#despite planned future plot points after that....

[somerandomdudelmao]

Explaining this comic to people is WILD.

Because first you've got to explain the Rise show, the first five minutes of the Rise movie, the fandom's angsty reactions to the movie (devastating fanfics exploring how Raph and Donnie died, Leo's guilt, Mikey's powers, Casey's headcanoned relationships with all of them), and how out of all the fan comics, one rose to be renowned for it's wacky shenanigans and fluff despite being set in the Bad Future.

And THEN you need to go into detail about how it may be fluffy, but there were 'Little Things'TM that we all the sudden started to notice. So by that point the clueless person you are educating on this is invested, and ya hit em with the ol' "Donnie DIES" explanation.

AND THEN you've gotta talk about how 'everything is falling apart'TM, and then Casey going back in time, missing his family, etc etc.

But WHOOPS now you have to explain memory spells and Hamato Ghost Possession and Donnie's pre-existing plans to cheat death for him being brought back to make sense.

So THEN you've gotta explain how much Raph missed not being a robot as you tearfully talk about Hot Soup.

And if course you need to talk about the twin sense and Leo's ninpo and Mikey's magic and all that before finally taking a breath to say "and that's all we've got so far".

And now there is a person who COULD NOT CARE LESS ABOUT TURTLES who is now forcibly invested in Cass's Apocalyptic Series.

(oh yeah after that you've gotta show said person ALL of Tap's animatics)

Like I said, explaining this comic to people is WILD.

YOU'RE SO DAMN RIGHT HAHA

Not gonna lie, one of my favorite things is reading reblogs/replies from people who are like "I showed this comic to my friend/sibling/important person outside of the fandom and documented their step-by-step descent into desperate confusion diluted with laughs and tears."

Good food. Interesting plot. 100% rate on Rotten tomatoes👍

[yesimwriting]

Untethered

part 2 of Understanding 

Summary: As you and Aegon grow closer, thoughts of the future leave you more uneasy than ever. The questions of war and marriage are foes you cannot escape, especially when influenced by the other greens.

Warnings: plot deviations (mainly the implication that helaena isn't married to aegon and her twins being someone else's ik it'd make canonical sesne for aegon to be able to have 2 wives, especially as king, but this is just a way to make the greens more desperate for aegon to get married and produce an heir), ethics?, and canon compliant incest (reader is rhaenyra’s daughter)

----

There is nothing crueler than a lack of conviction. Your mother and family are preparing for a war that seems to grow more inevitable by the day, Aegon spends his days planning retaliations and strategizing ways to strengthen his feeble claim to the throne, and you are left at a standstill.

The worry and guilt meld together in your veins, the unease pulling you from reality. It doesn't matter that you're currently sitting in the library, away from the Hightowers--away from Aegon. Your current distance cannot undue what has already been done.

You did not mean to care for Aegon, you did not want to care for Aegon. How are you supposed to go home and look your mother in the eye while knowing that you welcomed her usurper into your childhood apartments like an old friend? That you allowed him to sleep in your bed? That you--that you allowed him to kiss you?

You blink, eyes focusing on the pages in front of you. Your mother, your siblings, Daemon, Rhaena Baela--you have to assume that they're all fine. You cannot allow a moment's curiosity to send you down a spiral.

And Aegon--there is no point in worrying about Aegon. As of now, the Red Keep is his. He's safe here, and with the realm so divided, no one is going to suggest sending him anywhere.

"I should have known you'd be here." You blink, head turning towards the stacks. Aegon's standing between rows of books, only a few steps away from the table you've claimed as your own. "I checked your apartments first, foolish of me."

He's watching you, a soft smile playing at his lips. You latch onto that. "I haven't been here that long."

Aegon takes a step forward, his attention shifting away from you and towards the few books stacked neatly by your side. "No...it seems I'm only about 3 books late."

His grin becomes a more certain thing as he moves towards your table. He pulls out the chair next to yours. Instead of sitting right away, Aegon leans forward, his lips pressing against yours.

The kiss is as warm as it is jarring. Knowing that you should stop this is not enough to rid you of the desire to melt into his touch. He pulls back before you can truly react. "Aegon."

He grins, keeping his body angled towards you as he sits. "We're the only ones in here."

Despite his reassurance, your eyes still drift towards the stacks blocking off your seats from the rest of the library. Maybe your tendency to choose secluded seating areas as a way of avoiding as many skeptical glances as possible is paying off. You look at Aegon again, nodding your head slowly.

His smile slowly falls. "Are you alright?"

You can't imagine that he wants to hear about the way you worry about your family and the guilt you feel for wanting to be around him. If anything, telling him about what's concerning you may alienate him. There's nothing trustworthy about an untethered heart.

You nod again, this time the motion more direct. "Yes." You sit up a little straighter in an attempt to feel more connected to what's in front of you. "I'm just a little tired."

His eyebrows pinch together briefly. The look is so pensive you have to work at not squirming. After a beat, he softens. He leans towards you, voice dropping to just above a whisper as he asks, "Did something keep you from your sleep last night, Princess?"

The suggestive lilt to Aegon's voice leaves your skin warmer than it was moment ago. His smugness is only encouraged by your silence. "Someone, actually."

"Really?" He grins, an elbow coming onto the table to prop up his chin. "Do tell."

You hum once, pretending to need to think through your response. "There's not much to tell." Your eyebrows draw together as you mime contemplating even further. "He was quite tiresome. He was so talkative it made it difficult for me, of all people, to find sleep."

Aegon's glare makes it difficult for you to not laugh. "Very funny." Before you can facetiously thank him for recognizing your sense of humor, Aegon continues, "I'm curious, is that why you crawled onto my lap last night? To shut me up?"

The blood in your veins turns to ice. An uneasy heat burns its way through your chest and up your neck. Despite being aware of your solitude, your eyes instinctually dart towards the stacks behind Aegon. "I did--I was not on your lap."

He relaxes in his seat, raising his eyebrows as he presses his lips together in a way that does little to disguise his smirk. "That's not the way I recall it."

In an attempt to ignore the lingering warmth still burning your skin, you roll your eyes. Despite his attempts at flustering you, you're still glad for his company.

"If it is sleep you desire," Aegon's arm moves towards the table, a book you hadn't noticed in his grasp, "Perhaps this can help." You glance between him and the book curiously. "It's a collection of some of the most notable accounts of dragons and what they accomplished with their riders." He pauses, lips briefly pressing together. "I'm sure you're familiar with some of the stories, but this is an updated volume."

He--Aegon--After missing your family for so long, such a personal and genuine gesture nearly makes your eyes sting. As a child, when you spent the most time around Aegon, all you ever wanted to do was recount stories of the most fearsome dragons. As you grew, the interest never left you, you just learned to talk about it less.

There's something so comforting about being understood like this. "You brought me a book on dragon history?"

He's staring at his hands. "In the first few pages, there's an illustration of a dragon that looks a lot like Eveningstar."

You beam, opening the book. "I love it."

The corner of his mouth pulls itself upwards. "Yeah?" His hands come to rest on the table's hardwood surface. Aegon shifts forward, his knee brushing against yours. "Read to me?"

You nod, turning the pages until you find the start of the first chapter. "Balerion the Black Dread."

The story is one you know well. Balerion's time with Daenys the Dreamer, Balerion being one of five dragons to escape Dragonstone, Balerion's conquests with Aegon's namesake.

As you read, Aegon moves closer. His breath is a warm, barely there thing against the side of your neck. You know better than to give him the satisfaction of a reaction, concentrating on the words in front of you.

Sensing your determination to ignore him, Aegon lifts a hand away from the table. You tense, but continue to read. He finds a strand of loose strand of hair that's fallen past your shoulder. He pulls the strand back, fingers lingering against your collarbone.

Your own lungs betray you, your breath briefly catching itself in your throat. "Aegon."

"What?" He doesn't move away, he doesn't even bother to stop smoothing back your hair. "You're the most honorable princess in the realm, surely you're not this easily distracted."

Your face warms. The years you've dedicated to being the ideal princess, the heir's perfect daughter in hopes of preventing being a source of controversy in debates of your mother's claim cannot be taken away so easily. You can't compromise who you are now, not over something you barely understand. "I'm not distracted." The defense rings weak in your ears.

"Perfect," he hums, hand settling against your shoulder, "Then we shouldn't have an issue."

Aegon leans forward, his lips brushing against the exposed skin of your shoulder. Your stomach knots in a way that you do not comprehend. Confusion and hesitant curiosity are not enough to keep you from what you know. You stiffen, pulling back slightly. Your movements aren't a true rejection, but they're enough to indicate your surprise.

He's grinning. "We're still alone."

His easygoingness is infectious. You only manage to hold onto your frown for a few seconds before your smile is matching his own. "You're incorrigible." The words lack any malice.

Maybe in another life, another world in which your mother's status as heir could be easily accepted, things could have been different. A new wave of guilt crashes into you, this one less certain than the others. You're a traitor to your mother for caring about him, and a traitor to Aegon for wishing that you cared less.

"Keep trying, I'm sure you'll crack me eventually."

Your smile broadens. His presence is such a welcomed warmth, you're briefly overwhelmed by how happy you are that he's here, safe and in your presence. The feeling comes close to dislodging the worry from your chest. You lean into that. "I'm glad you're here."

Aegon's eyebrows draw together, his eyes searching yours. You're not sure what he's looking for in your expression, but he seems to find it because after a beat he's smiling again. "I should visit you during the day more often."

Your thumb slowly leafs through the edge of the book's pages. "No--I mean--yes, I'm glad you're here with me, but I'm also glad you're here, as in somewhere safe." You pause, the words attempting to stick to the back of your throat. "Where I know nothing bad is going to happen to you."

His silence digs at you. An expression of such concern, a reminder of your reality is a misstep you're not sure you can recover from. The nail of your thumb presses itself between the pages in front of you. "You worry about me?"

You blink. "Sometimes." Letting out a careful breath, you turn your head enough to look at him. "When I let myself think about life beyond King's Landing."

Aegon's expression is somber in a way that doesn't suit him. His hand reaches for yours. "Anyone would be a fool to attack us with Vhagar guarding the city." You let him squeeze your palm to his. "And as far as life beyond King's Landing, I have no intention to leave anytime soon. Not with everything worth my attention already within reach."

The comment is such a blatant attempt at flattery, you should be annoyed. Instead, you feel the corner of your mouth pull itself into a smile. "Worthy of your attention? I'm honored."

He eases at that, his thumb dragging itself across his knuckles. "What happened to being worried sick over me?"

You roll your eyes, but make no attempt to pull away. "You're exaggerating."

"I," he sighs, "Am mortally wounded."

You fight an instinctual grin, lips pressing together to keep your expression measured as you turn in your seat. Your eyes land on the stacks before you can look at Aegon. Some half thought out comment about his theatrics lodges itself in the back of your throat.

Standing where the shelves part, expression harsh in its blankness, is Alicent Hightower. You take your hand back as quickly as possible, spine straightening in an attempt to create as much distance as possible. Aegon's eyebrows pull together, but before he can ask, Alicent clears her throat.

He moves his arm back before angling himself forward. You force yourself to stare at book in front of you. How long has Alicent been standing there? Was she waiting to witness some kind of mistake or has she already seen one?

"Pardon me." She steps forward, her voice flat. "I did not mean to impose." Alicent glances at her son before allowing her stare to find you.

"There is no imposition." Aegon's voice is measured, his certainty in the casualness of the situation bleeding into each syllable. "I'm only here to show her a book."

Her eyebrows pinch together, "A book?"

The skepticism coating her words makes it nearly impossible to remain still. An uncomfortable warmth begins to crawl up your neck. "We were discussing it." The look she gives you is far from one that indicates any extent of belief. In all honesty, you can't even fault her for her suspicions. You clasp your hands beneath the table, keeping your expression as polite as possible as you hesitantly tack on her title, "Your Highness."

She watches you for another beat before turning her attention back to her eldest son. "Alright. Aegon, your brother is looking for you. Apparently, you were supposed to meet, but clearly, you lost track of time."

Aegon, still completely unbothered by his mother's surprise appearance, relaxes in his seat. "Meetings with Aemond are more rigorous than meetings with the entire Small Council, I apologize for not being eager to begin yet another conversation about Vhagar's uses."

Alicent's stare turns into something distinctly pointed and maternal. With that, Aegon stands. "I should not keep him waiting any longer." He rests a hand on the back of your chair. "Once you're finished here, maybe you should find Helaena. I'm sure she'd enjoy the company."

While enjoying Aegon's company may make you feel like a viper turning against her own blood, you're certain your mother would never have a problem with you spending time with Helaena. As children, you would often run through the gardens with her, listening diligently whenever she'd tell you about any creature that caught her eye.

Presently, she's been a constant beacon of positivity. Before you grew closer to Aegon, she'd often comfort you whenever worry and loneliness lunged at your heart. Even when you couldn't understand the phrases she'd speak to you, you could always tell that they were meant to be optimistic, the words usually implying something about a kinder future.

You nod. "Alright, I will."

With that, Aegon straightens. He offers you a final glance before walking forward. You watch as he disappears between the shelves, leaving you alone with his mother.

Alicent's presence has never been a simple thing to you. Even as a child, whenever you became the object of your grandsire's easily fleeting attention, Alicent's appearances often made you feel the need to put on a performance of sorts, like each casual question and polite smile was an attempt to find some flaw in you.

You're sure she'll either leave or give you an excuse to disappear after some passive aggressive comment masked behind a proper dismissal. You wait as casually as you can manage, your hands clasped together tightly beneath the table.

She straightens slightly, her hands coming together in front of her. "My son seems to have taken an interest in you." The sentence, though spoken much too factually to be an accusation, leaves you on edge. "And he rarely takes an interest in much."

The nail of your thumb digs into your hand. "I'm not sure I'd say he--"

"I know my children, I know the way Aegon is." Though jarring, the interruption is welcome. You weren't sure were you were going with your defense. "And as of late, he has been...different." She takes a breath. "I understand your mother has raised you with certain ambitions, expectations." Your expression hardens at that. "But you've always been an intelligent young woman, I'm sure at least a part of you understands our duty to the realm."

The sentiment is a reflection of the same placating speech you've witnessed others deliver to your mother again and again. Contrasting iterations of the same general warning--the men of the realm will never bend their knee to a woman. Those that remind your mother of this always choose to forget that those same men they're so worried about had once bent their knee to swear obeisance to her.

You've promised yourself that you'd get through your time in the Red Keep by remaining as neutral as possible. Your position is precarious enough without you adding to the fire. But this is an argument you've heard so many times before. "My mother intends to create a new order."

Alicent sighs before falling silent. When she finally speaks again, her words shock you, "Perhaps she will." Your surprise renders you incapable of responding. "Or perhaps Aegon's claim to the throne will be upheld. In all honesty, I do not know."

She takes a small step forward. Something behind her expression shifts, the stoic set of her features cracking enough to reveal something heavier. "But I do know how this will end for you. The men will fight, they will render their decision, and no matter who sits the Iron Throne, you will still have a royal womb."

Her eyes are wider, shinier than you've ever seen them. The expression makes her appear smaller. "No matter the order of things, a noble woman will still need to continue her family's line. A Targaryen woman, even more than most."

She blinks in an attempt to vanish whatever honesty had overtaken her. It doesn't work, the lingering somberness somehow making her appear younger, perhaps even similar to the version of her that had once been her mother's friend. The thought of her as a girl not much different than you, with dreams and friendships meant to last a lifetime built within the walls of the Red Keep, twists your stomach.

She had been around your age when she married your grandsire, hadn't she? You dismiss the thought, pressing your lips together. "Any match you are attempting to push me towards would only strengthen your family's claim to the throne."

"I won't insult you by pretending a union between you and Aegon wouldn't help unify dividing lines or that you have not already proven yourself a beneficial influence on him." Her voice feels flat.

Alicent's eyes find yours, but the longer you stare at her the less you see. "I am not speaking to you as a queen, or as a mother. I am speaking to you as a woman. There are fates much worse than wedding a man that cares for you."

She nods once, expression still unsettlingly vulnerable as she turns to leave. Alicent disappears behind the stacks, the even sound of her footsteps growing softer until you're completely alone again.

Once you're certain that she's beyond the library's threshold, you turn your attention back to the book in front of you. Alicent's words will mean nothing to you, you'll make sure of it.

----

Wide eyes stare up at you, their innocence adding a soft glow to violet irises. Jaehaerys blinks at you before stretching his arms out towards you.

The gesture is so simple, so familiar it's nearly dizzying. All of your brothers had been babes once, and now some of them are old enough to prepare to fight, to die. And the ones that are still small might grow up seeing you as a traitor and not the older sister that helped cradle them through fussy nights and cared for them.

"He wants you," Helaena says, her attention briefly shifting away from the little girl on her lap.

Her gentle prompting is enough to bring you back to the present. You nod, abandoning your own seat in favor of approaching the little prince. You bend down, carefully lifting Jaehaerys before settling him on your hip. He takes to you easily, smiling as his tiny fingers curl into the fabric of your dress's sleeve. The gesture is terribly heartwarming.

"He likes you," she hums, her voice soft as she smooths circles against Jaehaera's back. "That's a good thing. He's particular."

You cannot imagine him being difficult. "Oh, I don't know, he seems forgiving." You sway slightly, the repetitive movement something you vaguely remember your younger siblings liking. "It's been some time since I've seen my youngest brothers."

She presses her lips together in a sympathetic sort of smile. "The morning star takes its time reaching its place."

The phrase means very little to you, but the sentiment of it is clear enough. Something of patience, of things eventually falling into place. "It does."

Helaena smiles again, this time the look a little warmer.

You let your attention return to Jaehaerys. He's still content, one hand holding onto you and the other gripping a wooden toy. "Do you like it?" You're not sure what shocks you more, your words or how much you mean them. "Motherhood..." Your mind forces out the second part of your question without your permission, "Marriage?"

Her lips part, but before she can say anything, the doors behind her creak open. Your hold on Jaehaerys tightens as you turn your head.

The doors are still parted when your eyes lock. You look away from Aegon immediately, focus falling to the babe on your hip. He continues forward, greeting you both before stopping a few paces behind Helaena's seat.

His gaze finds you again, this time his eyes expressing a familiarity you cannot bring yourself to reciprocate. "You're with the twins." Aegon steps past his sister's chair, turning himself towards her. "Helaena, do you need the princess's assistance, or can I steal her from you?"

She straightens slightly, "You can have her. Alyce will be here soon to help put the children to bed."

Your eyebrows draw together skeptically. Why ask Helaena before asking you? "Steal me?" You smooth a hand against Jaehaerys's back. "For what?"

"Every day I hear complaints about Eveningstar."

Your eyes narrow. Of course Eveningstar is acting out. She is being kept farther from you than she has ever been, she has not gotten to fly for some time, and she misses her home. You've been told before that your dragon is complicated, some have even called her spoiled, but you will not tolerate true criticisms of her. "She is under stress and kept in a stable I am not allowed to visit all day and night, of course she's growing restless."

The corner of Aegon's mouth pulls itself upwards. "I know." You blink, unsure where he's going with this. "I also know that she prefers to fly beneath the moon."

You blink. The easy cadence, the grin struggling to not overtake his expression, the way he's watching you. All of it seems to imply something that you've never let yourself hope for. No matter how much favor Aegon has shown you, you've never been offered a chance to see Eveningstar let alone fly her.

"I--I'm not--" The thought of your girl being within reach is almost overwhelmingly wonderful.

You try to focus on the reality of the situation. Technically, you're hostage of war, it'd be impossible to justify letting you near your dragon. It's also late, meaning that being seen alone with Aegon is a danger in its own right. Still, the thought of getting to be with Eveningstar... "Really?"

Aegon gives into his smile, "I'll meet you in an hour."

----

a/n this got really long so i'm splitting it into a third part (and maybe more bc i have a whole expanded arch idea so if this turns into a series that was completely accidental 😭)

Taglist: @thesleepwalker @6ofdreamers @torchbearerkyle @hajimeiwaswife

[iceunhie]

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ⊹ unexpected development ! ꒱ ˎˊ˗

summary ⁠☆ you get transported into your favorite otome game’s world as a shitty side character with a raging death flag. you try to prevent your inevitable destruction... but it doesn't go according to plan as much as you'd hope.

notes ☆ of course it's another scaramouche fic except this time it's plot is manhwa inspired

“This trashy game!” you curse, watching the pitch black GAME OVER screen linger in your phone. Happy music plays despite the current cg of your character at the hands of the tyrant character slash love interest Scaramouche. You sigh, tapping on the back button. “I was so close to completing his route… stupid, stupid game, ugh…”

Teyvat’s Seven Stars was a new otome game that you'd tried out for fun, bored out of your mind. The amazing art and soundtrack garnered your interest, not to mention the male leads were totally your type!

It had an array of tropes and spared no expense of flowery scenes and fanservicey excerpts that made you play despite its massive cashgrab feature. Heart fluttering near death scenes! Action packed romantic scenes with the main characters! It was consuming you and you loved it.

Even if the Scaramouche route was testing your patience.

You get that he was the most difficult to conquer out of all of them, but really, one! wrong! move! ….and an immediate gameover. Life sucks when he's your favorite character, and when your favorite character was notoriously known for having a horrid and difficult complete clear route that no one has completed yet, of course you needed to complete it, no matter what!

Damn it, now you've run out of love points to restart another run. Fuck you, system! Stupid trashy money grabbing game! You put down your phone, closing it. An immediate heavy weight settles on your shoulders, making you feel sleepy as you clutch your phone to bed.

Tomorrow… you'll complete his route for sure…

[ TEYVAT’S SEVEN STARS SYSTEM ACTIVATED! RUNNING GAME FILE NOW ]

Ah. You should've known what was coming.

—

[ CHARACTER FILE: [NAME] [LAST NAME] - CROWN PRINCE KUNIKUZUSHI’S BETROTHED! ]

What the fuck.

You think you've lost feeling in your jaw when the glare of the system shines bright, mocking you.

“[Name], you're awake!” You turn to the sound, and you face probably the most beautiful person you've ever seen. No, what the hell. You've seen him before.

Beautiful silky dark hair, glossy electric indigo eyes, a perpetual aura of ethereal lightness…. the game descriptions weren't lying after all. yes, you weren't dreaming. This was Scaramouche, or should you say at this point in time… Kunikuzushi?

He immediately clings to you. Oh. Oh. Well fuck. “I… uh.”

Scara- ahem, Kunikuzushi’s eyes are littered with tears and oh no you're a weak hearted person for your favorite character. “I'm so glad you're okay! I'm sorry, my mother- I mean, I'm so glad you're okay.”

The rest of the moments is a blur when your… fiance? betrothed? fills you in on what happened. Your mind is fuzzy and you can only piece together just a rough summary of what point in the game you're in.

So, you are currently three years early from the main story. Unfortunately, you are not either of the main protagonists Lumine or Aether. No, the system apparently hates you for being a hater and gave you the most egregious role.

A side character. A side character who barely even appears in the story, left to be trampled on by the story's plot. What's more, you're in the timeline wherein the current Kunikuzushi doesn't take the name Scaramouche because his Mother, the lone Queen Raiden Ei left him when he could not pass the Inazuma kingdom’s test to be worthy of the gnosis.

He took the name Scaramouche after being trained by the shady organization known as the Fatui, the main villainous force in the game and usurped his mother. In other words, a blackened tyrant character!

...And you were the betrothed his mother set for him - executed in the future because he didn't want any trace of Ei’s influence. Amazing.

The future Kunikuzushi would be an arrogant, tsundere and soft-for-only-one-person type of character, but now, he was like a gentle, tucked away from the world young prince.

Wait…. wasn’t he also gullible before?! Very cute, but it's no wonder he blackened so quickly with such a naive personality!

You, well, technically, the character [Name] [Last Name] ended up in this situation after they threatened to leave Kunikuzushi because he was far too fragile for their taste. A side character who’d contributed to Scaramouche’s blackening and paid for it with their life. That was who you were.

Okay, now you pity this boy a lot. He already had a traumatic childhood with Ei not giving him enough love and therefore a plethora of issues, and he'd even end up being a crazy tyrant who stopped at nothing to get the main protagonist in his grasp! For your death flag not to happen, you HAD to do something about that.

You had no choice.

To survive this horrendous fate, you came up with a plan. And that would be Plan give-kunikuzushi-all-the-love-in-the-word-before-he-meets-the-protagonist-and-turn-into-a-blackened-dark-tyrant!

Okay, lengthy plan, but to plan ahead is to be smart, so you can take care of the name later.

—

So far so good, this plan of yours. Plan get-kunikuzushi-to-turn-into-a-sparkly-prince character and not his blackened self was going well! (You gave up on thinking of a cool name) Thank god for cliche romance novels.

So far, you've increased your proximity to him, including him to spend time with you, showering him with bouts of affection and care. And so far, it's been paying off. The once secluded Prince has become so cute and so sweet!

You have to pat yourself on the back for this. You were doing the protagonist a huge favor that now they had a wonderful love interest in their sights for future reference.

Although, if there was one nitpick you had on your conduct, it would be the fact that Kunikuzushi didn't take kindly to others aside from you, and would even be panicked, utterly devastated if you even brought up the mere mention of leaving.

“Break… our engagement in the future?” if it weren't for him looking shell-shocked and deathly pale, the furrow on Kunikuzushi’s face would've been cute. “No! I don't want that! You aren't planning to leave me, are you?”

He gives you the most horrendous god kneeling look of a plea, and of course you drop the subject immediately.

“It was a joke, of course. I'd never want to break our engagement!” you hurriedly reassure, gently taking his hands in yours.

Kunikuzushi looks at you, all puppy eyes and pink cheeks. So cute. Who wouldn't want to stay by his side? You reassure him, “Whatever happens, I'll always stay by your side, okay?”

He looks at your intertwined hands with an unreadable expression on his face. “Do you promise?”

You nod. “I promise, Kuni.”

He nods, gripping your hands tighter, and his expression rivals a blazing sun, brimming with conviction as he pulls you in for a huge hug.

And of course, who wouldn't turn down an opportunity to hug their favorite character?

Surely this time, you’ll definitely escape the death flag and horrendous side character ending, right?!

You don't notice the shadow on Kuni’s face when the mere mention of being separated from you comes up.

In the back of your mind, you wonder what would happen if your Kunikuzushi met the protagonist. Would he immediately fall for them? you wonder, and an uncharacteristic pang of discomfort tugs at your chest. Ah, what would it matter.

You smile at the gentle, pristine and kind Kunikuzushi that's currently excitedly telling you about how Ei praised his sword skills after he beat his younger sister. Even if the main protagonist would come here, you could keep this adorable Kunikuzushi for yourself for just a little longer.

You kiss his cheek, and he heats up. Yes, the future can wait for now.

How the hell did it come to this?

“You told me you'd always stay by my side, right?” a hand slicked with blood is resting on the side of your face. Electric indigo eyes, these ones now having a ruthless glint to them, stare up at your own. “I've removed everything else that can take you away from me. Now, you have no reason to leave.”

By remove, he meant the man who'd decided to make a move on you after you went to the gardens for some fresh air. Hence the blood on his hands and sword, hence the reason why there's a dead body by your feet.

The once adorable and fair-faced Kunikuzushi still turned into Scaramouche after all, and you failed to prevent his blackening. He was truly, undoubtedly the same game Scaramouche.

But… Why was he acting like this? Wasn't this the exclusive feature only the protagonist should be experiencing?

He presses a kiss to your forehead, then the back of your palm. You blush.

Yes, he is now an extremely dangerous individual capable of executing anyone he deems appropriate to just for the sake of it, and yes, this same man is kneeling before you as you're just about to leave after the main storyline cg act just started. And yes, like the protagonist, you should stay far, far away from him.

But could you really? When he was pleading you with such an expression of longing and yearning? He takes your hand to caress it to the side of his face, eyes haughty and grin unsettling, gosh was he so… so attractive, like that.

“You won't leave, right?” Why was he so…. so sweet? Why was this scene structured as if you were the one he wanted to be with, not the protagonist? “You promised me, after all.”

….And why on earth did your heart leap out of your chest when he said he wanted you to stay?

(It was hard to pretend you didn't know why when the smile on your face said otherwise.)

1.5k words, only the real ones know that ive been planning a cliche otome game au since day 1 I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED TO ME WHEN I WAS WRITING THIS FIC 😭 might turn this into a series if people like this though <3

@ MHIIEEE : do not repost, copy or plagiarize or claim my content or work as your own.

[scoobydoodean]

I know you said you had a lot of asks, but do you have any thoughts on why the fandom hates the idea of Dean being seen as a dad to Jack? I don't even know how to put it into words, but I feel like it just rubs me the wrong way the way that certain segments oversimplify all the stuff with Jack and make fatherhood a competition. Sorry to take up your time and you don't have to answer.

It's totally okay to send me asks. I've had a backlog for a long time that slowly increases in size for one reason or another (no time to answer then forgetting, left half answered in drafts and forgotten, wanting to circle back later with a fresh perspective, not having a strong opinion on something, it's about disk horse I've addressed as much as I'd like, etc). I do answer the vast majority of the asks I get as I get them and try to catch things that won't take me much time.

I think a lot of people really resent that Dean didn't automatically slot himself into a nurturing, parental role with Jack in early season 13. Dean was grieving Cas, Mary, and Crowley, he did not trust Jack because of "The Future" and because Dean was full of utter despair. He was suicidally depressed (13.05) and in absolutely no state to nurture/guide Jack or anyone else. Sam was disassociating from his own grief and because of that, would not stop trying to convince Dean that his grief was not real, and that exacerbated the situation and caused Dean and Jack to be pushed together when they needed space the most. Dean explicitly rejected being Jack's "mother", two episodes after telling his own mother in tears that he had to be Sam's mother and father when he was incapable of filling those roles, and that wasn't fair (12.22). 12.23 then replayed Dean's defining childhood trauma, "killing" his mother in front of him, and shouldering him with a "child" that was not his, who he was not equipped to parent but was expected to begin parenting. He was overwhelmed, utterly lost, and wanted to die, and Jack was not his child, and Dean trying to set boundaries was immediately and thoroughly dismissed by his brother.

Fandom prefers to ignore all of this and be angry at Dean for not setting aside his grief because Dean is the narrative heart—the hearth of the house. His love and care is expected and anticipated. In Supernatural, the idea of being loved/belonging/accepted tends to orbit around Dean, so his rejection of Jack in those early stages is built into a denial of Jack's right to be loved at all by anyone or be part of the family. Jack himself almost immediately starts seeking ways to please Dean, and his well-meaning, good-hearted attempts aren't taken to immediately and that angers fans. If it was Sam or Cas who didn't immediately take to Jack, their rejection would hardly register/quickly be forgotten, because their love and acceptance just doesn't carry the narrative significance that Dean's does (though the idea that Sam immediately accepted Jack is also tenuous at best—this is something Jack confronts Sam over in 13.03).

"Jack In The Box" and "Moriah" reignite people's indignation and bring them back to the anger they felt in early season 13, even though Jack was murdering and torturing people, Sam also tricked Jack into the box, Cas went behind all their backs to see about getting him put in The Cage, and the whole point of Moriah was Chuck trying to emotionally destabilize Dean specifically to the point he would kill Jack because Chuck is obsessed with a familycide ending where Dean is the bringer of judgement and his heart is ripped in two. The entire plot of season 15 starts from Chuck being enraged that despite all his manipulations and painstakingly laid plans, and despite the carrot and the stick (it was also literally a suicide play btw) Dean would not kill his son for the "greater good". No one wants to actually look at any of it because it doesn't support their unbelievably dull narratives about Dean... to the point they'll harass you for months over polls of canonical facts that they find inconvenient. People have become obsessed with this silly nonsense about cYcLeS while fundamentally misunderstanding what is happening because they don't actually remember the show. But they sure love to try and talk down to you about tHe CyClEs and how "interesting" and "fundamental" it is that Dean does nothing more that repeat generational patterns (among the Winchesters and the angels) when the entire goddamn show is about Dean Not Doing That and telling God (who has a canonical pervy obsession with him) to go fuck himself for a decade and a half instead, culminating in god unleashing his wrath on them for not repeating tHe CYcLEs he wanted them to repeat.

All that said, I myself don't think Dean wanted to be a father to Jack early on. I think he accepted that role eventually, but he made it very clear that it wasn't what he wanted like... day one. And there's literally nothing wrong with that. Dean becomes the "parent" who treats Jack more like an adult (which Jack appreciates, because he isn't a baby and hates being treated like one). Jack seeks Dean's council on more serious topics like nightmares from traumatic experiences, guilt, and sex. Dean teaches Jack how to drive, he encourages Cas to give Jack space when he's upset, he encourages Jack to go out and have a good day when he's dying when Sam and Cas want Jack to be on bed rest. I think some fans also look down on this, wanting Jack to be treated like a child and seeing Dean's actions as a rejection of Jack's alleged "child" status.

[axkirak]

The Curse of Cassandra [EP : VI]

Read in Ao3 : here

Pairings:  Qimir x f!reader(SEA Reader)  [The Acolyte]

Content waring : 18+ smut/nsfw, manipulation, fingering, p in v, virgnity loss, unprotected sex, creampie (Just asking for a friend: Do the Bene Gesserit need a condom?🤔)

tags/themes : Alternate Universe - Dune & Star wars, Partners in Crime, Strangers to Lovers

Summary: On your twentieth birthday, after spending nearly three years with Qimir, you finally decide to reveal your secret to him. And from that moment, your relationship with him will never be the same again.

Status: finished writing this fic! (It will end in Episode 14)

A/N : As mentioned, This fan fiction mixes elements from two universes, so some details might not match canon perfectly. I’ve made adjustments but will try to keep key canon elements intact. I hope you read this for enjoyment, not to nitpick details.

ps. Writing smut in English is rather demanding for me. I hope you can forgive any mistakes in this EP. I’ve done my best 😭

➡  Intro // EP : 1 // EP : 2 // EP : 3 // EP : 4 // EP : 5 // EP : 7 // EP : 8 // EP : 9 // EP : 10 // EP : 11 // EP : 12 // EP : 13 // EP : 14 (Completed)

Special OS : Phantom Thread

[Episodes 6] Four things cannot be hidden—love, smoke, a pillar of fire and a man striding across the open bled.

On your twentieth birthday, after spending three years with Qimir, you finally decide to reveal your secret to him.

There is no point in hiding it any longer, especially after he has already seen something he shouldn’t have on that ship. Besides, you no longer wish to conceal it. That near-death experience has changed your perspective—not just on your own feelings but also on the visions that have surfaced from deep within your subconscious. Through the fog of time, you sense profound changes—both in the future paths and in the bond between you and him.

A bond you never wanted to form. Feelings you wish to deny. But no matter how hard you try, in the end, you can’t escape it.

Sometimes, fate has a strange way of twisting things—you can’t help but think that when you recall your first meeting. You hated Qimir with all the intensity of your feelings. You couldn’t stand him. There were moments you even plotted his death, planning to flee far away. But who would have thought that three years later, you’d find yourself lying in his arms on a small bed in a rundown hotel near the Starports on Olega, far removed from the bloody events on Tatooine.

You are uncertain if it can even be called love. But one thing is certain: Qimir's presence changes your life forever. He changes you. You change him. And you have no idea if it is for better or worse.

Resting your head on Qimir's chest, you let his large hand caress your back. It's strange how safe you feel with him, despite having witnessed him kill so many people.

But it's not just you who feels this way. Qimir doesn't seem to fear you either. His words are blunt and direct when he finally asks about what he's seen. "I saw what you did—you control people with just your words," Qimir says. "What exactly are you? A member of some witch's coven?"

He turns on his side, wrapping his arm around your shoulder, holding you close as if to comfort you from the terrifying events that have unfolded earlier. Yet at the same time, it is clear he intends to keep you there, preventing you from leaving until you answer his question honestly.

You know Qimir’s intent, but do not push back. You remain silent for a moment before replying.

"It is an ancient technique passed down by my people," you confess, feeling as though you are revealing a terrible sin to some forgotten god. "We use our voice to command others, bending their will to our desires." You pause before adding, "And no, I am not part of any witch’s coven. My mother said those covens are nothing but lowly imitators, trying to replicate what we truly are."

"Your people? What do you mean?" Qimir frowns, curiosity gleaming in his eyes.

You close your eyes and take a deep breath. A wave of unease washes over you as you realize that the moment of truth is finally upon you.

“I am Bene Gesserit.”

Bene Gesserit—those words, foreign to most in this age, are known only to a select few who have studied ancient history.

According to old records, before the rise of the Jedi Order, the Bene Gesserit was a powerful religious order that held great power throughout the galaxy, known as the Sisterhood. They only accepted women deemed worthy into their ranks.

It is said that the Bene Gesserit were the true originators of the Force, passing down their teachings through generations. The Bene Gesserit sisters possessed mysterious powers and physical capabilities far beyond the reach of ordinary people. They could neutralize poisons within their own bodies, control others with the power of the voice, and train their minds and bodies to heights that defied natural limits. Some could even glimpse into the future with an eerie sense of prophecy, though only fragments of what was to come—except for the Reverend Mothers who led the order. They alone held the power to peer through the memories of their ancestors, journeying through the past, present, and distant future.

And it was this obsession with the visions they received that drove their beliefs. The Bene Gesserit were convinced that the universe was heading toward destruction, haunted by the prospect of a terrible future. Their only solution was to guide human evolution to its pinnacle through meticulous breeding programs that spanned generations. They strengthened their power by sending their sisters to marry and breed with the ruling houses of various planets, integrating themselves into the political and religious structures, and influencing every layer of society, from the lowest to the highest ranks—all for one ultimate goal: the creation of the Kwisatz Haderach, a superior human who transcended all others.

Yet ironically, it was the Kwisatz Haderach himself who brought about the very doom of the universe, which the Bene Gesserit had feared and attempted to avoid all along.

The Bene Gesserit succeeded in creating the Kwisatz Haderach as intended, but they utterly failed to control him. Paul Atreides, the only son of Duke Leto Atreides and Lady Jessica of the Atreides, a Bene Gesserit sister, became a religious icon before he reached twenty. He was revered as the Lisan al Gaib—Voice from the Outer World—and was worshiped as a godhead. He led the Fremen, the ancient people of Arrakis, in a jihad that spread across the galaxy. Tens of millions perished in the holy war, and hundreds of millions more during the tyrannical rule of the Kwisatz Haderach’s own son.

Eventually, the Kwisatz Haderach's dynasty was annihilated by the vengeful masses, and the universe slowly began to heal, giving rise to numerous new sects, including the Jedi Order.

The Bene Gesserit were said to have vanished during this time, and rumors of their demise were widespread. Some claimed that the Kwisatz Haderach, driven by his hatred for the Sisterhood, had eradicated them entirely, while others believed they were blamed for the jihad and were hunted down by the vengeful populace.

Regardless of the cause, the true reason for the destruction of the Bene Gesserit was their overwhelming power and the mysterious goals they pursued. It was decided that the Bene Gesserit witches should no longer exist in the universe, as no one wanted to risk the emergence of a second Kwisatz Haderach.

For thousands of years, you have been the last Bene Gesserit. Although your skills and powers are far weaker than those of your ancestors due to a lack of proper training, you still surpass both Jedi and Sith. Your power is the source of the Force they wield—an ancient power that none can fully replicate unless they are also Bene Gesserit.

“I am not only a Bene Gesserit; I am also a Fremen,” you reveal, deciding to share another layer of your secret with him. You point to your deep blue eyes, the eyes of Ibad, the distinct mark of your ancient race, now long extinct along with the Bene Gesserit. “My Fremen name is Hara[1], a name known only to my mother."

You are surprised at yourself for disclosing your Fremen name to him. For the Fremen, a tribal name carries deep meaning and significance, given only to those who can be trusted completely.

However, you feel a sense of relief after finally speaking, though it's not complete. There are still secrets you haven’t shared with him, but revealing this much is already more than enough. You trust Qimir, but you are unsure how much of this truth he can truly accept. Deep down, you are terrified he might see you as a monster, shun you, or worse, decide to eliminate you like others might. Your very existence might be too dangerous to allow you to survive.

But Qimir says nothing. He appears deep in thought, his expression unreadable. You can’t discern his feelings, and the silence grows unbearable. Finally, you ask, 'Do you fear me now that you know who I am?'"

As the words leave your mouth, you bite your lip unconsciously while waiting for his reply, worry gnawing at you. How strange it is to be afraid of his rejection more than your own death."

"Fear?" Qimir tilts his head, puzzled by your question for a moment. Seeing your distressed expression, he quickly grasps your concern. "I have no reason to fear you," he says, stepping closer to place a gentle kiss on your forehead, then the tip of your nose. "I do not fear you," he emphasizes, sealing his words with a firm kiss on your lips.

You let Qimir kiss you a little longer. When he finally gives you a chance to catch your breath, you ask, 'Even though I am dangerous?' Your voice is barely a whisper, filled with uncertainty.

Everything feels too perfect and too smooth, and instead of providing reassurance, it only makes you feel more uneasy.

Qimir smiles widely, almost as if he wants to laugh but is holding it back. "Oh, in that case, it’s me you should fear more." He teases, his tone playful, as he resumes kissing you. Not on your lips, but now on your ear, nibbling playfully, while one of his hands moves up to your breast, caressing and teasing your nipple through the fabric with his thumb.

Your eyes widen as you realize what is about to happen. You grab Qimir’s arm, quickly halting his mischievous actions before things can go any further. “Qimir,” you call out his name, your heart pounding, your voice faltering with each shaky breath.

Qimir stops immediately, pulling back slightly to look into your eyes. You see the clear reflection of desire in his dark eyes. “Don’t want to?” he asks, his voice carrying a hint of pleading, though the playful smirk at the corner of his mouth suggests something more sly, as if he knows every thought in your mind without reading it, knowing that you won’t refuse.

His knowing demeanor makes you feel annoyed, but there is little you can do. In a situation like this, you are at a disadvantage in nearly every way.

“Well, I…” You try to speak but hesitate for a moment, your cheeks burning hot as if set aflame. You don’t know how to explain it to him without making yourself feel even more embarrassed. “I don’t know how... I’ve never... you understand, right?”

That isn’t entirely true. Even though you have never been intimate with anyone, you aren’t that naive. As a Bene Gesserit, you can see the past through ancestral memories, which sometimes bring you glimpses of things you shouldn’t see, intruding into your dreams. But dreams and reality are entirely different. You feel out of place, unsure of what to do, like someone who has read extensively but fails when it comes to practical application.

Qimir lets out a clear laugh, his sly smile shifting to one of genuine amusement, making you blush even more. Before you can protest, he seizes the moment and silences you with a kiss.

This time, though, it feels different.

Never before has a kiss between you two felt so deep and intense. His lips and tongue are sharp and distinct as they invade, filled with a potent desire that permeates every touch, burning with unwavering purpose, as if he wants to touch the very core of your being, reaching the true self you have never revealed to anyone.

When he finally pulls back, he doesn’t move far. His mouth lingers on your lips, and his hands gently cradle your cheeks. “Relax, don’t be afraid,” Qimir whispers, his lips trailing to your neck, feeling the rapid pulse beneath your skin, then moving down to your chest. “I told you before, you don’t need to hide yourself when you’re with me.” His voice is soft, almost dreamlike, but every touch is real.

You follow his lead, as if under a spell, letting him undress you without resistance. His large hands roam over every part of your soft skin, planting kisses along the curves of your body, from your shoulders down to your hips, and finally to the inside of your thighs. His dark eyes examine your naked form without looking away, not missing a single detail, taking in every perfection and flaw—nothing hidden, nothing concealed.

“I want you to feel every emotion within you—anger, fear, and desire…” The word ‘desire’ from Qimir’s lips was as sweet as honey. “Embrace who you truly are, what you can be, and what you can do when you’re with me—only with me.”

You flinch as his fingertips brush against your delicate folds before sliding inside you. You can feel every knuckle as he slowly works his way deeper, one finger becoming two, gently stretching you as he allows you to grow accustomed to the sensation. He then begins to move them slowly, his thumb rubbing your bud, massaging every sensitive spot inside and out, sending shivers of unfamiliar pleasure through your body.

Waves of strange, stinging bliss ripple across your skin, making you restless as you writhe in the throes of sharp delight. But his other hand presses firmly on your lower abdomen, forcing you to stay still.

“Be a good girl,” Qimir admonishes, a grin tugging at his lips, clearly enjoying watching you struggle helplessly beneath him.

You moan, burying your face in the pillow, your entire body trembling with the intensity of your climax, making you feel like you are floating in a sea of stars. After catching your breath for a moment, you look up to see Qimir hastily removing his own clothes. His skin is pale, his body sculpted with lean, defined muscles, as beautiful as a statue in a temple. But what sets him apart are the scars, some small, some large, like cracks in marble. Yet these imperfections only make him more striking, unique, and beautiful.

Qimir turns to look at you, fully aware that you have been watching him the entire time. His face softens in the dim light, but his eyes remain dark. You sense the intense longing within them—a desire he’s harbored for a long time. You wonder why you never noticed the fragile restraint in him until now. He seems on the verge of snapping, as if he’s been wound too tight, ready to unravel at any moment.

Qimir wastes no time, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you close until there’s no space left between you and him. His hardness presses firmly against the crevice of your thighs, the heat spreading through your body as his cock gradually sinks into your swollen slit, filling you completely.

A low moan escapes his lips, soft and barely audible. Qimir pauses briefly, giving you a chance to catch your breath and adjust. As he takes a moment to relish the closeness, he revels in the warmth of your tight, slick, silky walls that embrace his length perfectly.

"It might hurt at first, but it’ll get better soon. Just bear with it," he murmurs, his hand gently stroking your hair. He plants a warm kiss on your cheek, trying to comfort you as your face contorts with pain. It feels like he’s about to tear you apart as he pushes in fully. You lock eyes with him in shock as a flood of emotions washes over you—strange, frightening, painful, and thrilling all at once.

Your lips part, letting out a silent moan as Qimir begins to move, thrusting in to the hilt until you can feel every inch of him deep within you. He brushes away a stray lock of black hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear. His lips press a kiss to your sweat-dampened temple as his hips thrust forward, quickening the pace. Your soft inner walls tighten, clenching around him as his tip repeatedly hits your sweet spot.

By now, the pain has subsided, replaced by waves of pleasure building inside you, ready to explode.

Tears stream down your cheeks as you grip Qimir's shoulders as if your life depends on his mercy. Your hips rise to meet his movements, every fiber of your being striving to get closer to him, nearly melding into one.

The rhythm changes slightly, slowing down and becoming less steady but more forceful. You pant heavily, feeling the climax approaching, each movement bringing you closer to the edge of ecstasy.

Just a few more thrusts, and you both reach the peak together. He spills into you, his release filling you up and spilling over. The hot, wet feeling of his cum makes your body shiver and feel dizzy, still unaccustomed to these new sensations.

The room gradually returns to calm. When Qimir pulls away, your body suddenly feels light and empty, like weightless cotton. You drift in the calm afterglow, enveloped in his embrace as he nuzzles you, kisses your cheeks and forehead, and caresses your hair tenderly, just as lovers do."

But there are no words of 'love' from his lips. The last thing you hear from Qimir before slipping into sleep is, 'You’re no longer alone. You belong to me.”

Instead of feeling reassured by these words, a strange unease flickers through your mind, as if you've just stepped onto a path of grave mistake.

Footnotes:

[1] In Fremen culture (as depicted in the film Dune), Fremen names are special names that differ from regular ones, only shared with outsiders when there’s deep trust and acceptance. For example, Chani tells Paul her Fremen name, 'Sihaya,' as a sign of accepting him as a lover. That’s why the reader needs a Fremen name—it’s culturally important (and I certainly WILL NOT USE Y/N as a Fremen name, absolutely no way!). I’ve hinted at this name since EP : I (if you pay attention, you’ll notice it), and it ties into the story, so I hope you're okay with the name I picked.

[animeyanderelover]

Can I also request the marly guys (zeke, reiner,colt and porco) with an escaping s/o please? If it's to many people you don't have to write for colt or zeke. Thank you

Tw: Yandere themes, possessive behavior, toxic relationship, obsessive behavior, delusional mindset, manipulation, threats, blackmailing

Tags: @shumidehiro

Escaping s/o

Zeke Yeager

🚬​He's probably been aware of your silly plans for a while now but has never spoken up about it as he instead chooses to wait and see how it turns out. Whilst you are making your own plans though, Zeke is gearing up to counter them as he does his own work. Two can play the game after all and if you are conjuring up schemes behind his back, he will return the favor. After all the Titan Shifter is fairly confident that he will win this as he has the intelligence and the influence. The moment you finally put your plan in motion, Zeke is already prepared for everything and the whole thing ends soon in your undeniable defeat. He visits you later as you were put under custody until he arrives and it is then that he explains to you that he has been aware of your plot for a while now. He could have stopped you obviously as soon as he had his suspicions but he thought that it would perhaps be better to let you see and feel that you would do better to stop such shenanigans in the future as you stand no chance against him. The next time you come up with such a hoax, he won't amuse you any longer. This is the first and last time he played such a game with you.

Reiner Braun

🟤​Even if Reiner were to discover hints of your plans, he would most likely refuse to believe them. This guy is quite dependent on his darling after all the trauma and pain he had to endure and he is quite desperate for them to love him too which is why he is extremely overbearing. The first stage is just denial when he finds out that you have actually ran away from him as he instead tries to come up with excuses for what you have done all because he doesn't want to accept the truth. You couldn't! You would never do that! The moment the truth comes crashing down though, Reiner has a meltdown and starts bawling his eyes out. He is a mess and it needs the likes of Pieck and Porco to shake him out of his misery. He isn't far away from transforming into his Titan and chase after you but luckily he is stopped by his comrades as well as the last bit of consciousness that there are people important to him living here. Some more amicable soldiers of Marley agree to help him and he himself joins them, though he looks only seconds away from another meltdown. He's going to scream, cry and beg for them to never do this again as he locks them away in his house from that day on, his trust broken.

Porco Galliard

🌫️​Porco should technically not be surprised if you should attempt to escape from him. After all it is no secret to him that he has forced you into an engagement as well as marriage without even considering your wishes in it. Yet when it actually happens, there is still the disappointed anger as he can't help but think that even if he did all of that, it ultimately enabled you a better life. His anger only heightens the longer you are gone as he even snaps at Marley soldiers despite knowing how his kind is viewed by them. He doesn't fully trust them either so he goes on a separate pursuit to go after you and the moment you are found, you will not be spared of his ire. He's pissed as he yells at you, insult after insult leaving his lips as he calls you an ungrateful thing and points out how he has done nothing but better the situation for you and your family alike. Briefly he considers threatening you to take all the privileges away for you and your family but that would only be really possible through divorce and he would never consider that. He either locks you away like Reiner does or actually goes the extra step and asks the Marley soldiers to imprison you for a while so that you realize how good you have it with him.

Colt Grice

◻️Oh, the poor lad would be absolutely heartbroken. After all he has done nothing but protect and dote on them. Sure, he has done some things he is not too overly proud of such as also pushing you into an engagement but he shares similar motives to Porco as he wants to ensure your protection as soon as he becomes the next Titan Shifter. He is in denial and honestly, he remains stuck in disbelief even as he goes after you until you are caught and he sees you again. The spiteful and frustrated look you give him is finally enough to smash reality right against his chest. Why...? Why would you do this to him? His mind is racing, although all thoughts scatter before he can even properly form them as he tries to dig up something that he can say to you as he stares at you but no words ever leave his lips in that moment. His trust has been smashed and is left in pieces and he doesn't know what to do around you for a while as he has to stomach the realisation that the relationship is perhaps more threatened than he ever would have wanted to think. He would probably find himself turning to your family who, given the opportunities he gives you and them, would most likely shame you for your attempt.

[phantomnecromancer]

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪Female Geto Suguru⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

2.2k words Content warning 18+, nsfw, smut, masturbation (f + f), oral (f! receiving), fingering (f! receiving) geto in this fic is a woman btw! pt2 soon Synopsis

you. In reality, Geto Suguru saw you as nothing more than a convenient tool, a pawn in her intricate plans to manipulate curses and bend them to her will. While you showered her with gratitude and adoration, she plotted and schemed behind that facade of benevolence, using your devotion to further her own dark ambitions.

Note from the author Oh my god, I'm so sorry for the delay, I completely forgot about this account. I've been really eager to write a fic inspired by a female version of Geto. It seems like there are lots of fanarts but no fics about her female version, so I decided to create my own. Like I said, English isn't my first language, so I apologize if there are any mistakes! I really plan to keep writing for Fem Geto in the future, and I even got inspired to write more about Cult Geto because there don't seem to be many out there. Anyway, enjoy, and see you in part 2!"

―Geto suguru who was banished from jujutsu high

She is the worst curse user ever existed in the ultimate millennium

―The warm lights of the temple flickered to life. It seemed that it hadn't been in place for long; rumors circulated that the owner of the old temple frequently moved their residence. No one knew why they did it or if there was any malice behind his actions. The people didn't seem to care, as long as the burdens on their shoulders, forces they couldn't comprehend, were lifted from them. Those who visited said the owner appeared to be a very sweet person, asking for nothing in return for taking away the heavy sorrows and pain they carried.

The reason for your visit was a last grasp at hope. After consulting doctor after doctor, nothing seemed to alleviate your suffering. Gradually, you began to lose your sanity, reaching a point of no return. You felt watched, attacked, and even saw things that you knew were impossible in the earthly realm. Your pain was so intense that the thought of ending your life started to seem not so terrible.

Then, amidst the small talk of the village elders  you heard about someone who, according to their words, was a god reincarnated on earth. She could lift all burdens, and her noble soul sought nothing in return. You never considered yourself a religious person; you believed it was a complete scam, a mockery of human beings to strip them of their money while maintaining a pure image in the name of a higher power. However, what did you have to lose? Your last will, crying out for a reason to live, a reason to continue existing in this earthly realm. It seemed that the location was uncertain and constantly changing, but it appeared to be on the outskirts of the village, along a road whose name you did not know.

The soles of your shoes echoed with each step as you drew closer. There was no longer any doubt; this was not the idle chatter of the old ones you had overheard a few nights ago. The temple stood before you, immaculate and serene, its presence undeniable. The fragrance of incense and sacred wood wafted through the air, enveloping you in a scent that stirred a nostalgic echo within the depths of your memory.

It was spring, the season of blossoms, and flowers adorned every corner of the sacred place, their vibrant hues adding a touch of grace to the temple's tranquility. Despite your skepticism and lack of faith in such matters, you could now understand the profound solace this sanctuary offered to its believers. The peace it bestowed upon them was almost palpable, a gentle whisper of calm in a world filled with chaos.

Now, standing before the grand wooden door, your nerves began to fray. Even in a place where the energy was supposed to be gentle and benevolent, you couldn't shake the tightness in your chest. You couldn't tell if it was due to your past calamities, that darkness that seemed to follow you everywhere, or if this place simply gave you an uneasy feeling.

As you pushed the door, the creak of the wood flooded your ears, though it was no louder than the pounding of your heart or the white noise ringing in your ears. Stepping inside, your eyes were immediately drawn to the temple's interior splendor. The walls were a rich saffron hue, and the corners were painted a beautiful chocolate color, so polished you were certain they were cleaned daily. Some walls were a deep olive, adorned with protective amulets. Before you stood a small staircase leading up to a dais with a sliding door. Your eyes wandered for a moment, your gaze fixed on the curling smoke of the incense placed on one of the shelves. It seemed there was someone there, yet your sight did not reveal them.

“Hello..?”

”―You spoke almost in a whisper, feeling like a frightened puppy with its tail between its legs. Your hands were trembling and sweaty as you tried to dry them on the fabric of your skirt.―

Moments passed in a silence so profound that the only sound was the creaking of the wood beneath your shoes. Then, the sliding door opened, revealing a female figure. She was dressed in traditional Japanese attire, a "Gojo-Kesa." The woman was quite tall, especially compared to you, the difference in height stark and almost intimidating.

Her long hair was tied in a mid-bun, so black it could easily blend with the darkness of night. Her ears were adorned with black plug expanders, adding a distinctive touch to her appearance.

Her hands were clasped together, hidden within the sleeves of her traditional attire. She walked with such elegance that it was astonishing how she made almost no sound at all. As she reached the dais, she gracefully lowered herself to the floor, one arm resting on a red bench. A smile without showing her teeth spread across her face, radiating kindness and appearing entirely devoid of any ulterior motive.

"It seems I do not recognize your face, miss. You have never been here before, have you?"

 ―said the woman. Her eyes fixed intently on you, and you could feel her gaze as if she were trying to read you completely, peering into your very soul. All the while, she maintained that smile. Despite her persistent smile, which initially seemed kind, you couldn't help but feel it was turning into something more sinister. You couldn't shake the nervousness that gripped you; you wanted to speak, but your vocal cords seemed to be playing a cruel joke on you.―

Your voice came out almost in a whisper, your head spinning and feeling how your legs gradually weakened. 

"N-no, I've never been here before," 

you felt the urge to escape, the air was thinning, and a pressure on your chest assured you it wasn't just your minor issue weighing you down.

"Headaches, dizziness, feeling watched, hallucinations, and paranoia isn’t it?" 

she said, the smile creeping never leaving her face, almost as if she were mocking you. Her purple eyes stared at you as if finding amusement in your distress.

"H-how do you know that?"  ―you stutter, your hands now clasped tightly in front of your body. ―

"Come closer to me, darling." her voice flowed like honey, contrasting with the mocking tone of her voice. Her hand gestured for you to approach her, her body still laying lazily towards the bench.

The sound of your shoes echoing on the polished wood was the only thing audible in the room. Her eyes never left yours, making her intimidating, yet her physical allure was undeniable. You had never felt physical attraction toward a woman before, especially someone who, with just a gaze, could make your stomach tighten and your head spin.

Her arm lazily lifted, as if she were swallowing something with her hand. Gradually, the heaviness that had been tormenting your shoulders began to dissipate. Your eyes widened in shock, a look of utter disbelief spreading across your face. Meanwhile, the woman's expression turned to one of satisfaction as she held what appeared to be a yellowish orange crystal ball.

"Better?" she says with a satisfied smile on her face, as if she knew and took pride in her powers. It was as if she saw you as an inferior being to her, as if you didn't matter, an empty shell.

You felt completely liberated, the weight on your shoulders finally gone, and that feeling was enough to overshadow your doubts and fear of the intimidating woman before you. 

"How..?"

――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

―Weeks passed, and it seemed you couldn't stop wandering around the same place whenever you could. You were so grateful to that woman that you felt you owed her your life. Her kind smile always thanked you for the small gestures, or that’s what you thought. Whether bringing incense or flowers to decorate the temple. You even stayed to clean and polish those chocolate-colored wood floors you adored so much.

Geto detested you, hiding that with her usual kind smile, applying sanitizer whenever she could, when you weren't looking or after you'd left. Yet, in her own words, you were the best-behaved monkey she'd ever seen. It seemed you genuinely believed she had made that gesture to help you, to help others, and to lift that weight from their shoulders. The reality was different: absorbing curses to store them and use them to her advantage for her new world.

"Miss Geto, I brought flowers! Where should I put them?"―

You say happily.  almost adorably, holding a bouquet of lavender, Geto's favorite. Her gaze returns to you, briefly eyeing your petite figure, that fake smile without using her teeth that she usually gave you. She shifts her usual posture, spreading her arms to point with her finger at a white vase adorned with blue decorations.

Happily, you place the lavender bouquet in the vase, your smile never leaving your face. You even came often to pray, spreading gratitude to the strange woman you believed enjoyed your presence. You are so foolish, thinking she enjoyed those little conversations you had with her or thought well of you. She saw you as nothing more than a mere toy to be used, just a simple monkey and nothing more.

As you sat down to pray as usual, your knees on the floor, you cursed yourself for wearing such a short skirt. It rolled up to your thighs each time you bow your head to the ground, showing those white panties that you carefully chose every day you went to the temple, like she was going to see them. The thin fabric barely covering your puffy folds that were already soaking wet— poor baby It wasn't your fault— she just looked so pretty every time and you couldn’t resist yourself. You just wanted to catch her attention. You wanted her to see you, to know you existed. You lived for her praise and that small smile that tugged every time you remembered her favorite flower or her favorite scent.

You didn't know why you felt this way; you had never felt any physical or emotional attraction towards a woman before, but with her, it was different. You wanted her to see you, your heart pounded every time you saw her arrive or whenever her eyes lingered on you for just a moment longer. 

And for mere seconds, you felt her gaze. Your head was on the ground, hands placed in front of you, and you deliberately shifted your hips forward, causing your skirt to lift, revealing the view of soaked panties, showing the thin fabric almost completely transparent with how wet your core was. You could feel how everytime you shifted yourself to sit down the friction in between bows, leaving a wet strip of juices all over the floor. 

This action did not go unnoticed by the dark-haired woman, and for the first time, a slight smile crossed her lips. Her purple eyes carefully examined the girl's figure. Of course, she noticed your advances, every time you blushed when she looked at you for more than a few seconds, or when she gave you empty compliments but your eyes seemed to sparkle every time she said them.

I wouldn't lie to you; she didn't deny finding the power difference over you fascinating. You might even seem adorable to her in her own way. She might even consider you deserving in her new world—the only monkey she wouldn't mind having by her side.

When she saw you innocently stand up after pretending not to notice that you had done that just to get her attention, a small smile graced her lips. You innocently adjusted your skirt, and it seemed you didn't even bother to wipe that spot in the floor where your wet pussy grazed. 

As usual, you bid her farewell with an innocent smile, lifting your head to meet her gaze, hands clasped together as you bowed slightly. Your eyes eager to take in every detail of the girl, hoping for her usual smile in return.

——————————————————————————————————―――――――

—She didn't deny it; she had spent a long time doing absolutely nothing since leaving the academy. Her world was her only priority; she needed nothing else, and nothing would give her more pleasure than the outcome of a world without monkeys. However, in the darkness of her room, it seemed to be the opposite.

Hand pressed into her sensitive bud, her index finger doing circular motions as she cupped one of her breasts pinching her nipple. Her forehead glistened with sweat, her mouth slightly open, and her back slightly arched. She felt ashamed to stoop so low—how could she, a monkey, wield such power over her? Days had passed, yet she couldn't stop thinking about her. She couldn't understand if it was her lack of intimacy in these past 10 years or simply falling for her charms. It was pathetic and it made her entire worldview shift—everything she believed was right, that mental state and opinion she had taken so long to accept, reduced to a mess of moans as she put two digits into her pussy pumping in and out. She could feel her walls clench more with the thought of her tongue inside your pussy, drinking your sweet juices. Her fingers finding that sweet spot that could make you see the stars in mere seconds. Her mind raced as she remembered you bending, showing that pretty cunt of yours, only serving to feed her thoughts further.

Note author : This fanfic almost made my head explode! I'm the biggest hater when it comes to multi-part fics, but I swear I even fell asleep with the laptop on my legs. I hope to finish it soon, hopefully within this week, and not take a whole month just to complete one part.

©phantomnecromancer on tumblr. all rights reserved. do not copy, repost, modify or translate my works.

[amarylliasky]

Aaand number 1 is a sorta crack au post?

Au: Everyone’s a Regressor!

- Just what the title says. Everyone (except the villains ofc) is a regressor. Including Cale. Who just happens to be a regressor, transmigrator, and reincarnator. Basically the same plot of Cale lived his first life in tboah and then reincarnated as krs before regressing and transmigrating into his original body after dying as krs. Plot twist though, most everyone else is also a regressor and he has no idea. He has memories of his first and second lives. Including the novel he read before he died, and doesn’t know why everyone is acting so different from what he knows!

- Why is his family being so nice and talking to him?! Why is Ron giving him so much lemonade?! Why does that Punk Choi Han act like he knows him already?! He and Ron and Beacrox know each other?! When did they meet this early?! Who are all these people in his house?!

- Okay? So his father is reinforcing the walls and they are making a navy in the Ubarr territory??? This is great. The heroes and his family are preparing for the war and he doesn’t even have to lift a finger!

- He does still carry out his plans though. Getting the ancient powers, saving Raon and coincidentally finding On and Hong, and helping Taylor and Cage. Speaking of which, Taylor stops his search for the vitality of the heart and just relaxes in Puzzle city with Cage for a bit before they meet Cale. Of course, the god of death still tells Cage abt the benefactor, who was not present in their past life. Cage is shocked to hear from the one who abandoned them in the last life, but still listens to him for Taylor’s sake.

- Deruth doesn’t want to send either of his sons this time, but he is shocked when Cale offers to go. Despite both his parents and Basen trying to deter him, he convinces them to let him go. They agree, only because Choi Han and the Molan duo will accompany him. Deruth doesn’t like the idea sending the person who beat his son to protect him. Much less the ones who betrayed his son to go off and play hero with the offender; but he knows how strong they are. If anyone can keep Cale safe, it’s them.

- Choi Han doesn’t hate Cale, but he doesn’t really like him either. He’s come to respect the younger during the time they spent as allies during the war, but the Cale right now hasn’t faced his future tragedy yet. He’s still young and immature, and acts like trash….right..? Wait- not right?! What is with this kid? Why does he act so different from before?! By all means, he should still be trash, soo why is he acting completely different from their past life? And why does he know things he shouldn’t know at this point in time? Or any point in time for that matter?

- He doesn’t seem to remember their life before, so why is he acting so strange?

- Cale is just trying to make it seem like he doesn’t know half these people so he won’t look suspicious, but why is everyone acting like they know him? He knows he’s never met the crown prince in this life, so what’s with that melancholy look?

- Meanwhile, Choi Han is just trying to find a way to find Rosalyn and Lock without seeming too suspicious. Luckily, Cale sent him away first.

- The vow of death never happens.

- “ I can’t tell you everything, but I can share two truths.” “Oh, there’s no need Cale-nim. I trust you.”

‘Wha..? How can you trust me? We’ve only known each other for a few weeks.’ “Don’t you want information on that secret organization?”

“It’s alright, Cale-nim. I’m sure we’ll run into them again soon.”

‘This punk…Does he know something?’ “Choi Han, do you know something about them?”

‘That’s not possible. Choi Han should have only encountered them once by this point.’

“No. I. Don’t. Know. What. You. Are. Talking. About.” ….

‘Was Choi Han always such a bad liar..?’

- Cale doesn’t get the annual rings right away. Why? Idk, consistency with Tcf plot?

- Everyone knows that everyone has regressed except Cale. Bc it’s funnier that way.

- So we got all his family members tiptoeing around him, trying to see if he remembers but also trying not to jog his memory if he doesn’t. They know the last life hurt him and they don’t want him to have to carry the burden of their deaths. (He does. And he’s not gonna make the same mistake twice).

- The Radish is still a hassle to deal with. Obviously they didn’t see all his powers from the last life as they were completely overwhelmed by the enemies, but with Cale’s help and their experience from the past, they are much stronger and more prepared. By the time the Indomitable alliance comes to the Henituse territory, there are even more secret weapons coming out of the woodworks. Seriously, the enemies are so confused. So is Cale. So is everyone else. Clopeh never stood a chance. It’s like the pointing Spiderman meme. And the enemies are a bonfire in the middle; being reduced to ashes while everyone else is being stunned by each other’s collective strength.

- The only enemy they have a bit of trouble with is the White Star. Not because he’s too strong, no, he’s already no match for Choi Han, Rosalyn, and Lock fighting against him altogether, but with the aid of Eruhaben, they now know that he’s a reincarnator. They have no idea how to kill him for good.

- So basically, they keep encountering him and injuring him further while trying not to actually kill him. Of course, that’s not to say that the rest of the WS allies are a joke, rather, they are just slightly challenging as literally everyone in the two continents speed runs getting stronger to prepare to combat his forces.

- To make it even more fun, none of the enemies retain their memories. Also, the citizens are random on who has memories of their past. Some do, some don’t. It creates chaos.

- Adventurer Bob remembers his past life where he died on his first adventure. He doesn’t know how he came back to the past, but he’s determined to use his knowledge of the future to his advantage! (What knowledge? Bro literally died on his first expedition).

- A middle aged baker in Rain City vows to live his life to the fullest this time! He’s going to build a Wyvern bunker! He’s going to save up funds! And he’s going to make up with his daughter who ran away to become a sword master! He’ll support her all the way this time. They may not be enough, but even if she doesn’t reach that level, who is he to stunt her only chance at survival in the upcoming war?

- Rookie Knight Jeffron has had quite a strange day. He woke up only to hear three of his comrades spouting nonsense about wars and fire and wyverns..? Just what is a wyvern? Must have been quite the nightmare. Psssh! As if! The Henituse territory would never fall to enemy soldiers! And attacking from the sky? Yeah right! What’s next? The Sun god accepts the darkness attribute? Hah! Jokes these days…

- Really, half the city seems to have had too much to drink. Or too little…? What has happened to Young Master Cale?! Some citizens could have sworn he had still been trash in the past. So what has happened to make their young master change so much? He doesn’t seem like he remembers? He doesn’t…right?

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week's writer spotlight feature is: @lexirosewrites! They have forty-four Stranger Things and forty-three Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson works on archive of our own!!

An anonymous nominator recommends the following works by lexirosewrites:

24-Hour Diner

On Thin Ice

And the Sun will Rise

Bandaids for the Heart

Waking Up In Vegas

A/B/O isn't for everyone, but Lexi writes it in a way that it IS. I've always been a fan of the trope, but Lexi writes A/B/O in a way that expands beyond the basics. They've expanded their universes to play with common A/B/O themes in ways I've never seen -- each one feels fresh and exciting. And yes, they're popular in their own right, but they have so many hidden gems!! I just adore them and the work they've done beyond the tropes and tags. They put so much work into their stories and building their community, pushing through all the fandom bullshit to bring joy to their bubble of fandom. They're easily my go-to author rec for anyone getting into steddie and/or A/B/O and they deserve all of the love!! And if you're seeing this Lexi, thank you for continuing to create and share your beautiful ideas with us. ♥ - anonymous

Below the cut, @lexirosewrites answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

I love the chemistry that Steve and Eddie have. They’re two people who make no sense together and yet they make so much sense together? They have a good mix of parental issues and they’re on opposite sides of the social spectrum, which makes for a lot of fun exploring their relationship.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

I’m a sucker for soulmate fics. They’re my true weakness in life.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

I love to write about mutual pining. I enjoy making it clear that both parties are pining and suffering under the delusion that their feelings are unrequited.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

This is such a hard question. I don’t read as much as I used to, but the one I reread the most is “Consummate Professional” by Eddywow for sure. It’s just a cute fic and the smut is A+ as well!

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

I’ve worked through most of my favorite tropes at this point, but I’m excitedly planning a timeloop fic set in the omegaverse.

What is your writing process like?

It’s a bit of a mess, truthfully. I start with unorganized bullet points to brainstorm things I think will happen in the fic and slowly arrange that into a real plot with actual events and not just some loose threads of a story. Then, I just go chapter by chapter to put them in order and make changes as necessary after that.

Do you have any writing quirks?

I write omegaverse fics almost exclusively. Which I’d say probably qualifies as a quirk! I also just have a habit of writing recurring themes in many of my works. For the most part, they all have angst, lots of pining and miscommunication, and a perfectly cozy happy ending with a big bow on it.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

Oh, I hate waiting. The moment a chapter or fic is done and someone has at least skimmed it over for big issues, it gets formatted and posted. The only times I wait are for events like the Big Bang or a gift for someone’s birthday!

Which fic are you most proud of?

“Bandaids for the Heart” is the work closest to my heart because I’m a nurse and I got to use my love for nursing to write about my job and craft a whole story out of it. I’m very proud of how it turned out and the fact that I finished it despite some personal challenges along the way.

How did you get the idea for 24-Hour Diner?

I actually got an ask on tumblr with the prompt that inspired me to write it!

When writing 24-Hour Diner, what was something you didn’t expect?

I actually have a longer Mafia AU fic and I was worried they’d end up being too similar, but I enjoyed finding little ways to distinguish it as its own fic.

What inspired On Thin Ice?

I love to ice skate and a friend in my discord server was gushing about HexieWrites’ “Carve Your Name Into My Chest,” which made me want to explore my figure skating background.

What was your favorite part to write from On Thin Ice?

There’s a scene where Steve gets injured and Eddie has to carry him off the rink. Every story has at least one “that’s the scene I really want to write!” and that was the one for this fic. I love some good hurt/comfort!

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

That’s so hard to narrow down, but I’d have to say that it’s a scene from my fic “Bad Beat,” where Steddie are at prom and Eddie pulls out a granola bar from his tux pocket because he knows Steve likes them… even as Steve is fully planning on pranking him for a bet. It’s a heartbreaking scene and I think about it a lot.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

I’ve got lots of upcoming fics, but I can’t share most of the titles yet since they’re gifts! However, I have a The Greatest Showman inspired fic called “A Million Dreams” that’s getting posted in early January!

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

I’m honestly so grateful to have the support that I do for how niche most of my fics are. Most people in the Steddie community have been incredibly kind to me and I really appreciate it, even if omegaverse isn’t their cup of tea. I’m just here to have fun and make new friends!

Thank you to our author, @lexirosewrites, and our nominator! See more of @lexirosewrites' work featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer's Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[yuikomorii]

Helloo! I don’t know if you remember me but I sent you once something about Yui in LE and now, after I played some routes, I can confirm that she’s my last fav Yui. 😬

// I have a complicated relationship with LE Yui, haha. I appreciate her for being more lively than CL Yui, but she mostly gave me the ick because she was definitely one of the most annoying LE characters.

I typically don't mind characters that are represented as jerks and upright mean, since you know what to expect from them, but I really dislike when characters who are portrayed as goody-shoes, do such messed-up and morally wrong things.

When I first went through LE, I didn’t start with Ayato’s route, given that I heard from many people about how tough it is and I wasn't emotionally prepared, so I started with others. I didn't like how she talked ill about her lover behind his back (more than once) and how her foolishness caused her to disclose critical secrets to people she shouldn't have and get into more troubles than normal. Nonetheless, I didn't think she was too bad… until Ruki's route, where she convinced the Mukami brothers that Karl wasn't a bad person because he returned their lives to "redeem" himself when we all know he only used them as pawns. But, if I thought THIS was bad, Ayato's LE route came.

~Things wrong with Yui in Ayato’s LE route~

1. Yui tried to convince Ayato that despite the fact that Cordelia abused him, “she only did it because she cared about his future”. And then had the audacity to act surprised when he started feeling sick.

2. The main reason why Ayato didn’t want to trust Richter, wasn’t necessarily his trauma, but the fact Richter actually hurt Yui and, in his book someone hurting his girlfriend is unforgivable. Nevertheless, when his brothers started a scandal about Richter and all ganged up against Ayato, not even letting him express HIS point of view, Yui did nothing but stand there staring. Although, after Ayato blew up the mansion again as a result of reactive abuse, she acknowledged that his brothers attacking him like that wasn’t right, but she still didn’t say it out loud to defend him, when she knew the reason behind his actions.

3. After Reiji and Ruki became Ayato's enemies, she went to them without telling him, which made him concerned, to convey her man's sadness and loneliness. I'm sorry, but this was the dumbest plan ever, considering that it was evident they wouldn't have cared about it, and hearing such a thing made them even more eager to mock and plot his downfall. In the end, despite her good intentions, she solved nothing but made things worse, including being bitten by Reiji, which caused Ayato to lose his mind. Based on the previous events, I'm not shocked he believed she would betray him.

4. The scenes in which Ayato began acting coldly towards her were my favorite parts of his LE route. In other LE routes, after doing or saying stupid things, the disputes were resolved in the next chapter or those actions were never mentioned, but I enjoyed how she was actually humbled here. I love Yui in general, but in LE, she deserved this treatment.

5. I assumed she had learnt her lesson, given that Ayato still cared for her despite his coldness, but then she goes to the Viboras to prove herself worthy of his trust. I liked how she tried to solve something (even if she didn't), but what made her behavior even WORSE was that 1) she justified Ruki giving Ayato a hard time and joining forces with the Church to kill him, and 2) she talked ill behind her lover's back despite telling Ayato the exact opposite face to face. I understand that Ayato didn't act very king-like, but at the same time, no one truly took him seriously or believed in him. Also, idk, but she should have tried to defend him, at least this time, instead of empathizing more with someone who hurt her man—?

Credit to: dialovers-translations on Tumblr

I also find it amusing how LE is the only main DL game with no wedding at all, especially since Ayato was usually the one to marry her. I think he secretly didn't want it in LE, given that he didn’t even think of proposing. :”)

She’s definitely not a bad person though, but she kinda started acting up. I think that’s another reason why I don’t want a new game. I’m afraid they’ll ruin her even more. T-T

[fatehbaz]

"Abolition forgery":

So, observers and historians have, for a long time, since the first abolition campaigns, talked and written a lot about how Britain and the United States sought to improve their image and optics in the early nineteenth century by endorsing the formal legal abolition of chattel slavery, while the British and US states and their businesses/corporations meanwhile used this legal abolition as a cloak to receive credit for being nice, benevolent liberal democracies while they actually replaced the lost “productivity” of slave laborers by expanding the use of indentured laborers and prison laborers, achieved by passing laws to criminalize poverty, vagabondage, loitering, etc., to capture and imprison laborers. Like, this was explicit; we can read about these plans in the journals and letters of statesmen and politicians from that time. Many "abolitionist" politicians were extremely anxious about how to replace the lost labor. This use of indentured labor and prison labor has been extensively explored in study/discussion fields (discourse on Revolutionary Atlantic, the Black Atlantic, the Caribbean, the American South, prisons, etc.), Basic stuff at this point. Both slavery-based plantation operations and contemporary prisons are concerned with mobility and immobility, how to control and restrict the movement of people, especially Black people. After the “official” abolition of slavery, Europe and the United States then disguised their continued use of forced labor with the language of freedom, liberation, etc. And this isn't merely historical revisionism; critics and observers from that time (during the Haitian Revolution around 1800 or in the 1830s in London, for example) were conscious of how governments were actively trying to replicate this system of servitude..

And recently I came across this term that I liked, from scholar Ndubueze Mbah.

He calls this “abolition forgery.”

Mbah uses this term to describe how Europe and the US disguised ongoing forced labor, how these states “fake” liberation, making a “forgery” of justice.

But Mbah then also uses “abolition forgery” in a dramatically different, ironic counterpoint: to describe how the dispossessed, the poor, found ways to confront the ongoing state violence by forging documents, faking paperwork, piracy, evasion, etc. They find ways to remain mobile, to avoid surveillance.

And this reminds me quite a bit of Sylvia Wynter’s now-famous kinda double-meaning and definition of “plot” when discussing the plantation environment. If you’re unfamiliar:

Wynter uses “plot” to describe the literal plantation plots, where slaves were forced to work in these enclosed industrialized spaces of hyper-efficient agriculture, as in plots of crops, soil, and enclosed private land. However, then Wynter expands the use of the term “plot” to show the agency of the enslaved and imprisoned, by highlighting how the victims of forced labor “plot” against the prison, the plantation overseer, the state. They make subversive “plots” and plan escapes and subterfuge, and in doing so, they build lives for themselves despite the violence. And in this way, they also extend the “plot” of their own stories, their own narratives. So by promoting the plot of their own narratives, in opposition to the “official” narratives and “official” discourses of imperial states which try to determine what counts as “legitimate” and try to define the course of history, people instead create counter-histories, liberated narratives. This allows an “escape”. Not just a literal escape from the physical confines of the plantation or the carceral state, an escape from the walls and the fences, but also an escape from the official narratives endorsed by empires, creating different futures.

(National borders also function in this way, to prevent mobility and therefore compel people to subject themselves to local work environments.)

Katherine McKittrick also expands on Wynter's ideas about plots and plantations, describing how contemporary cities restrict mobility of laborers.

So Mbah seems to be playing in this space with two different definitions of “abolition forgery.”

Mbah authored a paper titled ‘“Where There is Freedom, There Is No State”: Abolition as a Forgery’. He discussed the paper at American Historical Association’s “Mobility and Labor in the Post-Abolition Atlantic World” symposium held on 6 January 2023. Here’s an abstract published online at AHA’s site: This paper outlines the geography and networks of indentured labor recruitment, conditions of plantation and lumbering labor, and property repatriation practices of Nigerian British-subjects inveigled into “unfree” migrant “wage-labor” in Spanish Fernando Po and French Gabon in the first half of the twentieth century. [...] Their agencies and experiences clarify how abolitionism expanded forced labor and unfreedom, and broaden our understanding of global Black unfreedom after the end of trans-Atlantic slavery. Because monopolies and forced labor [...] underpinned European imperialism in post-abolition West Africa, Africans interfaced with colonial states through forgery and illicit mobilities [...] to survive and thrive.

---

Also. Here’s a look at another talk he gave in April 2023.

[Excerpt:]

Ndubueze L. Mbah, an associate professor of history and global gender studies at the University at Buffalo, discussed the theory and implications of “abolition forgery” in a seminar [...]. In the lecture, Mbah — a West African Atlantic historian — defined his core concept of “abolition forgery” as a combination of two interwoven processes. He first discussed the usage of abolition forgery as “the use of free labor discourse to disguise forced labor” in European imperialism in Africa throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Later in the lecture, Mbah provided a counterpoint to this definition of abolition forgery, using the term to describe the ways Africans trapped in a system of forced labor faked documents to promote their mobility across the continent. [...]

Mbah began the webinar by discussing the story of Jampawo, an African British subject who petitioned the British colonial governor in 1900. In his appeal, Jampawo cited the physical punishment he and nine African men endured when they refused to sign a Spanish labor contract that differed significantly from the English language contract they signed at recruitment and constituted terms they deemed to be akin to slavery. Because of the men’s consent in the initial English language contract, however, the governor determined that “they were not victims of forced labor, but willful beneficiaries of free labor,” Mbah said.

Mbah transitioned from this anecdote describing an instance of coerced contract labor to a discussion of different modes of resistance employed by Africans who experienced similar conditions under British imperialism. “Africans like Jampawo resisted by voting with their feet, walking away or running away, or by calling out abolition as a hoax,” Mbah said.

Mbah introduced the concept of African hypermobility, through which “coerced migrants challenged the capacity of colonial borders and contracts to keep them within sites of exploitation,” he said.] [...] Mbah also discussed how the stipulations of forced labor contracts imposed constricting gender hierarchies [...]. To conclude, Mbah gestured toward how the system of forced labor persists in Africa today, yet it “continues to be masked by neoliberal discourses of democracy and of development.” [...] “The so-called greening of Africa [...] continues to rely on forced labor that remains invisible.” [End of excerpt.]

---

This text excerpt from: Emily R. Willrich and Nicole Y. Lu. “Harvard Radcliffe Fellow Discusses Theory of ‘Abolition Forgery’ in Webinar.” The Harvard Crimson. 13 April 2023. [Published online. Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[happilyfeatherafter]

Happilyfeatherafter’s ficrec Fridays

Happy Dean Winchester's 45th birthday week, and happy Friday! I was absolutely blown away by everyone's incredible posts for Dean this week, you guys. It made me all emotional.

Back with my fourth week of fics I've read and loved recently. If you missed last week’s you can find my previous rec lists here for more!

26 January 2024

american oracle by @handsliketruth and whiskeyjuniper (@satinsolace) I spent all last Sunday reading this one and it was such an immersive experience! An earthquake shakes something loose in the bunker, seemingly trapping Dean, Cas and Sam inside with it as they attempt to fix what's gone wrong, only the bunker isn't going to make it easy for them! Super creepy, twisty, reality bending and really beautifully, unsettlingly written. Whatever's happened is messing with their minds, and the creeping horror of real or not real persists, but even through that the Dean and Cas of it are really fascinating in how they navigate their intense feelings for each other. I was also incredibly impressed with how the effects of canon wrapping up were woven into the plot in such a powerfully potent way, exploring fate, free will, and the future. Really a stand out (and I know a lot of you have been reading it because I found this fic open in no less than three separate tabs in my bookmarks when I came to read it myself. So adding one more rec to the pile!)

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by @norahastuff (art by @logsdrawsthings) is a brilliant and seamlessly written missing conversations DCBB fic set in seasons 4 and 5. The dialogue is so on point for that era Dean and Cas, at times I had to remind myself what came from the show and what was brand new. As they navigate their way towards the apocalypse, and Cas watches over Dean in reality and in dreams, it seems hard to find solace. But in getting to know one another better, they both question their parts in the grand plan, and also find peace, connection, and company in their deepening bond.

A Fic About Dean’s 45th Birthday by @scoobydoodean both does exactly what it says on the tin AND made me cry lol. After Mrs Butters plants the seed in his head that he's too old to celebrate his birthday, Dean gets a little upset, but he doesn't let on to anyone. The poor man just wants to be appreciated and celebrated on his birthday! But he feels guilty about causing a fuss, and anyway, he can still show his love through making sure everyone else's days are marked for the occasion. But on his 45th, his family is acting a little suspicious, and they seem to want him to stay away. Angsty, sweet, give that man his krispy treats!!!! Check out Dean with Scoobies.

found it here in your love by nevernevergirl (@yorkesteins) is another Dean's birthday ficlet, but taking a 180 spin on it. Cas has plans. LOTS of plans. Dean deserves to be celebrated. But some pesky snow has derailed Cas' thoughtfulness, and despite his best intentions he's awfully upset about letting Dean down. "In which learning to live your life after nearly two decades of saving the actual world is a process. They're doing it together, though." Sweet, domestic, heartwarming love (even when there's a tantrum involved.)

Plus shout out to @angelsdean's I spy Dean's birthday game, @dean-isms's birthday party watchlist, and ALL of the incredible fic, art, AMVs and edits you made. TALENT.

[yesimwriting]

Without Faith

a/n giggling and kicking my feet rn btw, this is meant to be a set up for something longer! lmk if you're interested in part 2 :)

Summary: After a news story that was only meant to be an internship assignment spirals into a crime story that earns national attention, you feel conflicted enough about your involvement to join a criminal psychology class despite being a journalism major. Despite your good intentions, the universe seems to have it out for you considering your slightly older professor is extremely attractive and the only person that seems to understand what you're going through.

Warnings/info: age gap (reader is of consenting age tho!!), future student-professor relationship, slow burn, slight changes to how college works for the sake of plot, a surprising amount of lore (i got carried away), me writing for a character for a first time on here so be kind 😭

----

It's not often one finds their enemy crumpled up and lying helplessly next to an overflowing garbage can. It's even rarer to see that and still feel the bitter sting of defeat.

"He didn't text me back, which is weird because when I ran into him on Friday--" Carlie, who might know you better than you know yourself, pauses.

You turn your head away from the trash in an attempt to abandon the newspaper as completely as the person who had thrown it away. "You saw James last week? You didn't tell me."

She watches you for a moment, her eyebrows pulling together in a way that tells you she won't accept your lie just because you're offering her an opportunity to re-dissect her most recent interaction with her latest target. "You know I did."

Carlie shifts her weigh from one foot to the other, her eyes drifting towards the ground. "It's there because it's old--it's over."

It's over. The words crack themselves against your skull. More than a sentence, more than a promise. The only consolation the state's attorney could offer grieving families. The sound ringing in your ears as a mother gave into her agony, a choked sob ripping its way out of her throat.

It's over--the catalyst that sent the mother to you in a parking lot illuminated by stale, synthetic lighting. They're the reason for her confession, that in some off-kilter way she thought the verdict would make her feel better.

It's over--the syllables that accompany the sound of the needle leaving Josh Robinson's lifeless body. Killed by the justice system or the media?

"You didn't do anything wrong." Carlie's voice is careful in its unflinchingness. "He was a serial killer. You--you wrote the truth."

And while this awareness has bound itself to your bones, it is rarely enough to make you forget what you did wrong. Journalists are impartial, they don't--they're supposed to understand, they're supposed to be careful. You took it a step further.

"I know."

You don't need to look up to know that you haven't convinced her. However, you must have sounded okay enough for Carlie to accept moving on. "And you're doing more than anyone else would do to make your true crime even better."

It's an exaggeration. Journalists have done a lot more for their careers than request to join a class that belongs to a department unrelated to their degree. But Carlie seems so happy to be able to compliment you, you decide to go with a less sentimental correction, "Not true crime."

"I know, journalism." She sighs, but continues to walk forward in a way that feels oddly optimistic. Maybe even relieved. "Make sure you point out the difference to the professor. I'm sure he'll love that."

You roll your eyes at her sarcasm, but follow her lead anyway. You've already perfected the elevator pitch you're planning to present to Dr. Spencer Reid. A brief but genuine description of the importance of ethical journalism, especially when it comes to writing about serial killers.

You're well practiced and far from worried about winning him over. Academic authority figures have always taken well to you...it also doesn't hurt that you spent all night googling him just to be safe.

"Actually," she begins, pulling open the door to the psychology building, "I bet there's no room for original material in the interaction that you've already imagined, planned, and mentally rehearsed."

You scoff as you step past the door's threshold. "No," the word is dismissive and entirely unconvincing. You instinctually move past it. "Go talk to your advisor about your thesis, I'll meet with Dr. Reid, and then we can order food or something."

The reminder of her own meeting seems to kill the mood, her smile morphing into something more focused. Carlie lets out a small breath. "Right. We got this." And with one final assuring nod, Carlie turns towards the stairwell.

----

The thought is a dull ache that wedges itself into your chest before you can bring yourself to knock against the door. It'll follow you forever.

When you step into the room, Dr. Reid will inevitably ask why you want to join his class. And then you'll have to answer.

You exhale as you extend your arm, knuckles rapping against the wooden surface before overthinking can hurt you any further. After a brief silence, you hear a slightly muffled, "Come in."

You reach for the brass handle, pulling the door open before stepping past the doorway's threshold.

The office is comfortable, a large desk and two plush chairs manage to share the space without seeming cramped. There's a pencil holder and several stacks of papers on the desk's surface. If one ignores the degrees--and the age of the recipient when he received them--on the walls, the office seems normal. Almost suspiciously so. There's even a partially wilted plant sitting on the windowsill.

After taking in the room, you let your attention fall to the individual behind the desk. He's--he--while you've read enough about Dr. Reid to already respect him, and are fully aware that he is far from your peer, you're also now looking at him.

Last night, you did stumble onto a few pictures of him that forced you to reluctantly make a mental note of the fact that he's aesthetically pleasing, but those occasionally blurry snapshots did him and his sharp features little justice.

"Hello," the word is an instinct, slipping past your lips before you're ready to speak.

"Hi," his response is as sudden and lacking in context as your own--a fact that immediately eases you.

Dr. Reid shifts, back straightening against his seat. "You're here for your appointment." You barely have the chance to nod in confirmation before he's continuing, "Come in, take a seat."

In all honesty, you're more glad for the direction than the excuse to sit. You enter his office fully, approaching the plush chair in front of his desk. You sit down, lips parting before you're ready to speak. All structured thoughts have abandoned you.

"Hi." You realize your mistake immediately. You blink, a sound between a self deprecating laugh and a sigh escaping you. "I already said that."

If Dr. Reid thinks anything of your mistake, he gives no indication of it. His expression remains steady, with the exception of the corner of his mouth briefly tugging itself upwards.

Your hands come together on your lap, one of your nails pressing into the nail bed of the thumb on your opposite hand before forcing yourself to relax. You've read enough about his work with the FBI to know that he's so adept at analyzing behavior, you don't need to make it easy for him by giving into obvious signs of nervousness.

"Like I mentioned in my email, I'm interested in joining your class even though it's not an elective and in an entirely different department than my degree." This part is easy, a perfunctory explanation of what he already knows. "However, there is enough overlap that my advisor is supportive of the idea and has already signed off on it."

He shifts again, his pointer finger tapping against the surface of his desk. "Right, she mentioned that, but she didn't mention why."

Okay. This is the part that matters. "I'm a journalism major, and I've recently completed an internship with The Washing Sun." In an act of total self betrayal, you study his expression for any hint of recognition. Finding absolutely none makes it easier to breathe. "And spending time in such an active, journalistic environment has made me fully aware of the way that morals and personal views can complicate ethics."

You pause, pressing your lips together. "I'd like the opportunity to learn about certain behaviors in order to develop a perspective separate from my own.

Though still politely neutral, something behind Dr. Reid's eyes implies an uncertainty that has the rest of your pitch jamming itself down your throat. Whatever's changed doesn't feel like disbelief, and you're far from worried about being accused of lying. You were careful to comb through your mess of emotions before you had even pitched the idea to your advisor--you do feel those things, they're just not the only things you feel.

How delusional had you been to assume the same answers that hid their vagueness behind a heavy layer of altruism that worked on Mrs. Carol would work on a FBI profiler?

"I um--" The sound of your own voice surprises you. "I know what it's like to write something when you can't feel anything for the person everyone's already rooting against, and I'd like to not feel that again." Another glimmer of honesty, barer than your curated story, but still not exactly everything.

Dr. Reid is quiet for a moment, studying you with an openness that should make your skin crawl. "What did it feel like?"

The question throws you. Friends, family, strangers--they've all asked you things about the case, about your article, about hundreds of other things so barely connected you couldn't fathom an answer. No one has ever asked you about that feeling.

"Uh..." You're not even sure you have an answer. "Weird." Your blankness feels like such a cop out, you feel the need to try again. What did it feel like? A hybrid beast made of a festering not-quite-guilt, an over awareness of your every action, all held together by an uneasy pride...that only served to further aggravate the not guilt. "Like I was doing something right and wrong, with no way of knowing what it was more of."

You squeeze your hands together, allowing yourself to focus on the action instead of him. "I'm sorry, that probably doesn't make much sense."

When you finally lift your head, Dr. Reid is already looking at you. A moment passes, the somberness of his features growing heavier in the silence. Maybe he's looking at something past you. "It does."

The affirmation is a small, fragile thing, so faint and far away it almost feels like an intrusion to have heard it. Some selfish part of you latches onto that, his unexpected understanding a lifeline you can't let go of.

You almost thank him before realizing that you have no idea what you'd be thanking him for. "I'm glad," you settle on, fingers carefully coming apart on your lap. "The writing thing's no good if I don't make sense."

The attempt at humor seems to pull him back from wherever he had gone. "Then you have nothing to worry about." He doesn't exactly smile, but there's something easy about the way he's looking at you. "I'll approve your enrollment request."

Relief floods through you immediately. "Really?"

"Maybe it'll help you feel less...weird." From him, your too plain adjective feels a lot more fitting.

You nod once, the motion quick and polite. "Hopefully." The beat of silence that follows comes closer to kinship than anything you've ever felt in someone's office. You're also fully aware of the fact that you've gotten what you came for and that Dr. Reid is likely a very busy man. "I shouldn't take up anymore of your time."

His fingers tap against his desk. "Right. I'll see you in class."

You smile as you stand. "See you then."

The walk towards the door is a lot less intimidating now. Still, once you reach it, you can't bring yourself to immediately reach for the handle. You pause, letting out a breath before turning around. "Dr. Reid?"

He looks up, nodding once in a way that's meant to prompt you. Maybe it's overkill, but it feels necessary and it's too late to back out now. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He doesn't look away from you after responding.

There's nothing left to expect, there are no words or anything else meant to be said. That's not enough to stop some unknown feeling from wedging itself between your ribs, urging you to something, to say anything that might come close to offering him the same kind of understanding he's given you.

"I hope you find a less weird, too."

He doesn't respond, but something about the look behind his eyes and his slight nod makes you feel okay about leaving him.

----

There are few ideologies that have clung to him, and even fewer that have managed to bind themselves to some integral part of his being that exists beneath his skin.

The pursuit of knowledge is one of the few constants Spencer Reid allows himself to rely on, one of the only things he allows himself to consider a saving grace. However, circumstance has prevented his views on the subject from skewing. The irony of the fact that some things are better left unknown is not lost on him.

For example, the girl that walked into his office and immediately saw through him, is better left a mystery. He'd see her in class, he'd answer her questions, he'd grade her work and offer her necessary feedback--but he will not know her.

It's a mantra, a promise that he repeats in his head again and again as his attention falls to the desktop in front of him. He attempts to grasp onto this lack of knowledge, to transform it into a tangible entity to keep him from typing your name into the search engine.

----

a/n spencer entering his garcia era while googling reader 💻🧑‍💻

anyways in ur interested in part 2 or would like to be tagged let me know!!

[spaceorphan18]

The Rogue and Gambit Project : The Muir Island Saga

The first time we see Rogue and Gambit on the same page together is the cover of Uncanny X-Men #275 - which was one of those VERY SPECIAL ISSUES that put everyone on the cover. No, this is not a part of the Muir Island Saga -- but belongs to the previous arcs (Savage Land and Space Shenanigans). Still, it's pretty cool to see them on the cover together.

So, here's the thing about the Muir Island Saga - the next arc of the comics - despite dealing with the same adversary, and spending time with the same group of people, we never see Rogue and Gambit mix. In fact - (something I'll point out in detail in a minute) - it's almost comical how much they seem to be ships passing in the night. It's almost as if it's done purposely.

I know that years (and years and years and years) later - we'll get a retcon of their first meeting. And I really thought a lot about whether or not I should talk about that here... and, not to disappoint some of you, but I'm not going to (for now). Because I kind of want to tackle this project from a chronological point of view. To experience things as they were happening without the added layers of what we'll get next. And the retcon kind of, gets into a whole lot of issues I don't want to dig into yet. So, I promise, I'll talk about Kelly Thompson's Mini when we get there, we're just... a very long way off from that.

In the meantime, the thing about this arc that's so fascinating is trying to pinpoint how they could meet. And when. And why. And thing I keep coming back to is... comics don't make a whole lot of sense, y'all.

Let's dive in...

Uncanny X-Men #278

The whole premise of The Muir Island Saga is that the Shadow King wants to get out of the Astral Plane and kind of brainwashes the residents of Muir Island (including the X-Men) in order to do it. Don't ask me to make sense of it, I'm just the recapper!

The real purpose of the whole thing is to reshuffle the line, which had been in such flux up until this point. The X-Office was getting ready to launch the new Adjectiveless X-Men book, and Chris Claremont was getting ready to depart after 17 years of being the sole author of X-Men. Things were definitely changing and this saga finally gets all the pieces to where they need to be.

As an aside, I do find it fascinating that the beginning of Rogue and Gambit's relationship coincides with all of these changes. Not only is the decade changing, but X-Men's status quo is about to be really shaken up after being a relatively steady book for a very, very long time. It's just kind of neat that the endings and beginnings happening on an external level are also happening with our characters as well.

Uncanny X-Men #278

For some context, after the destruction of the mansion after the Inferno crossover, and after remaining X-Men all ended up going through the Siege Perilous after the Australian era, Muir Island, home of (brilliant scientist and ex-Xavier lover) Moira MacTaggart became the home of a new (and short lived) group of X-Men. I can only assume that's why Rogue returned here after her little side adventure in the Savage Land.

Though I should point out that Rogue has ZERO idea who is alive and who is dead other than the people who are already on the island. I kind of wonder what her future plans would have been if the other X-Men never showed up. Anyway... though, there really isn't any full explanation as to why Rogue went back to Muir Island other than they had no intention of writing her out of the book, and they needed all the X-Men to be in one place.

How does she feel about the events of the Savage Land? What really happened with her and Magneto? The answer is -- who cares, we're done with that plot now and moving on until another comic book writer decides to tug on that loose plot thread. :P

Uncanny X-Men #278

What is important to know that the Shadow King is mind controlling everyone. And... he does so with Rogue by making out with her after she's been in the shower? What??

Look, I'm not going to claim this stuff makes a whole lot of sense. But I can fanwank it a little...

The Shadow King's whole deal is that he's trying to corrupt everyone and bring them to their most evil (because, you know, that's what evil villains do). And with Rogue - he plays on her sense of touch. Back in the old days, Rogue used kissing as her primary way of stealing people's powers. And on top of that, one of her deepest rooted struggles (as of obvious statement isn't obvious) is the fact that she isn't able to have physical contact. So the Shadow King is tapping into both of those things, and, as the whole 'temptation' quote insinuates - him letting her give into her desires allows him to brainwash her.

Now, do I really believe she'd be enticed this easily? Can the Shadow King have that deep a hold on anyone? That is for you to decide, fair reader.

It's at least my interpretation. Honestly, I think there's a bigger part of me that wonders if they really just wanted to see Rogue making out with someone because because they can.

Meanwhile, on the opposite page, guess who is landing with the rest of the X-Men who just returning from space? That's right, everyone can relax. Gambit has arrived. ;) They're now in the same place... so if we can only get them to the same panel...

Uncanny X-Men #278

Alright guys, time to play the logistics game... these two panels are on opposite pages. Gambit, fresh off his plane, ends up running into Multiple Man - and they have a little fight. Meanwhile, Rogue runs into Wolverine and Jubilee - and they have a little fight. Are you following me? Good! Cause it's going to get crazier from here.

Also, let's keep track of Rogue's clothes because... ooff, yeah, the continuity is worse than the story line.

Uncanny X-Men #279

Before I get into it - I need to state that Uncanny X-Men 279 is the issue where Chris Claremont just up and quit during the middle. He'll be back to wrap up his run in the new X-Men book (that we'll get to after this) but I'm sure the nonsense going on in the X-Office didn't help the clarity of this story...

Anyway, the next time we see either Gambit or Rogue is here... in the next issue. What happened between Rogue and Wolverine/Jubilee? How did Gambit handle Multiple Man? Who knows! But now Gambit is with Wolverine and Jubilee and Rogue is nowhere to be seen.

Also - that's the third 'bang, you dead joke' in, like, five issues. Good lord, Claremont, if this wasn't your final Uncanny issue (for now) I'd say give it a rest. I will say, though, I almost included the entire three pages of Wolverine/Jubilee/Gambit because they are that delicious, and easily the best thing about this entire arc.

Uncanny X-Men #279

On the next page, we see Rogue again - where she is taking on Forge. Note the wardrobe change? Did she have time to add more clothes after her 'fight' with Wolverine? Is any of this making sense yet? No? Okay... onto the X-Factor issue...

X-Factor #69

This is literally the next time we see Rogue - after Forge shoots her with a ray gun that stops the mind control. Did the ray gun just change her outfit as well? Was the previous outfit too evil?? Or was it just that artists Andy Kubert and Whilce Portacio just have zero communication when getting these issues out? (Honestly, I do not blame the artists - I do blame editorial though.)

X-Factor #69

Meanwhile, where is Gambit you ask??

Alright, guys, this is where we're at -- Forge has un-mind controlled Rogue, Wolverine, and Banshee. Meanwhile, Gambit, Psylocke, Jubilee and the Muir Island peeps are still under the Shadow King. And now X-Factor (the original five X-Men - Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Angel, and Beast) are now involved. All of them are running around the island. Only, it's X-Factor who finds the rest of the mind controlled - not Forge and crew...

Also, in case you'd like me to make it more confusing, Mystique has arrived in disguise (with Nick Fury), while all this mind control is doing wonders for Charles Xavier's son, Legion, who is about to go a little crazy.

Uncanny X-Men #280

Classic cover is classic. Also, Rogue still has more of her clothes! Don't grow too attached to them.

Uncanny X-Men #280

See, I told you not to get too attached to Rogue's clothes. Apparently, when Legion went crazy and caused an explosion, it blew off all her clothes. Miraculously, no one else had this issue. I guess Jean just used her telekinetic powers to keep hers on.

Uncanny X-Men #280

And on the other side of this really not very big island is the B-team. B for brainwashed. Yes - the two teams are going to meet! Yes, a big, huge battle is about to ensue!

Uncanny X-Men #280

Gambit is going to take on Wolverine (for the 100th time it seems) while Rogue will take on Strong Guy. Every non-brainwashed X-Man is going to take on every other brainwashed X-Man. Except for Rogue v Gambit. We don't get to see that. They do not share any panels together. Not even in the big group scenes. None. Nothing. Absolutely zero.

They just knew it'd be too much...

(Honestly, I am a little curious as to why this was. It almost does feel intentional at this point.)

Anyway, the battle ends. The Shadow King is vanquished (for now) -- and has the hilariously villain closing line of "No!!! I WAS SO CLOSE!!" And all that's left is to wrap up this little ditty...

Uncanny X-Men #280

I just need to talk about Rogue's clothes again. Her panties are barely hanging on by a thread, but her gloves are perfectly intact. How convenient.

Anyway, the last line of this comic reads: The End, and The Beginning. How appropriate...

Here we are, guys. The first issue where Rogue and Gambit end up on panel together. Are you ready for this??

Let's talk about X-Factor #70

X-Factor #70

Most of the issue revolves around Xavier trying to get into Legion's head while the rest of the group is either waiting around in the hospital room or tying up loose plot threads around the island.

So... how much time has passed? It's unclear - but enough that Rogue's had enough time to find some clothes that have not been ripped to shreds.

Anyway - one of the loose plot threads is dealing with Mystique's "death" that happened ages ago. Turns out she faked it and had been pretending to be Val Cooper for a while now. Rogue had seen news of the "death" and this is their reunion.

Great, now that that's squared away, we get one of my favorite sequences in comics... the chain letting everyone know that Xavier is okay ;)

X-Factor #70

Idk why, but I love this little sequence. I love the random 'no smoking' sign. I love Gambit freaking Polaris out. I love that Jubilee just does not give a shit. And I love that Rogue doesn't seem to either.

Anyway... now to the moment y'all have been patiently waiting for...

I present to you -- Rogue and Gambit's first on panel moment!

X-Factor #70

It's sort of anticlimactic, isn't it?

While Xavier's - what do we do with fourteen X-Men - is rather iconic, the art here is... meh. I'm so glad Jim Lee is going to redesign a lot of the characters. Gambit just does not look good in the yellow costume (also, he does not have his headsock on here for some reason). Meanwhile, even Rogue looks a little off here (though this is the X-Factor book and not Uncanny).

And... we're left with a bunch of open questions. Just how did Rogue and Gambit meet? What was their first interaction like? What is their dynamic at the very beginning? As I said before -- Kelly Thompson will one day answer these questions -- both brilliantly and unbelievably.

If you were looking for any kind of set up going into the relaunch, I'm sorry to say that what I've laid out for you is what we've got. So, introductions are open to interpretation...

My own version...?

Gambit: *speaking flirtations French to Rogue* Rogue: Wolverine - who is this? Wolverine: Storm brought back some Cajun leftovers from her time as a de-aged thief. Gambit: How about a kiss, chere? Rogue: How about I punch you?

And thus a dynamic was born. ;)

Next up: We're finally going to really get into it with X-Men #1-3!

[esoteric-joke]

Interview with Darling28

(#Interview1)

Welcome to the first interview of The Dear Writer Project and a massive thank you to the wonderful Darling28 for being so supportive of this whole idea since the beginning!

Darling28 about her writing process, her inspirations, her experiences with writers block and her future plans on writing:

What does your writing process usually look like and is it always kind of the same for every story you’ve written?

Oh interesting question. It's usually the case that ideas come from the simplest things and suddenly a complete plot is in my head within minutes or sometimes even seconds. At least the rough outline. Apart from that, my characters often like to take the plot for themselves and I just watch in amazement at what they let me write. I often suffer as much as the reader when I write because I let it flow out of me and often don't know what to expect. Most of the time, though, I have a specific scene in mind in the beginning, often for the middle of the story, and I can hardly wait until I finally get to the point where I can write it. The end of a story quite often involves a marriage proposal, I realise, even if I don't always intend to, but Louis and Harry in my stories are very stubborn about it.

But other than that, my writing process is pretty simple: get excited about a new idea, start writing immediately, often at a speed that makes my betas despair and end up questioning the whole story until I reread it myself and suddenly love it.

Do you have any sort of structured writing plan before you start writing or do you just write what comes to mind?

I'm absolutely far from structured. I have the problem that my best ideas about what to write next come to me when I'm driving and I have to memorise whole conversations or scenes for the rest of the journey. As soon as I've parked, I write it down as a note. But there's really nothing more than these few notes, no mood board or major characterisations, I just let myself go with the flow. I also think that would take some of the fun out of it for me personally, I love getting to know my characters over the course of the story and I don't want to plan everything in detail beforehand.

You said before that you write a lot, especially after you’ve got a new idea in mind. How much time do you invest in writing in your day to day life?

I actually write every day and usually around 3-4k. I think it takes about 3 hours of my time, but that's really just a rough estimate. I usually write already in the morning at breakfast before I have to go to work and then spread the rest over the afternoon and evening.

Our Souls Intertwined is your longest work at the moment. Was it also the one you wrote the longest on?

Our Souls Intertwined… I wrote this story together with freakingmeout and we took turns writing chapters, each of us wrote one character. Despite the length, I don't think we really needed much time to finish it because the other author is just as fast as I am at writing and often each of us had finished a chapter within a day. It was perhaps a little worrying in hindsight haha.

If it wasn’t Our Souls Intertwined, what work of yours did take you the longest?

Oh wow I think you've got me now and I can't give you an answer off the top of my head.

I'm guessing it might be Calm after the storm because that's my longest story that I wrote on my own. So it makes sense that it probably took me the longest to write.

But when I think about it, it could also be the current one I'm writing that hasn't been published yet. My last few weeks haven't been easy for personal reasons and I haven't had time to write and everything has stalled. I just started writing again a few days ago and am catching up.

She also told me that she sometimes drives her betas crazy with the amount and pace that she writes. On some Sundays she writes all day and sometimes feels a bit empty inside afterwards, she admitted.

What work of yours did come together the fastest?

I would say Men are shit. This story practically wrote itself and I could just let my thoughts, which I put into the story as Louis’, run free and didn't have to think about them any further. It was a great experience and I love this Louis so much!

Do you finish writing the story completely before you start publishing or do you start publishing whenever you finished a chapter?

For my first stories, I posted while I was writing. So I finished a chapter, had it proofread and then published it.

However, my only beta at the time had of course her own life and sometimes couldn't keep up with the speed at which I wanted to update again.

So at some point I started to finish writing and only then published it.

What worked better for you, personally?

Both definitely have their pros and cons. But I really liked publishing in the writing process. You get immediate feedback on what you've written, sometimes even ideas for the rest of the plot from readers' comments.

However, it would have stressed me out a lot, like in my situation the last few weeks where I couldn't write anything and had to make the reader wait for updates.

What inspires you in your day to day life the most?

The story often comes to me really quite by chance, mostly inspired by songs, not so much by the lyrics but by the feelings they convey, what lies between the lines.

Did you ever have a writers block and what helped you out of it / What do you do if you feel unmotivated?

Yes, I've had a writers block for the last few months and I've missed writing so much. But there's no point forcing yourself and for me it was best to wait until it felt right again. Before that, I didn't have anything like that as far as I can remember. Sometimes I just didn't know what to write next and got a bit stuck, but my advice here is: just start writing. Don't think, just do it.

And if I'm just unmotivated then I leave it for the day because I know it'll be definitely easier the next one.

What do you find most stressful/annoying/repetitive in the process of writing a story?

For me it's the hardest thing to end the story because then I'm usually so connected to the characters that it feels like saying goodbye to a dear friend every time and I'm actually really sad.

Oh and one thing that really frustrates me is that my Louis and Harry very often crash the chapter with sex. I love writing smut but sometimes they overdo it (okay it amuses me a bit too).

Darling28 also told me, that one of her favourite phases in writing a story is the getting-to-know-each-other phase. She said that she loves it because that’s when she feels like the characters come to life and the tension between them grows.

Can you tell me something about any future projects you’re working on?

I'm happy to tell you about future projects!

In addition to my many ideas for stories that I haven't started yet, I'm currently writing four open ones. Two with other authors and two of my very own. I hope that I will soon be able to present the readers with something new from me, because for me it is always the best thing to finally be able to share my work with the fandom.

For the next part of the interview, I asked Darling28 more specific questions about her works.

What work of yours is your personal favourite?

It's really difficult to name THE one. But I'll go with the three that come to my mind first, okay?

Calm after the storm, because I love their love in this story and I felt for both of them while writing it. It still touches me today.

Men are shit, because Louis is just chaos but so sweet at the same time. I loved describing his ADHD brain, letting his mind run wild. I wanted to give neurospicy people a story in which they can find themselves and feel understood.

True Colours, because I wrote this story for my friend and beta who wanted me to make Harry really suffer as it's usually Louis in my stories who has to go through everything horrible. I love the development of the two of them in this story. They heal together and I don't think there's anything better.

What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who isn’t familiar with your works and why?

I think that would be Paparazzi. That's the most popular one of mine and it contains a bit of everything but it's not as extremely angsty as others that I wrote. A bit of enemies to lovers, gay awakening, smut, fluff - what more could you want?

A lot of your works are based around complicated and complex topics like having a bad relationship with your parents, mental health issues and homelessness and everything that comes along with it. Why do you specifically choose to write about those topics?

I love the drama and the big emotions.

But also because none of our lives are perfect. Everyone has their own struggles and their own traumas and I love picking up on that. It especially touches me when readers find themselves in it, feel understood and heard. I think for some it's some kind of validation. It's wonderful to turn something very sad into something very good. As much as I love the drama, I also love the happy ending.

And of course it's also free therapy in a way. There's always a part of me in most stories.

The Magic Within You is your only story, that doesn’t really have any of those topics (besides of Louis’ tendencies to panic quickly). Why did you want to write something so different to your usual writing style?

The Magic Within You is a pure, cheesy Christmas story that was set up like an advent calendar when I posted it, but I think it can be read very well throughout the year.

I always find Christmas a difficult time of the year myself. Lots of people come together and I'm often overwhelmed. I especially wanted to give people who might feel the same way a cute story, offer some distraction and sweeten the day. I hope I succeeded.

By the way, I love how you mentioned the panicky side of Louis. So adorable.

Is something like an advent calendar planned for this christmas season too or was it a one-time thing for you?

No, I haven't planned another one, but never say never. Maybe I'll suddenly get an idea in October and start writing like crazy.

Actually, a sequel to The Magic Within You was planned for this summer but unfortunately I couldn't do that for personal reasons that I had already mentioned. But I definitely want to publish the sequel next year!

You wrote Our Souls Intertwined and Bring me to life with freakingmeout. How did that go?

Oh it's a totally interesting experience because here too we only had the rough plot, but because everyone wrote their character in alternating chapters it was always exciting for the other to see what would happen in the chapter of the other. Sometimes I sat there shocked or totally amused and had to think about how I was going to live through certain situations with my character. It's definitely anything but boring and you experience it as an author as well as a reader.

When I asked her if it feels like a roleplay kind of thing she actually confirmed that it does sometimes feel like exactly that.

Paparazzi is your most popular work. Why do you think this one in particular got the most attention?

I have absolutely no idea why Paprazzi is the most popular one. I often ask myself that but maybe it's really because it's not such a heavy one? But instead of looking for answers, I prefer to be happy that so many people like it.

Is there a work of yours that you’d like to get the attention that Paparazzi got or just more attention in general?

Oh yes, definitely. In my personal opinion, Holding On To Heartache has far too little attention. I know where it comes from, or rather I suspect that the tag 'suicide attempt' puts a lot of people off, but I still think it's worth reading. You can always expect a happy ending with my stories.

Is there a work of yours that you wouldn’t publish again in hindsight?

I must confess that I have already deleted my very first story. And I know that my betas and friends will kill me if they read this now. Because they kept stopping me every time I had a crisis about this story but I did it nontheless one day. I guess my secret is out now... oops. If you read this, please don't be mad!

But I'm actually thinking about revising it and publishing it again at some point.

Are there any characters in one of your stories that are inspired by people or animals you know in real life?

Yes... Bree in 'Paparazzi' is my friend and beta. But I don't think I realised until the later chapters that I was using her as a role model for this absolutely wonderful character.

For the last part of the interview, I asked Darling28 some personal questions that are more about the fandom and less about her experiences with writing.

Since when are you in the fandom and what made you become a part of it?

I am a Lockdown-Larrie haha. I was watching Tik Tok videos out of sheer boredom like probably so many others and suddenly a video with two guys popped up. It's this one where Harry is sitting on the armchair, Louis is sitting on the armrest while Harry is looking up at Louis, absolutely enamoured. I was just sitting there and I remember thinking: who the hell are these two guys that are so in love?

I read through the comments and searched the web for more informations. After that, my days were filled with watching all the YouTube videos and then making a Twitter account. I was absolutely down the rabbit hole and I don't regret it one day. At first I was in the lane of LHH (I mean, come on, just look at him) but then I listened to Louis music and he got my number 1 and never lost rank again. Also, the song Just hold on saved me, the lockdown was not a good time for my mental health.

Your favourite Louis and Harry Era?

LHH forever. If I had enough money I would bribe him to let them grow long again. Although I'd have to meet him first. My plan isn't finalised yet as you can see but yeah... I think you know now how serious I am, haha.

And Louis... Hedgehog and FITF. I just love when his hair is fluffy.

Your favourite movie H starred in?

My Policeman. Damn, I was broken after watching it but it's so good.

Who’s your favourite writer in the fandom at the moment?

One of my favourite authors is BoosBabycakes. I especially love their a/b/o stories!

And your all-time favourite fic in the fandom?

Oh, that's really difficult. There are too many good ones and I really need to think about it for a moment. But I would like to name a story that is not one of the fandom's always recommended ones.

Okay... I go with this one, it's definitely one of my favourite a/b/o stories, the nesting is so sweetly described and I think I really need to read it again:

You've Got A Higher Power, You're Once In Any Lifetime by BoosBabycakes

What makes you want to stop reading something?

If the story is written in first person or the plot doesn't make sense to me and I question too much in the story. Some stories are also too artificially drawn out for me. I don't like slooooooow burn. My attention span doesn't last that long.

Your favourite song at the moment?

Call me by Neeve, it's a small german indie band but I like them a lot.

Of course nothing beats Louis music, I hope I don't have to mention that, do I?

Do you have a favourite movie or a favourite series at the moment?

No, neither of them. I haven't watched anything for ages. I prefer to spend my free time writing.

What was the most unusual thing that inspired you at some point?

Erm I hope this doesn't come across as weird but Louis' bum and waist. For some of my a/b/o stories and ideas that I still want to write.

What is your favourite season?

Spring, when everything turns green again and starts to blossom.

She also told me, that she has hay fever and that sometimes it’s unbearable for her until autumn but she still loves spring the most, especially after the darker months.

Who would you like to read an interview from?

I don't have a specific author in mind but I'd like it to be someone with a smaller fanbase to draw more attention to them.

I wanted to make it a little tradition for every interview, that every writer gives every of their works a colour and a season. It’s just a fun little thing for the end of the interview I thought would be interesting. Thankfully, Darling28 thought it was a great idea too, so here are the results:

Captured Ink, Hidden Hearts - pink and black, spring.

Bring me to life - darkblue, autumn.

Our Souls Intertwined - dark red, late summer.

True Colours - rainbow, obviously, autumn.

Men are shit - pink and green, summer

The Magic Within You - ice blue and white, winter (on a sunny day)

Tainted Love - brown, winter

Calm after the Storm - purple, early spring

Tank tops and a phone call - red, summer (a very hot day)

Letters - dark green, last summer days

I'm with you - white and grey, autumn

Paparazzi - yellow, summer

Holding On To Heartache - black with golden sprinkles, winter

Paradise is in your own mind (Sequel HOTH) - dark pink, spring

You Sunshine, You Temptress - green, summer

Careless Whisper - dark blue, winter

A huge thank you again to Darling28. Thanks for understanding my vision and being so open and kind. I appreciate it so much.

[umbran6]

A Different Champion

Ok, hear me out on this - Leo should've been the champion of Hera rather than Jason. At the very least, they should've had a relatively more positive relationship in comparison to the one time they interacted in The Lost Hero.

For those who've seen my prior posts, you know I've analyzed Leo's importance in the plot. I would also further cement this in that Leo has more importance to Hera than Jason. Even from an initial viewpoint, Hera would have more motivation to help Leo considering his background. Esperanza Valdez was willing to raise her son and still love him despite her family blacklisting her for having a child as a single mother and willing to work 9-5 just so they could live. Jason was the second child of Jupiter and Beryl Grace, who this time was fully aware of her lover's divine nature, willingly having a child despite the fact that not only did it defile Hera's marriage, but it was the second child that was testament to Zeus' disregard for his Pact made among his brothers. Overall, Hera seems more likely to sympathize with Leo and Esperanza.

This sympathy and favor is visible when you examine how Hera interacts with them, even when they were young. I always found it pretty hard to believe that Hera would pressure Beryl Grace to sacrifice Jason to sate her wrath, because Jason and Thalia were already destined for persecution - Zeus had broken the Pact of the Big Three twice. Thalia was never specifically targeted by Hera ( and the statue incident is... questionable, considering Olympus was freaking collapsing and Hera was also busy fighting Typhon), and as far as we're informed by Riordan, Hera was never particularly active in Jason's life while he was in the 5th cohort of the legion.

On a side note, Beryl Grace was an utter idiot for naming her son after the OG Jason. The OG Jason may have initially been favored by Hera for being one of the few mortal heroes without any divine parentage. However, he also severely screwed the pooch because he willingly broke his wedding vows towards Medea by attempting to marry Glauce despite all that Medea did and risked for him, to the point that its noted in most analyses of Euripides' Medea that the titular protagonist got approval from the gods for all of her actions. So yeah, Beryl painted a very big target on her son with that name. And the less said about Thalia's name, the better.

Hera spends nearly most of Leo's youth acting as his nanny while Esperanza Valdez works in the warehouse so they can stay afloat. Though most of the time Leo discussed this in the Lost Hero, he focused on the bizarre and unusual — having him use knives to cut jalapeños, prodding him to poke a snake, the whole 'burning your fingerprints into the park bench' incident, there is more to it than that. Hera doesn't just encourage the traits of a stereotypical hero, but also Leo's creativity such as him drawing the Argo II in crayons and though he wasn't aware of it, gives Leo hints as to how his future may look like. We also kind of forget that Hera still willingly helped raise Leo for Esperanza, which must've been an immense boon because she was a single mother.

Hera even performs what is quite likely the same ritual Demeter applied to Demophon so long ago — roasting him in a fireplace so Hera can burn away his mortality. Of course, it could be argued that she was doing this to strengthen Leo so she could have a stronger demigod to fight against Gaea, but either way such a possibility would benefit him more than it would for Hera. Needless to say, she must've favored Leo to the extreme if she was willing to make him, a demigod son of Hephaestus, immortal.

Furthermore - and please hear me out - let's expand on this connection. Esperanza seemed to be aware of Hephaestus's true nature as an Olympian because she knew that Leo's powers came from him, so it wouldn't be too far to say she was aware of Hera's true nature. She didn't know, however, that Hera was planning to train Leo to become a being that would defeat Gaea when she rose. She made the Queen of the Gods to promise not to intervene in their lives until Leo became aware of his true nature when Esperanza saw the fireplace scene, because Leo noted that ever that day, Tia Callida never showed up in Leo's life afterwards. So when Leo knows he is a demigod, all bets are off and Hera can finally start playing a more active role in his life.

So, now hopefully I've established that Leo should've been Hera's champion considering how she seems a lot more sympathetic to Leo. Now let's imagine how this plays out in the story. For now I'm going to specifically focus on the Lost Hero, because that's the series Hera is more prominent. Jason's memories are still wiped, Piper still thinks Jason is her boyfriend, but Leo is remarkably spared from the memory-warping effect of the Mist and is aware that Jason just straight up appeared out of nowhere.

Leo doesn't have that same edge of trust towards Jason, but that gives him a better perspective on what exactly Jason was sent out for. So he notices that Jason has a coin engraved with Latin, he uses latin terminology to describe the monsters that hunted Leo since he was young, and sees that Jason has combat skills far more advanced than an amnesiac should really have, he starts putting the pieces a lot earlier than we expect and when he is introduced to Camp Half-Blood, Leo cooks up the theory that Jason may have come from a Roman camp, and reasonably cooks up the corresponding idea that Percy is now in said Roman Camp.

When Leo figures out Jason's true origins, two things happen: he immediately tells it to Annabeth (he's not that much of a dick to hide what actually happened to her bf), and Hera conjures a specter to confirm this theory and explain why she's doing what she's doing. The whole scheme against the Earth Witch that killed Leo's mom, and that oh yeah, there's a wrench in the scheme. This concentrated method turns the gist of the quest from how the original Lost Hero presented it:

'Oh, this nebulous evil villain is going to use me as a freaking battery for her son/dragon and that sucks, so you must rescue me.' Oh yeah, and Percy is gone too, and we don't know where the freaking Tartarus he is, so there's that.

To this:

The Witch that was involved in your mother's death has captured me so that she can use me to fuel the resurrection of her strongest fighter. So if you want to get some sweet, sweet revenge/atonement for your mom's death you have to rescue me. Also, I'm holding your friend's memories with me so if you want to help him recover who he his he will also want to join. Percy Jackson? The guy who's gone missing? I have him with me as well, so Annabeth Chase better actually help out, or he's going to die too. You're in? Okay, here's how to do it, and you better get your butt here before the Winter Solstice because that is the day the absorption process is going to finish and things will really go to hell in a hand basket.

With that single message, we actually have people that aren't just following a prophecy. Annabeth joins the party because, oh yeah, now she finally knows where her boyfriend is and is willing to stomach saving the goddess she hates the most in order to help him. Jason's in it because Hera wants his memories and wants to know why she got him involved in her gambit in the first place. Leo? We have the direct motive of him wanting to atone for his mother's death while also getting revenge against the other party that was also involved. Piper's the unexpected fourth party member/possible traitor because her dad's still being held hostage.

Now, I'm not going to delve into the full plot detail changes, but a good chunk of it remains the same with some other changes. Annabeth gets a stronger friendship with Leo on an intellectual level, because you know, the guy was able to offer her a bit of hope in finding her boyfriend. He's more cautious of Jason, but also more genuinely comforting. And finally... he's suspicious as heck of Piper, because he can feel there's something more behind her joining the quest.

But I want to focus on this scene: when Leo gets claimed by Hera as her champion. I, preferably, would imagine it takes place after she is rescued from becoming a power source for Porphyrion. Mainly because then she would have enough power to do a proper claiming and thus she can be as extra with it as possible.

I mean, imagine it. Everyone's gotten back from rescuing Hera, they're all patting themselves on the back and everyone's praising Jason, Piper, and Annabeth unwittingly ignoring Leo. Everyone's hearing about Jason fighting Porphyrion, Piper getting to free her dad from Enceladus, the surprise reveal of the search for Percy, when...

A light starts to glow above Leo's head. It's faint at first, but then it grows more vibrant and swells to cover the entire dining pavilion, swallowing him whole. Then it fades away to reveal Hera, putting a crown of laurel leaves on Leo's head, his clothing replaced with a chiton that was dyed ruby red that glimmered against the firelight from the braziers. A peacock is glowing above his head, the hundreds of eyes shining like the aurora of the north.

Leo's stunned as his mind does his best to process his new reality. Hera gives him a single, warm smile, and everyone else is staring in shock as she announces his status as her champion and gives him her divine blessing. Camp Half-Blood practically erupts in shock because this is the first time the camp has witnessed a male demigod being claimed as Hera's champion with the last guy being... the OG Jason.

I mean, the look of horror in Annabeth's eyes as she realizes one of her friends is now the champion of the goddess that she hates with a burning passion. Jason suddenly realizing that Leo was a lot more in the know of Hera's whole plot than he suspected, because why otherwise would Hera make him her champion? The members of Cabin Nine, suddenly looking at Leo with a sense of betrayal because yeah, Hera's the goddess that threw their dad off of Olympus. Leo isn't really sympathetic with them, Hephaestus had practically abandoned him for sixteen years of his life and forsaken him for eight. Piper can't exactly see him in the same light - how could she, when suddenly her friend had changed so suddenly?

All of this happens as Chiron steps forward, bowing in front of Leo and his patron before uttering these words: "Hera. Goddess of the Heavens, Protector of Men, Patron of Rulers. Hail, Leo Valdez, Champion of the Queen of Olympus."