#and i liked that he duped her so bad after this moment

[nanawaffles]

And so he killed her

Mirdania, screaming in the middle of a room full of elves; she reveals Sauron's darkest secrets. Annatar: Somehow I feel naked.

[watcherintheweyr]

'Rhaenyra is a bad mom bc she knowingly gave birth to bastards and she knew how much danger they'd be in!!!!'

1. She had no way of knowing those babies wouldn't pop out looking exactly like her, beforehand. And unfortunately she couldn't stop at Jace. The throne needed an heir. Driftmark needed an heir. And a spare was needed as well, given the sheer rate of Targaryen children dying untimely deaths.

2. She had to provide heirs to the throne, and to Driftmark. If she hadn't, society wouldn't have blamed Laenor, they would have blamed her- which makes her position even more unstable, bc then she 'can't fulfill a woman's duty' so why would men think her 'able' to fill a 'man's role' by ruling the kingdom? And she and Laenor tried. He was either unable (meaning infertile or impotent, or unable to get it up), or unwilling. (And they did try. We dont know what they tried but Rhaenyra is shown to be clever in the show so honestly i have no doubt she attempted what Margaery suggested with Renly.) Laenor was in on the entire thing. He was aware of every part of this. He wasn't duped, he wasn't cuckholded- it was a plan greenlit by him, bc this way he and Rhaenyra would both have their heirs and a family. This cannot in any way shape or form be compared to Cersei cuckholding Robert (fuck Robert Baratheon tho), seeing as Robert was **not** at all aware that his children weren't his, and wouldn't have been OK with that.

Either way- she chose not to maritally r*pe her husband and put him through more trauma after it was clear their attempts weren't working. Yall are always so upset for Alicent (rightfully so, bc show!alicent was maritally raped, even if it wasn't considered as such in that time), but you... WANT Rhaenyra to do that to Laenor? Hello???

[And no. Rhaenyra did NOT rape or coerce Criston Cole. The actors, writers, and directors have all stated their sex was consensual and 'an act of love.' It was Rhaenyra going to someone she felt close to and trusted after feeling abandoned and unwanted and betrayed. In that scene you literally watch, as after Cole tells Rhaenyra to stop undressing herself, she moves aside so she isn't blocking his way to the door. The director states that the moment they show Cole folding and setting down his cloak was him choosing his desire over his oaths. And Criston Cole has known Rhaenyra since she was 14. He knew damn well the sort of person she was- and she was not the person who would have harmed him for saying no. She was an intoxicated and emotionally vulnerable 19 year old- Criston was in his late 20s to early 30s. And it's explicitly stated in ep.9 that the ONLY person a Kingsguard cannot refuse is the king. In ep.7 Criston disobeys a direct order from Alicent when she wants him to mutilate Lucerys. Criston Cole was not assaulted. Stop trying to assign Aegon's sins to Rhaenyra so that you can feel better for supporting him.]

3. In the books, the rumors of their bastardry at large halted when all of Rhaenyra's boys' cradle eggs hatched. The ONLY people who continued to try and raise issue were the core green faction. But the realm at large *did not give a fuck* why? Because every actually relevant party claimed those boys. Repeatedly and without flinching. Laenor claimed and loved those boys even face to face with Alicent's bullshit. Corlys claimed and love those boys- he was proud of them, and it's been stated by the actor in the show that Luke was his favorite- that given the... events of ep.10, Corlys will be out for blood. And Viserys repeatedly insisted upon their legitimacy- because Laenor and Corlys claimed them, because he knew that by forcing Rhaenyra to marry Laenor in order to repair the damage his insults caused House Velaryon, that he had backed her into a corner.

Rhaenyras boys are remembered to history as Velaryon. Even **Green supporters** noted that they were good, capable, intelligent, and **worthy** princes. That their deaths were unfortunate *for the realm.*

Legally, those boys are legitimate. They cannot be proven illegitimate without Laenor renouncing them, and he never did. Furthermore, trying to declare children illegitimate due to their appearance is a stupid, dangerous precedent. The fact that it's people who have no ties to House Velaryon pushing these rumors and pushing for disinheritance makes it even worse, because they're meddling in the succession of a House that *is not theirs.* if that became a standard, imagine the feuds and conflicts that would erupt- lords pushing for the children of rivals to be declared illegitimate all for the sake of trying to grasp and steal land, power, and influence as a norm? The realm would tear itself apart. Not to mention the sheer danger that would place women in, in Westeros.

Furthermore, even whilst usurping her, even while calling her children bastards, the Greens also imply Laenor's homosexuality was inherited by the Velaryon princes- that they would use Rhaenyra's 'promiscuity' and Laenor's 'predilections' to turn the Red Keep into a brothel- ironic, considering that's more what Aegon would've done. So even while claiming that Rhaenyras children are bastards that shouldn't inherit, they try to state that what the boys inherit or learn from Laenor makes them unfit for the throne. They can't keep their own damn story straight- because their usurpation was never about what is moral, what is right, or the greater good. It was about greed. Power. Sexism.

It doesn't matter what those boys looked like, especially seeing as Rhaenys had dark hair in the books. What matters is that Corlys and Laenor and Viserys claimed them and declared them legitimate, and that they **never** deviated from that.

As for Vaemond, he was a second son. And he waited until Corlys and Viserys were dying and too ill to stop him to make a grasp for power. Youre not supposed to look at that and feel hes in the right. Youre supposed to look at that and see a man consumed by greed, and literally trying to bury Corlys' will and intentions before the man is even in a grave. He was NEVER Corlys' heir- he just wanted power. It wasn't about his House, or their legacy, it was about him.

(And before yall start shit about Rhaenyras boys stealing Laena's girls' inheritance... Rhaena and Baela are *TARGARYEN*. Not Velaryon. Their claim was to the throne or to any holdings in Daemon's name. NOT to Driftmark.)

Rhaenyras boys being betrothed to Rhaena and Baela tied up any issue of 'Velaryon blood.' Baela would have been queen consort of the seven kingdoms at Jace's side, and they very clearly adored one another in book and show. Rhaena would have been Lady of the Tides- which she never would have had a chance for, without Rhaenyra (and Laena) making those betrothals. She and Luke were also canonically very close- and in show she's very encouraging of him whenever he looks nervous or uncertain. They had a bond.

Rhaenyra stole nothing. She gave those girls more. And she loved them- they were the only daughters she got to have, seeing as the Greens treachery caused the early death of baby Visenya. If she hadn't loved them, she wouldn't have trusted Rhaena to look after Joffrey or give her Morning's egg from Syrax. She wouldn't have immediately invited both girls to the table when she was queen, which is something her father did not do for her until much, much later. He allowed Rhaenyra's voice to be silenced too often when she was first made heir. Rhaenyra did not repeat that hurt to her girls or her boys.

Anyways, moving on.

You lot do also remember that Rhaenyra herself has Velaryon blood, right? Jaehaerys I's mother was Alyssa Velaryon. Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya the Conquerors' mother was Valaena Velaryon. It's not immediate, but there *is* Velaryon blood through *all* of Rhaenyras boys.

Ultimately, Rhaenyras boys were only in danger because of the core Green faction usurping the throne. If they hadnt- no succession crisis or rebellion could have truly threatened Rhaenyras boys- because none of them would have had dragons. All of Rhaenyras children loved one another- her sons by Daemon would not have turned on her sons with Laenor (and Harwin). They were a true, loving family- possibly one of the healthiest and most close knit one House Targaryen ever boasted.

And another thing... 'her having babies with Harwin was stupid, she should have picked someone Valyrian!'

Here's the thing. Rhaenyra had to be careful as hell choosing who would father her and Laenor's heirs. She had to choose someone who was physically close, and who could be trusted. Someone who wouldn't try to publicly claim those boys in boast or jealousy. Someone who would keep their mouth shut and had no ambition of their own in regards to the throne. Do you really think Vaemond Velaryon (as I see him suggested a lot) would've kept his mouth shut? That he wouldn't have tried to use this to blackmail Rhaenyra and Laenor for more power and status? Do you think Rhaenys would have ever fought for or supported Rhaenyra if Rhaenyra had tried to have Corlys sire her children? And flying to see Daemon in Pentos and having a purely Valyrian child 9 months later would have made things look even more suspect.

Furthermore... she chose someone who cared for her deeply. Who clearly had a positive relationship with Laenor. She chose someone so she wouldn't have to traumatize herself- she took power over her body in a way almost no Westerosi woman has ever been able to. They were a family unit- Rhaenyra, Laenor, and Harwin. Those children were loved and cherished by two fathers and their mother. They were raised never doubting their mothers love, nor their father's- either father. They were raised and educated to be true, good princes of the realm.

Rhaenyra fought like hell for her children. She was an incredible mother. Yall just believe everything the Green faction says without looking at it critically, and that's unfortunate as hell.

[artist-issues]

I remember during the making of Tangled, the filmmakers said they had to work hard to design Rapunzel’s tower to be beautiful and seem like a cozy, fun environment, while also making Mother Gothel seem sweet and loveable, if manipulative.

Because, they said, if the environment is too much like a prison, and Gothel is too much like a villainess, the audience wouldn’t believe in Rapunzel as a character. They’d think she was either stupid or cowardly, to stay in such a nasty situation without trying to escape sooner. But if her circumstances seem just livable enough, just sweet enough, that you can see some of the appeal, then you wouldn’t blame her for waiting so long to leave.

Why didn’t they do that with Wish?

Why didn’t they think that relatability through?

Nobody is really feeling compelled to root for the everyday Rosas citizens during the movie. You don’t feel like rooting for Asha’s cause, or even Queen Amaya’s. Because you think to yourself, “why did it take the townspeople so long to ask the question ‘why can’t we just have our wishes back?’”

Asha comes up with those culture-breaking questions, inexplicably, in the first twenty minutes of the movie. It takes the rest of the townspeople about 24 hours to suddenly start asking that, too.

So why don’t you root for them?

Because when something bad happens to them, part of your brain goes, “why didn’t they see that coming, though? Why didn’t they ask questions? That one’s a little bit on them.”

And you don’t really feel that feeling you got with Mother Gothel, where you were like, “Oh yeah, I can see why the main character trusted this villain; the villain really seems to care about the hero, if you didn’t know what she was after.” You don’t;t get that same feeling with Magnifico. Because the whole idea of what he does—by erasing people’s memories and yelling at them and having no moments with regular folk where he’s warm and personal and building trust—is so malicious that we don’t believe the other characters couldn’t see it.

We COULD HAVE believed it. If they’d added in good writing and character moments to make it believable.

When Magnifico interacts with the people who trust him and are duped by him, he’s up on a stage, flashing superpowers they don’t have and then disappearing back into his tower after only granting one wish. He’s not on the welcome tour with Asha. He doesn’t know his own palace staff by name. He’s done nothing to build the trust all the side-characters unquestioningly give him. So even at the end, when everyone’s like, “aw, we wanted to believe in Magnifico,” we don’t feel it. Because didja? Why? Everyone could see that coming.

Meanwhile Mother Gothel tells Rapunzel she loves her most every time she leaves. She laughs with her. She reinforces every conversation they have with the idea that she’s desperate to protect Rapunzel. She brings her her favorite soup as a surprise and remembers the ingredients. She goes to get white paint on a very long trip so Rapunzel can paint. She compliments her strength and beauty—even if it’s backhanded. She calls her “dear,” and “darling.” She knocks thugs out with sticks, returning even after she argued with and supposedly ‘gave up’ on Rapunzel, all to supposedly�� protect’ her. So when Rapunzel realizes it was all an act, and she’s wrathful and furious and grabs Gothel’s hand, we DO feel it. Because we believed that Rapunzel really didn’t see this coming, so the shock stings worse. We don’t blame Rapunzel, and we do blame Gothel.

Just another example of what #NotMyDisney forgot about themselves.

[mcyt-trios]

SEMI-FINALS

PROPAGANDA:

Familoier:

I CANT SPEND THE NEXT HOUR TYPING

THE TRIO OF ALL TIME TRULY- ALL 3 OF THEM LOVE AND CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER SO MUCH- LIKE ROIER AND CELLBIT ARE MARREID YEAH BUT THEY STILL CONSIDER JAIDEN PART OF THEIR FAMILY SHE IS IMPORTANT TO THEM AND THEY ARE IMPORTANT TO HER- ROIER AND JAIDEN WILL ALWAYS BE PARTNERS NO MATTER WHAT

theee relationship of all time: roier is husbands with cellbit and jaiden is his qpp, they are all so caring for each other and they have had their tension and their bad moments but there's a genuine want to communicate and grow better all the time :( <3

Cellbit and Roier are romantic married, Roier and Jaiden were platonic partners raising a child together, and all 3 are chaos together! But get along so so well! They support each other so much and care about each other so deeply and they are all Sillies

this is jaiden, and this is jaiden's partner/ the father of her child roier, and this is roier's cannibal husband cellbit

Eclipse Federation:

i dont like them. they ruined my life. Subz and Vitalasy had already partnered in previous seasons but this one, Vitalasy ended up leaving for a few months, leaving Subz alone, and Zam ended up getting close to him after immense trauma at the hands of his former teammates. Zam has done SO many wrongs, including to Subz himself and Subz STILL took him in and made him join Eclipse Federation after Zam died 14 times in a row and got banned then revived by the same player who's been killing him all this time. And it could've been perfect but no, Zam had betrayed his previous team due to them using dupes via exploits, and now Eclipse Federation ALSO has exploits! And he decided that yeah his morals were more important than being loved! And so he murders Vitalasy when he's at his most vulnerable point, lets everyone gaslight him into thinking Vitalasy is an irredeemable evil monster who will never change, even as Vitalasy SAID he was ready to change before the betrayal even happened, Eclipse threw out their whole revenge plans because of Zam's positive influence and he just broke everything. Subz couldn't be with Zam but also couldn't see himself at Vitalasy's side, leaving him alone. Vitalasy hated Zam and yet never killed him or hunted him down, despite Zam acting like he did. And when Vitalasy left, banning himself off from the server, Zam had some time alone to think and realized he fucked up SOOOO bad. And Subz revived Vitalasy and told him to kill him. And ban him. His last wish. His Deliverance. And to make up with Zam. And Vitalasy tried, and they kind of did make up over Subz's death, but then Zam was like "actually im going to kill everyone and destroy the server now. because i want subz back and also because i always do extremely drastic things when i don't need to because i have unchecked mental illnesses i refuse to get help for". And surprisingly when Subz came back he didn't like that! And they ended in tragedy! Eclipse is fucked up. It's a trio that's always about the absence of one person, it's a team that could only happen in one timeline and it was doomed from the very start. But the love was there. It made everything worse, truthfully. But it was there. And that matters. Also as a fun fact Zam himself on twitter has referred to eclipse as a throuple, which is not canon but that's pretty funny. he also stated on stream he didn't want to get therapy because it'd ruin his lifesteal character. and there was a saga where they would "marry" (challenge lost kinda shenanigans) and zam was the only one happy about it. he's not normal. there's something wrong with him. love that for him though sorry for the block of text. I really dislike them. They're my beloveds :3

[kbkirtley]

PENGUIN SPOILERS!!!!

I can’t stop thinking about Vic’s death and can’t believe it happened. Every time I think about it, I immediately push back against it as being out of character for Oz after how he cared for Vic, and uplifted the deputies, and helped Crown Point. He literally killed Alberto because he mocked his dream of having a parade thrown for him.

Except.

It was in character. Oz is a master at manipulating people and he willingly lies to and manipulates himself too in order to keep his view of himself in tact. The finale was full of examples of Oz lying to himself to keep his sense of self static, all of them chilling in their own way. The one that has stayed with me the most is the scene in the car with Sofia when she mocks him thinking of himself as “a man of the people” and tells him it’s not true because he doesn’t care about any of them. In the moment I felt compelled to defend Oz just like Vic would have. He gave Vic a chance! He saw the deputies for what they could do and empowered them! He gave the people of Crown Point electricity and jobs! But Sofia wasn’t duped like Vic or the audience or even Oz himself. She knew who he was even if he kept it from himself.

But you can take your pick of scenes if Oz lying to himself. Him refusing to admit he killed his brothers even though everyone in the room knew the truth and his mom was in danger. Him telling his mom she had everything she wanted and believing she loved him and was proud of him even though she called him the devil, stabbed him, and was living in a vegetive state, the thing she asked him to make sure never happened and to kill her first. Telling Vic it wasn’t for nothing and that he had to kill him even though Vic was fully loyal to Oz, fitting perfectly into that role Rex had talked about earlier in the episode about someone looking for a father figure. And then in the final scene with Eva, dancing with her dressed as his mom, asking her to tell him she loved him and was proud of him, continuing on the lies he told himself about his mom.

The whole season was a masterclass on writing. Getting so much of it from Oz’s perspective, we knew when he was manipulating the Falcones, or Maroni’s, or Zhou, but we couldn’t see when he was lying to himself. The last fifteen minutes of the finale set him up as a worthy big bad if they go that direction because we’ve seen him willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to get his power and are left with no illusions as to whether or not he’s an actual villain or a guy just dealt a bad hand. I’m not the biggest Batman fan, but I will be seated opening night for The Batman 2 just in the hopes that Bruce hits him with the Batmobile. Even that would be a mercy after him killing Vic with his bare hands, taking his money, and throwing his ID into the water, the same thing that had claimed the rest of Vic’s family.

Anyway, that finale made it to where this show may be permanently ingrained in my head which I think is one of the biggest accomplishments as piece of media can have.

Holidays are coming up so shameless self promotion: if you made it this far you probably also love superheroes and if that’s the case, consider buying my novel The White Knight for yourself or as a gift for another superhero fan in your life! It’s the first book in my series where I combine my love of superheroes with my preference for novels over comics. You can also read my short story series set in that world The Street Rat for free on my website. That series is set in a city with a very Gotham-esque vibe and happens on the street level with a grounded feel fans of Gotham stories and heroes will appreciate!

[sweetlikehoneystingslikeabee]

Hi! Is it okay to request different Penguins (or only Arkham, if you don't write for all!) with a female reader who dresses in classic Lolita fashion? If you aren't familiar with the style, it refers to people who wear doll-like dresses, accessories and cutesy makeup! She also behaves in a very "dainty" way and is kind of shy, so I guess you could say she has soft mannerisms/personality! Thank you! <3

"Soft Fashion" Penguin Party x Reader

eyyyyy I don't get to write a ton of Penguin parties! Always exciting. Believe me, I'm rather familiar with the lolita style. It's not something I could wear or pull off, but I love looking at the different dresses and styles. I tend to like gothic styles or dresses with richer tones like you see in classic.

TW: some unhealthy/villanous relationship dynamics, doll play if you squint at 2022

Gotham

At first, he confuses the soft personality for someone to be manipulated and controlled. Another pawn to be used in his grandiose plans for King of Gotham. Then he fell for you. It should have been so easy not to but... What originally started as plots for how to use you swiftly became annoyance at the idea of other people trying to use you. It's so annoying! He supposes he'll have to look after you forever now.

Honestly? The fashion itself makes him feel masculine in a positive, non-toxic way. He's rather used to people looking at him or thinking of him as effeminate because of his smaller stature and method of dress- Not that effeminate is bad, not at all. Yet, it's frustrating when your gender identity is distinctly male.

So dating a woman who dresses in a highly feminine style gives him a reason to flash his peacock feathers, so to speak. In some ways, it encourages him to get flashier with his outfits. Why not? The two of you together, a complimentary pair...

And you two will have matching elements when you go out. Whether it's small color coordination, or the same fabric was used for your dress and his handkerchief- It's a subtle way of telling others to back off.

Would be willing to try the Ouji fashion for you. A prince to your princess. He'd look fucking good in it, too.

BTAS

Obviously, you are a woman of status. This put him on guard at first, given his past run-ins with women like that using him for gag amongst her peers. He thought of how he should dupe you first before you could dupe him! Then he saw some cad harassing you for your purse and your genuine gentle nature- Bother.

His assumption was that you must be a lady of some kind to be dressing up like that. Perhaps the last of your true kind here in Gotham. You were everything a Lady should be- impeccably dressed, polite and well-mannered. Of course, some of that could be his own bias painting a perfect portrait of you. He wasn't wrong, in a way. Money and familial status does not necessarily a Lady make.

He has opinions about his favorite style of dresses and he has 0 shame sharing them. Mind you, he won't stop you from wearing things he "disapproves" of, he's not some moronic numbskull who feels entitled to your body and the clothes on it. Yet you might notice he tends to like fancier dresses with longer skirts, to the knee and below. Oh! and the ones with matching gloves, oh, those are lovely. He can't wear gloves himself due to his... condition. He loves seeing them on your delicate fingers.

There are moments you might need to pep him up as he stands next to you. He's aware that no matter how well he dresses there are still "flaws" in his appearance. Then he'll tell you what a lovely creature you are, inside and out!

Burton

Oh boy. Look. You need to know it now, but this man is not soft, nor is he anything related or parallel to dainty. He's crass, he's short and he's rather grungy. But holy fuck all, he likes looking at you.

The big problem is the pawing. He already has a handsy problem when being with anybody because the man craves social and physical intimacy after being denied it for so, so terribly long... Seeing you all dressed up is kind of like finally getting your mitts on the porcelain plate that was in the cabinet for all those years. The ones you got punished if you ever touched them. So now you kind of want to just smash it against a wall and-

No, wait. That metaphor went a little too far. What he means to say is, he wants to see the dress come off. With his teeth, but you seem like you wouldn't like that. Yeah, he figured you wouldn't like that.

It takes so much self control for him not to be a little freak around you but the fact that he does says so much. He'll crack an awful, nasty little joke, expecting to see color rise to your cheeks. Dancing along that line of too much and just enough. Anybody else fucks with you in that way, though, and he'll break their hands.

The two of you are an odd pair. Yet there's no doubt there's plenty of love to go around.

Arkham games

He's so about showing off his partner in nice things as a status symbol and lolita dresses cost a fuck-ton so he's already into it. He actually doesn't need an explanation because unlike some others on this list, he's been to Japan and the harajuku shopping district in his prime crime days. Y'know. Before his wings got clipped (banned entry into the country).

It's about the image. The status. When you're decked out in warm winter lolita fashion to accompany him to his Iceberg Lounge, it just says something to other people. You're his most special companion who gets everything you desire. And you earn it by just being you!

And... you know. Following his rules. Shy, dainty, and soft. You're like the prim and proper ladies at the boarding school he was shipped off to as a lad. To be treasured by some. In his line of work- to be fleeced.

Oh, not to worry, lamb. You do everything he says, and no one will be able to touch you. You keep to his hours, to his place- He's been a bit of a collector for a long time, love. Think of it like an elegant birdcage to keep you away from the filthy vermin that want to sully your wings.

That and don't comment about his eating habits. Follow all that and he'll get you whatever you want. You can be the adorable puffin to his penguin!

Batman 2022

He does not get it at first. Ain't lolita that book about the creepy guy who adopted the teenager he wanted to sleep with? oh. They made a fashion out of it? Why? That seems like a whole mess of implications, ya know? Sure, people dress up in Gotham in all kinds of weird shit these days, he just wants to know why this one.

Once you get into it, that it's only tangentially related, it's fashion, most importantly you like it- He'll tell you you're a cute little doll. His cute little doll.

It is funny given the kind of club he runs. Scantily clad men and women for entertainment about and yet you're... Very fully dressed, for the most part. If you ever wanted to get a little more risque, he wouldn't mind. A shorter gown, a peek at those thighs above the stocking... He could get into that.

Speaking of dolls, he wouldn't mind dressing you up. Or at least picking out those outfits. He's got a good sense for a suit, he'd figure out what dresses and accessories look best on you for an occasion. Gives him a fun sense of control and power play he enjoys. Rolling your stockings onto you, rolling them back down. Kissing your knees and calf. You got him kneelin' for you, sweetheart. Ain't you just a pretty picture looking at him like that?

He's going to teach you how to use a gun. Something tiny you can fit in your bag. He plans on being there if anything should happen, but pretending you're completely safe in his hands given everything is uh. Foolish, in his opinion. At minimum, you're getting a fancy taser. You can make it cute if you want. You're much too nice to not know how to defend yourself if you got in a bad situation!

[dyns33]

Without warning part 3

Not done yet with Frank and his soulmate !

Contrary to what he had imagined, Ghost had not killed him.

She could have if she had wanted to, no one could stop her with her powers, but she had left Frank alone with his remorse.

In all the scenarios he had imagined, there was no good ending. But he did not expect this one.

Probably because he had planned everything against Ghost based on the few things he had heard, but not with Y/N.

His sweet Y/N.

Sitting in the middle of his safehouse, Frank remembered all the moments spent with her, trying to determine if he could have seen this twist coming. But there was nothing.

If she had premeditated their meetings, Y/N had played the comedy well, and she had to bet on luck, because he could have not even noticed her. Each time, it was him who had approached her. No strange questions, no requests, no violent gestures. In his mind, Y/N was not an enemy.

On the other hand, he was for her now, with what he had done to Deadpool.

That was what happened when you made decisions with your heart, and not with your brain. Afraid of losing someone dear to him like he had lost his family, the Punisher had screwed up, pushing Y/N away and having Wilson captured.

Maybe the talkative mercenary had a complicated past, with many murders under his belt. Frank could repeat that he had had good reasons to eliminate his targets, they were not so different.

If he had been more patient, if he had asked for Micro's help, he could have verified that half of the crimes attributed to Deadpool were simple hypotheses, rumors. He had changed recently, since he had been in his red team with Murdock and the kid.

And damn, if Y/N trusted him, then he couldn't be all bad.

"Where's my brother ?!" she had screamed, pinning him against the wall, her eyes full of tears. "What did you do to him ?!"

"What ? Your brother ?"

"Where is he ?!"

"I don't know ! The secret service took care of it."

"… No." Y/N said with a broken voice, which was enough to freeze him in place. "No, not again."

She had disappeared, not insisting, probably knowing that the Punisher was not a liar. He knew nothing, he had destroyed everything and he had washed his hands of it.

Now he could sit there, convincing himself that she had lied to him, that he had done nothing wrong, to resume the course of his life as if he had never met Y/N. His soulmate. He should have known, he had never been happier with someone since Maria died.

He called Madani. It would probably be useless, but he tried, to make amends without making another victim. But she was not in charge of the Deadpool's case anymore.

Then he went to see Micro.

"Oh, you're in deep shit, real deep shit."

"Thanks. Can you find him ?"

"I'll try, but it won't be easy. I did some research on your Wilson, you know ? I was curious. He didn't have an easy life, with his father, the army, his cancer, the experiments, the death of his soulmate…. You two should start a club."

"… And Ghost ? Y/N… Do you know how they met ?"

"Hmm. Promise me not to destroy my stuff ?"

Frank only punched the wall, making his hand bleed, after Micro was finished.

There had been whispers about Project X when he was in the marines. The generals were fascinated as they were afraid, because mutant soldiers could be useful, but if they were on the wrong side, it would be a disaster.

What was not said was that the test subjects were not volunteers. Desperate, sick, poor, lonely people, who had been duped, found themselves prisoners in cages, tortured, lobotomized, then sold. And sometimes, there were also children.

"Subject 16. Arrived when she was ten years old, impossible to trace before. Tests for three years before there was a result, abilities to become invisible, pass through matter, like a ghost. Disappeared during the explosion of the New York lab. But… The name Y/N appears shortly after, false name, created by a man named Jack Hammer. You probably know him better under the name of Weasel, friend of our infamous Deadpool."

There were pictures. From when the little girl was in her cell, a control collar around her neck to stop her from running away, scared, skinny, bald. And pictures from after. With Wade.

Big brother Wade, who had taken her with him after destroying the lab, giving her a real childhood, with beautiful clothes, stuffed animals, everything so that she would display a magnificent radiant smile, with a normal life.

But when she became an adult, Y/N had wanted to follow him. She had never killed anyone, Deadpool was against it, but she accompanied him for simple missions, thefts, tailing, threats. So she had become Ghost.

"Shit… Shit, shit, shit !" Frank yelled, smashing his other hand against the concrete.

He had hated Ghost. Because she was no good. Because to meet her, he had to live through hell. Because her acquaintances were questionable. He had shot her without hesitation.

Y/N had been through hell too. She had come back from it, she had accepted his bullet, to give him a chance despite everything. Of course, she had not told him who she was, clearly suspicious at first, but they had become friends. More than friends.

It was carnage when Frank found Wilson, in a bunker on the other side of the country. No pity, even less when he saw him, boiled in a small box, with only his head intact if we forgot the sewn mouth.

"Aaaw, Frankie, I knew you loved me deep down !"

"Don't make me regret coming."

"Our love is impossible, dear Castle. I am much too handsome, brilliant and cool for you, sulking emo with your big guns. Nice rifle, new model ? It goes well with your eyes."

"I'm going to leave you in a ditch."

"Nah, you're a nice guy, I think, and you'll miss me too much."

He threw Deadpool in front of the blind old woman's house where he was squatting, ignoring his heartbreaking goodbyes screamed into the night.

Not once had they talked about Y/N in the car. Frank hadn't dared, he didn't think he had the right to.

This was the second time he had hurt his soulmate. He always hurt everyone… Shit, he was starting to sound like that stupid Red. Anyway, there was no point in moping around. He had ruined everything, he would never see her again.

"You saved him."

Or not.

Max barked happily, wagging his tail, not at all afraid to see Y/N appear in front of him, immediately demanding her attention. Without taking her eyes off Frank, she patted him on the head.

On the couch, he was staring at her too, relaxed, waiting to see what was going to happen. Whatever she decided to do, he wouldn't stop her.

"Why did you save him ?" she asked shyly.

"He didn't deserve that. You didn't either… I'm sorry."

Maybe that was why they were soulmates. They could understand each other's pain, but most of all she taught him the need to give a chance.

If Murdock found out, he would show his annoying smile, but if Deadpool hadn't been immortal, if Ghost couldn't dodge bullets, then he would have regretted it for the rest of his life. That didn't mean Red was right. But maybe sometimes he should not shoot, not in the head at least.

As if he were a frightened animal, Y/N came to sit down gently next to him.

"Wade wrote you a thank you poem."

"Hmm."

"I didn't think you'd help us. I know you don't like us very much."

"That's not… I got bad information. He's annoying, a real pain, but I don't hate you."

"You shot me. We exchanged sentences and you shot me."

"… Yeah. I'm an asshole."

Y/N nodded, looking at the ground. It was the end, he had apologized, they could go on their way now, move on.

When she took him in her arms, he was surprised for a second, before immediately grabbing her, gripping it tightly and hoping never to let go again.

They stayed like that, her crying silently, and him doing everything he could to hold back his tears.

But it wasn't sad. It wasn't goodbye, on the contrary.

That was certain when she placed a kiss on his cheek before disappearing again.

And even more certain when Wilson put an arm around him when he joined Team Red for a mission.

"I give you my blessing as the most awesome big brother in the universe, welcome to the family Frankie love. If you make my Y/N cry again, I'll cut you up like sashimi."

"Oh, you and Mrs. Ghost are together ?! So cool ! I'm happy for you, Mr. Punisher !"

"How do you know he's talking about Ghost ?"

"She's super nice, Mr. Devil ! We talk often, she… She found out my identity, after helping me, and since I was panicking, she told me her name to reassure me while she was healing me."

"… You were hurt ?"

"You knew Y/N was Ghost ?"

"Aaaw, that's sweet, my little Spidey and my little Ghosty are friends ! I should be sad that she didn't tell me anything, but she knows that I would have been jealous, while respecting the code of honor of the secret identity. Bro code ! I'm proud of her !"

"Since when did you know, kid ?!"

"I asked him not to say anything, don't be mad at him."

Red growled, continuing to jump every time Ghost spoke near him, reminding him that he was unable to detect her if she decided to be completely invisible. He quickly changed the subject to talk about the mission, but everyone had noticed.

Once the plan was explained, they split into two groups, Y/N with the kid and Wade, Frank with Daredevil.

But before jumping from the roof, and on each of the missions that followed, he felt ghost lips against his.

[marc--chilton]

the way I was about to send an ask about being obsessed with the house omegaverse au. like you’ve thought it about it a lot and I need to hear more. omegaverse is genuinely so intriguing to me and I love the dynamics and behaviors and everything. <3

seeing this message right after i'm like "no takers??" SENT me i want you to know. i'm on a call with a friend and she asked about my cat right when i saw this so i cackled right in her ear. the timing was So Good oh my god.

anyway

the first time the ducklings hear house purr is because of a bad pain day and at first they are so shocked to hear it at all they don't even consider the reasoning. he always claimed to be an alpha (as a joke? true duping? who knows) and yeah alphas can purr but they generally sound very different from omega purring..... which is what house was doing. involuntarily.

the novelty wears off pretty quick though because he's actually more insufferable. their latest patient wasn't getting better, which means house wasn't going home at a decent hour (or at all), wasn't sleeping, eating, which makes everything that much worse. so when they're sent away for another round of tests they scurry right on out.

it's cameron who finds house later. he's still in his office where she was going to deliver the test results. so is wilson. house is still in his chair but he's turned away from his desk, the computer, the whiteboard, into wilson who is either hugging house to his chest or has put him in a headlock, she's not sure. but house is still. no pained trembling, the tension in his shoulders gone slack..... it's almost eerie.

wilson's status isn't a secret, nor is it a badge, because it really is not a big deal to him most of the time. but he is never more thankful for it as he is those times, the moments where the neediest, most guarded man on the planet can't help himself so it's on wilson to help him. which is why he's there now instead of going home like was intended. all it took was one look at his friend to know he was needed even if house wouldn't ask for it.

cameron had only just barely cracked the door when she noticed them. and it hit her; this wasn't just an embrace. the scent of an alpha, intended to soothe, slithered out to greet her. caught off guard, it instinctually rankled her. a gasp, her own scent, something she did caught wilson's attention then and oh. the eyes that snapped to her were dark, the man's posture going from a solid post to a downright protective curl. for a second she thought she might have seen a glint of teeth.

a reflex, obviously. totally unbidden. but she was already scampering off, the strange hindbrain they never evolved out of deciding in a millisecond that even a mere miscommunication of challenge would ruin the night for everyone. house, if anything, had only burrowed even further into that warmth, the comfort, the safety.

[definitely-not-an-alb]

ooh, how do you think molly would grift essek?

Alright. Let’s grift Essek.

First I need to note that any objection along the line of ‘Essek is too intelligent to fall for grifts’ is unnecessary, because whatever you think of Essek’s specific characterisation, assuming you are to intelligent to fall for a grift is one of the major ways people fall for them, in a ‘renowned high pressure social group researcher proclaiming on twitter that Sissy Porn is real and dangerous’ kinda way (look it up it’s some hysterical terf bs).

Gonna use that joke as a sidenote that if I am conflating grifts and high pressure social groups in this, it’s ‘cause as far as I care the difference is how self-aware the people running the show are. Watch any MLM-Doku (and I think we can all agree MLMs are grifts) and you’ll inevitably get to the part about weird aspiration culture bs and group pressure. It’s all one soup.

With that out of the way, let’s establish a baseline: What’s Molly’s reason for grifting Essek? Probably money and also the fun of it/being bored. Considering Kingsley abandoned his perfectly fine shipping company job to run off to be pirate king, I don’t think ‘Molly keeps grifting long after the M9 have become financially stable for shits and giggles and because Jester enjoys it’ is too outlandish a projection. Additionally, I don’t think Molly is great with impulse control nor this whole thing where current actions cause future consequences.

Now; why would Essek fall for a grift. Grifting relies on the dupe wanting something more than having good sense about it. Most people want money, so most girfts are structured around greed, but we know money is no object to Essek (though this does make him a juicy target – what he would barely miss might make a good haul for any grifter). We do know he is primarily motivated by knowledge instead, as well as a desire to be recognized as intelligent and exceptional. Additionally, we know he needs (in the character development sense) The Power of Friendship. Lastly, I think it’s fair to say he subconsciously longs for excitement (happy, fulfilled bureaucrats don’t become heretic spies; nor do they befriend a gang of mercenaries; implicitly, Essek is happier living the life of a wayward refugee-adventurer wizard than that of an Evil Gay Vizier Court Wizard or whatever papers a Shadowhand stamps nine-to-five.).

Being a paranoid bastard makes him a harder target, though the fact that we know he has fallen for someone’s bs before (I’m counting the spectacularly bad decision that is him allying with the Assembly as falling for a grift here. That’s a stupid decision to make!) makes him an easier target. Being so socially isolated makes him an easier victim, too, though his general rejection of people and clear discomfort with social interactions makes him an unlikely target for something like a romance scam. Essek’s relationship to tolerating bullshit is a weird one; on the one hand, he does put up with Jester’s (and the rest of the Nein’s) shenanigans, on the other he clearly knows how to and dares to tell someone to fuck off, and there’s that time he just ditches everyone via teleport (hilarious). So boundaries-wise, he could go either way. Lastly, I’d argue he’s at least somewhat impulsive or at least not risk averse. Always remember we are looking at an NPC next to Sword’n’Sorcery Adventurers – Essek might look cautious next to ruin-trawling wizards, but compare him to Gundula, 55, who works in Insurance and just clicked on a phishing link to claim her Totally Real Oilve Garden Gift Card, and you’ll see what I mean – most people are too risk-averse and unimpulsive to, again, commit treason via international conspiracy and then run off without a moment’s notice to dig around a cursed-ass ruin to save the world from a Cronenbergian nightmare.

Conclusion: He’s rich, he’s bored, he loves pretending to be a spy or grand discoverer, he wants to buy your dodgy foreign papers and incredible discoveries about the Luxon so, so badly and he has absolutely no one left in his life who’ll tell him it’s a bad idea.

So, for example, Molly could Voynich him. All he needs is a battered notebook and some writing supplies, whatever knowledge of what wizards’ and alchemists’ and spies’ scribbles look like he can easily pick up from traveling with the Nein and an opportunity to ask Essek to have a look at this encoded notebook he’s been lugging around all over the continent with him, why, he was at this party in Zadash and everyone else was some boring old pompous wizard (such a bore!) so he pickpocketed one of them, just for the fun of it, but, well, turns out neither Caleb nor Beau can make head nor tails of the weird sign code it’s written in (how tragic, if only someone happened to be so much cleverer than both of them!) and if Essek wants to have a look Molly would be more than happy to lighten his pack. For a small pittance, of course.

What’s small change to Essek is probably pretty nice to have for Molly, even by that level and especially if we’re mostly doing this for the fun of it. Essek gets to fall face first into his desire to show up Caleb, Beau and potentially an unknown Assembly member with his clearly superior decoding, espionage and wizardly skills and gain Secret Knowledge, maybe even Assembly Secrets on top of that.

Arguably, this one does rely very heavily on the fact that it’s hard to prove a negative, or in this case, hard to prove a barely-literate conman’s scribbles are just that. Do keep in mind Essek doesn’t know Molly is a habitual conman, but even so, it’s not a fantastic con (Essek isn’t dumb and knows his arcana after all and Molly doesn’t, or at least not enough to make a proper Voynich).

You could make it a better Voynich by getting Caleb in on it, but instead let’s pep it and turn it into a proper Real Stradivari by changing the hints that this manuscript might be legit to being alchemy-related and adding in a shill. Let’s go with Jester, because she’s down to clown, can lie and has a way with Essek’s boundaries.

So this time around, we aren’t asking Essek outright to buy our bogus notes – instead Molly gives him the whole spiel, hands him the notebook, fucks off with as little time to actually look at it as possible before Jester enters the scene to ask what THAT is and go oh it’s about ALCHEMY well, that DOES look like the signs she saw around Yezza’s house, pretty suuuure, oh, do you think it might be Yezza’s? Do you think Yezza might want it? Do you think she should ask Molly to sell it to her so she can give it to Yezza as a present to be nice because she’s such a nice friend who does nice things?

Honestly, the money part is optional if this is wholly about making Essek look up to see if the ceiling does indeed say gullible (and if Jester is involved, it might well do so! Always better to check, with her!), but a proper Violin Drop concludes with the Grifter returning to take their worthless thing back only to be asked to sell by the victim, who thinks the grifter doesn’t know what worth he has. If it was real, offering to buy the notebook would mean Essek outsmarted a minimum of three people (Beau and Caleb can’t crack the code, Molly is too dumb and illiterate to know valuable research notes from the morning paper) and gets his hands on potentially unknown-to-him luxon-related secrets! Alas, it’s not real, as he will realize soon.

So these are two (related) ways to scam Essek. But there’s a third one I want to mention one that is a lot of cinematic fun and I didn’t know had a name until Wikipedia told me no one does it irl (boo! That’s no fun!). It takes a lot of prep, math, and a lot of people and combines Essek’s obsession with the Luxon’s secrets and Molly’s penchant for passing himself off as psychic.

Molly would need something people in Rosohna bet on, like some kind of sport, preferably one with only two results and places people do said betting on said sport in groups. I’m assuming this exists on account of gambling and sports being culturally pretty universal concepts that love to go together.

Anyway. Imagine you’re Essek Thelyss, and one day a bunch of weirdos show up in court with a piece of the god you’re atheistically-heretically obsessed with. A few weeks later, you, having your ears to the ground about new developments regarding said not-god-pieces, hear one of the weirdos has made a name for himself as a outright oracle, correctly predicting the outcome of Fantasy-Dodgeball (Rosohnas’ favourite sport) perfectly six weeks running. He swears it’s because proximity to the Luxon amplified his inborn and long-trained psychic powers to predict the future.

Now, this is obviously bullshit. Except if Essek, being regrettably acquainted with the weirdos, were to ask, Molly would certainly confirm that sure, he has mystic powers and certainly they were amplified by the Luxon and predicting sport results is a hobby of his wherever they go, does Essek want to see? and lead Essek to a bar where every regular can swear on whatever he likes that Molly has correctly predicted the results of Fantasy-Dodgeball since the first week of being in Rosohna, in fact since before he himself knew the rules or track-record of any of the teams. Not only that, but there’s a second bar full of people Molly can introduce him too. And if he wants, he can certainly come back for a drink in one of them again next week when Molly has done it once more. Just call on Molly, he’ll tell you the time and date to meet some true believers, not all of whom can possibly be his shills.

(And, incidentally, barely worth mentioning, really, since Molly’s psychic blessings from the Luxon are so accurate, he has Exciting Business Opportunities for anyone willing to place more than their weekly betting budget in his trust, and he’d love for Essek to take a look at his powers. For a small compensation of his time, of course.)

Of course Molly can’t predict the results of Fantasy-Dodgeball. Instead, the first week of downtime in Rosohna, he found out what people like to bet on in Rosohna and where, picked one or two places in each district, go there and make predictions with a fifty-fifty split, then eliminate each watering hole where he was wrong each week, slowly cutting his audience back to only people who are getting to know him as That Outlander Who Always Knows The Results of Fantasy-Dodgeball, all the while escalating the story from him being just some dude betting and drinking with the guys to the whole Chosen By The Luxon thing. Considering this is a double-scam involving a faith aspect, he might very well still cash in in places he’s been wrong once only since victims of faith-based scams are very likely to overlook inconsistencies in their scammer’s stories or promised results. By the time Essek gets involved Molly’d be down to one or two places of true believers coming to him for ‘always accurate’ tips and a bunch of other people all over Rosohna he might get some money off based on the faith-aspect. And now perhaps one intrigued high-ranking government official who’s more than willing to overlook the hereticism inherent to the whole thing and is instead very likely to fall in the academic glue-trap of trying to disprove something clearly bogus that you do kind of want to believe in because like.

Wouldn’t it be cool? If the Luxon had more awesome powers? And one of them happened to fall in Essek’s hands, with no oversight and no need to cooperate with someone like Trent or Ludinus? Would he not want it to be real?

Anyway. The real answer to this question is: Enlist Beau to send bogus stuffed bills to Essek’s secretary. Bureaucrat on bureaucrat violence, let’s go.

[hayleysayshay]

Klaus, a bad 'liar revealed' movie

Do you ever rewatch a movie and realise it's not as good as you remembered?

I recently rewatched the movie Klaus, and not only does the animation look great, is frenetic and enjoyable. The movie has a lot of heart, and the sentimental moments really work.

But oh, that contrived third-act conflict.

So Jesper goes to Smeerenberg because his father sends him there. He has to fulfill a quota of letters for his father to take him back. The two warring town tribes leaders send enough letters for the father to summon him home. Klaus and Alva are hurt and reject him. Alva says that Jesper duped them. Jesper attempts to come back and they are annoyed at him until he proves himself by trying to save the toys from the warring tribe leaders.

However, like, what did he really do wrong? Jesper entered Smeerenberg, an unfriendly town. He didn't take advantage of anyone's kindness as everyone was unfriendly towards him. Maybe he took advantage of Klaus's good nature in sending the toys, but he had already made the toys and they were sitting unused. Klaus getting over his grief, and making new toys is presented as a good thing and clearly is a good thing. Jesper's actions are a net positive for the children of the town, getting them to cast aside the petty rivalry and build community with each other.

Ultimately, Jesper's job is as a postman. He had a quota to fulfill. It's not that big of a deal. Also, it should be fairly obvious from the start that a bunch of kids spending a penny to send a letter would benefit his business financially, so anyone with a brain can see that Jesper is profiting from Klaus's toy-delivering scheme.

Fundamentally Klaus the movie is a story about a bunch of broken and flawed people making themselves better together. If we accept the arcs of Klaus and Alva, from being isolated, to being better people, we can accept Jesper's arc is the same. It's about selfish or isolated people being less selfish, Jesper doesn't act any more poorly than any of the other characters, so it's weird to see Klaus and Alva turn against him.

Besides, Klaus and Alva and the Sami are all in on duping the kids about Klaus being magic and being able to see if they're good or bad, everyone is duping everyone here because this is a movie about white-lies benefitting community.

If duping people is said to be bad by Klaus, then the movie actually needs to actually show it as a bad thing.

You can compare to something like 'A Bug's Life', which also has the 'liar revealed is a betrayal' . Flik's actions could be seen to put the whole ant community in danger, people don't know that the bird won't work as they don't actually have a team of experst behind it, when they could have been picking food and guaranteeing their colony's survival for another year. There's stakes behind the lie. Like Klaus, Flik's actions end up having a positive benefit for the ant colony, and Flik is proven right, but at least it makes sense why the ants wouldn't believe in Flik's plan when he's revealed to be a liar.

In Klaus, we have the story of a postman not revealing that he has a quota before enacting a bunch of community benefitting reforms on a town, there's little comparison. It's an asshole in a community of asshole.

If this movie's third act conflict was more just about Klaus wrestling with wanting to go 'home', and him leaving hurt Klaus and Alva (especially after Alva spends her money and chooses to stay), it would be fine, but it's very clearly about Jesper 'duping' the town and it feels so contrived and forced, and it ruined my rewatch of the movie. Like, idk, Jesper didn't do anything especially bad, everyone's a bunch of assholes including him, I'm not sure why I'm supposed to take against Jesper here.

[yunadx]

: / / LOADING … NAGANO YUNA / /

20020924, 07:56 AM

FELINE EMPATHY

FELINE PHYSIOLOGY

YOUR BAD LUCK CHARM

: / / LOADING … AUTHOR’S NOTE / /

hello, everyone! my name is ryan (he/him, 28+) and i’m so excited to be here with all of you. 🤍 yuna is a brand new muse to me, and i'm so excited to get to know her along with you! so, if you’re interested in plotting, please 🖤 this post and i’ll reach out to you as soon as possible. i have d//scord available by request, so lmk if that’s easier! ngl, it’s easier for me, so… there’s that! 💜

: / / LOADING … BACKGROUND / /

yuna was born in tokyo, japan to a struggling single mother.

her mom is a notorious con artist and thief, and often used these skills to provide for them; taught yuna all she knows.

they relocated to south korea in year 2016, after her mom married a man from district x that she met over the internet.

although they have a more stable living environment and their lives have improved, yuna still relies on thievery and burglary.

hates the elite; feels no remorse stealing from them.

there’s a lot of charm to her. she purposely curates a highly feminine aesthetic. does so in order to dupe people easier.

in reality, she doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks of her.

if she loves you, she’ll give you luxurious gifts. sort of like when a cat brings its owner roadkill to show them love.

she will not like it if you grab her tail; she will scratch you.

you’ve been warned.

: / / LOADING … PERSONALITY / /

getting to know nagano yuna is a tricky thing. she's not shy. in fact, she loves meeting new people and getting someone talking, but once the dive into a conversation, the other person is quick to realize that she's someone who plays devil's advocate. not everyone has the energy for that, but it's something she loves to do. loves. she will almost always question your logic, and not because she doesn't agree with you or understand it, but she wants to test it; to test you. this is something that her mother taught her to do. she wants to see if there are any chips in a person's armor. if they tell the truth, or if they lie. if their mentality is strong. she uses communication in order to form hypotheses and investigate, all while her tone is sweet and high-pitched, and she bats her lashes at you. speaking of, it's easy for her to disarm people like this. yuna's a huge charmer. she puts effort into her appearance, curating an aesthetic that's highly feminine, even if a bit goth sometimes, and speaks in a manner that's delicate, but despite this, when the moment is perfect, she delivers the sickest burns and the funniest jokes. she's a natural. one of her favorite things to do is sit in the corner of a room with a friend, take in all the people, and break down who they are; even if she's never met them. she'll create huge stories about their lives just based on vibes and instinct, and they're often chaotic and hilarious. she has the capability of making a person feel quite small. instead of huge boisterous declarations of hate though, she's more the type to whisper something brutal in your ear—jabbing you right where it hurts, digging that knifepoint in seamlessly, then twisting it. nagano yuna is a switchblade. accurate, quick, sharp. she's intimidating, but only when you start chatting with her. more often than not, you'll see the cat ears, and the tail, and her carefully crafted outfits and feel endeared. her smiles are so sweet. when she looks at you, winks, and sticks her tongue out, it's so playful and cheeky. if you engage though, you'll quickly discover that she genuinely does not give a fuck about what you, or anyone else, thinks about her. this is scary. it means she'll speak her mind, no filter. yuna's morals are rather dubious. she's a thief, for fucks sake. however, if you're her friend, and she's loyal to you, she'll take care of you. it'll be in her own ways, but she'll look out for you; bring you things she's mopped from her latest heist; give you the best, most honest advice; slice and dice your exes with words (and her claws, if you want that); cuddle up to you for affection, but only on her terms; etc. she may act like a lioness, but deep down, she's really just a cat. that might tell you all you need to know.

: / / LOADING … PLOTLINES / /

i prefer to brainstorm plots! 💜 talk to you soon!

[clarajohnson]

the magicians s1e12

guys i'm having so much fun with this rewatch (recap reminds me that richard killed his son through neglect and q betrayed alice with the threesome and julia's about to get duped by a fake goddess) um

this kitchen reminds me of the season 4 apartment but i'm having fun so i'm not gonna think about season 4

such a small thing but i have beef with the dude imbuing kady with faith by doing something for her like. i guess we disagree on what faith is!

you can't unring a bell so be certain when you call, julia!

poor penny getting stuck babysitting three neurotics and one alice (not neurotic relative to everybody else In This One Thing)

cannot get over q being the one who initiated it. i just can't.

jesus christ jason ralph is so hot

in 2015 you could sell an audience on the badassery of a line just by including the term patriarchy

please alice drinking triple sec :'''-)

we talk about alice's style being sexy librarian but it reads much more to me as a girl who knows she could fall at any second into twee oblivion so she's styling it in dark colors. i'm waiting for an owl necklace.

ooh! dionysus, okay!

i did NOT remember her hooking up with richard. but. i'm fine with it.

mannnnn i love julia wicker so much she is the epitome of the girl with an inch-thick tough exterior filled with love all the rest of the way through she is so special and good

fucking "didn't think you had that in you" go to hell quentin! oh MY cheating is okay YOUR consensual sex outside of a relationship is BAD! again this is why i hated him the first time around

How I was feeling about Quentin would have got us all killed. :l

i kind of feel like if he was a real person i would have bullied quentin coldwater or at least been very rude to him. sorry quentin!

lol the "janet" "actually it's margo" "this time" joke went over my head last time

I PLANNED MY WHOLE OUTFIT AROUND THAT BOTTLE !!!!!

truth serum is toxic and banned? interesting

"oh i was kind of poking around in the dark with that one" lollll my baby

quentin WOULD always bring up groundhog day. also he's actually stronger than me because if fogg told me i'd been killed in these exact circumstances 39 times i would absolutely lose all hope and try and beat the beast to the punch

penny has chemistry with everybodyyyyy

i'm in love with julia's pier one ass apartment

julia and q's reunion gets me so good !!!!! so bad !!!! "you smell the same" wow you guys should be friends forever for your entire lives and you WILL be!

julia calling god magic "some pretty eclectic shit" like it's a limited run pressing of a neutral milk hotel b-side

cool, useless, kind of gross

julia's destiny is to find a whole new kind of magic. do we think this happens? what is this referring to do we think?

the LOOK q gives julia after "richard gave it to me" so much immediate understanding and shit-stirring delight

it's crazy, like, not crazy but crazy that eliot stays so torn up about mike

"yeah, no, it still sounds bad."

JOSH HOBERMANNNNNNN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

please i did not remember that they were all going to fillory in like fucking ren fair cosplay

MAGIC IS FOR FIXING THINGS JULIA SAYS (also "if fixing things was easy everyone would do it" because somebody needs to fucking validate quentin now and then)

despite my indignation on julia's behalf i do love the choice of isolating her from the academic environment of brakebills, i think it adds a new dimension and texture to her knowledge and understanding and engagement with the world around her and i like that so much

it's fucking crazy that q and jules just... do horomancy. like horomancy is such a big fucking thing the rest of the show and in this ep they just do it!

alice's light bending feels so much like a superpower, it's so rare that they let magic seem that magical but they let it happen there and i love that

margo hanson i love you and your gun forever

the moment jules and q step through the telephone booth always kind of gets me it's so much of what the promise of the show can be it's so lovely

[innerangeltoadlover]

There are some things I do regret one of these was signing a waver which allowed my psychiatrist to speak with my parents. At the time I remember saying I had nothing to hide however I now realise that this was again a disempowering action. My parents said nothing about these meetings however there were times when I believe the toleration of my sister’s abuse was linked to these sessions. I can remember a time when my mother got off the phone in tears after my sister was outright screaming and I said to my dad “I’ve had enough of this I’m ringing her back” . My dad said “don’t do that”. I was puzzled by this . I also remember when dad got ill he declared that he could not believe how poorly I behaved at art school. He was correct . The reason he couldn’t believe it was because in the family home I was the placid one. My psychiatrist completely ignored this very telling part of my behaviour - that the poor behaviour was linked to the abuse that I (wasn’t) experiencing .My psychiatrist brought up my poor behaviour frequently and named teachers who knew me. The fact that she had broken confidentiality rules did not particularly fuss me though the head of the art department called me a paranoid schizophrenic at the pub in front of other students- I guess he’d had enough. The problem with the expectation that a person with a mental illness should behave is problematic. If I am mad can’t I be so? To be honest some of the best moments of my life (that to some would be humiliating )were when I embraced it but of course putting a brake on it was sometimes a struggle. There is a certain freedom obtained from not having any responsibilities if one can find an upside to madness . However there was another dimension to this poor behaviour which made perfect sense to me as I think back. I had finished an history degree and I was working as a cleaner and was attending tafe! I was also being abused fortnightly by a sister who would stay for days and whom we tolerated and my doctor was duping me into silent submission by emphasising her own family values upon me and my parents. My sister’s visits with her children were good at first but eventually the same high pitched pressure head that we all knew so well appeared. My mother was being abused much like myself and I would often hear her mention dad’s weakness . My mother was sweet to me and I loved and respected my father but I think they were involved in something that was beyond all of us and was also beyond a psychiatrist. The result of all this was a toxic mess from which there was no escape and in hindsight I’m kind of pleased that I had those times when I was able to enjoy being a goon because life was not rewarding me for effort. I thank the universe for allowing me to unconsciously perceive the fraud that my psychiatrist had brewed in order to ensure passivity in me and behave accordingly. In all of the years of treatment I always believed that a psychiatrist was capable of seeing beyond a stereotype. Motherhood is not a metaphor for happiness or decency just as schizophrenia is not a metaphor for a bad person.

[madmarchhare]

Company chapter 6

After long last. This one is more on the lines of slice-of-life, but I hope people don't mind it. Sorry if some parts get description heavy, there are some new items that come up in this one.

VI

Cass tapped the rim of a shot glass with her claw, rocking it back-and-forth slightly on the table as she looked stared ahead. “So…” she began, thinking out loud, “now that we know who CLR is,” staring up at the ceiling, “what do we even do next?” Cass asked, her tone bewildered.

“We try and find a way to get them off our backs,” Wick replied in a monotone voice, coming over and filling one of the shot glass’s by Cass’s hand with a purple fluid from a cylindrical glass bottle.

“How, we don’t even know how we fucked ‘em off!” Cass snapped back, looking up at Wick as he gulped down the drink in one go, pulling it away from his mouth with a small grimace, spitting his tongue out.

“I don’t know, but we don’t exactly have much choice in the matter. From what Mari told us, they don’t seem the type to leave embers burning,” Wick grumbled, sharing in Cass’s sentiment nonetheless. He frowned to himself for a moment before glancing back at Cass, still fiddling with her glass. “And drink the medicine.”

“But it’s so gross,” Cass moaned, quickly switching gears.

“All medicine is, that’s why it works,” Wick called back, walking over to the cockpit, “besides I already drank mine so suck it up already!” Cass frowned in his direction before turning to glare back down at her glass. She sighed agitatedly before filling up the glass and downing it in one motion, gagging as it went down.

“Are you sure this isn’t out of date?!” she snapped to the cockpit, getting silence as a response. She got up from the chair and walked into the cockpit. She saw Wick with one foot on the chair and the other balanced on a blank space in the control panel as the man used a caulking gun to squeeze something on a cracked spot on the cockpit window shaped like a bullet mark. “Is it bad?” she inquired, looking at the space as she moved over to her seat, glancing at the monitor to her side to see normal temperatures across the ship.

“It’s not the best, but it’ll be fine for now,” he replied, stepping down from the console, using a bit of tissue to wipe the end of the caulking tube before duping it into a tool kit. He flopped down in his chair, rubbing a crick in his neck and feeling the bandage underneath it. “I want to have a break. Every place we’ve been to recently we’ve been shot at or punched,”

“Or both,” Cass chimed in, aches on her body making themselves now once again. Wick leaned forward to pull out a small paperback book, bound in an unvarnished blue card, and flip through it. Cass looked at him with mild curiosity, though guessing what he was reading through. Space travel, despite repeated attempts by various committees and nations, was not standardised or wholly coordinated. There was no one way to get maps around to people, no company saw much appeal in it, and, by virtue of its very nature space and its contents were too big to be mapped by a singular person.

But, that wasn’t true for everyone, and the majority of those in the exemption were the rouges. Pirates, salvagers, hobby traders and those who lived under the raider. The cosmic flotsam and jetsam of society. It was an effort by a small group at first, no more than a dozen or so people, to map out their local area with their own knowledge so they all had an easier time of getting around their sectors to aid in their business. They realized their idea was useful so they sold their work to those they knew, always hidden and over the counter. As time went on, people added to it, all of them slowly building a secret network of information over the old lines that used to exist. Eventually it came to a point where pirates had better maps of sectors of space than the companies or people who worked and lived in them. While some of the major sites did get more published in legitimate atlases, for secret hideaway’s it was the golden ticket of the rouge and the spy, the patron saint of knowledge to the robber barons of the stars.

Unfortunately, the name wasn’t too impressive, by virtue of trying to be subtle… and a lack of imagination on the part of those involved. The ‘Wayfarer’.

Wick flipped to the section that covered the area he was currently in, organised alphabetically for larger sectors then subdivided over grid patterns. He flipped through, looking for some uninhabited rock that was out of the way, checking a readout on the console to double check the full set of co-ordinates he was currently parked, the ship’s engines idling as the vessel hung in open space, the hull occasionally being rapped by small clusters of ice that drifted through the system. He found one after a while, a small, well as planets go, planetoid stranded in the middle of nowhere and covered with a species of grey lichen that lives on the rocks, giving the place an atmosphere, though not of exceptional quality. He held the book open in one hand as he plugged in the co-ordinates to the console, planning out the route on the computer after he had his endpoint. After he had finished he tapped the enter key, the shup thrumming into consciousness again, twisting around on itself before lurching upwards past where they had just escaped from. Wick glanced up at the cockpit window, the clear sealant holding, though his mind played the dreadful trick of slowly expanding the sight of the crack in his vision. He looked away, knowing it was just a trick of the eyes, pulling out a folded panel from under the right side of the console, revealing a somewhat worn looking VIC-20 wired up into the console along with a 32k RAM expander cartridge and pass through. He turned a dial below a small CRT that popped our slightly from the console, angled slightly so the top was relatively horizontal, and it flicked to static until Wick flicked on the VIC. The screen suddenly flickered into one featuring a cyan coloured border with a  white screen where you could type, welcoming you to ‘CBM Basic V2’. He checked to make sure that the RAM was loaded before pulling out a frankly rather homemade looking cartridge and shoving it into the device.

“What are you doing?” Cass asked, staring as Wick leaned over the ancient hodgepodge of a device.

“This thing scrambles the ships registry number every second or so. It makes it much harder for ships to get a bead on you or to be traced,” Wick explained, checking over the loaded screen and plugging in a few extra commands before pressing enter, the screen displaying a cartoonish bat laughing before slipping back into static.

“Couldn’t you use something a bit more modern for it?” Cass asked, looking warily at the device intended to keep CLR’s mercenaries, and who knows what else, from finding them so easily.

“It’s what I had to hand. It’s not exactly like they sell these in the high-street or something,” Wick snapped, sneering at Cass as he turned back the dial for the monitor, the display flickering back to a readout of the amount of water and coolant the ship had left, along with their pressure. He swung the VIC-20 back under the console, a blue light plinking to life as he did to show the thing was still running. “If I’d bought something more modern, they’d have a receipt, these things are not exactly legal so it’s best not to leave a paper trail,” Wick explained, standing up from his chair to check over the panel of dials and displays.

“… Couldn’t you’ve bought a second hand laptop-”

“Leave it! It’s what I had and I don’t use it often!” Wick roared at Cass, running out of patience. “Besides, I don’t want to hear comments from someone who forgot they’d pissed off the entirety of a planet’s mafia!”

“… It wasn’t the entirety off it…” she argued quietly, looking away, “just a lot of it,” she added in a more sheepish tone. Wick glared at her for a moment, neither backing down before Wick sighed to himself and walked away.

“It’s butter chicken tonight, I’ll do an extra bowl of rice for you,” Wick called back begrudgingly, stomping through the living room to the corridor to his room.

“Thanks!” Cass called back, both of them having decided to sweep the thing under the rug. Wick flopped into his bed, kicking off his shoes and socks and taking off his jacket, winching at the holes where some mafioso’s shotgun pellets pierced it. He’d have to get it repaired later. He hung it up then undid his shirt, checking in a mirror to see how bad the wounds on his back were. They were light, though still an uncomfortable red, healed over where the shot had penetrated in a few places. He grimaced to himself as he pulled out a draw in a cabinet by the bunk, where the tapette player sat. He pulled out a set of silver dishes, tweezers, forceps, scissors and medicinal alcohol  and set them on an empty bit of the side. He doused the tools in the alcohol, the clear spirit filling the room with its intoxicating scent. Then, he grabbed the bottle and necked down half its contents, grunting slightly as the liquid burned his throat on the way down.

“Right then…” he muttered to himself, grabbing the forceps and slowly pushing it into the wound, wincing despite the slow numbness that came over him, watching between his own view and the mirror until he felt the tips of the forceps tap the embedded shot. He grabbed it and slowly pulled it out, dropping it into the steel tray before continuing for the others. He got hit by about eight pellets, Cass likely a similar amount though few probably pierced her scales. He dabbed his wounds with some gauze before spraying the area with liquid silver and bandaging it. He put everything away then dumped the shot into a small container to re-use later. No sense wasting materials. He laid back in his bead, slightly woozy from the spirits, grunting as he reached for a book to read. After about five minutes Cass peaked her head around the door, a rather grumpy expression on her face.

“I can’t sleep on my back, it’s sore,” she grumbled stepping into the room and clambering up into the top bunk, “and that sofa is not good for sleeping on your front,” she added, shifting so she was sat on the edge of the bunk before she pulled off her shoes, a pair of high necked trainers.

“That’s cause it’s a sofa,” Wick commented, not looking up from the pages of his book.

“Don’t be a smartass,” Cass replied, half amused despite her irritation. They sat in silence for a while, both eventually succumbing to their mounted exhaustion and falling asleep, a few lauxes crawling into bed with them for warmth, a number more cosying up to Cass despite being semi-cold-blooded. The ship carried them to their destination without any significant event, though creaking like a steel drum at times, not that the two sleeping persons inside could hear it. It sailed through the sector, avoiding any major settlement or installation past the ice-fields and clusters of star dust that hung about in the sector, spewed off from the swirling planets and moons and their thin atmospheres’, glittering like morning dew in the kaleidoscopic starlight that bathed them.

They were slowly woken up by the blaring alarm, both lingering in bed for a while as the alarm screeched at them. Eventually, Wick dragged himself up, having half-buried his face in his pillow. He groaned slightly as he got up, Cass beginning to stir above him as he switched off the alarm.

“What time’s it…?” Wick asked, his words slurring slightly from sleep. Cass shifted in her bunk, lifting her watch to her face, the red watch-face contrasting with the white numbers and hands.

“‘S ten to three… has been a day though,” Cass answered.

“Right,” Wick replied, rubbing his eyes slightly as he pulled on a pair of boots.

“What happened to your watch?” Cass asked, shifting and dropping from her bunk to the floor.

“Oh, I just forget to put it on. I usually take it off when I’m fixing the ship,” Wick answered, yawning slightly as Cass quickly pulled on her boots.

“Well put it on, else what’s the point of having a watch!” Cass insisted looking at him with an unimpressed expression.

“Right, right…” Wick quietly agreed, pulling open a small cabinet for his watch as he watched her leave, a toothy frown falling neutrally on his face. He looked in the drawer for a second before finding the watch, wrapped in a bundle of cotton cloth. It was a Raketa, or Ракета, perpetual calendar watch. It had a white face with black roman numeral numbers and a black second, minute and hour hand. The face also featured a date and month window, but most peculiar were the blue Cyrillic markings on the watch face and the two rings at the top and bottom of the face. In blue on the bottom half of the face were the lists of months in columns, white lines either side of them that went straight down to the bottom ring which showed a list of years, though now long out-dated, and similar at the top, only showing numeral dates in the columns that rose up to Cyrillic names for days of the week. How it was intended to work was that you would align the year in question to the month you wanted to know dates for, using a second crown on the watch, and at the top you would get the dates for each day of the week in that year, though months surrounded by black had to match with black years. Wick had bought the watch for cheap when he was younger from a Russian friend of his, liking the system. The strap was not original however, Wick having replaced the old leather one with a brushed steel metal clasp one. He slipped it onto his wrist, setting the time and date from a readout as he walked, the piece not having been used in a while, before walking out of his room and going to the cockpit. He leant back and grabbed a short before he forgot and strode forward wearing a pink-white kimono style pattern shirt, buttoning it up as he walked.

He saw Cass pulling out a snack from the fridge, both of them having missed dinner, a made a note to himself to make some food when they landed. He came into the cockpit, not able to help glancing at the crack on with window before resting in his chair and gripping the controls. As they descended Wick checked over the console to check for any problems, the numerous readouts all being within expectations, though the engines were slightly colder than he expected though that was likely due to the amount of ice in the system. As he approached the surface,  he raised the thrusters slightly before trying to lower the landing gear, all but one coming down. He checked the error reading, displayed on a small VFD saying the edge was caught. He grabbed a switch by the display and turned it slightly, raising the specific gear leg before spinning the switch back and forcing it down again, repeating it before it finally shoved past the panel, a scraping noise echoing through the ship as it did. He frowned concernedly before finishing lowering the ship to the surface, landing in a wide valley crater, flanked by tall light grey banks, similar coloured lichen dotted about like splattered paint. When the ship touched down, Wick went through switching off the main fuel pumps, setting timers for the coolant pups as well, wanting to let the system cool properly, before switching off the engines completely. Though, for one of the pumps, the button failed to work. Wick sighed boredly, knowing which one it was, the closest to where the pipe had blown last time. He grabbed his toolkit and walked out, switching the light off in the cockpit as he went. Cass was sat in a chair finishing off her snack, a mini pork-pie, glancing up at Wick as he came through.

“We’ve landed then?” she asked as he walked past, quickly grabbing a large tub from the freezer and stabbing the top with a pair of plyers before removing the paper slip and shoving it into the microwave.

“Yeah. There’s an atmosphere but it’s thin so be careful, I’ve got to go and fix some wiring among other things,” Wick explained in a monotone voice, jabbing at the number pad of the boxy device. He glanced back to Cass, “you fine doing your own rice? The chicken should be done in about nine minutes,” Wick asked leaning to set off to his tasks.

“Yeah I can do that,” Cass replied, somewhat insulted on some level that her ability was pegged that low. Wick nodded then turned to rush down the halls, his footsteps clanking on the steel flooring. Cass got up from her seat, grabbing a saucepan and a bag of rice, filling the former with water before putting the whole thing on the hob and setting it to boil. It was done after a few minutes, finishing about the same time as the microwave. She pulled out two dish-plates[], pouring out her rice onto one, then grabbing a dry dish-cloth to pull out the butter chicken and split it between the two plates, though making sure she got a few extra bits of meat for her efforts. She grabbed Wick’s plate, as well as a bottle of root-beer from the fridge, and walked over to where Wick had left. She saw where he had dropped his tools, nearby an open panel showing an industrial pump behind it, a ceiling panel pulled off and laying on the floor as Wick moved in the crawl-space overhead.

“I’ll leave your food here for you, and I got you a drink!” Cass called up, placing the plate on a raised section by the wall.

“Thanks!” Wick called back, shifting closer to the hole and holding a hand out. Cass placed the drink in his hand and he wedged the top and the neck against part of the roof panel and bent it, the cap popping off and falling to the floor, only just avoiding falling through the grating. Cass picked it up and walked away, dropping it into the bin as she passed it before eating her food, enjoying the mild dish. She wasn’t the best with spice. She finished after a few minutes, polishing off what was left of the rice. Wick didn’t like it with curry for some reason. As she did she heard thumping down the hall, which went quiet before it resumed, Wick crawling back out of the roof.

Cass did the washing up, putting them all away as Wick came into the room and washed his own. Cass strode over to the airlock and swung open the inner door, locking it from habit before opening the front door with little hesitation. She took a deep breath as she exited, the air crisp and cold, but also rather thin like being partway up a mountain. She kept breathing for a while, getting herself used to the thin air, lest she make herself sick. Wick came out after a moment, carrying a tool box along with a number of folded poles.

“What was wrong then?” Cass asked as he passed, having a bundle of cable shoved into her hand as he passed.

“One of the pumps had some wiring melt so I had to replace it, along with a bunch of other cables that had perished or snapped,” Wick explained tiredly, dropping his toolkit as he began shoving the white stakes into the soil, the thin paint on their surface already falling away from overuse. He staked about twelve of them in a large square, four on each side, before ducking back into the ship before coming back out carrying a large folded cloth, pinning it by hooks to the top of each stake, the face of the cloth shining with solar cells.

“Was it bad?” Cass asked, handing him the cabling as she asked.

“Not too bad, just awkward,” Wick answered, connecting the impromptu solar panel to the cable then the other end to the ship, a dull bulb flickering on as power flowed into the ship’s batteries, saving having to use the engine to keep the lights on. He stood up, grabbing his toolkit, and turned back to Cass, “I’ve got a few more things to do, so you can do what you like for a bit,” he droned in a monotone voice, gesturing with his head towards the ship.

“I’ll have a wander around then,” Cass replied, turning to start off in a random direction.

“See you later… Don’t go to far,” he called after her with a tributary half-concerned voice.

“Yeah, yeah,” Cass called back waiving behind her dismissively. She strode forward, looking around the crater as she did, the wide space utterly empty bar from the ship and great expanses of lichen. She walked, straight-backed and shoulder back, towards the edge of the crater the grey-white slopes resembling some mix of chalk and moonrocks though thankfully more the former than the latter. She climbed up the sheer side of it, stepping up it until she crested the peak. When she had overcome it she could see out over the wide expanse of the planetoid. It was mostly wide plains, with occasional mountains and valleys, almost resembling the Eurasian steps. It lacked rivers however, the surface dry as a bone, the kicked up dust almost sucking up the moisture in the air as if floated through it. Though, that of course made one wonder how the entire place managed to support any foliage at all. Cass walked on for a while until she came to a massive patch of the lichen-moss, spread over a wide area as if slowly advancing from a single point. She walked over it, not having much interest in the craggy looking mountain range, the peaks worn down to razor sharp points like white obsidian.

As she walked across the field of pale lichen, she noticed a change as she strode further in from its perimeter. Specifically, that is slowly became damp underfoot, water squelching as she stepped on the moss as if she was walking on marshland. She pressed a hand to it, feeling the dampness on her scales before wiping it off, not knowing the water’s possible contaminants. She went back to check the edge of the moss again, finding it was still bone dry, snapping one section off to check and then feeling a spurt of water fall on her palm from the plants amputated limb, the thing chock full of water. She looked at it for a moment, thinking it was cool, before chucking away the twig onto a random patch of stone. She turned and walked further into the growth, the ground getting wetter and wetter as she did. Then, she felt her foot slip into the ground, making her falter for a moment until she regained her balance. She pulled her foot back up, the boot slightly soaked from what she had fallen into, a small-somewhat deep creek, seemly eroded from the rock that was hidden by the overgrowth at its top, resembling what occurs in a saltmarsh or certain Scottish highlands. She knelt down to look at it, lifting up some of the overhanging moss to get a better look and saw a thin but rapid trail of water racing down the cursus of the creek, flanked on either side by near sheer walls of hard grey-white mud and silt, reinforced by the roots of the lichen growing on it. Further in, there were large pools of water resembling pannes one might again find in a saltmarsh, the water clear but smelling strongly of salts and minerals, the lichen surrounding them far taller than that that occupied the hinterlands outside of these pools perimeter, some even having what one might call buds or small pale flowers less than a centimetre in length.

The air shifted as well at this deeper part, becoming slightly thicker and not as parchingly dry though still cold, the unbroken wind now whipping up swirls of spray rather than dust, the droplets making Cass feel rather damp. She explored for a bit longer before turning back, the chill air making her begin to feel rather tired. When she got close to the crater where they had landed, having traced her steps back to it despite the lack of good landmarks, she hopped down the side of the ridge that formed the crater wall, her tail thumping on the ground after her. Wick was stood a ways away from the ship beside a white fold out table with a gun in his hands, a number more along wit ammunition on the table as well as spray cans and cleaning tools. He was loading the rifle as Cass approached, making sure to stand behind him as she did.

“What are you doing?” she asked, Wick glancing over to her as he rested the butt of the carbine, an old looking piece that seemed to be single-shot with a large calibre barrel.

“I’m just doing some shooting, I like to take them out sometimes, it’s relaxing and I give them a good clean afterwards,” Wick explained.

“I see,” Cass replied, walking closer, Wick gesturing with his eyes to a pair of custom ear-defenders for the neidr which she put on. “I’m surprised you didn’t use that against the merc’s rather than that bolt-action,” Cass quipped a cheeky smile on her face as she did.

“If you keep bringing that up I won’t lend you this one let alone anything else,” Wick retorted in a monotone voice glancing back at Cass with half-lidded eyes.

“Fine, fine,” Cass chuckled back, relenting in her teasing and going into the ship to wash off, taking her headphones with her to put back on later. Wick grabbed a cartridge from the canvas bandolier strung across his chest and slid the 11mm black-powder round into the breach before raising the falling block with a lever on the right side of the action, an appearance somewhat similar to the hammer on a side lock musket, though simple a straight lever. He shouldered the weapon, a Werder 1869, aiming down the sights onto a space at the other end of the crater where steel target had been set up. He aimed, standing, at the target’s centre mass and fired the round thumping into the rock beside it. Wick lowered the rifle a slight grimace adding to his usual frown. He pulled the side leaver, the action kicking out the spent case before Wick shoved in a fresh bullet and repeated the action, this time a solid clang of lead on steel ringing out while the carbine’s muzzle still was wreathed in a bloom of smoke. Wick straightened his shoulder slightly, feeling better for the success, then did the same for another eight rounds. They had to be entirely hand made after all, so he didn’t have too many.

He collected up the spend cases, dropping them in a Tupperware box nearby the rifle which he left on the suede cover that was slaid over the table, leaving the carbine to clean at the same time as the others. The next one, a Czech Vz.52, was a longer weapon though still a ‘short-rifle’, and one that was much more modern, though still outdated. It was set in a wooden stock, a finger grove at the middle just ahead of a detachable ten round magazine and just before a folding bayonet. The receiver above it was squarish, though with rounded corners, an upper hand guard made form wood until halfway, where it transitioned to a metal grooved cover. He loaded the magazine, ten rounds of 7.62x45 a proprietary round for the Vz. 52 that was eventually swapped, under presume from the Soviets, to 7.62x39 but Wick had an early model, having brought it from a friend. He racked the bolt, the metallic clack of the mechanism chambering a round echoing through the abandoned planet, one entirely and utterly alien to it.

He aimed at the target, lining up the rear tangent sight and the hooded front post onto the target and firing, the first shot landing dead on target with a snapping plink, the gas piston snapping the bolt open before it chambered another round. He shot around a bit longer after that, going through a few of the guns he hadn’t used recently such as his Chinese type 56, a copy of the AK-47, or a few of his pistols. He collected up all the spent cases after, placing them in labelled clear Tupperware, the specific dimensions scrawled on the top in permanent marker over a straight piece of masking tape. He cleaned all of the guns after that, meticulously going through and cleaning every part that could need it, before assembling them with some grease in certain areas, polishing the metal and the wood. After that, Cass came back out from the ship, apparently having fell asleep in the bath an impressive feat as it was a standing barrel type, meant to save space.

“Do you mind if I have a go?” she asked, a towel draped around her shoulders as she wore a vest and a pair of pleated trousers. Wick glanced at her, thinking about it for a moment before answering.

“Which one?” he asked, putting his hands in his pockets, straightening out as he almost leaned back. Cass looked over the table for a moment before spying one that caught her interest.

“This one!” she declared, lifting up a large pistol, resembling a M1911, though with a few differences such as a full length dust cover on the bottom and no relief cuts on the slide and deeper rake in the grip.

“Right…” Wick replied, holding a hand out for the gun, which Cass placed in. Wick removed the magazine, placing the gun on the bench, and began loading it.

“This one uses .357 Magnum rounds, but the recoil isn’t that bad,” he explained, loading the rimmed rounds into the magazine, feeding the rims in from the front of the steel object. When it was loaded with all seven rounds he handed her the magazine and the pistol, a Coonan .357, and stood back beginning to load another magazine for it.

Cass pressed the magazine into the gun, hearing a light click as it locked into place. She racked the slide, gripping the angled serrations on the rear of the slide, to chamber a round. She lined up the sights on the target, a good ways away despite the good quality adjustable sights on the pistol. She gripped it two handed, flicking off the safety before pressingly lightly on the skeletonised trigger. It fired slightly earlier than she had expected, herself used to and preferring a heavier trigger pull, but she still hit the target nonetheless. She flashed a cheeky grin more to herself than anything, firing a few more times before the magazine ran dry and she lowered the pistol, giggling to herself.

“That’s actually quite pleasant to shoot!” she called to Wick, the man in question handing her a fresh magazine. Wick nodded in response, a tired but genuine smile on his face as he was handed the spent magazine. “… Do you mind if I shoot a bit more of these for a while?” Cass asked, turning to Wick with a somewhat giddy look. Wick looked at her with a somewhat apprehensive expression before he seemed to shove the doubt from his face.

“Sure, just make sure to pick up all the spent cases when your done,” he answered, sighing slightly as she grabbed some of the other weapons, “I’m going to put these away while you do that then,” he added turning to walk away as Cass nodded, racking the slide  before again flicking off the safety. As he got into the airlock he turned back and called, “there’s some extra targets in a storage compartment on the ship’s exterior if you want to use them!”

“Thanks!” she called back as Wick went into the ship proper. It took a few trips to get in all the items from the table, Cass having set up another three targets during that time, having great fun with the pistol. She stopped after about half an hour, making sure the gun was cleared before placing it on the table and collecting all the spent brass and targets. She handed the brass and pistol to Wick, putting away the targets herself.

He cleaned the pistol and put it and the brass where they belonged before packing up the table. He walked back into the living room, wiping his hands to make sure they were clean of grease, and then spotting Cass stood in front of the oven, a pair of lauxes at her feet. “…what are you doing?” he asked flatly striding past to place the tissue in the bin.

“I’m making dinner, I was hungry,” she answered simply, as if the answer was obvious, Wick turned to look at her with a disconcerted expression.

“…You?” he asked, looking at her with a wary expression. Cass glared at him with an agitated expression, annoyed at what she knew was meant as a rude comment.

“Yes, me! What about it?” she snapped an irate expression on her face.

“Nothing,” Wick replied, not having the energy to deal with the possible argument. Cass was, while not a bad cook, had the culinary abilities of a sixth-form bachelor. He went to his office, flicking on the light as he stepped down into the room. He pulled open a drawer of one of the filing cabinets, locked with a key, and lifted out a pair of headphones and a grey leather-flap case, a shoulder strap hooked onto it. He rested the headphones around his neck for the moment, hanging the case and its contents off his opposite shoulder as he grabbed a few small items resembling cassettes. He tucked them into his pocket before turning back and walking out of the office, neatening a stack of papers on habit before he did, snapping the lights off as he did. As he walked through the living room to go outside he saw Cass leaning over the stove, the hood on her reptilian head flared out as she muttered to herself a number of luaxes watching her curiously if not concernedly. His gaze lingered on her for a moment before moving on, walking out of the airlock door, a few lauxes following after him out of curiosity, flopping down the stairs like young puppies.

Wick pulled out a lawn chair from one of the ships external compartments, the ship having one on each side for Wick to store a few small things that he took out often, not impacting the strength of the ship much. He laid out the chair and sat down in it, sitting upright for the moment as he opened the leather case and pulled out its contents, a Sony TCD-D10, a DAT player-recorder meant for reporters. It was slightly bigger than an A5 book, about an inch thick, and made of black metal. The top panel, on the thin-long side, had a volume nob on the left next to a large LCD display that showed the program, time and other details next to a LED VU bar, a number of button after that before recording level nob on the right side. Wick plugged in the headphones on the right side panel before flipping it to the largest panel on its side, pressing up a switch to open the cover for the mechanism. It snapped up to show a smaller loading mechanism within it, which Wick pressed the eject for to get it open, then load in a DAT, one he had recorded himself with some songs, and pressing both back closed. He pressed play, the button on the same side as the loading mechanism, before leaning the device on the leg of the deck chair and leaning back.

He stared up at the sky as crisp music blared through his headphones, a company of lauxes gazing at him as he did, a few joining him in watching the black sky, the air too thin to refract much of what little light reached the abandoned planet, letting the beautiful black sky glisten through, illuminated by thousands of iridescent stars, wreathed by abandoned rings of ice that drifted though the sky, colliding with white-hot asteroids and blooming in glittering cosmic fireworks as coppers, sodium’s and myriad other metals burned in the great festival of the sky.

Wick stared out up at the fantastical performance danced above him like an angels waltz with a bored and distracted expression. He couldn’t help but be bothered by the concerns of his recent days, of CLR and their mercenaries, and how he had quite suddenly a much larger assemblage of problems than he had really ever had. And he had utterly no idea why these troubles had arrived at his feet. He sat their, wishing he knew why he had incurred the wrath of such a large body, when a laux crawled over his face, sitting down upon it as if it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do so. Wick was surprised but not massively until he looked closer at the lauxes’ stomach, seeing text written on the creatures metal frame. He pulled the creature off his face as he sat up straight, the engraved letters reading out, ‘Hephaestus-Turing Project: expr. KF3894, CLR’ a number of smaller text detailing things like parts and various company names.

“…Well, I guess we know why they’re so hacked off about us know…” Wick mused to himself, turning the laux to face it, the creature making an electronic ‘mrrrp’ in response.

[ojacksonscohen]

love your review! I agree the back and forth was really annoying. I think the biggest failure was just not making it as believable that she would constantly take him back. they shouldn't have made will more villainous per se, but more ambiguous for us? like we as the audience clearly knew he was full of it which only made liv's decisions more annoying and stupid. we didn't see their journey or truly why she was so in love with him. that all came from her narration. all we saw was this smooth, rich suave guy with a sexy hotel job from the get-go. and yes liv had a load of issues stemming from childhood to justify why she fell for it but jenna I feel also played liv a little too...self assured? if that makes sense. also I didn't read the book and the trailer made me think the show would be about liv constantly trying to kill will in different ways in the wilderness but failing each time while he remained oblivious 😭 the wilderness barely played a part. And the prison scene was def sexy. If they leaned into a psychosexual dynamic with liv and will I would have been so into it.

thankyou bby!

wills a weird character, all the horrible things he does are revealed by accident (liv reading his messages, finding the sex tape, forcing will to tell her about the key, her mum finding the photos, and sending the tape to the police) so while he’s a shitty dude, he’s not Evil. he just never really came across as a fully fleshed out person?? he was just filling the role he needed to in the moment. i actually think we might have benefited from more time spent with will and cara together, if only to confirm that he:

a) really didn’t care about livs feelings or b) that he was just leading cara on

like obviously he’s our main antagonist, but then we have these weird pockets where we’re supposed to feel…bad? for him? the one off nods to that fact that he came from an abusive family, that absolutely bizarre story about the dead bird, his genuine grief for cara, and then a single line where he posits that he might actually have a really problem (with keeping it in his pants) but it never goes anywhere!!

100 percent agree that there is zero narrative to show WHY these two people are still together… like she wants him dead but all it takes is some puppy dog tears and hes back in bed with her…? but also why is he staying with liv? he loved cara, and even after she died and liv kept threatening him, why bother staying???

we know the absolute best scene was the prison scene, but i wish will had put things together sooner, like he knows she killed cara but can’t prove it and liv knows that AND knows that she could pin it on him so they’re just left hating each other and needing each other to survive!! HAND IN UNLOVABLE HAND AND I HOPE YOU DIE I HOPE WE BOTH DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sorry i blacked out there.

im with you on liv’s overall self assuredness, even in her messy drunkenness she was always put together, one step ahead of everything and everyone (the scene where she recorded will confirming it was self defense was….. ridiculous imo) there was a taste of the female cop not believing her but that disappeared. and they definitely oversold her trying to kill him multiple times adfklasdjf even in the book she didn’t really want to kill him and tried to give him an out. will is also very stupid in the book, not really suave at all and it turns out cara was sleeping with a bunch of the men at the hotel and he was duped by her!

book liv also gives off a way more frantic vibe!! she was actually stalking cara, killed another boy when she was a teenager, went to a grief counseling meeting under false pretenses and ended up cheating on will (with garth). its also made clear in the book that after she kills cara (thinking its will) she realizes that she actually does still love him and works hard to keep them together (by providing him with an alibi and generally covering for both of them)

i think when the show removed her general insanity and internalized misogyny they made her boring :(

[charmed-asylum]

The award for god damn my mouth drop like a cartoon cat goes to SY but u know . I know he doesn’t beat around the bush. However, was I thinking he be like this . And shit I can say from experience and studies that a lot he doing goes right with it. I mean sad thing and it’s really not just one person to pin point who could of fix this besides Thor town folks and trailer trash mom ( now idk where she grew up but hey it’s not me but cliches) that could of help. It’s sad because for her case she probably isn’t a slut while Sy is crazy he just type that knows it but tries to be all wooo man I mean I’m not crazy I’m caring but if u ever mess with me then haha u be getting a dead cat in your mail box or a stalker for life but wooooooo I’m just caring and being a human . Shit pat on the back and you good is looking out a simple box of stuff is looking out non stop poof Sy there is not helping out it’s stalking but bc this town is so small folks won’t see it. Oh he lucky that town size of a city block.

“On pay day, you go down to cash your check then give most of it right back, parsing it out for your various expenses. At the end of it, you have even less than the month before. You don't get it. Thing's only seem to get worse; not just money, but your body” honey this statement so spot on huh one a check back in the day like your time period AU money u get paid can last a month or last time now it’s like a blink poof gone and your body lord I’m only in my 20s and the issues I’m having at my age blown minds.

Sy just always there and idk why but it’s big ( lord I’m drooling and have not finish this thought) well as a whole get always with the sneak attack shit I’m barley 5 foot and I still have issues . Bc I’m too short they turn around and still don’t see me I gotta jump be like Boo. Anyway still damn “. For a big man, he sure can sneak up on you. “ also going back to my girl you got yourself a lifetime 20/20 level stalker. Hahaha way you keep doing Thor I can’t “ It isn't his fault he reminds you of that spoiled deadbeat. “ I wonder still wonder because he hasn’t been front with her which I feel it coming feel it coming . ( still gonna be shock) but on the why he gave her a reason which I’m gonna point out in a second but can “ I don't like to carry 'round debts. Let me buy you one." be one I mean it be least crazy one . And if not does he pray on pregnant women because of well a lot tumblr taught me a lot about kinks but because how easy the target she or how her emotions not there or pregnancy brain. “ You really don't get this man. You're no longer so sure that Thor sent him to check up on you, not since your last interaction. In fact, the wingman seemed more spiteful of him than you” also that he was so close to Thor which questioned his character like so he mad bc what Thor did or he use Thor for some reason. Because in small time I can’t see some friends falling out so easy bc hello who else u got .

This again makes me feel bad for her because while Sy seems nice and it your name was the fluff you don’t ask for I be all aww so cute and romantic but no nothing ever good and sweet it’s an huh my leg said in a sponge bob character voice. Like never so simple and sweet but damn how bad I felt reading this “ You glance over and find Sy watching you as he stands in the queue. His gaze makes you want to wilt.. Not even Thor looked at you like that. Don't be silly. Sy is just being a dutiful guy, helping out the town slut in her time of need. You won't be duped. Not when you can hear your name being twisted on tongues at that very moment” and fact he open ( after 1st day seeing her) mention he read books about pregnancy. It makes her wall slowly start to crack. “ He suggested before he's been reading things about pregnancy. You just can't picture him with a copy of What To Expect When You're Expecting.”

HAAH I’m sure many mention this but lord can you imagine “ He returns with a black coffee and a rather colourful donut. They don't match. Bitter and sweet all at once. “ But no the way that he watches her even down to her fingers. Or what way her EYES 👀 may go. He’s watching her as if I only watching tho his pray but as if he I don’t know still in war zone, looking through his sniper or goggles, watching his enemy. But still huh I hate it the perfect crazy stalker but idk even talking to her not at her or down to her .

AND HE SO HONESTLY BLUNT like okay he playing a game of 1s and 00s and we doing tic tac toe. Still like , “ "Yes, I'd like to take care of you. And the little one, if you'll let me….. His eyes flick up to the ceiling and his cheek ticks as he gives the question genuine thought. When he looks at you again, his face is set, "because I want to." that to me feels ( because not 1st time) he thinking on how to say it like before with the honest but down play it. In away which is why I feel there more.

Called to Duty 4

Warnings: non/dubcon, pregnancy, abandonment, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Captain Syverson

Summary: You struggle to move on from the biggest mistake of your life but find it hard to forget among the whispers of a small town.

Part of the Backwoods AU

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

The bank is as ever anxiety inducing. On pay day, you go down to cash your check then give most of it right back, parsing it out for your various expenses. At the end of it, you have even less than the month before. You don't get it. Thing's only seem to get worse; not just money, but your body. Every day you wake up, you feel even more crummy than the last. 

Your hopes of a treat at the cafe are dashed. You give a longing look as you walk by and peer through the window. You can smell cinnamon and coffee. You're strict non-caffeinated, doctor's orders, but a decaf would be amazing with one of those cinnamon buns. Ugh, damn, why are you torturing yourself? 

You turn to continue down the street but barely dodge out of the way of another pedestrian. He makes sure you can't pass as he mirrors you, sidestepping to block your way. You sigh as you step back and look Sy in the face. For a big man, he sure can sneak up on you. 

"Hey," he flips up his dark sunglasses, "how're you feeling?" 

You stare up at him defiantly, not quite bold enough to glare. He hasn't done anything wrong, he's just persistent. It isn't his fault he reminds you of that spoiled deadbeat. Or that your emotions are volatile, one moment teary eyed, the next blazing hot with rage. 

"Fine, thanks for asking," you shrug, "Sy, I gotta--" 

"I owe you a cookie," he points to the cafe window at his shoulder. 

You blink. You remember the cracked shortbread. You forgot about that. The mention of the sugary treat makes your stomach growl and your mouth water. 

"No, you don't--" 

"I do," he insists, "I don't like to carry 'round debts. Let me buy you one." 

"I got it free," you say, "it's not a big deal." 

"It is to me," he counters, "I was heading in anyway." 

You stare at him. You really don't get this man. You're no longer so sure that Thor sent him to check up on you, not since your last interaction. In fact, the wingman seemed more spiteful of him than you. You look across the steeet to the pharmacy then back at him. The aromas wafting out with each swing of the door have you ravenous.  

"I can't stay long, I gotta work," you say. 

His cheeks twitch, as if he tamps back a smile before it can bloom, "after you." 

He gesture behind you to the door. You turn and lead the way. He reaches past you to open the door before you can and you enter ahead of him. The din within is lively and the air is warm from the crowd and the employees steaming out orders behind the counter. 

"Wanna find a seat?" He suggests, "you should rest." 

You open your mouth to argue but think better of it. You'd rather not stand in the clustered line. You nod and head off to claim the table by the window. There isn't much left. 

You pull out the chair and brace your back as you sit with a sigh. You glance over and find Sy watching you as he stands in the queue. His gaze makes you want to wilt, instead you turn your attention out the window. 

Not even Thor looked at you like that. Don't be silly. Sy is just being a dutiful guy, helping out the town slut in her time of need. You won't be duped. Not when you can hear your name being twisted on tongues at that very moment. 

You sit and wait, wring the strap of your small purse. You watch the street. If it wasn't for the people, Hammer Ford would be serene. 

A plate clinks in front of you and a porcelain mug as well. It isn't a cookie and you can smell the herbal tea's rosy flavour. You peer up at Sy as he gives an apologetic look. 

"Cookies are still baking so I got you a cinnamon bun," he says. 

"And tea?" You add. 

"Can't have one without the other," he says, "no coffee for you." 

"Yeah, I... I know." 

You could laugh. He suggested before he's been reading things about pregnancy. You just can't picture him with a copy of What To Expect When You're Expecting.  

"Thank you," you smile as best you can. 

"Gotta get mine, be back," he excuses himself and marches back to the counter. 

You look down at the gooey iced draped spiral. You really shouldn't. Not only accept his misspent generosity but indulge in the excess sugar. Yet your hormones won't let you resist. You can at least wait until he's sitting down. 

He returns with a black coffee and a rather colourful donut. They don't match. Bitter and sweet all at once. He sits and takes off his hat and sunglasses. 

You put your purse to the edge of the table and rest your hand on your stomach, doing your best to resist the animalistic need to tear apart the dessert. His eyes follow the movement and you quickly drop your arm. You don't even think when you do it, it's just a habit. 

"You-" he begins. 

"Wh--" you find your voice at the same time. 

You both stop, hesitant. He nods and gestures to you, lifting his cup as he watches you intently. That's new too. Thor never listened much, only talked a lot. Besides, you weren't exactly together for the conversation. 

"Sy," you clear your throat and sit forward as much as you can, "why are you following me around?" 

His brows form a vee, "I'm... it's not... I'm tryna help." 

"Okay, but why?" 

His eyes flick up to the ceiling and his cheek ticks as he gives the question genuine thought. When he looks at you again, his face is set, "because I want to." 

"You want to?" 

"Yes, I'd like to take care of you. And the little one, if you'll let me." 

You can't help your snort, "we hardly know each other." 

"Isn't for lack of trying," he taps his fingers on his mug. "Aren't ya gonna try the bun?" 

"I will," you assure him. He's trying to distract you and it's close to working. The cinnamon is driving you mad. "A baby is a lot of work and... I'm not your responsibility. I know Thor is your friend." 

"Was," he interjects.  

"Sure," you accept his decisive declaration, "but that doesn't mean you have to worry about his mistakes." 

"Mistakes? I don't think so," he says. 

"Well, it's not exactly planned," you scoff, "Sy, really I don't feel right about you doing so much." 

"Wouldn't feel right not doing it," he shrugs his burly shoulders. 

“But why?” You nearly exclaim. You just want to know why he cares so much, about you? 

He leans forward, elbows on the table, “they talk about me too, ya know? Since I got back from... serving. They say I’m f—crazy, or whatever. It wasn’t easy or nothin’ over there but I’m not nuts. Not like they say. Just like you’re not some slut, forgive me for saying it out loud.” 

You look down at the table and exhale. So he hears as much as anyone else about you. At least he’s honest. At least he isn’t joining them. You purse your lips and reach for the cinnamon bun, unable to restrain yourself any longer. 

“For what it’s worth,” you raise your eyes to meet his, “I never thought you were... unwell, or whatever they say.” 

His cheeks pinch, another suppressed smile, and he tilts his head, “I’m only happy to hear you think of me.”