. Good people. And now they're all dead. Because of me. Maybe that's another reason I'm in here – because everyone I touch, dies. It's safer. For them. For me.

I look at the message on the terminal screen. Took me nearly an hour to write it.

Commander,

When you have a moment, I have something I need to discuss with you.

- Garrus

Am I giving too much away? My finger hovers over the 'send' key. Do I dare? And then I realize, it's the only way through this. I hit the key.

I am surprised by the fact that I actually feel some small measure of relief. We're out of the holding pattern now, I guess. I took action – just a little, but enough to set . . . something . . . in motion. I don't know if it's the best thing, but at least it's something. And what the hell am I hoping for anyway? I know she's with Liara. There's nothing that will change that. Maybe if I'd said something earlier, before Illium . . . ah, but I didn't know then, did I? Dammit. And anyway, Liara makes Shepard happy. Who am I to stand in the way of that?

But don't you deserve some happiness, too, Garrus? It's odd, but I hear Shepard's voice asking this question. Do I? I don't know. Ask me most days, I'd say…no. I don't deserve it. But when we're together, maybe I feel like I do. Maybe because she's always seen the best in me. So maybe I do deserve some happiness – but just because I might deserve it, doesn't mean I get it. The galaxy is a cold, cold place. It doesn't care what we deserve. It doesn't care for justice. It's just dark. And I guess it's up to us to be the stars, to hold against the darkness. That's what I strive for. And in a different way, so does Shepard. Different, but . . . well, I guess I had an idea that maybe we were just same enough to have some overlap, maybe enough common ground to build . . . something more than this.

And now she could be on her way down here. Right now.

The reality of this hits me like a . . . well, like a missile to the face. Suddenly, I need to get out again. Cursing my stupid finger that sent the message, I make for the door, but before I get there, it opens.

Shepard.

Ah, hell. Here we go. "Ah, Shepard. Guess you, ah, got my message."

Her eyebrows arch. "What message?"

She came down here just to see me, just to talk with me. I feel torn between two emotions – elation, and it's about fucking time.

"Ah, never mind," I say, hoping my voice sounds steady. I'm surprised that it does. "Just something I wanted to talk to you about, but it can wait. What brings you down here?" Because it's been awhile.

"Okay, yeah," she says. "I want to know if you have any contacts that can keep an eye on Hagalaz for me. I know Liara's capable, but . . ." She trails off, and I can see the concern on her face.

"You want a couple extra eyes watching her back," I say, without even thinking about it. Of course she does.

She smiles. "Yeah, something like that."

I love her smile. I hate how much I love her smile. "I know of three guys off the top of my head – one from my days at C-Sec who became a freelance mercenary, and two I know from Omega. All three will do the job for money. But they're good. And once they commit, they'll see it through." I see the relief in her face, in her posture. "I'll send their contact information to your terminal." I want to throw myself out the nearest airlock. But really, what the hell else am I going to do? Deny her help? That's not in me, not for her.

"Thanks, Garrus." She pauses. "How you been? I feel like I haven't been down here in ages."

That's because you haven't. "Well," I say, "you've been pretty busy. No problem, though – you always know where to find me."

She leans up against the door jamb. "Yeah, but I've missed you, Garrus. Things have been . . . well, crazier than usual, but I miss coming down here, hanging out with you."

She is actually killing me.

"I mean, hell," she goes on. "With almost everyone else, I'm Commander Shepard – Savior of the Citadel. It's really . . . annoying." She smirks. "But you know, we've worked together for a while now. It's good talking to someone I know. Someone I trust. There's a hell of a lot less of that in the galaxy than there ought to be."

"Yeah," I say, because I can't think of anything else to say. And then, I find myself saying, "Shepard, you know what we need? We need a bar on this goddamn ship."

She laughs. "Hell, yes! That's a great idea, Garrus!" She looks towards my footlocker. "Hey, that reminds me, you got any of that Batarian ale left?"

I grin. I'm actually starting to relax a bit. She always does that to me. And she's the only one. "Yeah, I might have a couple bottles left."

I get out the bottles and pop the tops with my talon. She was so impressed the first time I did that.

"Cheers," she says as I hand her one. She tips the bottle back in my direction.

I return the gesture. "Cheers to you, Shepard," I say.

"Garrus, when we're off duty, just call me Hera. We've known each other long enough for that." I do not show how much what she just said means to me.

"Okay, Hera," I say, trying the name out. We both tip the ale back. It burns a bit, but man, the flavor is fantastic. It really lingers.

And then, as she lowers the bottle, I catch a . . . tightening in her face. Like a shadow passing over. And I'm not the smartest man alive, but I know where it came from. I could ignore it . . . ah, hell, no I can't. "So, Comm- ah, Hera. You and Liara? You've . . . worked things out?"

She looks at me, the smirk reappearing from the shadow. "You know me too well. You know that, Garrus?"

If it wasn't for the smirk, I'd change the subject. "Well, maybe I do," I say instead.

"Yeah. Yes," she says. "We have worked things out. Very . . . thoroughly."

I kind of want to die right now.

She sighs. "But it just means I'm going to miss her all over again."

And for a moment, my heart breaks a little – not for me, but for her. I don't know what to say, but I come up with, "Yeah, but it's good to have someone to miss. Someone you know you'll be coming back to. It's a good thing . . . a good thing to see."

I glance at my terminal, and I think of the only other one who ever was close to me. And now . . .

She clears her throat. "Yeah, Garrus. You're right. You're right. It is good. Thanks." I turn to see her smiling at me, but her eyes, well, human eyes, you can tell when there's something going on behind them. And I realize, I've just seen her, hurting for Liara, and she's just seen me, hurting for Lidia. The fact that we saw each other in this moment lightens my heart. I feel . . . bold.

"Anyway, Garrus," she says, breaking our gaze. "You said you sent me a message?"

Ah, crap.

"It's nothing, really, I'm just . . ." I set my bottle down and look at her. "You know, I work pretty well alone. I can go where I want, do what I want, when I want – I have focus. No distractions. Just the job. I don't need much. And it's good - I think, working that way, I make some small difference in the Galaxy."

"A lot more than that, Garrus."

I shrug, even though I'm touched by the compliment. "Maybe. But sometimes . . . well, I like to see what you and Liara have. And sometimes, I think, maybe I'd like something like that, too."

She smiles. "Thanks, Garrus. It's good. It is. But you know, it's also . . . complicated." She takes a breath. "Boy, that word doesn't even cover it. I died. She almost became . . . someone else. And both of us thought the other had moved on. When I think about it, I'm amazed we managed to find the space together." She chuckles. "It's really a mess!" She looks at me. "Who knows, maybe you're the lucky one."

"Huh, maybe." I don't feel lucky.

She raises her eyebrows.

I suddenly can't face her and turn away. "I'm glad for you, though. It's a . . . good mess. I never thought I'd say this, but maybe sometimes a mess is better. But for me, well . . . there's no one . . . available. And that's my fault. I don't really know how . . . I spend so much energy keeping people at arm's length – "

She interrupts. "Well, that's certainly saying something."

I turn back see her looking at my arms. I can't help but feel a little thrill go up my spine. "Yeah, I guess it is." I chuckle. How does she do this, make me talk when I just want to shut up? "But maybe I don't do enough to let people in. I just – well, sometimes I feel like I'm alone in the whole damn galaxy. I've been thinking about it a lot lately – maybe I'm a poorer man for that . . . I don't know, maybe I'm just getting old, thinking of where I might be down the relay." I start to feel like I'm saying too much, like I've already said too much. I want to change the subject. "Hell, I don't know why I bother thinking about this. We're not likely to survive this mission anyway."

But – typical Shepard – she won't let it go. "But you are thinking about it."

"Yeah." Dammit. "Yeah, I am." And then I look at her, and I see her being, well, who she is. For me. "Thanks, Shepard. There isn't really anyone else I'd want to talk to about this." And then it hits me, and my boldness returns. She deserves to know the truth. I step right up to her. "You know what I was saying about arm's length? Well, there's not many who've managed to get beyond that. In fact, ah, there's just one. It's good to have someone I can . . . trust." I take a breath and look her right in the eye. "It's you, Shepard. I'm a better man because of you. And I . . . I just . . ."

The words fail me, right when I need them the most.

I see her face soften, suddenly, and I know she knows. She understands.

I can't stand it. I turn my back on her. "Ah, never mind."

I feel her hands on me as she turns me back around. "Hey."

I look right at her. I am certain everything I'm feeling is plain upon my scarred face.

She rests her hands on my shoulders, and I see a thousand emotions playing across her face. "Garrus, I want you to know something. I trust you, too. I don't make a habit of that. And I don't let people get close to me easily or often, either." She pauses. "In this life, you and I are . . . .what we are. And I'm thankful for that." She nods. "But in another life . . ." She looks right into my eyes. "Garrus, yes. Yes."

I can feel something loosen in my chest. I know what she's saying, and although it kills me, I feel a surge of warmth throughout my whole body. She cares, she really does. It's not perfect, it's not the same thing I feel, but . . . I am important to her. I nod, and then I feel a real smile cross my face. "Hearing you say that . . . in this life . . . is . . . almost as good. Almost as good as another life."

[attorneys-against-court-violence]

Alright sit down I'm ranking Dual Destinies culprits. Spoilers abound!

Just going to list my thoughts on all 5 culprits in order of beloved to beloathed. Expect me to be mean.

Marlon Rimes

Easily the most nuanced and sympathetic of them all, and a well-written one to boot! His grudge against the orca is understandable, yet flawed in a very human way. He had no intentions of harming anyone - in fact he wanted to save his co-workers from what he saw as a dangerous animal. When Sasha was arrested he went out of his way to lie in order to get her off the hook. When push came to shove, he accepted his sentence to save her and punish himself for unintentionally setting up the Captain's death. It's all the more heartbreaking that Azura wasn't even killed by the previous orca, rendering all of his hatred and actions resulting from it irrational and unfounded. He sort of reminds me of both Simon and Aura in a few ways; taking the fall to save a friend, trying to enact revenge on someone he saw as a crazed, emotionless animal... his plight has plenty in common with both. 5-DLC gets a lot of praise in my books for its parallels to the main conflict (not that the other cases lack them) and Marlon is no exception.

The thing that makes Marlon so compelling is that he isn't a monster. He doesn't even have much of an ego, calling himself too weak to save anyone. He's a man who acted on his rage and made a dreadful mistake in doing so, trying to right his wrongs and eventually being forced to give up and admit that he had no right to do what he had done. Even agreeing that he had no right pruely on the basis of it causing someone to die inderectly. Him being rehabilitated at the end is the feather-on-the-cap to show that he's someone the characters genuinely care about and wish to do better in spite of his flaws. It took a while and plenty of evidence, but the Captain's words finally got through to him and he's a lot better for it. His animations are wonderfully creative, by the way! Turning the spyglass into a faux microphone, re-using the bucket of fish for a Popeye-esque transformation, the name-tag turning into a rapper's gold chain, his breakdown turning the witness stand into both a helm and a set of prison bars - so much visual creativity with this guy! It's such a treat.

The worst I can say about him is that the rapping is a bit of a stereotype. Yes, this is the same game that body-shames the one fat character, has no idea what a trans person is, and... well we'll save that part for later. No one enjoys that. That said, I'm willing to say the good far outways the bad here. It lead to one of the funniest witness testimonies in the series so I can't be too mad!

2. Ted Tonate

What a peculiar character... semi-verbal, anti-social, obsessed with explosives, and overall a strange specimen to behold. It doesn't feel like he has a specific quirk more than it feels like everything about him is off-beat, ranging from uncomfortably still to absolutely feral. I like it!

More importantly - while he did commit murder and assault - he does serve an important role in the plot and is not completely incompetent or heartless. That courtroom would have become a graveyard without his warning, after all! He's a bit like Frank Sawhit where he'll resort to physical violence under pressure but doesn't seem to have intended to kill necessarily. Difference is Frank was a common thief, while Ted's a bona-fide member of the police's bomb disposal unit who - black market deals aside - actually carries his duties out and does a good job. Nice little misdirection there too. That opening monologue fits the phantom better than Ted but we don't figure that until near the end. It doesn't erase the fact he's done some terrible things but at he's not a monster. Just a woefully anti-social guy who doesn't respond well to being called out.

Dual Destinies gets a surprising amount of mileage out of its Case 1 antagonist and it's a treat to watch. There's plenty that case does to give the game a bad first impression, but Ted's not one of them. He can stay!

3. Aristotle Means Aaaaaaaand we've nose-dived. Prepare for snark.

Means is emblematic of a much larger issue with Dual Destinies; it doesn't seem interested in treating the main conflicts of its cases as much more than generic good vs evil despite having an abundance of material to make things more interesting. Yes, I know Ace Attorney culprits aren't the most 3-dimensional bunch - usually the character conflicts they cause are the most interesting parts. Though they usually make things fun by being smarmy bastards. Means is just repeatitive. It's one thing to be a shallow bad guy, it's another thing entirely to beat you over the head with a single catchphrase without putting any spins on it. Manfred has the same one-track mind in his philosophy but he never felt this aggressively tedious about it. There's also the fact that, well... the ends DID justify the means in the end. Dual Destinies' main conflict would not have been solved without Aura taking extreme measures to save Simon. Having that while saying "doing bad things is bad no matter what!" with this guy makes him feel all the more flimsy and misguided. Him wanting to save Juniper and honour her wishes by any means necessary is a nice way to add flavour to the conflict but it's grossly overshadowed by him being a flat cartoon for the most part.

I feel like there's a sorely missed opportunity here for him to point out that Phoenix Wright also exercised that philosophy at times. Yes I'm talking about forging evidence in 4-1, it would have been a nice way to make his conflict with Athena more interesting. Pointing out that her boss is an exemplar of "the ends justifies the means" - especially with Apollo in the same room - is an idea that fills my brain with thinks. Might have even been the reason why he invited Nick to the academy too... oh well. It takes a lot to bouy a one-track villain like him up as it is without actively adding more baggage through redundancy and lack of presence. He doesn't even do much of anything or have a chance to BE evil before his hair stands up like other villains. He's just. Annoying. I know I keep comparing him to Manfred, but imagine a version of him that didn't do anything until the tail-end of the last trial and with none of the backstory and gravitas. That's the level Means is at.

A crappier Manfred. Joy to the world!

4. ???

YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SOMEBODY! YOU HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL! Hell, he arguably does have dramatic weight as-written. He's the embodiment of the distrust and denial of ones true feelings/identity that has caused this racket in the first place. Dual Destinies as a whole is a game about people who put on masks to do what they feel is right or necessary, then being forced to take the mask off, confront themselves and their actions for what they truly are. Having a villain who's hidden his identity this entire time is such a fitting choice! It's just a shame that he, oh you know, it's small thing it doesn't really matter... DIDN'T HAVE AN IDENTITY WORTH HIDING TO BEGIN WITH!!! Dual Destinies beats you over the head about how scary this guy is for having no personality. And that's exactly the problem. When you spend that much time telling people the villain isn't worth caring about then that's what people are going to take away. Nevermind that his personality for most of the game was a goofy detective man who valued JUSTICE! above all else, a man who is willing to question his own definitions of it despite what others may think but still allows it to justify doing awful things like zapping Simon. Maybe that could have been the answer! That he allowed his perception of JUSTICE! to warp so much that he became this ghoulish ghost who kills and commits acts of terrorism without remorse. His life being threatened when his literal mask falls acting as a metaphor for how he is unable to confront himself for who he is and what he's done; he, in his own eyes, would be the least justified of them all, and so he has forsaken his identity to avoid that truth. A truth that would spell the end both within and without.

But no. The game does everything in its power to tell you he's a hollow, empty husk of a human being. More importantly, even if the above was the case it doesn't do anything at all with the concept. It just comes across that his main conflict is "who tf am I?" Which is... oddly sad and worrying? Yes, I do think the idea of letting your true self go leading to awful, terrible things and the horror of realising that that's exactly what you did - even denying it or using it as a point of strength - is an interesting and befitting idea. They just don't do anything with it before he's already carted off to the pile of characters we'll never hear from again. There's nothing there by design to the point where it doesn't feel like there was anything he COULD have discarded in the first place. His lack of identity feels less like a concept the writers wanted to explore and more of an excuse to get a twist villain who could pretend to be anybody.

It's a diservice to both the story and to the false identity he had before this. "Bobby Fulbright" somehow ended up a more interesting character and he's the one who's chastised by other characters for being a simple idiot! And he was discarded for this guy! "Bobby" should have mattered more, both to the characters and to the phantom's identity. Not get an unceremonial "he was dead the whole time" reveal and be completely divorced from the phantom's character in every way the story can think to do. Erasure in more ways than one... no wonder people felt betrayed. In a bad way. You shouldn't feel betrayed by the writing if it's any good and that's how plenty - myself included - felt. Oh, and having the only character who's low/no emotion be the shallow bad guy is not a great look... I'll say it again; the problem isn't that he's the antagonist. It's that he's not a well-written one. A psychopath would be fascinating as a character in ANY role in this psychology-focused mystery game if Dual Destinies had the gall to make one that's actually interesting. Remember what I said about Means crushing the conflict into something too simple for the concept behind it? The phantom does that on a wider scale and it deals a massive blow to Dual Destinies to have its overarching villain so infuriatingly empty and disposable. It makes themes of trust and masks I mentioned fall flat.

I'd rather Athena kill Metis over this. It'd be a similar concept with more justification behind it without completely dismissing the players emotional investment or cheapening the themes of the game. Or at least execute those things in a better way than this. In justice we trusted...

Sidenote: I was torn between ranking Means or the phantom here. While Phanty is definitely more interesting to talk about than the living staute, him sucking hurts more than Means due to his status as the main villain. It's easier to get away with being a shallow puddle when you weren't meant to swim much in it to begin with.

5. Florent L'belle

You'll notice I didn't put an emotional marker on this guy. That should tell you everything you need to know. At least the phantom makes me feel something, even if it is abject despair at how much of a gaping hole he leaves in the story. Florent just... I mean he's... His breakdown's creepy, that's kinda fun... I got nothing, he's just sort of there.

Lick a toad, you inferior Redd White. I'm going need to borrow Bobby's Jolt of Justice next time you show up.

At least I'd feel something that way.

[starrook]

"It's my turn to apologize for being late, this time."

Well, she has not fully missed the day—but by the time Poe finds him, as sudden in her approach as she ever is, the sun has already well begun its departure over the skyline.

It is never a matter of where she comes from. That much was irrelevant, and often, impossible to glean given her proclivity for making her way wherever she wanted to be regardless of the breadth of distance or height of obstacle in the warp specialist's way. Far more worthwhile in any given moment to consider the why, and today, that is made obvious, if not by the date but by the long box she carries in both hands. Carefully and meticulously wrapped in pristine pink paper.

"Given your nature, I'm sure you've already received plenty of blessings today. But that certainly doesn't relieve me of my duty to bestow mine, does it?" She carefully hands the parcel over to him, not too weighty, not too light. The contents? A wooden box with an assortment of high quality knives, laid out each side-by-side in their inserts.

"I do remember that you like to fish, but I figured you probably already have everything you need for that. I've heard these are quite sharp, so they're good for cleaning catches of all kinds, land and sea," She explains, tone revealing she is being genuine, smile even something closer to gentle. ...which stands in some amount of contrast to the fact that she is giving him a set of incredibly sharp knives. "Though, they were also quite insistent on them being very multipurpose, so I wouldn't be surprised if you could find other uses for them, heehee."

Rarely one to overstay past a job being done, she turns on her heel once the present is passed over to its recipient.

"May this year be a fortunate one for you as well. As much as you deserve!"

“Late?” Alcryst echoes. “The day hasn’t even ended yet… please, there’s nothing to apologize for.”

It’s not the first time Poe says something strange, but what matters most to Alcryst is that she came. “Thank you,” he replies with a shy smile. “Um, a lot of people did wish me a happy birthday so far! Even Rafal. Though I think it’s more in spite of my nature rather than because…”

Accepting gifts isn’t easy. The question of whether or not he deserves such kindness still gnaws at him. He’s still inclined to put himself down; after all, there are more pleasant people to give presents to. “Still, it means a lot that you think so well of me.” Alcryst tries to think of it like that, which makes it easier to enjoy Poe’s praise and take the offered gift.

Knives. Well honed too, by the looks of it, and each one sports a different blade for various tasks. One for gutting, one for boning, one for skinning… “Oh, these look amazing!” Alcryst matches Poe’s smile with his own. If such kindness and generosity is supposed to be out of place with this gift, the Brodian prince doesn’t see it. Weapons and tools are common gifts. A bow to protect his home. Knives to provide for his family. “Thank you, Poe. I’ll be sure to put them to good use.”

[dandelionsprout42]

Quick summary of Apple Arcade games I've played thus far

All games were played on the Apple TV 4K 128GB model, most with Dualsense, while games that support Siri Remote used the remote instead.

Sonic Dream Team: The maingame (except the contrived red-coin system) is a masterpiece, and the first Sonic platformer I've ever completed. The postgame(s) got weary on me, however.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure: The game is much more like Zelda and other breathlikes (The term I use for games that resemble BotW) than Animal Crossing. I'm mighty impressed by this game and then some.

Easy Come Easy Golf: Plays pretty good for a non-motion-controlled golf game. Could need to have far more courses far earlier in the game, as meaningful variation is practically none even at rank 8.

Way of the Turtle: Very good from the 25〜90% marks of the game, where it's a better Crash Bandicoot game than a lot of actual Crash Bandicoot games. But the endgame levels are brutal to the point of feeling like they weren't worth it.

Alto's Adventure: Honestly a fairly good game. I recommend it to people who've just bought an Apple TV and who are learning how the remote control works.

Amazing Bomberman: Complete rubbish. I could count the framerate on one hand, and that's on the newest Apple TV model.

Gear.Club Stradale: Kept crashing to desktop all the time. And I mean all the time. I was only able to complete 1 race on 5 attempts at starting the game.

Rayman Mini: Severely outdated. No one wants autorunners anymore, and certainly not autorunners that mangle the Rayman Legends timed missions.

Taiko no Tatsujin Pop Tap Beat: Safe to assume that Apple told the devs to make the game less weeb than most other TnT games, which is a good thing. The Power of Love is a nice touch, and the evergreen Cruel Angel's Thesis, the Touhou Song (Night of Knights), and Funiculi Funicula (a.k.a. the Spider-Man 2 pizza song).

Tetris Beat: Weeb stuff. Gave up after 10min because I hadn't heard of any of the songs.

Samba de Amigo Party-to-Go: On the entirely opposite end of the scale, and in fact has too many dance-pop songs. I do give positive shoutout to that its version of Macarena use the actual lyrics, and not the ones with the teenage girls chatting.

Riptide GP Renegade: Practically unplayable with Siri Remote, so I never tested it with Dualsense out of spite. Never got past the tutorial.

Pocket Card Jockey: Tested to see how far I could bruteforce my way through the intro with a Siri Remote, far past the alleged "Connect a controller" prompts. I miraculously managed to get to the first main level, at which point I felt that I had done my duty and never played it afterwards.

Frogger and the Rumbling Ruins: Managed to be less controllable than Pocket Card Jockey even with a Dualsense. Couldn't get past the very first section.

My Little Pony Mane Merge: The "Merge" genre is by itself the worst new game genre in several decades, but Gameloft clearly can't possibly have played even one puzzle console game in their lives, judging by how they mangled the controls beyond recognition.

Kimono Cats: Hardly has any activities in it that count as a game, and the few small remnances that are there are either weeb or Daily Challenges.

Disney SpellStruck: A good concept and is fun to play early on, but dear lords does it get repetitive. Not to mention the word validation system rejecting a lot of common words while accepting nonsense. The cameo of Tinker Bell's house from her titular movies is a nice touch, but a very short touch.

Warped Kart Racers: "We already have Sonic Racing Transformed at home" vibes. Additionally, the battle mode system is the worst in the history of car games. Yes, worse than that of FlatOut 3.

Squiggle Drop: Incomprehensible career progression, not helped by puzzles that start to make no sense after the circa 25th one.

JellyCar Worlds: If you've played 10 levels or so, you've essentially played them all.

Marble It Up Mayhem: Roughly half of the point-to-point levels were reasonably good. The "Collect spheres in a zone" levels were pretty boring.

Beyond Blue: I refuse to believe that any professional livestreamer scuba diver would willingly want to use a suit she described as itchy.

Ballistic Baseball: Seemingly impossible to hit the ball, and the English commentator has the least enthusiastic voice I've ever heard in my life.

[aniron48]

close to the sun in lonely lands

Felix decides to take Bond's mind off his troubles by taking him eagle-watching. It goes about how you'd expect.

Coming in with a 00leiter fluff-adjacent ficlet for 007 Fest 2023, just in time for Felix Friday! This fulfills the 2023 Prompt Table entry "The great outdoors: the sun, the smoke, the bugs, the scenery. bring it on," and is also a Rare Pair and an entry for a Theme Day!

I apparently cannot get enough of writing Felix Leiter in Maryland doing Maryland things, so here you go. I hope you enjoy, friends--you can read on ao3, or after the cut. 💜 🦅

James Bond isn’t the only one who likes nice things.

Felix has been known to splash out on an immaculately tailored tux, when the occasion calls for it. He found his favorite cologne at an atelier in Paris on a temporary duty assignment years ago and has never looked back, and some of his shoes are, admittedly, statement pieces. His taste for fine things isn’t limited to the things he puts on his body, either—the sound system for his home in Annapolis is so state-of-the-art it’s got its own line item in Felix’s homeowner’s insurance.

But Felix knows himself, and he also knows that he thrives on balance. He sticks to a detailed budget for grocery shopping and eating out—a government salary only stretches so far. He drives a mid-level sedan that is modest but more than adequate, thank you very much, even if Bond turns up his nose at riding in anything less than an Aston Martin. And Felix is at his happiest in a pair of trunks and a faded Terps t-shirt, taking his boat out on the harbor.

Or, on a day like today, in cargo shorts and that same worn out Terps shirt, trying to get James Bond to shut the fuck up before he scares all the birds away from the nature preserve.

“I’m disappointed, Felix,” Bond says, lowering the binoculars that were trained on the enterprising bald eagle that has taken over the osprey platform in the middle of the marsh. “I thought it’d be bigger.”

Felix snorts, in spite of himself. “And they say Americans are obsessed with size.”

Bond takes the bait, as Felix knew he would.

“You can hardly say size is irrelevant, after last night. Not with a straight face, anyway.”

Felix chucks his water bottle at Bond, catching him in the sternum.

“My face hasn’t been straight since 1982.”

Bond chuckles at that, and Felix feels that familiar sense of vertigo that they’re here, that this is how it is between them. It’s ridiculous that one of the easiest things in his life would turn out to be the sometime-colleagues, sometime-rivals, always-with-benefits thing he has going on with James fucking Bond. And yet.

“I’m not sure why you were so keen on taking me eagle-spotting in the first place,” Bond says. “They’re your national symbol, not mine.”

Felix shrugs. “Thought you could use the peace and quiet. Besides, you’ve got a lot in common.”

“What things, exactly?”

Bond’s face is doing that thing where all the softness leaches from it, as if he’s preparing to take a punch. But Felix has seen the man in a fight a time or two, and the thing is, when he’s actually throwing punches, he looks relaxed. He only looks like this when he’s afraid you might do something really stupid, like be kind to him. It’s taken years, but Felix has finally learned that if you want to show Bond any tenderness, you have to go at it at an angle.

And so Felix refrains from saying resilience or strength or determination or any of the myriad things that the noble bald eagle, survivor of decades of overhunting followed by decimation at the hands of DDT, only to rebound right off the endangered species list, actually has in common with James Bond, himself a frequent returner from the dead and persistent bearer of loss after loss, and who, on this occasion, is fresh from burying Olivia Mansfield, his mentor and the most fucked-up version of a mother figure that Felix has ever had the dubious honor of meeting.

Instead, Felix says, “I’ll have you know that not all of the founding fathers liked the idea of having the eagle on the seal of the United States. Benjamin Franklin hated it because they steal fish from other birds of prey. He hated it so fucking much he wrote a letter to his daughter calling the bald eagle a ‘bird of bad moral character’ that was incapable of making an honest living.”

Bond is laughing, then, his eyes wrinkling at the corners in the way Felix loves best, and after a quick check to make sure there’s no homophobic prick with a hunting license waiting in the scrub to shoot them, he leans in to kiss him. Bond’s lips are warm and chapped and familiar against Felix’s own, and Felix pours everything Bond won’t let him say into the kiss. He likes Bond like this, sweaty and slightly rumpled in clothing he’s borrowed from Felix, far away from the demands of Queen and country and all the ghosts he’s refused to bury. He more than likes him like this, he’s afraid, but that’s a problem for another day.

After a moment, Bond breaks the kiss and lifts the binoculars again, looking for the eagle.

“I’ve revised my opinion,” Bond says. “He’s a majestic bastard, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Felix says, “yeah, he is,” and affectionate fool that he is, he isn’t even pretending to look at the bird.

Title comes from the Tennyson poem "The Eagle."

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Heavy Harry At North Melbourne: Fat Bastard (TW: Fatphobia, Misgendering, Coarse Language)

This next story was actually a conglomerate of a bunch of IRL incidences to do with VR H220; it really did push a VR D3 pilot once he got started up (they really aren't small locos), it really did keep falling off the track at North Melbourne Locomotive Depot...

And the VR Commission really did insist in newspapers in the public calling it "Healthy Hilda" and "Hungry Harriet" in spite of the public knowing the loco as 'Heavy Harry', because they thought all locomotives were intrinsically feminine and had to be that way.

And to make fun of its' weight and coal consumption.

(It kind of hits particularly hard that the VR chose a feminine name for the loco specifically to mock its weight and coal consumption...)

Lord knows why it was that important to the VR that a loco had a name of its choosing and to seemingly make their brand spanking new passenger locomotive ripe for ridicule...

(The Victorian public gravitated to "Heavy Harry" in a kind of proto-"Boaty McBoatface" thing a newspaper did, reporting that the loco was called that by workers during the construction phase after a particularly hefty Newport Workshop builder, sometime around late 1940 and it took off spectacularly...

H220 is still "Heavy Harry" today, still very often referred to by male pronouns in railway literature, common parlance and newspapers.

Whether as "Hilda" is very rarely used outside of gunzel circles).

And it would have probably given rise to the kind of gross and immature schoolyard namecalling in the story had locos-with-faces existed.

Heavy Harry At North Melbourne: Fat Bastard

The biggest locomotive in the Victorian Railways (indeed the whole of Australia), VR H-class Pocono H220 “Heavy Harry” was normally shedded at his home Works at Newport and at Seymour when he needed his third cylinder looked at or a train to pull from there; but a lot of the time, his duties had him being shedded at the Big Smoke, otherwise known as the North Melbourne Locomotive Depot, also known as Norf Yards. He hated being at Norf.

Not only was it musty, filthy, cramped, difficult to maneuver about and full of North Melbourne Kangaroos-supporting locos that gave him shit on the regular (like the majority of Australians, he was football mad. He was Essendon Football Club to the frames and those two Clubs despised one another), he kept falling off the track in the yard. It was too light for his enormous self and was not kept up well.

The fact it seemed to happen every week, and there, of all places, was a source of embarrassment, and the other locos would make it about his heft and weight.

To pile on the mortification, the VR Commission decided publicly in the newspapers that he was supposed to be called “Healthy Hilda” and “Hungry Harriet” rather than “Heavy Harry”; due to his supposed excess coal consumption and the supposed fact that all engines were supposed to be feminine, and to further make fun of his weight.

And insisted on this over and over again.

This went over well in the Yard… 

Great.

Give me a girl's name and then set me up to make fun of me for it…

Why?

My name is my name!

And this, “Hungry Harriet”?

I can’t help eating the amount of coal that I need to run…

I can’t help being 260 tonnes.

They made me this way.

They literally made me this way.

Why do I have to be here? 

I would prefer to be in a tin shed at Ararat or Moe or bloody Sleepy Hollow (Geelong) than this shit heap…

“Buck up, Harry!” his liege, VR A2 No 986 “Pluto” would say, rather unsympathetically, “Stop complaining and just sledge the arseholes back!”

“Who broke all the tracks?

Who broke all the tracks?

That fat bastard, 

That fat bastard,

He broke all the tracks!”

He continued going about his duties none the less, with returned sledging every bit as venomous as the one he copped. He had no choice but to endure it until he could next go to Seymour or Newport, or anywhere but Norf.

One particular day was extremely annoying and brought on a particularly venomous mood. He’d fallen off the track and a crane was pulling him back to the rails. A smart alecky VR D3 named Albert chuffed past the carnage while he was shunting coaches and trucks in the yard and thought it would be funny to sledge Harry while he was down.

“GET BACK ON HILDA, YOU FAT FUCK!” he yelled.

“GET OUT OF IT, YOU LITTLE SHIT!’

YOUR DEPOT IS SHIT AND YOUR TRACK IS SHIT!

YOU’RE SHIT...  AND YOU KNOW YOU ARE!” barked Harry, not in the mood for it.

“RUBBISH! 

YOU’RE TOO FAT! 

YOU NEED EXERCISE!” rejoined Albert, smugly.

Albert got some applause from the other locos and felt pleased with himself, knowing Harry could not do anything. Harry brooded as he was reset on the track and inspected all over for damage.

Those arsehole Norf locos really sang that ‘Mother Brown’ based ditty with gusto after that particular derailing…

“Who broke all the tracks?

Who broke all the tracks?

That fat bastard, 

That fat bastard,

He broke all the tracks!”

He brooded in his berth after he returned from the Border run, burning with particular spite.

Often, because he was so huge, he was a bit slow to start moving, so a pilot would be required.

(Cue in more abuse…)

Some time later, Albert piloted him all the way up to Seymour, and he was feeling extremely smug about it. He decided unwisely to rub yet more salt into Harry’s bruised ego.

“What’s the matter, Hungry Harriet? Too fat to pick up speed?”, he chuckled.

Harry was very, very angry at him from the earlier incident and had gotten a good fire raging about half of the way to Seymour; it was then he really got going. He pushed all three of his cylinders into the effort of bumping hard into the tender of the D3 and just keep pushing...

The relatively smaller engine on the front realized this and started to get scared. He was not a small engine, being about comparable to a British Black Five in size, but Harry was still just pushing him along picking up speed and power. Then as he vaulted forward on Harry’s momentum, he realized he had no control whatsoever. Albert squealed as Harry surged and began crying, “Stop! Stop!”.

“Oh, but I can’t! I’m too much of a fat fuck to stop! Once a fat fuck gets going, you know they can’t stop!” mocked Harry as he pushed the engine forward. His three-part exhaust beat sounded hideous, like the triple barking of Cerberus the hellhound. He looked feral, he looked angry glowering over the D3s cab. The driver could see his snarling visage, the D3 could only imagine it.

As his speed increased, Albert shook in terror wondering if Harry was going to climb right over and crush him. Just to add to the fear, Harry would make as if he would, surging and then receding.

‘Ohhhhh thank you for recommending exercise! I’m really feeling the burn right about now! Ha ha ha! ‘Burn’, get it?” he taunted as he continued to push Albert up the line. He made a particularly hard shove after this.

Oh help! I’m about to be murdered by a pun-spouting bastard!

This continued down the line, Harry pushing and Albert trying not to get climbed over. Harry kept tittering and making jokes. Albert tried to keep pace in order to not get crushed by the 260 tonne monster and his 800 tonne consist behind him.

Thankfully Seymour was getting close by, Harry slowed on the approach and they decoupled. He raced ahead and scooted off into a siding, while Harry continued to thunder down the line on to Albury. 

Harry rudely blew-down boiler piss at him from his blowdown cylinder cocks in a final insulting gesture as he passed Albert in his siding and picked up speed as he continued his run. Albert quivered in his siding wreathed in Harry’s foul boiler spray and waited for him to disappear and for the earth to stop moving.

As soon as the earth gradually grew still, Albert’s driver and fireman climbed out of the cab. Fireman walked around to see if there was any damage, and Driver went to the front to speak to him.

“Are you OK, lad?”, said he, pulling out a cigarette.

“Driver, why did you let him push me…”, he whimpered.

The D3’s driver glared at him.

“Do you know about the principle of inertia, boy?”

The blank look on his grey face betrayed his ignorance.

“To put it simply, the bigger something is, the harder it is to stop once it gets moving. You understand?”

Albert blinked as if to signal his comprehension of this concept.

“You goaded Harry when he was on the ground at the Depot and that got him good and mad enough to have a big stock of angry inertia along with his big self… and when you taunted him some more on the way up, he really got going and he would have been impossible to stop!’

‘If I had thrown the brake to try and stop, not only would have not stopped at all, Harry would have climbed over us… killing me and Fireman and you, and then tipping over himself, possibly killing his own crew and throwing the consist behind him everywhere…’

“Try explaining this to the Thin Commissioner!”

“This is why when someone is angry at you over something you fully know you did, you silly great engine… and you are in no place to argue with them about it, you let them get on with it and then find a graceful exit… you don’t argue, you don’t act stubborn, you don’t goad them further… you find an exit and get the fuck out of the way…”

“But he pushed me…”, the shaken engine burbled.

'Didn't you hear a word I said?!’

“Once all that bullshit started, there is not a force on earth that would have got him to stop! You shouldn’t have been so eager to please your mates by picking on the giant fucking Newport bastard! And then when the time came to pilot him, you shouldn’t have picked on him further… that all could have been very, very fucking bad!”

Albert sat on the siding, contemplating all this; a sadder and wiser engine, while Driver had a smoke.

Harry was still angry as he stormed up the North Eastern line; his figurative blood was up, burning up the track to the Border. Making the earth shake felt so good; it reminded everyone that he was Heavy Harry, and no other name; the ultimate Fat Bastard himself, and to get the fuck out of his way. 

Humans clung to lamp posts, buildings shook and the ballast trembled as he ran full tilt down the line.

You little smart arse… Fuck You. I hope you dream of getting crushed by me for the remainder of your days. 

I hope you dream of the Devil and wake in fright…

The locomotives at Norf heard about it and were terrified beyond imagining and said not a word about it.

But a voice started up the usual chant...

“Who broke all the tracks?

Who broke all the tracks?

That fat bastard, 

THAT FAT BASTARD,

I BROKE ALL THE TRACKS!”

No one joined in.

[bettsfic]

Ahhh you watch hotd? I would love to hear a little Betts Review™ favorite characters/ships any thoughts like that!!

i like hotd the way i think non-fanpeople interact with media. i enjoy it a lot, i watch it every week, i don't think about it at all when it's not directly in front of me. that's not a bad thing. it's just that hotd is almost too smooth for me to grasp onto. there's a kind of technical acuity to it that i admire a lot but that doesn't engender any feelings beyond being entertained.

if there were maybe an ounce more affection between any two characters i might be inspired to have a ship, but otherwise there's just no love anywhere. like Alicent and Criston would usually be catnip for me, but there's just too much angst, and Criston's internal turmoil of loyalty is just a step to the left of my interests. he has loyalty devoid of devotion, if that makes sense. to me it seems like he only fucks Alicent, he doesn't love her. but i guess that's up to interpretation. if he's ever put in a position where he has to choose between Alicent and his Hand duties, and he chooses Alicent, i'll become way more invested. i need less Hand, more breadcrumbs of femdom/guard dog.

i remember i liked him a lot more last season but i can't remember why. i had a fic idea at some point for an Alicent/Criston modern AU. surely i have notes about it somewhere. but this season hasn't inspired me to revisit that idea.

Aemond is really growing on me, particularly his relationship with uh, that one lady whose name i don't remember. if he starts showing evidence of goodness or redemption, or if his relationship with the lady starts driving his actions rather than spite and ambition, i could see myself really vibing with him. but a lot of this show is wrapped up in spite and ambition and greed and power, and those things are fun to watch but don't really make me feel anything.

i also like Aegon a lot, but mostly because he's being meow meow'd in the plot and i recently rewatched Dunkirk where i like that actor's character far more, and can kind of plant the latter onto the former to trick myself into caring more about him. (and that little "mummy." there's promise there.)

i used to like Daemon and Rhaenyra but the second a character chooses themselves and their individual desires over someone they love, i completely lose interest. Daemon wants the throne. i can't empathize with that kind of drive for power and so i just can't make myself care.

but! i do like Rhaenyra. her desire for the throne is a little more interesting to me because she's seeking peace and not power. it's a real shame that they divided Rhaenyra and Alicent because theirs is the most interesting relationship to me and they also have great chemistry. (spoilers ahead) i think the most engaged i've been all season is their scene together. if Rhaenyra and Alicent ever start working together against a common enemy, and they do it willingly, without a mass of angst, or at least move toward repairing their relationship, i'll be insane about that.

honest to god my favorite thing about the show is that 10-minute breakdown at the end of every episode. i'm very fascinated by the behind-the-scenes stuff because a lot of very smart and talented people are making it and i think there's a lot to be learned there. also i almost always prefer the story about the story than the story itself. i'm saving the behind the scenes series for after the season is over.

tl;dr there's a lot of potential for me to become fannishly interested if some of the things that are being set up come to fruition. if someone has a really juicy modern AU rec for me with any of my go-to relationship dynamics (submissive guard dogs, mommy issues, i'm trying to think of a third thing but that pretty much covers it), i'm all ears.

[morganaseren]

Oh, this is going to get really long, but I’m gonna copy and paste some scenes from my ongoing Niamh/Leliana fic here. Josephine (and much of Skyhold actually) has been under the assumption that Bethany has been dating Niamh this entire time, which is why she feels so guilty about her infatuation. In reality, both mages are merely great friends, but one of Niamh’s love languages is acts of service, so her kindness toward Bethany is often misconstrued to be more romantic than it actually is. 😂

Bethany’s also a Circle Mage in my canonical run through the games, but I have this headcanon with a friend, where she ends up taking in a lot of the mage children who were otherwise abandoned after the Circle of Magi was dissolved. Aerwyn seen in the section below is one of those children.

Other than that, please do enjoy, friend!

---

(From Chapter 22)

“There’s nothing of sensitive nature in there?”

“Regarding the Inquisition? No,” Josephine assured before giggling somewhat. “Those are actually the latest in a series of marriage proposals sent to Lady Cousland.”

The revelation managed to startle a laugh out of Bethany, the bridge of the woman’s nose crinkling endearingly with the sound. “Are they truly? I didn't realize she received so many of them.”

“As the Inquisition’s reputation grows, so, too, does the infamy of the woman at its head,” Josephine replied. Given the subject matter, however, she also felt the need to reassure her, hastily adding, “Ah, but she’s shown no real interest in any case. It’s simply common courtesy to return a response even if it is one of declination.”

“I see.” Bethany didn’t seem to be the least bit concerned if the amusement still dancing within her amber eyes was any indication.

“Unfortunately, some suitors aren’t willing to give up so easily. Aerwyn’s making a note of any repeat senders, who may need a bit of gentle persuasion on my part to draw their attention elsewhere.”

“Ah. Well, I’m sure Niamh appreciates it. She often credits you for keeping the Inquisition afloat.”

Josephine blinked at the claim. “Does she?”

Bethany gestured to the doorway leading out into the main hall. “I would think the many visiting dignitaries speak for themselves. As she’s often away for so long to perform the duties necessary of her, the mantle of administration must fall to someone else in her absence. I’m sure it’s quite the burdensome responsibility at times, but you handle it with such grace and poise.” The woman’s smile was as warm as the fire burning in the hearth. “While I’m not familiar with the workings of noble houses, given the public’s heretical view of the Inquisition back then, I can only imagine you joined as its ambassador at great cost to yourself. Niamh considers you quite the courageous woman in that regard. As such, she’s come to very much value your presence here.”

“Oh, my,” she exhaled, blushing in spite of herself, the list of praises causing her to momentarily forget her worries with the House of Repose—the cost in trying to restore her family’s name.

She originally had her reservations when Leliana approached her a year ago with the position. The organization hadn’t been used in nearly a thousand years, and its revival implied the very foundations of Thedas would be shaken to its core. The ongoing Templar-Mage war then had stressed a paramount need for change—one she would have been honored to assist with.

But the death of the Divine had come as a blow to everyone—Leliana most of all.

For a time, Josephine had feared what would become of them without a leader, and—as if in answer—Niamh had come to them in aid even when so many had considered her such a polarizing figure.

As such, Josephine had always resolved to do her own part in helping Niamh as best as she could, networking to rally alliances that stretched from end of Thedas to the other. The scope of the idea alone was unlike any she had ever faced before, and given what the magnitude of the consequences were if they failed, she could not hesitate in bringing all her skills to bare.

“Lady Cousland is much too kind,” Josephine insisted. “If that is true, it is only because she has made my job a great deal easier. The Cousland name has a vast reach in Ferelden, and her history with King Alistair and Queen Anora has already proven fruitful in turning many ears to our cause. That’s not to say anything of her own skill for diplomacy. Truly, of all the organizational leaders I’ve had the pleasure of being acquainted with over the years, Lady Cousland is uniquely singular.”

Granted, although she had proven herself to be an adept leader, it had taken Niamh some time longer to fully accept her position as Inquisitor. As often as Leliana had spoken of her in the past, Niamh was a woman who preferred working well out of the attention of others—sharing much in common with Leliana in that respect—offering suggestions whenever her tactical expertise was called for, but in all her life, she was never the one who gave the orders until her role as head of the Inquisition required it.

Niamh understood the need to keep their people safe, which was likely her own incentive in tempering her many decisions accordingly. Of that, Josephine was beyond thankful. She had no doubt that one less acclimated to the role would have seen it as a stepping stone to power and affluence, using both to meet their own needs regardless of the consequences.

Leliana had said Niamh was brilliant beyond compare, and Jospehine had no reason to argue against the claim, especially given the ample results the woman had brought to them thus far. At the war table, she was ever methodical in every part of the planning process, fine-tuning everything down to the last detail—so much so that she often wondered just how many moves Niamh was ahead of their enemies at any given time.

“I’m sure Niamh will be pleased to know that you hold her in equal esteem,” Bethany said. “In any case, it's time Aerwyn and I must meet with the others down in the training grove, but I thank you for allowing her the opportunity to help again today.”

“Not at all. She is a pleasure to have, Lady Hawke,” she said, turning to look at Aerwyn, who was already stacking the letters away neatly to continue accounting them for another time. Josephine smiled.

She truly was such a diligent girl.

Perhaps once the matter with Corypheus was well and truly settled—and if Bethany was amenable to the idea—she could look into some schools to send Aerwyn to if she truly had an interest in politics. While there was the unfortunate possibility she would still be looked down upon for being a mage, Niamh’s deeds across Thedas were steadily changing the way in how they were being recognized in society.

If nothing else, Josephine could at least send tutors Aerwyn’s way to help further hone her talents. She could already see such a bright future ahead for her.

“Please, just Bethany,” the other woman insisted then, bringing Josephine out of her musings. Her smile was genial. “I’m not one for formalities, especially outside of an official setting.”

Ah. Something she shares in common with her sister then. Still, she nodded in acquiescence. “Very well, but then I must insist you call me Josephine. It would only be fair.”

The other woman seemed to mull the matter over thoughtfully before nodding. “Josephine then.”

Josephine's fingers inadvertently danced a staccato beat over the thin shaft of her quill as the soft, Fereldan accent rolled on the syllables of her name. That had been… unexpected. Oh, dear… she thought in dread even as she affixed her mask of diplomacy into place, sending both Bethany and Aerwyn off with a smile as they took their leave.

It was only when she was alone that she leaned back heavily in her chair with a sigh. She supposed it made a great deal of sense that the woman Niamh was romantically-interested in could be just as kind and charming—qualities Josephine was not immune to unfortunately.

It’s just a small infatuation, she assured herself. It will disappear in time like all the others.

---

(From Chapter 24)

While challenging at times, she still found joy in her work, and it was well worth the occasional aches and pains she found herself in toward the end of the day. Josephine rolled her shoulders back to try and ease the discomfort she could feel settling between them even as she heard knocking at her door.

“Come in.”

“Josephine?”

As the voice registered to her ears, her smile came effortlessly to her lips, excitement coursing through her veins where there had only been fatigue and discomfort before. “Bethany!” she greeted before beckoning her further within her office. “Please do come in!” Her brows knitted in concern then, especially as her gaze idly drifted to the empty table before her hearth. She bit her lip before returning her gaze to the other woman. “I hope Aerwyn’s been faring well since we last spoke.”

Josephine knew the young mage had fallen ill not long after the archery contest some days ago. Bethany had come to inform her of the fact. While Josephine had fared well in her duties prior to Aerwyn expressing interest to help, she had missed the girl’s consistent presence in her office along with the exuberant, eager questions she offered her.

Or perhaps you missed the woman who would always come to retrieve her later, a treacherous part of her mind spoke but she allowed none of it to show visibly on her features, offering only a consoling expression.

“Oh, she’s fine,” Bethany reassured but there was little missing the rolling of those amber eyes, which reminded Josephine of the sweetest honey even with the fond exasperation currently laced through them. She gave a long-suffering sigh. “I can’t help but believe Emrys’ antics have somehow influenced her own. It’s been difficult to convince Aerwyn to stay in bed and recuperate as she needs to. She’s been so upset that she hasn’t been able to come by and assist you.”

“Ah,” Josephine intoned softly in understanding. “Well, do tell her that I wish she only focus on her recovery and that her ails leave her soon. She needn’t worry about her position as my assistant if that’s what troubling her.” She smiled. “It will still be here if she desires to return to it but only when she’s ready and able, of course.”

Bethany laughed lightly then, and Josephine couldn’t help but notice how those eyes seemed to be pinch subtly in their corners with the merry sound. “I’m sure it will be a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ with her, but I’ll be certain to pass the message along. I—” Honey-brown eyes darted briefly to the letters atop her desk. “—hope I haven’t come at an inopportune time. I don’t mean to disturb you if you’re busy at any rate.”

“Oh! Not at all!” she was quick to assuage. Josephine leaned back in her chair with some chagrin, especially with the way her upper back seemed to protest the minor movement. “If anything, I am perhaps more in need of a break than I thought. What can I do for you?”

“Oh, there was nothing I needed actually. I’ve been meaning to drop something off for you, but between my sister, who is very much trouble and chaos personified,” she remarked, murmuring the last few words dryly in an aside before continuing, “and Aerwyn taking ill the last few days atop my usual duties of looking after the children, it’s managed to slip my mind. Here. For you.”

At movement, Josephine’s vision fell to where she could see Bethany holding up a flower crown to her attention. Shocked at the unexpected gift, she could do nothing but upturn her palms as it was gently placed atop them. The vibrant yellow of the Arrowhead Balsamroot were the most prominent feature throughout the accessory while the broader leaves of the white Heartleaf Bittercrest served as a suitable contrast, appearing at even intervals like precious diamonds. The stems interconnecting the flowers were a healthy green, and Josephine couldn’t help but awe over the intricate, decorative knots, reminiscent of studded jewels upon a ring’s band.  

“Oh, how lovely!” she gushed beyond delight as she turned the flower crown about carefully in her hands, admiring all the fine details. “Did one of the children make this?”

“No, I did.”

Josephine’s heart stuttered in her chest at the admission, and she looked up, stunned in more ways than one, especially as the rays of the late afternoon seemed to burnish the beauty of the woman across from her, who saw fit to grace her with a resplendent smile. For a moment, she found herself utterly speechless—an admittedly rare moment, given her line of work.

“You… you did?”

“Well, there was an excess of flowers from what the children picked on the day of the archery contest, and I didn’t wish for them all to go to waste. I thought the colors for these would best pair against your hair and eyes.”

Josephine resisted the urge to reach up and touch one of the dark curls hanging alongside her cheek. She chided herself for even wanting to. She wasn’t a schoolgirl with a crush like she’d been in her youth. She was an acclaimed ambassador renowned across either side of the Waking Sea as well as the chief diplomat for the Inquisition!

And yet she felt the light, buoyant feeling taking residence happily within her.

There was a simple beauty to the flower crown that she couldn’t help but appreciate. Even the model ship displayed so proudly on the bookshelf behind Josephine containing her family’s old crest—an invaluable item that had been discovered between Niamh’s and Leliana’s respective findings from an idle comment she’d made so long ago—seemed to pale in comparison. At the time, she had almost been convinced that nothing had ever seemed so priceless to her. In the present, however, Josephine shyly ducked her head as she ran a thumb over a knotted stem.

“And you said these were picked on the day of the archery contest?” She had expected the flowers to become wilted since then or at least lost some of their vivacious color. Carefully touching a petal, she could feel how soft and supple it felt between her fingers, as if it had still had been freshly-picked.

“Ah. Well, Niamh helped in that regard using some of her new abilities,” Bethany admitted, turning her gaze skyward, as if drawing upon an old memory. “She said something about… encapsulating the energy still within the flowers so that it would simply circulate back upon themselves rather than being released into the atmosphere.” She shrugged as she nodded back toward the flower crown. “It seems to have held up just fine within the past week; I certainly haven’t noticed much of a difference other than its continued longevity.”

“How remarkable.”

“Isn’t it?” Bethany seemed to beam, pleased. “She always finds such interesting ways to use her magic, which has certainly benefitted me here against my absentmindedness.”

“And you wish to give this to me?” she couldn’t help but ask, but the other woman simply nodded.

“Yes. You’ve been most kind to the children and I, and I thought to extend a token of my appreciation, small though it might be.”

Bethany had left not long afterward upon hearing some commotion in the main hall from several of her children—something regarding “not sharing” from the sounds of it—but not before tossing another warm smile over her shoulder along with a wave of goodbye, which Josephine had returned with a bashful fluttering of her fingers. As she was left alone, however, she continued to stare at the gift in her hands.

She had received flowers before by their resident Warden, but they and the wooden trinkets Blackwall had thought to bestow upon her had never sent her heart hammering like this. Gingerly, she sat the crown atop her head, and as she did, she couldn’t help but smile, entertaining innocent fantasies and of the things that could have been if she had perhaps met Bethany earlier in life.

Or, rather, if she had been able to meet her before Niamh had.

Josephine sighed with longing as she took up her quill once more to finish the rest of her work to the sounds of the gentle flames crackling in her fireplace—ones that could almost match the heat flaring within her heart.

@morganaseren: i would be downright DELIGHTED if you did, because this ship is WONDERFUL, i can't believe i only wrote it once or twice

[vryfmi]

ok, back to overanalysing all the content that we have for now

first things first: rapier. not going to lie or sugar-coat it but i didn't like what we've seen. warding off a ghost looks absolutely nothing like fencing, not to mention it comes from Lockwood, a character famous for his swordplay, skill, different techniques like patterns and turns. non present.

anyway, can we talk about smears that they've added? what in cgi is this and why is this exactly what i had expected from them? all in good sense because it looks so dynamic, makes action stand out. especially the second example. Lockwood's not swaying it way too fast but there's still a clearly visible smear on the rapier.

i have a feeling there will be more of such effects (fingers crossed for talents' visualisations being done like spider-sense).

secondly, Annie Ward's ghost either screams (with distortion and such) "Lucy" in the very beginning right after Netflix's logo or im going crazy which is also possible.

thirdly, characters are awfully underdressed for ghost-hunting where temperature usually drops to 5 degrees centigrade. i've already had a feeling that there'll be a ghost overhaul judging by Cornish’s interview:

it seems like not only will different types have different approaches in dealing with, but also the classification will change. instead of two common types and the third being something of a legend there seems to be three main types in new ghost's taxonomy and one unclassified. or interview is very out of context and has some poorly interpreted information.

the cold that ghosts radiate could've been removed or made less extreme in favour of seeing more of actors and not a tone of clothing which not only limits acting and some action but also probably messes with on spot sound recording. alas, i really liked that aspect of books and ghost hunting, not to mention how effective it is in setting the other side.

fourthly, Lockwood and Lucy act a lot closer than their book counterparts. and no, i don't mean it in locklyle way. what has been striking to me about the books is how distant agents feel from each other. i always thought of it as a tragic reminder that these children die on duty and getting this attached to your colleges won't serve you any good. but here they cover one another, call for each other in distressed situation and even Lockwood giving his hand in Lucy's rescue makes their team look a lot more caring and adequate (at least until they burn a house).

in books as soon as ghost launched at Lucy, Lockwood started warding it off and pursuing once it's started retreating. he checked on her when the danger was gone but even their dialog was different. Lucy was angry with herself, how she dropped the rapier - the worst possible thing an agent could do in this situation. on Lockwood's questions about her wellbeing she answers briefly. where in the teaser Lucy got clearly very scared. not only she became a ghost's target but she was hanging over a few meters drop, and she's afraid of heights. now to Lockwood's question Lucy answers without spitting out the words, she tries to regain her cool and gives a bit of a sarcasm instead. and yet, it's not spiteful, it's more of a relief of tension with her feet finally firmly on the ground.

[adorerdraco]

Whole Lot of Red ✧ Draco x Reader

Summary: Sneaky meet ups with Draco where nobody knows the two of you have a thing for the other until the day he sees someone flirting with you and lets his jealousy get the best of him. AU where its around seventh year and Voldermort never existed so Draco never got traumatized !

Warnings: light smut/hinted smut, jealous/possessive-ish Draco, a little more mature themes 

Words: 1.8K

A/N: aging him UP for this one ! and making draco a tad rude bc the way i picture it is just WOW also i like to try to change up the way i write him sometimes :) also couldn’t find this gif anywhere so if it looks low quality its bc i made it >:( i want so badly for him to walk up to me like thaaaat anyways I HOPE THIS IS GOOD

It was a funny thing, feelings, and the way they blossomed in places they had no business being in. Those very specific stomach churning butterflies and skipped heartbeats were unmistakably there every time you found yourself in the Slytherin Prince’s presence. It was a shame really, you had never even given him the time of day prior to the time you were forced to work on a Charms project together but now here you were; completely and undeniably entranced by him. 

Your group of y/h friends and you were gathered in the foyer outside the Great Hall, the doors wide open and welcoming students for the lunch that was going to be served in just a few minutes. Your friends were lost in conversation and you couldn’t be happier as your focus darted around the room hoping to spot the platinum mop of hair.

Out of sheer coincidence, a boisterous group of Slytherins had entered the foyer from the direction of the dungeons, all talking loudly and jokingly pushing each other as they came into view. Your eyes landed on the laughing blond in the middle, his toothy grin almost twinkling under the sunlight that streamed in through the large medieval windows. His gaze wandered around the room for a moment before stopping on you, the smile on his face morphing into a smug knowing smirk. 

A shivering weakness shot up your legs, your heart doing somersaults in your stomach as you recalled the previous night. It involved you sneaking out of the common room to meet Draco in a dark and hidden corner of the castle in the dead hours of night, his Prefect duties long finished and a looming fear of getting caught by Filch. It was you being backed into said corner, his body flush against your quivering one, a strong hand clamped tightly over your mouth to muffle the whimpers that unwillingly left your mouth as his lips left trails of wet kisses along the exposed skin of your neck and chest. It was his knee in between your legs, pushing you harder against the wall as your hands got tangled in his hair while he held your face in place by your jaw, whispering compliments and desires into your ear with kisses to it in between, smiling coyly to himself when he heard the small gasps of pleasure coming from you.

All this was because of a simple charms project, the two of you forced to spend a couple weeks together where it was constant bickering and malicious teasing until the tension between the two of you had gotten so overwhelmingly strong it was suffocating. It had gotten so unbearable that one day, Draco finally had enough as you were reading something out of your textbook for him, suddenly knocking it out of your hands and scooting closer to you on the shared bench, his minty breath hot against your face and darkening gray eyes flickering from your lips to your widened e/c’s as he whispered a breathless, “can I kiss you?” 

Post study make out sessions quickly turned into sneaking away from friends throughout the day which finally led into slipping out of common rooms to meet at night. No one ever noticed nor caught on to the two of you, the both of you keeping it a secret so you wouldn’t have to deal with people’s undesired two cents. 

As much as you enjoyed the hands on affection, you found yourself liking the intimacy afterwards even more. You looked forward to sitting down somewhere with him, his arms wrapped warmly around your body as you asked about each other’s day that branched out into talking about anything and everything. You would skip back to your room afterwards, smiling from ear to ear with your head in the clouds until one day it dawned on you; you were in a sticky situation of constantly wondering “what are we?”

You never dared to ask him though, terrified of his answer and that he would leave you in the dust for even bringing it up. In all your years at Hogwarts, you’ve never seen Draco with a girlfriend, he was the most well-known boy at school, an arrogant and proud Slytherin, a skilled quidditch seeker, and an irresistible flirt. But never having the title of ‘the boyfriend’, despite the countless girls that hung off his arms nearly begging for his attention.

“Y/N,” your friend broke you out of your thoughts, a sly smile on her face as she elbowed your side. “Your little friend is headed this way.”

You looked at her in confusion, turning your attention towards the tall Gryffindor, Trevor, that was walking towards your small group, a bright smile on his face as his eyes stayed trained on you. Your friends giggled teasingly, already knowing what his presence would ensue. He was nice, but annoying as he relentlessly flirted with you every time you had your Transfigurations class with him. You just chose to ignore him even though he always ended up sitting next to you or around you no matter how many times you moved. He was someone who you complained restlessly about to your group which caused them to laugh and poke fun every time he would come up to you around them.

“Y/L/N!” He said happily, attempting to give you a hug as he came up to you which you only begrudgingly returned with a lazy side hug. He took your hand, leading you a few feet away from your group so he could talk to you privately. “I was wondering if you wanted to meet up at the library after lunch to study for our test later this week?”

“Oh,” you trailed off, trying to come up with an excuse but in the midst of your thoughts you remembered you had already made plans with Draco. Speaking of, you had forgotten he was only across the room, unbeknownst to you that he was staring hard at you and your classmate. “I’m busy today.”

“How about after tomorrow?” He asked again hopefully. “We can even go to Hogsmeade after, butterbeers on me!”

You frowned slightly, knowing that this was not a friendly collegiate conversation, but another ploy to try and get you to go out with him. His attempts were increasing week by week and you denied him every single time yet he never got the hint.

“Still busy,” you smiled at him, hoping that if you were to appear nice, it would soften the continuous blow of rejection.

“I’m not going to stop asking until you say yes,” he sighs, hands slipping into the pockets of his robe as he longingly looked down at you. “You might as well give in.”

His hand came up towards your hair, a skinny finger brushing through a strand of your hair as he pulled a small fluff of lint from your robes before flicking it into the air. You stood frozen in place, the gesture being painstakingly too much for your comfort and borderline creepy coming from him.

Draco felt himself shake with anger, the sight of you smiling at the Gryffindor and that he was running his fingers through your hair made his blood boil. Greeting the git with a hug. You being led away from your friends by your hand. He hated the sight. The thought of any man other than him being so close to you made him feel sick to his stomach, a rage sparking from deep within him he never even knew existed. He watched as you looked up at the boy above you, a weird expression on your face that instantly let him know you were uncomfortable.

That was it for him. He was seeing red as he threw his schoolbooks into Crabbe’s hands, pushing aggressively past a pair of boys that were in his way as he power walked towards you and your classmate.

“Didn’t you ever learn to keep your hands to yourself?” Draco called out condescendingly in his haughty accent, his scowl deepening as he approached. Trevor’s head snapped towards Draco, a frown etching itself onto his face.

“Sod off, Malfoy,” Trevor sneered. “Go find someone else to bother.”

“Take your own advice, filth,” Draco shot back.

“Filth? You’re one to talk,” the Gryffindor chortled. By now, everyone within a few feet of the debacle was watching, entertained at the argument that was beginning to unfold, your friends and Draco’s goons staring oddly at the encounter. You only stood there, looking between both boys towering over you in a daze that left you paralyzed in your spot. You were so close to telling off Trevor before Draco came, feeling grateful at your delayed reaction now that he was there defending you.

“I’m not going to ask you again,” Draco threatened, stepping in between you and Trevor as he spoke. “Leave Y/N alone, or I swear you’ll regret it.”

“Why? You think she’d pick you over me?” He snickered. “We’ll see who’s the one feeling regretful when you find her making that decision.”

By now, Trevor had stepped up to the spiteful Slytherin, getting in his face with a patronizing smile. Draco’s face twisted up in anger as his temper got worse, shoving his competition back with the side of his forearm, feeling satisfied when Trevor stumbled back.

“Funny,” he laughed darkly, “I seem to remember her already making that decision every single day while we’re snogging.”

Multiple gasps can be heard throughout the foyer, including your own as you gaped up at the blond, his eyes staying focused on Trevor as he looked taken aback.

“You trying to say she’s your girlfriend?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Your legs nearly gave out below you at his response. This was everything you had been hoping for recently, except not like this. But that still didn’t stop you from feeling giddy, however, the bliss of his revelation filling your entire body with glee. The ‘what are we?’ question being ripped from your mind with relief.

“Is that true?” Trevor asks you, a devastated look glazing over his eyes as you slowly nodded. He gives Draco one more pointed look, bumping shoulders with him before he stalked off into the Great Hall in a rush, everyone scattering around to go inside as well now that the show was over.

Draco turned to peer down at you, fury draining from his body as he admired you. He cupped your cheek, leaning down and placing a soft kiss on the opposite side of your face before whispering hotly into your ear.

“If he tries anything with you again, let me know and I swear I’ll deal with him,” he pulls back from you, smiling at you innocently. “I’ll see you later, darling.”

And with that, he sends you a wink, turning around to saunter over to his eager minions while your friends immediately rush towards you with a million questions that you would inevitably have to answer. This was not at all how you expected the day to turn out, not in the slightest.

[sondepoch]

One Night (Marius x Reader)

Teaching a Billionaire to Touch Grass (And a Minimum Wage Worker to Treat Herself)

Marius clicks his tongue in annoyance, both at you and the cars around him. Why are there so many people on the road at 2:38 in the morning? Why did the GPS's projected time to get to your home just double? Why is the universe out to get him today, on the one night Marius thought he could catch a break?

“Okay,” he seethes, drumming his fingers on the wheel as the traffic around him grows impossible slower. He doesn’t look at you as he speaks. “We’re going to talk about how inappropriate this was.”

“I—I’m really sorry, Sir, I—”

“I’m not asking for an apology.” Maybe he is, actually. Marius is too pissed to be sure. “What I want to know is why you thought it was okay to call me, of all people.”

MASTERLIST

The car is silent. 

As Marius gets inside, he thinks that this might be the first time he’s not opening the passenger door seat for a lady partner, the first time he’s allowed himself to stalk straight into the driver's seat and angrily wait for his passenger to enter on their own.

Actually, he thinks, this is also the first time in years that he's actually driving. The first time someone managed to call for him so late that even his chauffeur was off-duty.

“I’m really sorry about this, Sir,” you mumble as you climb into the seat next to him, apologies never halting as you ramble on and on and on like an idiot who can't read a room. “I, ah, didn’t think this would happen, I'm so…”

Marius ignores you.

He glances out the passenger window and catches Darius Morgan’s equally-annoyed gaze. Seriously? the man seems to be asking, an unimpressed look crossed over his face as he eyes you through the car window. I don’t fucking know, Marius’s gaze says back, and he shakes his head the slightest as he starts the car.

“What’s your address?” he asks, interrupting your apologies. Propriety should make him feel somewhat embarrassed over the way he's acting,  but he can’t bring himself to be even a little polite right now.

“It’s by the Harbor. Um, if you go straight on Main Street and turn right at the—”

“Forget it,” Marius interrupts you. He taps the small car screen on his right, opening up the GPS interface. “Just type it in. I’ll drop you off.”

Your face falls at his irate voice, but you wisely don't comment on it, instead typing in your address as he asked. He watches you cautiously the whole time, for once not caring about the performance anxiety his gaze naturally brings to everyone he looks at. To your merit, you don't mess up anymore than you already have, deft fingers moving with the preciseness he’s used to seeing from you, but the skill can hardly impress him after you called him to pick you up from here, of all places. As the GPS routing sequence activates, Marius lets out an annoyed huff. This is not where he wanted to be right now.

Then, the car hums to life as he presses down on the accelerator, and he’s speeding in the direction of your home, trying to abandon his anger with the jailhouse the two of you are leaving.

I should be at home right now, he thinks as he moves onto the highway. He thinks about how long it had taken for him to coordinate this night off from Vyn’s tutoring sessions, Pax’s board meetings, his schoolwork, and the NXX’s meetings. I should be sleeping, or painting, or calling Rosa, or—

“Fuck,” he mutters when traffic begins to slow down. 

He’s in a traffic jam.

So much for sleeping. And painting. And calling Rosa. 

He clicks his tongue in annoyance, both at you and the cars around him. Why are there so many people on the road at—Marius glances at the car’s dashboard—2:38 in the morning? Why did the GPS's projected time to get to your home just double? Why is the universe out to get him today, on the one night Marius thought he could catch a break?

“Okay,” he seethes, drumming his fingers on the wheel as the traffic around him grows impossible slower. He doesn’t look at you as he speaks. “We’re going to talk about how inappropriate this was.”

“I—I’m really sorry, Sir, I—”

“I’m not asking for an apology.” Maybe he is, actually. Marius is too pissed to be sure. “What I want to know is why you thought it was okay to call me, of all people.”

He keeps his glare fixated on the road, knowing that if he shoots you with the same thunderous look he uses to fire people, you’ll probably be too terrified to speak. Still, when you finally start talking, he can sense the fear in your voice.

His grip on the steering wheel softens the slightest.

“I, ah, initially was planning on calling Mr. Vincent. But he—”

“Really?” Marius snaps. “You’re his assistant, right?” Marius thinks back to all the times he stalked into Pax Headquarters only to see Vincent there with his morning coffee in hand and you, always three feet behind, holding Vincent’s work files. The Board of Directors criticized Marius for allowing his assistant to have an assistant, but never did he imagine you to be so…

Incompetent, he wants to say. Foolish might be a better word for it, though.

“Ah, yes. His administrative assistant.”

“And you want me to believe,” Marius huffs, “That the first person you wanted to call to bail you out of jail was the man you’re an administrative assistant to?”

Traffic gets ever slower, and Marius’s car rolls to a complete stop.

“Yes,” you whisper, and you start wringing your fingers in a manner so sheepish that Marius almost wants to believe you. Almost. “I, ah, was going to call him first. But then I remembered that his vacation started last night and that he’s already left Stellis. So I figured that if I called him, he’d just call you, so I…”

He wouldn’t call me, Marius thinks. Vincent is smart enough to find someone else to pick you up from jail. Regular people don’t ask these kinds of favors from their boss. Especially not from their boss's boss.

“Do you know that people usually ask their friends for these things?” Marius asks. Some of his anger seeps away when he realizes how apologetic you actually are, and he moves forward in traffic the slightest. “Or family, perhaps. What you did was…” Marius tries to find a kinder word than completely inappropriate. “Was highly unusual.” He sighs. “Why didn’t you ask someone else?”

He stares at you through the corner of his eye. You’re pursing your lips, holding back tears. Again, his gaze softens.

“I don't have anyone else,” you whisper.

Marius thinks it’s strange for you to imply that you even have him, especially when he’s nothing more to you than a high-level corporate executive, one that you’ve never spoken directly to in your entire life, but he doesn’t press you any further.

Releasing the final remnants of his anger in a soft sigh, he switches lanes and decides to pull into the nearest exit.

“Darius said you were in that cell since yesterday afternoon. You haven’t had dinner yet, right?”

“No, but…”

“This traffic isn’t going anywhere. We may as well get you something to eat.”

He exits easily, pulling into a district of Stellis that he’s never been in before, and ignores your quiet sniffle. 

“Thank you,” you whisper.

Earlier, he was ignoring you out of spite. Now, he doesn’t respond because he wants to preserve your dignity.

As he focuses his attention on the district he's pulled to, ignoring the GPS which vehemently opposes everything he's doing, Marius realizes that he's pulled into a rather poor sector of Stellis. It’s filled with unhealthy fast food joints, late-night drunkards, and a bunch of loiterers who are eyeing his high-end car suspiciously.

After driving around and surveying the options, Marius sighs. 

“The only places open are these fast-food restaurants,” he says, cleanly leaving out the option of getting food from a club or anywhere else a tabloid might be able to snap a picture. “Are you okay with that?”

“Yeah!” you chirp, and Marius finds that your smile is oddly sweet. “Ah, would you be okay with that one over there? I go there a lot, and their food is...better than other fast food places.” 

Marius squints at you for a moment. He tries to recall your salary, and when he fails, he thinks of Vincent’s. Surely, you make a similar wage? You shouldn’t need to frequent fast-food restaurants like this, right?

Shaking his head, he decides not to ask about it. Things like where you eat are your business, not his, and it’s not his place to question you on your personal decisions.

He pulls up to the drive-through, somewhat relieved to find that the dine-in option isn’t even available at this hour, and lets you order whatever you want. You end up taking a meager meal, one that Marius doubts will actually fill your stomach when he can hear it growling so loudly, so when you turn to him and ask what he’ll get, he orders some fries in hopes that he can hand them off to you in case you’re still hungry. 

Minutes later, the two of you are parked on the side of the road with your respective meals in your laps. Only once you’ve finished (and after Marius is starting to pawn his fries off to you, finding that they’re rather unappealing to his pallette) does he think it’s appropriate to actually breach the subject of why you were tossed in jail.

“So,” he drawls, listening to the cool hum of the air conditioner. “Drugs, huh?”

He hears you choke on a fry.

“Th-they weren’t mine!” you blurt. “Honest, Sir, they—”

“Relax,” he says, eyes flitting down. “I’m not going to have you fired over this. Vincent wouldn’t want that. If anything, the court will decide.”

You relax a little at that, but Marius can sense that you’re still on edge.

“I...appreciate that a lot, Sir. But, really, the drugs weren’t mine. I—I’m sure there’s video evidence to prove that. I was just coming home from work when a kid told me to hold onto this bag, and—”

Marius lifts an eyebrow. He may be out of touch with the realities of the common class, but even he knows how ridiculous your story is.

“I didn’t take it, though! He handed it to me and I put it on the ground! But...but an officer saw me put it on the ground and assumed it was mine...and then...you know what happened.”

Marius sighs. You've always been a good, low-profile worker. He has no reason to believe that you'd get involved with anything bad: but he can't help but doubt you. When he next speaks, his voice is laced with hesitance. “Is there anything to prove your innocence? Pax can help get you a good lawyer, but without evidence, it’ll—”

“There is!” Your eyes are too determined to be anything other than sincere. “Or, ah, there should be. It happened right outside my apartment. I’m sure someone there has surveillance footage of what happened.”

Marius ignores the quiet “hopefully” you add to the end of that. 

“Alright,” he says, deciding that it’s not his place to decide whether or not he believes your story. “Tell me how you got my private number, then. Pax employees shouldn’t have access to that information.”

“Oh, ah…”

Your gaze turns sheepish. Marius grows even more interested in your response.

“Mr. Vincent had it written down a couple months ago. I accidentally saw it. I tried to forget, but…”

You seem to be kicking yourself over the blunder, but Marius is impressed. A mind that can remember something months after having seen it only once is a valuable thing, he thinks. It’s a waste for someone with your brain to be working as a mere assistant’s assistant.

“I’m really—”

“It’s okay,” Marius says. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m...not mad at you.”

And somehow, he really isn’t angry anymore.

The two of you finish your meal soon enough, Marius having successfully pressed his fries into your hands. It seems that you really are hungry because you down those in a manner of minutes, and the man almost regrets not having ordered more when he hears your stomach still grumbling beneath the hum of the car as he returns to the highway.

As Marius lets the GPS guide him back onto Stellis’s most frequented roads, he’s pleasantly surprised to find that all traffic is gone. He speeds down the road with a renewed vigor, somehow sidestepping the usual sleepiness that overcomes him during these kinds of drives with your idle commentary of the road, little mentions of “I once saw a turtle here” and “there used to be four lanes here, but they changed it to five” and “this mile-post had the wrong number on it for years before I reported it and highway patrol got it changed.”

If anything, there’s a faint smile on his face when he finally pulls off the freeway, almost amused by your quiet chit-chat. 

“Is this the right neighborhood?” Marius asks as he pulls into one of Stellis’s residential districts. 

“Yeah, it’s just a little further down.” You gather your purse in your lap and thank Marius for the umpteenth time.

���It's okay,” he says, slowing down. The apartments are looking poorer, now, dingier, but he tries not to let that show on his face. “Is it here?”

“Right at the end of the street,” you say, and with only a mildly concerned look on his face, Marius drives you further down the road.

His eyebrows furrow as he realizes what kind of neighborhood you live in, and he wonders if your wage truly is so poor that you have to live here, of all places. The apartment complexes here are unrenovated, a disappointing amount of them sporting broken glass or graffiti on them. Litter covers the grounds, and even in the thick, 3-AM darkness, Marius can make out hundreds of beer cans scattered across the lawns. Bushes are either dying or overgrown, and there are cigarette butts everywhere. 

Marius realizes that between his suit, his car, and his three earrings, he might have more money on him than everyone who lives here combined.

“Which...which of these apartments is yours?”

He looks around warily, quietly hoping that you’ll say it’s none of them.

“Ah, it’s the first window on the second floor of that…” you trail off as your pointer finger lands on an apartment where all lights are lit—and three masked figures stand illuminated, clearly ransacking your house.

“Oh my god,” Marius blurts, already getting his phone out. “You’re getting robbed, what the—”

“No, no!” You’re quick to place a hand on Marius’s arm before he can dial Emergency Services. “Those are, ah, just the neighborhood boys. They...they do bad things, but they’re good kids. Don’t worry. I’ll chase them out in no time, you don’t have to—”

“Are you serious?” Marius asks, dumbfounded. “This—how can you go back to a home like that? You could die, or—or—”

“Sir,” you say, looking him in the eyes with more seriousness than he’s seen from you this entire night. “With all due respect, this is the best I can afford.”

Marius falls silent at that.

You open the door silently, casting your eyes down. “Thank you again for everything,” you murmur. “I...I really appreciate it. I’ll do my best to make sure it never happens again.”

But then, Marius thinks about the weak story you gave to him earlier, where you claimed that someone handed you drugs and then left you with them, and he wonders whether it might have actually been true. Whether this neighborhood, with its burglars and alcoholism and litter, could actually present you with that reality. Whether something like that may happen again to you, or, worse, Marius thinks as he glances back into your apartment at the three masked robbers, if you could actually get hurt.

Against all better judgment, his arm snaps out. He grips your wrist instantly, not thinking about propriety or class divisions or economic status or anything other than you, one of his company’s employees, and your safety.

“Don’t go there,” he blurts. When he realizes that you’re not tearing your arm free of him, he speaks again. “At least, not while they’re there. I’ll come back here with you tomorrow to make sure you can return in a safe environment, and—”

“Sir, I can’t just get a hotel or—”

“I have two guest bedrooms. You can take your pick. Just—ah—” Marius glances out the window at the poor neighborhood you live in, and he winces. “I can’t let you go home to this. Not...not while there are robbers in your house. Please understand.”

“This...this kind of problem doesn’t just go away,” you mumble, but Marius relaxes when he sees your grip on the door loosen. “And besides, it really wouldn’t be appropriate for me to stay in your apartment.”

“Most people wouldn’t call it appropriate to call your company’s CEO to bail you out of jail,” Marius jokes, but the humor of it is lost on you.

“I…”

Your face falls.

“A—that was a joke,” Marius stutters. “I was joking.”

“Right.”

The atmosphere of the car goes awkward, made even worse by the GPS’s automated reminder that your destination is on the left, but the more Marius looks out his window, the more he decides that he can’t possibly let you return to this apartment. He’ll give you a raise if he has to, but this is something no one should be subject to.

“Alright,” you finally relent after Marius makes it clear that he won’t speak unless it’s to plead with you more. “Just for one night.”

“Just for one night,” Marius agrees, already planning how he can make sure that you have a better home to return to than this one for all future nights to come.