#but i see it everywhere still and i see it enough to warrant this kind of frustration

[luveline]

hi again!! i saw you mention wanting to write for prince!steve, and i also saw that you write with dialogue prompts so i present to you:

A: “I’ll take care of you.”

B: “It’s rotten work.”

A: “Not to me. Not if it’s you.”

maybe the reader gets injured doing something for training, but it’s all up to you!! i’m sure we’ll love it regardless. kisses!!

thank you for requesting! —prince steve au. fem, 1.5k

Pain was familiar before you came to the palace. Small pains and big, all kinds of hurting, poverty-driven neglect leading to toothaches and back pain, twisted ankles walked on without choice, sore skin otherwise ignored. It didn’t matter if you got hurt as long as you lived. 

Not in a dramatic sense. It didn’t feel dramatic at the time, only miserable. You go to work with a migraine because you can’t afford not to. You walk home in the dark because the mag-trams are getting too expensive. You break your holo, so you make do without one. You pick your head up to keep looking both ways and you get everywhere you need to go because you need to work, to get paid, to eat, to work. 

That’s how it always was. So getting sick didn’t matter. An injury was temporary pain that your body would fix eventually, and if it didn’t, well, it’s cheaper to pull a tooth than pay to have it filled. 

You were used to your sorry life, and then you met Steve. Tall, brown-haired, brown-eyed Steve. Looking at him sometimes is enough to make your whole body a void for things you used to complain about; you wake up across from him in the big bed and forget you can feel pain at all, if only because he’s already awake, waiting for you to open your eyes before he rests his hand on your cheek. You met him and your soul-mark glowed with a lacy, almost feathered light, your wrist braceleted with white colour that soon faded to mellow blue. 

When you first meet your soulmate, the colours you make tend to shift. It takes time for your heart to decide if love is pink or orange or blue. It seems to have settled now —when Steve kisses you, your mark turns a Gaussian amber. When you kiss back, his mark turns light pink, like the lotus flowers he keeps in his private gardens. 

Right now, your mark hums an angry red. It’s typical in its colour, and it’s common. Most people’s marks turn red when they’re hurting. Yours is a crimson so dark it looks black in the dim lighting, and it throbs in time with your pain like a vexing metronome. You’ll never be able to put it from your mind if the mark continues to remind you. 

Steve is uncharacteristically quiet at your side. His own mark is lit in sympathy, mostly pink with his affection, but threaded in red like spider lily flowers blooming against his forearm. 

He shifts beside you. It’s been more than a month since your wedding, and yet he’s careful with you. Almost shy, though he can be brash and cocky. You know intimately how sweet Steve can be when he’s in love. 

It doesn’t make any sense. 

“How’s the pain now?” he asks, his eyebrows pulled together at their starts. 

“Not so bad.” 

“Could you rate it on a scale? If zero was no pain at all, and ten were enough to warrant another dose of white willow bark?” 

“What if I were at a five?” you ask. 

“A half dose and a good kiss?” 

You turn his way but flinch when it puts undue pressure on your leg, a stab of hot pain jumping from your fractured tibia to deep inside of your hips. Steve sees your wincing and presses your shoulder into the bed, leaning over you, a scolding he doesn’t give in the pinch of his eyebrows as he leans down to kiss you. It’s more caress than kiss, his hand cupping your cheek, his lips barely touching yours before he rests his nose at your brow. “Can you stay still?” he asks. 

“Sorry.” 

“Just don’t want you to hurt yourself again.” 

He lifts his head. Holds your cheek for longer than you can work out why, dotting another soft kiss to your nose before slinking out of bed to find you some white willow bark tincture. It’s a potent pain reliever. You shouldn’t have too much of it. If you were still living your past life, you’d be chewing on ginger skins trying to limp your way back into work. There’d be no time to stop. 

“Steve,” you say, watching him a small ways away at the table of your quarters. He turns to you. “I don’t really need anything else.” 

“You said it’s hurting?” Steve pipettes the tincture into a cup of water. “You said a five, and you lie. Knowing you, it’s closer to an eight, you just don’t want to tell me.” 

It might not be as extreme as an eight now, laying down and bandaged, but it hurts badly and a tincture would solve this. Still, you say, “It’s fine, I don’t need it.” 

He brings the glass regardless and puts it on the nightstand. Your bed is yards too big for one person, even two, but when Steve sits next to you he leaves no room between you. He looks down at you fondly. Brown hair like down feather falls against his forehead. 

“You’re going to be in pain for a long time.” He brings a hand to your cheek again. “It might sound tame, a plateau fracture, but that’s still a fracture. You know doctors say fracture when they mean broken, right? You broke your leg. It’s okay to want pain relief.” 

“I knew that. I didn’t know you knew it.” 

“Impolite.” He ducks down to look you in the eyes. You’re a little skewiff, straight to his sideways, but it gets a point across. He wants to kiss you while you’ve said something maddening. “I don’t see why you’re so insistent on pretending it hasn’t happened and that you’re fine. You got hurt, and you’ll stay hurt for a while. It might be weeks of bed and– and you need to be looked after. I don’t know why you’re so guilty about it.” 

“I’m not guilty,” you deny guilty, turning your face to lean into his hand, rather than continue to face his imploring gaze. “I just… I’m not used to this. Before, if something went wrong, I couldn’t just lay down and wait to get better, and I surely wouldn’t be laying here with doctors and servants and the ladies in waiting all trying to make sure– It’s like it’s not my fault, and that doesn’t make any sense. I don’t want to be a burden on everyone. More than I already am,” you add, a bitter mumble nearly lost to his palm. 

He makes a promise, then, turning your face to the light. “I’ll take care of you,” he says. 

“It’s rotten work.” 

Steve shakes his head gently. “Not to me. Not if it’s you.” 

You press your tongue to your teeth, worried you’ll say something you’ll regret. You don’t want him to go. You want him to mean exactly what he says, to stay here and take care of you, and to enjoy doing it. Wouldn’t it be nice to be loved for love's sake? 

Steve shuffles inward and encourages your head into his lap, thrusting pillows aside to take up station against your headboard. He frames your face, upside down, before both hands begin to run down your arms. A hug, in a way, as he twists his face to kiss the skin beside your eye. You squint at the proximity. 

“You’re not a burden,” he says, hands climbing upwards now, warm and steady where they travel, “you’re my wife. My cherished wife, remember?” 

His tone is silk. 

“You… haven’t proved to be a wretched husband,” you confess. 

“I did try. But loving you has been easy. It makes husbandry a gift.” He laughs at his grandiose and gives you a kiss that’s more familiar by your ear, his pleading, searching kisses, the kind he likes to press to all your softest junctures. “I wish you could understand that we’re marked for a reason. We were always meant to be together, and I couldn’t have asked for a better person to stand with me. I’m happy you’re here. I want to take care of you.” 

Not if it’s you, he’d said. 

You wonder if it might be okay to cry. He’s massaging your arms, still bent in half over you trying to kiss some belief in him into your forehead. 

“It’ll be okay,” he murmurs between chaste, silent kisses, “really. You don’t have to pretend things don’t hurt you anymore.” 

You feel strange, then, shivery and weak as you turn your face into his thigh. His hand slips behind your back to hold you.

“Can I convince you to drink this tincture now?” he asks, just above your ear. 

“I love you,” you mumble. 

He pauses his trailing hands. You squeeze your eyes closed, but he doesn’t pause for long enough to scare you. “I love you,” he says. “Since the day we met, I’ve loved you. I’ll take care of you.” 

He is easy to believe. 

[wickmitz]

i think you absolutely hit the nail on the head with a lot of this post! there is certainly a lot of deeply rooted misogyny inherent in the fandom, as well as an obvious double standard that is rather tiring to repeatedly see. people show overt sympathy towards characters like rocky, mordecai, freckle, and the likes -- meanwhile critcal eyes are constantly turned towards mitzi and ivy in particular, two women who are expected to act like mother figures or behave more maturely in comparison to their male friends and counterparts. you can’t discuss how rocky has agency without someone still implying that mitzi should be responsible for him anyway, simply because rocky is mentally ill and needs help. ivy is expected to innately understand freckle, a boy she barely knows and a boy who refuses to set any boundaries, and is also held to a standard of ‘maturity’ that freckle himself is exempt from. freckle, a character who has such severe anger issues to the point of going on scary, murderous rampages, is given more inherent grace than ivy, a misguided girl who’s worst crime is being forceful and pushy. and, like rocky with mitzi, freckle’s reserved nature is more than just a personality trait he has! when ivy implies rocky told her about their shared past, freckle looks nauseous and panicked -- he is not only shy, but purposefully guarded around ivy, perhaps due to fear she’ll discover things she won’t like. but is this discussed? is this a factor people consider in the frepper relationship? that freckle is just as responsible for setting boundaries as ivy is responsible for respecting them? from what i’ve seen, no. women in lackadaisy are treated as if they’re omniscient figures rather than human beings with a lot of their own issues on their plate ; where they should know everyone’s suffering intimately, and then take responsibility for said suffering, even if it’s not their fault. it is not up to the men in their lives to tell them how they feel or to ask for help, nor is it up to any of the men to perhaps care for the women in turn … it is wholly the women’s burden instead.

mitzi is insanely stressed out of her mind, going through intense grief, is suffering from multiple relationship losses and threats to her life and business, and is currently holding all of that pain inside of her that she can’t and won’t share. she’s in a bad state of mind ( and i point this out constantly in my wickmitzi analysis here and here ) and is, frankly, in no condition to care for herself -- much less multiple other people. but despite her own pain, she tries catering to the lives around her anyway. and not once do i see anyone claiming mitzi ‘needs someone to take care of her’ or ‘be nice to her’ or what have you. she is expected to burden this alone and to suck it up and care for the other characters, more importantly male characters like the band, rocky, and zib. she is expected to coo and be kind and soothe all their wounds and be agreeable, meanwhile fans view zib’s rather cruel words and behavior towards her in vestige as justified -- or, at least, they never bring it up, simply because it doesn’t matter to them. instead, i see mitzi’s actions in that section be constantly brought up, as proof that zib deserves better and is a poor little meow meow who mitzi is oh so cruel towards. people claim mitzi is undeserving of zib’s loyalty and is using it ruthlessly for her own gain when … again, zib is fully capable of making his own choices, and mitzi cannot force him to stay. she is still blamed for his misery regardless though, the same way she is blamed for anything rocky does, simply because he’s ‘doing it for her,’ despite her sometimes not asking for it. people say mitzi’s selfish for holding onto atlas the way that she does, and that she deserves to be justly punished for making others suffer with her … but mordecai, someone who has the exact same motivations and grief, someone who has actively done worse with said grief ( like shooting viktor in the knee and completely disabling him for life ), is offered sympathy. people want mordecai to move on but they want him to have a happy ending afterwards as well, to reconcile with everyone he’s hurt and to heal properly. but mitzi? she deserves to be alone and in jail or dead, apparently. for some reason, her actions are ‘unforgivable’, even if she hasn’t done anything to the severity as mordecai has just yet.

we’re so down for lacy and elsa because they stay in their lane and don’t bother the men lmao.

this part in particular was rather enlightening to me, because i’ve always known something was up with this but could never articulate why lacy and elsa were popular and seen as ‘better’ than the other women around them. elsa and lacy are traditional caretakers, with both of them having subservient positions and adhering to the orders of men without fuss. in lacy’s case, she even goes above and beyond, to the point where it’s implied and joked about that wick wouldn’t survive a day without her at his side. this dynamic is treated as cute and funny, and to be fair, i also find it cute and fun! but it is also rather unfair that lacy is burdened with all these extra tasks she’s not required to do. and this also says something about wick himself. he’s a thirty-something year old man who’s so utterly reckless with his drinking and choices that he has to have a young twenty-something woman handle him at all times. yet lacy is praised for this! for caring so deeply about wick and being protective of him! and wick’s part in all of this isn’t ever brought up, seen as questionable, or is considered to imply a multitude of flaws on his end. elsa, similarly, plays clean-up for her husband and brother often. they throw some random man on a table with his brain exposed and tell her to fix it, and she does. they decide by themselves to start rumrunning for the lackadaisy again, and when marigold comes to their door, she covers for them without faltering. elsa, on the surface, is the exact kind of woman most people can tolerate because she’s quiet, good at caretaking, soft and sad looking, and is out of the way. she is not invasive and her presence is never loud, and she leaves the men be for the most part, you know? serafine is also more well regarded by the fandom, but that’s simply because she’s ’unabashedly evil’, meaning her flaws can be turned into quirks and the likes. it’s a rather interesting phenomenon, in the sense that it all comes back to the black and white mindset fandoms have so rapidly developed nowadays.

there’s so much more i could say here honestly. and there are many points i could also repeat. like, yes, as much as i adore rocky, it is undeniable that he is an extremely difficult person to be around. and that, like it or not, mitzi is 100% within her right to be disappointed or frustrated with him when he messes up, especially since rocky messes up big time. this does not make her cold or uncaring or ignorant or evil, it makes her human. tracy said it the best herself here :

Yes. There are characters that care about Rocky, but it's complicated. It is possible to love someone, for instance, while not really being able to abide living with them. It's possible to care about someone without wishing to be inseparable buddies with them.

The core of Rocky's nature does make it difficult for him to find places where he easily fits in, and that much is not really his fault. However, he does have agency, and he has - with gusto - taken on a role that calls for him to lean into the destructive aspect of his nature. It's fine to feel a bit sympathetic about the first part, but that doesn't mean that he should get a pass on the rest, narratively speaking. Some of the lumps he's taken have been unearned, but many of them have been the results of his own (often violent) machinations.

so claiming that, on top of all of mitzi’s own issues and trauma and stressors, she has to take responsibility for rocky in his really messy entirety is rather cruel, and frankly not a good idea at all. and while he does deserve grace and care, so does mitzi … and everyone else in the cast. rocky is not particularly special because he’s suffering hard, because everyone else is suffering to a degree too, and i fail to understand how such kindness can’t be afforded to everyone else -- especially characters like mitzi and ivy. nobody talks about how ivy was forced to witness rocky get hurt like that, how she had to hold a gun at two men who were trying to kill them to try and save his life, and then had to take care of said friend afterwards because he’d otherwise just waste away in his car by his lonesome. she’s only eighteen! she was scared shitless! and yet prevailed for rocky’s sake and her own, despite having no help whatsoever. it’s shocking how quickly i can forget the pain mitzi and ivy have gone through simply because it’s never brought up by fans due to how much it pales in comparison to the men’s pain … i guess? even if their suffering is as simple as having money stolen from them or being too shy to … tell a girl no? i’ll see essays upon essays analyzing the men’s agony and their ‘very complicated!’ bonds with one another, but the women are reduced to being mentioned occasionally in those essays, and are mostly dehumanized in mitzi’s case. i feel like if you refuse to think about the girls in lackadaisy, then you are missing a rather large part of the story itself too. and it’s just … sad to see!

this post, nor my own additions to it, aren’t claiming that the lackadaisy women should be treated like angels or that they are flawless. these posts aren’t even hating on the men of lackadaisy either! i mean, both of our blogs have wick in the name, how could we actually hate that man in any capacity? this post is merely calling out some very odd takes that have been seen before, ones that keep circulating, and i think op is valid to bring it up. it’s okay to have biases and the likes, we all do, but if you’re trying to take lackadaisy more seriously, then perhaps make sure you’re viewing every character through a similar lense rather than vastly different ones. at the end of the day this is literally the ‘flawed, messy, and immature characters’ tragicomedy comic after all.

reading comprehension check! women do not ask men to be obsessed with them. women are not responsible for the things men do because they are obsessed with them. this goes double if a man repeatedly downplays the lengths he goes to and the horrific things he does due to his obsession with a woman! thanks for coming to my ted talk

[so-long-soldier-writes]

No Longer Yours

kol mikaelson x reader | requested

summary: you watch as the love of your life starts to love someone else

tags: angst, heartbreak

word count: ~1.8k

a/n: remembering the plot of the originals was so hard tf, i need to rewatch it

When Ester brought Kol back, you were both shocked and delighted. It was such an uncharacteristic thing for her to do, but yet, you couldn’t complain. For decades, you were lovers, on and off waiting for him as Klaus re-daggered him every couple years. Then, after the whole family was rejoined in Mystic Falls, he was killed by two teenagers way in over their own heads. His death broke you. So much so that his sister offered sympathy, something you’ve never received from her. When the bunch moved back to New Orleans, you took her offer and followed, not living with them, but near them. Away from the brother that so often hurt him, but near the sister that now comforts you. You learned to be okay. 

But now Klaus has stirred up something new, and all the species of the city are fighting, and everyone is gathering forces to try to fight him. It’s the witches, versus the werewolves, versus the Mikaelsons, versus the New Orleans’ vampires that pre-existed in the city. In the midst of it, the Other Side was collapsing, and Esther made a desperate act to bring her family back together. 

Kol isn’t the same. Not one bit. His body is different, as is his mind. He’s on edge, understandably, but no longer only seeking you to tame his restlessness. He’s been put on a mission, you know that, to manipulate the young witch for his mother’s benefit, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. 

And Finn. Finn’s been in your ear nonstop, taunting, updating, day-to-day, on how the progress between the two is going. You’re not sure when you hurt him, but he’s surely out to hurt you. 

“He has this look in his eyes, when he talks about her. Like he knows his task is to trick her, but he doesn’t want to do it. He’s going soft, and it’s not for you anymore,” he’d whisper. You were on the street corner, watching them walk out of the pub, when the eldest snuck up behind you out of nowhere.

“Why are you telling me this?!”

“Thought it’d be something you want to know.”

Finn in his old body was annoying enough. Him in this one, this vessel that seems to carry a hundred times more sass than the last one, is so much worse. 

And it’s not like Kol doesn’t know you’re here. One of his first days back, he spotted you from afar and whisked you away into a quiet corner, declaring his love and kissing your face. You still see him every day, too, even though his return is being kept quiet from the rest of the Mikaelsons. The fact of that makes it even harder to separate him from Davina. You only see him in stolen moments; she seems to be everywhere, in everyone’s business. 

What also hurts, is that you can’t hate the girl. She seems to be Klaus’ number one hater and that warrants some respect. She’s been planning to control Mikael to help take down Klaus, and that’s something no one has ever been able to do. She’s a badass, powerful witch, who Kol is falling for, and that’s not her fault. 

Though slowly, you see it going both ways. She’s falling for him as much as he is her, and honestly, you can’t blame her. Kol is so much more than his narcissistic siblings make him out to be. He’s charming, funny, protective, and up until now, loyal. But then again, maybe you’re overexaggerating this. He’s around Davina for a task, maybe this is just him playing a part. 

You know, deep down, that it’s not. 

It’s one of the days you get Kol alone. Truly alone, without Davina, nor Finn, nor any other supernaturals lingering around, overhearing your conversation. Things feel back to normal, you feel happy, like maybe you have been overthinking, and everything’s actually fine. 

“So, um, how’s it been with your mother?” You didn’t mean to bring up his mother. It’s an awkward subject, and the woman has never been a kind one. But after ten minutes, your dinner date begins to run dry, exchanging small smiles and short laughs rather than the deep thoughts and strong opinions you once shared. 

“She’s fine. She’s my mother. The same, horrible woman she’s always been.” 

His accent is so much thicker in this body. 

“Hm. And Finn? Personally, he’s been annoying the hell out of me, and if he doesn’t stop, I’ll send him right back.”

It earns a chuckle. “I’m about to send him there, too. Little brown noser, always desperate for mother’s approval. What’s he bugging you about?”

“Nothing important, just… the usual.”

“He’s so much worse as a witch. He always hated vampires and now he isn’t one, yet he still wants to bring the rest of them down. Him having access to magic is not great, either.”

“Oh, I bet. Glad I’m only on his ‘hate’ side and not his ‘kill’ side. If I ever defended Klaus in my lifetime, I would have a much different fate against witch Finn.”

He laughs a bit louder. “I’m pretty sure I’m on his ‘kill’ side. Mother giving me chores is the only reason he hasn’t struck. But I wouldn’t let him kill you, Y/N. You’ve always been mine, and even Finn knows not to mess with us.”

His words make you feel some warmth inside, some comfort, that maybe, again, you’re just overthinking all this. 

“He better not, or I’ll send Matt after him again. Bet he’s only a click away, if I tell him I need to extinguish a Mikaelson.”

“Oh, he would be so upset to learn mother brought him back to life. All his hard work, gone! I think Matt would have a lovely time here in New Orleans. So many things he hates in one city. Bet he’d come up with an elaborate system to bomb every vampire in a fifty mile radius without destroying the city itself.” 

“And he’d find a way to make a protective bubble around Rebekah, saving her, and no one else.”

“Oh, don’t remind me of that crush! Any man my little sister could’ve picked and she chooses the vampire-hating prick. Her taste in men has never been good.”

“I don’t know, Marcel’s kind of nice to look at,” you tease.

His eyebrows raise playfully. “Marcel? You should’ve known him when he was a child, then. Little misfit.”

You laugh. It feels like old times. Like going on adventures, pushing peoples’ buttons, grabbing life by the neck. It feels like the love you and Kol shared way before the collapse of the Other Side, and even before Mystic Falls. It’s reckless and exhilarating. 

But now, it’s short-lived. And you feel the light dimming day by day, and you’re not sure how much longer you’re willing to pretend like it’s all okay. 

“I should be getting back soon. Mother’s going to think I ran off.”

“Totally understandable, she is not one to cross.”

“Definitely not.”

“What’s in your plans for next week? Any time we’ll be able to steal like this again?”

“Not sure yet. Klaus is so sporadic, and she bases her plans around his hourly attitude changes. I’ll keep you updated.”

“Okay.” You don’t want to ask it, but it’s been sitting on the tip of your tongue all night, and if you don’t, you might go crazy. “Kol?”

“Yes, love?”

“Your ‘task’ she puts you up to, with Davina.”

“Yes?”

“You care for her.” It’s less of a question, more of a statement. You meant it to be a question, but your mouth spoke before your brain could catch up.

Kol pauses, halfway getting up, to sit back down. He’s never been one to lie to you. You’re not sure if this is when he’ll start. 

“I do,” he replies truthfully. “I don’t want her to get hurt trying to take down my family. I see why she wants to, and I believe she can, but she’s still young. I’ve been trying to best Klaus for centuries and have never been able. But while I’m protecting her the best I can while my mother is actively trying to manipulate her, I don’t feel anything for her, if that’s what worries you.”

You nod, confirming his words about your concerns. “It’s good that you care. She’s been through a lot. She deserves someone who will stand up for her.” 

You wish it didn’t have to be him. 

“I try, while mother and Finn constantly berate.”

“When do they not?” You half-joke, smiling softly. 

“You’re entirely correct.”

Kol might not believe he’s growing affection for the young witch, but you know differently. You can see it in his eyes and the softness of his voice. You can see it on the dimples that form on her face from smiling so wide. 

Klaus finds out that ‘Kaleb’ is Kol, and everything gets much more difficult. It’s such a big tangled web of emotions that you take a step back from the family altogether. Mikael’s on the loose and Klaus is vengeful. New Orleans is in a city-wide panic as the vampire-killing vampire runs rampant without Davina’s control. It isn’t her fault that he got loose. 

It isn’t anyone’s fault when he rushes to her side, more than once. 

It isn’t anyone’s fault when he kisses her, and she kisses back. 

It’s just circumstance. Time and place. People grow apart and others grow close, and sometimes, nothing can be done to stop it. You have to learn to let it go; to understand that he’s happy, and that’s truly the only thing that matters. You’ve survived without him before and you can learn to do it again. 

New Orleans is in the midst of an all out war. Klaus kills anyone who stands in his way. It’s nothing new but it’s nothing short of terrifying. You realize, now, as Kol grows closer to the young witch, and Rebekah starts to take the side of her brothers, that you’re just as vulnerable as the wolves he hunts. A lone vampire cannot survive any greater than a lone wolf, and Klaus doesn’t care who he slaughters in his act of vengeance. It’s with great sorrow and even greater heartbreak that you leave the city, middle of the night, with only a note to explain your absence. Kol will be okay. He’ll be safer with her than you; Klaus has never liked you too much, and his second chance at life matters more than your love for him. 

You’ll always love him, but he’s no longer yours.

He may still love you too, but not in the way it once was. 

And with that, you have to learn to be okay. 

[xxavengingangelxx]

Somewhere Only We Know 3/?

Part threeeee! I feel kind iffy about this one. Smurt starts so MDNI! 18+ I feel like the smut is not my best work but there will definitely be more smut in the future chapters :)

Taglist! @bellgraves, @unicorngirly1, @josieguts, @lily-lily131313, @shepgurl - if you'd like to be added, lemme know! ;)

Val feels like she has no choice but to return to Shadow Company for numerous reasons.

EDIT: Forgot to add! Q and A. Will Graves get more affectionate? I've gotten that question a LOOOT. Yes. But like all men he just found out and is a little overwhelmed 😉

-

You didn’t know how much time had passed when Price excused himself to take a phone call. Someone had called him three times back-to-back.

You knew who it was didn’t you?

-

Price wasn’t allowed to wander off very far. That small wing of the hospital you were in had been sealed off. No one enters or exits except for the police and the military.

Your suspicion was confirmed so were you really surprised when you heard Graves’s voice on the other end of that phone? Years of explosions and gunfire didn’t allow Price to turn the volume low enough that your younger, less exposed ears couldn’t pick it up. And because of how close the perimeter of that hospital wing was you heard every…word.

“Price,” Graves’s voice was tight, on-edge, dangerous and you wondered if someone had pissed him off right before.

“Graves,” Price spat back. “Was beginnin’ ta think Laswell had finally approved that airstrike you were nothin’ but ashes.”

“Haha,”

“Sorry,” Price added, “but I constant’ly fantasize about ya dying.”

“Knock this shit off,” Graves warned. “You have two people I’m interested in.” Graves paused before adding, “One I haven’t quite met yet.”

Price’s silence told you he was in shock.

Why did Graves sound so fucking terrifying today?

“Bloody ‘ell,” Price gasped. “How’d you—”

“I have eyes everywhere,” Graves said darkly. “A thing you might not know about southern culture, ya Brit. We like to keep our families together.”

“And you see Val as family? She’s not your wife ya fuckin’ psycho’.”

“No, she is. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

And you don’t know why that line made your breath catch in your throat. You knew Graves was obsessed with you but what exactly did he mean by that?

“You’re such a sick fuck,”

“Get her back to me.”

“I can’t override an arrest warrant,” Price shot back.

“Figure it out,” Graves snapped. “Or Makarov wins and World War III starts. I have the money and the connections to hide me and my family. Do you?”

-

You didn’t know you were still crying until the tears rolled down your face as a female soldier (no, not a police officer but a soldier) patted you down. The UK military was pissed enough to detain you because you’d released the codes to 141’s homing beacons. You had denied torture and refused to say anything against Graves or Shepherd. So they saw it as you betrayed 141 and willingly gave them up. You and Graves had worked together that night, hadn’t you? At least that’s what it looked like on the outside looking in. All the digging they’d done had revealed hushed secrets of how you two had been inappropriately involved with each other pretty much since you’d met.

You had mugshots taken for the first time in your life. They took pictures of every visible scar. You wondered why this wasn’t done at the detention facility and you were told it was in case you or someone who fancied you just happened to bust you out from the facility or even got to you before you even got there. So they’d have pictures of you to show the world and help re-capture you.

You were given a bulletproof vest because you’d made the news and had been labeled a traitor. You were loathed. There had been threats on your life. The news loves making people look horrible don’t they? You wondered if the news knew about your situation. Graves knew. And you really didn’t know how to feel about that. You couldn’t even get away from him by being arrested and detained.

You were never going to get away from Graves were you? You didn’t exactly hate it, though. But it also scared you, didn’t it?

You were chained like you were some outlaw (you kinda were though, weren’t you?). The fact that you could pick handcuffs and liked swing at authority figures had gotten around and so your cuffs were anchored to a chain around your waist. Not too tight. They didn’t want you, a sue-happy American, to sue them if you just so happened to lose that pregnancy.

“You’re really gonna let yourself get locked up instead of sayin’ somethin’, anythin’ against that son of a bitch?” Price asked.

“Just watch out for Graves and Shepherd, Captain,” you stated. “He might like me. But he won’t think twice about killing you. Make sure you and your boys stay safe.”

“You make it sound like you’re sacrificin’ yaself.”

“I can keep him distracted just enough.”

-

The sunlight was bright and it reminded you of how much you hated sunny days. The noise was overwhelming. News crews, people shouting at you, calling you a traitor. So you just glanced down, using your hair to hide your face. 141, for all you had done against them in the last 3 months, shielded you as best as they could.

Soap even pulled your hood over your head and you almost cried at the kindness of it. Also, pregnancy hormones.

It was cold.

You were about to be put into a military vehicle when a familiar voice, a demanding voice, told them to stop and turn around.

It was impossible to understand what was being said outside with all the noise. So you all went back inside, into the warmth of the hospital.

Granted you couldn’t move much. Cuffs anchored to your waist and leg irons. That thin bulletproof vest was tight on you, straps drawn snug. Graves indeed hadn’t been lying that they were going to treat you like a fucking prisoner, a good for nothing. And that was one of the reasons you kept your faith in Graves. You were weirdly bonded to him. You didn’t love him and you were sure he didn’t love you. But it seemed like you both were stuck together for the time being.

Maybe forever. You were obsessed. Maybe just as much as he was. Maybe a little less, though.

But the man here in person? General Shepherd.

“Graves told me what happened,” Shepherd stated. He removed his sunglasses.

“It’s none of yer business,” Price snapped.

“No, it is because she’s mine.”

“No, your Shadow piece o’ shit kidnapped ‘er. And now he’s fuckin’ stalkin’ her.”

“We had reason to believe she was collaborating with Hassan as she was the only one we found. Wandering all alone.” Shepherd paused before adding, “Like an abandoned puppy. That’s the term Graves used. And abandoned puppies need new homes, don’t they?”

Price full on growled. “Thas’ some bullshit excuse ya have. It won’t make sense on paper.”

“But it will,” Shepherd grinned that shit-eating grin he had. It was the same grin you imagined him having when Graves took that initial hostage video all those months ago. “And it did,”

Price was handed papers. What they said you couldn’t read. The print was too small.

“Val here was abandoned by her task force. We took her in, interrogated her, revealed she had nothin’ to hide.” Price signaled at the documents in Price’s hands, shaking with anger. “We did not, under any condition torture her.”

Shepherd looked at you, smirking before adding, “Ain’t that right, sweetheart?”

“They didn’t hurt me,” you confirmed. You lied. You lied to protect Shepherd, Shadow Company, and most importantly, Graves. Something deep inside told you this would not be the last time lying for them. If this shit was brought to court or congress, you’d keep lying to protect Graves without a second thought.

“Val, ser’ously?” Price glared and if looks could kill, Shepherd would’ve died on the spot.

“She’s been with Shadows for 3 months. She’s mine now.” Shepherd demanded. “Hand ‘er over,”

“She’s not goin’ with ya,” Soap snapped. “Ya’ll done enough.”

“Don’t make me get my boys. You sure as fuck don’t want me getting Graves. He’s pissed. Has been. And when he’s mad he gets trigger happy.” Shepherd smirked. “Now go on ahead and get Graves’s little miss outta those cuffs. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. Don’t why ya’ll would treat a lady like that.”

“You’ve lost your mind…again, Gen’ral,” Price snapped. “She’s lookin’ at a court martial. US and UK want her here.”

“Let me put it in simpler terms for you,” That smirk never left Shepherd’s face. “Give me the girl. Give me my soldier or we all lose.”

“You don’t have to go with him,” Price muttered from next to you. “We can get a court to look at this,” He signaled at the pages which you still hadn’t bothered to try reading. “You have a choice,”

“I want Graves,” you said confidently.

The police officer, a new one, looked at Price, his gaze asking what he should do. Release, not release? Detain?

“You’re gonna go back to the company that fucked you up so bad you tried to kill ya’self?” Price paused before adding, “Is’ not jus’ about jus’ you anymore, Val. You have someone else to think about. Don’t do this.”

You shrugged. Because it really was. The bond you had with Graves was intense. Plus, you’d stay out of prison. You did have a child to think about. And the last fucking thing you wanted was you in prison in the UK, Graves in prison in the US, and your child in that horrible foster care system. You’d run before you let that happen.

“We’ll get them after all this, Val,” Price muttered so only you could hear. “They’ll rot in prison.”

“Release her. Now.” Shepherd demanded of the officer. “They’ve removed her AWOL status and transferred her to Shadow.”

“You better sleep with one eye open, mate,” were the last words Price said to Shepherd before you walked out of that hospital with said general free of restraints.

-

Shepherd didn’t say much in the truck. At least not at first. You rubbed your wrists because they cuffs on your wrists had been on too damn tight.

It was you and Shepherd. That was it. You wondered where Graves was. “You’ve done good work, soldier. Graves asked for you by name. Pulled a few strings and got this done because Graves is my best.”

You didn’t say a word. You’d thanked him earlier anyway. Well, that is except to ask, “Where’s Graves?”

“A safehouse,” Shepherd responded. “What’d you tell ‘em, soldier?”

“Nothing, sir.” You responded. “They threatened me with prison but I didn’t say shit. Respectfully.”

“We’ll pull the hospital records,”

“I’ve nothing to hide, sir.”

Shepherd paused before adding, “Don’t disappoint my top man,” Shepherd warned. “He’s gonna be your Shadow for the rest of your life. Told me he’s not letting you go.”

“No, sir. I won’t, sir.”

“He asks you to get on your knees, your response is how low, understand?”

“Yessir,” you felt like he was selling you to Graves.

“Ya ever thought about letting him fuck a kid into ya?”

Your head snapped to look in his direction next to you. Did he know?

“Would be nice to leave all this to family,” Shepherd stated simply. He saw you as something to be used. Was that why he’d said all those months ago he wanted you specifically working for them? A female? A female Shepherd knew Graves had a thing for?

Shepherd chuckled that cold laugh before adding, “I know ya’ll been fuckin’ since you met pretty much. He’s been obsessed with you.”

Was he kidding? And at that second something deep inside you told you Graves might like that you’re carrying his kid. There was no getting away from him now, was there? Even if you wanted to. Where the hell did you think you were going to hide with his kid?

“No offense, sir,” you replied after catching your breath, “That’s not why we—”

“That’s it’s God-given purpose,” he interrupted. “He’d be perfect.”

Who--? Hell, Shepherd was already obsessed with the kid and Shepherd didn’t even know the kid existed. Right? And you didn’t like that, not one bit.

“Product of two of my best soldiers, raised by Shadows, in the field.”

You weren’t sure if Shepherd took your ensuing silence as a form of defiance or as a form of acceptance.

You wished it was just you. Just you going back to Graves, no kid. But you were stuck now, weren’t you? You didn’t think your IUD would fail. But it did. You had less than a one percent chance of getting pregnant but here you were. And that was why you’d made that decision, amongst other reasons, sure. The decision to keep him. Him because you felt it was a boy.

Because maybe while you distracting Graves wasn’t enough, maybe you and his kid would distract Graves enough for him to leave 141 alone.

You just hated an innocent life was involved.

-

“Did you really raise that much hell?” Graves’s voice from behind you light a fire under your heart. He must’ve noticed your brief injuries.

“You told me to raise hell so I did,”

“Atta girl,” Graves smirked.

You couldn’t help it. You reached out and hugged him, gear and all.

And surprisingly?

He hugged back.

“Good ‘ta have you back,” Graves said, his voice tickling your hair as he rested his chin on your head.

-

You hoped into a hot shower the second you could. You scratched your skin raw trying to get those tape marks off your arms from when the hospital had started an IV sedated you that one day. You had tape marks all up and down your arms from all the times they’d drawn blood, marks around your wrists from the handcuffs and restraints.

“Don’t make yourself bleed, darlin,’” Graves chided. He’d been watching you through the clear glass shower door.

“I want it off,” you almost pouted.

He was naked when he joined you and you couldn’t help but eye him up and down shamelessly. He did the same to you. His eyes stopped on your breasts and on his favorite spot between your legs.

“They hurt you, didn’t they?”

His eyes lingered on the tape burn on your face from the duct tape pulled off your mouth three days ago. On the scrape your cheek showed after being yanked onto the ground face first when you hit a police officer in the face. And finally, to those scratch marks on your arms from trying to take the medical tape residue off.

You had indeed made yourself bleed.

“Only a little,” you contested.

“They’ll never have ya’ll again,” Graves promised.

And that confirmed he knew. He knew it wasn’t just you anymore.

You got on your toes. The hot water had you both sweating. Your hair was in loose curls over your shoulders and his blonde hair falling over his forehead. His hair almost looked light brown when it was wet and hanging on his forehead. Your lips met his briefly before he pressed his lips onto yours, his tongue sweeping your mouth possessively. You raised your hands to his shoulders, to the nape of his neck, the strong stinging pain of scratch mark wounds forgotten.

He placed two strong hands on your hips before gripping your ass and effortlessly lifting you. You, out of habit, wrapped your legs around his waist. He pressed you onto the cold tile behind you, making you gasp and hiss and arch your back.

When you arched your back, you felt him, hot and thick and hard, at your entrance.

“That desperate are we?”

You gave him a lustful glare and an exasperated huff while he scoffed in response.

Graves ran his teeth just along your jawline, making you moan. You caught yourself and reminded yourself to be quiet. This was a safehouse, not a black site. It meant noise traveled through the walls like they weren’t there. It wasn’t like back on base where the walls were concrete. And absorbed all the sound.

“We’re alone,”

You moaned more at his words.

“Lick my fingers,” Graves commanded. He had you pinned against the wall, his hot, thick cock just touching your entrance. You mewled, trying to get him inside you.

So you obeyed. You ran your hot tongue over his fingers as he held them in front of your face.

“Show me how you’re gonna take me,” Graves added in a low growl.

Graves suddenly released you and your knees almost gave out.

You wanted him. You needed him.

“On your knees,”

You obeyed instantly. You fucking loved that despite your delicate situation he was still willing to insert at least a little dominance in the bedroom.

Without him asking you to, you took his hard length into your mouth.

Graves gasped and moaned, throwing his head back and catching his hair in the hot spray of the shower.

-

It wasn’t long before Graves was on top of you, in bed. You were both still drenched from the shower but it wasn’t like either of you cared. You’d started sucking him off and after pulling you off of him he’d started to work his fingers inside of you before he’d abruptly cut off the water.

Now here you were, drenched hair sprawled out behind you while Graves had bruising grips on your thighs as you felt him mercilessly use his lips, teeth, and tongue to taste you.

You felt like you needed him to totally own you. To take your mind off that burning pain from where you’d scratched yourself so hard you’d cut yourself open earlier, from what you’d learned from your hospital stay, from all the shit you’d been through. So you said those key words…the key words that let him know you wanted him to fuck you almost into unconsciousness, that gave him permission to leave marks on you.

“Graves, show me who I belong to,”

But to your surprise?

“No,” came the growled reply from between your legs.

“What?” you glanced down and the sight that met you almost made you gasp. Graves, his hands still grasping your thighs, his pupils wide with lust, his chin damp from your arousal, his hair sticking to his damp forehead.

You wondered if maybe you tasted differently. Could he taste that he completely owned you, marked you forever? You were carrying his child. How much more could he own you?

“No, Val,” Graves repeated, his gaze not leaving yours. “Tonight I’m just gonna relearn every fucking inch of your body.”

So after he’d edged you twice and finally let you cum on his lips, he was finally inside you.

And that’s when time seemed to slow down. It felt like you had been apart from Graves your months when in reality it had been a few days. You wondered if this is what addiction felt like. Every time he moved inside you it was like you both moaned in unison. You heard him say something but you couldn’t quite decipher it. Your brain was jelly.

You could feel yourself getting close and he would stop. You whined at the feeling. You wanted to beg him to continue, to fuck you until you couldn’t talk, couldn’t walk.

But every time you’d open your mouth to beg, he’d seal it with his own. And you’d feel him smile, chuckle. The bastard knew what he was doing. So instead of getting rough, he was edging you. He was relearning you and ensuring himself he still knew every inch of you by making sure his cock reached so deep inside you until it could go no further.

“Say my name,” finally came the command. Apparently your ears had stopped working because you knew that tone of voice. Graves had had to repeat this command more than once.

“Fuck me, Graves,” you gasped as his hips stuttered, making your insides flutter.

Graves talked again, but you had trouble hearing him over your own moans and filthy words begging him

Fuck you harder.

Graves grabbed your shoulders and shook you hard enough to get your attention. Not nearly as hard as when he’d fucked you before you were ‘rescued’ by 141. There was a gentleness to his motions that he’d never shown before and you wondered why. Before reminding yourself: you’re pregnant. He was still buried inside you and you arched your back, trying to get him deeper into you.

“Say my full name,”

So that’s exactly what you did.

You said his full name, Phillip Graves, as you came a second time, this time around his cock and felt as his thrusts got sloppy and rough and hard while he came undone inside of you.

-

End notes: This is gonna get soooo complicated! :o

[ya-bug-boy]

I need to see more Sycamore, Now you got me thinking about this french man just wanting to examine this ancient man from hisui.

I can also see a height difference, Reader is taller and buff in my eyes.

Sycamore sees this hunky ancient man and wants to be snapped in half, I get you. Sycamore x Hisui Reader Part 2

You were admittedly startled when you first came to Kalos the way you did, falling from the night sky, but you were very fortunate that you came across the professor when you did. When you first appeared, riding on the back of your alpha Garchomp with your head held high, a focused gaze, and well, your muscles, Sycamore is practically rendered speechless. He's never before been so awed by a trainer. He immediately runs up to you, clapping his hands and giving you praise and asks a million questions all at once. You can't help but to laugh a bit, your chuckle being music to his ears. The professor observes you for a moment as you look at your surroundings, though he was nice, you were starting to feel overwhelmed. There were bright lights, bystanders, and strange contraptions that took up the black ground. Sycamore notices this and offers you to come with him, for safety. You didn't really feel like going with him at first but this world was very different and he was offering. You took it.

You returned your Garchomp to her pokeball and followed the Professor, as he tries to make conversation with you, you can't help but to stare at the strange things everywhere, all at once. The buildings weren't made of wood but rather a material you don't fully recognize. The metal contraptions were noisy and loud, moving at speeds slower than your Garchomp, but still notably dangerous.

The professor wanted you to get adjusted to what was going on and he could see your stress, so he took you to his home. He lived in a gorgeous laboratory and you couldn't help but to stare at its architecture, mistaking it to be a place of worship at first. He took you inside and paused for a moment, asking if you'd like to bathe first. Running water wasn't a normal commodity during the ancient times of Hisui; in order to make a bath, you had to boil the water with wood. You decided to take up on his offer, rummaging through your backpack to find a change of clothes. Fortunately you still had some of your belongings with you. The professor guides you to the bathroom and you feel very much out of place. It was very clean and shiny, there were metal knobs that you didn't understand. But the professor was kind to show you how it works and how to turn it off and exits momentarily. He returns a second later, telling you he'll provide you a wonderful dinner right at the moment you took off your clothes, revealing your rugged body, muscular and scarred. Your thick arms and legs, your broad shoulders, a cute mole that was on your left hip. Not to mention you were well....endowed with a certain organ. The two of you stared at each other and while you paid no mind, (it wasn't that uncommon for you to see other naked men in the Ginkgo Clan), the professor's jaw drops. He immediately clamps his mouth shut with his hand and his face turns a bright red. Never before in all his life had he ever seen another man so handsome. Gorgeous and shaped in all the right ways. You tilt your head curiously at him, not understanding the thoughts going in his head when he suddenly squeaks, rambling apology after apology and disappearing away into the hallway. This was...new, you thought to yourself. You were still cautious of Sycamore despite his friendly demeanor towards you, which was warranted considering you came from a dangerous time period. You went back to undressing and showered, while a flustered Sycamore tries to compose himself enough to properly peel a potato.

[fandom-hoarder]

I'm about to watch walker 4x07... (copypaste from DM with the bestie <3)

The way the jackal notebook looks like John's journal, cordell waking up to that instead of geri has me 👀👀👀👀

Luna is watching hawk's shadow hahhh

God, cassie talking about the double standard for women dating 👀👀 will this be explored

Omg tactical gear and all, on a hunch👀👀👀

Stella so pretty

Witt being awfully pushy istg

Campus security thinking it's just some drunk frat dude, after seeing that video, is willful ignorance lmfao

Lmao I'm over here like, hell no I'm not letting you in my house without a warrant, jfc

I knew they would draw on him for reaching for something but goddamn😬

Lmao Bonham's shade at cordell teaching stella bad technique

Cordell is looooooosing itttttt

"I'm not gonna lose my friend to this" hiiiiii have you looked in a mirrorrrrr

Having cereal for dinner cuz he's solely focused on the case hahhh relatable

See, this is why geri had to leave

He's gotta have no tether at home

Is it too much to hope for an Emily's ghost moment before the end of this case 👀👀👀👀

Corpus Crooner ?? Lolol

Omg

Even good karaoke gives me secondhand embarrassment lol

Lmao that chest shot

The closeups on Luna lol they know what they're doing. I'm always so amused

Lololol is bonham IGNORING Abilene

Ooof stella is like damn

Dtr tho lol

He's not gonna show up to boot camp is he...

"He's a zookeeper" lmfao jfc

ROTTING DOG

[Why are commercials so weirddddd (i know why but good LORD)

Why is kevin hart literally in EVERYTHING]

Oh it's this kind of zoo lololol

Serpentarium lmfao

I FUCKING KNEW IT. HE'S MISSING AUGIE

Gotta be consistent, i guess lmao

Omg that fall sync up

THE FRUIT

Augie!!!

Aaaaaaahhhh head injury!! Lol jared has acting tbi DOWN

Lmao lovey dovey cassie

I love trey and augie so much 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

He's really been an influence in his maturity

"I'll make it up to him" that's a familiar line

Yeah, liam, tell himmmmm

"Dramatic" ooh and that flippant affect 😯😯😯😯😯😯

He is LOSING it losing it 👁👄👁

BLACK GLOVESSSSS???

Oh i see

IS HE WILL GRAHAMING IT???

😱😱😱😱😱😱😱 YOU CAN'T END THERE OMG

Hahhhhh please let this get renewed god

Rewatching the ep immediately lmfao

What difference does a 5pm curfew make if you're not around to enforce it lolol

Eating cereal so you don't have to think about cooking and staring at the thing you're reading...also relatable

Cassie unable to separate work/life on the romantic side parallel to Cordell's inability to work/life balance on the work side 👀

Cordell is like a bomb sniffing dog that alerts for everything

(There's a series of YouTube shorts about a retired bomb sniffer that false alerts everywhere he goes😅 reminds me of that)

It's funny in all that ranch house they don't have somewhere else to put the home gym 😅

Bonham so snotty on the "our ranch" lol. Sounds a little bit "my ranch" sir

Did stella even get a new room or anything? Is she still in the same dorm the guy used a KEY to get in?

Once again, the coming inside to ask questions part makes me sooo 😬😬😬😬😬😬

I am so not letting 4 rangers IN TACTICAL GEAR into my house without a warrant. Don't care HOW innocent i am

You think i warrant that much prep, you can GET a warrant

Serial killer case not enough to excuse it. That's how cases get thrown out, buddy

Goddddddd only augie even knows her dorm was broken into. Like it is just hitting me how they all really don't know what she's going through. Yeah girl, get some self defense from grandpa

I knew augie was gonna help that kid as soon as he failed the trial time lol

Everybody and his literal mama: Cordi, you're letting the case consume you

Cordell: well that's just, like, your opinion, man 😉

Stella's braid is so cute. Lol bonham giving abilene the snub understandable, but stella just staying focused on her punches and also ignoring her😅

Wonder if cordell is going to miss August's high school grad, too 👀👀👀👀👀👀 y'know, to keep it all even lol

Lalala what is a warrant lololol

The visual storytelling on this show is so ON POINT this season. The music, the video syncing with these multiple parallels in the bootcamp/zoo scene, the main plot/secondary plot parallels. They're FOCUSED

AUGUST, PLEASE DON'T JOIN THE ARMY. PRETTY PLEASE.

I'm soooo happy about liam being like "stella is going through it and you in particular should be there for her on this but you're ignoring it"

[penultimate-step]

JJK S2 Livewatch: Eps 5-7

the watch continues! Ep 5 acts as a sort of coda to the previous arc, and then we return to the present time for eps 6 and beyond. honestly that surprised me - part of the fun of going blind into a series that you heard mutterings about but don't know details is seeing where you have weird impressions for no reason. I thought the flashback arc was going to be more substantial - like half this whole season. joke's on me, I guess, but it's fine.

Ep 5 continues going extremely hard and unsubtle on the imagery. Like 15 minutes are devoted to showing just how traumatized Geto is. Everywhere he goes, a part of him is back in that audience room, hearing the cultists cheer. The show uses audio and visual cues to indicate this to the audience - windows act like TV sets and display scenes from the past, the sound of rainfall is swapped out for the sounds of applause. I'd be quite interested to know how the manga conveyed it, because these all seem like flourishes distinct to the adaptation, which I appreciate. Eventually we get to the moment of Geto's final choice, with the light flickering his shadow into two versions of him that he could become, he fully becomes a villain and massacres the town.

Honestly, while I did feel the ep was great, if I do have a complaint it did feel like the whole thing happened way too fast. I didn't question my assumption that the flashback was going to be longer last time because it seemed like there was a long way to go for Geto to become the self he was by the movie, but in the end it felt pretty abrupt. He struggles for a while with inner doubts then decides he will be the kind of person to commit mass murder, and then does. It's a little weak for a villain arc.

What's not weak is the scene where Gojo confronts Geto, though. My favorite bit is how they have their argument in the middle of a crowded street. The way passerby are going about their day, pushing the two aside, really emphasizes the whole thing - because the everyday civilians can ignore the sorcerers, can walk right past them as if they are in a different world entirely, but they aren't. theyre right there, and their presence is very clearly what the whole fight is about. One of my favorite scenes.

I liked the scene right before where Geto talks with Shouko a bit less, though. Apparently she doesn't go on missions? I'm curious what her deal is. Anyway. Feels like she didn't get enough screentime for me to understand her relevance or her importance to the other characters. Between her and Tsukumo, both of the relevant female characters in this ep only have screentime so that they can show up and ask the main men about their feelings. The "proud" shonen tradition of strict gender roles in action I suppose.

Overall while I have some issues with the pacing, and think the flashback needed some more substance to make us really feel the change in Gojo and Geto, I still liked ep 5.

Ep 6 brings us back to the present, but not fully into the main plot just yet. First we have a brief interlude where the main trio meet at a cafe, along with an old classmate of Yuji's. Going to be real, I had forgotten what the personalities of these three even were, so it was nice to have a relaxed refresher before jumping into the main event. That is the main purpose of this little event, I think, a bit of a tone cleanser to break up the melancholy flashback and the action-heavy present time. It's also good to get glimpses of the lives of the protagonists from before they entered the story - little bits of characterization can go a long way.

As for the battle that follows, I have mixed feelings. It did have the kind of overly flashy fight style that I disliked in S1. However, the fact that the guy brought out a whole mecha does make it seem warranted this time. It didn't really grab me as a fight, but probably if it had been less dramatic I would have thought it had fallen flat.

The fact that I rambled for so much longer about ep 5 alone than the next two eps combined is probably a bad sign, I think. I just find the present day plot less interesting than the flashback was. But I'd rather be optimistic, the show still has plenty of time left to change my mind.

[simiansmoke]

@pvachypessa

Those screams, those hits, the princess used her arms to protect herself from his fury, 𝒂 𝒚𝒆𝒍𝒑 𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒔 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒃𝒐𝒕𝒉 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒖𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒕, 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒉𝒕, 𝒃𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒇𝒇 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒍𝒚𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒅𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔, Toads running away in a panic at see the strenght and fury of the Kong, making Peach even more nervous, she couldn't put peace in a place like this, in this situation.

"Calm down! Stop it!. Donkey Kong, Stop it! You are going to hurt somebody!" Begged Peach as she went towards him, 𝑠𝘩𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠𝑛'𝑡 𝑡𝘩𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑠𝘩𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑠𝑛'𝑡, 𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡𝘩𝑒 ��𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑤𝘩𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝘩𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑗𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑑. But her friend needed her now, she needed to calm him down before he hurts somebody. "I SAID ENOUGH!" Said her going at his direction still not being mindful with his hands, 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐭, 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥, 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐟𝐟, but it sent her flying with a scream of pain, making her to fall on one of the many broken tiles 𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐥𝐞. 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐬 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬. "DK... Try to calm down. Don't you think that I would have told you, like I always do when I send you stuff. I did not send that. I swear it over my mother's grave. What would I win by sending you those roses? This? Do you think that I want this? It would have been anyone, Roses are a pretty common thing to send to someone when you are in love..." Said the princess returning to her feet, going to him slowly and holding her injured hand over her chest to protect it from more damage, but she hugged the Kong's arm in an attmept to comfort both down, herself and him.

His fury was directed everywhere...but furious though he was, he tended to keep his rage thrown against inanimate objects. If he wasn't in some kind of battle, then he didn't need to throw hands against-...someone else. Even if they didn't realize that. His fury to her probably looked like a growing problem - a concern...and that made him even more determined to throw his vicious tantrum around the room, teeth gritting- eyes squeezing shut as he thought about all those fuckers -teasing him...when he did nothing to deserve it!

He's feral, snarling and slapping pottery away from him like they're his enemies' laughing faces. She can scream all she wants - but he can't seem to hear her. He's too invested- ...too focused. Too vicious. He doesn't want to be tame in this moment, and it shows with how he practically rips the tiles up from their bedding and snarls at passing Toads, leaning back on his feet to beat his chest briefly and pound back down again onto knuckles that waste no time in imediately pounding the ground to rip it up. Stupid fucking tiles...stupid fucking castle-! His thoughts are as vicious as his actions and he doesn't care if they make sense at this point. He just wants...to smash. To tear everything apart until it's just him in the debris panting loudly and exhausted so he can fall asleep faster-

He doesn't even notice her coming up to him, though her shout was enough to warrant him turning swiftly to slam his fists against the ground she walked on. Snarling, he watched her fall, cutting herself on the ground...good-! Good? He's half rabid when he notices the scent of fresh blood in the air, and it draws him in momentarily to shake the beast out of him for a moment to follow the color of red droplets across the floor to her wrist that she hugged suddenly against her and looked at him-

...was that ... fear? His heart dropped, and for a moment he didn't breathe. The world was still. He'd stay there forever if he didn't need air, and huff it shakily into his lungs. "P-...Peach?" He asks, the beast in him ceased momentarily as he calls out. "What-..oh-..o-oh fuck." He's not fine, seeing her like that-...knowing it was HIM that-

"God- I'm!! So...so fucking stupid- I'm sorry!" He asserts, but it doesn't feel enough. Teeth grinding, he starts to approach her, then realizes he shouldn't dare and scoots back instead, missing her hugging his arm regardless of his actions, teeth grinding and snapping hard in fury he didn't know where to direct. "I didn't-...I would never...I CAN'T fucking hurt you. I'm a fuckin' monster-" He adds, descending into heavy breathing as he noticed the fresh blood on her hand. It wasn't his-...that made it worse. "Fuck me- I'm jumping off this fucking castle right now!" He snarls, turning to climb the nearest wall. He'd punish his own damn self - whether that meant coming back or not.

[the-firebird69]

It's a few announcements we have to make firstly the Three idiots are following him everywhere and have changed about 50 times literally this morning and the exhaust themselves quite quickly and he trying to juice and doesn't work and they get injured and they keep doing it over and over and it is Matt and it is vastly annoying and you sit there taking them down and they can't get it for the price of anything.

-I'm putting together a package to handle this kind of problem there's a lot of it here it's prevalent and it's going to go forwards today

-and what else is going on the empire has been found out to be doing these things taking large amounts of the gold and other two the Carolinas and processing and putting it on weapons and making them very high powered

-there's other stuff going on and it is not very good for the warlock. We plan some sort of attack today and it's on the max and it is to try and figure out what they're doing and the max know about it and then are pushing their clones forwards and have been all morning they're both amazing what's on the Georgia line and it is the beginning of the war that will cause the bugs to attack and it happens right after The sopranos and that TV series is starting up pretty much within a day or two roughly very quickly

-there are a lot of things happening and they are not good for the people here and they're kind of not those kids in a lot of respects and they go round and hurrying people do stupid sign language get their asses beating and constantly doing it by the way they're constantly getting their messages it is not a surprise if it would start at any point here when people get sick of them

-there a couple huge battles going on they said 30 out to the first ring and trying to get people out there and it is a huge deal because a lot of people are doing it and these pseudo empire can't stand anymore this is your forcing us to and that's what it is happening they've got 300,000 already I'm tired of that crap they said and they're trying to make a court order to bring them all in and then enough in here and there was a road closure to the South and they panicked and it was just to go around construction of their own and they are telling them we have this coming up we think by them and we're going to show you and find out there had they had them do it for bad reasons and that they're not really bright

-on top of this there's a court cases going on today it is Friday it's the close of the week they're going after a certain people very hard and there's a lot of them that they're seeking special warrants it's a result of the court cases they had three this morning two of them were bja and the third was John remillard and it's still going on by the way they have a huge number of people who are going later on today it is bad news but it's ongoing trials and between the past three days they submitted 5,000 cases they've selected 500 to here it breaks down to a combined case number of around 200 cases and they have only 10 cases underway today they plan on putting 20 more on the docket but that's very slow. It is going to pick up a plan to put $100 on Monday and 100 on Tuesday but they'll still be far behind it's not true and they're going to go through them pretty quick right now they are having a trial it is the second day for three of the parties and it's the first day for the pain in the ass girl who supposedly rents the apartment and they don't like it the second day is going very fast as opposed to other trials they're seeing things flow right by them and they don't know what they are and they can't pay attention and it's being jammed to them and they're getting the back they say and they are what's going to happen is they're probably going to lose today they're hearing you're seeing evidence Monday they're going to hear testimony and Tuesday they'll ask the juries for finding on four or five of the cases and that's murder for Tuesday and I guess they would if guilty they would hold them and Wednesday would be sentencing

-we do have words that they're attempting to evict the four and they're doing it today and they're down here checking on what's going on and they're not happy with what they're hearing and seeing what's going on right now they're upset with the attitude and everybody is but pretty soon there will be problems from it

-we are performing major activities while this is going on they're evacuating the Midwest it's slow they still retain the areas but they're leaving other areas not much in the upper Midwest I was very strange but they are leaving areas in the South but we can't stay there but we are rating and taking building and they are leaving other areas in the perimeter and I believe it or not there's like Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon are emptying of the morlock believe it or not and they are also leaving areas completely like New Hampshire it's about 300 million and some below but the same and they're getting out they can't hold it same with Vermont and the same with me and Nova Scotia and pretty much all of Canada including right on the lakes they've been doing it and we've been putting bases in the empire has bases there.

-his other stuff happening but it is pretty big they have a number of people who are harassing him and they're doing it now and he's ignoring him and she's not the huge stuff is that they are losing their fleets and fighting over the UK bja is losing his ocean going fleets as well as the other morlock attacking and to multiple parties. Thus far over the past the warlock including DJ lost 30% of their own fleets each fleet and that's a lot

-the clones are on the ropes the bases are under siege they have lost most of the bases that surround the ships and it is a lot of basis it's a lot of ships and it's global all they'll have left to the ships and right now

***the ships that are around Venus they're not too close about half million miles are being surrounded by empire pseudo empire and foreigners and us and the morlock and they are beginning to attack and they are cutting them down other fleets of his will move in we think as we see them getting ready on board and try and stop The fleets from doing it which is ridiculous and that's nothing threatening one person but they're actually very stupid

-there are other issues I will begin to enumerate them we are planning on working on a way to work on Pluto and tonight it goes around the bend and disappears tomorrow morning we have a lot of options and we have tested equipment we do need an opinion what he says is safety is very important and we do understand that it comes first and we have to know which one is safer. He says the process that you developed is very safe if you followed and zigzag agrees so we're going to proceed just so you know a lot of it can be done fairly soon and we know when.

-we have other things to do and they're very important and we're going to begin them shortly among them are the automobile programs we have huge factories starting up necessity factories giant numbers of small factories and garages and we're organizing other factories we're helping them and we're weaving out evil stuff all the time and we have huge factories for necessities as a result they're beginning to open the equipment and the capital and eventually they can we also have a series of kit cars I just came out to the forefront because people want certain cars and the ones they have are not adequate and they need fast cars for the fight and the demand is very high they heard our ideas they like playing tones a lot they like the panels and doors a lot and they like the full kids and it's a matter of money and people who have ability to do it so the better the kid more money you need and we make metal kits too A lot of people want those and then we make really nice metal case so these are in demand and it is how the mini automobiles begin so we want to start a kit car company that makes all sorts of kit cars and if it takes office and automobile it separates out and we want to call it Bradley kit and vehicle company and we're going to go ahead and do that and it will be gigantic really quick and it will get us all together on the same page just like we were on the minis each country has when it's all different but we all use the same parts and bolts and so forth so it's not a nightmare and we could actually do that now we're going to use recycled materials for most of it and that's going to help and we might have a couple subsidiaries but really hard knock kicker 5150 the pagliani and even the recycled motorcycle might be better off as kids and we are going to have kids to make the Ducati and other fast bikes there's only a few the rest are shaped wrong and we will have kids for the light cycle for the Harley-Davidson and only two other bikes like it it's a Honda and then there's a Kawasaki believe it's the nighthawk and the Honda since it's a fast bike okay so we are going to go ahead with it and we're going to start this company and focus on how to get it going recently been sending kits to Africa and it works great. There are other things happening the whole world is on its ear about the computers and the checking Antarctica and they can't figure it out we have a lot of major battles coming up but we should not have put things on hold because battles are upcoming. We're going to switch gears and put it into hyperdrive push all the for hire construction is beginning and we will start projects here and all over the world and we've been Manning up and training and it's going to work and we have hired tons of people and Pluto is the kickoff and it is Thor and Freya they are the team captains for this project and the directors zigzag is always going to be number two except for Mars and he's number one and she is as well this is going to be great and it's going to work we're going to have good time and it's going to be fun freeing ourselves finally there's a lot of events happening. Today there is going to be a major event we believe and it will be a smaller crab attack and will subside and after that they're going to evacuate more and it's probably four or five more evacuations and we are starting the process of clearing the Midwest permanently and then the southeast and things like that I get to know and we're going to use Force ultimately and people going to be fighting over these things the gold and so forth as it comes out TV shows like The sopranos aren't going to be on it's going on real soon. So I wish you a good day and happy hunting and if you need anything please give us a shout

Olympus we are always available and we are always here and yes we're always receptive to people who are asking for things or assistance

[taiblogcomics]

The Big Unfair Data-Share In the Air Scare

Hey there, deerstalker caps. Well, we're finally here. It's the last issue of Avengers Undercover. This won't be at all satisfying, will it? I sincerely doubt it.

Here's the cover:

…Oh, right. I was confused by the symbolism here until I remembered that Zemo kicked off this thing by very blatantly offering the kids an apple. Okay, I guess that makes sense now. Very confusing if you don't recall that detail, though. But also, now her knife's radioactive! That can't be good! I guess this cover is at least moderately spooky enough to warrant the season. 4/10, see me after class. Except don't, because never seeing this comic again can't happen soon enough for me~

So! Let's recap everything before the final issue. Eternal loser villain Arcade got magic nanite powers and set up a Hunger Games for teen superheroes. After a month, they eventually escaped, whereafter they found society difficult to mix back into, due to the leaked footage of the event. With them being painted as potential bad seeds, they're targeted by the Masters of Evil for recruitment. Most of them aren't stupid enough to go for it, and plan to turn it around on Baron Zemo and pals the first opportunity they get. Three months later, they're still hemming and hawing at making a plan, leaving Zemo to spring his own trap instead…

So, speaking of three months ago, we jump back to six months ago, where Arcade is bragging to Zemo, wanting an invite to the Masters of Evil for his exploits. Zemo asks exactly what amazing deeds he should be exalted for. Kidnapping? Child abuse? Video editing? The only thing impressive about what he did was the tech. Which is why they're co-opting it, thanks to Miss Coriander. They make a dupe of Arcade, transferring his nanites over to the robot. And that's how the kids murdered Arcade, only for him to turn up in Constrictor's prison later~

Back in the present, the present Avengers are trying to blast their way through the giant rock blocking the entrance to Supervillain City. The kids apologise, they didn't know it was a trap. The Avengers believe them, assuring them there's no worry. They'll be sure to trip Hellstrom's magic seal in a few minutes. And how much trouble can the world get into in those few minutes without them? Meanwhile, we see Sabertooth and Mystique sacking the Tower of London, demons burning down Roxxon's oil fields, the Young Masters bullying SHIELD Academy recruits… Okay, maybe the last one is kind of on the lesser side, but still.

Of course, as mentioned, all of that is just a smokescreen for Zemo's real plan. He asks Deathlocket for a progress report, and she's almost 83% done whatever she's hacking. Constrictor and Madame Masque go do another sweep for straggler SHIELD agents. And what do you know, they happen to run into Cammi. She's trying to smash up whatever she can before whatever's going on can happen, but they zap her and carry her away, chiding her for picking the wrong side. They respect her cleverness in escaping prison, but it wasn't enough.

Suddenly tech everywhere cuts out, and Zemo appears on camera. He asks for everyone's attention, then lampshades how he's the big scary villain making threats by hacking into everyone's communications network. Except no: he's hacked into SHIELD's communications. SHIELD has access to everyone's data and is monitoring all your communications. They know what you watch on TV, who you call on the phone, and the contents of your email inbox. Oh no, all my spam! Big Brother is alive and well. So, like, who's the real bad guy here?

Guess what, it's still the Nazi in the purple ski mask. And Cammi demonstrates this by throwing Constrictor into Zemo as he talks. How is she so tough all of a sudden? Well, she's been transferred Arcade's godmode nanites, through Miss Coriander being attached to SHIELD's systems. Now Cammi has the godmode. And she just embarassed Zemo while he was on-screen to the entire world's communications. Cammi, the character who was left out of most of the story due to being locked up is ultimately the hero of the day.

And she couldn't have done it without her prison buddy, Arcade! He turns up, having just escaped with her from prison and given her the permissions to use the nanites. Except, no. Fuck that guy, he doesn't get credit for this. Cammi decks him across the face too. And since the Helicarrier is still broadcasting to everyone, she shows the world that Arcade is still alive, and the plan to defect to the Masters of Evil was always fake.

She explains everything to everybody, so there's no longer any confusion regarding her and her friends. They're all in the clear now. Having now been the superhero, though, Cammi doesn't think she's cut out for it. In fact, she's not cut out for any of this. And using her new powers, she goes rocketing into space, leaving Earth behind.

The comic wraps up with a few epilogues. The remaining teens now have SHIELD's trust. They just want to be kept in the loop a little bit. Cullen Bloodstone having willingly joined up with the Masters of Evil is never brought up, so I guess he changed his mind after Hellstrom mind-controlled him? Either way, the kids reunite with their other friends who were smart enough to be left out of this adventure, and just have some fun being teens at some stupid lake somewhere.

And the villains… Well, whatever their plan was, they at least got second place: keeping the Helicarrier. It doesn't have access to SHIELD's systems anymore, but it's still a cool ship. And it's got a great new hood ornament: Arcade, who starts screaming as the Masters of Evil rocket off to do more villain shit. I told you he'd finally get his comeuppance~

Okay, so! In conclusion, Avengers Undercover is garbage. I think we've conclusively proven that. Now, Arena is still worse, in my opinion. Arena existed just to kill off some C-list teen heroes like Mettle and Juston, and I will forever hate it for that. Say what you will about this series--and we've said plenty here--but at least nobody died, yeah?

Let's talk about Zemo's "plan" for a moment, yeah? Coz, like... What was his plan? Okay, he's hacked into the communications of the entire planet. Except it's really SHIELD's comms, and his big plan is to... reveal this? Like, to sow mistrust? What was your next step, sir? People mistrust the quasi-militaristic espionage group policing the world's superhumans, and... then what? The regular people go over to your side? Like, not to get political, but I think everybody already would mistrust such an organisation, just like in the real world. Was this a statement about our current hellscape of data-sharing and so forth? Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't know what he hoped to accomplish with this. I do know I'm going to use this image again, though~

In summary, this series was already very rough and built on an already stupid preceding series. The rush to the end to conclude it before cancellation certainly didn't help much. If you want a much better story about what might make a teenager fall into the temptations of supervillainy, check out the YA book series Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm A Supervillain. It is way better than any of these comics, and I highly recommend it.

Wow, we're finally done with this whole arc! It was tedious and downright unpleasant at times. Thankfully, I just got a shipment in a couple weeks ago, so we can clear the air and do a bunch more My Little Pony comics as a palate cleanser. Doesn't that sound nice~?

[fermataofthecomposer]

It's been a while since I last revisited Micaiah myself. If you don't mind, I would give in my two cents on your argument.

While I do find her Part 3 arc really compelling, that speck on her morality is admittedly questionable. Because it only really applies there, where the circumstances were extreme, and led her into a crossroads of choosing either her people or her morality, and she chose her people in Part 3. Then again, that decision is tested shortly after, because she realized she could not fully commit to it as she was paralyzed to the threat of Sothe dying.

I looked at it like this. There are two main forces that drive her: her general sense of morality, empathy and kindness and her devotion to those who are kind to her (friends, found family or country people).

Throughout the story, the two traits generally went hand in hand. A bad trait of hers that this spurred was her recklessness, but that's what the two traits combined can lead to when your allies are constantly fighting or in danger. Early on we can see that she had more pious traits (not wanting too many funds out of impoverishing the soul, not necessarily wanting donations from villagers to her cause, condemning the use of poison, recklessly saving hostages in the swamp) but these will eventually get sided out as her situation gets more out of hand and she can't afford to put these forward.

Her early stints in Part 3 also have traits of both, funnily enough. Her acceptance of Pelleas' order, while contrary in her general nature, is kind of forced upon her due to both not wanting her people to collapse and not disobeying her... Emotionally unstable king. Even so, she tries to go about it as defensively as possible, wants to save as many lives as she can, doesn't hold grudges for those who leave her cause (she even offered Sothe to leave and fight for Ike), and made Tauroneo try to talk Pelleas out of the war because she deemed it senseless.

AND THEN THE BLOOD PACT WAS REVEALED TO HER.

This is the one big "morally questionable/wrong" thing about Micaiah, where she fully forgoes her general kindness for a bit to fully go into "protect my people" mode. Now, admittedly, the handling of it all is kinda murky because of the differences in Localization that concern Micaiah's character. That completely metal speech about "I'll save my people even if I will be seen as a monster everywhere else" is unfortunately... Localization only. I will still deem it appropriate for Micaiah's character though, because what she does in 3-12 warrants that speech: people have seen the boulders, the oil, the arrows, the potential flames. Less people are talking about the fact that she sent a decoy force to distract Ike, sacrificing people for the cause whereas she focused on keeping as many alive as she could before this. However, there's a thing that's Japanese only, Extended Script only, in which the plan is discussed more beforehand and it implies that she hated every second of it.

AND THEN TIBARN DROPPED SOTHE OFF A CLIFF.

That might as well have smacked Micaiah out of that road she was going towards and make her rethink her life. Sothe being threatened to die caused her to essentially snap back to reality, and she realized that she couldn't give it her all for Daein because of her empathy for those she cares about. It's quite murky in execution also because of the differences between the Japanese Script and the Localization Script as well as understanding what's the canon route Micaiah chose regarding Pelleas. But one thing's clear. Saying that the borderline vile actions she did, she felt bad about, would be an understatement. They almost DESTROYED HER. That's her caring nature realizing that she fucked up and almost paralyzing her.

Unfortunately, from that point on, it's tough to say where Micaiah is aligned, especially because Part 4 makes her a non-presence in character. We don't really get a finality to that character arc and conflict and I think it's a shame.

I believe there's another reason why you may have received these comments of Micaiah being a good person, and that's due to how she's portrayed in Heroes and Engage. Her character there is also difficult to fully portray correctly because it's led by circumstances and due to the differences between JP and International Radiant Dawn in script. I think what they meant her story to be was for her to be a good person pushed to the brink by said circumstances. That doesn't translate well to Heroes and Engage because of a lack of them and a lack of pressure on her morality.

But... There's also the fact that a "good person" is not so easily defined if the situation itself is complicated.

She's not a just person, that's for sure. That's her lowest priority when it comes to "good person" traits.

She's a kind person, and for those who are also chill, it shows, as she forgives mistakes, gives them their personal space, knows when to be polite, etc...

But most of all, she's selfless.

That's her definitive and certain trait out of all of this. Everything she's done was at cost of herself, and we see how that's both a good thing and a bad thing. It leads to many kind acts, and it leads to her willing to let her name be vilified as she serves her people.

Daein itself being a racist country doesn't actually impact her that much because... While it's more pronounced in Daein, racism is... Kind of everywhere in Tellius until Ike ended it. When it comes to being morally upstanding, we have to put Ike above everyone else.

Overall, I didn't mean to berate any of your points. It's just that also due to the rushed nature of the game, it's easy for opinions to be contested like this. I know Micaiah is all over the place in that regard.

Do I wish that her darker side would be shown... At all in modern media? Of course I would! But the circumstances need to be there in order for it to be plausible. I dunno, I haven't played Engage myself but... Uh, make some thugs threaten Yunaka's life in the desert and Micaiah comes out and drowns them all horribly in quicksand. Or Micaiah devises a morally ambiguous plan but it's the one that would grant her friends safety. Something like that.

It's a bit messy, I know... But it's also interesting how Micaiah changed, I just wished it was defined better in the end.

its been so long since ive done any fire emblem meta commentary but here i go (ranting about micaiah incoming)

people have for years come at me with "uhmm micaiah is a good person ackshually" no what makes her so interesting as a protagonist is that she isnt. she straight up says "If that's what it takes to be just, then I want nothing to do with justice. I'd rather be hated and feared like Mad King Ashnard. I'd rather the dark god take my soul. I'm going to save my people, Sothe. If the rest of the world paints me as a beast to be reviled and hated, so be it.”

she is, on paper and beyond, willing go to any lengths for daein including committing atrocities against anyone who's against daein, even when daein is in the wrong (which is usually is lol). and she does.

sure she feels bad about it but that doesnt make her a better person than say soren (who to be clear is also not a good person) who is openly willing to go to the same lengths if needed. micaiah stands for a country thats straight up racist and bloodthirsty towards innocents just bc those same bloodthirsty racists are nice to her and revere her.

and she enjoys that reverence (see: her conversation w/ sothe where she expresses terror over losing the people's adoration of her if they find out she's branded).

of course theres a degree of murkiness even then because to a point you can see her justification - as far as she knows, everyone in daein will die if she doesnt support begnion's racist-ass campaign against the laguz. so there is some understandability to her course of action even while its still, when you weigh out the options, largely wrong (imo and debatable [do not debate me on this i dont care what u think lol]).

anyway micaiah being morally questionable despite her ostensible "kindness" is, again, what makes her so interesting and what makes radiant dawn so compelling. to have a protagonist who can be kind in manner and feeling but also amoral in action is fun!! she does not have to be a "good person," she makes it clear she doesnt even care about being a good person. and in fact its more interesting that she's not.

[inklore]

Another one! For your follower celebration can I pls get a 🔥 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞 — with Steve Harrington? I'm thinking a soft enemies to lovers trope where they weren't friends in school, but maybe reader gets roped into helping the gang, and she and Steve end up having each other's backs? Maybe with the dialogue -- "so you like me-like me, huh?"

Feel free to alter however you like or do whatever inspires! I'm just in my Steve feels and would love a lil blub! Congratulations again amor! 🌿

more than a feeling.

pairing: steve harrington x (f)reader

word count: 888

warnings: none other than super cheesy fluff, and spoilers for season four.

etc: first off ilysm and i hope this fulfills all of your steve needs <3 and second off who woulda guessed the first thing my thirsty ass wrote for this mans is fluff? not me!

i do not give anyone permission to translate or repost my work, please be respectful — if you enjoyed please comment or reblog!

“I mean, I wouldnt go that far.” Your tone is lacking that softness it just had, instead replaced with your best forced sneer and roll of your eyes when you see the tug of a smile forming across Steve’s lips; your admission unfortunately not falling on deaf ears, or being mistook for near-death-expierenced kindness. But something else that the both of you know to be unspokenly there.

“You jumped for me.” Steve grins.

You hold your hand up, shaking your head. “I only jumped because everyone else jumped. Don’t let it go to your head, Harrington. Your hair is already big enough. Your shoulders aren’t going to hold any more inflation.”

Your jest does the opposite of what you want it to do; deepening the sickening fondness and knowing on his face.

And yeah, maybe you did jump in because just-maybe-possibly your heart sank just as deep as Steve did when he was pulled under. Maybe something inside of you seized and ached and your stomach was filled with a feeling you can only classify as something close to affection, a stupid crush maybe?

Or you could do the ‘of sound mind thing’ and blame it on the movement of the boat making your stomach ache, or maybe the fear of you being the next to be pulled under—because it made more sense than you actually admitting to yourself, and to Steve, that you didn’t actually loathe him; you actually liked him, alot.

But you know there’s no denying it now. No matter how many scowls you shoot at him or how you try to ignore his eyes moving over to you as the two of you follow the rest of the group through this fucked up version of your town. No, there was no going back now. Especially after you had bashed in a nightmarish bat's head to stop it from gnawing at him.

A longer than typical silence spreads between the two of you. There’s always some tease, jest, or banter flowing between the two of you. There was rarely a silent moment when one of you wasn't voicing distaste or complaints; that were clearly masking unfortunate feelings and the delight your body went through when you saw that deadpan look of his, and frustrating way he would run his fingers through his hair when you would make a stinging comment to his ego.

You were screwed. Had been since you were roped into this little group of theirs.

Guess there was no going back now.

You were either going to die at the hands of some demented boogeyman or from the endless mockery Steve was going to dish out at you now that he knew you actually didn’t hate him that much, or at all.

"So you like me-like me, huh?" He’s still grinning at you.

The eye roll you do is involuntary and completely warranted because god you were never going to live this down and screw your mouth for being so big and your heart for feeling…things. You were just another town cliche. Another girl who found Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington irresistible. Except you weren’t afraid to let him know how obnoxiously irritating he was—is.

“If you tell anyone I’ll deny it until the day I die.” You’re looking everywhere but at him. Trying to make your tone as sarcastic as possible, but not denying his words. Confirming them without letting anymore sentiments come out of your mouth like uncontrolled word vomit.

Theres a part of you that wants to hear him admit the same thing. Even if its masked by a joke, or a dig. And you hate it. Hate that you're pretty much in some fresh hell and your nerves are only tingling and preening at the hope that Steve says he likes you back. That he doesn't really find you as annoying as it seems.

How pathetic is that?

Extremely.

But you’re ready for the humiliation. Know that it’s coming before it happens. Try to convince yourself of it being factual as you stare down at the ground, focusing on not stepping in whatever gross muck is on the road ahead of you; it doing little to stop you from still holding out hope, to feeling the shared aforementioned pathetic feelings.

You're so prepared for the downfall, the aftermath of this situation—this place—just getting worse as the seconds tick by that you don’t realize Steve’s fingers are brushing against yours until his palm is pressed to yours. Your fingers laced with eachothers; your teeth sinking into the flesh of your cheek to hide the huge smile that threatens to spread across your lips.

Who knew fireworks could shoot off in someones body? Could light every nerve ending on fire, how cheesy, cliche.

You love it.

“It’s crazy,” Steve sighs. Your body readys for him to say something regarding the moment, to ruin it by making you feel even more. Something he doesn’t do when he says, “Not a strand of hair out of place,” and it’s even worse. Because you’re letting that smile spread wide as you look over at him and watch him play with his hair, the look in his eyes, in his grin, letting you know he’s only said it so you can say something about it—his hair your favorite topic of tease.

Yeah, you’re totally screwed.

[vro0m]

Hey idk if you are still doing the whole "how lewis breaks his teammates" essay but if you are, I just want to say as someone who has been watching f1 since I was a kid and seen almost all of lewis career, mercedes is a huge factor in it (noticed how you mentioned button wasn't so affected by it and that comes down two reasons 1) pre-mercedes hamilton and 2) button being able to read his teammates very well and seeing how paranoid lewis was) but really the kind of toxic environment of mercedes to sacrifice anything including their drivers mental health for greatness is what makes lewis the way he is like he was quite young when he first got to mercedes and toto wolfe who has spoken about how he likes to psycho-analyse his drivers in the past saw what button saw, an extremely talented kid who was due to his past of racial abuse and bullying was paranoid and mistrusting as he saw enemies everywhere and him and the team used that to their advantage (merc have done their best to erase it but a lot of the first cracks from lewis and nicos relationship collapsing came from inside the merc team like them telling the drivers different things in the hopes of making them more competitive and better drivers which it did tbf, but then it spiraled and even merc couldn't control the monster they created but they still got the results they wanted in the end) merc took a different strategy but we still see how they shaped everything in regard to lewis and valterri as teammates in which they did offer better support to lewis (not because they realised it was the right thing to do but because after 2016 with nico it became evident that putting lewis in that extreme of a competition causes him to be more reckless as a driver and he is more successful if he is not in that situation) but they completely mentally destroyed bottas and sacrificed a lot of his potential as a driver in order to do that (again you have to remember that mercedes no.1 priority is and always have been to be the greatest and the idea of having a driver with the most wdc was mouthwatering to them and they would have it no matter what the cost) it is hard to say what with happen with lewis and george as the car wasn't good enough this season to warrant the usual merc mind games with their drivers but mercedes shaped lewis into the legend he is today but they also shaped him into the worst teammate (huge lewis fan but not so much of mercedes if that wasn't obvious haha)

Hey Anon!

First of all thanks for the interesting message. I sat on it for a few hours to think it through before I answered because there's a lot of things there, and a lot of things I hadn't considered before.

In short, I don't agree with you. But let's walk through it one thing at a time.

(Congrats, in the end you managed to make me practically write the entire essay but hey, I'll still do it better and more methodically someday.)

So yes, I said Jenson wasn't affected as much. I don't think it has anything to do with Lewis being "pre-mercedes" though. You know when in 2012, after getting beaten by him in quali in Belgium, Lewis posted sensitive telemetry on Twitter? He claimed Jenson had a new rear wing while he didn't himself and said he was losing 0.4 on the straights. (In 2016, Jenson claimed the data wasn't even from quali but from simulations.) Pre-Mercedes Lewis, if anything, was more unhinged, in my honest opinion. Already paranoid and playing mind games. Also way more immature. If it didn't affect Jenson, from my point of view, it's rather because

Jenson is remarkably (and unusually) well balanced mentally for a Formula 1 driver but even that is directly linked to

Lewis wasn't competitive while they were teammates.

The only year he was still in contention for the title in the last race while they were both at Mclaren was 2010, and it would have taken unprecedented circumstances for him to win it. Jenson wasn't threatened. The stakes were the lowest they've ever been in a situation including Lewis in F1.

Now don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean I think Mercedes are good guys.

Lewis does sacrifice a lot for his career, but I don't believe it's something Mercedes created. He was willing to give a lot from the start, I believe in part because he feels indebted, notably to his dad and family, and also because he felt (at least at some point if not still) like he had a lot to prove as a Black man from a humble background. Also let's not forget his mental health wasn't good to begin with, that's not on Mercedes, as what I said about his time at McLaren showed. As far as I can tell, Lewis has always been fragile on that side, that's how it is, that's how it is for most of the drivers tbh, and that honestly kinda almost goes with the job profile. It's not even just F1 : competitive, professional sports are honestly terrible for the athletes' mental health. People are not built to withstand that kind of pressure and scrutiny and highs and lows. Also let's not forget that although he sacrifices a lot, he's been criticised for years by people claiming he has too many ventures and interests outside F1 and he's not focused enough. I obviously disagree that it's a problem, but he does indeed have a lot of other things aside from F1, so it's not like he's completely engulfed in it like some other drivers are or have been and he's devoting his entire time and life to it. As far as F1 drivers go, he's pretty much doing whatever the fuck he wants, actually.

I do think his work ethic and vision and need for grandeur and Toto's entered into some kind of resonance when they met and it intensified the whole thing a lot. (Btw let's not forget that in some ways, just like Lewis, Toto had things to prove as he also went through some hardships of his own and it also feeds into that resonance between them but that's not the subject.) I also do think winning raises expectations, yours and others. I do not buy into Lewis being or having been some kind of manipulated puppet at the end of Toto's arm. Lewis is far from stupid. Toto is a great entrepreneur who knows how to make money out of things and people and that's what he came to do, despite their current extremely exasperating "we are a family" communication campaign. Lewis knows that, he's not naive. Lewis is also a capitalist. Lewis is also in it in (non negligeable) part for the money. Lewis is great at negotiating his contracts and making as many bucks as he can out of this. He's not a victim being used, he's getting his good share out of the deal, both in fat checks and in titles. I know you didn't say that wasn't the case but I'm putting it out there as a way to balance the way I feel you painted their relationship in your ask, like Toto is this mastermind using his drivers, when in reality his drivers, and namely Lewis, are there for a reason and know what they're doing and getting out of it as well.

Yes, Mercedes used Nico and Lewis' rivalry. Undeniably. Niki said it loud and proud, that putting two competitive drivers into the same team pushed them to be even better. However, you claim the issues between them first "came from the inside". I'm not saying it definitely isn't the case but unless you have some actual receipts for that I'll treat it as nothing more than a rumour. I don't think they needed to conspire to build that rivalry, the rivalry was already there in their karting days. They didn't need to feed the flames, the fire was burning. Of course they didn't do anything to tame it down because it was profitable indeed, until it wasn't, and then they did actually try to take measures. The rivalry spiralled because that's the only thing it could do.

Lewis and Valtteri are a different thing entirely from my point of view. For the record, I haven't watched 2017 and 2018 yet but I started watching in 2019 so I did see more than half of what happened there. I wouldn't put it past Lewis to have given Toto some kind of ultimatum after what happened with Nico in the form of you put me first or I'm out, or something to that extent. Or they decided to do it anyway without him asking because as you said, it was more profitable to preserve him rather than rattle him. Anyway, I don't think they voluntarily destroyed Valtteri.

I think Valtteri came into it thinking he could win and then realised he couldn't. Both because Lewis was clearly although implicitly their n°1 driver but also and mainly because beating Lewis when he's doing well (aka not as he was during his McLaren days) – as we saw with Nico like Anon pointed out the other day, as Valtteri said himself when he departed, as Kovalainen also talked about recently – is practically impossible. Literally. Of course some of it is incredibly hard work on his part, but the fact is, even when his rivals try to work as hard as he does, they fucking can't do it. Honestly, it's like Phelps webbed fingers or something, he's truly built different.

As for Lewis and George... Well yeah. There's potential for drama there. But again, I don't think it's due to Mercedes in particular, I truly don't believe they're voluntarily pitting their drivers against each other as you seem to claim. Generally speaking F1 drivers don't need that to be extremely bent on beating each other. Teams tend to rather have to tune it down than to feed it to protect their assets, including Mercedes. As we established, rivals crashing and burning, metaphorically and literally, is definitely not profitable. So if drama there is, I don't think it'll have been generated by the team. George is a young up and comer with loads to prove, tons of potential, who could get a whole career out of it in the most competitive team in history. Lewis is the best driver in the world, he's been robbed of the ultimate proof of that, and he's also nearing the end of his career and running out of time to get that ultimate proof, whatever he says and however much we don't want it to be true. There's plenty enough at stake there for the drama to spawn by itself without being manufactured by Mercedes.

Conclusion : Lewis is the worst teammate not because Mercedes made him that way but because he is genuinely unnaturally good.

[starberry-words]

Brightening Your Day - Part 1 (romantic!)

summary/description: some fluffy romantic headcanons for ways that they would make your day better in a casual sense!

🍓~~~~~✨~~~~~✨~~~~~✨~~~~~✨~~~~~🍓

🌟 Genshin Impact characters: Childe, Zhongli, Kaeya

🌟 bulleted headcanons + quote format (courtesy of @rulaineyu, whose works inspired me to write again in the first place!)

🌟 a romantic reader insert

🌟 gender-neutral, slightly effeminate reader, no pronouns mentioned

genre: fluff, slice of life

content warnings: mention of childe getting into fights (canon-typical, mentioned in passing); overworked reader in zhongli's

author's note: my first ever writing post!! this is an extended version of some headcanons that I sent to an author I look up to a lot (surprise: it's still rulaine)!

🍓~~~~~✨~~~~~✨~~~~~✨~~~~~✨~~~~~🍓

Childe

[After you express how much you enjoy seeing Childe's embroidery, he takes care to notice when your clothes and blankets need repairing, and takes the time to visibly mend them with designs he knows you'll find cute.]

Between his weekly sparring matches with you and the vast number of fights he gets in as a Fatui Harbinger, Tartaglia's clothes get destroyed pretty quickly

Seeing his same jacket somehow clinging to its last strands of life for months on end, you kind of got the sense that he wasn't just paying someone else to mend it indefinitely...but his talent for sewing really reveals itself when one day, you notice a small embroidered likeness of a hydro slime on your jacket where it had gotten a tear

He admits that he put it there; the hole was too small to warrant a patch but too big to sew together again without changing the flow of the fabric, so he chose to cover it up with a little embroidery

You clutch the jacket close to your chest, giggling as you tell him that you love it, it's adorable, and that this is your favorite jacket now

He laughs a bright, starry laugh, grinning at you as he tells you that he's glad it makes you happy

It's not long before little embroidered slimes and flowers and crystalflies start popping up everywhere on your more worn items; blankets, sheets, jackets, and nightclothes, all decorated with slightly silly, simplistic renditions of your favorite things

"You always smile so brightly when you see my embroidery, so I tried to leave it in as many places as I could. It's more fun than mending things the normal way, too!"

Zhongli

[Zhongli picks up on your morning routine, and as a morning person himself, he gets in the habit of preparing variations on your usual breakfast and morning beverage around the time you wake up. You tell him you'd rather wake up with him still cuddled up in bed with you, and after a contemplative nod, he resolves to simply gather the ingredients for your breakfast the night before, and make it with you in the morning.]

You live a pretty busy life

Some would say that your place of employment is overworking you, but you genuinely enjoy the work, so it's more or less fine

It's a bit less fine when you forget to eat breakfast, or when you're missing a second lunch for your suddenly-a-ten-hour-shift (does anywhere in teyvat actually have labor laws?)

Concerned for your health, Zhongli gets up precisely an hour before your alarm, and by the time you wake, the entire house smells like your favorite breakfast

You wander sleepily into the dining area to find your breakfast still warm, plated with meticulous precision, at your usual spot

When you ask what the occasion is, Zhongli replies with a smile

"It seemed that you did not have enough time in the mornings to prepare your preferred meals... So I thought it might be nice if you were to wake to something that you wouldn't typically have the time to prepare yourself."

You smile and thank him for his efforts, and for the kind thought, but you mention that you would prefer to wake up with him still in bed with you

"I see... Well, in that case, perhaps we could both get up earlier, and cook together. I will try to prepare everything the night before, so it will not take as much time out of your mornings."

Kaeya

[Kaeya is pretty liberal with his affectionate touches, but there are moments, just sitting together in silence, his fingers gently over yours, where you can really feel his love for you. With him, these peaceful moments of true quiet are almost more gentle and tender than any offhand flirt or casual remark on your beauty could achieve.]

Kaeya isn't exactly a loud person, but he is a very...attention-grabbing one. At times, it seems as if your charismatic boyfriend could draw an entire room's gaze to your relationship in an instant, and in fact, he often does

In public and with his friends, he certainly makes a bit of a show out of his PDA. You swear that if you had a mora for every time he complimented you in public, you could buy the Golden House itself

But the moments when you feel loved the most are actually unrelated to that

It's the quiet moments, away from everyone, sitting next to each other in the comfort of your home, when the playful act you both put on fades from your minds.

Just you and him and the warmth of each other's hands as a reminder that you're there for one another.

Sometimes you try to get up before he's ready, and he gently grabs onto your hand— not tugging, a grip just firm enough to hold it

"Maybe... we could stay like this a little longer."

[mako-neexu]

unknown lullaby for the sky - nameless bard fic wip from 2021 (i dont know if ill ever get to finish it though)

summary: Lumine follows the legends surrounding the little beautiful spot in the area of Decarabian’s lair. Specifically the one where a tree stood tall yet tranquil, strong but soft to all of its visitors: Baum der Freiheit.

A/N: i wrote this when i keep visiting that spot and being sad over the nameless bard

-

There was a spot in Mondsadt’s ruins not many knew. To the west of a former ruler’s lair was a tree, standing erect in the middle of a small pond beneath a cliff. For adventurers, they paid it no mind and carried on with their journey. It was just another landmark for people to find their way back home. Another place to gather resources, another resting place.

That was the case during the day, but at night, it was another world in the little pocket of nature tucked away from strangers and monsters alike. The water surrounding the tree glowed with the fireflies in a gentle hue. It was a place that assured comfort even in the middle of a dangerous territory. It was a mystery how hilichurls and slimes crawled everywhere in Decarabian’s ruins save for the one that was most likely to be occupied by Fatui men or monsters. The only reason people even knew about the Baum der Freiheit was because of the rumors that the Anemo Archon ascended there.

Despite the land being placed beneath towering cliffs, there was always a soothing lull of cool air within the area. Not too cold nor warm, not harsh nor faint, but the kind that was perfect to lull people to sleep. A reassuring kind of air, one of affection and sweetness. A breeze that cooed and whispered softly against the skin. The scent of fresh soil and grass was a stranger’s warmest welcome, a ground that greeted both foe or friend with hospitality.

As the saying goes, there will always be a grain of truth to rumors altered from youth.

(“If you go to Baum der Freiheit on a certain day every few years, you’ll be able to hear someone humming.”

“Strange, I thought it was the sound of a lyre.”

“A lyre? That place is haunted, I tell ya. I heard crying last time I went there.”

“Are you sure? Maybe the wind is playing tricks on you?”

“I’ve never misheard anything in my life, kid.”

“I see…”)

-------

Lumine decides to take up on a peculiar commission. One that involved ghosts just like  Dusky Ming. It was only a rumor but it caused enough stir for it to warrant an investigation into the matter. Although Paimon went against it, the mora offered from the Guild was enough to convince her. The star-borne traveller heads towards Angel’s Share to interview one of the witnesses said to have more info on the matter.

As she opens the door of the tavern, Lumine greets Charles with a nod before heading towards the second floor of the building.

“You have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone about me providing you information. My family might think I’ve gone crazy.” Payne says as he fidgets at the edge of his table. “As wine bottles are corked, so too are my lips sealed.” Lumine states.

The man slumps against his seat, relief present on his shoulders. “Thank Barbatos. About that commission… Have you ever heard of Baum der Freiheit?” Payne gulps down his mug of beer.

Taking a seat across him, Lumine inquiries, “Baum der Freiheit?”

“It’s at the west of Stormterror’s Lair. There’s a tree under a cliff with a bridge; you can’t miss it. Back when I still had the guts for going on adventures, I used to visit that place a lot. I stopped going there when I reached my thirties. Just last week I tried going back there again but something strange happened…”

The man paused as he took in a shaky breath, “It was just me at that time but... I’m not kidding when I tell you I saw a ghost.”

Lumine nodded easily, “Don’t worry, I believe you.” It wasn’t her first time encountering spirits ever since she and her brother entered Teyvat after all.

“You actually do…? Thanks, I guess. Back to the matter at hand, this ghost most likely can only be seen at night so you gotta be careful.” He raises his cup at her before taking another sip of his beer. “I suggest that you bring an offering with you. I heard from Inazuma that they do that to their dead loved ones.”

The girl thanked the man for his time after that before heading out to Amber so she could drop off Paimon.

“Ehh? But I wanna come with you, Lumine!”

“Paimon, we both know that you get hungry at night and I won’t be able to protect you if you keep hovering on my shoulder.”

“Fine…”

[outercrasis]

Sessions

Pairing: College!Din Djarin x F!Reader

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: None (let me know if I missed something!)

Summary: Everyone is talking about the mysterious new guy on campus

A/N: I had a ton of fun writing this extremely self-indulgent AU and I have plans to keep writing more about these two. It won’t be an actual chaptered fic, but at some point I’ll throw together a masterlist with a chronological order to things.

Series Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Introductions

The semester had only started four weeks ago and he was already a legend around campus. Almost everywhere someone could be found whispering about him. You'd even heard faculty speculating, wondering about the rumors they overheard their students sharing.

You first heard of him in your literature seminar, some of your fellow classmates discussing a recent rumor about the now fabled man. Something about a motorcycle and a child caught your ear, prompting you to interrupt and the girls in front of you who they were talking about. 

The looks you received from the pair were incredulous at best. “You mean you haven’t heard about him?”

“Heard about who?” you asked, genuinely confused. It had only been the first week of class at the time and you were too caught up with your own busy start to check in on the rumor mill.

“Mando, obviously. He’s all anyone is talking about.” From there the girls had happily filled you in on all the latest sightings and rumors. 

Mando, as they called him, was shrouded in mystery. He'd popped up on Corellia University's campus when the semester began and no one knew a thing about him. He hadn't gone to Corellia before, internet searches turned up nothing, and even the skull-like symbol on the back of his leather jacket wasn't familiar to anyone. Any information on him was conjecture at best and there was plenty to go around. Once the rest of the class caught onto what you three were discussing, theories began to fly.

People discussed how he’d been spotted downtown, beating on some guys in a back alley. He’d also been seen uptown the same night though, strolling through Basalt Park. One girl was nearly certain that she’d gone to elementary school with Mando, but he’d mysteriously disappeared one day without explanation. Someone else was confident he was just a cop trying some weird shtick to go undercover. Then one person insisted he had a kid with him sometimes while another was trying to explain that he was actually a murderer. The rumors only became more ludicrous from there.

By the end of the discussion you only ascertained two things for certain. He went by the name Mando and he wore some kind of special helmet. Information you could have gotten by watching him pick up a drink at the Java Hut. Not nearly enough to warrant this level of fervor in your opinion.

From there, hearing about Mando was inescapable. You got home that night only to have your roommate and best friend, Layla, launch into theories about him. Within the week someone set up a social media page to try and track his location around campus via DMs fellow students sent in. That had struck you as invasive and unsettling, but the messages about him kept flooding in.

By pure chance, you had yet to actually see him for yourself. There weren't even any creep shots for you to look at. People had been trying to take photos of him, but he was like a ghost. In the time it took them to pull up their cameras he'd disappear. 

There wasn't even more concrete information about him beyond what you'd learned that first day. Just more and more speculation, a good amount of it made up purely for the shock factor. Another week slipped by, the semester picking up, and Mando news became standard in your day. There was always something new going around about him and as much as you tried to avoid it and focus on your studies, you couldn’t help but wonder about him yourself.

Who was this guy? Was this all some stunt or ‘social experiment’ that would be revealed by a sociology student at the end of the semester? Or was he a legitimate peculiarity, doomed to stick out like a sore thumb? You weren’t sure if you should hate him for making a big deal out of himself or pity him for all the unwarranted attention. Either way, you were sure that whenever you met this enigmatic Mando, you’d know.

×××××

You grumble looking at the submission form. The name and student ID information is blank again. You told Todd last week those fields needed to be made mandatory. How else were you supposed to know who to email when you end up with a no-show for the hour?

Looking further down you're pleased to note that they're at least a grad student. Despite the unfinished form, graduates almost never skip sessions like these. You're thrilled to have the opportunity to discuss something other than freshman composition for once. It's fun helping the wide-eyed freshies, but you can only go over basic comma rules so many times before you start to lose it a little.

There's a knock at the study room door and you look up only to be rendered speechless. It's him. Mando. With a kid on his hip. So Alissandra hadn’t been lying when she told you about the toddler she saw with him. Interesting. Continuing to take him in, you can’t help but focus on the obvious - the only thing you knew about him other than his supposed name, the helmet. 

It’s unlike anything you've seen before. You're fairly certain it's a motorcycle helmet, but it's been modified. Rather than the typical rounded shape, his is all sharp angles and flat at the front. It’s colored a sleek, shining chrome that gleams under the washed out fluorescent lighting. Most arresting is the way he's changed the face of the helmet. The cheeks dip inward at a sharp angle, creating deep, curved contours. His visor is a T of black glass in the center, entirely impossible to see through. It's intimidating and… kinda hot?

The little boy he's holding starts to wiggle in his grasp, physically demanding to be set down in the study room. Once his feet touch the floor, he immediately runs over and climbs into the chair next to you. He's a welcome distraction from his father’s? brother's? guardian's? commanding presence in the room.

The boy can't be older than three, smiling up at you with a wide toothy grin. His hair is covered by a green beanie with large floppy ears sewn onto it and he's wearing a little brown jacket with a sherpa collar. Maybe a bit too heavy for the early autumnal weather, but if the rumor that the kid rides on a motorcycle with Mando is true, it’s perfect. His eyes are large and brown, shining up at you with a slightly mischievous glint.

"Hello, what's your name?" you ask, smiling back at the child.

"Grogu," comes the reply, not from the kid, but from Mando.

You arch an eyebrow at him. He can't be serious with that name. "Grogu?" you ask.

He shrugs, placing his bag on the table. "I came home one day and he told his babysitter that was his name now. He won't respond to anything else. So, Grogu."

You look back to the bouncing toddler. He's still grinning, nodding along with what's been said about his name. They must not be lying then. Either that, or it was some elaborate prank between them and you would never be in on the joke. 

"Well okay, Grogu it is." 

You extend your hand out to Mando, offering your name alongside it. He offers a leather clad hand in return, giving you a firm handshake. You're pleased when he only gives your hand a gentle squeeze, not crushing it like so many other students have done. His gloves are unique as well, black with orange fingers, the leather well worn in. It's warm to the touch, his body heat radiating through the thick fabric. 

"Mando," he says, officially introducing himself as he takes the seat on your other side, across from Grogu.

"Mando," you repeat, cementing it as a truth from the rumor mill. "Got any other names?" You hope that comes across as casual and not intrusive. He hasn't even gone to remove his helmet, telling you he isn't a man who cares much for people prying into his business.

"No. Why?" Mando cocks his head slightly as he asks, the helmet adding an exaggerated look to the movement. He reaches into his bag, pulls out some crayons and a pad of paper, pushing them over to Grogu.

You shrug, trying not to think about how you heard his name might be David from someone in your composition course. "Just thought I'd ask. One hears many things around campus and it's hard to tell what's true or not."

"What do you mean?"

That question makes you pause. Surely he knows. Part of you is still convinced he’s doing this act on purpose, trying to gain notoriety for some reason. The way he asked though, something about it tells you that the poor man is clueless about the buzz he's caused.

"Mando, you're like the talk of the town right now. We only just met but I've heard plenty about you," you explain. It's hard to tell with the helmet on, but you're fairly sure he's shocked underneath. Grogu ignores you both, excitedly scribbling away on his paper.

"I'm fairly sure most of it's just rumor and speculation, but still. You're like a thing around campus," you add.

He's quiet for a moment, his laptop only half out of his bag. "Oh," he finally says. "I didn't know."

Grogu gives a happy shriek not a second later, breaking the awkward tension that had begun to creep into the room. He's beaming, holding up his crayola masterpiece. On the paper there is what appears to be a hastily drawn frog using every color in the box.

Mando returns to himself, pulling his laptop the rest of the way and continues to get set up. "Great job, kid. It looks good."

Most people would have said that dismissively, a platitude to get their child to stop bothering them. When Mando says it though, the authenticity is palpable. He said six words and you can hear the pride lacing them all together. It’s sweet, the obvious affection this clearly private man has for the toddler. 

You can’t help but wonder what his connection to Grogu actually is. The way he spoke just then, if you had to put your money on it, you’d say father. The kicker then though is if he’s biological or not. And if not, then how else does a grad student get strapped with a three year old? Thinking about all the potential scenarios is enough to make your head hurt.

You’re also left wondering where all the more violent rumors about him are coming from. His tenderness is so readily on display that it’s hard to imagine the man before you choking someone because they cut him in line at the local froyo shop. He’s mysterious and gives off a vaguely dangerous vibe, sure, but less than five minutes around him and the kid and it’s obvious he’s no threat to you. He’s just a guy trying to get his assignments done for class, same as everyone else.

Your stomach still catches in your throat as Mando starts unexpectedly tugging off his gloves. From what you’d heard, he never takes anything off: not his jacket, not his gloves, and certainly not his helmet. All anyone knows of his true appearance on campus is that he’s obviously male with rumors flying around about everything else including simple attributes, like the color of his skin. Now, here he is, casually revealing this groundbreaking information to you.

His hands move fluidly, pulling off each glove in just a few easy tugs. His skin matches the heat you felt from them just minutes ago, a warm golden tan, with a few faded lines of scars worn in. Watching him type, pulling his paper up for you to discuss, you feel a deep and sudden ache to have his hands touch you again. A simple handshake is no longer enough. Every stroke of the keys is measured, deliberate, and leaves you wondering how he would use those fingers on you.

“This is what I have so far.”

His voice snaps you back to reality, a quick wave of shame washing over you. Where did all of that come from? It was just a man’s hands for heaven’s sake, certainly not something you should be horny about at two in the afternoon. Not to mention that he came in here looking for your help, not wanting you to start fantasizing about his hands expertly working you over.

You clear your throat and tear your eyes away from the offending appendages. “Great, let me just read the introduction here so I can get an idea for what you’re writing about.”

You settle into working with him easily. His paper is already well-written, just needing tweaks here and there to bring it to the next level. It’s nice working with him. He’s attentive, clearly listening to everything you have to say and taking it into account. He doesn’t even try to challenge you as some of the more macho male students are wont to do. By the end of the session, you can’t help but wish all of your time as a tutor was that easy.

“Thank you,” he says sincerely, tucking his laptop away. “You really helped.”

You smile at him, thrilled with his genuine complement. “Of course, that’s what I’m here for.”

He finishes packing up his and Grogu’s things, with you silently lamenting as his gloves slide back on. It still feels like a ridiculous thought, but he really does have beautiful hands. There’s a small tap on your arm and you look to your left to see Grogu patiently waiting. He’s offering something to you, paper outstretched in his little hands.

“Thank you,” you say, taking the sheet from him. You look at it to see a frog carefully drawn on the page. It’s not the same as the first one he showed you and Mando, this one more deliberate and thoughtful. The colors are still just as varied, but it’s obvious he took more time to think about where he was using each one. You can’t help but smile at his small masterpiece.

“It looks great, buddy. I’ll keep it forever,” you tell him. Grogu beams at your praise, excitedly looking over to Mando. 

Mando nods at the kid. “Yeah kid, I heard her too.” He turns his head towards you. “Thank you again. I’d take good care of that drawing. He’ll never forgive you if he finds out you got rid of it.”

“Does that mean I’ll be seeing you again?” Your own boldness takes you by surprise. You have no idea where that came from, how those words spilled without a second thought. Part of you is already cringing at Mando’s potential reaction.

He surprises you once again though, holding a hand out for Grogu to take. Shouldering his backpack, you hear an amused huff of air from under the helmet. “Yeah, mesh’la, I’ll see you around.”

There isn’t a chance to reply as Mando turns, escorting his tiny charge out of the room with him. You’re a little dumbstruck, now equally surprised with him as you had been with yourself. 

And what was that name he just called you? Mesh’la? You don’t even know what language that could have been, much less the meaning. Something about his tone when he said it tells you it’s a good thing though, that he’s not secretly calling you rude names in some unknown language. You can’t help but wonder if you’ll ever get to find out.

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