#but i can pretend it's still there as long as i don't update lmao

[samuelroukin]

someone tell me to edit my chapter(s) before i just finish writing the whole thing which could take anywhere from 3 to 300 business days

[foli-vora]

run to you: chapter seven

marcus pike x f!reader

A/N: This has been such a long time coming, and I want to thank you for being so patient and still loving this story despite the time since its last update. Your frequent comments, asks & dm's regarding RTY have honestly pushed me and motivated me to sit in front of my laptop and get this out. So thank you endlessly. I hope you enjoy angels!

Summary: Following on from ‘Traitor’ and ‘You’re Somebody Else’. An unexpected visitor throws you right back into the life you thought you left behind. Working beside the man that put you behind bars is one thing, pretending like you never loved him is another.

Word count: 6k-ish (I honestly didn't bother checking after a while lmao)

Warnings: angst, coz naturally. Mentions of the past case and being arrested, Marcus being undercover and tastes of what he was dealing with work-wise. Jane being Jane (aka a fuckhead). The slightest shine of something resembling friendliness between the two idiots before I smash it with a sledgehammer in a true ‘one step forward, two steps back’ fashion. Drama, swearing, it's honestly been so long I don't even know - tell me if I've missed anything!

main masterlist | series masterlist

This story will have explicit sexual scenes in the future so 18+ only.

You can tell by the knock that it’s not Jacob. His knocks were playful, drumming out a tune against your door that sometimes you had to finish from the other side, but this knock was tentative, simple—professional.

Can knocks be professional? Can you know someone just by their knock? Regardless, you seem to know who it is immediately, and for the first time in a while you find yourself not having to brace for his company.

There’s no shake in your hand when you reach for the door; there’s no nausea building in the pit of your stomach, swirling with the uncomfortable tightening of anxiety. There’s nothing, and it takes you slightly by surprise. When did that stop? 

Marcus is standing just shy of your welcome mat, looking slightly uncomfortable as he shifts in his simple dark suit, but still gives you a small smile in greeting when you open the door. You manage to return it without a hint of a grimace.

That surprises you, too.

“Good morning.”

“Hi,” you murmur quietly.

“Can we talk?”

He must see the slight edge of defensiveness creeping into your features, because he hurries to spit out that it’s about the case. The case? Is it over?

A frown starts to pull at your brows, and you give a simple nod before stepping aside and allowing him entry. You don’t miss the way he takes it slow, stepping over the threshold to your apartment carefully, as if giving you the chance to change your mind and revoke his invitation.

It’s... awkward.

For a moment, he hovers only a few steps away, unsure of where to go next without your direction. You watch the internal struggle, and clear your throat quietly before waving a hand to your couch as a gesture for him to take a seat. He does so without a word.

You falter, fingers brushing against your suddenly hot palms as you fidget, “Do you want anything to drink? Water? Coffee?”

“Uh, yeah—yes. Water, please.”

Silence crawls along the edges of the room as you fuss in the kitchen, filling a glass full of chilled water from the fridge. It’s only slightly uncomfortable, neither of you necessarily feeling the need to fill the quiet with small talk, or maybe you both just don’t know what to say.

He takes the glass with a smile when you eventually patter over to him, thanking you quietly and taking a small sip while you seat yourself on the armchair to the left of him.

“So…” you murmur, “what’s going on? Has something happened?”

He suddenly can’t speak, his thoughts too much in a whirl. He doesn’t want to entertain Jane’s idea, he doesn’t want to offer you anything about getting more involved in the case. You already do enough, you’re fine with doing what you’re doing, he can’t risk it.  

You’re out of it all. You got out. Not many people get back onto their feet after something like that—the arrest and the rough fallout, the emotional spiral, the time spent behind bars… but you did. You did. And yet, a very small part of him worries that you’ll go back, that you’ll fall back into old habits for the promise of your old cosy lush life, without a worry for money. Would you?

No. No, he knows you wouldn’t. Somewhere deep inside his heart, he knows you wouldn’t turn back to it all. He saw firsthand how it all crashed down around you—he was the reason it did. He saw you through it all, and yet he still can’t help but ask—

“Do you miss it?”

A frown starts to pull at your features, “Miss what?”

“Your life,” he mutters, almost painfully too quiet.

He doesn’t want to upset you by reopening old wounds, by unintentionally rubbing your face in everything you’ve lost and mourned, but he’s too curious, too scared—he can’t do it all again. He doesn’t have the strength. He’d let you walk. He’d let you get away. He’d lose everything, and he wouldn’t care.

“Before… before this,” he gestures between you silently, watching your eyes flicker down to follow the movement before they roll back up to meet his, irises swirling with confusion, suspicion, a slight shine of pain— “before everything… when it was just you, and what you did—do you miss it?”

There’s a vague feeling of something close to panic building in your chest, but it doesn’t seem to spread out further than the iron cage of your ribs. You feel it sitting there, churning around your heart as its pace starts to quicken.

Is he asking this for a reason? Are you suspected of something? Is whatever answer you give going to be recorded and stored somewhere for future use against you? 

“A little,” you breathe before you can help it, and suddenly your throat feels too thick.

The honesty came out of nowhere. You’re left wondering why the hell you admitted it, especially to him of all people. He's used it all against you before. He’s the reason it all fell apart. And yet, here you are, admitting to a federal agent that you miss a time of your life that ultimately resulted in you left behind bars. What would he think of that?

The worry of what he would think startles you. You don’t care, you haven’t cared, and yet you hurry to explain before he could get the wrong idea. It’s only because he has the power to throw you back into prison. You worry about the fallout, that’s all.

“Make no mistake, I don’t miss the whole crime thing. I just—I miss the peace. I can’t explain it, but I was just content, and I’ve never felt anything like that before. It was just… nice, that’s all. It wasn’t worth it.”

He nods, exhaling quietly before taking a sip of his water.

“Why do you ask?”

You’d been honest, and now it’s his turn.

“Some of the team believe putting you out there, back into your old circles, would result in getting us some further suspects for the investigation, or even limiting our suspect pool,” he explains stiffly, gaze remaining on where his fingers brush against the glass in his hands.

“As you’ve worked with some of these people before, they believe you’ll have no problem fitting back in and getting any information on their jobs or who’s leading this.”

Well that’s not at all what you’d been expecting.

You didn’t think that was even an option, given how they’d firmly kept any and all details of this investigation far away from you. Whether it’s because of your past, or simply because you’re not an agent, you don’t know, but this new direction has you wondering how involved you’d actually be. Is that something you even want?

You’ve reached a point where you’re somewhat comfortable with where you are in life, having dealt with mostly everything that had happened and taken steps to move on both mentally and emotionally.

Accepting the offer from the FBI hadn’t been on the top of your priority list, and this new opportunity didn’t sound any more appealing, but maybe it would give you a chance to do a little more. Maybe if they had you on the inside, this investigation would be wrapped up quicker and you’d be able to leave everything, and everyone, in the past for good.

All of this would be over. 

“So, I’d be undercover or something?”

“Not undercover, obviously there’ll be people who know who you are and what you used to do. You’ll just have to act the part you used to play.” 

There’s a hesitancy hanging in his features, you notice. It’s clear by the tone of his voice and the slight frown working its way along his brows that he’s not the one behind this idea, but he wouldn’t be suggesting it if it wasn’t a good idea, right?

“Do you not want me to do this?”

Finally, he looks at you.

You watch his eyes flitter across your face as you await his answer, wondering what he could possibly be searching for in your expression. Would he even tell you the truth? A part of you is beginning to think so, but you can’t imagine why. He’s been anything but truthful the entire time of knowing him, what would make this time any different?

“I don’t want you to do anything that would jeopardise the life you have, the life that you’ve made.”

Ah. He must think you’ll throw all of your progress away. Because of course he does. Is that why he asked you that question before? Do you miss it? Was he gauging the possibility of you turning your back on him should he let you further into the investigation? He’d probably get into trouble, maybe even lose his comfy little job chasing criminals down.

How comforting to know that he still thinks so damn little of you. 

“Don’t worry, Agent Pike,” you murmur icily, letting your arms cross defensively over your chest. “I’ll be sure to stay out of handcuffs this time. Do you honestly think I’d go back to it all, after everything?”

“I wouldn’t blame you,” he sighs deeply, already expecting and braced for your anger. “And no—I don’t think you would go back.”

You believe him. You don’t know why, because God knows everything in your body repeatedly tells you to never believe another word that comes out of his mouth, but you simply just do with this. You don’t dwell on the why, with your mind now preoccupied with what he’s asking from you exactly.

Are you just finding some old acquaintances and asking some questions? Are you getting involved with jobs? Are you no longer painting for the FBI, if you’re to be involved? How deep would you have to go to give him and his team what they need? And with all the talk of murder, knowing there’s already been quite a few victims, what the hell would happen to you should the potential killer, or killers, find out you’re working with the FBI?

Would you become the next victim?

“Will I be in danger?”

Marcus meets your eyes immediately, answering firmly, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

That’s not a no.

You fall quiet, teeth nipping and picking at the soft skin of your inner bottom lip in thought. Okay, so you’d probably be safe with Marcus—the FBI—on your side, but is this something you could even do? Physically and mentally yes, you’d already done it all before, but emotionally?

Essentially, you’d be playing the same part Marcus played all that time ago. You’d be the one sneaking around and lying to people, tricking them into a false sense of comfort until they feel safe enough around you to talk. You’d be everything you dislike Marcus for. 

It’s hypocritical.

How could you dwell on and hold anger over your own experiences, when you’d be out there doing the same thing to others? Of course not to the stupidly ridiculous extent Marcus had gone to, but you’d still be lying, you’d still be using them—

“You have the choice here,” he assures you quietly, after watching you work through your thoughts. “I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want to. I want you to feel like you can say no—this is your choice, no one else’s. If you don’t want to, that’s okay.”

Maybe it’s selfish on some sort of level, but the possibility of getting this whole thing over and done and left behind you ultimately wins over any reservations you have, and you exhale quietly. 

“I’ll do it.”

—

The wire, though so thin it would be barely noticeable wherever you decided to hide it, feels particularly weighty between your fingertips. You study the simple black cord, turning it this way and that under the glare of the office lights, wondering how many cases it had been used for, how much it had heard and how many lives it had potentially ruined.

“Nobody will notice it.”

Marcus is half hunched over the table, scribbling away on various bits of paper laid out in front of him, but he briefly stops to give you a small reassuring smile. You simply nod in response, a trickling of anxiety starting to bite away at your mind.

What if nobody approaches you? What if this goes wrong? What if somebody finds out? What if you get hurt? What if you get somebody else hurt? The constant what ifs roll around your head on an endless loop, seemingly getting worse and more horrific with every minute you squirm in the chair.

“Do you know where you’d like to start?”

Your attention falls back on Marcus, and you gently place the wire back onto the surface of the table in fear of breaking it should you fiddle for too long.

He was giving you the freedom of working this next part out yourself. He wanted it to be as natural as possible, letting them come to you instead of having you actively searching them out. It would minimise any suspicion, he had said. 

“Uh, I was thinking of visiting some of the local spots you said they’re targeting. If they’re still scouting pieces and working out security like you say, they're bound to see me eventually... hopefully by people I know?”

It wasn’t meant to, but it comes across like a question, like you’re seeking his approval. Not because you desire it, but because this isn’t what you’re trained in by any means and you feel a little lost being able to make this call on your own. You have no idea how to position yourself, or how to work strategically like they do. The last thing you want to do is mess this whole thing up for anyone.

He nods, seemingly pleased with your choice.

“That’s good, you’ll also be out in the open and that makes it easy for another agent to keep an eye on you from a distance.”

“I know that’s meant to be reassuring, but the mere thought that I need to be watched makes me a little nervous. How dangerous is this?”

“It’s not, it’s all just precautionary,” he soothes, tone calm but undeniably firm. “If anything, I’m probably going overboard, but I’d rather not take any risks.”

It makes sense that he wouldn’t. His job or position would most likely be on the line if someone he’s responsible for gets hurt. His agents, probably not so much—they know what they’re doing and what they’re in for, but you? You’re just an average person, with no knowledge or skills to aid you.

“I’ve been meaning to ask… do any of them know? About… well, everything.”

It hit you as you arrived at the building earlier. You’re walking into your old life, a life that he was once a part of as a completely different person. They—the FBI—didn’t just come for you, they came for everyone, and Marcus was a big part of that. Did he reveal himself to them, as he did you? How much did they know about your situation? What did they think of you and the part you played? 

Marcus stops fussing with the papers, his eyes soon meeting yours from across the table. They flicker over your face, taking in the concern building in your features.

“I was there during most of their arrests so the majority know who, and what, I am.”

He was? He wasn’t there for yours.

Would it have been better, you wonder, if he had been there when they unexpectedly swarmed you that day? No doubt it still would’ve been one hell of a brutal knock to the system, but at least there would’ve been a familiar face in the intimidating crowd of badge carrying strangers.

At least you wouldn’t have felt so alone.

“What about me?”

“What about you?”

“Well, I—I’m part of the reason you got the information you did. Throughout our… relationship, I talked about everything. I told you everything, and during the interrogation… surely they’d know—”

“They know I was undercover, and they know you weren’t aware of that fact. Look, I can’t go into detail, but just know you weren’t the only one to talk. It’s not all on you, alright?"

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that the others had cracked at some point, it was almost to be expected with the amount of evidence the FBI had against everyone, but at least you don’t feel so guilty for divulging as much as you did back then. 

He waits for you to acknowledge his words with a wordless nod before moving onto business and switching into FBI Agent mode. He stands taller, obviously more confident and comfortable in his element as he begins to rattle off instructions and how to behave. It’s hard to feel unsteady or unsafe when he seems so damn self assured. That’s why he is where he is, you suppose.

“Now it's important that if you’re approached, you refrain from asking any questions about jobs or pry into anything they’re doing. You need to let them bring the subject up—if they don’t, it’s okay.”

“Noted.”

“If at any point you want to stop doing this—tell me, and that’ll be it. If you don’t feel comfortable coming to me, tell Agent Wilson and we’ll go from there. After your visits, you’re to return to your apartment and either Agent Wilson or I will come to collect anything you have.”

“Okay, and where exactly is this meant to go?” You ask, prying the cord from the table.

“Somewhere discreet. Obviously we don’t want it to be hanging out or somewhere someone will notice. Under your jacket will suffice with what you’re wearing. Just always ensure it’s covered completely.”

“How do I…”

He clears his throat, shifting uncomfortably.

“Do you… do you mind if I…?”

“Not much of a choice,” you murmur, glancing around at the empty meeting room. 

“I can get another agent—”

You hear the bustle of the office outside the door, the constant ringing of phones and the hum of constant conversation. There’s plenty of other people to help you work this wire thing out, other than the man you’d rather be miles away from, but the uncertainty of what they know about you, think about you, keeps you from accepting his offer.

The only agent you feel semi-comfortable with is Jacob, and he’s currently out of the office with some other agents doing his job. You could ask for him. You’re fairly certain Marcus would comply if you asked, but that means taking Jacob away from whatever things he needed to do, and you don’t want to cause any issues for him or the other agents working.

Marcus will do. At least you know him. Somewhat.

“No. No, it’s… it’s fine. Just do what you need to.”

You stand and move away from your seat as he steps closer, hands falling awkwardly to your sides after he gently pries the wire away from your hold. He keeps a considerable distance away, the absolute most he could without being unable to reach you, and you appreciate the thought, but the space begins to hinder him as he tries to work.

After a few moments of feeling him fumble beneath your jacket and watching the growing twitches of annoyance briefly break his calm expression with a surprising slight bit of amusement, you relent. 

“You can come closer if you need to.”

His eyes flash up to meet yours, brown irises studying your features before a small smile pulls at the corner of his lips. He moves, still keeping a careful amount of distance between your bodies but close enough to feel the weight of his presence. 

“Are you laughing at me?”

“The big bad FBI agent has butter fingers,” you retort quietly, lips twitching. “They let you hold a gun with those?”

He blinks in surprise at your teasing jab, the curve of his light smile quickly deepening until it causes the dimples in his cheeks to show. You used to love his dimples, often finding yourself compelled to trace them with your fingertips whenever he was close enough to. He’d always welcome it, tilting his face further into your touch or kissing your palm.

Your fingers twitch at your sides.

“Now that’s not fair,” he argues playfully, “I’ve only dropped it a couple of times.”

The smile that spreads across your lips is automatic, and you don’t quite feel like fighting it. At least, not right now. Whether that’s because you don’t have the energy needed to keep up with your recurrent ice saved only for him, or simply because you don’t feel like it, you don’t know.

“Have you really?”

He makes a low noise at the back of his throat, a shine of impish embarrassment spreading throughout his features. “I’m afraid that information is need to know only, ma’am.”

“Of course it is,” you mutter lowly in amusement, his grin briefly stretching into something wider before it fades as he focuses on the task at hand. “Back when you were undercover, did you have to wear one of these?”

There’s no anger in your voice, no betrayal or tone of accusation, just simple curiosity. You just want to know, and not to dwell on the past or overwhelm your mind with what his agents may have potentially heard, because god knows that’s a can of worms you don’t want to open. You feel genuine interest, because surely there would’ve been rules and safety precautions for undercover agents. What were his?

“I did,” he answers, guarded brown eyes briefly meeting yours before falling back to where his fingers pin the wire discreetly to your t-shirt, “but I only wore it for the first few meetings. I stopped when we—when we got closer.”

That was unexpected.

Thinking back on it, you didn’t start to give him any real information to work with until you’d gone on quite a few dates and became more comfortable with him. How did he keep a record of everything you said? You never saw him writing anything down, never had his phone out while you talked, and he never just upped and left once you’d spilled all of your secrets once you became intimate. 

Why wouldn’t the FBI want all of that recorded and documented? Surely that would’ve helped build evidence against you in the grand scheme of things? 

“Why?”

“I didn’t want them to know.”

“Know what?”

How deep he was in over his head.

He wets his lips, finishing his work with a quiet sigh before fixing your jacket and stepping away from you. You watch him take a moment to find his words, wondering what could possibly be so bad he’d want to hide it from his team.

“Some things,” he answers vaguely. “Are you ready?”

—

“You’re off the case.”

He hears the words, feels how they settle in the pit of his stomach, but his mind struggles to comprehend the meaning behind them. He’s one of the god damn leads of this case, how can he be off it? His expression pinches into confusion before he can get a hold of it, the question forming in his features before it even makes it to his lips.

“What?”

He feels the gaze of Jenner beside him, wonders if there’s any judgement lingering alongside the concern. His coworker, his friend, stays quiet, and he’s left to be dragged through the mud alone.

“You’re too close.”

Too close? When has being close to finishing a case ever been an issue? But he knows that’s not what they mean. That’s not what they’re concerned about. It’s you. He’s suspected it for a while, what with the growing questions and raised brows of yet another admittedly unnecessary meeting with one of the major suspects—without a wire or trace. 

“I know what I’m doing,” Marcus argues firmly, the frown deepening between his brows.

Doubt.

It’s not evident in his words, but he feels the stirrings of it somewhere in his body. He doesn’t know anymore, and it’s starting to scare him. He’s always known this job. He knows the rules, likes the rules even, likes playing by a book and not stepping a toe out of line. It’s comfortable, secure. 

This isn’t.

This is dangerous—that’s what it is. The feelings that follow him home after a day of playing another man are anything but a cover. They’re real. The unsteady beat of his heart whenever you cross his mind, the sweat that builds on his palms when he knows he gets to see you, the tingle left across his lips after spending moments pressed against yours—it’s all fucking real.

And it’s terrifying.

“Look, Pike… we see this with undercover work often. It’s not just you, and it’s not a reflection of you, or your work. We know you’re a damn good agent, but relationships can grow, feelings can come into play and lines can become blurred—”

Panic overtakes him, and it takes every bit of control to not let it show on his face. Maybe it’s selfish, but he can’t lose you. Not yet, not when things feel so… so right. It is selfish. You help him forget, you remind him that romance... that love is—God, it’s real.

It’s real, and he has it, or is starting to at least, and he can’t lose it. Just the thought of knowing he’ll lose it all in the end is enough to make bile sit in the back of his throat and a sickly cold tether wind around his heart…

So he scrambles. He fights to keep his cool, to play the good little agent and hide everything away. It goes against everything he’s been taught, everything that he and his coworkers stand for… and he doesn’t care.

“Sir, with all due respect, I’ve put too much time and effort into this case to not see it through to the end. There is no relationship, there are no feelings. I know my job, I know my position in this case, I know where my loyalty lies, and I know what I’m doing.”

He really doesn’t anymore, but in the end they believe the lies forcing their way through his teeth.

—

You used to sit for hours, studying every little detail of the chosen piece until your eyes started to strain. The corridors of art galleries and museums used to be home—it felt like you spent more time there than your actual apartment, but it doesn’t feel as it used to. Not in a bad way, no… it felt nice. Peaceful, even. You can just enjoy the art now. There’s no anxiety, no pressure to ensure every bit of your work is perfect—it’s just you, and the art.

Like how it was before everything. Before Marcus, before the jobs, before art school—when you were just a little thing, staring up at those frames with nothing but wonder, hope, with dreams of her own styles and gallery. What would she think of what she became?

“You like this one.”

The voice alone sets a roll of irritation over your shoulders. You don’t bother looking at him when you feel him step up beside you, instead wondering if Marcus knew he was here, or if the consultant had come of his own accord. Most likely the latter, if he and Marcus weren’t on the best of terms. 

“What are you doing?” You question quietly, glancing briefly away from the painting and over your shoulder to see if anyone had taken notice of you. This damn wire makes you feel like eyes are everywhere. “Does Marcus know you’re here?”

Jane makes a noncommittal noise, “I was bored.”

He makes no effort to answer your other question, and that tells you what you need to know—Marcus has no idea. Is this something he should know? He’s leading the case, and despite your aversion to it, he’s made it clear he’s responsible for you during your time working for the FBI as well as overseeing who you speak to. He made it extra clear he didn’t like the idea of Patrick talking to you, after what happened at the office. What would he want you to do in this situation?

Get rid of him.

You don’t have time to waste playing some kind of twisted back and forth with the consultant. You came here with a simple task, and you couldn’t have him tagging along behind you and potentially ruining your opportunity to get your foot back into the door of your old life, let alone finding anything out about it. Maybe he already knows, either way you’d rather not have him shadowing and questioning you at every turn.

“I’m not your babysitter, Jane. Go and play your games somewhere else.”

“What games?”

You scoff harshly, unable to stop the scowl you shoot him, “Don’t play dumb. You know what you do, and I don’t care for it. Just leave me alone so I can do what I need to and go home.”

He hums, unbothered by your quip. 

“Is this one of yours?” He asks shamelessly, nodding to the painting hung in its ornate frame.

You startle, blinking in surprise and casting another glance around your surroundings in an utter panic. No one had taken any notice of him thankfully, with the art admirers still milling about at their leisure and passing by without any acknowledgement of either of you, yet your heart can’t seem to calm down from its heavy drum. 

There’s a smirk tugging at his lips when your eyes quickly land back on him, seemingly pleased with or expecting your reaction, and your jaw tightens in response.

The irritation turns to anger. Anger at him, anger at yourself for letting him work his stupid little mind games and getting to you. This is what he does, Marcus had said. You can’t let him get to you like he did before. You won’t. 

“Keep your voice down,” you grind out, rolling your attention back to the painting and ignoring the way he purposefully looks around in vague interest. 

“Why? No one’s here. At least not for you.”

“So then what are you doing here?”

“Chasing my own leads,” he hums thoughtfully, “I haven’t crossed out all of my suspects yet.”

“And your supposed ‘leads’ have bought you here?”

He openly eyes you, gaze critical and borderline taunting. It’s almost enough to make you feel like a complete fucking idiot for not knowing what he’s talking about, or what thoughts are rolling through his head. His 'lead'... he's referring to you.

You sigh impatiently, already sick of him. “What are you saying exactly, Jane?”

He shrugs loosely. “Just that it wouldn’t be the first time a scorned lover created some elaborate scheme to g—”

“I’m sorry—what?” You cut in before you can help it, a frown of confusion pinching your brows as your mind rushes to catch up with his meaning. “‘Scorned lover’? What the hell makes you think I’m some kind of—”

“With everything that happened between you and Agent Pike, you must’ve been angry when you found out he was an undercover agent. How many years did you get in the end? Two? Three? Whatever the time frame, I would imagine it was enough to warrant some kind of revenge scheme.”

A chill creeps along your shoulders at having it thrown at you so blatantly. He knows everything, and is definitely not shy or careful when it comes to addressing it with you. You want to shrink in on yourself, hide away from his obvious scrutinisation of every emotion crossing your face, but you can’t seem to move. Something about fight or flight rings through your mind, and that often forgotten third word—

Freeze.

A man steps up beside him to admire the art. Tall, broad, dressed in jeans and a casual tee, but obviously not a stranger to the consultant when he cuts in with a low, “Jane, that’s enough.”

You don’t recognise him from Marcus’s team, so he must be one of Teresa’s. Was he the agent meant to shadow you? Nothing in your body responds to the internal alarms practically screaming leave.  No, you’re simply frozen where you stand on that glossy hardwood flooring, heart beating in your throat and skin prickling with the overwhelming wash of anxiety.

“I don’t—”

“It’s alright, we already know everything about you,” Jane continues nonchalantly, “don’t we Rigsby?”

The man beside him practically squirms. 

“I don’t know what you think I’m doing, but I have nothing to do with this, other than what Marcus has asked me to do. I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it if you just ask, instead of following me around and accusing me of whatever evil mastermind ploy you think I’m up to.”

Jane openly grins, turning his gaze back to the painting. “No, he won’t.”

“No actually, he probably wouldn’t. Maybe if you weren’t such a dick, and maybe if you just left me alone like he asked, he’d be a little more open with you and his plans.”

“That explains it,” he hums lightly, seemingly to himself but loud enough for you to hear.

The constant verbal and mental back and forth, as well as trying to keep up with whatever crap spills from his mouth next, is enough to give you whiplash and birth an uncomfortable ache along your temples. It’s no wonder Marcus can’t stand him. The urge to guard your expression, and hide any potential clues to your thoughts was beginning to feel exhausting. 

“Explains what?”

“His feelings for you.”

A distinct, uncomfortable silence follows his words. They hit somewhere in your chest. You don’t know where, but you certainly feel the force of it push some air from your lungs.

Feelings? There were no feelings. The man who seemingly had feelings for you didn’t exist, and so those apparent feelings didn’t exist right alongside. It was nothing. It meant nothing. Marcus merely had a job, and that’s all you had been to him—work.

Your stunned gaze meets Rigsby’s, and there’s a slight shine of apology in them, though you’re unsure if it’s because of Jane’s words or simply just for Jane in general.

A lump builds in your throat, even after all this time, and you try to swallow it down, try to dislodge it from where it sits at the back of your tongue threatening to choke you fully.

How? How can it still hurt? 

You’d come so far forward, only to have the consultant knock you right back. Confusion overwhelms you—dread, denial. An ache builds around your heart, agonising and familiar and you loathe it. His words… it’s all bullshit, obviously. It must be some sort of sick test or twisted mind game to push you into confessing for something you’re not doing.

Rigsby shuffles, eyes falling away from yours and towards the floor as he shifts in obvious unease. You shake your head, forcing to keep your expression close to something unbothered as you face Jane again.

It’s hard.

You feel it crack—a twitch of a frown, the firm press of your lips to hide their tremble… you hate that he sees it all so clearly. 

“Marcus doesn’t feel anything towards me, except for maybe guilt. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong, Jane. Wrong. It wasn’t real. None of it was real, especially any feelings he had for me.”

He studies you quietly, no doubt taking note of how you draw away and struggle to compose yourself. He eventually nods, saying nothing more, even when you turn away with watery eyes. You’re vaguely aware of Rigsby speaking lowly to the side, but you don’t bother to pay him any mind. 

“And yes, Jane. This is one of mine, but you already knew that, didn’t you?”

It falls from your lips sharply, mockingly. You turn and leave them both standing in front of the replica you’d completed for the FBI, their eyes on your back as you attempt to stride out of the spacious room with your last shred of dignity.

-

[tgirljessilina]

New intro post (Got tired of updating the old one)

I've been updating the same pinned post for way too long and I'm bored of it, so I'm just making a new one.

Name's Judith! You can still call me Jess if you remember that pseudonym, I don't care rofl. Still a Jessilina fangirl even now but honestly I'm a bigger fan of Jessilee (Shame that they both stopped performing :{ ) I don't think I'll ever stop liking either of them, even though its been years now.

I've been on this hellsite since 2012 and I unfortunately have no plans to leave.

I've got two Pokemon now! Good Ol' Perseus the corviknight's still here, but now I've got a Solrock too! Their name's Hylia.

Also the blinkies from my old pinned post because I'm too attached to them to get rid of them:

[MYSTERY GIFTS are ENABLED for this account!] [PELIPPER MAIL is DISABLED for this account!]

// ooc under the cut

All blinkies above were made on blinkies.cafe! Go check it out!

Hello! @act11as here again with uh. The blog that I was not planning to make! Yeah, oops!

My rotomblr hub account is @battle-subway-aftershow!

OOC posts will be green tagged as #ooc and #moth's yapping to avoid confusion, and all triggers will be tagged as #[word] tw for convenience!

The main "gimmick" of this blog is that it's not someone's new account, but instead an account that's been around for over 10 years. Feel free to pretend to be an old follower/mutual/etc, that's part of the fun!

Mod's a minor, muse is an adult. don't be weird, or die by my blade (get mocked relentlessly)

Boundaries/Guidelines:

*ALMOST ANY kind of Pokemon Irl blog can interact! Eeby deebies, sapient pokemon, evil teams, whatever! Judith will probably humor you! She's used to rotomblr weirdness.

*Self-Insert fallers, please do not interact. I personally cannot handle these kinds of blogs. Self-insert ocs are fine, but the idea of a real person on rotomblr being isekaid into Pokémon is not.

In-Character anon hate is fine! I have the right to not answer everything however, so don't expect your ask to get answered.

I dunno just don't be a dick? That's all I really have to say lmao- of course being mean ic is fine but just like, don't go too far yknow?

Organizational tags:

[name] the [pokemon] - Easy way to find posts about one of Judith's pokemon!

Judie rambles - General posting tag

From the archive - Will likely be used in the future! Since I can't create a 10+ year long posting history, "old posts" will be under this tag!

Extras:

Mystery Gifts are open! Feel free to send stuff to Judith, she loves it (and will try to send things back if its off of anon!)

Pelipper Mail, un-mail, and Malice are off! Feel free to ask her why, she definitely has a few words about it.

Musharna mail, (sending dreams) and Musharna malice (sending nightmares) are always on! Go ahead if you want to, this is really fun!

Magic anons are off, unless specified otherwise (will likely stay off forever)

[gaspshichat]

we have a very long post again so i can bet y'all know who this is about. that's right. pearl appreciation post

it's a little more vent-y than i wanted bc i do talk about what's wrong with me and the things going on with my weird messed up body so please be careful of that. if you want to skip all of that, there is a big bolded red label titled "appreciation part"

i talked about my sun allergy on pearl's stream today and she asked what happened to me in the sun. i've spoken a little on the things wrong with me [although i don't go into too much detail bc i don't want to burden or worry pearl/chat more than i already do] so she does know a thing or two about me

(transcription: um, thank you for the ten bitties, gasps! "i get really bad sunburns that blister with severe rashes." *pained* ooh. "can't be outside for more than five to ten minutes without severe pain. that's why i work nights and have a night schedule." oh my gosh. that must be super difficult, gasps. i'm sorry that you have to deal with that! wow. you- you've got like- the world is not kind to you, i feel like. um. there's- there's so many things that you go through and- my gosh. i hope- i hope- i hope you're doing okay. that's a lot to deal with, though. that is a lot to deal with)

[also, side note. every time pearl calls me gasps i half expect her to call me vyren aka my name even though it would startle me if she randomly did one day. i forget she most likely doesn't know it or how to pronounce it lmao. it's vie-ren, not veer-in]

there's a line from that that keeps replaying in my mind just over and over again

"the world is not kind to you, i feel like"

i just keep repeating it because it's true. the world is not kind to me and i've spoken a little about this. i'll never be healthy or okay and never even had the chance. i was destined the life i live

watching pearl's streams and videos and chatting in her discord server help me forget all of that. i can pretend i'm not sick, that my bones don't scrap together, that the fever is gone [hell, sometimes i can pretend it was never there]. for four hours three times a week, i can pretend

every time i have a health update, pearl always tells me she hopes i get better or at least get an improvement. i always appreciate these moments and hold them close bc despite the fact that i cannot get better, they mean a lot

i'm getting blood tests hopefully in three months to see if i have one disorder. the disorder is incurable and genetic unfortunately. if i do have the disorder [almost 100% likely], we'll see if the meds help with me being sick

[APPRECIATION PART]

pearl, if you end up seeing this, thank you so much for everything. thank you for reading every bits message people send, thank you for spreading positivity, thank you for having a true safe space, thank you for your get well wishes, thank you for being genuinely kind, thank you for just being a good person, thank you for caring, thank you for remembering, thank you for being you

it's hard to come by someone who's a good person, especially in the world we live in today. i'm so happy and proud to be apart of your community that you've created. everyone here is so kind and it's genuinely refreshing

i hope these appreciation posts help you and seeing everything people say in the reblogs, especially on my last one. i'm still getting a lot of notifications from that post

[sometimes i wonder if these posts are too much. if you have an issue with them, pearl, please tell me! i'll stop/tone it down in a heartbeat]

sorry for a long post but at this point y'all know that i have long lost the ability to shut up

[lionews]

Sorry, this is gonna be a yapfest. You don't have to read it, lmao.

What's everyone's bet on how long LD will last?

Like let's be for fucking real rn, it's not got a lot left. Especially because of some theories I've seen floating around about how Xylax may be quitting/retiring soon. Even IF there are replacement artists, I doubt the game will last long.

I'm giving it 5 years tops, 2 years before the game becomes generally unplayable, and an additional 3 years for the dedicated player base to attempt to keep the game alive.

My theory is that the Owners/Devs aren't working on lioden as much because they either just straight up do not give a damn about what happens to it so long as people keep buying gb, or they plan to abandon it either way. Don't even @ me about how we still are getting game updates. Remember Ochre powders, and how they were so poorly thought out that it destroyed the RL market? (I do love the item, don't get me wrong, but come on bro at least pretend you pay the slightest attention to your own playerbase and market trends in your game) let's not even talk about Leopard tails, that's a whole separate argument right there.

Like between the cesspit that is the main chat, the lack of mods (and lack of willingness to pay them), and the way the market is starting to mirror the patterns of market crashes. Name me 1 lion that you can actually get its value for. (Excluding original, fresh rls) Nothing, absolutely nothing bc even if you price something fair, you'll only get lowballs.

Hell, even the artist side of Lioden has such a broken market with how literally ever single newbie under cuts prices just to get ahead instead of, I don't know, following market trends and pricing accordingly to quality?

Anyway I'm done with my rant.

TL:DR

We are all definitely fucked when this game finally breaks.

.

[trilobi-te]

Cider expressions without the visor (in practice he'd still be wearing it in these situations so pretend it's invisible here or something idk). Why did I decide to draw a Cider conglomeration including several accursed Dandies? I was bored I guess. I don't even know what this is lmao

Also I named the expressions plus an update on archiving the Chipspeeech twitter content (below the cut)

I like how half the Chipspeech artists out there decided that Dandy has Phoenix Wright hair

That "Something went wrong. Try reloading." message is the bane of my existence right now. I am so close to being done with copying down everything from the chip twitters but I have to stop every few minutes due to the site continuously freaking out. Also why do Dee, Bert, and Dandy have so many tweets ffs.

On the topic of the archive thing I'm still deciding whether to make a website for it or just an extremely long PDF. For the sake of readability, navigation, etc. a site would obviously be better but all of the free hosting services seem to be either limited in size or when it's online. Maybe I can just make a bunch of little sites and link them to each other. I can use CSS but I am severely lacking in the graphic design department so a potential site would probably be.. less than beautiful. In order to avoid ugliness and save space things usually end up rather sparse. At least I could set up navigation though.

Also none of my ideas on how to make threads (and the standalone tweets that were made chronologically in the middle of them) readable are so great but I think that has more to do with the fact that they weren't readable on twitter in the first place. Twitter is a mess.

The main argument for just making a PDF is that it'd be so much faster, though the fact that it'd be several hundred pages long without any navigation other than ctrl+f is a giant drawback. All of the time I've had to spend on Twitter for this has made me very passionate about navigation. Have I mentioned how much I hate twitter navigation. I'm a n g y

[svnflowermoon]

Hi

coming from a very confused 14 year old

how did you know you’re on the aroace spectrum? how did you know that you’re demisexual/demi romantic (im sorry if this is too personal you dont have to answer it)

hi!!

i'm gonna be totally honest i still don't really know, the aroace spectrum is very confusing to me (you probably got the demi part from my carrd but i haven't updated that in forever and i have no idea rn lmao). but i know that i don't feel the same attraction that other people do, i don't really know how to explain it but i take ages to actually have romantic feelings for anyone? i used to make up crushes (both bc of comphet and because my friends got crushes SO FAST) because i thought "no one actually likes anyone that fast it takes everyone ages to feel attracted to someone if i pretend then maybe it'll turn real" but no apparently not lmao. so basically i just figured it out by observing other people and thinking WHAT THE FUCK?????

idk what i am it's very complicated and i really don't know that much about it but honestly i know i like girls that's enough for me any more labels would be suffocating for me. i know im some type of aroace but idk what and im not gonna rush myself to figure it out. the labels i have right now are MOREEE than enough and im happy knowing myself that i don't have the same attraction everyone else does i don't feel the need to label it. obviously if you or anyone else finds these labels comforting and helpful then that's great!! they're just not for me <3

this probably wasn't the answer you were looking for sorry lmao but if you need any advice mine is to not rush finding a label, if one is right you'll find it in time. you might never find a label you're comfortable with, and that's okay. sexuality is fluid and your labels can change and you're only 14 so you have a long time to be able to change your mind about these things, don't put pressure on yourself to figure these things out right away <3

[moon-buggg]

Pardon, but I must know, do you have an Ao3 of the scp boys story? I'm a HUGE scp fan and have loved it since I was a kid, but adding sun and moon? Now THAT is a trap I will willingly walk into! Hook, line, AND sinker bby(ik I'm cringe lol) but still, just curious, and no pressure to answer this either! ^^

P.s. if you're looking for vids and stuff for scp content, do not trust "The Rubber" on yt. They destroy stories and lie to their viewers(a content farm pretending to be a 1-person channel)

I hope all is well,

Sincerely

- Anonymous Gold dog🌟🐕💛

nothing on ao3 yet, and I have no plans to write a multi chapter fic for it. I just don't enjoy the process of writing long form fics. I've got a few drabbles you can find in my writing tag (which I've updated my pinned post to link to! pro tip, tumblrs search function works much better if you click a tag directly on a post rather than trying to search it on the blogs search function. I just learned that like, two months ago lmao)

Glad you like the au!! ^^ And yeah it sucks how many content farms use scp stuff as fodder :/

[limetameta]

this started as a meme but turned into an emotional rollercoaster 🎢 and then an uplifting story about mental health?

So not that anyone asked but the thesis is going well which is why i am rewriting retired prometheus lmao

Stuff gets really mentally unhealthy down there

There are 15 google docs full of seperate chapters because bestie's laptop crashed when i tried to put her on the complete rp google doc???? My story kills laptops, what does yours do?

Bestie made a comment that the google doc chapters 1 through 7 is 100 pages long. And only chapter 1 is edited.

We put RP into that word count to page count converter and it says that the entire story is like 1200 pages or something. In comic sans it's like 1500 I think. Which we found delightful.

None of the chapters are updated yet on ao3 but it will end up longer lmao because i am adding scenes to help with pacing. Also to tie in the side stories and prequels.

All of this started because it's finally passed enough time since i wrote the ending that i can look at it objectively. Some parts of the story are very good and don't need as much rehauling though there are still those that haunt me.

There's this arc i dubbed The fucked arc in the story and i was going through quite possibly the worst part of my life and the writing is ineligible. I barely understand what's happening there. The sentence structure is all over the place. I only vividly remember not sleeping nights and wondering if I was supposed to kill myself and since the answer was yes, if I was going to do it tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But I didn't want to die until I had finished retired prometheus, so i continued.

The writing in the fucked arc is bad, the content inside the writing is very vivid and heavy and why the folks who read my works endured until the writing got better again. I think about every review that encouraged me. I held onto those reviews like a lifeline and said: Well I promised I'd see this through. So I can't really end it yet. Abraxas and Tom haven't reunited yet for fucks sake *me wading through shitty sentences and awful pacing and a heinous mental breakdown* I need the toxic gays to kiss goddammit!

By the time I actually finished RP I had gotten into therapy and sorta healed. I say sorta because I never actually shook off what happened to me that year. I just kept thinking about it much less. But when I would remember it I would be consumed by my thoughts and I wouldn't really be able to get anything done.

Really the weirdest part was I thought that I was on a timer. Like I ever listened to timers to begin with. But I really rushed the updates like Hamilton in that Non stop song. Because I didn't know if I'd be alive to see the next update. If I'd jump in front of a car or if I'd drown in the sea off the coast of a beach I frequented.

Every big hiatus you'd see in retired prometheus on that chapter index page represents this really low point in my life. Because I only thrive in creative works when I am okay. When I am not deeply unwell. Back then I was.

I didn't really think about what others would say, but I only kept thinking about what a hassle it would be to kms. Though dying would be better than living on. Like that justice statue I'd be weighing the pros and cons of dying to myself. I'd try to get myself to have enough bravery to do it only to falter at the last second and be like as long as nobody knows why I want to do it, I can still pretend like my life isn't over. I can still smile through it and no one will be able to tell but me.

There's a photograph a friend of mine took with her professional camera of me from the summer of the fucked arc and I look like I'm ten years older than I am now. You could really just see the stress. Maybe my friend couldn't or she didn't know what I usually smiled like. I know my own honest smile and that's not something I can expect others to know. But my god I don't think I've ever been in more pain than I was then. Pro tip: don't zoom in on photos of yourself if you're going thru it! I personally think being a chain smoker for 30 years would have given me a kinder face.

Anyway writing would kind of be an excuse for me. So even if I hated everything i was writing I'd still post it because I didn't want retired prometheus to end up unfinished.

On so many occasions I bemoaned to bestie if I would ever finish writing retired prometheus because it was a ball and chain tying me to life. But also i kinda really did want to complete one project (ignores tens of tens of finished stories because they're not retired prometheus and they'll never be retired prometheus)

Then to add salt to injury my best friend not bestie kills herself a year later and I'm left like that pikachu meme going Hey Now! Hey! HEY NOW YOUNG MAN!

I felt like a poser because I was out there just thinking things and she was out there DOING IT!

A grief like nothing I had ever experienced struck me. I didn't know a person was able to feel such emotions until that moment. It was razing. It ruined every thought I had.

I realised such a lovely thing that at the time I hated: her death had shocked me out of my apathy. It thrust me into anger. Into something so deeply tangible I was struggling to accept it. She would never be someone I could hug again. Yet she thrust me back into life with such a vice grip I can feel her hands on my shoulders even now.

The people around me couldn't understand what I was going through. They saw me for the first time as someone at risk, because, if a close friend of mine died - then that, in this small minded country, meant that there was a cult going on. That my friend had not killed herself because she didn't see a way out but because she'd been conditioned to do it.

That because she had a rainbow in her Instagram bio and followed queer people. That's why she killed herself. Because queers in the Balkan remain a sect. A predatory group of people who are going to hurt your children and brainwash them.

I didn't want to kill myself anymore. If only because I had finally unlocked spite. Anger and spite got me on a bus. Secretly. My friend didn't tell anyone she was taking a day off work. I didn't tell anyone i was taking a day off work. My friend didn't tell anyone she was going on a bus to the tallest Bridge in our country. She was dead set on never coming back. And she knew we'd try to stop her. I didn't tell anyone where I was going because I knew my mother would scream at me. Just as she screamed at me in fear that I was going to be next.

Being put on the spotlight like that, for all the wrong reasons, made me want to do something I'd been afraid of doing for years.

I got on a bus that day because I was so tired of the Balkan. I was so tired of living in a place that was hell bent on making me feel worthless.

I got off the bus and walked towards a building not too far from the bus stop. Not too far from where I lived even. But I was wearing headphones and sunglasses and a hat and even a scarf. As I looked in the mirror in the hallway I thought that I'd dressed up just as I'd dressed Grindelwald in the Intermission chapters while he was running from the aurors.

If I had killed a person I would not have taken such effort to concealing my identity.

But where I had gone was a crime, you see. Not in a legal sense. But in a sense of *belief*.

What my friend had done could not be judged because she was dead and she didn't care for it anymore.

I could be judged. And I would be judged. Because that was the country I lived in. With the people I lived with. Who are scared to learn better. Who cling to the belief that what their parents know is good and what their parents know was even better.

Perhaps it would have been better for my family if I did kill myself than subject them to this humiliation?

It was summer. Not the summer of the fucked arc, but the fucked arc was still going. I had stopped asking bestie if would finish rp and if I would just get this stupid arc over. She told me I would. I didn't believe her.

My hand was shaking as I knocked on the door. Inside I introduced myself and said I had sent an email. From a burner email with a fake name. I did not want to give out my full name. But I had to. So I did.

Because not feeling anything was something I had accustomed myself to. Feeling so many things to such a degree as I had at the time was worse. I needed help.

HELP! Somebody! NOT JUST ANYBODY! HELP-

Naturally it only took all of 5 minutes for me to be cured of my mental illness and trauma. The therapist was a pro. And I was a writer with a flare for the dramatic.

Nudge nudge wink wink.

No, it took 5 minutes for me to breakdown about my friend killing herself.

5 minutes of me making jokes about trying therapy. 5 minutes of me trying to make light of the situation. 5 minutes of me being on the verge of tears and refusing to break down and be weak. Because I was better than everyone else who really needed therapy, you know. I wasn't mentally ill. I was just going through a tough time.

Mental illness was worse than if I killed myself. If I killed myself I could get away with being a drug addict. Anything was better than being mentally ill in the Balkan.

My therapist, like 5 minutes in: honestly I think everyone in the Balkan is mentally ill its just that nobody is getting any help for it.

Me thinking of every war this country has gone through only a 100 years back. I let a bunch of untreated mentally ill clowns hold me back from asking for help.

And for what???

Judgement???

I was doing something that took so much more bravery than killing myself would have taken. I was doing something no one in my family, for as long as my line has existed, has ever done: I was going to therapy.

I wasn't drinking rakija until I couldn't see. I wasn't smoking until my lungs gave out. I wasn't starving myself. I wasn't flinging myself from one emotion till the next and making others walk around egg shells around me.

It wouldn't be months until I'd tell my mother I was seeing a therapist, because this was a secret still. As if I was having an affair, I would lie and say I was going to the beach or that I was going drinking with friends. And I would take my bus. In the opposite direction both metaphorically and literally to the one my friend took when she decided to end her life.

The therapist was kind. She still is. But I'm glad she was the one who took me on. I didn't tell her about what happened to me, about why the fucked arc is so badly written. I couldn't get the words out of my mouth, my teeth were so gritted. So instead I talked about other fires that needed putting out.

And I thrived creatively. I wrote the ugliest things I've ever written and I loved it. I loved every word I was putting out there. I felt like myself again.

When my mother learned I was going to therapy she started shouting: Are you only going there to complain about what a terrible mother I am?

And I just remember saying: you *and* dad.

Much like you can expect, slavic parents do not understand that therapy is real and helpful. They think that this is like a drug. That if I become addicted to therapy I will not be able to function in society without having to consult my therapist, drink my therapy, and become a shell of myself.

After years of seeing an apathetic ghost, no doubt she blamed therapy for my anger and my outbursts and my having emotions. I, for one, blamed the bitch who killed herself and got me in this mess.

I swear to god this started as a meme post! Please believe me I had no intention of sitting down for hours on the couch to write this. I put on a dungeon and dragons episode from dimension 20 for fucks sake.

My mother is still against therapy. If I had a father I'd ask. But he'd probably say that writing was his therapy. Just like retired prometheus had been mine. No wonder he writes like shit.

A year later I finished retired prometheus and decided I wouldn't look back. Especially because I think the ending bummed a lot of folks out. And I was like you don't know what being bummed out is you fuckers you came to the mentally ill story and got to the end and you won't even leave a review shame on you don't you know I used to use those as a reason to live. Lmaooo actually just like that Key and Peele skit with the give a dollar save a child shtick. Leave a review and I live another day.

This is the part where we de-escalated this post somehow.

I need to go to work tomorrow. I need to sleep.

This rewrite was a long time coming. Because I know I can do better. I have grown so much more as a writer and I want that to be reflected in a story that is like an autobiography to me. I look at a chapter, at a line, and I know what people i used to hang out with. I know which cafes or bars i used to frequent. I read an inside joke and I laugh.

I don't want the fucked arc to hold me back. I know I can make it better.

But I can only do so now after years have passed. After I know with utmost certainty that I am okay.

It wouldn't really be until this year that I felt completely unburdened by the shit I was going through that year when the fucked arc began. So kind of as a commemoration to that I'm rewriting Retired Prometheus.

Gonna give yall some of those dvd menu extra scenes now because ur gonna finally read the deluxe edition.

[detroitbecomeonline]

what are all your favorite headcanons about Puma ??

*cracks knuckles* Thank you for asking. >:) LONG POST WARNING

For those who don't know who "Puma" is, that is the name I've given the hallway PM700 who is the only PM700 with a voice line in the game. I like that name for her because her design is sleek, her eyes are green, and it relates to the P and the M in her model code. You can name her whatever you'd like though :) This is her:

I like to headcanon that this is the same PM700 who is dealing weapons and training other androids on Jericho during Crossroads. To me, it makes sense because these are two "major" scenes for a PM700, and from a narrative point of view, it's unlikely these two would actually be different androids. I tried to test getting Connor to draw close enough to her in Crossroads to get a warning pop-up, but the crowd blocks the way. >:( However in the timeline I'm playing on I don't think I talked to the hallway PM700 so idk you probably still can't reach her in Crossroads but it'd be cool.

There are two undecided headcanons, though I prefer the first one:

Puma (during Waiting For Hank) is deviant and is pretending not to be so she can steal weapons from the DPD for Jericho. She deviated from mistreatment in her line of work at some point. Could be Gavin.

Puma (during Waiting For Hank) is not deviant but deviates when she witnesses Connor standing up to Hank and not listening to him. She can also potentially deviate via Gavin at some point.

PM700s are specifically designed for patrolling, guarding, and observational tasks. Basically, they're like glorified security guards. As a 2029 model, PM700s would have to get software updates in order to stay up-to-date with current technology. I headcanon Puma is as recently updated as an RK800 because of the nature of law enforcement/how laws are constantly changed/how androids are getting better and more powerful/etc.

Therefore, as a feminine model whose main task is to observe, I like to headcanon that her skills lean into typical "spy" territory. <3

She is polite, straightforward, and professional as per her programming, but as a deviant, she uses this to catch people off-guard.

Due to the human personalities she's surrounded with at the DPD, her personality has developed into being incredibly sarcastic, sharp-witted, and nonchalant.

Smiles, but has the boiling rage of an underpaid customer service worker.

Puma shares similarities with and would get along with North, Connor, and Rose.

She's jaded and sceptical.

Literally so insane. You give her a packet of red ice to put into evidence and she'd tell you that if you don't tell your wife that you're cheating on her then she'll snort the red ice. You say no and Puma pours the powder into her gloved palm right in front of you and just FHHHHHHHH

A cruel/dark sense of humour. Will swing a pistol around on her pinky to freak everyone out even though she knows it's completely broken

Queen of blackmail since she hears all and sees all

If she ever saw Connor's insides/they were comparing hardware, she'd be all like "YOU HAVE SEVEN PORTS??? SEVEN?? LOOK AT THAT AUXILIARY TUBE!!! WHAT! CONNOR YOU'RE A BEAST WHAT WHY AREN'T YOU SHARING ALL THAT HORSEPOWER" (because, remember, she's a 2029 model)

In the DPD, she befriends Connor (lmao), Officer Person, and Officer Chen.

Puma returns to the DPD to make sure discrimination like that in the past doesn't occur again/she prevents it from occurring and makes sure that the androids who are arrested are treated equally to human criminals. She also returns to the DPD (if Connor returns to the DPD) to keep an eye on him because she knows his past and what he is capable of.

I like to think that after she goes deviant, she has the opportunity to update her software to include other androids' packages. For espionage, she'd download WR400 behaviour software (though I headcanon her to be built like a Barbie doll underneath) and for combat, she'd download martial arts stuff. I want to see her with nun-chucks. That would be terrifying. As a 2029 model she wouldn't be super strong or fast so she'd have to use other ways to get onto the same level as a 2038 model.

In terms of Connor and Puma working together, Connor is built specifically to handle androids and know their weak spots and how to read them etc. So for Puma, she'd know everything about humans in the same way. (It would be the same for a PC200 model.)

With constant software updates and how she is specifically designed to monitor, I think her HUD operations would be somehow more advanced/focus on more things than Markus/Connor/Kara. She'd be able to notice not only what she can interact with, but the tiniest details that may be out of order. She'd be able to pick up that a mug had moved 2mm overnight. She'd know the entire DPD's routine. Who goes where and does what at any second of the day. And that's why she can steal weapons from the station.

Okay, some fun headcanons that are only grounded in my above headcanons and not actually in canon:

She gets a motorbike eventually.

She exclusively wears black leather on the days she's riding her bike. (She already wears a bit of leather as a part of her uniform.)

She has 3 wigs, one of which is long black box braids with beads in it and it matches her fairycore aesthetic (for casual clothing ofc) and the braids literally reach her ankles. I think that would look sick

But yeah she keeps her designed hair for work because it's short and practical.

She legitimately enjoys clubbing.

She REALLY likes waterfalls. The sound and the feel of it

She can dodge laser beams like Lara Croft and fold herself backward like a gymnist

She likes to dance!

Apparently she loves snakes so I'm adding that to the list. It's funny because I'm like "Connor's the DPD snake" and it makes double sense if she returns to work as a cop in order to keep an eye on Connor because she's sus of him even after his whole deviancy arc.

If especially jaded and insane, she probably carries around a bullet or a knife with "Connor" engraved into the side.

She gets Gavin to fuck off away from her by moaning really loud

[monstrsball]

Hello can we get the iwaoisuga headcanons you mentioned in the iwas moms post please. You're right you're depriving us.

HEHE OKAY!

so, i'm going to start off by saying that in this specific universe iwaoi were together first and then suga joins their relationship later. which is relevant.

they were not surprised when iwaoi told them they were dating. they already knew both of them liked men and they know both of them pretty well so they knew it was only a matter of time.

sachiko tried at least to pretend to be surprised by it while mayumi was just like "it's about time" lmao. they were really happy for them! iwaoi's biggest supporters, tbh. they helped oikawa with coming out to his parents (which went... okay? could have gone better, could have gone worse)

and then ofc later (a year? two years? idk, i'm fuzzy on timeline details) suga joins their relationship! sachiko and mayumi are the first of the parents to be told about it. but iwa still holds off longer than when he told them about oikawa because he's worried they'll think it's weird, or that it means he and oikawa are having relationship issues.

they don't, they're pretty open minded! they have a long talk with him about it and then they're just really excited to meet iwaizumi and oikawa's boyfriend.

i think suga is pretty nervous about meeting them? (and oikawa's family) and he enters overthinking mode, just a little bit. like "oh my god what if they think i'm some interloper" even though iwa already told him that his moms were really supportive when he talked to them about it.

so the day comes. and they go to have dinner with iwa's moms. and from the get-go, they are so so welcoming towards him. they ask him so many questions about his job, his students, his family, how he met iwa and oikawa, etc.

it's a little overwhelming and oikawa manages to slow them down a little bit by jokingly complaining that they're not paying attention to him. (and sachiko teasingly says that he's "old news") but still, they ask a lot of questions! they're just really excited to get to know suga. :')

suga has always been good with parents though so he charms them pretty quickly. he's a likeable guy! and i think he bonds with sachiko right away because of how similar her sense of humor is to iwa's (which is one of suga's favorite things about him).

so, first meeting goes right! suga is immediately accepted as part of the family, he almost cries when they tell him this before they leave.

i think he and mayumi would bond over plants! suga's only experience is with houseplants but he likes hearing about her garden. and she gives him lots of tips anyway just in case he ever has the space to be able to grow other stuff.

in fact, i think she would give him the idea to see about starting a school garden at his school!! and she would give him lots of advice during the process too.

they start doing regular dinners with them! this goes even for when iwa and oikawa are both out of the country. sometimes, they might have iwa and/or oikawa on video call too but a lot of the time it's just sachiko, mayumi, and suga. and it's nice! suga likes the reminder that they genuinely like him and care about him and aren't just tolerating him because he's their son's partner.

whenever iwa is in the country, he still likes going to see his moms on sunday and helping mayumi in the garden. suga and oikawa come along, of course.

oikawa is not helpful at all with plants so he usually just sits with sachiko and updates her on what he's been up to in argentina. she loves hearing about his life in argentina! she's said on multiple occassions that she would love to visit, which sets plans in motion in oikawa's head. (i won't elaborate here bc this just entered My head but. sachiko and mayumi visiting oikawa in argentina with iwa and suga,,, yeah. a surprise for their anniversary or smth)

speaking of. sachiko and mayumi never miss one of oikawa's games! oikawa isn't completely sure how they catch some of the matches they do but they do. and they pay a lot of attention (sachiko takes notes) so they can address specific things when they talk to him on the phone next.

and!!! i think they become really close friends with suga's mom too :') not sure how they end up meeting but i think they would get along. suga's mom is a nurse in my mind palace so she and mayumi probably talk about work a lot.

this was longer than i meant for it to be but i hope u enjoy!!! i love iwaoisuga. i love thinking abt iwaoisuga with their families.

[groggygrimalkin]

TW SA and Abuse,long heavy personal post

I guess I'm in a sappy mood so I'll talk about why Homestuck means so much to me. For a year I've kinda wanted to make a video about it, and maybe I will, but for now I just wanna talk abt it. I'm not tagging this as hs but serious trigger tag ahead please tell me if you want to tag this as anything

Okay so I got into Homestuck around 2011, I was being pretty heavily abused by my grandma and mom and also neglected by them which is a very weird ass combo, but a story about someone playing a game and having such close friends appealed to me (I also thought Homestuck was an anime before finding the comic and would look up like "Homestuck episode 1" and get mad when I couldnt find it lmao). Now keep in mind I was a child so like media literacy wasn't my strong suit but I still retained and understood a good ammount of stuff mainly about characters. Anyways as a child naturally does I started talking about it with all of my friends and tried to get them into it, and one friend got REALLY into it. The best I can describe it is like that episode of the Cuphead show where Mugman likes piano and Cuphead gets into it and immediately overshadows him. But I was still happy to have someone to talk about it with. My favorite characters at the time were Meulin, Nepeta, and Damara and I would happily talk about them, but the person would shit on me for liking Meulin claiming she was a bad person and constantly pointing out all her flaws, it annoyed me because they're favourite characters had TONS of flaws they didn't acknowledge but for some reason me loving Meulin was the worst thing ever. I also loved the Midnight Crew and later to my chagrin they did too. I kept reading as updates came out and soon Homestuck became their entire thing, I remember going over their house because at a certain point they were my only friend and they talked to me about Homestuck like I didn't introduce them to it. But yknow, okay, whatever. We would ship our ocs with Canon characters and pretend to be characters and stuff, pretty standard until one day they came over my house and insisted on being Dualscar. They wrote a fic about him doing it with one of my ocs and I was just kinda happy for the attention. Anyways we were rping in real life and I don't remember when, or how, but they had me pinned to the couch and were insistent I let them touch me because we were role-playing and they were Dualscar. Now I've always lowkey been ace, especially in my younger years, so I was pretty uncomfortable, and even if I wasnt asexual someone having you pinned down insisting on touching you when you're not consenting isnt a fun time. Anyways they did stuff like this a few times more in various places and would get mad when I said no to their advances. But for some reason I kept hanging out with them. They were gross and rude and pushy but the only friend I had. I remember them basically assigning me Diamonds Droog kin which I didn't care because I liked Droog(still do) and would pretend to be Slick and suprise suprise would try and molest me. I began to get bitter towards Homestuck, something I once loved was being used against me in one of the worst ways possible. It was a weird time because I would just begrudgingly read the updates I once loved. Anyways when I was 15 they molested me again and it was the worst one, like I wouldn't let my family members hug me for years type of bad. I remember the exact video I was watching when it happened, Game grumps playing Silent Hills PT. I couldn't watch that video for years after. I also remember them showing me really fucked up porn between characters and when I asked like "Hey isn't that weird?" They did the ol' "Ugh it's just fictional!!" Sheit. Anyways at a certain point Homestuck was just ruined for me. I finished it just to say I did and when people asked me if I liked it I would lie and say I didn't. Thankfully I broke it off with them after nine fucking years of knowing eachother. For years I continued to say I dislike homestuck until I got like 22...I stumbled upon Hiveswap and it was funny all of the troll and Alternia facts I could remember, I was hesitant at first and was still like "Ugh but I don't REALLY like it!!" And then I saw....Them....

It was a weird feeling accepting that "Yep I like Homestuck I've been lying to myself for years" and I bought friendsim. I was hooked emmediately. It was like a flood of love I had for homestuck when I started in 2011 all came rushing back, the person who hurt me didn't matter, all that mattered is that I was enjoying it again. Tbh like alot of stuff from my first read was sort of still in my mind, so I stuck to watching recap videos and reading segments I couldnt remember and holy shit there was so much I missed as a child. And then I got Hiveswap and BAM I'm hooked even more, and then

AND THEN...

I rewatched and re-read the first intermission...

And it was set in stone that I'm a Homestuck at heart. It was like walking into a bar I hadn't been to in years and all of my old friends were there to welcome me, I was enjoying something again that used to bring me so much comfort before it was ruined for me, but it didn't have to be anymore. I think I sobbed when I realized that. It feels nice to enjoy something that for years was soured for me.

Uh yeah that's why homestucka and hiveswap means so much to me. Opening this blog has been an amazing way for me to get into the fandom which I never have before. I'll probably be an old man talking about leprechauns and trolls but I'll be happy.

[justfor2am]

it is midnight i have been on n off asleep since like 7 .anyways perspective flip, bts, for want of a nail, + a thousand words of the unusual fic asks? for whatever fics u want as usual 🫡

doing these ones out of order because brain said so, anyways— BTS: I’ll write a DVD commentary about my personal favorite passage from: [7th Sense] (Chapter 9: he's picking a lock he doesn't go into)

The final scene of that chapter, with grian and mumbo, is probably my favorite part of this fic so far, mostly because i'm getting to explore a different side of depression than I often see written in fics.

usually, you get the sadness, the shaking, the no talking/no eating, the limp, wilted flower who needs to be saved. and yes, depression is that sometimes, but it can be, and often is, so much messier than that.

it's anger. it's misplaced frustrations because the truth is too scary to confront, it's knowing you need to shower/brush your teeth/get dressed and being unable to do it anyways. it's not doing those things on purpose because you think you don't deserve them. it's quiet lethargy, it's restless nights that turn into a room ripped apart because you just can't fucking sleep so you're making it someone else's problem.

it's the lashing out at someone who means the world to you, because maybe this time they're take the hint and leave forever. it's knowing deep down that you're too scared to ask for help, and that you didn't mean to help them.

grian isn't magically better by the end of the chapter. his room's still a mess, he still hasn't eaten or gotten cleaned up, and he half asses his way through an apology to mumbo.

but he asks mumbo to open the window. and they both know the deeper meaning in that gesture, knowing that it was that very window that scar escaped into the night. that it's been firmly shut since then. it's progress, like it or not. _________ For Want of a Nail: If Scar had died giving Grian his life force in: [though i've closed my eyes, i know who you pretend i am] the ending, i'm sure you can imagine, is much more depressing. Eleri, the elven queen, would be without an heir to her bloodline, and the grief of losing her only son, the last blood family she had, would cause her magic to lash out, and cast the kingdom into a century of darkness. somewhere in that time, the heartbreak would kill her.

in the mad scramble to find someone to take over, gem would accept the offered kingdom, but feel immense regret over the situation, partially blaming herself for scar's death. if she had kept quiet and agreed to marry him in the first place, would he still be alive?

mumbo, now without a ward, would pledge himself to grian's aid, who very much does not want mumbo's help. grian is the most guilt-stricken of them all, half of scar's life force now pounding in his chest, keeping grian alive. that coupled with newfound avian instincts, and no mate to help ease him through the new magic in his blood, grian would be an complete mess, unwillingly relying on mumbo to keep his instincts at bay. it would be a few decades until, eventually, grian would isolate himself in the nearby mountain range, somewhere far too cold for a vampire like mumbo to follow.

grian would live out the rest of his days more animal than man, a self-inflicted penance for costing his lover his life.

good thing that didn't happen, right? _________ A Thousand Words: I’ll create a photoset/gifset that, IMO, sums up the main themes/concepts I intended for [the blood i'm owed is all yours] (trying to motivate myself to update the damn thing lmao)

compromise, i'm doing a playlist instead because this post is long enough as is. no particular listening order, put this bitch on shuffle king

_________ Perspective Flip: I’ll write a scene from [Why Do I (Even Try?)] from another character’s point-of-view (Chapter 18: just count to ten, and try to breathe)

(italics are original text, i wrote this stream-of-conscious style literally this moment so sorry if it's not super cohesive)

Grian hid behind his wine glass, the ruby drink only brightening his blush. "Rule two, no letting the public find out. I've got a lick of sense about me, and I know that we would be immediately framed as me being the pity points, some kinda mangy boyfriend, and I'd like to pass on that part of the publicity train, thank you very much."

"I think you would make an incredibly handsome boyfriend, but continue."

It was too easy to rile Grian up, Scar genuinely wondered if it was worth taunting him this early into their evening. It was cute, watching him try to gloss over Scar's attacks, deflecting with his own pointed silence. The game was fun, but half the joy was in the end result.

"Most importantly, rule number three." Grian set down his glass, purely for dramatic effect. "No falling in love with one another."

This one caught Scar off guard. He hoped Grian couldn't tell in his face, quickly clearing his throat to fix his soured expression. Right. Of course. This was transactional at best: Scar would receive Grian's company in the form of sex, meaningless hook ups between co-workers. At least, that's how Grian was presenting the idea.

Scar didn't want that. He wasn't after only the physical, as much of a nice bonus as it could be. He wanted to know Grian, really know him, reach the parts that the man kept hidden from the world and fall into his mind; Scar wanted all of Grian, not just the surface level.

Even so, he knew that for Grian, sex was so much more than surface level. It was a serious gesture of trust, and not one Scar was willing to betray. But that didn't mean Scar would give up his love so easy, and let himself be heartbroken in favor of physical intimacy.

Some way, some how, Scar would make a space for himself in Grian's heart. He owed it to himself to try, at the very least.

Scar grinned, and lifted his wine glass in toast. "Challenge accepted."

[cinnamonest]

(Omg I saw asks were open again 😭💦 just wanted to give you some appreciation firstly. You've been putting out such amazing works. Thank you for working so hard. 🤍) I wanted to ask if you had anything to add to the male majority au you wrote about last time 👁👁🔥 I was wondering more about the laws I guess? Are there any repercussions for taking someone's wife? not an unmarried runaway or public property but legally owned and married to one man. I figured some men are powerful enough to have a whole harem 😂 (zhongli comes to mind.. and Xiao is just like 💔 all these wives and I don't even get one 🧎Zhongli's wife may or may not be off limits.. but his mistresses... 😗) And what would happen if someone other than Venti touches one of the nuns in mondstadt?? 👀 the lonely horny guys who pretend they visit church for prayer- but they go there to see the cute girls 😂 one might end up missing if no one's looking 😗 and if any of the nuns run off for any reason or get their virtue taken away (by force or otherwise) are they stripped of their status? You can elaborate on anything else you feel like babe!! Keep up the great work 🤍🤍

Male Majority AU - Continuation

YES I have had so much more thoughts on it since I originally wrote omg I love this worldbuilding (and ngl I'm so glad y'all asked for more bc now I have an excuse to ramble on and on about this AU lmao). I'm including more... worldbuilding lore...? Or whatever to call it lol, plus some updates on our poor darlings from last time, and a few new ones (and revised one for Xiao bc I had a new idea!) Eventually I want to update on the other boys in this AU as well, and yes especially an idea I had for Venti :3 and have some other more specific asks regarding it that I'll be getting to as well, but have this in the meantime!

Here is the original post for anyone who missed it as well! And as I just said I'm gonna get to some of the other asks for it as well, I got a surprising amount of them! I'm surprised people liked this so much :0 so soon I'll add this to the masterlist and the tag will be "#.mmau" from now on >:3

Some notes:

- I made a section for the Fatui mobs bc I know we're all horny for them

- after being a heartless enabler for so long, and due to mentioning that Verr would merely have to be the wife while Huai'an would be the actual inn owner, that inspired me and now I have finally decided Verr needs to get what's coming to her, we finally have a Verr!Reader to compensate for her transgressions against all the poor Xiao darlings in the other universes

Warnings: horrendous misogyny (like. it's bad. steer clear if that's not your thing), slutshaming, breeding/impreg galore, gangbang noncon in addition to the normal noncon, forced fem/forced changes to a feminine appearance in regards to clothing/hair, slavery/trafficking/prostitution, degradation, all the good stuff. This is morally abhorrent and a sin against femalekind. Neat!

But firstly, some more worldbuilding stuff:

There is definitely some unrest among the average male citizen population. A large portion of the girls are owned by the wealthy or at least middle class, more or less. The ratio of the population to the number of females possessed is highly unbalanced -- the top 10% maybe of wealthy men own about half the world's women. Then some middle class, and then maybe a few commoners, but it's rare. Another reason for this, of course, is a commoner can't afford to have a girl guarded and secured like a rich guy can and thus puts himself at risk, but still, it's unfair. (But yes it's the bourgeoisie female-havers versus the proletariat incels lmao)

So there is a lot of resentment. And consequently, there is certainly some theft going on, among other means. I mentioned this in the original post but, come wartime or any sort of conflict between rival nations or groups, they figured out a long time ago how to get plenty of young men to voluntarily sign up to go fight -- advertise and propagate the possibility that they could obtain a girl! They... leave out the part where it's still very unlikely they'll get one. They inflate it to the best of their ability, they go hard on using it as a means of attracting potential soldiers. And... it works. Hell, they don't even need a draft. Even the normal world and this one alike, if there is any one thing that can be used as a motivator and lure like none other, it's pussy.

In that time, it's fair game, finders keepers, that sort of deal. Now, in contrast, in peace times, and unless you're from some organization that tends to kinda bully their way into what they want (read: Fatui), there are some less savory methods. As mentioned in the last post, runaways are a somewhat common occurrence. The law technically says that if you find them, you turn them in so they can be restored to their proper owner... but come on, it's idiotic to think any individual guy would actually do that. The only issue is the paperwork.

See, each girl is registered with an owner, there's a written database somewhere per nation that keeps tabs of each one and who legally owns them. In the case of a runaway, the girl is still, technically, the legal property of her owner on paper. Within the same nation, at least. It gets... legally messy when border-crossing is involved, since the registrations are per nation. Technically, there are international laws stating that if one is found, they must be returned... but in practice, it's iffy. Law enforcement may return you to your home nation and owner, but reassigning you to someone new is often less effort on their part, or just selling you to a market for profit, or one might even take you for themselves. Even without that though, traveling to another nation is ideal, as your home nation will have posters with your face on it, law enforcement alerted to your situation, etc. Consequently, most escapees make a direct beeline to the nearest border -- even if you're caught, you stand a chance of being assigned to a better owner than the one you ran from. It's about a 50-50 chance of being sent back to your original owner versus being shoved onto a new one if you're caught in another nation (think like a 50-50 pull guarantee... but both possibilities are awful). That being said, the owner can make a report, and offer a specific reward amount/bounty for finding the runaway, and if it's high enough, even the law in another nation might see it as worthwhile to return you.

However, in the case of being found by someone who isn't the law... well, you don't belong to anyone here. So while they're technically not supposed to, most legal agencies will allow property registration for "unclaimed" girls who are very clearly runaways from another nation. First they just run a check to make sure it's not a runaway from anyone in that nation, but they're not gonna bother to check outside of it, so the boy can essentially just sign some papers and be done. Generally, any boy in this situation will do exactly that, because now that you're his property, if you go missing he can legally file for a search, and anyone who finds you will be legally obligated to return you. A man caught harboring/holding captive a girl that legally belongs to someone else, and especially daring to engage in any sexual activity, are crimes known as human property theft and human property damage respectively, terms coined specifically for this occurrence.

Alternatively, you can forge papers -- a lot of the black markets mentioned in the previous post will provide fake registration documents you can present when asked for papers. Some will even have people on the inside who can forge your name onto official written database documents. And, of course, if you're good enough friends with someone in the actual legal system, they might be able to turn a blind eye and/or change up some documents as a favor for a friend.

And, as aforementioned, there's straight-up theft. This is the most dangerous for the male party, of course, because as you can imagine, punishment for that whole 'human property' crimes is severe and, depending on the nation, can range anywhere from years of prison to actual death. But it happens, boys are just desperate... and often times the girl is in on it too. Belonging to some wealthy, but gross old dude, one that beats you and is cruel to you and uses you? Who would want that? The money isn't worth it... but there's that cute guard that works on the estate property, who's so so sweet to you, who blushes and smiles and is younger and handsome... as you can imagine, this is a scenario that is not actually all that uncommon. Especially as there's so many owned by the wealthy, and even the black market ones either have to be somewhat well-off. Obviously, this leads to a lot of buyers being very old rich dudes, and not exactly appealing to the girls they own. It's considered something of a stroke of good luck to be owned by a younger, rich-kid sort of boy, or bought by a younger guy who saved up money.

Another important thing of note is that, despite being overall more horrendous for women, virgin obsession isn't nearly as big of a deal, although they still have obnoxious ideals of "purity". Virgins are virtually unheard of and nearly nonexistent, but most still would be devastated to find out you've been communal at any point or had a ton of men before... everyone knows that the more cocks one girl has taken in her lifetime, the more addicted she is and the less satisfied she'll be with just one! And she'll almost certainly try to run off with another man! This is a well-known fact. Still, sometimes they just can't help which ones they fall in love with... so most guys are forgiving, they'll just have to keep an extra close eye on you and make sure to keep you more frequently stuffed full to ensure you don't get any ideas.

All of that said, there's an obvious logistics issue to be worked out here, of course, something that really doesn't make sense on it's own - if there are only so few women... where are all the guys coming from? Which would be the natural question to have about such a universe.

Well, seeing as the birth ratio is so unbalanced, it stands to be reasonable that other aspects of birth are equally different in this universe -- twins and triplets are extremely common, expected even. Single births are the less common occurrence. Not to mention, fertility goes on quite a bit longer, a woman is still very highly fertile even well into her 40s and 50s. And culturally, they... really push poor girls' breeding capacities to their limits. The average girl will spend pretty much the majority of her adult life getting pregnant back-to-back with very little time for respite in between. And with the frequency of multiples, this all amounts to the average woman having a lot of children, averaging around 20. Which may very well all be boys, seeing as (if we go with the original premise of a 95-5 male-female ratio), only about one in every 20 births are a girl, but plenty have even more yet never have a girl.

Which presents a new problem -- who has the resources for that? Well, they don't. Only the wealthy can really afford to keep all their kids, and even then they often hire caretakers since the mother has difficulty handling it on her own. As for less wealthy people... well, some just actively choose to have fewer kids. But in this universe, that's actually somewhat shamed -- see, people are gonna have kids anyway, so if you don't have a ton, you're not helping to keep society running! Not to mention everyone should have as many kids as possible so there will be more girls in the world, right? If people only have a few kids, that means women will become even rarer, and that would be tragic.

It's a cultural thing.... well, a cross-cultural thing, seeing as it's a present sentiment in literally every culture here. But people don't really stop to question it, it's just a known cultural pressure to have as many as possible. And you know all those brothels and gloryholes? None of them get birth control of any kind, unlike many in the real world. Why would they? Breeding is the goal at all times, even if the father is a guy who you only ever felt through a wall for about 45 seconds. Of course, it's better to have an actual owner, since that makes life more bearable in general and gives a kid an obviously better environment.

Still, ultimately the many young boys are dealt with in various ways. Many are adopted out -- after all, there's so many men out there who will unfortunately never have a girl (tragic) but still want a kid, even if not by blood. Many of such men are basically just craftsmen, operating under a system (there was a similar thing in our world across various cultures in eras past) where a young boy is basically adopted out to him at a very young age and trains under him so that he has someone to inherit the business. Then that boy grows up, and if he's not fortunate enough to acquire a girl, the cycle continues. So ultimately, the average couple will keep the firstborn and maybe the second and third or so on before they simply run out of resources and have to start adopting out. Unless, as aforementioned, you're wealthy, in which case you just hire people to help raise the kids. But for those boys that get adopted out from middle or lower class families, often times it's shortly post-birth, and they don't live in rich areas (where female-havers are more common), which means you have a good deal of boys who have literally never seen a female in their lives.

And speaking of age and the whole wealth disparity, part of the reason that girls are passed around and resold so often, and so often the same ones over and over, is because due to the wealth and class standing imbalance, unfortunately many men participating in owning girls are gross old dudes, as previously mentioned. And, well, they die. But seeing as women are not exactly considered fully autonomous humans, they don't get the luxury of being able to live comfortably off of his inheritance, and there's no point in leaving a perfectly good female to sit around not being actively used. So they're just collected by whatever law enforcement or legal system is in place in that particular nation and resold again. Being sold to a young man is, as addressed, often considered by girls to be both a potential blessing... but also can be a curse -- sure he's not gross and could even be cute, but you're stuck with him for the foreseeable future, possibly the rest of your life. So if he's mean or annoying, well, you're stuck with that.

Now, checking up on our poor, poor girls from the last post since they ended up in their situations...

---------------------

Childe is so, so happy now that he finally has his own trophy! Now he doesn't have to sit there at meetings as the only one without a toy in his lap.

Of course, even someone of his status still has to go through the whole registration/legal process. It's always so hard to get the girl's thumbprints, sigh. But the legal agencies are used to how much they thrash and struggle, so they hold the paper down with paperweights and help the man hold the girl still and force her arm out enough to press the ink sponge to her thumb and then thumb to paper, all with fury in her eyes and making awful, almost animal-like sounds through clenched teeth. They even keep a little jar of cotton balls on the shelf for those occasions where someone gets scratched or bitten.

See, they have developed technology (through whatever fantasy explanation you deem most believable - ancient Khaenri'ah technology rediscovered, some sort of kamera-esque mechanics, etc) that reads thumbprints, and most girls know this. It's basically a death sentence to any hopes of freedom from the man you're with once that print is on record. Childe is fairly strong though, so he doesn't really need help forcing you still. Intertwines your fingers so you can't curl your thumb back (it also doubles as a cute romantic gesture, how nice!), pins one arm behind your back and holds the other extended, easy. Besides, if you put up too much of a struggle, he can grab you by the jaw and murmur through clenched teeth exactly what will happen to you if you continue to be a little brat about it.

In general, whenever his sweet little wife is being bad, he can remind you how lucky you are to be his and not a piece of public property, not like the communal fucktoys of the rest of the Fatui either. How would you like to be shared between fifteen different men, hm? Fucked day in and day out and constantly having to quell fights over your holes? No, you wouldn't like that at all, would you? Instead, you get one man who really cares about you. And yet you continuously misbehave, as if you're not grateful for the life you get to lead. Little reminders are necessary.

They are also a lot more... open, in this place. The communal property girls don't always get the decency of privacy. It kinda depends on the guy, but most... don't really have a privacy option. Most very low-ranks sleep in military-style housing, you know, like huge rooms with multiple rows of small bunk beds. The most privacy you can get is fucking with the covers over you both in a room with at least several other guys in there at any given time, or trying to sneak off to a closet or something, but that's more difficult maneuvering. But plenty are shameless -- you can easily walk down the hall and find some poor girl on her knees while some guy is leaned against the wall skullfucking her, pulling her head up and down. Walk into the locker rooms to shower, they already have some bukkake-esque gangbang going on with every orifice in the girl's body completely stuffed all at once and drenched in cum from the rest jerking off on her. If a meeting or announcement is taking a while to start because someone is running late, someone might just bend one over the meeting table and the others join in and soon they're running a train on the poor thing. Some random locations around the building complexes at HQ will even have random soft mats and pillow-esque cushions and furniture laying around here or there if there's no beds nearby, since bending them over tables can get uncomfortable. While each girl is *technically* assigned to a specific group of anywhere from 5 to 30 guys or so (depends on her rank), in situations like that, no one is really going to take time to check whether or not each one in line is a part of the assigned group. Nor would anyone notice when you yourself used to sneak away when such things took place, not wanting to be exposed nor being able to stomach watching it happen. It always made you sick for the rest of the day imagining that that could soon be you if you made a single small mistake.

You, on the other hand, now get a nice bright collar that's specifically a different color from the other ones so people know it's off-limits. They have a whole color-coded collar system to designate which rung or group a girl is assigned to. Neat. Yours is even more special in that, as with other harbinger pets, it gets a metal plate with the owner's name engraved on it. Not that that matters too much, it's not like you're really ever more than a few feet away from the man. But you never know what bastard might be stupid and desperate enough to try anyway. But it's the same idea as far as privacy, the harbingers don't really have any either. They're desensitized to the point that they don't even cast a glance your way, as if you're not even there when you're squealing or crying out -- unless it's one of the ones that likes to watch. But if you really screw up, he's not really going to hesitate to punish you in front of others. In fact, the humiliation just makes the punishment that much more effective.

Unfortunately (to him), you spent so much time trying to pass for a male that you have some of the behaviors ingrained, so he thinks. You just have to... unlearn those behaviors. Because, based on what he's observed of the communal ones here, they're naturally really submissive and obedient, soft-spoken, sound a bit nervous when addressed. Yet you continue to act otherwise -- something must have gotten mixed up with your brain and needs to undergo a sort of factory reset, back to default settings, somehow. And besides, all boys grow up being told what girls are like, even if they're never met one, and read about them in books, see representations of them in theatre, etc. And they're always portrayed the same way, sweet and docile and submissive and loving, and that they love being owned. They like being property. He's read once or twice that they don't even really have thoughts and opinions other than pleasing their owner! That's what all the ones in the media representations and tales are like, and those are written by guys that know a lot about women, right?

But you, you're very... masculine... Well, keeping in mind that he sees basic dignity, having a will of your own, and ever doing anything but smiling and agreeing with everything he says and doing everything he wants as masculine traits. You speak loudly sometimes, like, at a volume where people can hear you?? The only time girls are supposed to be heard is the squeals and cries of getting fucked in public. That's excusable, but actually talking? Especially in a defiant tone? All that time pretending must have messed with your head. But no worries, it is a well known fact -- so he was always told -- that sex is more or less a cure-all for their behavioral issues.

Which turns out to be quickly proven correct -- bending you over and pounding you back and forth has you quickly apologizing, whimpering that you're sorry and won't do it again. Even after he cums in you, you just lay there twitching and staring off into space. You must be deep in thought reflecting on your actions, and thinking about how wrong you were to misbehave like that. Sometimes you just forget your place, which makes sense considering all that time you spent pretending to be a guy... so you just have to be reminded of what you are and how inferior you really are, and the best way to do that is overpowering you and stuffing you full.

Also making sure you present normally again. Nice soft dresses and socks that come up to your thighs. If you had short hair and it's possible to grow it out, obviously that will be a required change as well. Jewelry and pretty little bells and ribbons for your collar. All little things to hopefully set you back on the right path.

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I also like to think of another poor darling that is communal... assigned to the lowest grunts (don't lie to yourself you know we all thirst for the Fatui mobs), to take care of their needs. The Fatui buys them in bulk, saves money that way. Such bulk deals are usually available to organizations and the like. Like if you buy 10, each one is 25% off, that sort of thing. However, being assigned to that lowest rung on the hierarchy is considered by the girls themselves to be the worst possible role you can be assigned.

See, they don't bother to assign you to a specific group. You're just... communal. A couple of girls are assigned to the entire rank of those lowest grunts. Go walk around the premises, so you're told on the first day. They have that color system for the collars, so people know what you are. Just go in circles around the facility, you'll easily be stopped dozens of times before you can even make one full lap. The lowest rung of newbies and grunts has a lot of people, though. And what's worse, the newbies are, well, newbies. Mostly young guys (and thereby hornier), and you might be the first female they've seen in their lives. Many such young boys who have recently reached adulthood leap at the first chance to join the organization that promises free sex with a real live girl -- in fact, you kinda start to think many of them joined for that sole purpose... not that they can just get theirs and leave though. The organization (despite being the ones who actively advertise the free sex thing in the first place, it really is a good recruiting method!) has planned for the possibility of those who join just to get some coochie and then bail, so they're required to sign contracts of guaranteed service time.

Still... the phrase that comes to your head is like animals. You're not sure how many in total, you're just sent out into the general crowd of all the newbies and lower ranks all gathered around, there's at least 200 or so, and only yourself and maybe two others... You cautiously walk along and get your first face to face encounter with a group of five or so who are very clearly young guys... the kind who you're fairly certain truly have not seen a girl before you, especially given the look of awe and fascination and lust in their eyes, and the way they were all talking to each other but dropped silent and open-mouthed as you turned the corner. It's... awkward for you... should you say something... are you supposed to offer or...?

But you don't really get the time to consider it. It really is animalistic, you don't get to say a word or do anything before being more or less pounced upon, body contorted in all sorts of ways as different pairs of hands grab at various parts of you trying to pull you in different directions. One of the bigger ones can more easily brute force his way into shoving the other aside and getting inside you rather quickly, picks your whole body up to twist you to face him and fucks you from underneath, making your ass and mouth available for two more, and maybe one more cock in one of your holes once you start to dissociate and your muscles involuntarily go lax. But of course, the commotion just draws more of them over, and quickly gains interest. At first, you can acutely feel when one slides out and another in, usually only a second in between or so, but soon you start to go numb from friction, only barely aware of the sensation of friction and gagging on the repeated pounding on the back of your throat. You can only really tell when there's a rotation between the ones taking your mouth based on the fact that you can see them, and even when you close your eyes you're aware of the gasps of breath you get to take when your mouth is empty. You lose your sense of time. And your consciousness, since you only get a few breaths here or there. There's finally a point at which most of them are spent, you get a few moments to lay on the ground twitching and staring out blankly with empty eyes. And then someone comes over and starts shaking you, a concerned sort of voice asking if you're alright... oh, your eyes turned to look at him, so that means you're okay. Now he can fuck you without worry. There's always some of those 'vultures' as you come to think of them -- they feel uncomfortable or nervous trying to get in when there's more of a... crowd participation, so they wait until things have died down to come enjoy what's left afterwards.

It's only a taste of the coming days, some worse than others. The days tend to meld together, you sleep in short intervals of a few hours at a time to a point where you are only barely aware of whether the sky is light or dark. It's all one repetitive cycle of the same thing over and over. You prefer it when it's just one at a time. Training days are much better for that reason, only a few have breaks at a time and you have a lot more one-on-one encounters. In contrast, once a month or so they all get a day off all at once, which you regard as your least favorite day of each month.

Due to the normalization of it and lack of privacy, it's a lot of scenes that would probably look bizarrely casual to someone from the outside. A group can just be up on a weekend night drinking and talking but on the other side of the room the rest of them have a girl bent over a table. They have military-style athletic drills each morning, but as part of motivation the ones currently drilling can see off to the side where the ones who have already finished running the laps are getting ridden and sucked off laying on the grass. Guys in their down time talking in a group, each sitting on their own tiny bed, but after a few minutes they have to shout at the guy all the way at the end the room to put his hand over the girl's mouth because she's so loud they can't hear each other. ...And that when he's done, tell her to come over their way. They can keep having their conversation over the wet sounds of each one getting sucked off, you move from one to the next in a short circle.

Of course, there would seem to be an easy solution... hide, right? Go sit in a closet or something for the duration of the day. And you can try... but the thing is, over time, the boys learn who you are, learn to recognize your face and voice and can tell you apart from the others. Some consider you their favorite. Talk to you a bit even, as they often tend to do when they want someone to smile and nod while they complain. You get a lot of repeats, each one tends to gravitate towards a different girl based on their preferences. They're so sad when they can't find their favorite... sad enough that they go tell a higher-up that they can't find you... and then they come looking for you... and that does not end well. The girls who attempt to hide or sneak around and get caught (and they all eventually do, even if they get away with it for a while) generally don't ever try that again.

And the other problem with "favorites" is that there's only one of you and maybe ~30-40 or so boys that consider you their favorite. And they want to spend time with (and inside of) their favorite whenever possible - and some whose "favorite" is occupied decide to come to their second-favorite instead, there's still plenty of sharing all-around. This creates conflict. Sometimes mild aggression, snapping and snarling at each other until one gives in. And then sometimes, the conflict actually gets violent. Like watching rams butt heads. It's almost difficult to believe they would get so violent over something so trivial in your mind, but all you can do is stare wide-eyed and stammer trying to get them to stop.

But occasionally, you get the soft ones, and that... makes things more bearable. Sweet boys that only come over when the others aren't around, because they don't want to fight (or know they couldn't). pull you over to their tiny little assigned bed or into a closet and actually have the humanity to ask if anything hurts or if he's doing something wrong. Usually spewing nice things about how you're so pretty and feel good, even awkwardly thank you for your... services... once you're done. Stammer something about how he didn't know they'd be so warm... as if he was expecting females to feel like a plastic doll or something. Other "softies" as you think of them are the opposite... they're silent, saying nothing, not looking you in the eye, but you can feel their trembling hands and recognize their efforts to be gentle, actually caring about your own well-being. Some even seem to try and make you feel good. And sometimes, afterwards, they will ask you to stay... for just a few minutes... if you can...? Is that allowed?

It's not -- you're supposed to go try to find another as soon as one is done -- but you can make an exception. Sometimes they ask you questions... boys in general always seem so fascinated, like you're an alien species or something, and almost seemed surprised by how similar you are to their own humanity. Sometimes they end up venting. Spilling out all their problems and frustrations, emotions all pent up and no one in the world to share them with except for you... they usually apologize and get embarrassed afterward, though. And some just lay there quietly, hug you close to them, nearly fall asleep. Might be the only chance they'll ever have to do so. It can only last a few minutes until someone inevitably comes around and notices your holes aren't being stuffed and tells you to either fuck the boy or get up and find one that will. You at least offer the poor thing another round if he's able before you go.

And sometimes you remember them, too. There's tons of them, sure, but sometimes you recognize the same faces, and they recognize yours too. Once again, for some you're the favorite. Some boys develop an attachment to you and specifically seek you out, desperate for a sense of connection and relationship and not just empty sex, even if that "relationship" is as pathetic as searching around for the same girl again. They call you by name, but you don't have the heart to tell them that you don't remember theirs. Not among the dozens and dozens of ones you've met. It's much easier for the 100+ boys to be able to distinguish between three or four girls than it is for you to tell them apart... but over time, as the whole "favorites" thing gets settled in, the same boys come back to you over and over so frequently that you do start to get a somewhat better idea of who is who. You remember little details about them, some act or position they like, something they once vented to you about... but the names you always have trouble with.

You like to think that you can come across those boys again, once you've completed the first year of service and automatically get promoted up a rank where you can finally be assigned to a specific group. The starting rank is 25-to-1, so there's a chance of having one of those sweet soft ones in the group, right? You hope so. Besides, apparently at the third rank up you can actually wear clothes! They give you lots of motives to hope for 'promotions,' but after the initial one you have to actually be chosen for a promotion, so the motive ensures you're on your best behavior.

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Chongyun is a special case -- I didn't mention him in the last post but I have since thought of him more in regards to this. He gets a female after they realize it would be, well, good for him. Yang energy is traditionally associated with masculinity, yin energy with femininity. So, how to curb his whole yang energy problem? Balance it out with a healthy dose of pussy yin energy. At least, such is what his family decides on. So they all pitch in a bit, it's the least they can do for him, given his talents and effort, and eventually gift him a girl.

And, as aforementioned, you're rather lucky -- he's a sweet young man, handsome, won't harm you or beat you and genuinely cares about you. He really does try, albeit very awkwardly, from the moment you arrive he's stammering out constant questions to ask if you're okay and comfortable or if you need anything.

And, to everyone's satisfaction, it turns out it works! He has noticeably less episodes and maintains better calm around you. Of course, it's probably not so much your presence so much as the fact that he's pounding every conceivable frustration into you, but same idea. He uses you in the same way he used to use the popsicles - whenever he starts to feel angry or heated, he just defaults to pulling you away to the nearest private or secluded spot. Even if there's nothing to bend you over, pounding into your throat works just as well. He always feels a little bad after, apologizes for getting so rough, but that is your purpose after all, you were specifically purchased for the purpose of assisting him with this issue.

On that note, you actually uh... help attract demons. The whole energy thing balances out and helps neutralize his energy so that demons won't vanish at his mere presence. So really, you do help him with his job. He's very proud of this teamwork. You... exist, and he takes care of the rest! You make a great duo that way.

However, in this universe he's essentially forced to be a little more severe than he'd normally be. Here, the whole "every other man is a threat" isn't just a yandere's delusion, it's like, actual reality. So while he can normally be a bit lenient and a bit of a softie, the inherent nature of this universe dictates that he can't afford to be like that here. He tries his best to be understanding, but you have to understand you can't just run off like that! Don't you realize someone might steal you? Hurt you? What would he do then? He wants to protect you as much as he can, but come on, you have to cooperate with him. If you can't listen, you'll just have to be on a collar and leash like a lot of other guys do with their females. He knows it's humiliating, but you left him with no choice.

And consequently, he's a lot more defensive towards others than he'd normally be. He's self aware enough to know he can be a little bit naive and dense at times. So he can't trust anyone, they're probably all looking at you and plotting in their heads how to steal you. Consequently, he spends a bit more time secluded than he used to, preferring to take you out for walks in the wilderness area rather than the harbor. Whenever you walk in public, heads always turn to look at you, some guys point at you and there's murmurs of wondering how a guy so normal and young-looking managed to get one, must be secretly rich or something.

And if someone tries to come up to you or speak to you or mock him, poor thing is immediately defensive, assumes they're trying to initiate physical combat... and responds by pulling out his weapon which basically IS initiating physical combat... at least he's managed to win every fight thus far.

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I actually really like the idea briefly mentioned from last time that Diluc's darling actually was one of the public property girls. But consider, you just... kinda kept quiet about that when you were being looked over... You knew that this man telling you about his son would be less likely to buy you if he knew that, and you latched onto the hope of being with a younger guy.

But the behavioral standard is huge among the upper classes. Poor thing... you're all wide-eyed with fear knowing full well you're never going to remember all the things this man is telling you about his son and exactly how you're supposed to behave for him. He lays out all these house rules, not only simple "don't do this" rules, but rules about everything -- what you can and can't touch, a specific set of tasks which are the only ways you are allowed to spend your free time, which house staff you may and may not speak to, how to address him, how to address your new husband, how to behave when there is company, topics you may not bring up and which topics you should to make him happy. But, as he says, that's more specific to living here -- he trusts you already have the basics of how to be submissive and respectful ingrained, right?

You don't know how to tell him that you weren't raised to know any of these things, that the only thing you were ever taught how to do was take dick, none of the etiquette. You don't know how to be a good wife, you were never taught, it was assumed you'd never be in that position...

But he's not cruel, he softens a bit when he sees your wide, nervous eyes. Alright, maybe he's going a bit too fast... you're of lesser intelligence, after all, your brain probably can't absorb so much information at once. You'll go over the basics, then. Don't look anyone else in the eye except your husband (you may also do so with himself, since he's trusted). If anyone else is in the room, don't speak without permission. Said permission may be obtained by looking at him and pointing to your mouth or tug on his sleeve, to which you then see if he nods or shakes his head or asks what you want to say, and comply accordingly. And if you do speak, speak to him, not to the room as a whole. You should already know this, of course, it's only standard. If there is something you wish to communicate to another person or the room -- a situation that shouldn't really occur often, but just in case -- you lean over and speak into his ear and he can repeat it to the other person if he finds doing so acceptable. You do not speak directly to or look at the other person.

That being said, such a scenario shouldn't arise often. Your husband will know enough about you to answer basic questions -- surely you are also aware of that much. That if someone asks your age, your name, your place of origin, or anything of the sort, you stay silent, he'll answer the questions, not you. After all, the other party isn't going to be asking you anyway. They're going to ask how old is she, what's her name, not "you" or "your." No man is insane enough to speak to some other man's girl directly, such a thing would be considered extremely inappropriate and even possibly an insult or sign of aggression or a threat.

You're so, so nervous when you first start out, trembling and afraid of messing up... but it turns out your master is fairly understanding. A bit blunt -- says there's no reason to be so afraid, he's not gonna hurt you or anything. That being said, he does quickly prove to have some... explosive tendencies. It turns out that he will, in fact, hurt you when you screw up, albeit not too severely. It's only so that you learn your lesson. And he's fairly understanding at first, he cuts you some slack for the first week or so, letting you off with a sigh. Only a week in or so does he start implementing more serious consequences for bratty or defiant behavior or failure to comply with a rule.

Eventually... the truth comes out and, one day by some means, you accidentally more or less let it slip that you were once one of the public property toys, either a brothel worker or a glory hole or the like. You freeze up with wide eyes... he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. Well, this is... not a pleasant thing to hear. Still, he forgives you.

That's his specific wording. Forgive you. As if it was ever your choice. Forgive you for being a slut, forgive you for hiding it... but, that explains why you're such a brat sometimes. You're so used to being full of cock all the time, that you get grumpy whenever you're not. Well, that can be worked out. Now when he works, you can just cockwarm him while he sits at his desk, or ride his fingers too. Problem more or less solved. But he'll still keep a closer eye on you... and be a bit more insecure from now on.

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Xingqiu's darling is in a similar situation. His family puts a slight more emphasis on a certain issue though... his father is rather disappointed to hear that you've been here for all of three months and you aren't pregnant yet! Does his son not care about having heirs? They already hired caretakers and consulted a doctor and everything, all in preparation that once his son got a wife, there would certainly be a few kids soon after.

They hire a doctor, of course, hoping that will fix things. Said doctor merely tells them that you're just uneasy and nervous and adjusting to a new environment... nothing to worry about. Soon, the issue will work itself out. Until then, just make sure you're breeding multiple times a day, every day, make sure nothing spills out. He even recommends specific positions that are more likely to conceive.

In general, though, your new life is pretty easy to adjust to, especially considering it's incredibly relaxed and luxurious. You don't really have to do anything other than sit there and open your legs whenever you're told to do so. The rules are easy to follow - much like the Mondstadt norms, it's mostly basically just not looking at or speaking to anyone besides him. He gets pouty when you make a mistake of looking up at a house guest, or once when you accidentally forgot and spoke to his older brother unprompted. That being said, he's not as strict on rules of dress. While you're supposed to be extremely modest as per the norms, he actually kind of likes seeing you show a lot of skin, especially if others are present that can see it.

That brings us to another issue with him as a result of him being... the way that he is. He likes showing off. He does have a degree of humility to him, and we know he's generally very pleasant and good-natured, but he's sometimes very lacking in self-awareness in regards to things like wealth and advantages he's had. He's always been that kid that would just "why don't you just buy a new one?" whenever something expensive breaks, stuff like that. That is, he's aware he's wealthier than others, but sometimes fails to grasp just how significant the gap is, and just how much of an advantage he has over others.

Thus, he commits a mistake made by many younger guys that get wives when they're just a little too naive -- he shows you off to everyone. I mean, can't really blame him for being excited, you know? So whenever he sees one of his friends in town or has friends come visit him, whenever people come visit his brother or father even, basically whenever there's anyone at the estate, he's very quick to bring you out to stand beside him in a not-so-subtle gesture as if to say look at what I have! You can always feel the jealous, seething gazes of less-fortunate others, even witness the occasional whining of a young man of similar age asking his father how come he doesn't get to have a wife while that guy does? And that -- knowing how jealous others are -- makes him very, very happy.

It's also very, very stupid, which his father has tried to remind him multiple times. It's like he's trying to get into trouble. If he keeps showing off, some dude is going to try and steal you, if not even try to attack or even kill him in the process. But he just can't resist the temptation, everyone has to know! It's bound to get him in trouble eventually...

And it does... from one of the estate servants, of all people. At one point, the guy decides has had enough of seething in bitterness as he watches you every day, waits until he knows the young master is occupied. You always try to escape the guards who are set to watch over you at those times, they're so suffocating. It's one of the few rules you break regularly, much to your master's displeasure, but you can't help it, you need your space. You take a nice little stroll to your usual secluded spot, out in one of the family's gardens... but you feel watched. Like there's someone there... but you're convinced you imagined it until there's a hand over your mouth and a voice telling you to hold still. Well, while he intended on just stealing you away, the way you squirm and whimper is just too cute, so it won't hurt to have you once right here and now... but oh, it does. The guards are rather used to you running off by now, so they check on you more frequently, know the spots you often hide in, and it's not long before one finds you, right as the poor guy was about to shove his cock inside...

And you do almost feel bad for him. Having taken a chance at something he'd otherwise have no chance of getting in his life. They don't really forgive these things or take any chances, and the wealthy can more or less do what they want in this regard, so said guard follows through with the known instructions and runs him through on the spot. You wince and cover your mouth, tears fill your eyes... and the guard realizes he'll probably get chewed out for doing it right in front of you, sigh, should've thought about that.

But not as reprimanded as you. What were you thinking? Not to mention how many times you've been scolded and punished for trying to run off in the past. It's inexcusable. He realizes now he's been far too lenient with you, letting you get away with this in the past with a mere slap on the wrist. But this time, you will be punished more severely, and in the future you will be attending all major functions with him, no matter how much you complain about being 'bored,' unless it's something private that he can't bring you into. In which case you will be watched by the guards consistently, rather than having them guard your room and merely checking in on you every few minutes. It's necessary, so his father and older brother advise him -- they're incapable of 'learning from their mistakes' in the way men are, they simply don't have the brain capacity to understand how their actions lead to these results nor recognize when they're engaging in the same behaviors again. So it's for your own good that for now he'll be keeping you on his lap at almost all times.

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Kazuha has an interesting case because him and his darling are going to be on the road a lot. With his complicated relationship to Inazuma and his status as a wanderer, he can't really go get you registered, as he's not a citizen of Liyue or Mondstadt or any other places you travel.

Of course, he still introduces you as a wife whenever people meet you. He can't tell them the truth and risk someone taking you or reporting him, of course. You two are just a traveling duo, going from place to place (I keep envisioning a Lawrence/Holo dynamic except much less willing girl lol) together... except it's not exactly willing on your end.

But unfortunately... he finds out you are from the nation he found you in. And, according to your own words, your (legal) master is a fairly influential, wealthy person. If you were caught by law enforcement, they'd surely take you away and imprison him for theft or worse. Still... he's had a taste of what it feels like to be inside you... it's worth it honestly. He can't just let you go. He might end up one of the guys who purchases fake papers in the end to be honest.

But yes, he has no intentions of returning you. He can be your master now. If you had a mean one in the past, he promises he'll be better. He's very insistent on this, brings it up quite a bit. It's what he always reminds you, always says -- he'll be better than any master you had before. He'll be good, promise, make you happy. So don't be scared of him. You'll like him if you stop being so nervous and distant. He makes up this concept in his head that you had a horrible master before him, and any issues you run into are attributed to that, regardless of whether or not that's true (although confirming that is the case will just make him more insistent on the matter). He has heard lots of awful stories about terrible people who don't appreciate their wives. He's not like that, promise. You're just defensive because you're afraid he will be the same. Traumatized, poor thing.

He's sure you'll like him more eventually. But without legal registration of you as property, how can he get you to stay, you ask? Well, he has his ways. After the first little while of encountering you (and forcing you on your hands and knees and breeding you right there by the river you were bathing in), he tells you that he's rather exceptionally fast. If you run from his side, he will catch you. That is the simple truth and something you need to accept. You cannot outrun him, he guarantees that much, he says. It will be easier on you both if you just stay by his side.

After acquiring you, he makes a beeline for the nearest blacksmith to order a set of iron-linked leather handcuffs (they already have a ton for sale, as its a very popular item). Two pairs, actually, just for security in case one breaks. So, his solution is rather simple: when you sleep, he cuffs your wrist to his. He wears the key as a necklace and tucks it into his shirt, makes it so that you can't retrieve it without waking him, and, well, that's how you two sleep. Although, if you've been bad or tried to run, he'll leave it on throughout the day too. In most cultures, young boys are taught lots of things about girls, in case they end up with one. It's usually incorporated into the education curriculum. For example, he was always told that females have a habit of being very spiteful and overdramatic, and often they will run off... not because they really want to get away, but because they are being bitter, or angry over something and want to make their master panic out of spite. Or, if they feel ignored and unloved, they will become bitter and run off to try and get their master's attention and affection.

So when you inevitably do try to bolt, he tries to handle the situation based on his knowledge. Has he done something to make you feel unloved, that you want his attention? If you wanted attention, you only need ask. Perhaps you were embarrassed to ask for such a thing... well, he will make more of an effort to be affectionate. Your long walks down the roads are often quiet, maybe he'll try speaking to you more.

But like any young man, he's fascinated by your existence. Never been around one up close. You don't get much traveling done, the first few days. Too busy finding out what he's been missing out on his whole life. He's so sweet about it, yet... forceful nonetheless. You're very clearly trying to pull away, but he just murmurs that it's okay, you just need to get used to it. You probably really are traumatized... from the bad master you had before. Maybe he was mean to you. But he's better. If you stop squirming so much, you'll start to feel good. That was another thing he learned from a young age... they often may be reluctant to have sex because they're scared or unconfident, and that's usually because of past experiences. So, you have to be extra nice, or so was the solution they were given. Because they're made to breed, so once you get past the mental barriers they may have, they start wanting it all the time.

He certainly can't wait for that. So he encourages you to transition to that as soon as possible... he figures praising you should do the trick. Every night out by the little campfires you two set up at dusk, pounding you on your knees, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you close. He goes out of his way to praise you as much as he can, telling you how good and pretty and tight and warm you are, how much he loves you, how hard you make it for him not to cum in you too soon. If you feel more confident, you'll reach that breaking point and become a little slut for him more quickly. And, he has heard that girls can orgasm too, it you rub at their parts and kiss them enough, so he tries his best to achieve that as well, feeling very proud of himself once you finally do. He's sure you're well on the way to accepting him soon.

---------------------

The best thing about Albedo's synthetic girl is that she's continuously modifiable. He can add new features on at any time through a process he developed that will allow him to make certain changes to the brain at small levels. So when there's a behavior he doesn't like... He modifies. Over and over until his little wife is perfect.

He can influence the things she likes, even, the very core of her thought process, he manages to go above and beyond in perfecting the process used to make himself and take it so much further. He makes you like the same activities and foods and topics that he likes. He makes your internal sleep rhythm the same as his. He makes you like the same temperature of the room as he does.

And he makes you like him. The first modifications are things that he could, perhaps, manage to find a real-life girl who matches it, but he creates in your head an innate dependency on him. Your brain is set to trigger and release large rushes of certain chemicals and endorphins with specific word phrases or actions. If he walks into the room from outside, you get a huge rush of serotonin. When he's been gone exactly five hours, any happy chemicals are rapidly stripped so that you'll feel a sudden wave of sadness, increasing the contrast to the burst of happiness you'll get when he returns (he's kind enough to at least allow you a little bit of time without having to put you through misery every single time he leaves for a few minutes). And when you disobey him, your pain receptors go off, so that you can't do anything he told you not to or not do what he asked without feeling physical pain that will get worse and worse the more you defy him. And when you do what he wants -- when he pats the top of your head or calls you good -- that word and that action are set to trigger another onrush of happiness. You become addicted.

And, of course, he took the liberties of some other modifications as well, specific to your very nature. You have a very low IQ. Your thoughts are limited. You don't really grasp a lot of complex topics. And that's fine. You don't need to grasp much of anything. You really only think about making him happy and the things you're supposed to do. But a lot of your time is spent with your head quite literally empty. Sometimes he lets you stay "on" while he's gone, lets you do things like draw or color or make food, but sometimes he has something he does that puts you into a sort of "dormant" state -- not quite sleep, but rather the absence of thought. Your eyes close, but you don't enter sleep, yet your brain has no activity at all. Just... dormant. Perhaps he's simply so paranoid that, despite all the measures he's taken, he's worried that somehow you'll still find a way to think thoughts he doesn't want you to have, or to think about running away, to think about others... so it's best you don't think at all. He sees cases all the time of how men who thought they had loyal loving wives still have them run away... that only contributes to his paranoia.

Finally, of course, it only makes sense to make the sexual modifications. You have a significantly higher amount of certain hormones rendering you horny more often than not. Not that you can do anything about it on your own, since he has a belt fastened around your poor cunt -- specially sized to fit you specifically too! The most you can do whenever you're alone is desperately hump at pillows, poor thing. Not that that works either... obviously he would make it so that you physically can't orgasm unless he's the one doing it.

You're afraid of going outside, too. The four walls are comforting. If he's there, it's okay, but to even walk close to the door on your own makes your heart beat fast. You'd never dream of leaving. And when there are other people -- other people terrify you. Unnaturally so. Which he's rather proud of -- ah, those other guys are out there fighting for scraps for girls who are just going to be grumpy and disobedient anyway, all because they're desperate for sex. Not him, no, he has a perfect girl.

A little too perfect. So perfect that he has to constantly watch out. He does become rather paranoid. You're so perfect that anyone who sees you will certainly want to have you. Guys killing other guys for a female is already a not-too-uncommon occurrence (hell, even in our real 50-50 ratio world it isn't all that uncommon), so how much more then does he need to worry? That's why, after a while, he decides people can't know you exist. At first, he was somewhat proud to show you to others... after all, just having one is something that gives most guys bragging rights. But he's rather perceptive, quickly catches on to the looks of bitter hatred from other guys, not to mention that the first time he told people he made you, he was flooded with desperate guys wanting him to make one for them too... and his refusal to do so was probably a source of frustration... so he knows he needs to be a bit more discreet.

He just sort of starts hiding you. Spending more time in secluded encampments and not taking you outside unless there is no one else. Hoping people kind of forget about you and stop bothering him. But they don't. People still ask him where's that girl he normally has with him?? It gets bad enough that, in order to deflect, he finally 'confesses' that you 'ran away' and that he's been looking for you, but he didn't want to come across as so incompetent he'd let a girl slip through his grasp... sigh. He even goes so far as to officially report you missing, so that way it looks really authentic when there are posters and the like out for you.

The problem is that now he can't afford to slip up and have anyone find out that he was lying -- he has to keep you completely and entirely secluded, living away from others permanently, always looking over his shoulder every now and then. He knows you mean well, but he doesn't trust you to not accidentally make a sound or something if someone is coming by, so he puts you into that dormant state and slips you into a box in a closet or under the bed whenever there are people coming to visit. He always takes such good care of you when you come out of that state all groggy.

But you don't mind the fact that you never see another human being, that he's the only thing in the world that you know. You wouldn't know any better. And besides, he's already modified your brain to be incapable of being angry or resentful of him anyway.

---------------------

Xiao is only vaguely aware of how it all works... he mostly ignores the relations between humans themselves. But to be honest, he always has been somewhat curious about the females themselves... shrouded in confusing mystery to someone like him even more so than the average guy. There's a twinge of curiosity, every time he sees someone come through with one in tow... but it doesn't concern him, so he just shakes his head and clears his mind of the curiosity whenever such thoughts arise.

Of course, here the inn is owned by Huai'an, so that's the only person he ever really sees. But sometimes... he hears a voice coming from the room where the owner stays. The distinct sound of a voice that is so different from anything he's used to hearing that it immediately captures his attention. Softer, higher than anything he usually hears. He's aware that the guy has a wife (she was a gift actually, courtesy of the Qixing for all his hard work), but he's only very rarely seen her, and only at a distance, she almost never comes out. Understandably, there's so many unsavory types of men that come through the inn. Though he believes he wouldn't do anything bad and he's not a threat (yet), he is culturally aware enough to know he's not supposed to get too close to someone else's property. He's seen plenty of fights break out over things like that with humans.

But over time, he does at least become curious. It can't hurt to try and physically see what you're like up close. The women that visit the inn, whenever one of the ones fortunate enough to have one comes through, always stay close to the guy's side and cling to them and quickly get behind closed doors, he never catches their faces, they usually look at the ground. But there's a window to the innkeeper's room, and there's a perfect large branch of the tree that runs right below the window that would be perfect for perching upon to look through, and he can disappear in a mere instant if you spot him, so he waits there... tilts his head to watch... you're just sitting there now. Reading something. A normal activity to be engaged in, so that's a similarity. Although he knows a lot of them can't read, so you must be more educated than most, hm.

But many suspicions and rumors he's had are very quickly confirmed just by watching you go about your day, many things that he's heard spoken of can be seen. The clothes you wear over your chest when alone in your room are somewhat tight, so when you breathe he can see the... chest mounds move up and down with each breath. It's captivating. He could just kinda watch those for hours. And he does.

And eventually, you stand up, stretch. Change clothes. Huh, they're shaped weird. The waist and thighs and hips look different. They're not quite as straight, depending on the darling he notices they kinda... have a curve here or there... or for others, it's really curved, either way, how strange... are they all like that? Surely it's not just you, right? It really is weird. But it's a good weird. Nice to look at. In fact, lots of things are different... the way you walk and stand, even, when you stand still you sort of rest your weight on one foot and your hip pokes out.

And then, you start to turn around, so he has to dash away for a bit. And then the innkeeper comes back too, so all he can do is listen. He can't make out the words, just the muffled voices. But he can make out the sound when you laugh at something. The sound sends a warm, tight feeling through his body... odd. He was unaware their voices had physiological powers. In fact, he notices he feels all fuzzy and warm and jittery every time he spends time watching you. This is something particularly interesting, a similarity you have to him -- he assumes this effect is due to an energy you exude, just like how he had adepti energy that can have effects on humans. He must have just never been close enough to one before to have had their energy take effect on him. How do the humans withstand that energy for extended periods of time? It makes him feel so strange, and he's unsure yet of how to deal with it. He can't imagine they simply bear the effects without doing anything.

His curiosity probably should have been satiated from that, so he's not entirely sure why he comes back a second time. A third. A fourth. Watches you go about your everyday life. He tends to wait around for the part where you change clothes, and has memorized the time of day at which you usually do so. Sometimes you hum to yourself, and he likes that sound a lot, can just close his eyes and listen and rest. It's soothing. And he does that for a while... and becomes progressively more daring. You take naps during the day, so finally he gathers up some courage and decides to kinda... slip in through the window... oh, wow. Up close the differences are more obvious. Your shoulders and the shape of your face and body. It's all so strange. He has just an urge to... touch you... presses a hand to your skin... so warm. And then he hears someone coming up the stairs and has to bolt out again.

And that... becomes a routine. He finds himself thinking about your more and more and the urge gets stronger and stronger and soon he's jerking off over your sleeping form and trying not to cum directly on your face. Cautiously pulling your shirt up to expose the chest-mound things you have. Personally, that's his favorite of the "different" things of yours. Needless to say, he realizes that this is the method which humans use to purge the effects that your energy has on them.

And he finds himself feeling some tight, unpleasant knot in his stomach whenever he sees the inn owner walking around. Hmph, what did that guy ever do to deserve something so pretty? All he does is run an inn. And he doesn't even let you really leave the room! Well, he'd do the same in that position, but it just makes him mad to see someone else have such a policy. And at night, he can hear the sounds of you squealing and moaning through the walls... it makes him feel nauseous. Makes him grind his teeth.

And the worst part is that the owner can be mean to you. He ignores you, doesn't spend any time with you, only comes by to fuck you and then goes back to his business. He's even cruel, sometimes speaking rudely to you and getting angry at you and yelling. Sickening. It makes him seethe. How could someone be so ungrateful?

Well, if something were to happen to the owner...

I mean, is the inn really even that necessary? Sure it provides him with a place to stay while in the earthly realm, but it's not as if he doesn't have his own place to go whenever he needs to. It's bigger too, expansive, maybe you would like it better. Then you could go outside sometimes, out in the sun and grass, and you'd be safe from any other male while doing so. And he'd be so much nicer to you, he'd actually spend time with you.

Yes, you would like being his so much more. And, while he's normally humble and has no issue with a thankless role, he starts to rationalize it that way -- doesn't he deserve it? He keeps humans safe, takes care of evil for their sake, the least humanity can offer to thank him is a nice wife. Specifically that guy's wife. There's limited supply, after all, it's not so strange to want one that already belongs to someone else. He has seen plenty of human men fight and even kill each other in competition for one. And plenty of human men that straight-up premeditatedly murder another and take the female for themselves. It's normalized among humans, so when the inn owner is found in the lobby with holes run through his torso and his wife nowhere to be found, he doesn't feel particularly guilty.

But you, you are very difficult to reason with, you see. He has already explained more than once that he has no intention of harming you -- he didn't intend for you to see either, you just had to get curious over the sound of the man choking on his own blood and open the door to see him getting actively impaled. It was rather awkward, you both just sort of froze and stood there equally wide-eyed at each other until you started shrieking (so it's true that their screaming is incredibly high-pitched. Hm.). But you continue to act afraid, despite his explanations. Is this what he's always heard spoken of, that the females are irrationally emotional? Perhaps so. There's still so much he doesn't know, but he's patient and can learn with time. There's already so much he's seeing up close that fascinates him - the shape of your body is even more noticeable up close, and your voice sounds so different, and a lot of your words and actions make him feel very confused, like there's a lot of subtle things you're saying without saying them directly and he's not grasping any of it.

He'll be patient with such behaviors, too. Soon you'll understand that he did this to save you, and that he only has the best of intentions. Until then, he can tolerate this... what's the word...? Ah, hysteria.

[hannibalruinedme]

Shizaya and Nostalgia

This is a very personal late night rant. Many years ago, back when I was a thriving teenager, I discovered "Shizaya". I immediately got obsessed with the pair and started watching Durarara. (I've watched s2 and s3 while it was on going)

I was completely in love with Shizuo and Izaya. Especially Izaya. I was smitten by him. I remember even writing this huge ass love letter to Izaya in my note pad xD. I loved him. I genuinely did so. (I love him still. I love shizaya so damn much that it hurts)

It might sound awkward to some of you, but I genuinely care about these "fictional characters". They mean the world to me actually.

Back to Shizaya.

There wasn't a single doujin left which I didn't read back then. I used to read my favourite ones every night. Along with the ao3 fanfics. Separate folders in my phone for the fanarts and doujins. They were my main ship. The real OTP. Eventhough I knew it was very unlikely, I genuinely did root for them. And the consequence? Well. We all know what happened. Especially to Izaya. (Cried for days)

However my teenage self couldn't accept what happened to her one real OTP back then. After many weeks of tears (and desperate google searches including "will shizuo visit izaya?" "will izaya come back?") I decided to end it all for good. that's exactly what I did. With a broken heart I left the fandom after reading the "Sunset with Izaya".

Now 6 years later, I've come to this conclusion, which is:

Once a fangirl, is always a fangirl.

Once you love something, you never really get over it. The best you can do is to pretend you don't care.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a shizaya fanart which immediately reminded me of my past. My obsession. How they used to feel like home. How a fictional ship can become your safe place. A comfort zone. How genuinely happy you become when you find that one good fanfic! That one too realistic fanart which makes your heart shutter! So I said, FUCK IT, I'll just be strong for once and revisit the certainly dead fandom. (it's been too long).

Guess what? I realized the last shizaya fic was uploaded on ao3 a few hours ago...there are countless tumblrs dedicated to shizaya and they even update frequently.....which, really did make my heart ache tbh. I went on to read the shizaya doujins. They were published more than 10 years ago. I've read them countless times. (Brings back memories :""") )

It hurts to go back to them. It fills me with a SAD AF, NOSTALGIC ACHE. IT BREAKS MY GODDAM HEART AND MAKES ME WANNA CRY FOREVER, yet it's fine. I love it. They still feel like home. No matter what happened to them in the novel, doesn't really matter as long as there are still amazing ppl writing about them. Drawing them. Keeping them alive.

You writers, you fangirls, you crazy girls and boys dedicated to their OTPS.. DO YOU GUYS HAVE ANY IDEA HOW AMAZING YALL ARE? You guys deserve the world. Thank you so much for what you guys do. Thank you so much for writing such amazing fics. Thank you so much for giving our boys the love they deserve. For giving them the ending they truly deserved all along.

PS: it's been so long, so, can any of you please update me with the current shizaya news?? Any update after the sunset novel? How's my boy doing?

What's up with Shizuo in DRRR SH? (Please don't tell me he ended up with vorona now lmao)

Is there any chance they might come back...?

[kae-karo]

Now the revelations from the letters, what is your take on that night between Diluc and Kaeya? Did it change anything? Like it’s so good to me to see that they had letters this entire time and It’s fun to think of other interactions they had or etc! Especially with his eye and Diluc’s response to it

HEY HI HELLO ANON DEAR ahhhhhhhh what a GREAT question i feel like i haven't had the chance to ramble about the letters yet lmaoooo. adding a break cause DAMN this got long lmao

first and foremost, the biggest change for my perception of what happened that night is that diluc actually hit kaeya - to be totally honest, up til this point, i actually assumed diluc didn't hit kaeya? based on his vision story, he says "But as the two crossed blades, Kaeya was overcome by the sensation of great elemental power surging through him." (and then he got his vision) (x), which, for me, implied that the vision appeared and stopped diluc's blade from doing any damage? not that it was ever explicitly stated, but that was just how i interpreted that bit of lore! so it did actually surprise me that diluc not only swung at him but swung at his fACE? lsdkfjkdsf diluc really went no holds barred on kaeya lmao

i think the other part that surprised me had more to do with the manga, which led to some false beliefs about kaeya's eyepatch (i feel like this was very eye-opening, pun intended, about how i regard the manga lmao) namely, that kaeya did not have an eyepatch prior to their fight!! and ofc that kaeya's eye is perfectly normal apart from, supposedly, a scar. which begs the question of why it's so important for him to hide it, apart from hyv being like "this is a cool look let's make him look like this all the time" lmao

honestly, my overall take on what happened that night hasn't changed in a super vague sense, though - diluc, overwhelmed and upset from losing his father and suddenly being faced with the fact that his closest friend was placed in mond as a spy for a foreign land, acted brashly and out of pain, and attacked kaeya. kaeya expected and understood diluc's anger, but chose to face diluc as his true self regardless, which is what earned him his vision

from there, they parted ways, though kaeya obviously never stopped worrying over diluc, keeping him updated, etc. and diluc, in spite of his best efforts to pretend he didn't care, still responded twice to kaeya's letters - after his fourth message and again after his ninth (as far as i can tell) - which is just kind of adorable. even when they might have plenty of chances to speak in person, they send each other letters lmao (diluc presumably returned sometime between kaeya's 5th and 6th letters)

ANYWAY i'm getting off track lmao - i don't know that i can extrapolate much canon-wise about diluc's opinions with regards to the damage he did to kaeya's eye, he's clearly very tight-lipped on the matter but i do wonder how he found out prior to his return - i don't believe anyone else mentioned (in the letters diluc kept) that kaeya's eye wasn't blinded in the attack. diluc also says "i suggest you stop mentioning eyes in your letters", which is strange, because of the letters he kept, only the one immediately prior to diluc's response mentions eyes?

whiiiiiiiiiiiiiich begs the question of whether or not other letters existed, and if so, why diluc didn't keep them. or, better yet, why he did keep the ones he did lmao. the ones with "you don't have to reply" and "leave at night, too, so things won't be too saddening. take care" and various proofs of kaeya's efforts to help diluc in whatever ways he's able - really, every letter diluc kept is some proof of his assistance to diluc. i wonder why he'd find those particular qualities of a letter so meaningful :)

as for what kaeya kept - well, again, no proof that these are the only two letters, but the first is the one in which diluc mentions that he knows kaeya wasn't blinded. a fact that he knows somehow prior to his return to mond. the second not only gives clear ambivalence toward the knights of favonius, but diluc also suggests that kaeya take care of himself instead? those sound like begrudging admissions to me lmao - both of diluc's lessened hatred for the knights and, more critically, his concern for kaeya's safety and wellbeing (again, begrudging though it is lmao). whether these are the only two letters diluc ever sent back or they're the only two kaeya chose to keep, it absolutely screams "diluc still cares about kaeya" - enough to inquire via some third party about kaeya's injury as well as to suggest his concern for kaeya's safety in some capacity. i don't blame kaeya for keeping them after all he's been through lmao

given that letters have indeed been exchanged since diluc's return, it makes me wonder 1. how and 2. why lmao like even the letters are more implications than anything concretely stated (on kaeya's part, with regards to the darknight hero) and are clearly not coded since we were able to read them with no issue, so...what purpose does it serve for them to exchange letters when they could speak in person? perhaps it's in order to avoid people meddling - clearly, varka at one point thought he could get them to "improve their relationship" by sending kaeya to chat with diluc about the darknight hero sightings, so perhaps there's clear proof that people can and will meddle if given the chance? and they'd rather avoid that? but i also wonder if diluc's bird does the passing of messages now (i'm also envisioning a cute lil timelapse of kaeya taking care of the bird while diluc was gone 🥺 promising him that diluc would come back, half just in an attempt to convince himself, etc)

anyway the other piece of this is: how recent were the most recent letters exchanged? based on diluc's story quest, he didn't seem to know that kaeya knew (or suspected) that diluc was the darknight hero til the end of that questline, though kaeya's letters (starting at his seventh letter, possibly his sixth) imply he might know or suspect that diluc is the dnh. i'm inclined to believe that the events of diluc's story quest took place between the sixth and seventh letters (where kaeya goes from a more vague suggestion that dnh and diluc would 'get along well' to outright stating that "my lips are sealed") which casts the final letter exchange (kaeya's ninth letter and diluc's second, which was in response to that) in an interesting light. namely that of diluc possibly actually considering working with the knights in some capacity? since it has "objective pros and cons", i'm inclined to insinuate that he knows of at least some pros - perhaps just with regards to cooperating with kaeya as he has been, at least

ANYWAY i feel like i've rambled a lot and not said very much lmao so let me see if i can tl;dr this:

the biggest changes for my perception of that night are that diluc actually hit kaeya, that kaeya hasn't always had an eyepatch, and (i didn't exactly mention this outright but i will now) that they corresponded at least a little during diluc's absence

i think that the letters they kept (or perhaps all the letters there were, if we can believe they kept them all) seem to imply their concern and care for each other - namely, diluc keeping letters that prove kaeya's care for him and his willingness to help/dedication to diluc and kaeya keeping letters that prove diluc cared about him enough to ask about his injury via a 3rd party and to tell him not to worry about his safety and to take care of himself instead

i also find it interesting that they chose to correspond via letters (not coded ones) instead of speaking to each other even after diluc's return, though i'm not sure i can say confidently why i believe that is

i also wonder how recent, exactly, some of these letters are - based on some context from diluc's story quest, maybe some were even sent after the events of the story quest (in this vein, i'm not considering manga events, cause idk how canon/trustworthy they are, given the appearance of kaeya's eyepatch prior to the night of their fight)

anyway thank u for joining me on this journey!!! i probably have Many more thoughts with regards to the contents of kaeya's box so if yall are interested i'm happy to ramble about that as well lmao i just don't think they all relate to the situation between kaeya and diluc lmao