#and thinking john thinks badly of him

[nekrosmos]

Nikolai and Price going to an evening game of poker with some of Nik's "friends", John sitting with his guard up as he's surrounded by a group of dangerous international criminals, all of them carrying guns, all of them glancing at him with a curious look. Price is uncomfortable but doesn't show it, while Nikolai is awfully relaxed considering the situation.

The evening goes on, drinks, cigars and hearty laughs are shared around the table, the bets reaching numbers Price doesn't even make in half a year. It would be a problem, if he wasn't winning most of the rounds, piles of cash gathering around him as he feels the tension build in the room. One of the younger guys, another russian speaker, starts getting an attitude about it around two hours in, and Nikolai immediately puts him in his place with a single sentence Price doesn't understand, his voice booming, as intimidating as he could be, a heavy silence falling inside the room as the lad with an attitude sits back down, eyes not even daring to look at Nik. The silence is only broken by Nik again, a warm laugh leaving his lips and the other men joining him, their nervousness barely hidden.

It had been so easy for Nik to command the room, and even after the tension had diminished, Price could see how much respect these men had for him, while also clearly being scared shitless of the man. Price had rarely felt more attracted to him as he did at that moment, and the wink and smirk Nikolai gave him when he noticed him looking in his direction absolutely did not help.

John eventually left the table, excusing himself for a moment but squeezing Nik's hand briefly as he got up, moving deeper in the building they were using for their game.

A minute later and it's Nik's turn to excuse himself, quickly finding Price who immediately grabs him by the collar of his open shirt and presses his lips against his, Nik hungrily returning the kiss and pushing John against a nearby wall.

When they return to the table, hair tousled, face flustered, all it takes is one glance from Nikolai to shut the others up. This is his territory, this is where he's comfortable, surrounded by dangerous men who show him respect and never dare to cross him.

It's easy for John to forget how natural this all is for his partner, and if Nikolai brought him here tonight to assert his dominance and show off a little, just so he could impress John, well, that mission sure was a success.

[j1gsawz]

2x05 is like an endurance test for rinch shippers because how is ANY OF THAT supposed to be straight male behavior??

[wrylu]

I love when people make (rdr2) OCS that are friends/friendly or have romantic attraction to underrated/not talked about much characters- the ones who get left out of those certain headcanon lists, the ones who have under 150 or so fanfics written with them as the main character, the ones who need more fanart and so on...

[saudrag]

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

the whole seeing how someone died when they touch corpses thing is so interesting to me, just the way you'd think that would be a cool and useful power to have, and very relevant to the life of a private investigator trying to unwind the mysteries surrounding all the horrors he's gotten wrapped up in. But instead it ends up being more of an obstacle and point of contention between John and Arthur, with the inconvenience and harm it does ultimately kind of outweighing it's usefulness, but still dangling tantalizingly above their heads like that because it sounds useful

It feels to me like it's more than just the obvious unpleasantness of watching someone die / be murdered, given how intensely John reacts to and avoids it, and how his voice sounds while he narrates it. He sounds ragged and shaken up in a way he doesn't often sound about all the death and horrors they experience firsthand. But John never explicitly says as much, and never explains exactly how or why it's unpleasant, he just unsubtly hesitates and tries to steer Arthur away from doing it whenever possible, and flinches whenever it happens by accident and w/o warning. And I'm very curious if there will ever be any more detail on why it's unpleasant, or if it's just something vague and straightforward like being painful, tiring, or disorienting

[s0fter-sin]

they really 50/50’d the thunderbolts with characters i like and characters i couldn’t give less of a shit about

[sampilled]

“I can fix him” well I can accept him for who he is when no one else ever has

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

You mentioned how actually endearing and compelling Justine/Verity and John/Shaun's bond is, and BOY I so agree with you. I don't see people talk about them often sadly, but I genuinely think it's one of the strongest parts of the game and its narrative (in particular John's character development itself, despite that he appeared pretty late in the story, his involvement in the final sequence was really tasty. "If I kill someone for revenge I'll end hurting people dear to me, so it all will be pointless" hmmm if there isn't a certain samurai guy in another game who needed to learn this as well... but I digress)

Prosecutor's Gambit's parent/child theme is a pretty heavy handed topic, but it's not like there aren't some really amazing parts in this whole deal! I kinda don't even care about the mastermind as much as I care about John (and Kate Hall for this matter)

THEY ARE SO IMPORTANT TO ME!!!!!! I think much of their appeal comes from Justine's shift in personality after her connection to John is revealed (like her joking about smashing Edgeworth's evidence with her gavel), but also every interaction of theirs is so sweet and lovely.

I love how protective they both are of each other, and it makes all the more sense when you take into consideration that Justine wasn't much older than a child herself when she decided to adopt him. I love how they take care to show that, yes, to an extent, they both do look after each other, but Justine is still very much his mother, and she does her job well. The scenes where she's strict with him are so deeply important to me. You know she studied parenting books and did everything she could to prepare herself for this life. And yeah, John is such a great kid!! Genuinely one of the best parent-child relationships in the series to me.

I found it kind of funny how every other relationship in AAI2 involved a dad HAHA It was so much, but I get it. They really wanted to make sure you got what they were going for, and hey, most people seem to like it. I really liked Gregory's segments, which was a welcomed surprise. I didn't expect to love him as much as I did. And, yeah, the mastermind stuff did not work for me. It's probably because I didn't trust Simeon from the moment I met him (their heavy handedness worked against them in his case for me. They were pushing the idea of him being meek and unassuming too hard; I clocked it immediately as a red herring); but even the overall reveal and final confrontation were, like... eh. okay, then. HAHA The best parts of the game for me were those character interactions with the side character. Wasn't really paying attention to whatever was going on with Simeon and the president, but John, Justine, Sebastian, Katherine, Gregory, and Raymond? My actual world.

Also taking this opportunity to share all the screenshots I took of John and Justine <3 :

[arcanespillo]

“Something Wicked”

Supernatural S1E18

[sammygender]

thinking about how one of the last things john ever tells dean is an admittance that the way he treated him was fucked. & of course this destroys dean and makes it so much harder for him to come to terms w his death right after and with his childhood in general bc he’s spent his entire life chasing after johns approval. he’s spent his entire life telling himself that the way he was treated was okay and justified and that their childhood was good because he could handle it and he was strong enough and that was how it had to be. he’s worshipped john as a hero and seen nothing wrong with any of it. because he’s had to. his entire life is built around this idea there’s nothing else. he’s his dads perfect soldier and punching bag and wife-replacement and suddenly his dads gone & he said he’s sorry and that he shouldn’t have treated dean that way. what the hell is he supposed to do now.

[talentforlying]

the fact that the "golden boy" is a canonical figure in hellblazer who simultaneously represents both constantine's twin who was never born (thus becoming a spectre of the death of john's mother, a crime he was judged for without cause that poisoned his entire childhood) and also the expectation of who he would be in his father's eyes that was never met and thus subsequently killed........chewing glass would make me happier than these comics sometimes.

[tossball-stick]

anyway here is your sign to play rdr1. its really good and i think this fandom would be a lot cooler if people played it and understood what its trying to say. and also more people need to embrace the misery of these games, the misery is kinda the whole point. and also dutch is like 70x cooler if you get through his rdr1 arc

[rotteneldritchhorror]

Ya know, I'm starting to think a certain chunk of the OBX fandom just hates women lol

[sarascamander]

I love John Cleaver as a character so much, but I will never forgive him for what he did to Brooke. She's my baby girl and deserves better 😭

[yvesbuprofen]

there's never going to be peace in this fucking household

[termagax]

theres been so much taz on my dash lately. taako i miss you. merle i do not miss you quite so much.