#because he has a long ass path to get to his boss fight >:(

[stoshasaurus]

I DID IT !!! I p-ranked the first act of ultrakill for the first time, and made it to minos' boss fight!! :D

[writercole]

Dangerous Distraction

Summary: A secret mission. A formal gala. Two agents that hate each other. What could go wrong?

Words: 2105

Warnings: Suggestive dancing, Jake Seresin as a secret agent.

Credits: @princessmisery666 for beta reading this, @ryebecca for being the absolute best hype woman and twin that I could ask for. My ride or dies 💕

A/N: This has been in my drafts for a bit now. I found it when I found the other Jake story and…it was finished too. I hope you enjoy.

The mission couldn’t be worse. Not only was she paired with her worst enemy, they had to make everyone believe that they were a couple on their honeymoon, madly in love with one another. She was a skilled agent, one of the best, but even she had no idea how they would be able to pull it off.

Jake Seresin, code name Hangman, had made his feelings abundantly clear from the moment they were introduced. He thought little of her, making demeaning comments about her abilities, her skills, and her training. Though, he claimed, it was never because she was a woman. 

He dismissed every idea or strategy she proposed, often tearing them down publicly, causing a fight that only ended when one of their bosses intervened. He walked away smug, calm, collected while she was visibly seething. On multiple occasions her colleagues pointed out where he wormed his way under her skin, undermined her confidence, and worst of all, she let it affect her; it was then that she decided she hated Jake Seresin.

They had been at the hotel undercover for three days, playing the perfect couple in public, barely speaking behind the room’s closed door. She was grateful for the foresight of the planners to book a suite with a closed off bedroom. She took it over quickly, citing the need for privacy to dress and prepare.

Jake balked at first, whether out of true opposition or the need to be contrary she didn’t know. Regardless, his choice was removed as soon as she slid the doors shut.

Night three happened to be the night of the gala that they had been sent to infiltrate. She was getting dressed, ignoring the way Jake continued to give updates on the time through the closed door. As her lipstick glided across her bottom lip, a knock echoed through her suite.

“How long can it possibly take to get ready?” Jake sassed, “the gala started half an hour ago.”

“Beauty takes time, Hangman,” she replied.

“There isn’t enough time in the day to make you as beautiful as some of the women I’ve seen here,” he muttered under his breath, fidgeting with his watch before he called, “just…hurry up.”

“Why don’t you pull the stick out of your ass and head down to the bar. I’ll meet you there.”

“Fine. But I will handle this without you if you don’t hurry.”

She let out a sigh of relief when the door slammed shut, taking a moment to enjoy the silence before she had to go downstairs to the stuffy ballroom and pretend to be madly in love with a man she detested, one that also despised her.

Jake had been down in the ballroom for ten minutes and had already spotted their target and devised a plan to complete their mission. When another ten minutes had passed with no appearance from his partner, he felt an uneasiness settle in the pit of his stomach. He rested his glass of scotch on the bar and allowed his eyes to sweep over the room again before he went searching for her.

The sounds echoing off of the walls faded to nothing and Jake followed the way everyone’s heads had turned to the door. He stood up straighter while his jaw fell, his gaze raking up and down the body of his partner scanning the crowd.

A blinding smile spit her face in two and she began moving across the room, every gaze following her path.

Jake’s ears picked up the middle of a chord change and realized that the music and conversation hadn’t actually stopped; his senses blocked them out when he caught sight of his partner. Seeing her in a different environment, a formal setting, sparked a reckoning that had not previously crossed his mind.

The beauty that radiated from her stirred a warmth and giddiness in his chest, one that intensified with every step she took towards him. Her smile faded to a smirk and his heart skipped a beat. Jake became intensely aware that in the last minute or two he hadn’t needed to act like the doting newlyweds they were supposed to be. 

She was stopped by a man with wavy hair and a mustache before she could make it to Jake’s corner of the bar. He felt an anger rising up as the man brushed a strand of hair back, caressing her bare shoulder as her hand covered her giggle. An unfamiliar sensation washed over him and he abandoned his drink, stalking over with his shoulders back and his chest puffed out. 

His arm slipped around her waist as he made it to his date. He pressed a kiss to her temple, cooing, “there you are gorgeous.” His eyes focused on the way she looked up at him, wishing for half a second the desire he saw there was real. “I was beginning to think I’d have to come find you. Actually, I was counting on it. Finding you locked up in our room with alternative plans for the evening.”

“And just who are you?” the mustached man asked, ire and disdain lacing his tone.

“I’m her husband,” Jake answered as his grip on her waist tightened, his fingertips digging into her soft hips. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, I need to make sure my wife knows how beautiful she looks tonight.”

Jake pulled her away to the dance floor, twirling her into his chest as he slipped his hand in hers.

“That was far from subtle, Hangman,” she mumbled quietly.

“Aren’t I supposed to be playing the doting husband?”

“The doting husband doesn’t have to be insanely jealous and try to mark his territory in front of a room full of strangers,” she countered, a smirk crossing her lips as her brows rose in challenge.

“When you look the way you do tonight, any husband would want to mark his territory, doting or not,” he replied sincerely, dipping her low as the song ended.

Her eyes searched his face for a sign, for something, for anything that might clue her in to his actual thoughts. All she found was a softness lingering in his slight smile, a hunger in the narrow eyes that flitted down from her eyes to her lips.

The tempo shifted as a new song began and he pulled her upright, stopping her when she tried to leave the dance floor.

“Jake, I can’t dance to this,” she hissed as he spun her around, pulling her back flush to his chest.

“I can,” he muttered against her neck, sending shivers up her spine. “Follow my lead.” His right foot slipped between hers and kicked them apart, a smirk dancing on his face at the gasp she tried to hide.

Jake led her in a tango, twirling and dipping her, his hands wandering over her body as they moved across the dance floor. She followed his lead fluently, her moves becoming second nature as she leaned into the trust she had for the partner who was surprising her this evening.

A heat built between them, the fire in their eyes as passionate as ever, spreading throughout their bodies with every touch, every glance, every whiff of their scent. By the end of the dance, when Jake had their chests pressed against each other, their panting breaths mingling millimeters from their faces, he could no longer hide the fact that he was attracted to her tonight. The evidence was pressed tightly into her hips.

“Seresin,” she hissed under her breath as his hands gripped her tightly. The crowd around them applauded wildly, all eyes she could see focused on them in the middle of the dance floor.

“Do you trust me?” he whispered, his eyes darting between hers anxiously.

She waited a beat before nodding slightly, feeling the tension in his shoulders release. 

“Just a second, then.” His hand slid up her back, pressing between her shoulder blades, holding her tighter as his head dipped to her ear. “I have eyes on the target.”

“I’m assuming my six,” she muttered back with a grin.

“He’s at the bar. You step out onto the terrace and block that exit.”

“And let you get all the credit? I don’t -”

“Do you trust me?” he repeated. His grip loosened when she nodded and he led her off the dance floor, pressing a kiss to her temple as they reached the balcony doors. She stepped out of the door and he turned to the bar, letting out a curse as his eyes widened.

The mark had vanished.

The breeze sent shivers up her spine. The entire situation had her on edge. Hangman had a reputation for leaving his partners high and dry and taking all the credit for the mission himself. The soft click of footsteps prompted her to release a tense breath, her shoulders relaxing as she turned. “Jake, I thought -”

She stopped short when she saw their mark, his face adorned with a dark grin. 

“I’m sorry to disappoint. But I must say, you look beautiful this evening,” the mark said as he buttoned his jacket. 

Two additional men materialized from the shadows and advanced towards her, causing her to take steps backwards. Her heart thudded in her chest and her breathing became labored, gasping for oxygen to fill lungs that fought expansion. There had been no training for a situation where you’re being approached directly on a balcony. 

A piece of tape covered her mouth and a black bag draped over her head before she could scream.

The mark disappeared. Jake swore under his breath as he scanned the room again fruitlessly. There was no sign of him anywhere. His eyes widened and he darted for the balcony door. His stomach fell to the floor as he stepped out onto an empty terrace, the lingering smell of her perfume the only sign she had ever been there.

“Shit,” he swore while he pulled out his phone. “Shit fuck fuck shit.” 

Dialing a contact, he paced frantically across the small space, counting the steps he took back and forth. One, two, three, four, turn. 

“Control.”

“Fucking finally,” Jake barked into the phone. “I need extraction for myself and the location on my partner.”

“I’ll need approval from your mission leader for those,” the tech on the other end of the phone explained. 

“No, what you need to do is find her. I think she was taken by the mark.”

Agonizing minutes passed while he waited on hold with control. The sound of a helicopter landing on the rooftop next door drowned out the response of control and spurred Jake into motion. In one swift motion, he climbed onto the iron railing and jumped to the neighboring building, his shoulder taking the brunt of the landing and propelling him into a roll. Pulling his pistol from his holster, he approached the chopper, finding that the occupants had evacuated and left the pilot.

He raised his weapon and stepped into view. “You’re flying me now.” 

The pilot looked at him and shrugged, flipping a few switches and handing over a headset as Jake settled into the front seat. “Where to?”

Jake only had an inkling of where the mark would have taken her, and barely a guess as to what they were driving but he had to do something, anything. If he didn’t…well he refused to think about the possibilities.

The duct tape over her mouth chafed as she wiggled her lips, trying to loosen the tape enough to moisten the area and get the tape off. The zip ties they placed around her wrists cut deeply as she shifted. She took deep breaths to counter the rising panic in her chest; she had been trained for this. She knew what to do.

“You really shouldn’t struggle so much. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

She couldn’t tell which of her abductors had decided to comment on her escape attempts, but he was on her left. The black cloth they had placed over her face was melting the meticulous makeup she applied before the gala and it pissed her off that she didn’t even get a picture before it was all ruined. Defeated, she slumped back against the seat, her shoulders squeezed between two of the giant men that had taken her hostage.

Her mind reeled with details from her training, what to do, when to do it. She had been in dangerous situations before but this time, something was preventing her from acting. 

This time, she was the collateral. This time, she was relying on someone else to rescue her. And that was terrifying. 

[moongothic]

You remember how in Ms Goldenweek's cover story, we get to see how the former Baroque Works agents have all beated up the other cellmates they had (not just in the mens' cells but also womens')

The way Daz is sitting on top of one of the prisoners, as if he was sitting on a throne or something, it definitely makes it look like he at least participated in the fight that took place, right

It just makes me wonder, did Crocodile himself participate in the cell fight, or did Daz handle it all on his own?

Like even with the Seastone cuffs Crocodile's hook alone should give him the most unfair advantage in a prison fight imaginable, so you'd think he'd be more than capable of defending himself if he felt like it. But also, considdering he didn't feel like even escaping prison... was he even in the mood for a fight? Like I don't think Crocodile would just allow some random, weak-ass pirates to beat his ass without a fight, but also... I can't help but to wonder... (Look you tell me what kind of a mental state Crocodile was in after his 4 year long plan to take over a country was foiled by a kid in flip flops)

Is it possible Daz took out all those other prisoners by himself (without Crocodile nor Mr 4 assisting him), either to make sure his boss didn't have to waste his strenght on them, or... did he maybe deal with the other prisoners to... protect Crocodile? Like the former would be straight forward manly man anime loyalty, nothing worth making a deepdive for, this is One Piece we get the trope. But isn't the latter option also plausible? 'Cause. Like. Daz was loyal enough to Crocodile to willingly go to Impel Fucking Down with his former boss whom he had only known for like a day or two at this point (I mean IDK how long it took for the BW members to get shipped to this Marine Base from Alabasta but you know what I mean). If some random criminals wanted to pick a fight with Crocodile in prison and he just seemed like he didn't feel like dealing with it, if Daz's was down to go to Impel Down with Croc, then would he not be willing to defend the man too??

Regardless, it just raises the question of... why? Why did Daz choose stay with Crocodile, despite Baroque Works failing so hard? Why did he choose to become loyal to such a cruel, horrible man?

Sad thing is, because we don't really know much about Daz, there isn't actually that much to go off-of to properly speculate here. But we do know Daz once dreamt of becoming a superhero! The irony of course being that not only he became a terrifying murder man, but also that he seems to lack that "superhero quality" of being... easily approachable, friendly, warm? Like he is a man of steel, but he's not The Man of Steel, you get me? But Daz's dream does tell us something interesting though; that deep inside, even if he doesn't show it at all, he might like the idea of being a hero? Like the concept of being a hero and saving people may have appealed to him, right? Because that's what being a hero is about, the heroic ideals of upholding peace and justice (and looking cool while doing it)

And arguably that idea still appeals to Daz. Even if he's frowning, deep inside he was enjoying the superhero costume Ms Goldenweek created, even if he can't admit it.

But in One Piece, the idea of being a "hero of justice" has quite different connotations than in our world. After all, the Marines are meant to embody that very idea, just in a far less cool, romantic way. We know the World Government is extremely corrupt, we know of the atrocities the Marines have and are willing to commit in the name of their so-called "justice".

So while it's entirely plausible Daz might've fallen "out of love" with his dream simply because his life just... lead him down a different path, and he didn't seem to have the right personality for it anyways... Knowing the WG, isn't it also possible Daz could have become kind of... jaded, knowing the "real life heroes" of his world aren't that cool, and don't actually stand for the ideals he may have looked up to?

And then he finds himself working for a man who seemingly wants to overthrow that very same corrupt Government?

[nightswithkookmin]

All members are using IG to promote their solo projects, album, brand ambassador…etc. I admire JK who prefers genuine interaction with fans, he did not forget how BTS stood out from other idols and established connection with fans. I love him for that. But still, he has ‘jobs’, deleting his IG account and saying he is not going to use it anyways seem to suggest that no solo projects will be released in the near future… He has strong brand power and influence, if he has no ‘brand ambassador’ contract yet, it means he turned down all the offers. What do you think he is planning? Is he happy?

Is that shade I detect?

What do you mean he prefers genuine interaction with fans? And I'm sorry, who don't?? Gworl😩

I think you trynnna gaslight yourself romanticing this as some sort of heroic deed born out of the goodness of his heart 💀

Realistically speaking, IG is just an alternative platform for reaching a much more narrow, targeted fanbase. It's a much better platform for engaging with fans compared to weverse which is still in its early development stages and only recently rolled out lives.

Jungkook himself said he wished it had options to add fans during lives and chat with them- a feature that IG already has.

While it's easier to see his actual brand power on IG, the same cannot be said for weverse cos you know he his posting to not just his fans but other members' fans as well. It's OT7 up in weverse. Not JKK.

And let's not forget both he and Tae were the first members who hoped on to IG and enthusiastically posted on there acting all giddy as if they just got out of hybe jail and were finally free.

If you want a member who dragged his feet out there it was this one right here. He's your hero.

He is the king OT7 kumbaya gang leader. He said it himself he didn't even know what he was to post on there and for the longest time he was posting nufin.

So just because Jungkook deletes IG on a whim does not make him no damn OT7 simp. Stop. I love you but I will fight you to the death on this one- and maybe chase you with a pitch fork in the afterlife too🥴

Because, didn't I make posts about how he seemed eager to embark on his solo path way before they announced their solo careers? He literally let it slip in an interview how he couldn't wait to try a solo stage and then backtracked talking about how he didn't mean to say he wanted to go solo.

Was he a genuine fan interaction boss then when he was posting Tae and all those stories and IG live??

Bombastic side eye.

you have to recommend me a good Jimin Y/N fanfic with a lot of smut for getting me worked up over this. Actually make that two. You nice, keep going 🤭💜

With the second part of your ask, I really don't know. All I've heard him say is he has a lot of free time and that he wishes it could stay that way for a while.

I think he and V already have their albums done. They might have been the first few members to work on theirs. I mean some of their songs were incorporated into OT7 songs if I remember right. Tae had a whole ass English song ready to go.

Jk is an artist. His band mates are busy with solo projects they won't be available for no OT7 music projects until later in the future when they conclude their military service.

And I don't think he is quitting music or retiring from music so soon so.....

If he has all that free time and doesn't want to do solo projects then he better get his ass shipped off to military and get it over with. Gotta yank the bandaid off real fast and it won't hurt.

I don't know why people are buying this whole "I deleted it cos I don't use it story." You genuinely believe that's why he deleted IG?💀

B--bcos he doesn't use it????? Okay now

I know we joke about how bts deletes Twitter if they haven't used it in a long while but he took that quite literally didn't he?

If you're not using it, delete the app from your phone and forget about it. You don't delete your account. Jimin wasn't using the app either- I didn't see him delete his account🥴

Personally, I was worried having separate accounts would lead to unnecessary rivalry and competition with fans pitting them against eachother and making fun of who has the least followers.

Then there's this whole thing with the algorithms and analytics that would have you obsessing over likes comments views and impressions. It can mess with your head.

But then I assumed, that was something they all might have thought through before setting up those accounts.

They knew the risks and they took it. Says a lot about all of them. This is a journey they had collectively agreed to embark on. So if Jungkook is taking himself out, let's not take this lightly. Let's assume there's a sound tangible reason behind it other than redundancy and inactivity.

Then someone said he deleted it because he was angry with fans- listen yea, if Jungkook is mad at fans YOU'LL KNOW. Lmho.

he wouldn't be out here on weverse showing yall his snores while lowkey calling yall out for being crazay.

He and his man finna pack off these streets and disappear on yall for months when yall push a button with your ghettory.

That's not his MO. It just isn't but to each their own.

It's crazy town. There's room for all of us.

And if he's clinging on to yall it's usually a sign he's isolating in his real life. (Not saying he is clinging to the fans, there isn't much interaction at odd hours to back this up- yet.)

But I do wonder where all his alleged girlfriends at💀

Yall come get your man.

I know his boyfriend is busy preparing for an album release and his crime partner- na see where Tae at too cos I see him on IG but dude staying silent on JK's public fuckups Activities. Come get him Tae

Is Jungkook happy?

I don't know hun.

It could be he turned down all offers or now is not the right time to announce those deals. Probably because they haven't been finalized or he hasn't found a brand he wants to work with.

As part if BTS, he has worked with brands in the past and so I'm sure he has a fair idea of which brands suit him best.

He did dreamers for Fifa inspite of protests about Qatar. Sets the tone doesn't it?

I won't lie though, that's a lot of money he just pissed away deleting that account. And guess who gets a cut of that money by deciding which brands he works with? 😶😶😶😶

HYBE. HE JUST SCREWED OVER HYBE💀

I really hope he knows what he is doing.

But your ask makes me curious about something- I'm not sure I want to address that here. Especially the part you said he has no contract yet- I doubt it but if it's true then I would wonder if he's perceived "social risk" is a factor. That would break my heart you know?

I know some brands tend to Stay away from certain Celebrities for fear they might be too controversial due to their lifestyle or even sexuality. I didn't say this but because I think of Jikook as queer men I tend to stress myself over these things a lot.

For Jungkook I imagine people writing to companies threatening to boycott their products if they take him on. I overthink- I do that. Leave me alone.

It's why I was so excited for Jimin and Dior.

I'm anxiously waiting for Jungkook to announce his ambassadorship so I can finally breathe- like imagine these men are not actually gay and for years I stress myself out worrying their sexuality impacts their lives

That's just wild🥴

I also wonder if they see a major difference between using joint accounts and Solo accounts. They have the freedom to post whatever they want subject to company rules and third person contract terms but I wonder if they are seeing the same commercial success as before.

Commercializing their brand can be a bit overwhelming for them I think. But Jimin is the cautious type and I know he ponders over decisions and choices a lot before he makes them.

It's Jungkook I worry about sometimes. I just hope he's not overwhelmed by the whole thing.

I don't know what Jungkook is planning and I hope to god he is happy and healthy cos I just- I can't. If he's not I can't 😭

This is not my month. I am in a fragile state of mind because this is Jikooks most vulnerable month to me. Jimin's album is coming, Jungkook is jungkooking- lord keep the ship afloat. We ain't want no trouble.

I try to think happy thoughts

Jimin's album is a success

Jungkook is fine- even if he's not sire hang on tight I can only worry about one ship captain at a time😩

I suspend all concerns about Jungkook to after Jimin's successful album launch😌

Now who's coming with me to convince Jungkook we need his account to promote Jimin's album?😩

[bokettochild]

Legend vs Sky, who would win?

Okay, this has been lingering in my ask box for a bit because my golly gosh, I'm not sure what it was meant for.

Like, there are so many ways you could compare them, but for the sake of my sanity (and orientation) I'm going to just say you're asking about who would win in a fight.

So!

Both Legend and Sky have training under the Master Sword's spirit. Obviously, Sky was in a knight's academy for an unspecified amount of his life, but he also had Fi teach him how to be a hero who could kill a god. And yeah, Sky killed a literal god, so we have that weighing in for him.

Now, Legend was taught some skills of being a knight by his uncle, but only right before the man died. if you go with Manga lore though, his grandfather has also attempted to teach him their heritage and the ways of their family line of knights. On top of this though, I would like to point out that Legend spent nearly his first adventure with hardly any training, but he is, cannonically, capable of hearing Fi, so it's likely she gave him a lot of help too, since the hero before him kinda died without her aid (to be fair, he had Navi, and two blue ladies screaming at him would have been too muc for him).

So both have training. Sky's training as a knight is iffy though, since the only thing Skyloftain knights needed to do was fight aerially. Still, he knows how to weild a blade. Granted, Legend's is also iffy, as he was, quite frankly, a terrible student.

Experience wise, Sky had a long and arduous adventure that relied heavily on his skills with a blade.

Legend has had six adventures, but typically speaking, he was using a lot of weapons that were not swords during the main journeys, and most of his actual sword fighting skills were only employed with boss fights.

Sky killed Demise.

Legend killed Ganon.

Now, Demise is clearly the greater foe, being a god, but I would like to throw out, before I break down a fight between these two, that by Legend's time, Ganon was an immortal being with infinite power per the Triforce, so... kinda of bordering god-hood. All of Legend's adventures have also focused on saving deity's, or their avatars, so that would imply that he is someone powerful enough to fight things that a literal goddess cannot handle.

Sky, however, has done the same.

Now, if they were to fight each other, we'd have an interesting situation before us. According to JoJo, Sky is the most skilled swordsman in the group, and he's scary fast and scary skilled. Legend is not nearly as skilled as Sky, or graceful, but the vet does have more experience, meaning he'd be less likely to really fight Sky head on in an honest to goodness battle. Legend's style, most likely, would be more defensive and evasive, since that's what works best when playing his games: avoid being in the path of destruction, and dart in to strike a blow right as your opponent is recovering from attacking you.

Sky is also much larger than Legend, and probably a great deal stronger; Sky can run around carrying a tower of pumpkins and Legend needs a power bracelet to pick up clay pots. Legend does have speed on his side, but take that away and his chances go down.

I'd say in a fight, Sky would definitely win. If they were using swords. If limited to blade alone, Sky would just have to slow Legend down, and then he could take him outr quite easily.

That said, in a fight were Legend has full access to his arsenal, there's a good chance he would win. He's better skilled with multiple weapons, and with the use of his items, he could hamper movement, create barriers, and even turn himself intangible for short periods of time to avoid heavy blows (magic cape). Granted full use of his arsenal, and with Legend adaptiveness in battle and resourcefulness, he could manage, with a lot of effort, to take Sky down.

In a one on one, mano y mano fight though, with only basic tools, Legend is getting his ass handed to him.

Lets not forget though, Sky would compliment him regardless. In case you haven't noticed, Legend is his best friend in the chain, or so far anyway, so if these two fought, yeah, they'd give their best. They're both competitive power-houses, but Sky is a good sport (most of the time) so he'd play nice after the fight is over, and we've seen that Legend isn't incapable of showing his respect for another's skill either.

[hypaalicious]

Reclamation Algorithm, aka Passenger gets his lick back

I kinda like writing my opinions on AK side modes no one asked for, even tho this is late asf!

The tutorial for the mode sucks really bad. Skip that shit, nothing they tell you in there is how you’ll actually play 😭 That being said, I’m gonna write this assuming you’ve at least gotten the basic gist of the mode; if I break down every detail this post would be 30 pages long, and uh…

I did not like RA until I was almost done with it, lol. The grind is TERRIBLE in the beginning which is most of the problem.

BUT! I do believe it has promise as long as all the kinks are worked out; RA is def a “beta” mode and it shows. 🥴

Build your base.

This is where the grind will almost murder you. 🥲You can do this by farming for materials in Resource nodes or by cheesing the Construction Grid. If you choose the latter route, what you’ll want to do is do enough in multiple runs to get Construction Points (how many map nodes you visit, constructs you build, raids you defeat, food you make and feed your Operators adds up). Then you quit before your home base gets destroyed, go to the Road of Prosperity and focus on activating the entire second row. That will give you a total of 30 Wood, 15 Stone, and 6 Iron at the start of each run.

Then from there, all you have to do is make a Crabbie Pump, farm enough water to make a barrier or two, place them in your Headquarters, quit the run. Rinse and repeat until you have a nigh-impenetrable fortress.

The things you should focus on crafting for your base:

Firm Platform II

Urban Style Barrier II

Fortification II

Trap Net Launcher II

Level 3 anything isn’t worth the mats. Level 2 is most important for the Barriers as it gives them camouflage. Trap Nets will be your saving grace if you build yourself an Ifrit lane.

Note: due to a bug, any ranged Operator you place on a Firm Platform cannot be healed. But they also will take no damage unless the platform they’re standing on is destroyed. Also, Angelina’s passive can heal your damaged constructs, but only if you have her set on S1.

Don’t have a great mind for path-building? No problem; here’s a basic layout from a Chinese dude on Billibilli to copy:

What this does is force enemies to go the absolute longest way around to get to your HQ. This gives you time to set up your Operators at a choke point to nuke.

Choke point should look (roughly) like this:

2. Hop around nodes.

Once your base layout is built, you can switch to making Monitoring Tower II. Take and place two of those in any node to make it a Sentry that allows you to reveal up to two extra nodes in every direction around the node you’re in. This will open up the map real fast if you plan for it!

The only useless node to waste an Act on is the Conflict Node. I literally only go in them to make them Sentries if they’re in a good spot on the map and exit right out.

3. Only fight Raids at your base.

Intercepting raids in other nodes is risky because you’ll be dealing with weather debuffs and randomized stage layouts. Fight em on your turf.

Note: you can always quit the run before a Construct is destroyed and it’ll be preserved in your next one. Yay!

4. Fast-Redeploys are king.

The only time I used a “real” squad was when I had to defend my HQ in raids, lol! Anything else? I brought Texalt, Yalter, Skadi, Nearlter and that was enough to handle 99% of RA outside of base raids. The 1% are the Mountain Pass and No Man’s Land nodes. For those, I just added Mlynar 😂

5. The Lost Zhayedan boss can be cheesed with Dollkeepers.

His gimmick sucks ass, and he’s just a stat stick 😭 But basically Spalter can trickle him down because switching between forms doesn’t trigger his healing.

Note: Camouflage doesn’t protect you from his retaliation strike even if you’re not blocking him. He straight up is like

6. Can’t trigger certain endings? You may have to discard tokens.

This pissed me off because it’s not intuitive, LOL! You can get the first ending by just surviving past day 12 and beating the last Raid boss. You get the second ending by talking to Old Isin at the market, him mentioning a treasure, then coming across the Treasure Hunter randomly in a stage and picking up a Treasure Map. In order to get the third ending, you have to throw away the tokens you got from the Treasure Hunter (you gotta do this before you start a new run; it resets the storyline this way) and basically avoid talking to Old Isin first. You also have to already have completed Manticore’s side questline.

And when I say randomly? Yeah I mean RNG is gonna have you thinking you fucked up somehow. Pick the wrong dialogue option? Welp gotta wait for another random encounter to try again. Passenger ain’t show up? Keep doing runs and going into random nodes until he decides to Grace you with his presence. It’s just kinda a mess 😭

7. Making food is fun, but also not necessary to win battles unless your squad is severely under-powered.

I beat the first two end bosses without even knowing how to make dishes LMAO! The third I also will say I don’t think I needed them, but I loaded up my squad anyway just in case and I also wanted to see what the dishes actually DID. Now mind you, I’m pretty much running this mode with 6 stars exclusively so YMMV. It’s an end-game side mode in beta no less, so playing RA with an undeveloped roster is going to be a Bad Time.

That being said, after awhile I focused on making dishes for specific core operators just to make things easier. Any dish that decreases SP costs, I gave to my vanguards so I can immediately start printing DP for raid defense. Any dish that reduces redeploy time I gave to Nearlter so I can use her s2 as I believe god intended LOL! The Festive Feast that gives an Operator camouflage and an attack boost, I shoved down Mlynar’s throat so he can just park at those Mountain Pass sentinel constructs and wreck them (and everything else around him) without being targeted.

8. Build the Transregional Communication Station as soon as you are done with your base layout.

Please don’t try and find those elusive invisible “emergency exits” in Conflict Nodes or whatever, it’s a waste of time and doesn’t do what the tutorial claims it does. 😩 Building this construct is what’s gonna allow you to bail on day 9 (or 6 if you upgrade it) with like 15 items if you upgraded the Construction tree well enough. I use this to carry over rare Dishes I made or Monitoring Towers to a new run so I start with a great advantage and don’t have to start from 0 crafting. Once I brought over 15 towers and just opened up the whole map by like day 4 by creating sentries EVERYWHERE I could LOL.

Final notes:

The mode has promise, so if they bring it back later like IS I just hope HG polishes it up. But uh… I actually have no idea who the player is supposed to be in this story LOL! There’s no replay value once you beat all the endings, and there’s no point in going to all the nodes after triggering the events you need unless you just wanna beat enemies up. Base building could be much more fun if they allowed Constructs to be moved around and not just destroyed. Some folks live by creating Support machines to help farm mats faster, but I literally never even bothered with it past the tutorial. Most of the Constructs offered you do not need. Iron shouldn’t be as much of a pain to find/farm as it is. The map previews are so useless idek why they bothered, what’s a big black box gone do for me? 😭

The raids were fun, tho. They’re front loaded as hell but once you get your bottleneck of pain organized it’s simple enough! The exploding spider one I obliterated with ranged units only, the Crystal golem rush I utilized Surtr and just about every medic/healing defender I had in my roster LMAO! Ending bosses were mostly tanked by Hoshi, covered by Shining, and obliterated via Mlynar and Ifrit in the cross fire. Manticore becomes an OP beast due to her token that increases her ASPD for perma slow on S1.

But I will say this: I gotta stan Passenger for literally not giving one shit about what he destroys in order to get his lick back. He played the long game! Don’t ever make an enemy out of that man he ain’t got shit to lose and he’ll make you suffer 😭

[pyro-madder]

Coucou! So for the ask game :

1.Favorite boss fight? 28.Least favorite boss fight?

4.Favorite weapon? 19.Favorite Old Hunter?

24.What do you think of Cainhurst?

25.Upper Cathedral Ward Y/N (je déteste cet endroit du démon 💀 j'ai legit perdu toute ma lucidité la première fois. 20-30 points!!!)

39.Hot takes on any Bloodborne lore?

Coucouuu :} let's get to it... it got long because I can't help but ramble, so I put it under a readmore :')

1. Favorite boss fight ? Micolaaash i am a bad no good fromsofter and prefer gimmick bosses over hit-and-roll-and-pray LOL

But really, between the chase, the insane OST (it's my favorite in the game, really), and his voicelines over it all... it's such An Atmosphere !! The downside is that once you've figured a) which path to follow and b) that he won't Call Beyond you if you stay close to him, it becomes terribly short and easy 😔 this said I'm obligated to say that I did not go in fully blind, so I understand those who struggled, and remember witnessing my brother raging as the man jumped into yet another mirror 😅

Special mention to when he starts monologuing just as you're about to pick up an item in his arena. *mashes X*

28. Least favorite boss ? Celestial Emmissaries. ON S'EMMERDE

They're not *difficult*, but they still hit hard and will get you if you're not careful. Music is nice, of course, but not particularly memorable to me. Glorified mobs... though I understand it's probably on purpose, given what lies after them. X)

4. Favorite weapon ? Tough one ! I love the concept of trick weapons as a whole, seeing the mechanisms and hearing the satisfying click when they change shape. There are several that stand out for different reasons, but no overall favorite :

Saw Spear : simple yet deadly efficient, I picked it up on my first playthrough and never put it down. But aesthetically, that's not quite it...

Threaded Cane : i'm a simple person. whip sexy. looks twice as badass when said whip is made of tiny blades chained together. extremely satisfying to hit several enemies mobbing you in one hit, and beautiful when you infuse it with an element.

Stake Driver, Whirligig Saw : i don't use them a lot (the former especially is tricky) but i adore their design and brutality. i tell you, i'm a Powder Keg at heart...

19. Favorite Old Hunter ? depends on how you define those ;

overall, if Djura counts, he wins by default of being my favorite character for many reasons : cool design, cool dialogue, cool weapons, very reasonable motives. i love how collected he is in all his interactions, he's seen it all and knows his stuff. also "uncommonly kind but dreadfully foolish" my kind of man fr /joke

if we're referring to hunters of Gehrman's era, then Simon. his hobo swag and needless dramatics have bewitched me body and soul. cool weapon also :)

if we're talking about summons : again Gascoigne wins by default of being my second favorite character (for less noble and nuanced reasons than Djura - he's just hot and badass). Closely followed by Damian for saving my ass against Ebrietas and the myriad of headcanons his title and gear alone enable.

24. What do you think of Cainhurst ? Welcome to the house of fun /sarcasm

The scenery's cool, the level and boss are... bearable once you've grown acquainted with them, but I don't like the Vilebloods (I say this light-heartedly), so meh tier overall. Stylish clothes and weapons though. 👀

25. Upper Cathedral Ward Y/N ? Yeah no. Pain 🤝

I also lost quite the insight here on my first run, and those damned buffed werewolves... for a boring boss and then a horribly hard one, for a chalice and a revival spot for a character i don't particularly want to do anything with...

The atmosphere is great tho. Loved the werewolves crashing in and swinging on the chandelier. Also, Damian is here. 🙏

39. Any hot takes on Bloodborne lore ? I'm just gonna repaste my "older sister rant" (which i had to dig up my archive thanks to tungle's super functional search function, and has since been pacified by Katy's theory that the girl in question was dead before the game started, thank you again for putting my soul to rest)

vraiment les premiers jours dans leur tag c'était je deviene fol.exe

[klonoadreams]

Is scarnoa gonna do all 3 paths? Of so which ones does she prioritize?

Oooh, that's actually an interesting question -let me go on a long ass rambling because this is all relevant (I'm honest i'm totally normal about this lmao)

So the thing about this, is that the most OPTIMAL path, is to go in a specific order based on levels.

Katy is the first one you should typically start with, before trekking over yonder to the east.

Scarnoa doesn't have any specific priority beyond the Gym Badges (though do keep in mind that she DOES get distracted often, so oops), but uhh, I will be tweaking things so that she ends up having more reason why she keeps going all over the place. She went first with Katy after taking a detour and ending up in the marsh that Arven found her at (because she was looking for FLAMIGO), because he was looking for a Pokemon to take down Klawf - he can't fight them with a Skwovet, lmao, but then got a call for Arven afterwards (since he was training up that Shellder he caught), and decided "OKAY!!!" and boom, Titan down. Checks map "Oh, gym is near, let's go!!"

by the by, in case anyone needs a confirmation of where you can catch Shellder:

You can find some in the area by that marsh where Flamigo like to pop up. How did Scarnoa end up there so early???

girlbossed (backwards jump LETS GOO jk jk) too hard and ended up someplace she wasn't supposed to be so early (Arven isn't supposed to be there, but obviously, we have to admit that he has SOME badges to ensure that the Pokemon he catches don't start disobeying him - some of them DO give him issues, but it's not so bad as it WOULD"VE been WITHOUT the badges. I like to think of these things as being strength checks that make POkemon go "yeah, I'm down following you, let's go kick ass")

Wins another badge, gets a call from Arven AGAIN, who is most likely far too eager by now, because something changed with his Mabosstiff, so Scarnoa is ON THE WAY (forgetting that she can mcfucking call a taxi vhfelkjbvklfb), anyways Arven's just "what the fuck, that was like five days ago, WHERE WERE YOU I THOUGHT YOU DIED"

(an exaggeration, but it's concerning that she wasn't answering his texts. First thinks its his rotom being a brat - no, Scarnoa just spoils her Rotom too much)

(but also, Arven has LITERALLY had to fish her out of the mud when their paths crossed in that marsh - literally just saw her fall face first like SPLAT, while her Koraidon watches with a guilty look on their face - he now questions her self preservation skills)

because her Rotom kept leaving her phone to eat food - they got distracted by Mesagoza food on the way back to the west gate. Also Scarnoa keeps forgetting she has a dorm, so it's the outdoors life for most of them (They OBVIOUSLY have rest stops scattered throughout the place, around the Pokemon Centers, where you can shower and just wash clothes vhejkvhf jSHHHH)

anyways after ghosting Arven for five days straight, BOOM, big birdy down and then Cassiopeia, getting impatient because every so often, they check on Scarnoa, and she's like...either eating dirt because she SUCKS at stopping on Koraidon or just GETTING DISTRACTED BY FOOD, GOD DAMN HOW MUCH DO YOU EAT.

And just, "You're by this Team Star Base, if you want access to your social media accounts to continue shitposting your misadventures, you got a week to kick that boss's ass"

Scarnoa: Lmao, okay.

She goes over a week anyways because she kept getting distracted and sleeping in. But she still makes it to the base. Cassiopeia has to try harder after that, because now that she KNOWS Scarnoa's Rotom Phone is like SUPER casual after getting spoiled to all hell, she needs to try different tactics. Like "no more wifi for you if you don't make it here - don't make me do it"

and while Scarnoa WOULD forget, her Rotom Phone won't and will start picking up the pace lmaooo.

Anyways Cassiopeia has to literally REMIND Scarnoa that there is a Team Star base by one of the fly points she has registered to her phone, and tells her to use it "PLEASE, for your own sake too."

Anyways that's Scarnoa's first experience with the Squawkabilly Taxi and while unpleasant, she got to pet the birds :V

And while going straight to Mela WOULD be her top priority, Scarnoa got distracted, lost (literally cannot read a fucking map) and ended up in Levincia, where she's all "oh hey, a gym."

Cassiopeia (*cough*Penny*cough) eating ramen in her room, just catching up on anime, when she gets notifications that Iono is streaming another Gym Battle and WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

anyways badge get, Scarnoa's getting popular, with Cassiopeia immediately seeing some red flags and QUICKLY moderating her followers on SIGHT. (SHE NEEDS SCARNOA DAMMIT)

Anyways Clive's the one who drags Scarnoa to Mela that time. Which is hilarious. But also, "Please, I beg of you - TAKE HER TO THIS BASE. She keeps getting LOST."

And oops, Cassiopeia's a little late there, because Clavell was out and about, and after seeing Scarnoa get her third gym badge, after taking down Giacomo, he's like "alright you, that's enough hooky for you. Time to go back to school."

Cassiopeia wondering why they don't just give Scarnoa the equivalent of zoom classes that she's taking. Anyways, as soon as Scarnoa is mcfucking done with her remedial classes, and stuff, her ass is back to Mela and that is REALLY when Arven calls up again, so TIME TO TAKE DOWN A WORM.

And the hilarious thing is, Scarnoa was going to book it IMMEDIATELY to Atticus, but Cassiopeia went "HELL NO, GET ANOTEHR BADGE - idk, Kofu or some shit. Atticus will literally kick your teeth in."

meanwhile Nemona's just dropping by every so often for a battle, somewhat intrigued that Scarnoa is taking the recommended path instead of doing what she did, and strong arming her way through everything and that's how Kofu was her second badge right after Katy...and how Larry ended up as her third badge. :V (she got Brassius and Iono afterwards, and somehow, by chance, she corrected her path with Ryme, Tulip, and Grusha after getting a tip from Geeta, seeing as she has HEARD from Larry about his unconventional challenger)

Nemona: You sure do know your stuff about the recommended path!!

Scarnoa: The what.

(fun fact, I ended up in Tulip's area completely by chance after I was on a fucking around and collecting items spree and oop)

Anyways, again - Scarnoa's priority is badges, but she keeps getting yanked from one place to the next. Eventually, she does start prioritizing Titans at some point, but she then uses her badges to ensure she's strong enough to go into areas that were giving her difficulty...after some "gentle persuasion" from Cassiopeia too, helping her out in that sense because Scarnoa is NOWHERE near ready to take on any of the bosses after Atticus.

(keep in mind, Scarnoa rarely loses, and when she loses, she usually gets her shit kicked in if it's against Wild Pokemon, like Koraidon HAS had to pick her up and GTFO out of there)

(even Arven has to convince her otherwise, since they got their shit kicked in by Tatsugiri and Dondozo)

(he is still very touched that she wants to help him, but his heart honestly can't take anymore risks after one of them NEARLY drowned - Tatsugiri/Dondozo is a deadly duo :V)

[theomnicode]

How would you describe saitamas morality? I've seen him placed all over the moral "scale" when the topic comes up (though i cant say i understand the "lower" placements), so I'm interested in others thoughts on it

I'd say Saitama is a person with high morally good values and integrity.

Warning: long ass meta ahead about morality.

--

One of the ways Saitama's morality and his values are illustrated is in the dream which Saitama has, directly after Beefcake basically killed thousands of people and he did not bat an eye, because he was losing his capacity to empathize with people. Then he squished his own brother and Saitama again, did not bat an eye. On the contrary, he found malicious humour in it instead.

This fact started to bother him when he realized what was happening to him.

After he recalled the time when he started out as a hero and Beefcake incident, it subconsciously bothered him so much it manifested as dream where 70% of the population had died and someone he knew more closely had also died, because he had just been callous and feeling like he failed to act on his high sense of moral virtues and deserving some kind of punishment. Practically a Lucid dream based on his intuition alone that something was wrong. Not only that, but I believe it was his subconscious also showing him that even if he let go of his inhibitions and showed some actual emotions, his emotions would not steer him wrong towards his goal of being a protector, something he is afraid of.

And wouldn't you know, the first thing he did was punt the subterranean boss in the head. Then he went out and saved Genos.

This feeling of caring for people a lot and yet failing to act on his high moral virtues that he demands of himself once again rears it's head in the Saitama vs Garou fight where Saitama dumps his virtues in the trashbin, to not kill other humans by choosing to serious punch Garou.

The moral ambiguity moment comes from the fact that we do not actually know the outcome of the serious punch squared. We also have Blast as an example who's first priority was to get everyone else to safety, as a neat little counterpoint to Saitama's actions in the heat of the moment when he wasn't thinking clearly anymore.

Saitama acknowledges this wanting to punch Garou to smithereens as a moral failure on this part. Yet letting Garou just go around free is also not morally correct thing to do because he basically murdered people and would continue down that same path, so it is a moral dilemma for Saitama who has high sense of moral values.

It is further moral dilemma that he ends up destroying Jupiter and I.O when he tries to stop Garou though, one that he does not have a good justification for, because he was showing off with little care at that point. He was relying on his ability to show superiority to make him back down, but they did intentionally destroy the moon and Jupiter.

"For the greater good" is a slippery slope.

But the facts that he can question whether or not he is morally right or wrong and is highly critical of himself, is what makes him truly a high moral person in the end. If one never questions themselves, their sense of right and wrong and remains rigid in their interpretation without considering the circumstances, then sense of morality can end up becoming very black and white. More rigidness can mean less empathy if morality is cut and dry.

Saitama is always trying to improve himself as a person too, this includes his sense of morality. So in this sense, his moral code may change and/or improve when new evidence emerges.

True morality is not bound by ethics either, because someone can violate ethics all the time while thinking they are morally correct in doing so.

Saitama does not let societal rules, ethics, determine his sense of right and wrong. Ethics are a social construct that people often follow, such as law and culture and in this case, the ethics of killing monsters in world of OPM, but Saitama follows his moral compass without being bound by the expectations of the society he lives in and what is considered ethically acceptable and unacceptable.

Not to say he's ethical or unethical just because ethics and morals are different. Ethics and morality often go hand in hand, but distinction has to be made.

So when it comes to moral values that Saitama has, they are very high moral values. He's far from flawless, but he's always trying to do the right thing based on his set of moral values.

One of the ways to evaluate the person's type of moral values and integrity is when they uphold said values even when nobody is looking or holding them back.

Saitama has all the power to just get what he wants like punch the soda machine, even a little bit, just to get the soda he wanted, grab all the cash he wants when the car got wrecked and nobody would know. He would never have to be poor again. He has all the power in the world to do whatever he wants and infinite growth potential to boot and nobody would be able to oppose him.

But he won't. What he chooses to do instead is pick up litter and save a little kid held hostage. That would make him a morally good aligned person with high integrity.

--

Saitama at his core, believes in the good of people and that everyone can change if given the chance to do so, like he himself always strives to change himself to be a better person.

Which is one of the reasons why when Saitama thought he had Garou figured out, that Godrou dealt Moral injury on him.

Among other kinds of mental injuries he suffered like high emotional damage. Saitama was already moderately to highly stressed from everything that had happened before that and was relying on his dominant cognitive function, introverted intuition, to get him through the Garou fight as a stress reaction.

It was a Full KO in that sense.

Moral injury is defined as harm that is done to an individual when their most deeply held beliefs and values are violated.

Saitama could not believe that Garou could have done something as heinous as kill other people in cruel blood, just to taunt him and make him give his all because he instantly understood the motive behind it. That is the dark side of the personality type, capacity of understanding even if someone acts in completely heinous ways.

His willpower to maintain his self-control was already in shambles from the personal hell of MA arc, when he let Garou feel his negative emotions behind his carefully controlled mask. Saitama probably does not handle stress well at all.

(Which I've yet to make a meta about how well it's crafted to specifically destroy his willpower over maintaining his self-control)

(In a more direct translation basically saying "You did this for this, right?" You got exactly the kind of reaction you wanted Garou, are you not entertained?)

Saitama believing in this human ability to change, to be morally good, is what he believes cost him everything, so to the trashbin it went and what makes it such a great moral ambiguous moment that it seemed that he would have destroyed the Earth on the same go. Because him lashing out was such a poorly planned out, impulsive act that he did not exactly think it through that Garou would also punch him back and it would endanger earth.

Chances are, it would not have if it was just his own punch, but what he let go is belief in himself to be a morally upstanding person. That it is pointless if he tries to be morally righteous and caring individual because ironically that got people killed and instead he was being callous when he tried to care more.

In this, it would seem that he then put all his remaining care in doing right by Garou, at least, to make sure that at least one person makes it out from this mess and believing in this one person to change back into the person they used to be.

And maybe trying to redeem himself at the same time, that he could be excused for his own lapse of control, if he held tight to this belief. Losing control is not worth it.

The quirk of this personality is that in right situations, they can logically justify anything.

If he does not believe in that, his core value that humans can inherently change to be better, then he would lose his sense of self.

It was Genos' belief in him being able to be a hero, that allowed Saitama to still keep a grip on himself and his values. Because Saitama no longer truly believed in his own values that he had just thrown away, like his lack of belief in his heroism would mean his clothes would shred instantly, he needed the core as memento to remind him of those values. To remind him why he's a hero.

Maybe he could do one last thing correctly at least, while keeping himself in control over his emotions.

(Chances are he actually changed his mind about letting himself loose here, because he was reminded of his values. Huh.)

--

This belief in humans ability to change, even if at first they seem to be merciless and understanding the motives when someone takes a more morally questionable action can be observed when Saitama for instance, chastises Genos weakly when Genos suddenly blasted away house of evolution without making sure that there wasn't any humans occupying the upper floors and Saitama is floored by Genos suddenly doing that.

Genos never presented himself as irredeemably merciless, in Saitamas moral opinion though. What genos did was wrong because there could have been human casualties, but he understood the motive behind suddenly incinerating the entire house because they were also bad guys sending mutants to attack people and after them specifically. So they were the aggressors first and Genos and Saitama were defending themselves. Hero association had nothing bad to say about Genos code of conduct either and probably won't.

Genos wants to eliminate evil just as bad as Saitama wants to, but chances are, Saitama's only awakening sense of humanity like emotions and morals after the warning that he was losing himself entirely, allowed him to shrug off genos' blatant disregard for ethics and possible lost human lives there as casualities in his quest to exterminate evil, when it turned out that the baddies were probably hiding underground and no actual human lives were lost.

When Genos no longer disregards other human lives as potential casualties, including his own, Saitama commends him for it. His disciple has come around to understand Saitama's deeply entrenched moral code.

--

On the moral scale? I would say Saitama ranks high on the moral scale, all things considered.

It took a loss of a very close loved one, the loss of everything he owns, being responsible for allowing someone go against his core values of murdering people, damaging the planet he lives on and highly stressfull situation in general and lowered amount of self-control, to make him re-evaluate his values and let go of his inhibitions.

It is a moral failure he has yet to own up to because he does not remember it, yet, though it was something that never ended up happening and he "redeemed" himself for it by traveling backwards with the help from Garou to deny the causality of his lack of action and action taken.

But even when he has literally nothing left and no reason to even exist, he ultimately, still tries to uphold the one last and most important moral value he has; not taking a life unless he has to.

It is a thing that he already suffers from emotionally, because his morality regarding killing monsters does not line up with the ethics of the Hero association and them killing monsters, because some monsters used to be human. One of the reasons why being a hero did not line up with what he thought it would be; helping people and defeating evil and this will probably become more and more apparent.

But the theme seems to be that he would strive to do the right thing. Within his capabilities and within his knowledge.

What he deems as morally right and wrong though, that may change if he gets more emotionally invested and his emotions and his full empathy makes a return and he may even make some morally questionable decisions based on feelings alone. For better...and for worse if he regards it as moral failure on his part to actually take care of and save every single person. To be an ideal hero.

No doubt he will get morally tested from time to time however and we'll see how sound his moral judgement remains.

[treetownconfessions]

ok yay theres a lot i have so i apologize if its long or autistic. so its called "dawn of fire" (on ao3) which roughly translates to "the beginning of destruction". at first it was only gonna revolve around flippy being the Dragonborn but I thought that was not engaging enough so I expanded it to include every single character and two OCs from my best friend and my girlfriend. it starts off with flippy being on the battlefield and beinf shot down and he wakes up in the helgen dungeon. creative I know. anywaysz he goes to riverwood and he meets up w cuddles, giggles, toothy, and petunia. these four are basically inseparable because they all attend the college of winterhold together. but at a certain point when flippy needs to lead a peace treaty between the imperials, stormcloaks, and the greybeards, it turns out that toothy and petunia actually fight for the opposite sides of the war. splendid leads the stormcloaks and splendont leads the imperials. so from that point forward, toothy and petunia absolutely hate each other and it caused cuddles and giggles to become sick of all of this shit (because toothy/cuddles and giggles/petunia besties). cuddles leaves the college and ends up joining the dawnguard (vampire hunters) and giggles also leaves the college but she joins the volkihar clan (a group of vampires). petunia and toothy end up staying at the college only because flippy becomes the arch-mage because sniffles tried to absolutely demolish the college. yeah anyways he joins the dawnguard afterwards and reunites with his old friend lammy (who basically plays serana in this story) and cuddles/giggles end up meeting again, which eventually leads to splendont declaring war on splendid and flippy has to get that checked out. also flippy meets up with mouse at one point too (the kapow trio was split up due to personal paths) and he finds out sneaky joined the thieves guild. so after the whole college of winterhold stuff plays out and before he joins the dawnguard, flippy goes to check out the thieves guild, which is led by shifty, and he sees sneaky but apparently he's too much of a boss ass bitch to talk to flippy instantly. so yeah lifty also participates in the thieves guild but he regrets it deep down and eventually blows up on his brother for all the horrible shit. mole is an assassin from the dark brotherhood (short lived lmao) who tries to kill flippy but it obviously doesn't work. so flippy has to find out why this is happening, which leads to him murdering the lady at the orphanage in riften. he's kidnapped by flaky, who is the leader of the dark brotherhood, and yeah I'm sure most people know how this plays out. once all of this is over, he has to handle the first dragonborn absolutely demolishing everything in an attempt to take control of the dragons yadayadayada he travels to apocrypha to meet this "first dragonborn" and oh my! it's the tiger general! so he basically gets (verbally) roasted beyond means before being kicked out of the realm. and ya he has to figure that out. i have a lot more details about who fights for what side of the civil war and about the dark brotherhood and each character but idk if anyone wanna hear. thanks for coming to my ted talk

.

[grayintogreen]

I don't know what schedules are, so in honor of Chapter One of YCDHN being posted, it's time for something I have been waiting for SO LONG to give more details about my process about.

WHAT IS A NONAGON AND WHAT DOES IT DO?

So given that this entire fic series is based entirely on “but what if” and I had a lot of specific theories about where the Aeor arc was going, when it came time to decide what to do with Lucien, I leaned on those theories a bit when building this alternate take.

Now normally when you have an arrogant asshole dealing with Eldritch Beings such as Lucien, you end up in a scenario where he’s probably going to get betrayed or just fucking eaten by the damn things, so I kinda expected that was where it was going- that he’d get consumed somehow and the Nein would have to rescue his dumb ass and yada yada yada they’d get Mollucien out of this somehow, because at that point I didn’t know the campaign was ending and I wanted purple tiefling AND Caduceus and just assumed that Matt would play the Mollucien as an NPC since… Lucien memories.

That did not happen! Obviously! And I love what did happen, because the Dragon kicking the Big Bad’s teeth in and becoming the Big Bad, himself, is an awesome trope. BUT as a fanfic writer, I am often preoccupied with what could have been, and therefore when I started drafting out OUADYA as a two-part story (since originally it was going to leave Lucien’s fate and the Somnovem ambiguous and just focus on the Creedemption part of the narrative, and that aspect of it was removed EXTREMELY early, like… Hupperdook arc early), I knew that no matter what else happened the Somnovem were going to be the final bosses and therefore they needed to be built up A LOT more menacing than they were in canon since they were kinda, through circumstances (probably because of the absence of Molly to torment), not as massively terrifying as they could have been within canon.

So to do that, we have their constant hassling of Molly, but then there’s Lucien, too. And that’s when I started thinking about what exactly IS a Nonagon and why did Lucien succeed where the previous guy got completely effed up and consumed? And how do we tie the idea that Lucien is probably Ruidus-Born and Fate-Touched into it (and again this was a fucking year before the Lucien book came out)?

So I built my little Anakin Skywalker narrative- Lucien was, through some insane alignment of the cosmos, born specifically to deal, for good or for ill, with the Somnovem. That’s why he has the same fucking red eyes- miss me with anyone telling me that isn’t significant somehow. Now he wasn’t born specifically to be their herald, but he was built with a soul/mind strong enough to handle them or combat them. If he’d taken Sehanine’s hand (as shown in there’s something divine in the way screams can sound), he would have ended up as her Champion- she’s the Lady of Dreams, so she’s the one in a position MOST suited to fighting them. He didn’t, so that put him on the path to either being subjugated or subjugating them. 

The book definitely agrees with my belief that the Somnovem saw him as a pet (Culpasi), an unpaid intern (half of them), and the punkass teenage getaway driver who needs to stop questioning the adult criminals and drive the fucking bus already (the other half), though the book was also VERY OBVIOUS about them letting him fucking know that, which… Yeah. Then again, the book also skipped over the two years he was in the Astral Sea to the point where it looks like it never happened, so maybe they had to speedrun his dawning realization that these assholes may love him, but he’s still their chattel slave bitch.

Since the Astral Sea field trip IS a massively important part to Lucien’s narrative IN ACTUAL CANON AND IN MY VERSION OF IT, I had to construct what that meant for a Lucien who can’t leave, who isn’t and can never get out of his situation and is rapidly losing hope and sanity. I also had to figure out a reason for Molly to even fucking want to get him out and therefore the linchpin thing came about.

And the second the word “linchpin” entered my narrative, I realized I had just built the Soul King again.

But before I get into WHAT THAT NONAGON DO and how it relates to the shift in power dynamics within Cognouza, let me… fucking explain the Soul King.

The Soul King is the thing (and I say thing not to be dismissive or sarcastic but because it is a fucking thing in all reasonable sense of the word and Urahara, who is about as much as as fantasy realm atheist as you can get calls it that) that controls the balance of souls in Soul Society in Bleach. Without it, existence falls apart and all the different worlds of the dead and the world of the living would collapse in on themselves (sound familiar). He has zero power in the governing body of any realm, no voice, and is honestly, basically a torso and a head sealed up in a damn vault somewhere, and everyone is like “yeah the Soul King is fucking great” without giving a single damn about who he is or ever talking about how they fucking sealed him in the vault so he wouldn’t one day destroy them because some of his fucking limbs went out and caused problems on purpose. 

(also fun fact- the Soul King’s power manifests as eyeball creatures that look like this.)

Basically what this means for the Nonagon is that with Lucien very very close by as in RIGHT THERE IN THE AETHER CRUX, the Somnovem can move more independently, have a stronger since of self, and can cooperate better with one another. Without him, they’re in the slop, biting each other, and unable to reason. The two years Lucien spent where they were mostly backbiting and annoying him were the worst of it, but after those two years things started to solidify and then Molly died and the Moonweaver’s seals on the eyes broke and suddenly they have TWO Nonagons and an actual fucking goal to work towards and aren’t just using Lucien as a sounding board and a free brain to solve problems for them.

Any free mind can be of use to the Somnovem, but only the True Nonagon (aka Lucien) is capable of sustaining them and managing to hold up the weight of Cognouza’s bullshit without going mad and crumbling into the void. That doesn’t make it easy and left to this bullshit, Lucien would ultimately… Become a fucking soul in a vault capable of regulating the flow of information throughout Cognouza so it can goddamn function. He would lose his identity entirely. That’s what they want. That’s what he’s been risking happening by trying to put out a fire inside of the house, and the Somnovem have stopped playing the coddling masters and have brought out the lash now that he’s not even pretending to follow their lead. 

To them, he has always been an object- an object they very much love and adore and worship and want to keep happy so he does what he’s supposed to do without any of them having to cause him harm (because you don’t want to abuse your cute little pet), but an object. If he isn’t going to fall into line, then that needs to be fixed and that’s where we’re picking up at the start of YCDHN- what happens when Lucien tries his big subjugation monologue in a situation where it’s very much NOT “I’m not stuck in here with you, you’re stuck in here with me” because at any point the Somnovem could have forced him to obey and Lucien’s arrogance just chose to believe that wasn’t an active choice they were making. He believed they wouldn’t try to cause him harm because they needed him and they worship him, and never thought oh shit, these are wizards they will do whatever they can to get what they want.

SO GOOD TIMES, AMIRITE??

[auncyen]

this is a snippet from when "Whistling Past Your Grave" was going to have a 5+1 format; this would've been KO #3 for Ryuji.

-

Ryuji is so glad he isn't the first one to get laid flat on his ass in front of Queen.  That dubious distinction goes to Yusuke, who takes Makoto's alarm and concern in his usual unflappable stride, which just gets her more worked up that they've blindly put their trust in "magic and the Metaverse".  "What if it doesn't heal everything?  What about head trauma?" she asks, and Ren doesn't say anything but just makes a little half-nod, like he's been thinking about this the entire damn time, which...explains a lot of why he gets wound up every time someone eats dirt.  Makoto starts talking battle strategy, both offensive and defensive, and Ryuji's strategy up until now has mostly been "hit it" and "hit it harder", but he does his best to listen to her.  Because honestly, now that he gets a little better where she's coming from, and after seeing her awakening and that Persona, Queen's kind of a badass.  And she actually thinks he's good at fighting!  If he gets better, maybe she'll be even more impressed.

Plus, yeah, getting knocked out sucks.  So they've all got good reason to listen to her.  Their coordination was already getting pretty good after two Palaces, but Makoto helps them figure out ways to push it even further.  Small improvements, but just like how shaving seconds off a time can take a runner to regionals, small improvements make fights seem way easier.

...There's only so much strategy can do for a huge metal ball spinning straight at you, though.  The best strategy is just "run out of the path", and when that creepy fly Kaneshiro's turned into can still somehow turn it in a flash, even that doesn't do much--

Ryuji knew he was going to get hit hard, so when he snaps back to consciousness he barely sees that Yusuke's the one he's gotta thank before he pushes himself off the floor, grabs his rod and beelines back to Ren's side.  They smack that stupid fly down, take his Treasure, and get out into the real world.  There's such a fuss about getting Monamona out of the street before he's run over and then smuggling a pricy-looking briefcase past Boss that Ryuji doesn't even think about the fight for a long time, so he stares blankly at Ren when the guy asks both him and Makoto if they're feeling okay, only catching on when she starts to answer.  Right, she'd gotten knocked around by that Piggytron thing too.

"Well, now that I've experienced it for myself...  It's not something I care to repeat, but I really do feel fine now," Makoto says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.  "A bit more sore than usual, but that's all.  I assume it's the same for you, Ryuji?"

"Yeah, it's whatever," he says with a shrug, except that gets a grimace from Morgana of all people.

"Do not be careless just because I can patch you up."

[lover-of-whatever]

One thing I love when writing characters is figuring out how they act around different people and why. Not just as a character study but as an analysis of their role in the story. I've been cleaning up the draft for a Sqsq rewrite, and I've come to realize that I've had to write Daroach differently from how I normally approach him. When writing Daroach I'll think of Lupin the 3rd because he's a more lighthearted silly take on the gentleman thief trope often accompanied by other criminals (well, it depends on the adaptation sometimes Lupin is just a massive ass). Because Lupin tends to be the protagonist, we the audience get to see him struggle and work to obtain his goals. He is still chivalrous and polite as a gentleman should be, but while he's mysterious to the public of his universe, the viewers at home know what he's really like. It's satisfying watch him work to earn his status on his many wacky adventures. Contrast this with most depictions of Carmen Sandiego, who tends to be the antagonist of the story. (I assume the recent Netflix show doesn't fall under this I haven't watched it yet) Sandiego is a mysterious figure who audience insert protags have to find with their basic geography knowledge. Sandiego is supposed to be this elusive figure who no matter how many times it seems like she's captured for good, she finds a way to escape. Her insane ability to steal anything and always escape when caught adds to the sense of wonder. But when the kid playing the game or watching the show figures out the answers to just where in the world she is, it feels all the more rewarding to have found someone as talented and cool as Sandiego, even if she escapes eventually (tbf she has to in a long running series). Now imagine if their roles were switched, if a protagonist Lupin never struggled he wouldn't be as fun to watch. If the antagonist Sandiego was caught struggling to steal a crown, then outsmarting her wouldn't feel nearly as satisfying. Yes they both are classic examples of the gentle(wo)man thief trope, but these tropes are still executed very differently because the characters serve very different purposes in their stories. Daroach currently in the series is just another one of Kirby's many friends, recent title Star Allies and his presence in that big steampunk themed merchline that happened a couple years ago seemed to think so. But in Squeak Squad he was the antagonist, a mysterious figure with mysterious motivations who Kirby crossed paths with multiple times before the (kinda) final showdown in his boss fight. Daroach was similar to Meta Knight as he appeared in Adventure in a... well a meta sense. But Daroach's role of main antagonist is stolen by Patrick Star last minute, and by the end of the game he and his gang apologize to Kirby for all the trouble they've caused. Daroach's little redemption seemed to be set up for future appearances. He would show up again in spin off title Mass Attack, where he is not the protagonist so much as the exposition fairy, and he dumps 300 goddamn lines of dialogue helping out Kirby(s) during their adventure. Daroach has been placed in "good enough guy" status and the once mysterious criminal is now just a dude casually talking about how much he loves his mouse gang and that time he went searching for treasure as a kid. He has taken a wildly different tone, but that's because of different circumstances. At first Kirby/the player were his enemy, and now Kirby is his buddy he feels like helping out and is comfortable making small talk with. Daroach himself says “I’ve always been a big fan of underdogs. I guess that’s why I’m helping you out.” Years later in Star Allies he is playable in Guest Star mode, where he and the player have to solve puzzles and battle baddies. He briefly becomes the protagonist and all that comes with it, even if it's all done through gameplay. When I think of the character I think of how his Mass Attack dialogue characterized him, but in the process of drafting out a Sqsq comic adaptation (I never finish any big projects don't expect anything to come out of this) I've had to cut out sections from his pov, not just for the sake of pacing but because that would ruin the cool and mysterious persona he's supposed to have in this particular story. He is still the same guy that would joke about love-me-nots in regards to giant man-eating plants, but only if he sees you as friend rather that foe. In reality he's been tackled by many different writers and this is just me trying to justify the differences, but it's still intriguing nonetheless analyzing how different roles in a story emphasize different parts of a character.

[hiraethenthusiast]

The Hollandairé | t.h.

pairing: ceo!tom x ceo! reader

word count: 16k+

synopsis: exes cross paths on a big event. will they be able to forget each other's mistakes?

warnings: language, sexual innuendos, mentions of an anxiety attack (if you squint), talks about miscarriage, my favourite angst.

a/n: well, well, well im back from a very shitty writers block! look at me, writing angst with exes? oof. can you tell that i absolutely love angst and makeouts in the end? i was somehow inspired by 'idfc' by blackbear to write this fic lol. it took some time and ofcourse i went overboard with it, so hope you enjoy! don't forget to like and reblog! (i even made a moodboard kinda thing uwuwu)

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"Conan I won't hesitate to knee you in the crotch if you don't stop pulling me off this sofa right this second" You tell your roommate, who is desperately trying to get you to go to a gala with him. Being a CEO brings its pros and cons. Pros being, you have a private jet, you're your own boss and you can shout at people with a reason. Cons being, annoyingly nice roommates. You had just shifted to a penthouse in downtown London with your friend Conan, because you refused to stay alone in this bigass house. (You tried living alone once, you were bored to death)

"Conan leave me alone yoo!" You said whining and hunching back into the sofa.

"Get the fuck up and get ready for the launch dude you promised me you wouldn't leave me hanging" Conan shouts over the voice of the t.v. blaring in the background. You pull you hand away from his grip and reach for the remote to shut off the t.v., focusing back on this tall red-headed figure in front of you.

"You know I don't like fancy shit." You grumble.

"It's YOUR fancy shit, get up Y/N." He says and reaches for your arms now, finally making you stand.

"Call Laura, I really don't want to go." You say pulling your phone out from your back pocket and handing it to him.

"If you haven't realised, your manager is the one who forced me to force you to attend the introduction of your fashion line" He fights back.

"- and Y/N. Hey, look at me. You've dreamt of this for how long? Almost all your life. And if you miss the chance to see your empire expand, it's gonna be devastating. You'll obviously miss the fashion show who's got the actual Rudy Pankow walking on a ramp, you'll also miss the opportunity to see people happy with YOUR work. Now get your ass up and get ready." He says and leaves the room, to get ready himself.

It's not that you don't want to go, you really do. Afterall, all of it is your hardwork. But the reason you're not going is because of that asshole. That asshole with whom you used to go out with once, the one who's current goal is to bring you down. The one and only, Tom Holland. You two used to date at some point, the ones who were in love actually, but the rivalry you two have got going on now has lead to you two knowing too much about each other. More than you know about yourself, the other knows it all. Small arguments turned into big ones, that eventually lead to the two of you leaving each other alone. You don't want to go because whenever you meet him, it all turns up into a big mess and your night is typically ruined, and you weren't in the mood for that, atleast not today. He's just a narcissistic bitch who thinks of nothing but degrading you. And that's the reason you don't want to go. Because you know if you talk to him one more time, these banters will persuade you.

But you do realise that you have to go. You have to go because you haven't gone to the last two launches for your perfume and swim line as well, and if you don't go today, Laura will actually end you.

So you just chug all your tea, leaving the kitchen with a grunt to go get ready.

"Hey Marco, can you send in that pantsuit I got done the other day? Look over for modifications if possible, although it looks great in just the solid colour, and please get it drycleaned." You tell your designer over the phone, to which he agreed and you go into your room to get your hair and makeup done.

"Wear a dress to the launch of your fashion line when it gets famous, yeah?"

"Pantsuits all the way Holland, you know I hate dresses."

"I know you do."

You remember the faint memory from over two years ago, that dream actually coming true, just without the person you dreamt it with.

You put your hair in a low bun with a middle part, giving you a classy formal look, and you do a almost non existent makeup look, only your eyes bold to accent with your outfit. Marco drops off the forest green pantsuit at your house, you giving it a twist with wearing a lace corset beneath the blazer.

"I look hot." You told yourself.

You and Conan leave for the event, you fidgeting in between 15 minute durations, Conan reassuring you that he'll be with you until the night ends.

That didn't last long. You lost Conan as soon as you entered the venue, so you occupied yourself with having conversations with other company owners, hearing how they're doing in the industry, blah blah blah.

"Do I look like I care?" You say to yourself.

You move ahead, only to cross paths with the one and only. He was wearing a cherry coloured perfectly tailored suit, adding a hint of Tom with the glasses. He looked good.

"And what do I owe this pleasure, Ms. Y/N?" He says, twirling his champagne glass in his hands.

"Look Holland I really don't have time for this shit, please take a goodie bag on your way home" You say with a bit of sass and start to move away, only to get your arm held back, making you bump in his chest.

"I see you wore the pantsuit you always wanted to wear at your event, angel " He says, making you pull away from him.

"Don't ever call me that again, and this is a warning." You were about to continue further with your answer, but you were utterly shocked to see the person in front of you.

"Is that the Y/N Y/L/N, in person, the one who's way too busy to answer my phone calls?" He says, making you laugh a bit.

"Jaeden?" You say, laughing heartily.

"In the flesh, tigeress." He says, doing grabby hands at you as an indication to pull you in a hug. You oblige and walk towards him and give him the biggest bear hug you've given anyone in two years. You pull back just to hit him on the chest once, playfully ofcourse.

"Tigeress. Oof haven't heard that in a while" You keep your conversation going on with Jaeden, while Tom is absolutely dumbfounded about whatever just happened in these past few seconds.

There's this hot guy named Jason or whatever, who calls you 'tigeress' and you aren't pestering him for calling you with a nickname but you definitely were ready to give Tom a piece of your mind when he called you 'angel'? Who is this guy?

Tom goes off to find Conan, who was situated at the bar downing a shot of tequila.

"Hey who's that guy Jason?" He asks him, pointing towards you and Jaeden in the middle of the hall.

"You mean Jaeden?" He says, biting onto a slice of lemon.

"Yeah whatever who is he?" Tom asks again, turning towards to bartender asking for a glass of whiskey.

"Why do you want to know?" Conan shoots back.

"Just curious. Can you just fucking tell me now?" Tom tries again, getting frustrated now.

"Chill dude. Jaeden used to work with Y/N a long time ago. He had this crush on her for like forever, but then Y/N went in for entrepreneurship and they were just not in contact with each other." He says.

"Crush huh?" Tom says, gripping onto his glass so tight that his knuckles almost turned white.

"Why do you look like you're about to murder someone?" Conan asks, getting concerned.

"Because I might." Tom says, grinding his teeth while forcing a smile.

The night goes by pretty smoothly, for you. You and Jaeden were clinged to each other almost the whole night, and then Tom watching you both from a distance, trying not to snap hard at people. He just took enough of it, he had to do something. He wasn't really sure why was he jealous, 'maybe because you love her' his heart said, but his mind crossing paths with a 'no you don't' in the middle. He was in a dilemma, but was mostly leaning towards his heart's side. He finally got up from his seat and walked towards you.

"Y/L/N." He says, keeping his composure.

"Yes?" You turn around to come face to face with him, laughing on something Jaeden had said.

"Board of Directors want to meet you on third floor. I was going that way only, wanted to inform you." He says.

"Oh okay. Jaeden I'll be back in a few. And tell me about that Mario Kart incident." You say, your laughter dying as you walk towards the elevator, motioning Tom to move as well. You both enter the elevator and you click the button for third floor.

"So Jaeden's a long lost friend, I assume?" He tries to small talk, failing miserably.

"Yeah, I used to work with him a long time back. Why do you ask?" You say, being the nicest you've been to Tom in two years.

"Just making small talk. So, exactly how long ago, you used to work with him?" He tries again.

"A really long time ago." You tell him.

"When we were dating?" He says, hesitating.

The elevator dings and you reach third floor, both of you moving into a very empty hallway.

"Why do you care Tom?" You say, making him frustrated even more.

"Because you're my fucking ex-girlfriend whom I'm worried about because that asshole has a mega crush on you" He says, making you jerk your head towards him.

"How many whiskeys have you had?" You ask him, because he was sounding oblivious that's for sure.

You turn around to open the meeting room to find it empty, making you glare at Tom once again.

"Why the fuck did you bring me up here Holland, where's the meeting?" You say, narrowing your eyes towards him.

"There is no meeting Y/N, the Board didn't show up this year, remember?" He says moving and fidgeting around the room.

"Then why did you bring me up here, dumbass?" That put him over the edge. He starts walking towards you making you take a few steps back, finally cornering you in the room.

"Because that guy is fucking flirting with you Y/N. That guy has been roaming around the whole night with my girl, touching and hugging my girl in front of me and you expect me to keep my calm? Huh? I don't fucking care okay? You're supposed to be mine and I was a jerk who let you go. I can't stand seeing you with other people. What the fuck is wrong with you Y/N, why did you leave me?!" He shouts at you, making your blood boil even more.

You push him back and stand in front of him, glaring as if you were going to rip his head off.

"No Tom, YOU left me, alright? I cried almost every night after that day when you left, and you didn't even have the empathy to give me a call. You, are too self-absorbed, and not me Tom. It was all you. I haven't been to even one of my launches just because I know you'll be there, you'll be there to put me down again. And why the fuck do you care about whom I talk to huh?" You shout at him.

"Why would I come to every single one of your launches Y/N?! To see you! To see the person who understood me more than I did, just to fucking see your face and calm my nerves!" He shouts back. He moves towards you and holds you chin to put your eyes at his eye level.

"Look at me Y/N. Look at me. Did we mean anything to you? Did I mean anything to you? Look at me in the eyes and tell me you never loved me. Tell me I meant nothing to you and I'll leave this second. Tell me that this was all a lie." He says, making your eyes water.

"You know I can't tell you that."

"Then why do you keep hurting me Y/N?! You hurt me so much! You left me when I needed you the most! I wanted you and you weren't there-" He shouts again.

"SHUT UP TOM, SHUT UP! Stop it! Stop! Please. Stop." You're crying hysterically now, hunching up in a corner trying to calm yourself down. Tom immediately sees it and runs towards you holding your hands and cradling them.

"Hey, hey Y/N. Look at me, look at me baby. It's Tom. Hey baby. I'm here, yeah? I'm here. Stop crying come on babe, please. Love, look at me. I'm here." He says, now running his hand over your cheeks wiping your tears.

"Go away. Go away from me." Is all you say, which makes his ears perk and brings water to his eyes.

He stands up and moves out of the room, closing the door just to hear you crying again. He sits down on the floor with his back on the door now, crying, waiting for you to say something.

"Please, open the door." He says, bursting into tears and hugging himself with his arms, wishing it was you.

Fifteen minutes pass by and you still haven't said anything. Tom misses you so much, and it was so fucked up of you to leave him like this. He was hurt, but he could never stop loving you. Ever.

"Losing you would be a nightmare that I'd beg to be awaken from everyday." You say opening the door, your eyes blood red, hair disheveled making Tom look at you, whose eyes were blood red too.

"What?"

"I was pregnant, Tom." You tell him, making his eyes widen and holding your hand for comfort.

"The day-" You clear your throat "The day we fought is when we lost the baby. I was going to tell you I was pregnant that day, but then that happened." You were crying a bit more now, but still held you composure so you can handle Tom from now.

"The argument gave me too much stress and, and it was affecting the baby so as soon as you left, um, my stomach started aching really badly and, and yeah we lost our baby then. That's why I left." You say, you were crying on his shoulder now, intentionally ignoring his reaction because you knew it would hurt him.

"We, we- lost our baby?" He says, a bit shocked but choking on his tears. You remain silent.

"Hey, hey. Listen. It's okay. It wasn't your fault. It was mine. I shouldn't have fought with you. You were already really worried and I just added onto your pressure. I'm so sorry baby I'm so so sorry." He was full-on crying now, he sniffled in your neck because he was too afraid to show his emotions.

"It wasn't your fault Tommy, it was ours." You say, running your hand in his curls. The way you missed his chestnut curls. It was all good again, well atleast you hoped.

Tommy. That always brought butterflies in his stomach.

You talked everything out in the bathroom, while washing your faces and cleaning up. You both understood that everything was going back to normal, just like the old times. One conversation lead to another, and you spent two hours on the bathroom floor just laughing and having gossip.

"It's been a while." You say laughing, looking at your watch.

"Yeah."

"Why did you say 'my girl' Tom?" You ask him directly.

"Hm?"

"You called me 'my girl' in the conference room. Why?" You tell him, and he instantly remembers that he did do that.

"You're in my head almost everyday Y/N. Even when you're not supposed to be. It shouldn't have been this hard letting go, but it was. I still love you, even if you don't." He says, taking some tissue paper off the counter.

"Who said I don't love you?" You say, making his eyes widen.

"Wha- wh- what are you implying here?" He stumbles upon his words, making you laugh.

"I still love you, you goof."

"Y/N you have to be serious you're making me want things I can't have." He says wholeheartedly.

You say nothing but grab him by his collar and kiss him with full force. After two years, you felt those soft lips on yours again, reminiscing every moment you had missed in these past years. They felt the same, soft and plump, just as if they were made for you. They fit in with yours like a puzzle, that was meant to be solved by these two hearts which were tangled, but now, in a right way. Tom kissed back almost immediately, feeling your lips was like a dream come true. A recurrent dream in his mind. You both pull back to see red and puffy lips and give out a light laugh. He doesn't stop, he keeps leaving peppery kisses all over your face mumbling sweet words again and again.

"I missed you so, so much angel." he says leaving a kiss on your nose.

"I missed you too bubba." you say leaving a small peck on his lips.

"Let's go now, we've been here for almost two hours." You start to move towards the door, but get pulled back by your waist.

"Tell Jaeden to maintain distance, yeah?" He says.

"Or what?" You say in a playful tone.

"Babygirl, I think you've forgotten what I'm capable of." He says, kissing your neck.

"I think I have. And stop kissing me I look shit." You say, laughing.

"I really don't care. You still look hot and I'm trying not to kiss you senseless right now." He says leaving another harsh suck on your skin, which can hopefully be covered by your blazer.

"Are you going to eyefuck me all night or are you going to do something about it?" You say, now kissing Tom's sweet spot.

"Finish this event in the next half an hour. I'll see you at my house babe." He says leaving one last peck on your lips.

You both reach downstairs after fixing your makeup and hair, you reach upto the stage and and hold onto the mic.

"Thankyou all for attending the event. We look forward to having more business with you! Don't forget to post something about our line 'The Hollandairé' on your social media platforms and don't forget to tag us! We are, The Y/L/N's thankyou have a good night!"

He listen to you and smirks to himself, because you do do what you say.

"I'm going to name my first fashion line 'The Hollandairé' " You say making a banner with your hands.

"And I'll be right with you then baby" He says, kissing your cheek.

Looks like he kept his promise too.

tagging some friends whom i think would like to read!:

@hollandslittlekoala @hollandsmushroom @leafy-holland @tomsoxytocin @scarletspideyy @t-lostinworlds

(pls do tell me if you don't want to be tagged further on!)

don't forget to reblog!

ilysmmmm. tpwk y'all!

[hotdamnhunnam]

🛀🐎🍷 with Raymond

Thanks for your request for my Emoji Fic Fest! 💗

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Trouble Bath

Pairing: Raymond Smith x F!Reader Warnings: smut, swearing, giving Ray a blowjob while you’re sitting in a bathtub Word Count: ~1.3k Emoji Prompt: 🛀🐎🍷 (key words are in bold)

A hot bath is the answer to all of life’s troubles.

Of this you’re convinced as you soak in the tub with a glass of merlot, candles set on the ledge to suffuse the whole room with a soft golden glow. All your worries dissolve as you bask in the bliss of the bubbles.

That’s when your damn phone rings. You figure it has to be work ‘cause at this hour only your bitch of a boss would be bothering you with ‘incredibly important things.’ Fucking hell. With a loud groan you reach your sud-slathered arm out of the water and dry off your palm on the towel nearby before grabbing your cell.

You don’t bother to check who it is, just assuming it’s business, as you place the phone on the tub ledge and set it to speaker to answer the call. But it isn’t the boss bitch at all.

Well, it is a boss bitch—it just isn’t the boss of your office. Instead it’s the blonde bearded bitch who runs gangster shit all across London and shows everyone who the boss is. The bastard who happens to be just as flawless as he is lawless. You’re a close friend of his, though you’d rather be more to be honest.

Raymond Smith doesn’t know this. You’ve given him hints for fuck’s sake. But he’s too busy buried balls-deep in his own OCD ass to notice. You recently stopped dropping hints when you sensed that a chance at your ass wasn’t something he wanted to take.

At the sound of his voice you just sip at the dark scarlet wine in your glass. Trying not to be bitter that Raymond wants nothing to do with your ass. It’s a good fucking wine, but compared to his gorgeousness nothing seems fine.

Ray just called to ‘check in’ which is absolute crap. Total bullshit. He knows you had made plans for dinner with some random dick from a dating app. Knows this because he was there in the room when you scheduled it.

“I thought you had a date,” Raymond states.

The audacity?! Where is he going with this exactly... “Maybe I’m running late.”

“Or you cancelled on him. Perhaps deep down you know you don’t want him.”

Your jaw drops in shock. Just a little ashamed that you wish he were here to stuff it with his cock. “Y–you know nothing of what I want.”

“I know more than you think,” he says it like a taunt, like he knows he’s a whole fucking kink, and that shit hits you right in the cunt. Rub your eyes with a blink. This is so troubling. Set your wineglass down on the tub ledge with a clink. Craving something quite different to drink.

“I don’t know what you’re getting at—”

“Invite me in and we’ll see about that.”

“Invite…?”

“I’m at your front door and I know where you keep the spare key so just say the damn word and I’m coming inside.”

When Ray Smith requests entry he’s never denied. You tell him that you’re in the bathroom and ten seconds later he’s standing right there, slaying you with the blue of his stare. He says something about how he just kept imagining you out with some other man tonight. Says it just didn’t sit right. Says he’s tried to hold off for the sake of your friendship but now his desire for you has hit heights he can’t fight.

You can’t even remember just what you said next but your words clearly give him a very green light. Next thing you know he’s freeing his cock from his jeans and you die at the sight.

“… Ray, you’re hung like a horse.”

And he knows it of course. All the lust he spent so long suppressing now radiates off him with force. “If you want this it’s all fucking yours.”

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

You’ve never wanted anything more.

Started salivating like a goddamn madwoman the second he stepped through the door—or before—when he called you the rasp of his voice summoned your inner whore.

Before that even, honestly. Just at the thought of this man you’re on fire beyond believing. Constantly. For so long you and Raymond had been thick as thieves. And you are still, but you need him so bad it kills, and his big dick is thicker than thieves or whatever you figure as he stands beside the bathtub with his meat hanging out, right in front of your mouth, and slowly and deliberately rolls up his sleeves.

Fucking rolls up his sleeves. As if this is a task that he takes very seriously. You don’t doubt that it is really. You’re just as serious too about taking in what you’re about to receive.

You shift clumsily till you’re kneeling in the tub, water sloshing around as your torso lifts up. Tits still partially covered in soapy white bubbles but Ray can see more than enough. At the sight he licks his lips and growls low and rough. It’s a faint sound because he’s too much of a gentleman to be a bona fide beast, but with you here the least gentle facet of him is released, and it’s savage and tough.

Icy gaze pierces straight through the suds. Fierce enough to draw blood. Yet it’s soft and controlled; he’s a man who knows well how to manage the power he holds. Turns his gaze to your open mouth drooling so desperately his dick might drown in the flood. “Such a good little slut.”

Hoooly fuck…

He twines one of his hands in your semi-damp hair, as the other grabs onto his shaft that’s so big it’s not fair, and guides it toward the gaping wide hole that exists just to suck.

Flick your tongue in a fluttering lick first. Swipe over the tip, to lap up the sweet dewdrop that drips, taste the flavor that satisfies your every thirst. Your cunt throbs underwater and already feels like it’s going to burst.

“Mmm, that’s it love,” Ray hums in approval while towering so tall above. “Show me how much you love it. All of it.”

Your sorry attempt at a yes sir is muffled by his massive meat, as you instantly take his cock so deep you’re destined to swallow it. Open your whole throat and hollow it. Swell of desire inside you keeps building in frantic heat. Heart hammering at a spastic beat. All you can do now is follow it.

There are no words for just how good he tastes, as his cock slides across your slick tongue while he grabs a firm hold of your skull to start fucking your filthy whore face. So delicious. Your loving eyes roll back in bliss. Lashes batting in ecstasy as he pumps deeper past your lips and picks up the pace. He knows you live for this. Now that he finally has you he gets off on knowing you’re his.

From the moment Ray called you tonight, as if he had a right, you really should’ve known he spelled trouble. The troubles you seek to escape when you’re bathing in bubbles.

But here with his dominant presence demanding you worship his dick which is so damn divine… trouble’s honestly just fucking fine. You would much rather guzzle his cum than a bottle of wine.

And he knows it. He always knew it. Fought against going down the steep slippery slope of this path, but at last now he chose it, and once he’s done filling your throat up he’ll slip with you into the bath. Wash away all your trouble then take you to bed where he’ll fuck you right through it. Just the way only Ray Smith—the boss bitch of London who finally has you as his good little cockslut to play with—can do it.

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[soft-october-night]

The Love Interests in the Works of Jane Austen: An Assessment

This is an "extremely scientific" and "thoroughly researched" ranking based on personality, money, family and connections, and is a bit of a blend between the book characterizations and the film characterizations (and is in no way only based on my own opinions). Here we go, grouped by book but not much else.

Edmund Bertram: absolute trash. His family has treated you unbelievably shitty since day one and not only has he BARELY noticed, he ALSO has treated you shitty. Will fall in love with someone beautiful and fun and when she dumps him will come crawling to you for a rebound. His passion for you is so lackluster that even the esteemed author who wrote about it barely spared a paragraph on your relationship. Has a job but only because his dad owns the land the church is built on. You’ll gain no connections or family by marrying him, since he’s literally your cousin.  0/10

Henry Crawford: There IS such thing as too much fun, and that is never clearer than in this man, who will try to seduce you as a game, freak out when his middling overtures don’t work and then try and seduce you “for really real” this time. You will definitely move up in the world if you marry him, and if you play your cards right it seems like his sister is also just REALLY into you, so see how that goes. Life will be pretty okay until you find him in bed with one (or more, who knows) of your relations. 3/10, 8/10 if you’re into that

John Willoughby: Will be like something out of a romance novel, you’re thinking he’s going to propose and then he just fucking ghosts you and embarrasses the fuck out of you at a party by acting like he doesn’t know you. Somehow marry him (congrats on the inheritance you must have, btw) and get ready to take a backseat to the whims of his aunt for as long as she lives. 1/10, at least you get to live in a nice house.

Edward Ferrars: Oh Edward. He’s a bit of a mess, isn’t he? Super kind, your family loves him, he made a bunch of stupid decisions in his youth that are coming back to bite him in the ass. He is loyal to an absolute fault, but you luck out when his fiance turns out to be a bit of a gold digger and dumps him when his mom disowns him. He doesn’t have a job and neither do you, but his family doesn’t wanna speak to him (lucky you!) and you’ll be happy and poor together if you two can work on your communication skills. 7/10.

Colonel Brandon: He’s got a nice house, the respect of his friends and the community, and he has a LOT of passion. He’ll give your sister’s penniless husband a job, dramatically rescue you from a rainstorm, make sure his dead girlfriend’s daughter is happy and taken care of even after your ex fucks HER over too, and is all around a pretty decent guy. Just. Uh. Maybe, kinda, sorta, needs to go after women his own age and is probably with you because you remind him of his dead girlfriend. 5/10 with the wildly inappropriate age gap, 9/10 without it.

Mr. Wickham: Please don’t. He’s a thirsty bitch who lives for drama and you think he’s fun until you find out he tried to sleep with one teenage girl and is making eyes at your fifteen year old sister behind your back. Marry him (through the grace of mysterious benefactors, cause he ain’t marrying anyone unless he’s paid the right price) and get ready for a life of being surrounded by military men in the north of England while your husband tries to fuck everything that moves. Work that out somehow with him and you might actually be happy. 0/10.

Mr. Bingley: He is a softboi who will do literally anything his friends tell him to do. He is SUPER rich, and marrying him will throw your sister’s into the path of other rich men and he is REALLY into you, but get ready to be sucking up to his sisters for literally the rest of your life. Unless he can ship Miss Bingley off to live with Mrs. Hurst, have fun trying to wage a war of barely concealed insults over the breakfast table every morning, and if you’re marrying Bingley I’m sorry but that is a war you just cannot win. He doesn’t have a job but he does have five thousand a year, and neither of you can manage money. You’ll love simply and deeply and be happy as any two can be. 8/10.

Mr. Collins: Last resort to rescue yourself from a life of being a burden to your parents until they die and then having to become a governess or something. Has a job but never shuts up about his boss. You will have to rearrange everything in your house according to his boss’ will. 2/10

Mr. Darcy: Is a anxious disaster who doesn’t know how to talk to girls at parties and needs to learn how say no to going out when he’s just not feeling it. He doesn’t have a job because he’s a landlord; he owns half of Derbyshire and has ten thousand a year, but turns out that all of that money and land can’t buy tact or charisma. Doesn’t know how to flirt and thinks he’s doing a great job (he’s not). He’ll propose to you out of the fucking blue one day by insulting literally everything about you, but don’t worry! Reading his letter unlocks Darcy 2.0. This patched version gives him humility, a personality, and he WILL gain the ability to rescue your family from utter ruin. Marry him and enjoy a life of luxury and witty ripostes, but beware! You ARE going to have to deal with Lady Catherine until the day she dies, not to mention Caroline Bingley’s barely concealed contempt every time you meet in polite company. Darcy 1.0 3/10, Darcy 2.0 8/10.

Captain Wentworth: Absolutely top tier. Has a job, has earned everything he has, including a fortune and the respect of his peers, superiors, and subordinates. His sister and her husband are practically the only happily older married couple you know, his friends are super fun and nice (even the dour one with all the poetry knows how to have a polite conversation). If you dumped him ten years ago on the advice of your almost comically shitty family yeah, he’s going to hold a grudge, but he WILL NEVER STOP LOVING YOU and the MOMENT he gets over his pride will do everything and anything in his power (including leaping the bounds of propriety!) to win you back. Based on his love, money, and connections you should RUN, not walk, into his arms TODAY and allow him to rescue you from your family and whisk you off to see the world on his ship, at least until Napoleon busts out of Elba. 12/10

Mr. Eliot: Will lose all your old schoolfriend’s husband’s money in a bad deal, has debts out the ass, might be trying to get with either you or the woman your dad has been flirting with for the last few years, you’re not sure. Is totally ruining the rekindling relationship you’re trying to get going with your far superior ex. He wants the land and title your dad has and will stop at nothing to get it. Marry him and you can move back into your old house (maybe? it’s a little unclear what with all the debts) but have every single cent your mother left you immediately put into some dumbass scheme. 1/10

Henry Tilney: another softboi who just wants to act in the school play while his dad and brother plan to ship him off to military school and berate him for not joining the football team. Bring him shopping with you to pick out dresses, spend long nights over tea chatting about books. Has a job, but again, only because his dad owns the land the church is on. Loves you even though you have some very strange ideas about his house, and will forgive you when he realizes you thought his dad either murdered or imprisoned his mom. If he can find the courage to tell his dad to fuck off and let him live his own life, expect a long, happy marriage of snuggling together in a window seat somewhere, sipping tea and reading. 9/10

John Thorpe: Trash bastard man. Peaked in whatever equivalent of high school he had. Shitty and rude to everyone, would post racist memes on facebook and start fights if he could, all while being shitty and manipulative and CREEPILY possessive of you. -2/10

Robert Martin: A sweet himbo farmer who just wants to love and worship you. He has a job, is pretty rich, and while his connections may not be above his class, he’s an earnest boy who wants to take care of you and be taken care of in turn. Marry him the first time, absolutely do NOT let your friend influence you against him, because who KNOWS if you will get a second proposal! (You will, he likes you THAT much.) Marry him and enjoy a sweet, simple life of exactly zero drama (unless your friend is around). 7/10

Mr. Elton: Trifling gold digging trash who doesn’t know what the word no means. Do not marry, unless you want to be censured by decent, hardworking people -1/10

Frank Churchill: Knows how to have fun, but you know there’s something more going on. He won’t let you see his letters, he sends out secret notes, then he smiles and tells you that everything is totally a okay. Another boy with ANOTHER overbearing aunt, only this one doesn’t know how to say no. Marry him if you’ve got the money, but he will always be longing after the poor girl next door that auntie wouldn’t let him married, and would have cheated on you already if she was into it. 3/10

Mr. Knightly: He’s your brother in law and you’ve known him almost your whole life, so that’s a little sus, but he is also the ONLY person in your entire life who knows how to tell you no (and you really, REALLY need to be told no sometimes.) He is extremely wealthy, but more importantly he’s kind and caring about people who are considered “beneath” him. He will break his weird no dancing rule to dance with your shy friend, he will ream you out for being shitty to unwed spinsters who value your opinion, and somehow has the correct read on everyone all the time. You will gain no connections by marrying him, since the two of you already have the exact same connections anyway, but the two of you should be content in a test of wills that will last a lifetime. You’ll be very happy as long as he doesn’t get super pedantic and start correcting you about everything. 7/10