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bluberryfields · 1 year ago

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"David is very easy to fall in love with." - Michael Sheen

Hi. How are you? Good, I hope. Okay, so can we talk about just how fucking beautiful David Tennant is? And by “we” I mean “I” and by “talk” I mean “babble incoherently into the void”? Great! I’ll attempt to impose a bit of organization on this just to satisfy my pathological need to inflict structure on words (thanks college/job/brain), but I can��t promise much. Also, there will be A LOT of pictures and gifs. (you’re welcome?)

And this isn’t just because I am deep in the bottomless well of Good Omens fandom and that Crowley is basically the most breathtaking creature that has ever existed. Well, not just because of that.

*cue Aziraphale's "good lord" from 1793*

ANYWAY, like a lot of people, I became a fan of (i.e., fell deeply and irrevocably in love with) DT during his run as the 10th Doctor. He was young and bright and full of just about everything – joy, sorrow, wit – making him incredibly watchable. His look was also so charming: big bouncy rooster comb of hair, absurdly cheeky smile, expressive-as-fuck eyes and eyebrows, and a tall, lanky form that seemed to be made of rubber and the kind of granulated sugar that could only be found in candy from the 90s that are now banned in all first- and second-world countries.

So yeah, I was super into him and his Doctor’s adventures. And I continued to watch him in other projects and still swoon (looking at you, slutty Hamlet)

even at characters where that was not the desired reaction (fuck you, Kilgrave, you delicious monster).

I would also always become a bit (a lot) weak in the knees at his voice regardless of which accent he took on, though always preferring him doing any Scottish brogue because of fucking course.

youtube

Roll that tongue, you sexy beast.

But what I want to get into today is just how incredible he looks in the year of 2023.

He’s 52 years old and I am somehow even more attracted to him. Maybe it’s because I am myself older, and my tastes have matured alongside? I certainly do enjoy gray hair way more than I did 10 years ago.

He’s aged incredibly well, probably a combination of good genes and good health, and he’s clearly not clinging to the Hollywood idea of “youth”.

(insert obligatory grumble about the double standards of men being praised for aging and women being demonized…the potentially problematic nature of the term “aging well” in general…acknowledge this with my enlightened brain but ignore this with my slutty heart…fuck the patriarchy, etc. etc.)

He’s still tall and skinny, even gangly at times, all long arms and legs that can move in impossible directions with unfathomable grace.

His face is leaner, that incredible bone structure creating sharper edges that draw the eye. Speaking of the face, he’s got these creases on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes and mouth that are evidence of time spent well: smiling, laughing, living. Makes you want to trace your fingertips along each one.

Oh god that smile? Good lord. It’s weapons grade charm that can also be quite intimidating. Sweet, humble, silly, scary…full spectrum of options here! His shark smile is the definition of “irresistible” in my Dictionary of Delicious Dudes.

I am both proud of and grossed out by my own word choice.

Continuing with that face...the hawkish nose, the dimples you want to drown in, the big eyes, those motherfucking eyebrows...

I could seriously write a whole essay about those eyebrows, but I already give my therapist enough to worry about.

Oh those eyes. “Piercing” is a term usually reserved for blue eyes, but I would argue it applies to DT’s bottomless chocolate pools in that they slice through my heart every damn time.

Honorable mention does go to those Crowley snake eyes because they could have been distracting and diminishing to his overall look, but they absolutely are not.

Such a pretty shade of yellow.

Random tangent to swoon about his hands. For whatever reason, I like checking out a man’s hands, and DT’s got a set that drives me wild. I can’t even really explain why, but I just really like the way he articulates with them. Crowley is a perfect example, what with the miracle snaps, caressing globes, and holding whisky glasses. Yum.

Delicious demon digits

Fresh tangent: How does this fucker look good clean shaven, with stubble, and a goddamn beard? How is that allowed?

He's got a face that makes me wanna take up sculpting

Further, how is his fucking neck so hot? Like, seriously, show me the math. I can’t stop staring at it. And when it’s cloaked in a turtleneck? Please, sir, may I have some more?

Fuuuuuuuck

With no segue whatsoever, I am absolutely obsessed with his hair, across all contexts. Big, bold, blood-red Crowley coifs (especially in Season 2)? Check.

Proper gentleman side part? Check.

Side shave with cartoonishy springy 14th Doctor shock? Check.

Lockdown locks with and without headband? Check!

It’s a goddamn buffet of delicious options.

Oh damn speaking of that 14th Doctor look? Good fucking Christ on a buttery Ritz cracker. The whole DT collection is on display: the hair, the eyes, the bone structure, the smile, the clothes, and even the glasses!

To quote Pam on Archer, “I swear to god, you could drown a toddler in my panties right now! I mean, not that you would.”

Now that you (I) mention the clothes, I never cease to marvel at how he can wear pretty much anything and look amazing. Stripes, patterns, wild colors, etc. He just always looks…not exactly comfortable, but sort of at ease like the clothes were created with him in mind. And this goes across the spectrum of Casual to Costume to Promotional (e.g., interviews and premieres).

They are almost illegally cute together

We all know by now how ridiculously tight those Crowley pants are and how it influenced his signature serpentine swagger (thank you, Costume department, you’re the real heroes). That said, he and those slinky hips still looks so incredibly natural in them like they came from his actual closet.

Stupid sexy snek

And he pulls off the look of more ridiculous stuff like full Shakespearean costumes or that sad gray-hoodie-black-shorts-and-Wellington-boots combo from the first season of Staged. He somehow gives off the air of “whatever, they’re just clothes, man” while also looking like a damn model.

Georgia is a very lucky woman

Final thoughts: I know DT dislikes talking about how people think he’s so attractive because I’m sure it feels a bit icky if you just want to live your life and do your job. But my guy also clearly understands that he’s not some ghoul who has succeeded on incredible personality and acting chops alone. So, that said, maybe he'll forgive me for posting such a long, rambling, ode to him?

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imabeautifulbutterfly · 2 months ago

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MIMIIII I’m alive and I had to say CONGRATULATIONS on 700 followers!! So deserved and I’m so happy I get to be apart of that journey. As for my quote (which is from a book):

“So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.”

(can you do it with either Hunter Star Wars bad batch ofc and MY FAV GIRL KAMBE or just fem reader?? 🥺🥺)

@avathebestx awwww I'm so glad to receive a request from you. I am sorry for the delay, RL got in the way unfortunately. But I hope you enjoy this very fluff filled, romantic fic. Such a great line.

Also thank you for requesting Kambe, it felt lovely writing about The Reunion crew again. The story will be coming back.

Love oo,

Peace

Warnings: brief mention of Tech's death, brief mention of Tech's 'surveillance', I think that's it, if I miss anything please let me know.

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Kambe couldn’t help laugh as she watched Hunter trying to braid Omega’s hair. It had been almost five years since they all finally settled on Pabu. It was still hard to accept that Tech was gone. She was glad to have Crosshair back, to know Wrecker was safe, and Echo was out fighting for his clone brothers, even though she wished she could’ve heard from him more often, yet … it wasn’t the same.

Crosshair had been right when he said ‘Clone Force 99 died with Tech,’ it really did.

Her mind focused back on Omega and Hunter as she saw the look on Omega’s face asking for help.

“Hunter, love, what the hell are you doing? It’s braiding hair, not untangling the wires of the Marauder.”

She walked over and tapped his thigh, getting him to move over so she could sit beside him.

“It’s not my fault these hairstyles are so intricate.”

“Explain to me, how Wrecker, with his big hands and fingers, is able to do a fishtail braid, and you can’t even do a simple French braid?”

“Wrecker deals with explosives, love, he’s used to the fine touch. Not to mention him and Lurwa have three girls, he’s used to braiding.”

“Mmhmm”

She giggled as she gently undid the mess that was Omega’s hair and brushed it lightly, “Megs, you want the French braid?”

“Yeah, but two, one on each side.”

“Okay.” Kambe chuckled as she grabbed the comb and the hair ties. She poked Hunter in the ribs, “Okay, pay attention.”

“I’m paying attention, it’s my fingers that don’t work.”

“You’re a trained fighter, a soldier, a sergeant. You can’t handle precision work?”

“I can handle you” he smirked, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Um, excuse me, child present” Omega raised her hand to remind them, as she sat in between Kambe’s legs.

“Okay.” Kambe chuckled as she grabbed the comb, “First split the hair down the middle so it’s even.”

Hunter nodded, “I did that.”

“Then tie up the side you’re not using,” she slipped a hair clip to the one side.

“Didn’t do that.”

“Then you start from the very top and take three strands, keeping them separate.” She showed Hunter with her hands. “Then you cross one over and slide it under, cross the other over and slide it under. See?” She started braiding Omega’s hair, adding more hair to the strands as she moved down, “Don’t pick up a lot when you’re adding to the diminishing strands. Good rule of thumb, one row for one strand.”

“Ohhh. Okay, I think I see where I was going wrong.”

“Wanna try?”

“On the other side.”

Kambe finished braiding the one side, moving over for Hunter to give a go. It took him a few false starts but when he finished it wasn’t half bad. “Good job, love” she leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

Omega gently touched both sides, “How does it look?” She turned and asked Kambe, she’d been feeling nervous all day, and now that her hair was finished, the reality of her situation hit her.

“You look beautiful Megs, and I’m sure your date will like it too.” Omega blushed at Kambe’s teasing, and stood, she was wearing the new shirt Phee had bought her, and the new boots Crosshair got her. Kambe’s smile grew as she looked at the teenager before her, she was no longer the little girl that clung to her side during her time on Kamino. “You look beautiful Omega. And very spiffy.”

“Spiffy?”

“It means stylish.”

Omega nodded, smiling, “I like it, spiffy.” She took in a deep breath brushing away her butterflies, “Alright. I’ll be back by lights out.”

“You better, or Hunter is going to come looking for you.” Kambe stood, and kissed her forehead, hugging her, knowing she didn’t have to worry about Omega getting hurt. “Have fun, but not too much fun.”

“What’s too much fun?”

“You’ll know.” Hunter stated as he stood, hugging her, “You have your knife?”

“Yeah” she hugged him back.

Kambe and Hunter watched as Omega headed out the door, she turned to Hunter, “Ever thought we’d get to a point in our lives where we would see her go on a date?”

“No.” He ran his hand over his face, “I miss Tech, if he was here, he would’ve connected to all the cameras on Pabu and followed them on their date.”

She arched her eyebrow, “Wait …” she took a moment as an idea clicked in her head, “When you and I …” she motioned between the two of them. “… would go on our dates, on Kamino, did Tech follow us via the cameras?”

Hunter blushed and looked away, clearing his throat and moving out of Kambe’s arm’s reach, Kambe’s eyes widened, “WHAT!”

“It was only two maybe three times” Hunter clarified.

“Hold up … did he …” she closed her eyes trying hard to fight the laughter that wanted to erupt. “Did he see,” she cleared her throat, “the time we got … carried away in … my office?”

Hunter’s face went beat red, as he moved away and towards the kitchen, washing dishes and putting away the dry ones.

“Hunter.”

“He swore he turned it off and deleted the recording.”

“Oh. My. God.” Kambe’s face dropped out of sheer embarrassment before she covered her face and started laughing. “Oh god, no wonder he couldn’t look at me for a week afterwards.”

He chuckled as he thought back to that week, “Yeah …” he dried his hands and turned to look at her, “he said that moment changed his perception of you.”

“And you didn’t think this was something I may have wanted to know?” She crossed her arms.

He laid the towel on the counter walking over to her as he wrapped her in his arms, pulling her closer, “Myri, would you have wanted to know that Tech saw more than you probably wanted anyone to see?”

She shook her head and laughed, “Well at least I’m not as much of a mess as when we first met.”

Hunter huffed out a laugh, “Thank the force for that.”

“Why do you love me?”

“Seriously? You mean beside the fact you’re beautiful, intelligent, smart, incredible in every way possible.”

Kambe smirked, “Yeah besides that.”

Hunter let out a sigh, “Well I guess,I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you. Think about it, of all the med stations, of all the medics in the galaxy, you were assigned to Kamino. And out of all the days you split between the lab and the med bay, I just happened to walk in when you were the only one on duty. If that was the universe conspiring for us to be together, I don’t know what is.”

“Cheeky” she grinned leaning in.

“Always for you,” he closed the distance and kissed her, a kiss that reminded them of everything they knew to be true of each other. They were meant to be, and nothing could ever separate them from each other.

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gatheringbones · 1 year ago

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[“One author of the Clinical Psychology Review article was Shira Maguen, a researcher who began to think about the moral burdens of warfare while counseling veterans at a PTSD clinic in Boston.

Like most Veterans Affairs psychologists, Maguen had been trained to focus on the aftershocks of fear-based trauma—IED blasts that ripped through soldiers’ Humvees, skirmishes that killed members of their unit. The link between PTSD and such “life-threat” events was firmly established. Yet in many of the cases she observed, the source of distress seemed to lie elsewhere: not in attacks by the enemy that veterans had survived, but in acts they had observed or carried out that crossed their own ethical lines.

Soldiers were not, of course, the only people who risked committing such transgressions. All of the counselors I interviewed at the Dade Correctional Institution struggled with inner conflicts related to horrifying things they’d witnessed but failed to prevent. What kind of person was she? Lovita Richardson wondered after seeing a prisoner bound to a chair get bludgeoned and not intervening to help him. “Why didn’t I do more?” Harriet Krzykowski asked herself after learning about the “shower treatment.” Many of the prison guards I’d interviewed had alluded to incidents where they’d done things they knew they shouldn’t, as when Bill Curtis slammed a man to the ground, nearly fracturing his skull. Moral injuries were an occupational hazard for anyone whose job involved “perpetrating, failing to prevent, or bearing witness to acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs.” For most dirty workers, that is.

Among the veterans she counseled, Maguen grew particularly interested in the emotional toll of killing, which was sanctioned in the military but not when defenseless civilians were involved. “I was hearing about experiences where people killed and they thought they were making the right decision,” she told me, “and then they found out there was a family in the car.” To find out how heavy the burden of killing was, Maguen began combing through the databases in which veterans of conflicts dating back to the Vietnam War were asked if they had killed someone while in uniform. In some cases, veterans were also asked whom they killed—combatants, prisoners of war, civilians. Maguen wanted to see if there might be a relationship between taking another life and debilitating consequences like alcohol abuse, relationship problems, outbursts of violence, PTSD. The results were striking: even when controlling for different experiences in combat, she found, killing was a “significant, independent predictor of multiple mental health symptoms” and of social dysfunction.

Later, when she started directing a mental health clinic at a VA hospital in San Francisco, Maguen convened groups where veterans came together and talked about the killing they had done. In the VA no less than in the military, this was a taboo subject, so much so that clinicians often referred to it euphemistically, if at all. To ease the tension, a scene from a documentary was shown at the beginning of each session in which a veteran said, “Out there, it’s either kill or be killed. Nothing can really prepare you for war.” Afterward, Maguen would ask the veterans in the room a series of questions about how killing had impacted their lives. Some reacted angrily. Others fell silent. But many seized the opportunity to talk about experiences they later told Maguen they had never spoken about with anyone, not even their spouses and family members, for fear of being judged.

The veterans in Maguen’s groups didn’t talk a lot about fear and hyperarousal, emotions linked to PTSD. Mostly, they expressed self-condemnation and guilt. “You feel ashamed of what you did,” one said. Others described feeling unworthy of forgiveness and love. The passage of time did little to diminish the depth of these feelings, Maguen found. Geographic distance didn’t lessen them much either. Maguen recounted the story of a pilot who was haunted by the bombs he had dropped on victims far below. What troubled him was, in fact, precisely his distance from them—that instead of squaring off against the enemy in a fair fight, he had killed in a way that lacked valor. Obviously not all pilots felt this way. But the story underscored the significance of something Maguen had come to regard as more important than proximity or distance in shaping moral injury—namely, how veterans made sense of what they had done. “How you conceptualize what you did and what happened makes such a big difference,” she said. “It makes all the difference.”

Unlike PTSD, moral injury was not a medical diagnosis. It was an attempt to capture what could happen to a person’s identity and soul in the crucible of war, which is why it struck a chord among veterans who did not feel their wounds could be reduced to a medical disorder. “PTSD as a diagnosis has a tendency to depoliticize a veteran’s disquietude and turn it into a mental disorder,” observed Tyler Boudreau, a marine officer who served in Iraq and came back haunted by doubts about the war’s morality. “What’s most useful about the term ‘moral injury’ is that it takes the problem out of the hands of the mental health profession and the military and attempts to place it where it belongs—in society, in the community, and in the family—precisely where moral questions should be posed and wrangled with. It transforms ‘patients’ back into citizens and ‘diagnoses’ into dialogue.”]

eyal press, from dirty work: essential labor and the hidden toll of inequality in america, 2021

#eyal press #cw violence #currently reading

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aha-chuu · 1 year ago

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I've seen some discourse about Fontaine Act V, specifically some posts discussing misogynistic characterisations and other such things, so I wanted to throw my hat in the ring and air out my thoughts.

Firstly: most of the game up until 4.0 had sexism rooted deeply within the writing. You can look to the actual character designs to see the mistreatment of the female characters most plainly, but it's a gacha game selling waifus - whatever, that's not pertinent. More pressing is the actual writing of the female characters; despite there being several more women than men, the male characters on a whole seem to get more screen time, story presence and deliver more narrative weight than their female counterparts.

Who are the characters who seem like they'll be relevant throughout the game? Which characters are awarded a greater diversity of personalities?

There have always been well-written female characters in the game, but so many are not given ample screen time to explore that. Even more get given interesting backstories with no personality to follow through on the obscure lore.

Even in Inazuma where the quest is dominated by feminine presence, it's Kazuha who has the most voice lines throughout the game out of the Inazuma cast, Ayato (who didn't even appear!) who gets retroactively awarded the title of mastermind. The writing in Inazuma does just suck in general, but still nobody thinks of Yae in the same way they consider Albedo, Scaramouche, Neuvillette. You can make ten million arguments for why Ayaka's demure disposition is relevant to her strength as a character in non-combative ways, but the game's narrative does not capitalise on that, leaving her to feel very samey to characters we've had before.

The point being: the argument for Fontaine being a misogynistic hell hole does have a backbone in how Hoyo has previously dealt with their characters. However, in my opinion, this is yet another case of "trying and falling short is a worst crime than making no attempt at all".

Fontaine has a huge diversity of women characters who all feel distinct. You could read an unmarked line of dialogue by Lynette, Navia, Charlotte, Arlecchino, Clorinde, Sigewinne, Skirk, Furina or Foçalors and you could pretty accurately distinguish who has said it. Now, a lot of these characters are written to be victims - Lynette being child trafficked, Navia having her whole family die around her, Arlecchino an abused orphan, Foçalors doomed to die and Furina is cursed. But in no way does this diminish their individual strengths or leave them without agency.

There's a misconception that a "strong female character" has to be, basically, an 80s male action hero but with boobs this time. If she is feminine then it better be in service of her badassery. In reality, the mark of a well-written female character is her agency in the story to change it - agency here is important, because throughout fiction female characters have often shaped entire stories... By being doormats that you could replace with a sword the hero really wants.

So in terms of Fontaine, how do these characters stack up? Not just in terms of their diversity of personality and depth of story, but also their power and relevance in the Archon quest itself?

Furina is presented as being trapped in suffering, but the reality of the situation is that she has the option to give up at any time. You cannot replace Furina with a cool treasure that the Traveller really wants; she makes active decisions in service of the plot constantly, in spite of her torture and fear and weakness. That weakness is never portrayed as some huge flaw that we the player must fix, it's in fact evidence of how strong Furina has been for centuries.

Navia too - though (by virtue of what the story is about) she has less to do, Navia thrusts herself into the quest in our defence, rallies our team and, yeah, needs saving along the way! Just like Freminet in the primordial seawater in Act IV or Lyney on trial in Act I.

Arlecchino maintains many feminine traits while also twisting them on their head. She is the "Father" of the House of the Hearth - obviously gendered - but she is most defined by her maternal love (feminine). She is never placed into a position of weakness in the Archon quest, always in control and saving others.

I think looking at Neuvillette's ascension to the position of leadership in Fontaine and labelling the whole ordeal "misogynistic" is insanely reductive. If every nation were ruled by a man despite 5/7 "archons" being women, sure. But Mondstadt is presently led by Jean, Liyue by Ningguang, Inazuma by Raiden (& Yae?) and Sumeru by Nahida. If the problem people have is instead that in this process Furina becomes more meek and emotional, then I point again to the wide variety of personalities the female characters in Fontaine display. If every woman is meek and emotional that's a problem, but those are literally only adjectives you would use for Furina (who is severely traumatised). Navia would be resolute and kind-hearted, Clorinde reserved and courageous, Charlotte curious and assertive - the list goes on.

And to pretend like Neuvillette doesn't bow down in many instances to the whims of other characters is a frustrating take. Yes he gets a cool cutscene of fixing all the problems of the prophecy, but that's only surface level; he did that after Foçalors explained that it was all her plan and her sacrifice. He takes Skirk's advice to give Arlecchino the gnosis. Even back in Act II, Neuvillette admits his own weakness of understanding to Navia - in that moment she is grieving and upset, but the narrative never treats her as unreasonable for her feelings. In fact, Neuvillette (who is supposed to seem wise and level-headed) admits his own wrongs and apologises to her!

Anyway. Please try to look at Fontaine with a bit more nuance.

#genshin impact #critique #fontaine archon quest

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bug-the-chicken-nug · 1 year ago

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i recently made a post about the Secret Better Jaune in my head but have realized I never clarified what I mean by that specifically, so here's my latest idea i've been workshopping: Jaune, but he's Like That at first because he actually had a major Grimm-related accident that put him in a prolonged coma and left him with lasting memory issues + periods of brain fog and difficulty organizing his thoughts even after waking up. So there's a way stronger reason behind his parents not wanting him to go to Beacon. Plus he *is* actually still terrified of Grimm, but he's basically forcing himself to do this because he was so sick of the coddling and casual ableism that this is his way of trying to regain control of his life (and the outright meaner ableism, both from people being malicious and people who mean well but lose their tempers with him when his difficulties become inconvenient for them) And now the dumb fight with Pyrrha would come off less like some weird macho thing, and more as his past experiences with people making him more understandably defensive. (along with him just literally being a bit behind in emotional maturity because of losing time and normal social interaction to his accident + the ensuing rehab and recuperation) And he doesn't have Aura right away because, even though it is theoretically useful for therapeutic purposes, everyone worried that he might not be able to handle it until he's had more rehab, and they weren't sure how it'd interact with the neurological damage either. In direct relation to this, Jaune probably at least mostly already knows what it is now, but has such diminished confidence in what he knows for sure that he'd rather have it all explained again than risk being egregiously wrong. I would also have it be more clear that he actually *is* trying his best early on, but because he's constantly masking, keeping his accident a secret, and always trying to pretend he's "normal", he's exhausting himself, and the effort is a lot less obvious to everyone around him. (Pyrrha is probably sort of upset to discover that he didn't tell her anything before she helped him unlock his Aura, because even with his best efforts to prepare for Beacon on his own, like 50% of why unlocking his Aura goes so smoothly still comes down to luck) Of course, I don't really trust CRWBY with this, because this take would require fine-toothed combing to get rid of casual ableism, and for Jaune to not really ever be comic relief anymore. (Or if he is, it would have to be extremely careful to avoid any humor that boils down to "he's being stupid/pathetic/incompetent/immature", which they wouldn't, because this is the company that made Camp Camp ).

#rwde

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vaalthus · 1 year ago

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The threat to the Plane of Darkness, the inevitable return of the Shadowscythe, and what lead to the Exalted Alliance theory and speculation

Something has been on my mind lately, namely regarding the Proclamations and Reckoning war. At the conclusion of the Reckoning War, all eight Avatars of the elements were essentially left diminished, reduced to the form of elemental orbed embodiments, and are now being contained by Lock and Key until they remerge from their dormancy. The current inactive state of the Avatars explains much of why the Proclamation rifts have been such an issue to the extent that they’ve been. If the Avatars were active, we’d likely be having less of a harder time closing the ones that clearly link to the section as. What bothers me now though is that out of all the Avatars rendered dormant Voidstar is probably the one we would want down the least right now. I say this of course due to the ever-present threat that is the Shadowscythe and their agents of Doom.

It has long since been established that the Shadowscythe and its agents will never cease in their quest to plunge all of existence into Darkness in this current timeline. To remove, in their eyes, the pollution of the Elements influence on this reality at any cost.

And now, their biggest rivals, the Avatars of all eight prime elements have been forcibly placed into stasis for the time being.

Meaning the avatar of the only elemental plane that is safe for them to move freely in without heavy risk of annihilation is no longer in a position to bring the hammer down upon them to halt their corruption. While I have no doubts that much as it appears to be the case with other avatars that Voidstar has left behind some form of entourage or progeny to govern the Plane of Darkness in his absence, like Celeritas's family or the Lagohmorph royalty in the case of Haeos' plane,

I fear that may not be enough to hold back the problem the Shadowscythe present.

The Shadowscythe have shown numerous times in the past that they are more than content to manipulate and corrupt those around them when they feel that overwhelming force simply isn’t a viable course of action for a plan to be set in motion. These manipulations have ranged from outright lies, offers of comfort, or the corruptive properties of their powers. Hell, sometimes they'll use all three of those methods.

We even know that they are capable of convincing those that hail from the Darkness Plane to support them despite the fact that it is within the interest of Voidstar to maintain the balance of the elements.

So, with Voidstar now out commission, what’s to stop the Shadowscythe from attempting to gain some real ground within the Plane of Darkness, outside that potential back-up of governance I previously mentioned? Even if the Shadowscythe choose not to attempt shall we say some sort of combative assault on the governing powers that might remain in the Darkness Plane, they might still have the option of indoctrinating or persuading its inhabitants to support their cause in bringing about Darkness everywhere.

I don’t think the Shadowscythe would have a hard time amassing more followers at the moment either. There are elementals that seem to be somewhat guilty of desiring for the element they are aligned to win out over the others, so I imagine it's not going to be too difficult for them to convince some darkness elementals to side with them outright. From there it might be a simple process to make note of the absence of Voidstar to point out that perhaps to float around the idea that it’s time for the plane to be placed under a different vision and management. One that they might allege serves the interests of the Darkness plane, whether this would be an outright lie or them conflating that to what the Darkness means to the Shadowscythe would be irrelevant I imagine.

Which brings me to another advantage the Shadowscythe might have here: the chaos of the Elemental Wastes. It was established back in Awakened Depths that the Wastes are effectively a battleground for elemental beings of all shapes and sizes to duke it out to gain dominance over the others.

Furthermore, as King Thorin would imply, there are champions of the Wastes, with no specified allegiance to a single element, that seem to attempt to encroach upon the sovereignty of the other elemental planes which would indicate even more factions vying for more control within the overall Elemental Plains.

I could easily see the Shadowscythe presenting themselves as the solution to darkness residents that will end or at least ward off the chaos presented by the Wastes: namely its champions and warbeasts alike. This of course is dependent on how well the Plane is when confronted with the onslaught of forces from the Wastes, but as I’ve speculated in the past, I suspect not all planes are handling the matter equally, especially now that their avatars are gone.

Alternatively, it may also be plausible that the Shadowscythe could cause havoc within the Elemental Wastes. How could they do that, you might ask? How can the Shadowscythe, beings so reliant on the darknesss that smallest candlelight can make them go poof, be active within the Wastes? A place likely filled with a myriad of elemental entities that can harm them. Well, much like the Wastes has its champions within all that elemental dissonance, I suspect that the Shadowscythe and its doom spirits might function similar to warlords within certain “safe zones” in the Plains for them. We know that, when necessary or strategic, doom entities are capable of engulfing regions into shadows and darkness, either as means of spreading their influence or protecting themselves from being outright destroyed by outside elements, namely the light.

So, with that in mind, what if members of the Shadowscythe, if not the entire organization, have managed to section off certain parts of the Wastes for themselves by employing these shadows, on a larger scale, though not so large they would draw attention from the Avatars, and have these sections act as bases or outposts as both as a means to not always be under the watchful eye of Voidstar and to conduct operations in the Wastes and Lore abroad. It might be possible then that they might find ways to agitate other forces, be it elemental factions in the Wastes or leftover Warbeasts, into attacking all other Planes or just the Darkness Plane should taking it over be in their interests.

Now of course this is all speculation on what the Shadowscythe might do with Voidstar gone for the time being. It could be easily feasible that the Shadowscythe are simply patient and will do nothing with this opportunity as they coalesce in the shadows when they feel like the right moment is on hand…as much I doubt they’ll do nothing for now.

It is here where I want to address something else as well. I cannot help but think back to the Last Stand of Ehr’Ishin, in which the Engineer mentions specifically those that stayed low in the shadows would survive the firing of the Exalted Artillery.

This could of course just be an off-hand reference to practically any creatures or entities that would have stayed far away from the blast radius of the weapon as is the case for the other locations mentioned on the same page. However, given that beings derived from Doom and the Shadowscythe respectively are so often affiliated with shadows throughout the games. I suspect a more sinister element here.

You see, ever since we got the reveal back in Rebirth that the Shadowscythe managed to sneak their way into the current timeline, avoiding being removed after the Reset, and it was revealed that they had an embodying force that exists in opposition to the Aequlibria, I came to a suspicion.

A suspicion that the Shadowscythe, this Whisper, as Notha and Remthalas call it, was in some shape or form responsible for the Exalted Alliance forming against the Aequilibria. I don’t think that Notha was wrong in her analysis that ‘doom’ was considered to be analogous to freedom as labeled by the Exalted even when it was revealed there was a tangible force of Doom they made note of alongside the Aequilibria.

I suspect that the Whisper, whatever exactly it is, was able to instill within certain Infernals and Celestials the need to break away from whatever vision or mandate the Aequilibria had for them. Perhaps a dose of ambition if you would consider. Essentially, the basic idea behind the Exalted is to yearn for something beyond what they were meant for at their very cores and wills upon their creation. How exactly the Whisper did this I’m not sure. Coming into contact with it in some way could have corrupted/influence a few members, like what is believed to have happened with Lock and Key as well as the Avatars, and let the idea of rebellion spread from there.

Perhaps they could have actually communicated philosophical ideas with a group of Celestials and Infernals and that’s how the Alliance got started. Perhaps even the mere existence of the Whisper was enough to get the Exalted started as displaying an entity that is opposed to your god may have been enough to convince some of them that the Aequilibria were not the absolute and final law of their universe. In achieving this rebellion, the Whisper and its Shadowscythe were given the perfect opportunity necessary to remove their polar opposite off the playing field for a time.

If the Whisper and its forces playing a role in the Exalted rebelling against the Aequilibria and subsequently putting them to sleep is true, as I presented it as such, then it only further displays how conniving they are when pulling off their schemes.

Furthermore, it cements that they'll always keep coming back and that feels clearer now more than ever now that a certain doom bomb is on its way to the Mana Core of Lore. Ah, but that concludes my thoughts regarding the Shadowscythe and the role they could play in the Elemental Plains and the role they might have played in the Exalted rebelling against the Aequilibria.

#dragonfable #dragonfable lore #the shadowscythe #Doom #The Whisper #The Darkness Plane #I seriously hope Voidstar left some people behind to maintain the darkness plane while they were away #Wills. Ambition. Choices. Chaos. Freedom.#dragonfable theory #It also might be simultaneously possible that the Exalted form to rebel against both the Whisper and the Aequilibria alike.#But that's just me spit balling.

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longwindedbore · 1 year ago

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A precedent has been set. Hopefully more Courts will follow suit.

*************************************************

In the Federal Courts Trump has NOT been treated like any pre-trial Defendant.

(I speculate) Probably got special handling on orders from on high to minimize the appearance of a political prosecution.

In such a case the higherups would wait until Trump’s rhetoric provoke Lee some kind of violent incident After which gag orders would have, at least, diminished political implications.

Those attacked, perhaps killed, would be collateral damage to maintain general public belief in democracy. (Again speculation)

But as an example Judge Engoron reacted to an inciting verbal attack by Trump on a member of the staff. A court clerk who has zero impact on how the trial proceeds.

He did not place the gag order based on Trump’s verbal assaults Monday on the Court, the Judge, the State’s Attorneys, and Fact-Based-Reality.

Avoiding a charge that the Judge was morivated by personal attacks.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

PSI: no matter what TV shows, movies, etc tell you, about free speech, DO NOT EXPRESS your personal criticisms once you’ve walked through the front doors of a Courthouse.

Trump has been able to. You and I and even Bill Gates wouldn’t be able to.

Particularly you do not want to find out how much power a judge has inside their courthouse.

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the-firebird69 · 2 years ago

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The result is that they are trying to take our son's money away from him in a large scale. Then we're already a whole bunch of them now it's a larger number and we're going to town on them and getting rid of them so trying to mess up the economy and mess up banking and use our son as an excuse right now I'm happy to say that we have about 50% of them in we're Charlotte county. Also going back after these losers keep backstabbing and was trying to do mundane things and say their winners and they're great they get everything we're going to take them apart from the inside out I'm tired of seeing it. These assholes a little girls and we can't do anything then we got to get him out of his face I'm starting that program today in earnest

Thor Freya

You said it yesterday what are we doing here trying not to pee I mean they're running all over the place and the troops and I'm going to get them and more signed up too and out into the field and working cuz this does suck very badly his people need to be silenced they're horrendous talkers

Frank Castle hardcastle

After a while all they're talking about is how they're going to fight people has disgusting in a waste of time they're trying to make it when I rate their mad cuz when I'm shooting you. Now we're up in arms and we'll go after these groups of them and small groups then we're going to comb through for individuals get a huge Force out there to monitor their evacuation and he said at some point we're going to go in and start nailing these blobs of idiot and if they sat and stuff we nailed them and the word got out if you just sit there they're going to nail you. We made big areas on the side of the cities big enough for thousands of octillions and it should be plenty and if they don't go there and they try for the cities they're dead those were important is the cities and getting rid of anybody who refuses to leave. It's working now and there's a lot of people doing it and it is a hot and heavy day because we have great numbers of it happening and their numbers have diminished significantly because of idiocy stubbornness and ignorance on their behalf on their side they're just dumber than hell. We tell them to leave they say no they get shot. You know that's probably about out of the remaining 17 million octillion they lost two more million octillion this morning to idiot fighting and then they're also evacuating but that number is from them fighting so it's down to 15 million and evacuated 3 million octillion out this morning it's a significant number and the Midwest and the upper Midwest only have probably half a million Octillion remaining now. So we're down to 12 million octillion and there's recent birth and activity in other words they're not choosing to evacuate peacefully and they are getting hit and one scenario is cleared those troops are freed up even though we're hiring like madness so we found that they are reduced now by two more million octillion to 10 million octillion it makes a big difference

Was sending assassins after Dan and Trump and Terry they're not really trying to do anything in their bums and they're sitting here latched on to him and follow him everywhere and stalk him and act crazy and are nasty and we're going to fill in the blanks for them as to what we want from them which is nothing but them silent I'm going to send them out now I'm very tired of these three idiots they have to leave and they won't they're they're illegally and he wants to pursue all avenues to get them out and see what he's saying he's a lot more power he had real power and he was pushed out by the note the stand made in the government upheld and Stan hasn't done anything yet and he might if we tell him what's going on instead that would be a good idea so we're going to go ahead and do that it's a great idea

Duke Nukem Blockbuster I'm going to start writing an sop for this area on how to get rid of these idiots and what you have to do if you're doing that method and hand it out and say if you want to do something to one pick it because we want to get rid of them

We agreed you're going to write it up to him that we approve it and Zeus has asked Duke Nukem Blockbuster and Hera to ask to have him send it in and we're going to review and leave a time limit and 10 to 15 minutes and we agree with that he says no and we'll send it back with questions if so but he gets it

Olympus

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chroniclesmacaque · 2 years ago

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A look into the kaleioscope: Aoi in the Wrathful route.

In which I set out to talk about the wrathful route but ended up talking about everything I have seen of the game with a focus on Aoi.

Word count: 5417

(Spoilers for the events pre-timeline branch, the Wrathful Route and part of the Moral one, plus mild allusions to Truthful and Harmony.)

Being a big fan of Girls with Problems and Issues™ (see: Rue from Princess Tutu, Any Girl from Revolutionary Girl Utena) and having gotten word about the focus of the Wrathful Route, I was naturally very curious and hyped for it.

There’s appeal in watching a girl go apeshit: showcasing their flaws in ugly and unpleasant ways not only makes for good drama, but is also refreshing in a (mainstream) media landscape that more often than not smooths out any hint of a rough edge. It’s humanizing. It’s a powerful and cathartic acknowledgement of how destructive Problems and Issues™ can be through showcasing inherently immeasurable internal issues in extreme portrayals that symbolically illustrate the Lengths of the Struggle.

Does the Wrathful Route live up to this?

TL;DR: Yes, and in a thematically rich way.

The Heart of Digimon Survive.

Whatever your opinion on Takuma, he is the lense through which the conflicts of Survive are colored. His narration and internal monologue betray a deep concern about navigating appropriate social distance and boundaries while still being able to effectively check on and care for all his friends. This is at the heart of Survive’s thematic: the clash between social propriety, duty and cooperation versus the personal wants, needs and struggles inherent to individual identity.

The need for balance and the dangers of the extremes on either side of the dichotomy show repeatedly through the events of the game. An artificial and stagnant harmony for the sake of the rule of majority often ends in the needs of the kids being neglected to tragic results, which itself diminishes the longevity of the group and polarizes the dynamics within it. The opposite is also true: not only overtly self-centered, confrontational and stubborn individualistic approaches divide and fracture the group, they also prove detrimental for the long-term chances of success for personal goals and survival. Ryo and Shuuji are early-game poster children to these conundrums.

The beginning of the spiral.

Ryo’s introduction leaves clear he’s hard to get along with: he’s often irritable, uncooperative and antisocial. When it comes to doing his part within the group, Ryo often fails— he refuses to step up to his responsibility as senpai to Takuma and Minoru, he doesn’t help in group discussions and is frequently contrarian and combative to any course of action as well to being told what to do. He’s disruptive to the group’s goals of rescuing Aoi in part 1 and looking for the Professor, Saki and Shuuji in part 2, which is met with Minoru’s taunts and mockery and, potentially, Takuma’s clueless disregard (RIP to those who did try to comfort him on their first play through LOL But I still understand where Ryo is coming from).

This furthers Ryo’s alienation from the group and forms part of the vicious cycle Ryo has found himself in even before attending camp: the intense grief and loneliness stemming from his mother’s death express themselves through high irritability and anxiousness that difficult coping with daily-life activities and socializing. He’s aware his attitude drives him away from others but retiring from public life is simply not an option— even when his mother was still battling her illness, he got pushed to keep up with his responsibilities, as evidenced when he laments right before dying about being encouraged to be strong no matter what (giving thoughtless encouragement to people who are struggling is so prevalent even Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has issued a guide advising healthcare professionals not to push phrases like 頑張れ/頑張って onto patients. Incidentally, another Digimon installment that deals with the struggle to open up in the face of thoughtless encouragement and positivity is ReArise’s season two! Worth checking out!).

Ryo’s is a case where personal struggles disrupt the harmony of the group, but also where not respecting social propriety (Minoru treating him badly, doubly glaring due their age difference) and the failure of the group to look after one of their most vulnerable members creates a spiraling effect that locks the player into the three vanilla routes, two of which end up quite tragically. His death serves as a powerful statement of a very important thesis of Survive’s: that even when the kids act out in unpleasant and disruptive ways, they still deserve to be taken care of, and failure to do so heavily limits what the group can accomplish. The contrary also proves true: looking after all the members of the group strengthens the dynamics within it and brings out everyone’s best (Hey! Who would’ve thought? Ryo is actually a pretty great and supportive guy! Really looking forward to Truthful).

The side from which Aoi pulls.

Where does Aoi fall in this tug-of-war?

She is, simply put, the mom friend of the group: she cooks for them, her partner is the only one that naturally has healing ability in child stage—not to mention she herself will patch others up with her own hands— and she will often keep in mind the needs of the group and what course of action will be most beneficial for all. She’s gentle, values cooperation and has a strong sense of responsibility that will lead her to pick up the slack from those around her.

She prioritizes harmony so much she loses herself to it: she laments her personal identity revolves around being an honor student and a class president always forced to go several extra miles for the sake of the class with no expression of individuality or personal warmth. Her struggle to maintain her personal identity extends to being unable to express or assert herself: she gets self-conscious of her interests, she can’t stand up for herself and refuse extra work load, she won’t share her misgivings out of fear of being a burden and she has great difficulty sharing her input and defending it during group discussions.

These struggles will haunt her through the events of the game: her eroded self-esteem and her self-image as a supporting side character causes her to shrink out of the responsibility of leading the group in part 2 and to be unable to speak up when the group is openly antagonizing Shuuji in part 5. This exacerbates her sense of inadequacy upon both boys’ deaths, where she will continually beat herself up for failing to respond to the situation optimally and will always minimize her contributions to the group. The extent of these regrets can be fully appreciated through her Wrathful event-horizon realizations: she should've been more assertive from the start in order to prevent others from being wrong.

It becomes apparent Aoi's character revolves around duty and responsibility (which is heavily reflected in her partner's evolutions), something she shares in common with Shuuji.

Overachiever syndrome.

Shuuji’s first appearance firmly places him as someone who’s responsible for the rest of the cast: he’s older and their chaperone—as such he needs to make sure no one wanders off, everyone stays on schedule and generally out of trouble. The way he goes about leading them is strict and even nagging. Similarly to Aoi, Shuuji places the well-being of the group and its harmony over himself and others’ individual drives. This is evidenced through his argument with Kaito in part 4: concerned for the safety of the other kids, he opposes venturing outside to search for Miu, which can come off as cowardly at best and callous risk-calculating at worst. However, neither view describes his character accurately: while he's risk-averse, it's an attitude coming from watching two people die before him. He's acutely aware of the dangers that loom over the group but, nonetheless, remains committed and dedicated to look after them. It's thanks to his scrupulous nature that he pushes himself to the extreme: even though he's suffering from nightmares from the intense pressure he's under, disagrees with the course of action the group has decided by majority and is struggling to cope so badly he can't keep his emotions in check, he won't ask for a break or any sort of help that'd alleviate his burden. Ironically, the way he disregards all his individual needs for the sake of his duties backfires and turns his behavior into something that upsets the group greatly.

Shuuji’s intransigent morality is a source of constant friction with Kaito all the way to his death in chapter 5— a clear example of how an imposed and forced unity on the group causes division within it and hurts its specific individuals: with Kaito’s already fraught trust in the group failing to cement and Shuuji ending up openly antagonized by the rest. This extreme view on duty and authority is something that we’ll see further elaboration on through Plutomon’s extremist morality and pathos.

Shuuji’s conflation of leadership with authorianism speaks volumes of his own upbringing—as do his harsh and relentless criticism towards lopmon and his constant nagging to the group to steer them to act responsibly. He mirrors the way his own father treated him growing up, and, as such, his problematic behavior is once again a symptom of deep hurt and unmet needs, a wrong that needs to be communally righted before the group can live up to their best potential.

His leadership serves as a point of contrast to Aoi’s own approach to it: unable to put up with Kaito and Shuuji’s arguing any longer, Aoi uncharacteristically explodes and puts an end to their discussion. The way she engages them, however, isn’t through anger, belittling or mockery— she reminds each of their goals and invites them to question whether their actions are conducive to their success. She’s able to guide them to better behavior instead of upsetting them any further. This is again observed when she’s able to get through the child digimon trio pestering them at the park, and is generally an approach that is highly conductive to harmony for a group that’s highly emotional and under a huge amount of stress, evidenced through Takuma using a similar leading style.

Aoi’s full potential won’t be realized until near end-game stretches, for good reason: her debilitating self-doubt hampers any ability to assert herself, another trait she and Shuuji have in common. While Aoi clams up and fails to respond to the challenges before her, Shuuji tries to force his way through them. Similarly—the way Aoi’s identity revolves around fulfilling the high demands and expectations others have of her mirrors Shuuji’s sense of worth being rooted on meeting his father’s unreasonable standards for him. This leads both to second-guess their decisions, but also to foster a bubbling and potentially monstrous anger within them out of resentment of their grueling workloads, others’ selfish behavior and the unfair treatments they endure.

Both their responses to the stress and the nature of the external expectations over them are indicative of a gendered pattern of socialization that actively stunt their development (think of the lenient, devoted and quiet mother versus the bold and imposing leader). Shuuji’s survival hinges on him being able to embrace the “softer” sensitive and nurturing side of himself embodied by Lopmon as much as Aoi’s healthy development necessitates her to allow herself to assert herself and lean on the honesty encapsulated in Labramon.

Their refusal to burden the group with their personal struggles plays a key factor in both of their downfalls. Their better end-games have them relying on other characters such as Ryo, Takuma, Kaito and Saki to cross the bridge they didn't know they needed to cross to begin with.

Oil and warm water.

If Aoi is someone who will prioritize harmony above all else, then Kaito is someone who often has trouble adhering to it. His irascible, aggressively independent and headstrong personality often puts him at odds with the group, specially during times when they're scared and indecisive (which is often). However, this doesn't mean Kaito is such a selfish guy that he won't care about imposing on the group or about their well-being. Quite the contrary, if left to his own devices, he'll try to handle his problems alone so as to not to disturb the others— after all, Takuma did have to talk him out of leaving alone to look for Miu twice in chapter 5. His affinity dialogue shows time and time again that he will fight tirelessly to defend his sister even if that isolates him from the rest of the world. The lack of external support for both Shinonome siblings to deal with their traumatic past informs Kaito’s difficulties with respecting authority— especially if it doesn't align with his goals— and with fully integrating and leaning on the group.

While seemingly irreconcilable opposites, Aoi and Kaito, at their core, are all about a strong drive to look after other people. Their different approaches can paint them either as tragic foils or a complementary leading duo.

Kaito’s steely resolution to fight doesn’t always have to be a divisive force in the group, as illustrated in the Moral Route: when they’re cornered at the throne room, he has the head not to run off and influences the group to snap out of their fear-induced paralysis to protect themselves against the kenzoku. Aoi benefits from his snappy decisions— where she’d usually have difficulty making up her mind under intense pressure, she can ride his confidence and rouse the rest of the group behind this directive. Similarly, when they’re back at the school, Kaito can take cues out of Aoi’s tirelessly behind-the-scenes managerial work and listen to her concerns about their food supply and provide much needed help to cover the group’s needs. The way they share the burden of leading and caring for the group illustrates Survive’s ideal of a balance that allows both the harmony of the group and individuals to thrive— the burden of looking after a group shouldn’t fall on a single person. This stands in contrast to Aoi deciding to take it all on herself in Wrathful: being able to trust others with her burdens and worries and delegate work is essential for her healthier development in Moral.

Their differing stances also help illustrate the extremes in Survive’s dichotomy in the Wrathful and Harmony routes. Wrathful illustrates a kind of extreme, imposed Harmony that oppresses any dissent and threatens to erase any and all individuality.

The free-spirited optimist and the older serious-minded girl.

Saving the catalyst for the Wrathful route for last, we have our cheerful and radiant personality, Kimishima Saki. The very prologue of the game makes it clear that Aoi likes Saki quite a bit.There’s a palpable sense of admiration for her junior’s refreshing honesty that’s amicable, keen and direct in a way that still jives with Aoi’s personal values. It’s easy to see why Aoi, who struggles to assert herself, would marvel at those traits in Saki. Aoi’s high regard for her shows up again during her passionate defense of Saki in part 5, much to her junior’s delight and surprise. This admiration is very much mutual: for Saki, who struggles with her sense of belonging and relevance in her interpersonal connections, Aoi’s commitment to caring for the group stands as both an example to follow as someone who can easily adhere to a group’s harmony and nurture it as well as a comforting presence that makes her feel accepted and healed.

It’s no surprise, then, that a close bond blossoms between the two. Their relationship balances each other out on a personal level: Saki will actively seek to alleviate Aoi’s workload even when she doesn’t ask, as well as look after her so she doesn’t run herself ragged. Additionally, Saki is capable of comforting her when Aoi is beating herself down or is generally affected by the grueling situation they’re in, as seen when she patiently comforts her after Ryo’s death. Aoi will reign Saki back in (or try to) when her bluntness is crossing the line and will serve as her confidant and care for her as a whole person. It’s no hyperbole to say Saki is the only camper Aoi manages to open up and bond with on a deep level, and a key figure in her budding support system. It’s only natural, then, that losing her would break Aoi’s fraught mental stability.

The momentum of the Wrathful Route.

Why do Kaito and Saki run off on their own during the amusement park debacle in the Wrathful route? Why are they able to keep their cool in Moral and not here? To answer this, we need to take a look at the function of the Karma System beyond triggering Agumon’s evolutions and showing the timeline options during the part 8 split, as well as the meaning behind the Wrathful route.

The Karma system allows for a cumulation of momentum, so to speak. Karma shouldn’t be seen only as a straight-forward system of retribution and rewards for one’s actions and decisions, but as the conjunction of all the moving parts in the universe that allow the destiny of a person to be forged, which includes one’s legacy, community and the way one interacts with it. Digimon Survive uses this concept to shape the energy the group will move through each specific route. Simply put, it shapes the mood of the group. If one balances the Karma points for all of three options, then the group’s fate can go either way. If one leans heavily into any of them, then, that heavily restricts the fate the group is able to forge for itself.

What is that fate in the Wrathful route?

Let’s start by remembering the words of the man-behind-the-project himself, Habu Kazumasa, who states in an interview that the staff tried not to think of the different timelines as the bad ones or the correct ones, and rather gave a theme to each of them; the Wrathful route being about “acting on one’s emotions” (citation pending lol). This is certainly reflected in the original name of the route itself: 激情, a term pertaining to passion: strong and/or violent emotions and convictions.

What this means for Survive’s narrative is that most of the group is favoring acting based on their individual drives and values, without prioritizing the unity of the group, which places Aoi’s harmony-based approach as the isolated attitude within it. This helps us make sense of Kaito’s hot-headedness getting the best of him, then, being an individual who already prominently acts based on his personal goals even if it puts him at odds with the group. It also informs Saki’s anxious emotions coming to a head with her impulsive urge to help out the vulnerable digimon at the park: while a noble effort, it’s informed by her antsy-ness with regards her sense of belonging, the meaningfulness of her existence and her fear of death. Aoi’s own failure to rouse the group behind a clear order reflects her being lost in her own strong fear as well as Miu’s similar mental block to open up the hidden throne room hidden pathway.

Saki’s tragic end directly parallels the cutscene containing the evolution of her Floramon into Vegiemon (lol). Back then, Saki still hadn’t experienced what it meant to truly belong in a group and to be able to interact beyond what she knows will outwardly, yet superficially, get her to be socially accepted. As a result, she wasn’t sure of the sincerity of her own emotions and actions towards others, doubting her own intentions when following Ryo around. What lies at the core of Saki’s teetering act between refreshing bluntness and faux pas leading to rejection is the isolation, and the social inexperience this brought as a result, her chronic illness has imparted Saki.

By contrast, when part 9 rolls in, Saki has experienced working together in a team for the sake of the communal good of survival. With stakes so high, she’s bound to feel united to the group. She has also gotten a taste of a deeper self-acceptance through her bond with Floramon, the budding confidence to be herself unabashedly through Takuma’s assurances, the group’s continued acceptance of her role in it and Aoi’s warm, intimate and caring support. She’s becoming someone who has a place in the world and can start acting based on values that go beyond herself, and this is what her self-sacrifice epitomizes: she’s no longer insecure or indecisive about her commitment to the group and the greater good.

Into the mist.

The Wrathful route is characterized by thorough elaboration on Aoi’s interiority and inner monologue. This allows us to see the inner turmoil, conflicting viewpoints and the full extent of her self-depreciation that she usually keeps behind locked doors while she spirals.

Upon Saki’s death, Aoi experiences intense guilt over failing to keep Saki safe, as she was her leader calling the shots and guiding her through the rescue efforts, for mistaking the kenzoku for digimon in need and for losing grasp of her hand during the tug-of-war deciding Saki’s death. She isolates herself from the group due her grief, her continuous ruminations over the mistakes she did consume her thoughts and prevent her from continuing her duties as their leader and her managerial work at their base.

Now that Aoi it’s out of commission, Kaito belatedly comes into full appreciation of the labored support Aoi has offered the group. Knowing Saki was her moral support, Kaito attempts to reach out to her in order to pay the favor back despite his advice to Takuma to give Aoi some space. Takuma’s timid, soft-spoken approach wouldn’t be befitting to challenge Aoi’s spiraling thoughts, so it’s up to Kaito’s more direct approach and his understanding of what it takes to shoulder such responsabilites to step up to the task.

He bluntly refutes her self-blaming beliefs, pushing her to recontextualize Saki’s death from her personal failure to something Saki had agency in. It’s during these exchanges that it comes to stark light how much of Aoi’s inner world never gets expressed to the others, as her replies to Kaito are merely a small fraction of all the swirling emotions and thoughts festering in her head.

While Kaito’s efforts aren’t completely fruitless, they run into the Aoi’s emotional wall and don’t manage to address her perfectionist beliefs before Harumode reappears to lure them into the library. The seed towards Plutomon’s black and white thinking is already taking root: Aoi can’t afford to let herself falter or make mistakes anymore in order not to lose anyone else, or it’d keep reflecting badly on her own integrity as a person. So she runs off on her own despite being antithetical to her own values. Kaito’s decision to go back to the group and gather them despite running off on his own being more in line with his usual Modus Operandi shows his commitment to keeping the group together and leading them in Aoi’s place, placing his development as a foil to Aoi’s spiraling.

The illusions Aoi sees within the library reflect that guilt is still ravaging her heart and fuel her self-berating back to full strength. However, Kaito’s words are not lost on Aoi and her thoughts soon start blaming Saki for own death, much to Aoi’s chagrin. Examining the root behind her reasoning reveals that just as much Aoi blames herself, she’s also intensely angry at the others for always taking unnecessary risks without sparing a thought for unity and responsibility. This touches on a sore spot for her, since being taken advantage of or having her authority diminished by others’ selfishness has been an open wound from before she even attended camp. Unable to bear being with other people, Aoi wanders into the misty woods to get lost further into her ruminations.

Each time Aoi replays the events in her head, another edge that hurts her seems to surface. Instead of coming to terms with Saki’s self-sacrifice, Aoi distorts it into a rejection of herself and her feelings. Instead of reaching the conclusion that she should’ve been more assertive out of a genuine growth in her confidence,the conclusion is fueled by her intense disgust over being the same always weak, flawed her of the past. Instead of learning to share the responsibility with her peers, she concludes she should’ve prevented other people from being wrong. Instead of understanding how her intense self-censoring stunts her growth and makes it near-impossible for her friends —specially for Kaito and Labramon at the time, the other key figures in her support system— to reach out to her and help her, she concludes bottling up everything was for the better. If everyone is already this selfish, adding to the pile would simply be unbefitting and irresponsible of her. This makes for a highly striking and effective portrayal of grief, with Aoi being unable to relentlessly revisit the event and find more and more shortcomings in herself and everyone around her. Her trust in others is fundamentally broken at this point.

Yet, despite her increasing mistrust of others, Aoi is finally able to internalize the depth of Labramon’s love and support for her. How could she not? Even though Aoi is at her most closed off and lowest mood, Labramon is still by her side, begging her to let her know the entirety of her heart. While a moving moment, this also symbolically marks the moment where Aoi has decided that the only beings she can trust are herself and her partner. This self-aggrandizing posture fueled by her self-loathing and guilt form the basis of Plutomon’s utter self-righteousness.

Her conviction that only her harmony-based posture and feelings are right to solve the conflict between humans and kemonogami, prompt her to take the extremely ill-advised decision to try to appeal to Piemon, as well as to cure him in a show of good grace. This, of course, backfires immediately, as Piemon brutally attacks her and her partner. This last ditch-effort for a pacific resolution of the conflict informs Plutomon’s posture that if she can’t talk others into Harmony, then she will just have to force them and it’s the last step into the complete corruption of her values and growth.

Death evolutions.

Who doesn’t love a good symbolic death in their narrative? Survive generously offers two for the price of one. However, Aoi and Labramon’s gruesome agony isn’t the only time death shows in Labramon’s evolution line. It’s finally time to look into the themes woven into Labramon’s evolutions and how they relate to Aoi’s character.

Starting with Labramon herself, what we can learn from her official profile and debut is that she’s a digimon with a duty. Being an artificial digimon means she was specifically created to fulfill a function, which is further cemented by the fact it’s a literal living vaccine program. Her only skill movement in-game is Cure Liqueur, a healing skill that aims to restore and optimize weakened data (put a pin on this). Her fierce loyalty and dutiful origins already fit Aoi to a tee.

In general, devotion to one’s duty is a key theme to Labramon’s evo line. Dobermon takes this a step further being a digimon whose only purpose is to hunt viruses. Originally consumed by viruses itself, its strong vaccine nature broke through and it learned to harness violence to fulfill its mission. This adult stage marks the start of a consistent theme in the evo line about harnessing monstrous power in order to fulfill one’s duties, much like Aoi needs to embrace assertiveness and authority to be able to properly respond to the situations before her and achieve her goals. This is also the first time the theme of death as transformation will show up in the evo line. Dobermon’s evolution dialogue encourages Aoi to take pride in her efforts and work to push her into this ever on-going journey of embracing her own agency.

Cerberumon is the guardian of the Dark Area, a duty that goes a degree higher in importance than solely hunting viruses, much like Aoi will eventually have to step up into the heavier responsibility to lead the group. Cerberumon’s ferocious appearance is remarked upon in the evolution dialogue: where Aoi openly admits her desire for power— power as having the agency, authority and self-confidence to assert herself—. Cerberumon’s words encourage her not to be afraid of using this latent power already present in her heart.

Anubimon, the other possible ultimate available to unlock in the vanilla routes, is the judge of the dark area, who weighs over fallen digimon’s data to either banish them forever or grant them the chance of rebirth. Its role as a fair judge relates to Aoi’s role as a leader who listens to everyone’s input so everyone can reach either a unanimous decision or call for a timeout so the group can put their feelings back in line. (ALSO. I couldn’t unlock it in my Moral run, so this as much as I can glean from lore and plot alone.) This position as a fair judge stands in direct opposition to Aoi’s pathos as Plutomon.

Now, onto the dramatic ultimate evolution of the Wrathful route: Plutomon. Plutomon it’s a virus executioner that’s known for attacking with intense terror and violence. It’s a Death God itself that governs tyrannically over the realm of the dead. Unlike Anubimon, who weighs digimons’ worthiness, Plutomon mercilessly slays anything it deems evil and takes pleasure in it. Its cruel nature is reflected in it having become a virus itself. All of this lore is directly reflected in Aoi’s Wrathful ethos: as Plutomon, she has cast off her humanity to transcend her weaknesses, becoming scheming and even taking pleasure in venting her pent up bitterness by playing her friends like a fiddle— both when she intentionally makes them waste time arguing with her while Miyuki is dying on the floor, and when she emotionally manipulates them into avenging her by fighting the Master. Plutomon’s tyrannical rule is reflected in Aoi’s utter self-righteousness, where any dissenting opinions are deemed mistakes she needs to strong-arm others out of. She’s reached the ultimate black and white vision of her ideals, convinced she’s being the best version of herself she could possibly be. Despite Aoi!Plutomon’s goals for perfect harmony and oneness, she has become the embodiment of violent convictions herself.

Plutomon’s evolution cutscene involves Aoi and Labramon slowly and painfully agonizing after being attacked by Piemon. Since the two are the healers of the group, their friends are unable to help them beyond fighting Piemon for them. This epitomizes the isolation Aoi has felt both in the human world and the kemonogami one: in the human world, she felt alienated because only she would get admonished for undone work as well as if she went the extra mile to get it done herself. In the kemonogami world, after losing Saki and thus having lost her own confidant as well as internalizing a sense of rejection from her self-sacrifice, she laments no one can understand her heart and look after her the same way she does for the group. In a morbid parallel to how she takes on all the group’s burden upon her shoulders, if Aoi wants to live, she alone will have to drag herself through the ground to reach her partner. Driven by her loyalty and duty to Aoi to the very end, Labramon does the ultimate act of self-sacrifice by using her remaining life energy to restore Aoi (very bittersweet use of the function behind Cure Liqueur! Incidentally, Plutomon’s self-healing ability forms part of this theme as well:where Labramon heals the party, Plutomon only heals itself). The evolution that takes place responds to Aoi’s heart passionately clinging to life as well as her inner turmoil. Thus, comes Aoi back to life in a terrifying miracle marked by her deep bond with her partner and all it represents. Plutomon is the most extreme externalization of her hidden unresolved struggles to open up, her perfectionism, her self loathing, repressed emotions and extreme morality.

Acknowledgements.

Shout out to digitalsurvivor for consistently putting out helpful information that gets lost in translation and cultural differences, as well as having long talks with me that help me enrich my perspective on the topics covered.

Special thanks to all my dear friends that allowed me to explain the events of the game in detail and wall-text their inboxes with my interpretations of the narrative. Their kind and patient dialogue helped me greatly to flesh out and complement my analysis.

#Digimon Survive #Digimon Survive spoilers #Aoi Shibuya #Shibuya Aoi #Ryo Tominaga #Tominaga Ryo #Shuuji Kayama #Kayama Shuuji #Kaito Shinonome #Shinonome Kaito #Saki Kimishima #Kimishima Saki

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tenswrld · 3 years ago

Text

told you so

yangyang x reader, fluff

summary: you like yangyang and ten tries to convince you that he likes you back.

a/n: soooo sorry that it’s been so long LOLLL but hopefully i’ll get back into writing now that it’s summer ^^

“give me one reason why i should believe you.”

ten frowned at you. “what? you don’t trust me?”

“of course i trust you, but how do you know for sure? i don’t want to risk it.” you slapped ten gently on the shoulder when he continued to frown at you. “don’t look at me like that, it’s not going to help your case.”

ten erased the frown from his face and rolled his eyes, flipping onto his back with a loud groan. “my two babies like each other and are too stupid to realize it. you guys drive me nuts.”

you laughed and threw a pillow at him. “shut up. and we’re not your babies. i’m not your cat, weirdo.”

***

both you and yangyang were busy college students, but even then you two always made time for each other. whether that was rushed lunches in the quad, or childhood movies at each others dorms at 2 am. you considered him your closest friend, and he considered you his own. you basically already acted like a couple, the only thing that was missing was the label (and kisses, of course).

ten wasn’t sure if the two of you were scared, oblivious, or stupid, so he settled with assuming that you were all three. even mark could see that you two liked each other, and he was slow to pick up on things.

when ten decided that convincing you wasn’t going to work, he turned his attention back to yangyang. yangyang held a bit more confidence than you did, but ten knew it would diminish the moment he found out there was the slightest chance that you liked him back.

it made ten want to slam his head into a wall.

“yangyang, why would i lie to you? do you think i want to see you humiliate yourself?” ten sighed, clearly very frustrated.

yangyang shrugged. “i mean, i wouldn’t be surprised.” at this, ten rolled his eyes. “but seriously there’s, like, no way y/n likes me back. she probably likes mark, or something, and you’re trying to fool me.”

ten took hold of yangyang’s shoulders and stared him dead in the eyes. “if i’m wrong about this i’ll buy you food for a week.”

yangyang drew back from ten and raised a brow, saying, “either you’re serious or way too into a prank, dude.”

ten hung his head in exhaustion, sighing. “oh my god, i can’t stand this anymore. forget my deal, you’re stupid.”

yangyang pouted as ten walked away, slightly offended by his comment. “rude,” he grumbled under his breath.

***

yangyang bounced his knee up and down, his gaze continuously flickering back and forth between the clock on the wall and his paper. the two of you had planned to have lunch together since you hadn’t been able to hangout for the past few days, and yangyang was insistent on being on time. he wasn’t sure why, but his hands seemed to be sweatier than usual and his heart couldn’t help but skip a beat at the thought of seeing you again.

he shook his head as if to get himself to stop thinking about you, mumbling to himself, “god, what is wrong with me?”

he nearly jumped out of his skin when a mutual friend of his, jaemin, tapped on his shoulder. jaemin stared at him in amusement and took a small step back. “my bad, didn’t mean to scare you. you okay?”

yangyang chuckled awkwardly and said, “yeah, sorry, i just spaced out. what’s up?”

jaemin leaned on the desk in front of yangyang casually. “you’re friends with y/n, right?”

yangyang tensed at his question, fearing where this conversation was going. “uh, yeah, why?”

“do you think you could get me her number?”

yangyang blinked at him before quickly clearing his throat, realizing he had been staring like an idiot. “...can’t you, like, get it from her yourself?”

the corners of jaemin’s lips curled up into a small smile. he shrugged, saying, “i could, but asking you saves me the trouble.”

yangyang sat there stumbling over his own words before directing his attention to his classmates leaving the classroom. using this as his chance to escape, yangyang stood abruptly.

“i’ll get back to you on that...eventually. i got to go, so...bye!” yangyang said to jaemin, flashing him a fake smile before dashing out of the room.

yangyang couldn’t help but feel uneasy at the thought of jaemin having a crush on you, but he tried his best to convince himself that wasn’t the case. whether it was because he was nervous or because he didn’t want to be late, yangyang picked up his pace and sent you a text telling you that he was on his way.

you sat patiently on the grass under a tree that you and yangyang had unofficially called your “spot”, jumping when yangyang fell into the spot next to you. he was panting slightly, but still had a bright smile on his face.

“did you run? why are you out of breath?” you asked while laughing at how he tried fixing his hair.

“didn’t want to keep you waiting, i guess,” yangyang huffed out. your cheeks warmed up at the comment, making you look down in embarrassment. to distract yangyang from seeing your flushed expression, you turned to grab the food from your bag.

just like any other time that you two would have lunch together, you cracked jokes and took stupid pictures, enjoying each other’s company for as long as you could. moments like these made you forget that you and yangyang were just friends, which meant that the reality check at the end of the day hurt a lot more.

“hey, do you know jaemin?” yangyang asked suddenly.

“na jaemin?” you nodded at yangyang and said, “yeah, he might be in a class or two of mine. why?”

“just curious. what do you think of him? is he, like, cool or anything?” yangyang asked nervously. he turned away and mentally slapped himself. you sound so stupid right now.

to his relief, you replied, “i don’t know him very well, so i wouldn’t know. he seems quiet.”

yangyang hummed in reply. you chuckled and nudged his shoulder. “what? you got a crush on him?”

yangyang rolled his eyes playfully and scoffed. “oh, shut up.”

you laughed before checking your phone and sighing. “shit, i gotta get going. sorry to cut it short, yang.”

yangyang waved you off and stood up, offering you a hand to pull you up which you gratefully took. “no worries, i’m glad we got to do this today.” he almost melted when you shot him a smile.

“me too. see you later, okay?” you waved him goodbye as you walked away.

yangyang sighed and shook his head as soon as you left, the thought of you and jaemin refusing to leave his mind. he grumbled to himself, “grow a pair and confess, yangyang, come on.”

***

“well, now i’m sure he doesn’t like me, ten,” you said into your phone as you laid on your bed, facing your ceiling.

“what? why?” ten’s voice rang throughout your small dorm room.

“he kept asking me about na jaemin, i think he’s trying to set me up with him, or something.” you frowned at the thought.

“no! he is definitely not trying to do that.”

you furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. “how would you know?”

“because i told jaemin to ask him for your number. i thought that yangyang would stop being a pussy and confess but i can tell that didn’t go as planned,” ten said. you could almost hear his sheepish smile.

had ten been here, you would’ve strangled him. “why are you so invested in my love life?”

“y/n, without me you don’t have a love life. be grateful that i’m even trying to help you out here.”

you couldn’t help but laugh. “well you’re not doing a very good job.”

“and you are? excuse me, but you’re just as much of a pussy as yang,” ten laughed through the phone. “quit pissing me off and tell him you like him already before he comes crying to me about how he thinks you and jaemin are going to start dating. i gotta go, louis turned on my stove and might burn down the place.”

you laughed lightly. “alright, talk you later. and keep your nose out of my business!”

after you hung up you sat on your bed and stared blankly at the wall of your dorm. typically you tried not to listen to ten as it only ever got you in trouble, but you decided that maybe this time he was right. if he was going through all this trouble, he couldn’t have been lying, right?

right?

***

much to ten’s dismay, he seems to have been right about yangyang and his whining.

“no, like, you don’t understand. he totally likes her. and he’s na jaemin. there’s like no way she wouldn’t like him back! i would have a crush on him too, bro.” ten shook his head at the way yangyang sat glumly on his bed, combing his bangs over his eyes.

“do you ever listen to what i tell you? i have been telling you for several weeks that she likes you. you and your idiotic self,” ten said while shoving his shoulder to get his attention. “and if you don’t listen to me this time, i will make sure that her and jaemin start dating just so that i can see you writhe in pain.”

“that’s so low, dude,” yangyang mumbled into his pillow which he had shoved his face into.

“low like your game with girls. now go get her flowers and confess!”

***

“she liked tulips right? come on yangyang, you should know this,” yangyang mumbled to himself. in his hands was a bouquet of followers which he has just bought you as well as a bag full of a few of your favorite things.

he was tripping over himself as he walked over to your dorm, his palms sweaty and his throat dry from anxiety. before he could open the door to your dorm complex, he stopped and stood at the base of the stairs.

“does she even like tulips? should i go back? oh my god, can i shut up and go?” yangyang argued with himself.

before he even had the chance to turn around and bail, your voice had called out to him, making him freeze.

“yangyang? what are you doing here?” you asked.

he turned around to see you with a large stuffed animal in your arms and a small bag that was similar to the one he was holding.

“y/n! oh my god!” yangyang wasn’t sure of what to say or do but he could see your gaze flickering from the flowers in his hands back to his nervous gaze. he saw the corner of your lips curl up into a small smile and felt his worries slowly ease away.

“i’m guessing ten talked to you too?” you chuckled, making your way towards him.

yangyang laughed nervously. “um, yes, quite aggressively too.” he held the tulips in his hands out to you. “i got these for you. you do like tulips, right?”

you smiled and nodded. “of course i do. you know me so well,” you teased. you handed over the stuffed animal to which yangyang gladly took into his arms. “i remember you talking about how badly you wanted this one from the store so i went and bought it for you.”

“thank you, i love it.”

the two of you looked at it each other for a moment before breaking out into bright smiles that you seemed to be unable to control. yangyang hesitantly took your hand into his own before brushing a strand of hair out of your face.

“i really like you,” he said softly.

“i know,” you laughed when he frowned and rolled his eyes. placing a kiss on his cheek you said, “i really like you too.”

“is it okay if i kiss you?” yangyang mumbled. you nodded excitedly, but before you could share your first kiss, yangyang’s phone buzzed.

0/10

have you confessed or not i have jaemin with me right now

yangyang scoffed at the text making you furrow your brows in confusion. “who is it?”

“just ten. come here, i need to send him a picture of us.”

“for...what?”

“for proof!”

“proof? proof for wh-“

“i’ll explain later, just come here.” yangyang wrapped his arm around your shoulder and pressed a kiss to your cheek, catching you by surprise. “and....sent! now back to that kiss...”

you shoved him at the sight of him wiggling his eyebrows making him laugh. “just shut up already.”

“if you say so,” yangyang sang.

you both smiled into the kiss, knowing that the both of you had been waiting for this moment forever, giggling when you finally pulled away. yangyang caressed your cheek gently before pulling out his phone to check ten’s reply.

0/10

told you so!!!!!

#yangyang x reader #wayv #wayv yangyang #wayv imagines #yangyang #liu yangyang #nct #nct oneshot #nct imagines #nct fluff #yangyang fluff #wayv x reader #wayv fluff #nct fanfic #wayv fanfic #yangyang imagines #yangyang fic

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psychee92 · 4 years ago

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Elain | The Bone Carver | The Prison

This post is a continuation of this, this, AND this post.

Ever since SJM’s interview with Eva Chen, where she specifically mentioned Elain’s future journey (namely, the crumbs she’s scattered in previous books, such as ACOMAF and ACOWAR), I went back and started combing through some parts that always struck me as odd. Even back when I was reading ACOWAR, before I was even aware of SJM’s plans for Elain, I could see a connection between the Bone Carver and Elain. Today, I’ll analyze this a bit more.

The biggest similarities between them:

Both have powerful siblings

Both are considered “weaker,” and are easily overlooked/forgotten

Both can see the future (Elain due to her Seer abilities; the Bone Carver due to him being a death-god)

Their siblings share some similarities (the Bone Carver once compared Nesta to his sister, Stryga - “A queen, as my sister once was. Terrible and proud; beautiful as a winter sunrise.”)

There is more to both than meets the eye

In ACOWAR, when Feyre and Cassian go to the Prison, this sentence struck me as odd (because SJM likes to use this exact wording when talking about hints/foreshadowing):

“I waited and waited and waited, picking apart the story he laid out like crumbs of bread.”

It is in this scene where he reveals his own backstory, and we learn of Koschei and Stryga, his siblings. This scene also hints at some of his motives. What struck me the most was this passage:

“This cell, Cursebreaker, is where I wish to be.” The Carver patted the dirt beside him. “Do you think I let them trap me without good reason?”

“Had I been braver, I might have bided my time—waited for their power to fade, for that long-ago Fae warrior to trick Stryga into diminishing her power and becoming confined to the Middle. Koschei, too—confined and bound by his little lake on the continent.”

He smiled, perhaps a bit sadly. “No one remembers her name. But I do. She would have been my salvation, had I not made my choice long before she walked this earth.”

“She could not kill them in the end—they were too strong. They could only be contained.” The Carver wiped a hand through the circles he’d drawn, erasing them wholly. “I knew that long before she ever trapped them—took it upon myself to find my way here.”

So, the Bone Carver was never trapped in the Prison. Rather, he was there by choice—the Prison was where he wanted to be, and he made his choice long before the Fae warrior trapped Stryga and Koschei. The question is: why?

“The Carver’s eyes burned like the hottest flame. “To hide from my siblings.”

“I am forgotten, that’s what I am. And that’s how I prefer to be.” The Carver rested his head against the wall of rock behind him. “So you will find that I do not wish to leave. That I have no desire to remind my sister and brother that I am alive and in the world.”

Again, why hide? Could it be because he had stolen something?

In my previous post, I analyzed “The Death of Koschei the Deathless,” a Russian fairytale that SJM is clearly inspired by.

As we all know, the only way that Koschei can be killed is by finding, and destroying, his mortality. The only problem is, it’s hidden:

According to legend, Koschei’s mortality is contained in a needle that’s placed somewhere highly inconvenient and very far. But, finding and breaking it is the only way to destroy him. It’s hidden in an egg, inside a duck, inside a hare that's inside a chest; the chest is buried under the roots of an oak tree, which grows on the invisible island of Buyan, at an undisclosed location in the middle of the ocean-sea.

Now, why does this sound familiar?

Under the roots of an oak tree - beneath the roots of the mountain

The Prison is located on an island

The island is surrounded by the sea

I also found this gesture very telling:

Why is he reluctant to leave the Prison? Why is his cell beneath the roots of the mountain? His siblings are both contained—so what is keeping the Bone Carver there?

Could it be that he stole something? Took something from them? Something that was hidden in an onyx box, perhaps?

Koschei possesses the onyx box—but what if it’s empty?

Regardless, we know that Elain is the only one who can see it, meaning that she is the only one who can retrieve it, or help retrieve it. Each Archeron sister had some ties to the Prison, and there is too much foreshadowing about it—and too many things left unsaid about the Bone Carver himself (we don’t even know his name)—for this to be a mere coincidence.

But it goes even beyond this—the Bone Carver and Elain share similar abilities. She might be the only one who could understand and help decipher the mysteries of his cell.

There is so much more to this story that we have yet to understand, but the crumbs have all been scattered, and they all point in the same direction: to Elain.

Which brings me to my last (and most important) point: the 4th object.

And then, we have this:

Coincidence? Perhaps—but we never see or hear about this scimitar again.

Elain will go to the Prison, and perhaps even conquer it, as her sisters have conquered their mountains. At this point, she is the only one who can.

#acotar 5 #acotar theories #elain archeron #badass elain #pro elain #elriel #pro elriel #the bone carver #stryga #the weaver #koschei

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oneshot-wxnderland · 4 years ago

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Prince’s Kiss | Jason Grace

Summary: While on a mission, Y/n gets hurt and there’s only one way for Jason to save her.

Category: fluff

_____________________

You and Jason had found yourselves in many situations like this before: back to back, weapons drawn, and fighting off a hoard of monsters. The rhythm and coordination you two had crafted over the course of hundreds of hours in battle and in training together proved to be a formidable force against opponents. You covered each other’s blind spots and moved as one. Which was necessary in the cramped alleyway.

Soon enough your attackers had diminished in number until just a few were left and one big ugly came charging at you. You swung at it but your sword got stuck half-way through its wood club and wouldn’t come when you pulled.

“Jay-.” Ducking under the monster’s swing, you continued to try and pry your sword free.

“On it.” Jason replied and finished off his opponent with a quick and calculated strike before he spun around to help. You ducked beneath his arm as it arched over you and cut into the monster, turning it to dust before he reached around you and wrapped his hands around your own on the hilt of your sword. It came free with a strong pull from your combined strength and you both let out a heavy breath now that it was over.

“Thanks,” you huffed, out of breath.

“Don’t mention it,” he nodded, equally fatigued.

“You know,” you kicked the wood club out of your way as you started to leave. “You’d think that with how often this happens, we’d be less winded.”

“I’m fine, I think it’s just you,” he nudged your shoulder with his and you laughed.

“Oh really? Bet I could beat you back to the motel.”

“You sure you wanna do this?”

“I think you’re scared, Jay-.”

A sharp sting to your side cut off your words. You looked down to see a scorpion-looking monster crouching behind the dumpster next to you and it reared its tail for another attack. Your limbs were sluggish as you tried pathetically to raise your sword and fight.

“You’re on, Y/n.” Jason looked back at you, a challenging smile on his face that fell immediately when he saw the blood coming from your side and the monster about to swing. “Y/n!”

His sword found its mark and the monster was finished before it could strike again and he spun to face you, worry creasing his brow.

“Are you alright?” He reached out his hand towards your wound and caught you in his arms as you collapsed. “Hold on, Y/n.”

The motel room you had rented for your mission wasn’t far and Jason made record time carrying you back to it. He laid you on one of the beds and gently lifted your shirt up over your stomach so that he could see the wound. It didn’t look too deep once he cleaned it up but you still hadn’t woken up. That’s when he knew something was wrong. You were one of the toughest people Jason knew and he had seen you walk off wounds far worse than this.

Deciding he needed some professional help, Jason scrambled to get a golden drachma from his backpack and ran to the bathroom to turn on the shower.

When the misty picture of Will Solace lit up the tiles, Jason called out to him frantically.

“Jason!” Will jumped and spun around to see the Iris message. He took in the usually composed leader’s worry and then past the open bathroom door to where he could see Y/n unmoving on the bed and immediately snapped into business mode. “What’s wrong.”

“I don’t know she got hit and passed out but the wound isn’t that bad and she can’t eat any ambrosia like this. What do I do?”

“You said the wound isn’t bad?” Will asked and Jason held his hand up in an approximation of how big it is, not wanting to move you from the bed. “And she’s passed out? It must be something else then. Did you see what hit her?”

“Yeah it was some kind of scorpion looking thing, I don’t know.” Jason ran his hand through his hair and walked back over to you, inspecting the wound and holding your hand that Will couldn’t see.

“Does she have a fever? It could be some kind of poison,” Will offered and Jason felt your forehead.

“She’s burning up.”

“I don’t get it,” Will tore through his books looking for an answer. “There isn’t a kind of monster like that who’s sting produces these kinds of symptoms.”

Jason walked back over to the bathroom and looked at Will’s surroundings.

“Is Annabeth there? She would probably know.”

“She’s in New York City with Percy.” Jason’s budding hope shrank again and he looked at your reflection in the mirror. Your skin looked drained of color but at least the wound had stopped bleeding. “I’ll keep looking. Did the wound look discolored at all-?”

Jason jumped from a cry of pain and rushed back to your side where you were thrashing around in your sleep. He grabbed your wrists and tried to hold you down so you wouldn’t hurt yourself, your eyes screwed shut and agonized noises like a twisting knife in his gut. “Will!”

“I’m looking! Try to keep her still!”

Even unconscious, you were putting up a hell of a fight for Jason who was struggling to hold you down, especially since he was trying not to hurt you.

“Jason, you gotta hold her down.”

He jumped up and straddled your hips to keep your legs down and leaned the rest of his weight into keeping your wrists to the pillow.

“Wait, you guys were looking for monsters who stole stuff from Aphrodite, right?”

“Yeah?” The entire point of the mission had left Jason’s mind since he saw you collapse and he was too anxious to follow Will’s thinking.

“Then what if it was one of Aphrodite’s potions that the stinger was dipped in?” Will grabbed a new book and wildly searched through it. “This one must be it! Fainting, fever, convulsions… yeah it’s this one.”

“What do I do?” The fight was being drained from you but Jason was hesitant to do more than ease on his grip a little in case you started up again.

“It says that the only cure is a… wow, that is so like Aphrodite.”

“Will.”

“Okay it says that the only cure is a kiss from royalty, like a prince or something.”

Jason’s hope was crushed once again seeing as how even if they weren’t in America, a prince would be exceptionally hard to acquire.

“Well I don’t think I’ll be able to find a prince in the middle of Wisconsin. Is there another option?” There had to be another way. No way in hell was Jason going to lose you. Especially not before you knew how he felt.

You had completely stopped fighting against him and Jason wished you would keep doing so even if he was tired. He much preferred it to you lying there limp and lifeless.

“Wait, wait, wait. Zeus is the king of the gods,” Will started and expected Jason to catch on to his idea. “And you’re his son.”

“Well, technically I’m the son of Jupiter, but what does that have to do with anything?” Jason removed himself from on top of you and walked over to Will.

“I mean that technically makes you a prince, Jason.”

Jason frowned in concentration, weighing the legitimacy of that claim. Then he struggled to fight off a blush when he realized what Will was insinuating he has to do now.

“Are you sure that counts? Like there’s not another way?” Jason looked back at you, now dealing with new emotions adding to his turmoil.

“Jason, you have to try it. And like now, she doesn’t have long. It says here that once the convulsions stop they don’t have much time left.” Will’s face was getting blurry as the Iris message was running out.

“What if it doesn’t work, what do I do?” Jason pleaded to the fading form of his friend. “Will, Will!”

The Iris message cut off and Jason hit the wall in frustration before he returned to your side.

“This better work.” He didn’t know what he would do if it didn’t. As Jason knelt down and brushed some hair out of your face he couldn’t imagine having to live without you by his side. Even if you didn’t return his feelings, your friendship was too important to him. The thought of losing you made him forget any nerves he had and he leaned down and gingerly pressed his lips to yours.

The change was immediate as you breathed in life. Your eyes opened and the first thing they saw was Jason’s.

“Jay?” He broke out into the biggest smile you had ever seen on him and he pulled you into a hug. “What happened?”

“You got kinda poisoned and almost died.” At this point you registered the dull pain emitting from your side and leaned back to look at your injury. “But you didn’t because I saved you. You’re welcome.”

“Oh, so you’re my Prince Charming?” You asked him and he shrugged.

“I mean, technically.” His voice sounded less confident than it had and you looked at him quizzically, which made him avoid your gaze by walking over to his backpack. “How do you feel?”

“Fine…” you answered, still thinking about his sudden mood shift. “Except for whatever happened here.”

“Giant scorpion thing,” he answered and walked back over, handing you a square of ambrosia.

“Cool.” The ambrosia soothed your side and you leaned against the headboard in relief.

“Hardly,” Jason scoffed, sitting next to you but looking down at his lap. “You collapsed and went pale and I thought I was going to lose you.”

He got quiet and you saw the stress and worry in his slumped shoulders.

“The thought of you just… being gone. Before I could say goodbye or, or tell you how I feel. You were so pale…” His jaw clenched and he turned his face away from you.

“Jason,” you placed your hand on his shoulder and made him look at you. His blue eyes teared up and you felt a physical tug on your heart. Your hands cradled his face and gently wiped away the tear that fell to his cheek. “I’m okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

His head hung and landed on your shoulder, your hand combed through his hair.

“And Jason?” You asked as you remembered a sensation from when you woke up.

“Mm-hm?” He responded from your shoulder, his voice steadier now.

“Did you… kiss me?”

At that he burst upright and a blush was raging on his face.

“Okay, I had to do it or you would die. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to- I mean I did want to kiss you. For a while now, actually, but not like this and especially when I couldn’t tell if you wanted me to or not. Will just said that there was no other way so-.”

“Shut up.” His eyes snapped to you failing to suppress your grin. “Don’t apologize. Just… do it again.”

His lips parted in shock and then one side lifted up as he leaned into you. Your hands held his face as his mouth pressed into yours and your bodies sighed into each other. So many years of longing and second-guessing and finally getting an answer, you couldn’t believe this was really happening.

Jason tilted his head further and deepened the kiss, his hand moving to your leg that was propped up on the bed, sliding from your knee down to your hip and squeezing.

“Holy shit,” you mumbled against his lips before you could stop yourself and you felt his smirk.

“Just wait.”

His lips moved down to your neck and you could breathe again but your head didn’t get any clearer, until you looked into the bathroom.

“Jason?”

“Hm?” His voice tickled the sensitive skin of your throat .

“Why is the shower on?”

#jason grace #Jason Grace x Reader #jason grace x you #jason grace x y/n #percy jackson #percy jackson x reader #percy jackson x you #percy jackson x y/n

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cappymightwrite · 3 years ago

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Customs, Chieftains & Countergifts

I'm currently writing up a deep dive chapter analysis of Jon XI, A Dance with Dragons, but wanted to post this section separately as a sort of preview, but also something to be enjoyed on its own (with some added visual aids). For all the medieval nerds out there...enjoy!

He slapped Jon’s back. “When all my folk are safe behind your Wall, we’ll share a bit o’ meat and mead. Till then…” The wildling pulled off the band from his left arm and tossed it at Jon, then did the same with its twin upon his right. “Your first payment. Had those from my father and him from his. Now they’re yours, you thieving black bastard.”

The armbands were old gold, solid and heavy, engraved with the ancient runes of the First Men. Tormund Giantsbane had worn them as long as Jon had known him; they had seemed as much a part of him as his beard. “The Braavosi will melt these down for the gold. That seems a shame. Perhaps you ought to keep them.” – ADWD, Jon XI

The exchange of arm-rings, or armbands, in medieval Germanic (notably Scandinavian/Nordic) cultures is hugely significant, and as a aspiring medievalist this interaction between Tormund and Jon really stood out to me. For some historical context:

Every ambitious chieftain faced the same problem: how was he to recruit and keep warriors in his retinue? His retainers, not simple mercenaries that fought for wages, were free men whose sense of honour would not have tolerated that kind of venal relationship. Instead, a chieftain needed to engage his warriors in close personal relationships. If they were not biological kin, they might create kinship through, for example, rituals of brotherhood, marriage alliances, and friendship formalised by drinking together in the chieftain's hall. Whatever their relationship, it was constantly reasserted through the exchange of gifts. It was their relationship with their chieftain that made warriors willing and eager to fight for him. [...] Appropriate gifts in a gift-giving relationship needed to be prestigious, which caused many chieftains to focus some of their energies on acquiring prestigious goods specifically rather than wealth in general. When the warrior recieved a gift of something valuable and prestigious from his chieftain, he was required to give a countergift. His first countergift was loyalty, unto death if necessary. This is how relationships of power were created in a society without states; rather than being obliged to perform military duty for his king (as in a full-fledged state), the warrior was persuaded with gifts to voluntarily perform that duty for his chieftain. The asymmetry of this interchange, with the chieftain giving more valuable gifts than the warrior, was an expression of the structure of political power: the more exclusive the gift, the higher the esteem of the giver, and the more power concentrated in him. – Anders Winroth, The Conversion of Scandinavia

The importance of this type of exchange is notably highlighted in certain passages from the Old English poem Beowulf:

Here is Seamus Heaney's translation of the same lines:

The above is just one example, but it illustrates how it was an honour to be gifted a ring/armband by a chieftain, and Tormund, we shouldn't forget, is a kind of Wildling chieftain. He is introduced to Jon by Mance as "the Mead-king of Ruddy Hall [...] Father of Hosts," (ASOS, Jon I), which connects to the significance of the chieftain's hall and the ritual of drinking in that hall to cement kinship bonds.

With Tormund and Jon, despite the former's earlier provocations, we see his real respect for Jon shine through here, initially by essentially inviting him to drink in his hall, or at least together:

“When all my folk are safe behind your Wall, we’ll share a bit o’ meat and mead. Till then…” – ADWD, Jon XI

This may seem like a small thing, but to the cultures which Tormund and the Free Folk play off of, this is a significant gesture, as noted above by Winroth. Furthermore, he makes clear the importance of his gift-giving by mentioning the armbands' prestigious history: "had those from my father and him from his." They are also materially valuable: "the armbands were old gold, solid and heavy, engraved with the ancient runes of the First Men."

The visual description of the armbands is very evocative of actual Viking era arm-rings that have been excavated, for instance, this gold one which has been recently found in the Isle of Man, which dates back to 950AD:

This plaited technique — probably more achievable in gold due to its relative softness/malleability — is reminiscent of other finds from around the same period (876-950AD), such as this one currently held at the British Museum:

As far as I can tell, however, runic inscriptions on arm-rings/armbands aren't really a thing, though you do see a variety of different kinds of engravings (the below date from the 10thC–11thC):

Of course, GRRM is just trying to evoke this kind of culture through his inclusion of "ancient runes of the First Men," rather than aim for exact accuracy, and we do see runic inscriptions on personal objects and some items of dress from the Viking period — often to denote ownership. However, in the below examples at least (a bone comb case and bossed penannular brooch), they seem more like later additions, rather than part of the original design:

But back to Tormund and Jon's exchange!

The armbands' prestige and value cannot be dismissed, and even though they are meant as "payment", Jon's acknowledgement of this significant gesture is reflected in his returning them. In fact, you could argue that his return of them is his "countergift" to Tormund, as well as the cementing of loyalty and trust between the two of them.

“The Braavosi will melt these down for the gold. That seems a shame. Perhaps you ought to keep them.” – ADWD, Jon XI

So, this little moment really plays on the dynamic between chieftain and retainer in a very interesting way. Indeed, we sort of see Jon take on the role of gift-giver himself, as he returns that same honour and respect to Tormund. Whereas Winroth describes the asymmetry of the interchange between chieftain and retainer, for Tormund and Jon there is symmetry, there is mutual standing; they are equals.

This is just such a beautiful, yet subtle, cultural exchange that is actually so meaningful. It really highlights Jon's strength of character and his respect and understanding of the Free Folk culture:

Tormund Giantsbane had worn them as long as Jon had known him; they had seemed as much a part of him as his beard. – ADWD, Jon XI

He understands how intrinsic this item of dress is to the Free Folk and to Tormund especially, how emotionally weighted they are, which is why he does not want to see them destroyed and diminished by being melted down for their gold. This stands in almost direct contrast to how Dany views the Meereenese tokar:

Dany had wanted to ban the tokar when she took Meereen, but her advisors had convinced her otherwise. "The Mother of Dragons must don the tokar or be forever hated," warned the Green Grace, Galazza Galare. "In the wools of Westeros or a gown of Myrish lace, Your Radiance shall forever remain a stranger amongst us, a grotesque outlander, a barbarian conqueror. Meereen's queen must be a lady of Old Ghis." Brown Ben Plumm, the captain of the Second Sons, had put it more succinctly. "Man wants to be the king o' the rabbits, he best wear a pair o' floppy ears." – ADWD, Daenerys I

Though to give Dany her due, the tokar is a far more restrictive and difficult item of dress to wear than a Free Folk armband, and Jon is also not being given Tormund's to wear precisely. Nevertheless, she fails to truly acknowledge the symbolism and cultural importance of the tokar. It is actually quite an offensive act to want to ban them, simply because you do not appreciate them aesthetically. It is a good thing that she takes on the advice of others and does wear it, but it is a concession on her part, not really anything deeper than that. It also doesn't exactly help things that the tokar continues to be referred to as the "floppy ears" by Dany from then on. It shows a lack of respect.

Jon continues his exchange with Tormund by not just showing respect to his culture, but by also sympathising with the loss of his two sons: Dormund and Torwynd. This moment between them was already bestowed with emotional meaning through the offer and return of the armbands. That could have been the end of it, yet Jon extends his understanding further to comfort a grieving father.

^ There you have it, just some stuff I found especially interesting in that interaction between Jon and Tormund — how it evokes a period of history and culture that I'm quite familiar with, as well as how it contrasts to Dany's own cultural confrontations in Meereen.

#jon snow #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #a dance with dragons #tormund giantsbane #anti daenerys #except it's not #it is daenerys critical #but just in case anyone takes offence #fun fact: i've had some (zoom) seminars with Anders Winroth #cappy's thoughts #cultural exchanges #wildling culture #anti daenerys targaryen #(but I'm not! I'm just reading critically)

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hannahshattuck · 3 years ago

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Trivia Night Gone Right?

Pairing: Steve Rogers x F!Reader

A/N: An idea that came about with talking with a friend. And with today being Chris Evans birthday why not write something!! Send in an Ask if you have a request/prompt or want to be part of my taglist. Enjoy!

Warnings: 18+ language, daddy kink, dirty talk, teasing, sexual language

Steve Rogers Masterlist Main Masterlist

Sitting still was never your forte. As a kid, you always had a lot of energy that eventually got channeled into sports when you were old enough to start playing. Due to your inability to sit still, jogging in the early morning always seemed to diminish the excess energy you had just enough to get you through your work day. Jogging is how you met Steve when someone decided to knock your shoulder which caused you to fall and break your wrist when you put your arms out to catch yourself before you smacked your face into the pavement. Steve made sure that person apologized and took you to the ER where you ended up getting a cast.

Currently, you were sitting in a VERY uncomfortable chair while at a bar with Steve, his friends, Sam, Bucky, and Scott, and your friends, Natasha, Maria, and Hope. It was trivia night at the local bar which was a tradition that you and your friends always went to. Once you and Steve were serious, you brought him one time and then he brought his friends and since then eight how you have been an unstoppable trivia team.

For trivia night, each table sat six people which meant two of you would have to sit at a different table a foot or so from the rest. You and Steve offered to sit at the other table since neither of you were in the mood for quick fire questions but still wanted to hang out with your friends.

Chairs at a bar were never the comfiest, but it seemed like the one you were sitting on was the worst. Every few moments you would squirm trying to get comfortable. Steve kept looking at you out of the corner of his eye and the front of his pants slowly got tighter and tighter with every shift you made. He would picture you squirming while riding him, or every time he would open you up with his fingers, or when he would make you sit on his face to eat you out. It got to the point where he needed to do something about your situation.

“What’s wrong, my love?” Steve asked, laying an arm over the back of your chair. You squirmed and then sat back with a huff, arms crossing over your chest.

“I can’t get comfortable,” you pouted. “This stupid chair is, like, the worst one in this place and I know bar chairs aren’t necessarily comfortable in general but this one just seems like it came straight from chair hell.”

Steve chuckled as he gripped the back of your neck, squeezing just enough that a tingle went through your spine. “Hmmm. How do we fix that situation?” He tapped his pointer finger of the hand that wasn’t on your neck against his bearded chin pretending to think. “Ah! I know,” he leaned close to you to whisper in your ear. “Why don’t ya come sit on Daddy’s lap, babydoll.” Oh, that made everything stop.

You swallowed a moan that threatened to escape your throat. “B-but, everyone will see,” you tried to reason.

“Honey,” Steve gestured around the room. “Everyone is cuddled close to their partner. Hell, Nat has her legs swung over one of Sam’s, Maria is practically groping Bucky with how high her hand is placed on his thigh, Scott has his head down on the table while Hope combs through his hair, and there’s a couple by the bathrooms, underneath a bright light might I add, that are essentially fucking.” He looked in your eyes, “You sitting on my lap isn’t going to phase anyone. Plus, we are in, like, the darkest corner of the whole place.”

You could see how right he is. You didn’t notice due to trying to find a comfortable spot on the chair. You sighed and started to move to sit on his lap. Steve sat up more in the chair and wrapped his arms around your waist once you sat down on one of his thighs, your back to his chest.

He kissed your cheek, “That’s a good girl.” This time you could not stop the quiet whimper that came out. “Mmm, that’s what I thought. Was my babydoll just squirming in her chair because she wanted Daddy’s lap but didn’t want to ask?” Steve placed a kiss just behind your ear.

“N-no,” you stuttered. “The chair was really uncomfortable.”

“Well, I think someone’s lying because everyone is sitting in the same exact chairs but there seems to be only one who had a problem with it. Or is it because my baby just can’t sit still that she needs her Daddy to sit her in his lap to keep her still.”

Steve nibbled on your ear lobe while you tried to form a complete thought. One of his hands moved down to your leg and his thumb brushed against your core through the leggings you decided to wear. You moved in his lap at the feeling.

“Babydoll,” he growled in your ear. “Do you really want me to bend you over the table and show everyone who you belong to?”

“No.”

“‘No’ what?”

“No, Daddy.”

Steve took the arm that was still wrapped around your middle and rubbed up and down your side. “Good girl.”

He was getting you all worked up, which you weren’t complaining about, but you also were sitting not even a foot away from your friends. The only saving grace was that everyone was focused on the questions and the music was loud enough that any noise you made would seem quiet.

Steve lifted one of your legs just slightly in order to bring his other leg under you so you were sitting on both his thighs, straddling him in a way. In the new position, you could feel his hardness pressing against your bottom.

“You feel that, lovely? That’s how you made Daddy feel with all your squirmin’.” He gripped your hips and pulled you tighter against him.

You started to grind back into him until a bruising grip on your hips stopped you. “Daddy..”, you whined looking over your shoulder at him.

“Babydoll.” He mocked you.

“I want ya, Daddy.” You tried grinding in his grip but he only tightened his hold.

“What happened to my girl who was scared that everyone was going to see her sit on my lap?” Steve smirked, raising an eyebrow knowing he was getting you all hot and bothered.

“That was before you started teasing me.” You glared at him over your shoulder before turning your attention back to the questions popping up on one of the tv screens.

“Oh baby,” Steve chuckled in your ear. “Is that any way to treat me? I was even thinking about rewarding you when we get home.”

You relaxed in his grip a bit, “No. I’m sorry, Daddy.” You answered unprompted.

“That’s my girl.” He kissed your cheek as both hands were now on your thighs, squeezing them as he moved up and down. “Now,” Steve said lowly. “How ‘bout we ditch the crew and go home so I can give you something to really squirm on.”

Taglist: @patzammit @sherlocksmanwatson @katiew1973 @rocketrhap3000 @emilyisreallycool14 @harrysthiccthighss @justamarvelfan14 @this-kitten-is-smitten

#Steve Rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers smut #steve rogers fluff #hannahshattuck writings

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