#gun barrel sequences

[atomic-chronoscaph]

James Bond gun barrel sequences: 1. Sean Connery - Thunderball (1965); 2. George Lazenby - On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969); 3. Roger Moore - The Spy Who Loved Me (1977); 4. Timothy Dalton - Licence to Kill (1989); 5. Pierce Brosnan - Tomorrow Never Dies (1997); 6. Daniel Craig - Spectre (2015)

[yameoto]

RUSSIAN ROULETTE. CAITLYN KIRAMMAN

piltover / zaun civil war

tw; dark!caitlyn, prisoner!reader, blowjob, gunplay, gunjob? gunfucking, drastic power dynamics, degradation, humiliation, bondage, hate sex, bratty!reader, noncon. dead dove. rape. wc; 1.9k ao3 vers.

WHEN Piltover's oh, so fearless leader strides into your humble abode, you can already tell she's having a bad day. Caitlyn's eyes are bloodshot. Hells, she’s still in her uniform. The tresses of silken, inky locks are no longer taut ponytail—stray strands dangling, tangled, cheeks nicked with dried blood. You doubt it's her own.

Your first instinct, as a prisoner chained to the wall and completely at her mercy; is to act like a right fucking brat. Because that’s been working out so well for you, thus far.

“Rough day?” not that you could give a single fuck. “All tired out from gassing out children on the streets? Poor baby."

Caitlyn remains silent as she dismisses the guard with a flick of her wrist, and you're still talking. Yipping away like a dog snapping at her heels. "There are other ways to solve wealth inequality than killing all the poor people, you know." Her stare is glacial.

God, the mouth on you.

She’s considered moving you to her family’s personal prisons. Though, keeping Zaun's lauded revolutionary locked-up in the Kirramman's basement would draw a couple eyebrows. The dungeons under the council-room you so lovingly blew up, along with her mother, suffice.

“Paint a portrait,” You sneer, like the little shit you are. A bloodstain clinging to her sole, that she hasn't scraped off yet. "How 'bout you shoot a gloryhole and fuck that instead, princess."

So you do see the bulge she's packing. Good. She's been aching to unload in you, all day.

"I'm not in the mood for talk." Caitlyn says, coolly, shoving the cellblock door open and stepping inside. Clearly. Her cock is pulsing. She hasn't even made the effort of the usual charade, in drilling you with that perfunctory interrogation sequence—for the benefit of the enforcers stationed at your cell. (Shame. you take your petty joys in turning up your nose and spitting in her face, like some structured caricature of foreplay).

You have such tight lips. Caitlyn delights in prying them open.

“Knew you couldn’t resist. Come back for another round, already?” Somehow, you manage to sound cocky, even though there's a smear of her dried cum streaked just below your brow, from just this morning.

Caitlyn tries to be good. She really does. You just make it so hard.

“Hold this for me.” She orders, like you're one of her little soldiers waiting on her hand and foot. A snarky reply about the shackles around your wrists is on the tip of your tongue. No matter. Caitlyn forces the barrel down your half-open mouth anyway, before you could so much as say bang.

“Mmf—“ cold metal forces your mouth apart. your eyes widen, pupils swallowing up your irises. This is new. For a moment, blind panic seizes your body, because there is a gun in your mouth. It's not like you don't know there's a guillotine with your name inscribed. (All, 'cut the head off the snake', or whatever eloquent, prissy-spun bullshit Caitlyn spits in your ear as her nails scrape the walls of your cunt).

It's been too long. The war could be over, for all you know. Though, you wouldn't put it past her to keep you past your expiration date.

Speaking of, Caitlyn doesn’t even bother to hush you. She only thrusts, further—far enough to bruise your throat and stop your incessant, muffled whining. Your gag reflex triggers. Unbidden, tears sprout, to burn behind your eyelids. Silently, you buck.

“Oh, don't be so dramatic. You’ve taken worse.” Caitlyn rolls her eyes, languidly pushing the pistol in, and out. In, and, out. She guides in smooth, composed motions—never letting up enough to allow you more than seethe, breathing harshly through your nose. “It’s good practice."

The fiifth time you gag, she finally lifts the barrel out. You were never one to waste the opportunity to snark, even if you really should be saving your breath.

“Holding a dress rehearsal for my public execution? I'm flattered. You must really like me, doll.”

“Oh, no,” Caitlyn drags metal, over your lips. It's warm, from the time it’s spent crammed down your throat “for gagging on my cock.”

Even though you’re expecting it, you lash out—momentarily ripping the veil off your faux swagger. Caitlyn tuts, though she gets a vivid lick of satisfaction from seeing you, bare, for once (and goodness, how much effort you take), before shoving the gun back in place. You fix her with a glower that seeps with pure, divine, hatred—chapped lips puckering goadingly around its muzzle. Screaming for her, to just fuckin' do it, already. Caitlyn almost admires how you haven’t lost your rage, your viciousness. It's the one thing you have in common.

She swiftly upticks the revolver, and jerks it out, callous. The roof of your mouth snags on its sharp-whetted sights, and blood sluices down your throat. You can’t tell the taste from the metallic tang of metal. A string of pink saliva connects its spitsoaked barrel to your sputtering lips, chest heaving.

“Don’t have the balls to take the shot, huh?” You spit, as if there isn’t enough of that smeared over your chin, pooling helplessly into your collar.

“Should you be so lucky.” Caitlyn smiles, the bitch, as she swoops downwards, markedly unblemished hands grasping your jaw. Of course, you think, lividly. Of course Piltover’s own general doesn’t get her hands dirty.

Although, she makes an exception for you. How sweet.

Caitlyn foregoes further fanfare, pushing you downwards. Your limbs fold in on themselves—a lion, declawed. The feeble thrash of your arms, bound at the wrist and hastened to the iron-wrought wall—are no match for the demanding brace of Caitlyn’s thighs as she slides gracefully to her knees, elegant hand seizing you by the throat.

"But I’d make such a pretty martyr," You wheeze, hyperaware of the click of Caitlyn’s belt unbuckling. All of a sudden, you miss the cool sensation of a pistol in your mouth.

Caitlyn, on the other hand, adores this angle. How your eyes sear. Jaw clenched, hollows sucked in rage and hunger—as if you would blow the brains out her head if you could. Seething, at how she has the opportunity herself, but denies you the satisfaction.

Instead, you get this. She untucks herself at a leisurely pace, almost marvelling at the way her cock descends in a mighty shadow, darkening your face. You scowl. Her free hand shoots out to smush your cheeks, the moment you bare your teeth and open your mouth to talk back. So predictable.

“Perhaps if you didn’t spit your food out at the guards, you’d have the strength to put up at least a little fight.” Caitlyn teases, too lightly for the context, as she lines up her flushed, swollen tip against your furiously jammed lips. A gob of pre-cum spouts from the slit, marring your cheek

"Maybe I was saving myself the trouble of hurling it up after we're done."

Caitlyn rolls her eyes. Pushes her head up against your pursed lips. “What are you? The world’s most grating ventriloquist?” She remarks, snide. She's weary of playing games. She needs it, now.

How she's grown so painfully hard, over this whole ordeal. You'd think she’d feel shame over it—so turned-on by something she sees clearly beneath her—but who wouldn’t get off on using their worst enemy like this? You'd do the same, if you were in her position.

At least, that’s what she tells herself when she shoves her cock down your throat.

"Ah.." Caitlyn shudders, the same time muscle memory has you sucking. Her neck arches back in open relief, hips bucking as she presses you, nose flush against the trimmed strip of dark pubes.

Her strokes are torturously slow. The most humiliating thing is the plap, plap, plap sound of her balls slapping against your chin, resounding in the empty dungeons. there is no audience—probably because nothing about this screams Noble House of Kiramman—or even legality. then again, neither does launching nukes into Piltover's place of governance. Tomayto, tomahto.

She withholds her moans for your own benefit, just so you can listen to the obscene sound of yourself, suckling along her dick. Caitlyn’s drags are lazy, relishing the beautiful suction of your lips. Slips herself far enough down your throat, for your swallows to turn to audible gulps, as you try not to choke.

She's not quite yet done. Her fingers dart downwards, twisting your panties aside.

“I don’t even know why you bother wearing these. They’re disgusting.” Rock-hard, a sore reminder of how routine this has become. She hooks them on her pistol, before promptly flicking them across the room, revealing the miserable, glistening wetness of your cunt.

Fuck. Your pussy is sodden like a cat left in the rain, dripping all over the carpet—much to your self-loathing. Caitlyn’s smirk is unrepentant.

“You're getting off on this? You're even dirtier than i thought.” She muses, as you glower hotly upwards, cheeks full of her. “I do hope you used your tongue.”

You're briefly confused by the comment, because, well—you are using your tongue and more—until the slick heat of your pussy swallows cold steel, and you gasp—walls straining, clenching around the foreign intrusion. Caitlyn eases the revolver in, with surprising gentleness. not that it does you any good.

Your spine arches off the wall, mangled noise ripping from your throat. Caitlyn shoves her length in, deeper, an impromptu silencer. “Don't whinge, darling.” she husks, knowing you loathe the pet-name. "It's unbecoming."

She never hurries, despite having places to be. Is it her fault that it feels so good to fuck your throat, like this? To pulse her gun in your cunt, almost playful, as she watches with the hooded eyes how your pussy greedily slurps the pistol to its hilt, before coming out again, glazed with the evidence of just how filthy she knows you to be. Her finger slides over the trigger, voice coming out in a breathy murmur.

“Bang.”

Caitlyn cums in thick, gooey spurts down your throat. Her head lolls back, shoving your head to practically kiss the sharp angles of her pelvis as you take it. Of course you take it. All your bravado, and still, you swallow her load like a beaten dog lapping at water, all the while, her pistol stretches you open. You don't plan it. God, it's like your body has a life of its own—a Pavlovian response, to the taste and feeling of Caitlyn trickling down your throat—but you orgasm like your life depends on it. Maybe it does. Your legs quake, limbs jerking, shoulder-blades scraping against the gritty brick walls as your entire being yanks itself upwards, like a marionette on strings.

When she pulls the revolver out from your cunt, this time; it is creamy white that strings from your helplessly pulsating folds to its hollow. You hiss, cheeks burning, panting—scrabbling back. An animal backed into a corner.

Caitlyn holsters her revolver, dripping with your sweat, your blood, your cum. Always on her person, yet as uncocked as the day it was minted—chamber still full. It’s only purpose is to fuck you stupid. She stands, buckling her belt back up, as you lie there.

“I'll break you, yet.” She promises.

Blood rushes between your ears, back scratched to all hell, bruises at the back of your throat. She’s splattered all over you. You grin.

“Should you be so lucky.”

Caitlyn scoffs, and iron bars screech shut behind her. You know you'll see her again, come sunrise. Or; you’ll know sunrise, come Caitlyn, again.

Tomayto, tomahto.

[mermervi]

a little party

✎ It's 1927 and the lights are glittering. You're a budding jazz chanteuse, everyone's sweetheart, and Leon, who's got you in his sights, is out to score what's in his mind.

cw: blood, death, oral (female receiving), uhmm idek what to add cuz my mind is not minding after this (this shii hit hard and it's like 9k) , intricate time-skipping from scene to scene, mayhaps?, not proofread ouchie, MDNI

The rain poured down from the sky like a mighty torrent of rage. That night, the cold that prickled through Leon’s soaked Hart Schaffner jacket, far from dispiriting him, only kept him going. Years of privation, every step he had taken to secure his very existence, had taught him the vernacular of the streets, but on that night, the streets were poised to betray him. 

This story of treachery wasn’t as bitter as life; Leon couldn’t refute that. 

He had witnessed a sequence of crime that perhaps a boy who had come to a city like New York from his rural village, a boy who couldn’t even calculate his steps precisely, should never have seen in those scenes in his ever-lasting life. It was true that these blue pairs of peepers had seen many people perish, but these were the deaths that came in their due time, like his mother’s death before she turned sixty, the Grim Reaper’s visit to his grandfather on a night like that night when the rains were drizzling over the sky. 

Only his father’s martial death could have rivaled the images he had seen that night. That may be it, he thought. After all, he had never had the chance to see his father choke on his own tainted and alcohol-laden blood in his frail, final moments. 

Back to that night, the man Leon saw in the car had a very different kind of dread. His eyes were huge sockets, and a bloody streak was running down his throat on his skin, visible through the placket of his dress shirt. 

That was the kind of sight that makes one’s heart sing. Otherwise, it must have been an appalling sight that made men and women wince and cower. Leon should have felt the former for himself. 

How could he have known the little trick that fate would be about to play? 

On that September night, on a corner, he saw a wounded man trapped inside a maroon Cadillac. On the man’s face, there was a sliver of hope mixed with absolute despair, just the kind of “too proud to ask for help but in need of salvation.” 

A faint spark flared inside Leon. 

He could recall his departed father’s words, that such men like those in those costly cars were indeed evils for no good deed. 

His past had to be repudiated. 

His father was perhaps cursing him that night—no, the old man was absolutely putting the whammy on young Leon. What a hell of a father. It was always the hardest thing for a boy like Leon to placate that lousy man. Even after his death it was all the more impossible to appease him. A ruffian of a man, Leon thought. 

He thought too much on that rainy Friday night. 

Out of pure, undiluted impulse, he acted without a plan at all to save the man; he only thought of taking one more step in that ill-lit road. When he set his eyes on that street, he walked with a foolish spunk, heedless of the gun barrel of the mobster shrouded in shadows. He neither thought about the future nor retreated. “If you bail someone out, someday you will be bailed out too,” he thought with childlike simplicity. 

He was cold and unsure. Somehow or other, he had slid out of the dusk and appeared behind the black-clad mafioso, who was pointing his revolver at the driver’s window and was about to blast the man inside with the hollow point of a bullet. 

The plot was grim. A gruesome story. For hours Leon washed his hands with scalding soapy water to rinse off the scum of the filthy man’s blood, or that’s how he remembers the aftermath of the chain of events. 

He had grabbed the man by the cord and bashed his head against the drywall, searing sounds that he could still recall in the innermost recesses of his ear, the gold inlaid revolver in his hand clattering to the pavement, airy-fairy. The wrangling of the man, his fedora plunged into the muddy rainwater pit on the tiled road. Leon would always remember the first murder, the one that lodged deep in the very core of his psyche. 

Beyond recall, Leon thrashed the man’s skull from wall to wall until he was sure he was in a stupor, and when the man finally slumped—coup de grace. Leon wailed out the air he had been consciously holding all those long, long minutes. Mouth hanging open, dulled eyes, and the pile of a corpse littering the floor at his feet. The lack of sleep from hours of working in the packing department of the Berwick shoe factory, some man’s brains imploding in the wall... Everything had drained the daylight out of Leon on that cursed night. 

When he met the gaze of the terror-struck man in the car, he met something much newer. 

He met himself. 

Or rather, his new “self.”. 

An absolute criminal.

He wasn’t shaking, nor did he feel like he might be sick. What was most pathetic was that he appeared to resemble his dead father in the wretched auspices reflected in the window of that maroon Cadillac. 

After that night, life kept rolling along. Days, weeks, and months. Ironically, Leon was no longer just another schmo slugging it out in the textile mills. Nobody batted an eye at the kid’s line of work with all that greenbacks stuffed in his pockets. The word on the street? He’s just a flash in the pan, a real fly-by-night type. But here’s the thing: an American, with blonde hair and baby blues, is always the cat’s meow, especially if he’s sporting a sharp suit with a label on it. Anything that doesn’t fit the mold? Forget it. No exceptions to the rule. And isn’t that the ultimate American dream? Gents with pockets full of dough, running the show. 

How your story comes along with this creepy-crawly backstory, with so many powerful men signing off on it, is pure happenstance. A story straight from the pen of God, really, to put it in a nutshell. 

It all starts on a Saturday night in March of 1927. 

Tin Pan Alley is kicking up its heels tonight, the joint hopping with the wildest kind of racket. The place is packed with middle-class folks from all corners of the city—newly minted millionaires who’ve made their pile and are now living it up. These cats have been rolling in dough so long they’ve got the smarts to throw it around like it’s sugar-coated. The air’s thick. Lap of luxury, and the whole scene is a real shindig, full of high-living gents and dames who’ve learned to spend big, laugh loud, and flash those fat pockets like it’s nobody’s business. 

“Get a wiggle on, gals! C’mon now.” 

From backstage, the sound of booming voices cuts through the air, unmistakably Ada Wong herself—barking orders and giving the girls an earful as she whips them into shape for the show. She’s a stunner with grit, the kind of woman you can’t help but notice. No one else is ever going to take her seat; this joint is hers, and everyone knows it. Ada doesn’t just run the joint—she owns it. She’s got her pretty fingers on the pulse of the city’s most daring and avant-garde talent, working with the best, the boldest, and the brightest minds the world has to offer. If she’s not at the top of the heap, she’s surely standing on it. 

What’s a woman like that to do with a gal like you? Well, there’s a rather simple answer to that. 

Pretty young things always find their way to the top. And that’s before we even get to ones with voices that could melt hearts, like yours. 

Ada’s the Queen of the downtown club scene, and you’re her darling young, white-hot vessel of treasure trove. Pretty girls always get their moment, but pretty girls with a lilting voice garner more than their share of attention. All in all, Wong knows what she’s doing, and you’re her ace in the hole. 

Yet there are some rules. Ada’s rules. Simple ones, really. “Slip into your Jeanne Lanvin, dazzle ‘em with that red lipstick, and keep your chin up—don’t fidget, don’t even think about mussing up that perfect coif.” 

And on the stage, do keep that smile for the crowd until you get the microphone—because after all, the crowd is here to see your legs, not to hear your troubles. They pay in bills; you deliver the thrills. 

Hot minutes before the show, you stare at your reflection in the mirror like you’ve never seen your face before. The same old script in the mind, the same fake smile stretched on your lips—too tight over a thousand unspoken thoughts. The eyes in the glass, observing you with a kind of critical hunger, just waiting for a slip. They can’t perceive the enmity in your head—the one that never takes a break, no matter how many gin rickeys you slug down. The booze? It doesn’t wash away the ache. The pills? Only another temporary fix to soothe the ache that burns brighter when the spotlight fades. 

Why are you miserable when the dough’s rolling in and the world’s at your feet? Why turn your back on the luxury that others would kill for? But hell, you don’t need an answer. 

You’re an oddity, a riddle wrapped in velvet and lace, sipped from a silver cup. The men and women, they all like you. The faces in the crowd—each of them gazing up at you with athirst eyes—are only loyal to you when the lights are on and the music’s blaring. Afterward, though, you’re just another pretty girl in a smoky room, holding your breath until they let you vanish again. 

Post-performance, Chris Redfield is the name that shields you from scrutiny (he quite literally interposes his humongous body between you and the admirers); he’ll pluck you out of the melee, hustle you into a quiet space, and shelter you from anything. 

Then you’ll sit in the corner, maybe sip a seltzer, and go over your numbers, rehearsing the songs they want to hear and shimmy your tush that they’re going to throw dollars at. All in those godforsaken high heels! It’s a devil’s game, this life of glitter and stage lights. But the lights burn so bright, you almost forget the shadows hounding you from behind. 

All this suffering, your illusions, the never-ending fervent hopes of that girl who had to run in those heels were perfectly channeled, and you were born. For years you have breathed in and out for a single purpose, in an intricate cycle called life, a circle of a powdery pink existence that is anything but powdery pink. 

It’s all diamonds. Dirty, big diamonds. 

“Miss, are you all set?” Chris’ voice slips into the air, stripped of any graspable pathos like a bad rumor. Those mother-of-pearl drop earrings—they’re starting to feel like anchors around your neck. 

“Sure thing, Chris,” you enunciate animatedly before getting up from your vanity chair. “Let’s take a stroll, huh? Like we own the place.” 

He does laugh, though rather silly. He’s a straight shooter, the kind who lives by the book. 

After a lackluster walk, you arrive upstage. The joint is packed to the rafters, the air thick with the perfume of incense, lavender, and a dash of orange, like a high-society boudoir on a Saturday night. Piers, who performed a little verse before you, is preparing to leave the stage to thunderous ovations. Naturally, he can’t scram from the joint until he’s put in the grunt work he’s got to handle. 

“Ladies and gents, hold onto your hats—here’s the name you’ve all been dying to hear!” Piers’ voice crackles through the microphone, sending a whitecap through the crowd like a match setting fire to velvet. He does wonders with the microphone, alright. 

One, two, three—out with it. You exhale that pent-up storm, and just like that, the stage belongs to you. 

Time’s up. You take that breath, the one you’ve been holding like a secret you can’t quite tell, and you step into the spotlight. 

You’re in. And the stage is yours—a damn showstopper of a stage, mind you. 

Your heels hit the floor with that familiar rhythm, each step measured, a saint’s grace—if a saint knew how to twirl in silk and steal the show. The crowd’s already on their feet, clapping, whooping, and hollering. The smile on your face is blindingly luminescent, even more dazzling than diamonds. God, you’re fake, but hands up, darling. You’re the queen of this palace. 

The air’s electric as you wave, your people calling your name like it’s the sweetest song they’ve ever heard. Your chest swells, a perfect mix of pride and thrill, the crowd hanging on your every move like moths to the flame. 

But then—just as the frenzy peaks—a set of eyes catches yours from somewhere in the haze. 

Something in that gaze. Something different. A new note in the symphony, sharp and clear. 

With all due respect, you know the dandies—the regulars who’ve been greasing their palms to get front-row seats for years. Those high-browed, underdressed gargoyles—each one plastered in a grotesque mask of makeup that’d make a saint blanch. And then there are the ones who are really in love with your voice, the ones who drop their dimes and bills just to hear you sing, all the way down to the final breath of your last note. Their eyes glisten like they’re listening not just to you, but to the very last song on earth. 

But then there’s him—the stranger in the crowd. He doesn’t quite fit into either of those camps. He stands apart like a shadow, as though he’s absorbed something from the city itself—electric, muted, with a trace of gunmetal dust in his eyes, something that caught the reflected light of a thousand lost souls. 

He’s not looking at the fellow beside him, not paying the slightest attention to the clamor or the chatter. No, his gaze is all for you. Wait a minute—what’s this? Is that Ada, standing just there by his side, or has your vision gone all soft in the haze of the lights? 

It’s Ada, alright. And she’s got you in her sights, sending you a thousand little daggers with those eyes of hers, as if daring you to keep singing, daring you to hit every note just so. 

Now, it’s not your style to stand around like some dopey schoolgirl, ogling every flapper and every fancy boy who drifts through the scene. No, you’re only a little giddy to see fresh faces, fresh crowds, and—well, a fresh crop of admirers, too. No harm, no foul. End of story, no need to dig any deeper. (Of course, that’s all just a tall tale.) 

But what about Leon? How’s he taking in this blurred picture of yours, with all its strange little twists and turns? 

“What a hot mess up there on that stage.” He mutters tacitly, his very first thoughts about you. 

He’s grinning like a Cheshire cat, finding the whole thing a delightful mess. And he knows—oh, he knows—that he’s right in the crosshairs of Ada’s death stare. Poor guy. He’s probably already picturing her giving him a good talking-to, the sort that’d have a lesser man crawling for cover. 

For now, though, your voice knells over the microphone, a golden oldie, ritzy and true, and the crowd falls into a hush like a room full of smitten children. The spell is cast again, and they’re all yours. 

Ada, meanwhile, gives you a nod—half maternal, half triumphant—as if you’re her very own creation, fretting and fuming along in a delicate harmony with the night. And Leon, well, let’s just say he’s still trying to keep his own amusement under wraps, but the grin’s playing all over his face. 

No doubt about it, you’re the star of the night—who else could it possibly be? The eponymous name everyone’s been whispering in esteem, the one Leon has heard mentioned more than once, all wrapped up in the honeyed sort of praise. 

Up on stage, Leon has you in his illusory blues, as everyone else contemplates you until your encore is at an end. There are certain things that should only be spectated; their splendor should be kept locked away in the heart and in a secret corner of the brain after peeping through the veils of the eyes. That’s you, for him. You’re that kind of beauty—too grand for the world to touch, too perfect to be anything but an ephemeral glimpse. 

“Oh, that chick’s the real deal, alright,” Leon breathes in awe. Turning now to Ada, when your performance comes to a sublime end, he has you up front in the applause, as does your crowd. He’s a part of your crowd now. 

To which Ada retorts with a cognizant luster, “What did I tell you?” she says, the glow of the cinch lighting up her face like the glow of a cigarette’s ember in the dark. “The best ones are always under my namesake.” 

Leon can’t argue with that—not when he’s seen you, not when you’ve got him bewitched, already half-dreaming that you might be some celestial being sent here just to voodoo the cosmos with your tongue. A star fallen from Arcadia, caught in a moment of earthly grace. In such a way that he should render himself a more open target for you. The thought flickers through his mind like a dangerous little inferno: maybe he should make you his. Keep you close, lock you up like the most precious thing he owns, the way he’s always hoarded only the finest nonpareils. Time’s done a number on him, sure—he’s spent enough hours in the smoke-permeated parlors of the city’s high society to become exactly the sort of libertine playboy who rounds up beautiful things. In this modern age, after all, it’s the ones who possess the rarest jewels who leave their names etched into history. 

And legacy—that’s all Leon really wants. To leave a mark. To be remembered. 

Ada gets the wind of that desire in Leon’s eyes the second he lays his zealous eyes on you. She tugs him by the arm and pushes him to a corner that’s secluded from the public eye so that his ear can reach her red-tinctured lips. “Don’t,” she warns, “don’t cross that line in your mind.” 

“Don’t get all worked up, Ada.” Leon’s voice slips out smooth and phlegmatic, like a man who’s seen it all and is hardly moved by it anymore. There’s something visceral about it, something that pulls him into the dark corners of the backstage when a woman like her—striking and full of fire—yanks him close. He has always adored women, sure, but there’s something about the ones who know how to take charge, the ones who’ve got the power to bend him to their will, that makes him stay just a little bit longer. 

Tonight, though, Ada isn’t the one who has his attention. You are. He plays the part of the good boy to Ada, with soft words and wistful smiles, but underneath, there’s a quiet conspiracy to take what she holds dear, her prized girl, namely you. 

This tendency is nothing new for Leon—it’s a trick he’s picked up over time, a survival mechanism he learned in the kind of world where charm and guile are the only things that keep him afloat. 

Ada doesn’t miss it. Her eyes narrow, and her brow furrows, the kind of expression that makes a man’s skin crawl. There’s no mistaking the mistrust there, like ice forming in the atmosphere between them. 

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she says, her voice abiding, almost too calm. “One wrong move, and Wesker’s on your tail.” 

Her words hang heavy in the air, a warning clothed in concern. Beneath her sangfroid, Leon feels a flicker of something deeper, something that he’s too foolish to fully understand—Ada Wong is afraid. In this world, in this neon-lit, soulless place, she fears losing someone she can rely on. Someone she trusts. 

Leon gets it, or at least, he feels the weight of it—but it’s nothing he’ll lose sleep over. He’s too simple, too self-absorbed, too headstrong. A fool, really. 

And that foolishness, that same reckless drive, leads him straight to your door. And standing in the way is Chris, his massive frame blocking the entrance like a standpat mountain. 

Leon’s voice takes on a resigned note. “Fine, fine. I’ll figure it out.” He knows he’ll have to talk his way through. He always does—always puts his life and tears on the line. 

“Come on, pal,” he says with a remiss grin, like he’s telling an old joke. “What’s one little party going to hurt? 

His words sound tired, worn from repetition, but his eyes are sharp, looking for any crack, any weakness in Chris’ solid stance. Leon knows this game well, but Chris? He’s not someone you talk past easily. 

“No entry, I said.” Chris’ voice is edgier and booming. Leon didn’t expect a harsh backlash from such a dim-witted man, even though he’s been grilling him for nearly half an hour. The pedestal, however, is clear: Leon wants to be heard, and he wants to draw your attention. He knows you’re in your room, and he doesn’t compromise since he always wants more. Even if he tickles a chance that he might end up getting beaten up, the risk, you are, is worth it. 

Leon shrugs, ever the picture of nonchalance, though his voice is silky with calculated charm. “It’s just an autograph, my good man. A trifle, really. You wouldn’t deny an admirer of the arts a simple token, would you? It’s hardly the end of the world…” Leon flaunts his mendacious excuses. 

For then, Chris inhales a long, drawn-out gulp of bile. Why is he going through this excruciating ordeal? This loquacious blonde has been clamoring to see you for minutes. Leon’s been at it for minutes now, talking a mile a minute—promising everything, offering bribes, flattering him to no end. And yet, there’s no movement. 

“When I say no, it means no. Get movin’ or I won’t be liable for what happens, young fella.” Chris’ last words are too caustic and are perhaps adequate proof enough to conclude the last point. Only a cheeky mite like Leon doesn’t understand how to leave high and dry. 

“A grave indignity, old sport. I only—” His words are broken off by the crack of the door parting open. The countenance he beholds is the one Leon covets. At the sound of the click of your heels, Chris turns in a dazed sort of way to acknowledge your presence. 

“Ma’am, this fellow here—” 

You interrupt him with a wave of your hand in the breeze. You don’t necessarily need to hear the whole story; you’ve already overheard the whole thing when you were changing your dress. 

“Chris, I and my... admirer will take it from here,” you assure your friend, and you do recognize your newest fan’s face, “You should go home now.” 

That’s how you seal a deal. 

The jazzy, twinkling blue mirrors in Leon’s sockets—reflecting fragments of light like stars caught in a lover’s gaze—seem to applaud you silently. “Look at this dame,” they whisper, “What a thing she’s done, dispatching that thug.” 

Chris’ stupefied gaze flies between you and Leon. Yet the look you give him signals that all is well enough, the quiet reassurance of a woman who knows exactly what she’s doing. Chris bears silent and moves a meter away, and then over a dividing wall. 

“You saved me, my dear.” Leon dashes in without wasting a second of his precious time. However much he can wow you, that’s as good as it gets. 

“Oh, don’t even mention it,” you reply, your voice airy but welded. “And please, do excuse Chris. Mr...?” You quirk your eyebrows and proffer his name, hand raised for a handshake. Leon’s only too happy to comply. 

“Leon. Leon Scott Kennedy.” 

You can’t quite place it, but there’s something vaguely familiar about the name, like a snippet of conversation overheard in a café or a name dropped casually pending a gossip fest. It lingers on the edge of your memory, refusing to settle in the space where it belongs. 

Leon can see the ululation echoing in your eyes, plain and simple: “What is it, doll?” He asks, beryls alight with oceanic larks. “Do you know me? Oh, don’t tell me you’ve heard of me. Everyone knows my name around here, you see.” 

How he can’t stop raving about himself leaves a tangy aftertaste on your tongue for the first impressions. Naturally on your face too. 

You smile, just a little too gaily. “I believe so,” you counter. “But I was more curious about what’s brought a man of such... renown to this particular corner of the world. After all, I’ve never heard of you before tonight, Mr. Kennedy.” 

Your words are relentless, and besides, there’s no harm in reminding this conceited man of his place in your presence. 

“Is that so?” Leon cross-examines. Now it’s time to watch his face shrivel up—figuratively speaking, since his face is too pretty to take a nosedive. 

“That so, gentleman?” You sort of ascribe to his intonation the same acerbic tonality and maybe a pinch of belittlement. It’s more genuine. Now why would you do it like that? Now that you’ve piqued his interest all the more, his already inherent infatuation with you attains a deeper level. Now you’ve got him hooked even tighter. The one that’s not an easy prey is always more desirable, and simple-minded people like Leon, men of a breed under the names of kind gents, take this as a rule of thumb. 

“Honey... That’s called cheating, see? Be straight with me. My name’s the talk of the town.” Leon’s counting on you to accept this absurd truth, his truth. The smile of implied expectation on his lips is a foreshadowing of its force majeure. He’s delivering the punchline of a joke no one’s laughing at yet. 

“Sir... I’m at a loss for words, truly. You’ve come all the way here to face Chris just for my autograph?” You do what you know, and your cockiness builds layer by layer. Watching the ferment on his face, the frowny set of his eyebrows, gives you a special sense of self-assurance. 

“Autograph. Ha!” Leon lets out a crow of laughter, like he’s just remembered something from way back. It’s big, brash, and loud. Passing dancer girls bustle around backstage, giggling at his fit of exuberance. It’s that you are making a toy out of him, and somehow, he can’t extricate himself from the predicament. 

“I forgot, of course,” he says, shifting into a more controlled drawl; he’s trying to smooth out the bumpy ride. He pulls a pen and a small notebook from his coat pocket with an exaggerated flourish. “But you can’t exactly blame me, doll. Your beauty’s done something to my head—messed with my mind, ya know?” 

Oh, he’s smooth, like the tingles left by the fingers tangent to your palm. 

“It seems to be your problem,” you riposte. Pen in hand, you carve your signature on the blank expanse of crisp white paper, and Leon follows the touch of the ink on the sheet of paper, heedless of your jeering remarks. 

“My problems never quite seem to end,” he expounds, not in a protesting way, but with a light touch of amusement tapping on his lips. You only respond with a whispery whicker of a laugh. You do laugh like God, Leon notices, if God is even real. 

That’s when Leon understands why people can be drawn to a simple voice as much as they can. You owe your fame to this elfin-singing voice, the batting of those cartoon eyes. As for your beauty, it must be a double blessing from God. 

Leon delights in deciphering you like a crossword puzzle, worships your littlest moves, the way the flutter of your lashes floats and the way you tuck his pen back into the pocket on his chest, your fingers brushing the fine wool. 

“There you go. I’ve solved the great mystery of where your pen belongs.” You intone with a quip, setting up a bittersweet closure for the end of your conversation. No sooner do you withdraw your hand than Leon neatly guides your wrist and then places your knuckles in the vicinity of his lips, dusting them with brief, aestival kisses. 

“Oh, so chivalry isn’t pushing up daisies after all,” you admire, a playful lilt that could make even the most cynical gangster crack a smile. When your cadenza echoes in his ears, he takes a step or two back and assents with a single nod. A small vignette of a valedictory farewell. 

“It never croaked, doll,” Leon’s exuding poise again. “And as long as I’m around, it never will.” 

Seeing the beatific smile on your face like the marquee outside the Cotton Club, in his defense, is worth being so gooey—it makes him feel just the right kind of foolish. 

“I wish you the grandest of nights,” he wishes you a generous adieu, tipping his hat in a farewell that’s both classy and just a speck visionary. Then, with a hindmost glance, he’s gone, leaving behind the faintest fume of his cologne—woodsy, something big-ticket, and just dangerous enough to match the man himself. 

This parting, though it may feel final, is no more than the ebb and flow of time. 

The morning’s bouquet arrives with violets, their soft, violet faces peeking from beneath a flourish of ribbon, accompanied by a silver card, its edges smooth and gleaming, bearing a name that was spoken only yesterday, inked in a hand that could never be mistaken for anything but deliberate, graceful. 

Leon. 

Each new day brings its own small ceremonial gestures—an exchange of flowers, bellflowers to accompany the violets, perhaps a box of bonbons in the afternoon—each offering bestowed as if to signify the passing of something eternal. You, by virtue of your place, greet them with the appropriate pleasantries. It’s a small thing, perhaps, but it stirs something within you. The feeling lingers. It is like the first breath of spring, though all around you is the stillness of winter. 

The exchange of blooms soon shifts from the morning to the evening, as the days drag on. And one night, when you return home well after the sun has set, weary from a day’s toil, you barely step inside before stumbling over a scattering of furniture, bags, and the daily clutter that seems to overtake your living room. The place is chaos, but your eyes catch the glint of something—an envelope, dark as the night, slipping from beneath the glow of the lamp. 

In the midst of such chaos, the gray Luna card peeks out in the darkness like a square, mini-moon. Leon Scott Kennedy, you see that signature. 

“Is he playing some cruel jest?” You grumble ringingly. Indignation and dismay pump a tumult of emotion into your bloodstream. 

How on earth did this man find my home? 

It’s one thing to trace the address, to acquire it from some list or chance encounter, but to walk right in—to gain such intimate knowledge—who is this Leon Scott Kennedy? 

You don’t know the answer yet, but you will have to. 

In the days that follow, the gifts come still, but their novelty has long worn thin. The flowers, yes, they remain—fragile reminders of something, but the jewelry and the fine clothes? A cheap masquerade, a vulgar form of generosity. They carry no weight, no warmth. You collect them all and send them on their way, delivered into the hands of some worthy cause, as if the giving itself were the only part worth remembering. 

The night presses on, and once again, you sit in the stillness of the dressing room, the buzz of anticipation humming just outside the door. The minutes slip by like forgotten memories, yet the weight of them, that heavy burden, never quite leaves you. Your chin rests in your palm as you study your reflection in the vanity mirror. Makeup perfected, hair arranged with methodical precision—everything is in its place, or so it seems. 

Everything is okay, except for one problem. A burden of distress that has been piling up inside you, which you can’t tell anyone about, and it’s directly stabbing you in the heart. 

Should you even be on that stage tonight? The question lingers in your mind like a ghost, but you can’t answer it. Your thoughts are in a terrible disarray, as though your mind has split itself apart at the seams. Paranoia gnaws at the edges of your sanity, clawing at the fragile thread that holds it all together. How could you possibly perform in this state, to feed the insatiable hunger of the crowd outside? 

But, of course, Ada would have no qualms about writing you out of here in the blink of an eye, and while the money tempts you, the thought of unemployment claws at your gut like a feral thing. Still, this job—the stage, the spotlight, the rhythm of it all—this is what you are in love with. It’s never easy, losing what you love while you’re still so deeply entwined in it, but sometimes that is the price you pay. 

And so it’s settled. You will go. You will step out there, and you will do what you’ve always done. The show must go on, after all. 

It’s only then that matters assume a different ontogeny. Two torpid taps at the door, clouds of heavy thoughts bite the dust. It’s absurd to ask who it could be. Has to be Chris. Take a deep breath and repeat the rituals you know, the ones that are now ingrained in your repertoire. 

Then, there’s a second round of knocks. A fourth, more insistent, more immediate, as though time is a cat on a hot tin roof. It’s not Chris. It can’t be. 

“Salutations, my dear.” 

To see the face that flashes you a foul grin when you open the door here again is the very last alternative scene you’d hoped for. On the spur of the moment, you even attempt to slam the door in his face, but he’s reflexively putting his foot on the threshold, rather faster than you anticipated. 

“Tch! Not so fast, honey,” comes that jaunty cadence again, infected with that same devil-may-care rhythm. 

The man at the door is none other than Leon himself—an unexpected and unwelcome visitor. He stands there, his presence somehow both imposing and unwarranted. 

“I can’t believe you,” you break into hysterical platitudes. The very notion of him—of this—is enough to rift the delicate shell of control you had carefully built around yourself. 

Leon can’t fathom the reason for the knitted brow and is forced to compromise the arrogant mien on his face. The sang in the cerulean blues adequately sums it up. 

“What exactly can’t you believe, ma’am?” 

The dazed stress in his question reveals that he doesn’t even realize the folly of his mistake. What kind of a joke is this? What audacity and idiocy? 

“I don’t buy it, sir.” 

The froth in your breath at odds with the urbane gentleness of your words. Ignoring this, Leon pushes the door open in a single dash, and you’re propelled through the door. He closes it in a blink of an eye. 

“Is your charade going to end or...” 

Before Leon can ask his rhetorical question, his eyes flick to the ultraviolet petals in the vases on your vanity table. So you kept everything, his floral tribute for you. Oh, it’s heartwarming, but... he still can’t cross the backhanded pinprick in your stance. 

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave my room, or I’ll have to fetch Chris here.” 

“You don’t say?” Leon is the same, overzealous. He’s irksome to the extreme. 

“Last time, I thought everything was splendid, darling,” he drags out, “I distinctly recall you favoring me with those dreamy little looks. Correct me if I’m mistaken.” 

Such gall. He has absolutely no idea how much of a headache and hell he’s been giving you. It’s better to remind him, but how you do it is up to your discretion. 

“Listen here, mister, had I taken your insolence to the authorities, you’d likely not be setting foot anywhere near here. You’d be—” a deliberate pause for emphasis, “breathing stale air behind iron bars.” 

“You’ll have to forgive me; I’ve been mixing grain and grapes, but what the devil are you talking about?” 

His smile falters then, only slightly. There’s no awning of shock, no mortification, no shame etched across his face. Instead, his expression remains a humdrum enigma; a challenge lurks behind his steady gaze. What sort of man faces such accusations without so much as a flicker of discomposure? 

You can’t take it anymore. 

“How dare you intrude upon my home?” The words cut sharp, like the honed edge of a razor. 

“I’ve never been in your house, doll.” He’s ready to mount a defense in mere seconds. In fact, he hadn’t been in your house, not directly. Indirect is more like it. 

“Leon... please,” you hold up your hand and project callousness as if you’re repulsing his words, sweeping away the ugly bugs, “your card was even in the room with your very name written on it.” 

This is the first time he ever heard his name from your cherry lips, ruby and ripe. A different gamut of sensations, it’s limerence. 

But back to the elephant in the room. 

Soon enough, Leon’s epiphany is added to the flow of events, and if he can take his eyes away from you, he will have a couple of revelations. Taking his eyes away from you, on the other hand, is a hell of an ordeal—a Sisyphean task. 

It really does scorch him on a physical plane. 

“Don’t get yourself in a twist, sweetheart,” Leon is honing his flirting chops. Smoothing your ruffled feathers is a sport he’s personally cultivated. 

The stunned confusion written in a chiffon calligraphy on your face only fuels his merriment, albeit the sheer umbrage gemmating on your face. 

“I must remind you, Mr. Kennedy, that you are brazenly invading my privacy.” The words spill out like pearls on a string, polished but sharp-edged. It never hurts to try again, even if it means shoving your own ineradicable truths and forcing your own phrases into that numbskull. 

“Sure, sure, sweetheart. Privacy. Trespassing. Let’s call the whole thing off.” His grin unfurls, shameless. 

Leon takes a tentative grip on your wrist and guides you toward the chair by the window. As you sink into the chair, borderline slumping over, a thought strikes you like the crack of a conductor’s baton: tonight’s gig. 

The stage, the lights, the hushed murmurs of the audience—it all comes flooding back with startling clarity. 

“I can’t deal with this,” you mutter, rising to your feet as a fresh wave of trepidation tightens your chest. “I’ve got a show—” 

“Oh, the big show,” Leon infringes on your words with a chuckle, waving his hand theatrically. “Let me guess. You’ll have the whole world eating out of your hand tonight, and I’m just the poor sap standing in your spotlight.” 

His hand finds your shoulder, potent and unyielding. He eases you back into the chair with a maddeningly adroit air. 

How rude. 

“All right, what’s the racket now?” you demand. Your eyes tote the lake of fire. 

“Don’t look at me like that, sugar,” Leon’s voice grates on your brain in just the veritable way; it’s tip-top dulcet. 

“I had a most discreet little chinwag with Ada Wong,” he prattles on. He pays no mind to the labored breaths that break the rhythm of his words, then, with an audacity that leaves you momentarily aghast, drops to his knees before you. 

“Oh, and darling Ada didn’t raise so much as an eyebrow as long as I promised to square her away for the greenbacks slipping through the fingers of your adorable fans.” 

He stylishly fuses the bevy of words with his… fancy lines as he speaks. His gliding hands on your legs awaken a surprisingly ruddy pallor. He seizes your ankle and sews it up, positioning your heel on top of his knee, cradling your right leg. The subsequent is tremendous. 

He slants the marrow of his blues on you, his chin tipped up, calculating how you’ll react. Ambivalent eyes are only on you. 

“If you want me to stop, I’ll stop, but if you want me to keep going, I won’t stop till you’re sick of me. It’s all for you, doll.” His voice lacks the sanctimonious hue you have come to memorize. It leaves a more mellow rumble in your ears. 

Leon, taking into account the fact that he has received no verbal confirmation yet no verbal rebuff, folds the hem of your dress until the silk fabric curves around your hips, the satin is a girdle around your waist, traversing the garter. 

“Give me a fair chance and I’ll make you forget all the pratfalls I’ve done.” His wintry breath strokes across your skin, soaking into your blood, his lips on your legs, camellia pink, lush. 

Up and up. 

High enough to boggle your mind, but not high enough to bore you. Up your calves, past your knees, and up your thighs beyond your calves. It’s not enough, and the peerless panorama you can behold before you soak out your veiled eyelids, beset by strands of blonde hair tangled in the white lace of your French knickers. The abject cold of March versus the waves of citrus fire pouring from the fireplace sizzle your skin like in the saying; March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. 

Leon is inexorable with you and the portent of antsy impatience on your face as he lingers between your legs and welds his tongue between your pulpy slit. 

For Leon, it’s all he can do not to get drunk on the tang of the nectar he’s been craving for weeks. He clamps his hands around your thighs and worships you, your lovely cunt, perhaps with the devout hunger of a believer after fasting all day long. 

Let your hips propel themselves against his nose, riding on the tip of his tongue. That garrulous mouth is at last put to some use, occupied, but his nose? The work his nose does is better experienced than spoken. 

An ephemeral passion infuses you with the lyrics of his tongue; your French-manicured nails are nothing more than paws on his scalp, and your fingers are nothing more than joints yanking at his tresses. 

What about your legs? 

They are a complete sphinx; you can’t even feel them. 

The words of adulation choke at the base of your throat, and your mind blanks out when you feel his pillowy lips pressing against your raw ribbon of sore nerves. A myriad of gasps tumbles down your rosy red lips; your body trembles as bolts of ecstasy rush through your synapses, white-hot to the touch with bliss. 

Lovely sounds emanating from the crevices of your lips grow louder, and Leon switches his weight to the outsole of his shoes, only ever paying attention to your glistening pussy. To quiet you down, he plants a brief, benign nip on your clit. 

Deep within you, that flash of rural thunderbolt strikes you anew, but you get the picture. Now your subdued moans beguile his ears; he licks and kisses and sucks on your plump clit; he’s near suffocation, but he carries on the rave, finger-fucking where his lips are each retreat to catch his breath. 

Right when you’re nearing the decadence, as ecstatic as he is, he flings his head back and refuses to let you sip that cocktail of hedonistic fumes. 

“Leon!” You yelp his name unabashedly in that frantic microsecond. Those twisted tufts of pleasure in your belly are torn to shreds, and yes, in the end, you are incapable of cumming. All this because of your douchebag new lover with his tinsel eyes who is all eyes and no eyes. 

“Sorry, love.” His voice is raspy, his eyes cryptic as he entreats for absolution. Emits all the sounds that got stuck in his throat after lovemaking. 

Tongue still laced with that sherbet of jawbreaker liqueur, the only thing he’s lost is the blissed-out zeal of ecstasy on your beautiful face. His plans are separate anyway; that creampie episode should be in his bed, and you’ll be stretched out on his cock, which is now straining in a Brooks Brothers suit. He’ll leave you hanging, wanting more of him. 

Regardless, he can at least catch a glimpse of macules of mascara on your eyelashes and two mini teardrops splashing down on your lash cords. The saliva trickling out of your mouth and drooling over the brim of your lips tears at his very root, but the eyes are special. They will always tell the absolute truth. 

“I only want to be yours.” The rhapsodic promises spring out of his lips like a bolt from the blue. 

That’s the whole secret, and so he graves his head between your thighs like a lovesick animal, incapable of subduing himself. You foolishly dwell in this rollercoaster of amore. 

It would certainly not be a lie to conclude that things came to a healthier denouement after that night. The scant nights when you are absent from your apartment complex come on the heels of the days you stayed at his place and baked biscuits together in his kitchen. Those afternoons clogged with whispering of sins in the darkness. 

The city, blues, and jazz lovers, and the circle of all those people for whom Leon has who knows what kind of background, your name is the only topic of conversation, next to Leon’s. Your resplendent name, always written alone in big prints, is now next to a man. 

You are no longer alone, by all means. But then sometimes... some nights when Leon doesn’t drop by the house until the morning, your suspicions curdle into a black furor. Not a word of what the hell he was doing was ever exchanged between you; that’s what is slowly killing you. 

This uncertainty lingers for weeks and then for months. He somehow coaxes you into selling your apartment. It’s a seemingly ghastly toll—being bound to him, but his clarion rhymes always alleviate you. Strange. 

“My little angel, I just want you near me. Why do we need your apartment when I have my space and we have more than enough. Besides, a little party hurt no one, not you and me when we’re together.” 

Your protections are short-lived, because the kisses he lanced to your lips were usually loud enough to lull you into silence. 

He, Leon Kennedy, is hardly to be got to grips with. A charmer who never misses a trick. The best of everything belongs only to him and to you because you are his. You love dancing, but he doesn’t; he has to be a grumpy cat. Every time you stick a match to light your stogie, he winds up next to you, and he’s the one who lit your kindle. He hates the smell, hates it wholeheartedly, says that his hair reeks and so on, but he sleeps with his head in your lap, watching the smoke flitting through the air from your lips. In fond veneration, as a little infant would behold his mother's face for the foremost time since the hour of his birth. 

The addressee of every petty dispute, the hardest, was to love a man who never lagged behind, who always wanted more. 

“You want more,” a dejected sulk crosses your lips. “Why?” 

Leon takes two sips from his glass full of Lafite, and he peers over the rim of the glass, half-listening. 

“What does that mean now?” 

“The night we met... something... struck me.” 

“Oh.” He sets his pint down on the table and is all at ease. 

“I’m only talking about the time you confronted a bloke like Chris without hesitation just to flaunt yourself in front of me, darling.” 

“Oh, that one. I’ll give Chris props; he was a hell of a boss. You should consider bumping up his paycheck.” 

You shake your head in resentful disbelief and refuse to say anything more beyond his passing remarks. Any time you point out something about his behavioral pattern, he gets testy and does his best to bury the hatchet. And then comes a killer migraine. 

“I certainly will. Ah, perhaps your patron should be a good patron like me and not withhold some money.” 

It’s these words that are rattling around in your unconscious. A voice in your head taps on your skull that it would not be a bad idea to hold back, but your lips will not meet. 

“Simply inhuman, to be working from nine at night to six in the morning. He should make you a multimillionaire by now.” 

Leon blinks his eyes closed and unfocused, his intense metallic gaze boring into you from beneath his lashes. 

“You know I prefer not to talk about it.” There is a devotional twang in his timbre. 

“Leon. I am merely—” 

Your lecture, however, is bisected in half by the storming in of a blond man dressed in a black leather trench coat following behind one of the girls working in housekeeping. Lackluster and sketchy. 

Leon staggers from his seat to his feet as the ignoble visitor takes his first step inside. 

You’re as still in your seat, legs crossed. 

“Please forgive me, young lady.” Your guest's voice is veiled with pejorative politeness. He draws closer, as if Leon is not in the room, and whispers short, detached, and insensate kisses on your knuckles. 

“But your lover Leon himself was slacking off. For some weeks now,” he adds, then turns a short pivot to make sure his last words have reached the ears they are meant to reach. 

“I told you, pal, Ada and I have submitted our notice of dismissal, Mr. Wesker.” Leon’s teeth clench together. Oh, you know that look better than anyone or anything. 

The humble ignominy of failing to uphold you in front of a man like Albert Wesker is hideous for Leon. 

“Pah! I’d be a fool to lose my best recruits, Mr. Kennedy.” 

This man must be the boss, apparently. What chutzpah. 

“I’m not coming. I told you, Italy isn’t my business.” 

“Italy?” Now you’re diving into the spiel. Confused, what’s coming out of these two men’s mouths is beyond their ears. 

Leon pinches the bridge of his nose, this tangled headache, the revelation of everything he had swept under the carpet, wasn’t part of his plans for tonight. 

“Your girlfriend is very prying, Leon, but curiosity kills the cat.” This Albert bastard is blatantly blackmailing you and Leon with verbal cattle prods. 

“I must ask you to leave my house. Please, kind sir.” 

You’d be a fool to put up with this nonsense any longer. You stand up and tactfully point to the door to the man who might be the very incarnation of effrontery. His eyes darting to Leon, you, and the door, flux and reflux. 

“Sure thing. I’m not here to offend the little lady. See, I’ll find my own way out.” Wesker bids you his wee farewell and, one last time, delivers those paralyzing spells of paranoia to Leon. “You know the deal, boy. You know better than anyone what happens when you slip up.” 

Leon is more familiar with such words. Grim-rimmed eyes are no longer cavalier blues. 

“You still got an hour.” 

After the admonition, the man leaves the room, leaving only misdoubt in his wake. At least for you. Your lover... He’s in a very different state of mind. 

“Don’t tell anyone about this. Not a word. No one.” 

“I... What?” 

Your brain, which is still recovering from the shell shock, can’t even wrap up what you’re repeating.

“You humor me, will you. Get your head together, sweetheart.” 

It’s absurd that Leon still adores you like some baby when he's slamming the lid of the safe full of dollars, euros, and gold ingots. Only you don’t raise a peep; you simply gawk and watch the chaos around you. 

He’s been pacing the room for half an hour, tucking a flak jacket under his shirt and a leather gun holster into a Louis Vuitton utility belt around his waist. What the hell is this? Off marching off to war? 

When he’s done, he stalks you with quick strides, and you find yourself stepping backwards for no reason. Leon doesn’t have time for these flip-flops. He’s got one overriding objective in mind. To save you by any means necessary, but he’ll never tell you from what. Yet you ask him over and over again, ranting and raving. 

A tantrum and delirium. 

“You can’t leave me. No.” Your voice is harsh enough, but the stinging tears in your eyes are perfidious. 

Inasmuch as he can’t bear to look at them, he can’t heed their force. 

“I’ll be back. I guarantee it, love. This is just a little party; it had never hurt a soul.” 

He smothers your forehead in bittersweet caresses and spares your quivering lips along the pucker of your flesh. It’s all for naught. Nothing can be solved with these evanescent kisses. 

“Why are you running away from me? Why are you afraid of that man?” Your questions are clipped but unyielding. A single answer is more than enough, and you demand it, fight for it. 

That’s how pathetic Leon is. Can’t he face it? 

To be so weak that, for all that you’ve been through... It’s all teardrops on the fire between the two of you. 

You can’t quite read his eyes anymore; they’re not what they used to be, and he’s not the man he used to be. 

“Please, Leon.” 

It’s the most humbling feeling of near-death to close his deaf ears to your invocation. He can’t name it, name the thing inside him, but acridness suffuses his whole body. 

He’s back to that rainy Friday night. Flashes and strikes with lightning bolts, like a short vignette of that night when the pump of the nightmare was looping through his brain. 

“Leon!” 

For once, he doesn’t look back. He knows very well that if he does, he will never be able to leave the house, not even one foot outside. 

You are left stupefied on the stairs now, as he simply slides the door shut and drifts away into the evening of a drizzly Tuesday night. 

A second or two elapses, and you run to the door with a renewed willpower. No, he’s not leaving. You run, breaking the heel of your stilettos, barring you’re gravely late for everything. Every single thing. 

It’s Leon’s Auburn, and you watch as he revs up the accelerator down the path through your garden, past the streetlights, and into a void of alveolate twilight. 

The saga fades away as though it had never been indited for you with a special brush of pen. All that remains is the heavy diamond necklace on your neck, a souvenir from him; the chasm, he vamooses. 

You promptly called the police, despite repeated strident warnings from Leon. Instead of promising you that they would find him, they inquired about Leon’s possibly alleged behavior and conduct, which you highly resented. How could they frame an absolute angel like him? “He’s not a bad man. He was threatened and scared. I know him better than any of you constables.” You defended him, short-winded, because he needed to be remembered as the good man he always was. 

The Bluecoat was not as accommodating as you anticipated. 

So you did the only thing you could do. You waited for him. Every night, awake and alone in your empty and stone-cold bed, but the aria of this room was the nights when you kissed and fellated him a night or two before and then rode till you could not anymore.

But he never came. 

Two nights after Leon’s departure, on a Thursday morning to be precise, your eyes were as swollen and bloodshot as ever. Your slumber was ruptured by the rush of a newspaper headline brought to your room by one of the girls who worked at home. Breaking news, or as the Big Apple would say, hot topic. 

The name that crowded the headlines was none other than the name of the man you had in mind.

Broiling, hollow tears welled up in your eyes as you read the one headline stating that he had died in a car accident due to the soggy roads. The next words and the rest of the scoop didn’t matter to you at all; you knew it was all a lie. A big fat lie. 

A million interview requisitions came in, but who would waste time with that? 

Leon Kennedy did not die in a car accident. No one would believe you if you told them that. The truth is, your lover was already playing a dice game with stakes of death. 

He never needed to tell you; you already knew. Revolvers and gunpowder, the smell that assailed your nose right after his perfume on your skin, your clothes. 

It was an idiotic fairy tale in which you played a blinder. You were his nymph, and he was your guardian angel. You were jumping off the stage and hopping to evade the eyes that swept over your body like hungry maggots, and he was the first man to bail you out of that jam, to buy you diamonds and pearls, and to love you above the rest of the hordes of those pantywaists. You loved your cigarettes; he hated the aroma and the haze of smoke. 

You loved dancing and baking biscuits at home with him, and he loved hustling from party to party. Every single night when his landline rang, he left for his frivolous job that netted him a hefty sum of money—he was very fond of putting his life on the line. An even crazier adrenaline fiend than his love for you. 

You always detested yourself for it took you those torturous days after the breakup to finally decipher Leon. Always the latecomer to really know and love someone like him. His story couldn’t be passed on to anyone, anyone but you.

The story of a boy who came from an obscure hamlet and prowled the City That Never Sleeps to see things he hadn’t yet seen. A boy who always wanted to hang in the lights yearned for the freedom, just like you once were. And then you. Without him, robbed of the best party of your life.

[hatsukeii]

I think I'll be singing Velvet Ring on a microphone beaded with 'ex lovers' stickers and 'longing looks' beads. I've heard that Ushijima likes my music quite a bit~

too easy. the band you’ve joined is…

exes in my phone book / timeskip!ushijima wakatoshi x reader

genre(s): ex lovers to something?? something i guess?? pining, reminiscing, nostalgia fic tbh but ANGST ANGSTY ANGST WOO interpret the ending as you like because i kept it open for a reason

warning(s): slightly dysfunctional relationship dynamics kinda, lowkey suggestive at points, ushiwaka and reader were just young and stupid and in love but they couldn't seem to navigate it yknow, everything is also like somewhat/pretty ambiguous until the end but that's just how i like it

wc: ~1.7k

your first gig is… at a concert with your ex?!?!

setlist:

🎵velvet rings, big thief

🎵mayonaise, the smashing pumpkins

🎵black star, radiohead

There is a girl on a stage, who strums a pick through the strings of her acoustic guitar. A girl, whose lips hover just above the microphone that sits in a bracket, sighing into the cool metal for a final song. The people beside you have settled down, cheers and jumps reduced to swaying and mumbling.

You've been waiting for this song, haven't you?

The song strikes the ears first. The girl on stage, illuminated by a cone of light from above, sings of a night, thicker than a smoky fume. You mouth along to the lyrics, and your mind wanders to a place where your lungs are bloated, too full to carry anything more. A night beneath a buzzing streetlight, gravel that rolls and scrapes under the sweeping wind, ants that crawl onto the toecaps, under the soles, along the platforms of your unmoving shoes. A night of final breaths, and final words, and final sorrows. You're looking at the ground, your shadow muddied with the figure of another. You don't think he stares back at you. The ants keep crawling. They don't stop, even as you pivot away and leave your heart buried in the ground. The streetlight doesn't reach it again, but maybe it reaches his, still.

The faces around you hum along to a sequence, sway with the velvety strums of the girl's guitar, hold others tight against themselves. You stand alone amongst the crowd. You move when the rest of them will you to, only ever mouth to the lyrics, hold your hands close to your chest. You fear that your voice will give out if you try anything more.

"She's a beautiful performer, isn't she?"

The crowd does not shift their attention from the girl on the stage, so neither do you. She sings in gentle syllables of love, her heart pours out of her mouth. She longs for some fictitious persona, Ben, as her fingers play at the guitar like tugging the strings of a puppet. When you open your mouth, your heart is not there.

"She is. She really is." You respond to nothing but a sultry voice that finds its way into your ear canals.

The girl sings of a smoking gun, smoke that fizzles out from the barrel into night air, a bullet that falters at the end of its path to nothing in particular, a love that, for many nights before this, has begun to run dry. It's agonising, taunting, hopeful. It dies out in unanswered phone calls, drafted emails, text messages left unsent, collecting dust in a note-taking application. Words that ask a million questions.

Could we keep this going?

Is this really for the better?

Can't we try?

Why won't you just let me try?

"Why aren't you singing? It's the last song." The voice is anomalous amongst the crowd's united silence, his question stands out from those unsaid. He is too curious, yet for some selfish, twisted reason, you wish to indulge yourself. Wallow in sorrow. Take somebody else's beating heart to replace your own, that you buried beneath asphalt on a winter night of unasked questions turned two years of unspoken longing.

"For the same reason that you aren't, I'd assume." You silently hope he asks you for more.

The person huffs out a sigh, a short sigh that one lets out when they smile in defeat and surrender. He's close, his arm touching your own when he moves side to side with the crowd. His movement wills you to sway along. The girl on the stage sings of a gentle love, thick like a velvet ring. All encompassing, all powerful.

“Well, I once knew a person who loved this song.” He goes on. You stay silent, ears trained onto the words that paint golden silk and shimmering mist into the concert hall. A portrait of love that you have prayed to see once again, just out of grasp, but real enough to graze your fingers over. It sinks into your fingertips, takes you to a place where your hands could draw lines into tanned skin, hold onto a pair of strong arms, clasp together behind his broad shoulders. Beneath your feet, it travels to your ankles, wraps around your thighs, envelops you in a shroud of warmth. It comes in the form of his head laid in your lap after a long day, I love you mumbled into the flesh of your stomach in shaky sighs, calluses that roam every spot of skin on your body.

"Love really is a gentle thing, isn't it?" The lyrics are spoken out of your mouth naturally, like water running downstream in a creek. The person stays silent, you do the same. The girl's singing pierces through your ears to your throat, clawing at it as if to break it open and rescue something. He speaks before something can escape you.

"I haven't spoken to them since I left. Love is anything but gentle."

You wince, the girl's singing finally ripping through your windpipe. It doesn't stop there, to your surprise. It drills through to its final destination, and you grab the fabric of your shirt around your heart. You don't fully know the answer to your own question, but you believe in his despair. If love truly is gentle, it would have exited your chest when you screamed your throat hoarse for him to stay. It would have eased the pain, somehow. It would have sent your heart out to him even as he stood amongst giants, leagues greater than you. It would have sewn together your words, strung them into poems beautiful enough for him to say yes, I'll stay. I'll stay if you want, and I'll go if you want. Instead, you watch him on television every night, highlight reels, live volleyball matches. He left. You did not want him to.

"I haven't spoken to him since either. But I still think love is gentle. The painful kind."

The final chords of the song round off the set. The girl bows, and exits stage left. The crowd begins to loosen, yet the person's arm remains beside yours.

"Do you ever miss it?"

His number is still in your contacts. You struggle every night to hold off on pressing it. Your heart aches, and lights come on. You stare at an empty stage, and you envision yourself on it. Thousands of eyes watch you sing the song, yet you search the crowd for one pair only. You sing the words that you had once shown your love, a love that found you despite his duties, regardless of his glory, amidst his passion. You sing like you are begging for him to see you through the television, and turn around so the name Ushijima bares his face to you instead of his back. You cry out a story of a dying love, hanging onto frayed strings of memories and fear. The singing contorts into screaming at an empty crowd, as if your resolve could make Ushijima Wakatoshi find you again. You pretend to be his hands, hold yourself in your sleep. You hear his voice in your bed, on the streets, in front of you, behind you, beside you, even right here. You will never learn the lips of anyone else, not after his have taken you for himself. They feel like poison now, sinking into your veins from every part of your body that you inhibit. A poison that forces him into every corner of your life, and you are a fool enough to almost see him there.

"I want it gone, and I miss it all the same." You're crying now, and even your tears remind you of the love that taught you of its cruelty. You imagine a day when you wear another's ring on your finger, only to look up and see a blank face. There is no other.

"I think you should give him a call."

"I can't. I'd just hold him back."

"That's not true." His voice cracks, and his rebuttal is desperate, almost apologetic.

You turn to bid him farewell.

Ushijima is almost no different from how he was two years ago. But he's a little older now, a little taller too. His hair is the same olive green that used to run smooth between the webs of your hands. His voice is deep, rounder than it once was when he used to nip your earlobe and mutter professions of his love into your ear. You stare, but you don't know that he has been staring since halfway through the concert. You aren't seeing him through a television, he is no longer clad in a Schweiden Adlers jersey, his last name bears no weight here, in the space between the two of you. The days, and months, and years spent together come rushing into your head. A kiss on the forehead before separation, two pairs of feet running in wet sand that crumbles beneath their weight, sharing lunches in the silence of school rooftops, lips roaming every inch of each other on nights of longing. You, and Ushijima, and the pleads that lose their bodies when they fall back from your mouths and into your chests.

"Please, give me a call. Or a text. Or an email, I don't care. Just anything. I'm sorry."

"Goodbye, Ushijima."

You turn to leave, but you pull your phone out of your pocket to stare at his name in your contacts.

Ushijima watches your shrinking figure, all of his love trailing behind you, fading into smoke.

Your finger hovers above the red button that could end it all.

He can't seem to move, rooted into the ground of the now mostly empty concert hall. You are slipping away again, and he has learned from his mistake. He questions whether he's learned it a bit too late.

You turn off your phone, and shove it back into your pocket. He receives a text.

"I just want to take you home again."

author's note:

my sister gave me this idea a while ago and i just knew i had to make it so angsty sorry LOL she wanted a fluff ending but im the one with the document open so i can do what i WANT!! no i am actually very proud of this piece though and idk if this will get ANY exposure or interactions but just know that i really really loved writing this one

i also fear i lowkey forgot about longing looks and just went straight for longing…

also! song lyric references! if you catch them i'll give you a big fat kiss i love my music so much

anyways tags!!

@staraxiaa @catsoupki @chuuya-brainrot @hiraethwa @fiannee @bailey-reeds @4ngelfries @akaakeis @wyrcan @kuroppiii @zzwon

interested in joining a band? come on over to the build-a-band 900 !!

[literallys-illiteracy]

Crow's Eye View and Limbus Company

Poem No. 9, "Muzzle", Crow's Eye View poetry collection:

Every day was a spate of gusts and now a largish hand touches my waist. Just when the smell of my sweat seeps through the ecstatic vales of my fingerprints: fire. I shall fire. In my digestive tract I feel the stout gun barrel its slick muzzle kissing the back of my clenched teeth. Then at the moment I close my eyes for the blast just what have I spit in lieu of a bullet.

By Kim Hae-Gyeong (김해경). Pen name Yi Sang (이상)

There are two notes to make about this poem. The first is that it has been directly referenced prior to this, in the Solemn Lament Yi Sang's passive name:

Fire.IShallFire

I want to note this in relation to the EGO's mention of "My viscera", which carries the implication of shooting one's self, alongside the awakening line's "feeling of the gun barrel" (or in other words muzzle).

Now in order excluding the mentioned

This poetry collection has been referenced several times throughout the game, and i thought i would compile all the places that it has been referenced so far (and with a healthy dose of conjecture)

Note that i am aware these were written without spaces, however for the sake of being readable i wont be removing them.

Poem No. 1 "13 Children":

13 children speed toward the way. (For the road a blocked alley is apt.) The 1st child says it is scary. The 2nd child says it is scary. The 3rd child says it is scary. The 4th child says it is scary. The 5th child says it is scary. The 6th child says it is scary. The 7th child says it is scary. The 8th child says it is scary. The 9th child says it is scary. The 10th child says it is scary. The 11th child says it is scary. The 12th child says it is scary. The 13th child says it is scary. Among 13 children there are scary children and scared children and they are all they are. (It is better that there is no other excuse.) Of those it is fine to say that 1 child is scary. Of those it is fine to say that 2 children are scary. Of those it is fine to say that 2 children are scared. Of those it is fine to say that 1 child is scared. (For the road an opened one is apt.) It does not matter if 13 children do not speed toward the way.

This poem has been referenced a multitude (2) of times in different places.

The first is the use of the word children in the uptie stories, referencing the 13 children, as there are 13 sinnners (remember that dante is still a sinner, even if they have no ID's (yet)).

The second is during Yi Sang's Dimension Shredder Corrosion:

As a matter of fact, the alley is an open one

alongside its profile line being "open alley", in direct reference to the second line of the poem.

Poem No. 2:

When my father is dozing by me I become my father and I become my father’s father and even then my father is my father like my father so why do I keep becoming my father’s father’s father’s…father why must I jump over my father and why at last must I be acting out myself and my father and my father’s father’s and my father’s father’s father’s roles all at the same time staying alive

This one will return in later mention.

Poem No. 4:

This above poem is a symbology of death, the geometric sequences all ending at zero, reaching their terminus. This relates to Hae-Gyeong's tuberculosis, which would eventually kill him.

Poem No. 5:

Relating back to, but not being the origin of, Yi Sang's motif of the "Wings".

Alongside Poem no. 2, this relates back to the concept of stagnation in ones life.

Poem no. 10. "Butterfly":

In the tattered wallpaper I see a dying butterfly. It’s a secretive mouthpiece a hotline to the other world. One day in my glassed beard I see a dying butterfly withered and feeding on the poor dew that respiration makes. If I die with my palm over the mouthpiece the butterfly too shall spring away. Words like these are never to be let out.

This is the inspiration for the abnormality named "Funeral of a Dying Butterfly" within the mirror dungeon, and arguably the "Funeral of Dead Butterflies" in games prior.

The second is the line "ISeeTheDyingButterfly" in the Solemn Lament ID itself. One could consider the fact that Yi Sang received this ID in itself a reference.

Trigger warning: mentions of suicide and self harm in the proceeding section, read with caution

Poem No. 15:

1 I find myself in an interior with no mirror. Me-in-the-mirror has surely gone out. For fear of him I tremble. From where and how does this sinister figure machinate against me. 2 In a cooled bed I slept cradling a crime. I was absent in my certain dream and my military boots which held prosthetics soiled my dream’s blank sheets. 3 I steal into an interior with a mirror. To release me from the mirror. But crestfallen and without fail he too and in sync enters. Bestows his regret upon me. Imprisoned by me as I am by him me-in-the-mirror too trembles. 4                                                          My dream where I am absent. My mirror where my counterfeit does not appear. Yearner for my solitude to whom even incompetence is OK. Finally I have decided to prescribe suicide to him. I indicate the awning window which does not even have a view. The sole purpose of that window is suicide. But he cannot go before I kill myself he instructs me. Me-in-the-mirror is almost a deathless bird. 5 I occulted my heart with metal held the pistol up to the mirror and aiming leftward the chest pulled the trigger. The bullet dug into where his heart should be but his heart is to the right. 6 Crimson ink spilled out from the carbon heart. In my dream to which I am late I’ve been sentenced to capital punishment. It is not I who rules my dreams. I am guilty of a grave crime for holding captive the very two who cannot even shake hands.

The largest and most obvious reference that can be drawn from this is the "me in the mirror" relating back to canto 4 and Yi sang's relation to mirrors as a whole.

The second, in stanza (the term for a paragraph in a poem) 5, can be linked back to Fell Bullet, once again relating to the bullet piercing the heart that was present in the story of the Freischutz, however the failure of this to kill, or take Yi Sang's soul.

the 6th stanza is also interesting for its relation to both dreams, alongside its relation to handshakes. One could relate this to the abnormality "handshake of handshakes" or alternatively "Wandering Mind" (source of Wrist Guards and Phantom Pain respectfully), however, in Poem

[sunshine304]

FTH Fanbinding: James Bond Short Story Collection by Anyawen

And here is my second book for this year's Fand Trumps Hate event! @anyawen won my book raffle and wanted a collection of most of her James Bond short stories and drabbles. There are 82 fics in this book! 😅

Now that Anyawen's copy has finally arrived (after sitting for about a week at Frankfurt airport *sigh*), I can post about the book!

I used the gun barrel sequence as inspiration/template for the case design. Originally, I'd planned to make the two different linens fit together like a puzzle, buuut my cutting skills aren't that great and there would've been too many obvious gaps. 🙈 So I did two layers instead, which also doesn't take away much from the desired effect because the linen is quite thin.

The two copies I made are sisters, as I reversed the colours to save a bit of linen. I like the black circle a bit more, but am pleased with both copies.

The typesetting took, uhhh, a long time. 😆 Just harvesting all those fics took several hours, and arranging them to my liking even more so. Anyawen had sent me a list with the fics she wanted to see in the book with different sections mentioned (series, stand-alone drabbles etc.). I used those sections for the book and arranged the fics in chronological order; there are perhaps a handful of exceptions where I had to switch around fics because it would have messed up the formatting (two dangling lines on the next page etc.).

I made an extensive Appendix for all the fic stats.

For the title page, I also used the gun barrel sequence as it's so iconic for the franchise. After I'd printed the book, I change the title page again because I didn't like how the first version came out in print. With this version, I'm very pleased though.

As Anyawen made several moodboards for her fics, I used that as inspiration for the section title pages. Making those was a lot of fun and I'm really pleased with how they came out.

Thank you again, Anyawen, for participating in my FTH offer and giving me your trust with your fics! <3

Materials used:

Printed on Clairefontaine DCP 100g

Case and endpapers:

booklinen Colibri graphite

booklinen Colibri cranberry

Japanese paper Katazome 70g

Hot Foil (Memory Keepers)

[bandaidfingers]

James Bond lineup :)

wanted to draw them all in their classic gun barrel sequence poses for funsies

[aethesfaelibrarae]

(holy shit was I not expecting anyone to like that previous Mouthwashing post—but thank you, genuinely for reading it and this one)

The Mouthwashing brain worms speak to me again—let's talk about hierarchy and caste and the implications in Mouthwashing one more time.

Say what you will about Jimothy's cowardly ass: he's not an idiot. The apathy of the crew is, at least, in part maintained by the top of the ladder: Curly and Pony Express.

Curly starts the game at the top of the ladder, able to help out a guy he perceives in a rough spot with a snap of his fingers, able to control how much sugar anyone got.. Able to control the food, the medicine, the weapons. Curly isn't the sort of person to abuse his power.

But he also isn't the type to use it.

Next up is Jaundice. His second in command, his (traitorous backstabber) right hand man. We'll get back to him.

No, who come next in this hierarchy can be debated—is Daisuke for his youth and potential or is it Swansea for his seniority? It could be both, depending upon the lens of examination. When the chips are down.. Or when they're still able to make a bet?

I'm going with Swansea, simply because of the fact that both Curly and Catastrophic Jameson's headass respect him. Neither of them really correct or step in to ask about his behavior with Daisuke, Jaundiced is more than happy to leave the room alone until it stands in his way and up until the chase sequence is largely unwilling to get into physical altercation.

Daisuke is next on the rung—an intern getting his due hazing. Young, plucky, clumsy, the aimless silver spooned baby of the crew. He wants to be liked by people in the higher rungs and he trusts in their authority. To his own detriment. But for the most part, he's neither too high for the responsibility or too low to really suffer in forced silence. He's protected.

Anya is not. As the sole woman of the crew, soft-spoken, heavily pregnant and forced to entertain her abuser's delusions of grandeur with the wreckage evidence of how far he's willing to go to get rid of her, rinse his mouth of her, all around them.. She starts the game on the bottom of the ladder—ignored, talked over, dismissed. People's—Curly and Catastrophe Jim—eyes skip over her without thinking. It's easy to dismiss her. Empathy is extended to her as an afterthought. Her death an inevitable tragedy. Because either way of framing it, without access to the ax or the gun, the ship was Jimothy's way of shutting her up for good and she knows it. In my previous post, I touched on the difference between the situations that Anya and Curly find themselves and in all honesty, it's defined by who finds themself at the bottom of the rung when Mr. J finds himself a way to the top.

And who else would it be but our resident golden boy himself, Captain Enablement—I mean, Curly. Now that he's completely disabled, useless and helpless.. He finds himself in a position even worse than Anya's. Both of them taking on the brunt of Jimmy's worldview—he's gotten way more than he bargained for from Anya and besides, she was a means to an end. At the moment of the assault, she was an object, the lower rung of the perceived ladder. It wasn't his fault, just look at her—And afterwards.. Well, this whole thing could also be framed as spite. Sneaking behind the golden boy's back and "stealing his girl" or whatever, maybe he knew that he'd be caught and wanted to see something other than Curly's gentle understanding. He wants more. And in direct opposite to Anya, Curly is the center of his world. The spindle upon which Jaundice's last steadily fraying thread of sanity spins. And what an awful place it is to be. He gets front row seats to hindsight truly becoming 20/20 vision when it's a barrel of shotgun—and you're jealous of the fact that it's not aimed at you. He suffers being consumed and thus consuming himself. Looking into why didn't Jimothy just cut up any of the others is a fascinating exercise. By the time he starts eating Curly, this is not the first time he's imagined Curly in the place of food—of nourishment. He imagines him in the place of cake—even the way that he cuts a part of Curly's leg is reminiscent of the way that Curly cuts into the cake. (yes, what the heck Curls but then again, gelatin probably feels weird to cut). Eating someone is often a taboo form of intimacy in media like Preacher's Daughter by Ethel Cain or Tokyo Ghoul..Listen. There's a reason why vore is popular.—it's the most violent type of intimacy.

It's the only type of intimacy Jimmy engages with on screen and yet—There's an equally fascinating intimacy in consuming yourself. And even that is ruined.. Being forced to eat your bile-covered offal again and again and again.. A memory that would scar on its own. But. With the implications of this being the one type of intimacy that Jimmy feels comfortable sharing combined with what the game says about rape culture have "good" men protect and enable their friends.. There's another angle of their friendship there.

Jimmy loves Curly as much as he hates him. He wants him to suffer. He wants him to live. He wants him dead. Who is saying I hope this hurts?

The hierarchy traps them in so many ways—and the first time we see it for what it is is with Curly. Not Jimmy. From Curly's perspective, we see him unfocused and exhausted and Anya offers him a helping ear and he can't accept it. He's the Captain. He can't be seen asking his subordinate for help. Jimmy was removed from the hierarchy in Curly's eyes. Maybe even at the same spot. Co-captains. Two peas in a pod—except one is a festering open wound and the other has his eyes tightly closed, quietly muttering he can fix it if he just gets a little bit more time.. Can't tell the difference between who's who?

Top or bottom of the hierarchy—awful and isolating for two men who claim to take responsibility. Both have some level of inferiority complex—a complex that I'd argue is the becoming the bread and butter of modern day society but is steadily starting to show the signs of where it's been baked into the perceptions of being a man—there is the fear of someone bigger, better and more capable of you.. But there's also that small quiet part that gets told men don't cry that desperately, desperately, wants to have no choice. Almost takes comfort in the idea of someone better than you.

And everyone in between their rungs gets crushed as collateral.

In a caste made by white supremacy, white able-bodied young men who meet societal standards for being in their prime are at the top. Old enough to know better, young enough to play stupid have potential. Just look at all our promising young rapists men with their whole lives ahead of them.

On a ship like the Tulpar, that hierarchy gets a necessary edge—the Captain is the most useful person aboard the ship, the most needed. The man of the proverbial house. The co-captain is like being called vice president—made only as important as the person in that role can make it. Otherwise it's a hollow consolation prize. And Jimothy can't work an honest day in his life. So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Then would be the nurse but.. It's a feminine job, a pink collar job through and through. If Anya had been a man, the jokes would have been targeted at her masculinity but as she is a woman, the role and her usefulness to the crew are invisible necessities. The quiet labor and genius that keeps great men going. I think people underestimate how much work goes into even passing the N-CLEX to become an RN. Anya was trying to get into medical school—she studied the human body extensively and in all honesty, the way that I've read it is (especially with the context clues of her being overlooked continuously) she just wasn't important enough to help out. Medical textbooks are expensive on their own and tests can be upwards of 2,000 dollars (my sources: my mom had to take the N-CLEX 3 times when I was much younger and the financial strain was ridiculous especially if you want to get in on a study group).. And Anya clearly worked for that goal. You don't throw that kind of money at anything else but the goal—the one you could just swear would make it all worth it. Maybe if she was Doctor Anya, the crew would've treated her better.. Her usefulness cemented and people would question how such a nervous woman made it through medical school.. Maybe it would have made Jimmy worse. There's nothing hollow about being a doctor after all.

But Anya is Anya and so Swansea, the mechanic is useful. He keeps the ship going and Daisuke in line. Bitter Knowledge and the Dog Days of Youth.

Wasted Potential (double entendre) and Boundless, Wasting Potential.

Immediately useful and eager to be useful.

Then there's Post-Crash Curly. And I must stress, your usefulness is not your value as a person. But then again, where would ableism find its footing save for such a sad hierarchy? And let's call a spade a spade, once Curly loses his ability to interact with the world as he once did, his skin literally peeled open to expose the soft inner flesh to the cruelty of the world, his small bit of usefulness as a Captain gone.. Most people on the ship act accordingly. Daisuke and Swansea, their places on the ladder's rung unchanged fairly quickly become enured to Curly's cries of pain. Anya, the closest to the his newfound rung.. Continues to care for him, unable to free him as he was unable to free her. Jimmy is all too happy to grind his boot in Curly's face as many times as he can. Until he feels better.

But he won't. He can't.

The game touches on the haves vs the have-nots a lot as well as the creeping sense of human work becoming obsolete, that body horror in being made useless by your own complicity but where it absolutely shines in Jimmy and Swansea—especially Swansea's final speech—is the messaging about the never-ending demand for more, for greener pastures leaving you hollow and bitter. Curly seemed well-aware of Swansea's thought process and leaves him be but internally agrees and fears that ending if he stays in the Captaincy for too much longer.

And that's where I think Jimmy really thinks it was a win-win for him and Curly. He truly doesn't think of the pain that Curly must find himself in, worsened by the constant beatings and continual medical assault. He doesn't think about it as anything more than Curly being a nuisance. One more way that Curly just didn't trust him not to fuck up his eyes eternally trapped in the cold hate and fear as he watches Jimmy proceed to ruin the one thing he took pride in as the metaphorical man of the house: keeping the crew safe.

Jimmy thinks of himself as the son who stayed faithful, worked himself to the bone, only to receive scraps while his undeserving brother is celebrated and lauded.

Within the hierarchy, the system is only as "good" as who remains on top. And "good" people, blindly faithful and eternally forgiving, aren't ruthless enough to stay up there for long.

Jimmy's not a good person but he's not stupid. And he's very ruthless. While there may have been somewhat of a hierarchical situation before he joined the crew, it's clear from his conversations with Anya, Curly valued a more lateral role system as he felt trapped in Pony Express's all-consuming ladder over Jimmy's rigid rungs of better and worse.

But over and over, he isolated the crew to their sectors. Over and over, he demeaned Anya, insulted her and Curly. Leaned into the insults of Daisuke. Left Swansea alone for the most part.

Anya, as much as it pains me to admit this, could have worked with Swansea earlier. But would that have worked? What about Daisuke—the younger version of Curly's eternal optimistic "I've never seen the dead pixel" attitude? The isolation absolutely worked. There's no imagining a world in which it doesn't work unless you imagine the crew as better than they are.

And that's just one more tragedy we can't rinse out of mouths with mouthwash.

[anarchic-miscellany]

Reading "One Piece" for the First Time, Part 11: So our gang are hanging out in "every town from an evil Western" ever, and I should be annoyed that the author has put Meme in Progress and Giga Chad to sleep, but... Actually I am a bit annoyed, they're great.

To the surprise of only The Idiot, this town of obviously suspiciously evil people led by a man with a violently dreadful haircut are kind of evil. But this is all a simple excuse to have The Himbo do his thing, and stretch his legs a little. A fair bit of it is "edgy shonen protagonist" stuff, but there's a zany, wacky little sequence involving a ladder straight out of a Buster Keaton movie, so that's always a plus from me, and the art has much improved this time: the author has gotten much better at drawing lunacy. I look forward to when he gives screentime to anyone who isn't the Himbo and the Idiot.

Then he has to go and fucking ruin it by bringing back The Idiot, to do whatever the fuck this bimbling barrel of buffoonery does. The joke could have been great, have him waking up to find that the town of murderous evil-doers are dead, and The Himbo just smoking a cigarette, looking to his freshly fucked blade and going "Was it good for you too?" but alas they hate my brilliant ideas, so we have this.

The gruesome twosome have another Shonen-y fight with some more weirdos, and an utterly bizarre bit where the Idiot is briefly annoyed by The Himbo apparently murdering people: my guy, those blades don't have fucking safety wheels on. Would you be annoyed at The Giga Chad for cooking carrots or Pat Sharp for being a DJ, would you? Stupid question, this character's a fucking moron.

The Cartographer with a brain cell shakes them out of it, as this is all a way to introduce what I assume are our actual villains "The Baroque Works", which seems superfluous since every motherfucker they've tusseled with has had hair like a Dutch Cathedral and outfits like a T-shirt cannon loaded with the wardrobe from "The Fifth Element". Still, the leader is named "Crocodile", and oh god I hope they fight a crocodile. OH I HOPE THE GIGA CHAD EATS A CROCODILE. He'd better eat a crocodile, Ohda, I swear to all that is holy!

Not as much to annoy me in this chapter (no fucking Dracule Mihawk, thank fucking Christ) aside from the giant duck being ready to kill The Idiot but suddenly decided to ride in the different direction because it being infected by his stupidity is the only reason the author could come up with to write his moron out of a corner.

But it didn't annoy me that much. I just want more of Giga Chad, Meme in Progress and the Cartographer with a Brain Cell. It's like dinner with an 8 year old: "No, you can't have more morons until you'd spent time with the current crop of idiots! Now finish your Giga Chad and Meme in Progress!"

The plot about a princess revolution is going to get dropped faster than that cowboy manga I read from this guy's nonce teacher ("Gun Blaze West" sucks so hard guys), so at least they're making progress in the plot...

They're now chatting to a Rodeo Stripper, and really guys? A bit of a step down from otters and duck-riding princesses and men with curly hair cannons in this town alone.

I'm down for Rodeo Strippers though, cowboys and Westerns are my jam.

[leanuponmybar]

I JUST SAW STARLIGHT LONDON AND I HAVE THOUGHTS SPOILERS AHEAD

ACT 1:

There’s whistle sounds playing in the house and stop lights scattered around the set when you walk in

The coaches except Pearl make their entrance during the end of rolling stock

Belle's the one that leads I am me

In one rock and roll, greaseball, electra and slick have their own solo portions starting with greaseball

Controls onstage more (during I am me, starlight express, and others)

He makes pearls choice for her (annoyed with her indecisiveness

Rusty and momma’s backpacks actually smoke

“Get out of my way” gb’s goes through the center track onto the stage for her entrance

the other racers bully pearl a little bit after her introduction and the other coaches tell them to stop

During ac/dc, Electra and the components have silver inflatable lightning bolts that come out of their backpacks (idk if I like this, they switch to regular backpacks after the number)

During the dance break during pumping iron, gb holds a prop gun that shoots sparks

A slower version of crazy is sung in its original spot

ACT 2:

Before the final race, greaseball, Electra and later Rusty get fueled up with diesel, electricity, and hydrogen

one of the other racers was connecting a cable thats connected to a barrel of diesel fuel and electra put both of their hands on two conductors of electricity from a barrel of electric fuel

Slick uses 2018! Caboose element of crashing for money

There’s 2 new lyrics in uncoupled, one about being left on the shelf and I don’t remember the first one

belle and tassita have little interjections in the first couple lines of uncoupled (more in a reaction type of way to the things dinah's saying)

Dinah sings in a British accent except for one line in uncoupled

Control brings out a tissue box and hands a tissue to Dinah during uncoupled

Control comforts Rusty before starlight sequence

Lights appear and hang over the audience during starlight sequence

When Electra picks Dinah and Pearl to race with them, there’s a lighting effect that surrounds Dinah and Pearl, freezing them

Dinah seems controlled by Electra during their race (in some sort of daze)

no GreaseDinah kiss but she does give her support and a thumbs up while clapping

During I do, control held the train that represents Rusty from the set, moves around a little, goes in between Rusty and Pearl and goes offstage

during starlight express, make up my heart, and starlight sequence, the planets fly down above the stage

Light end with mama hugging control in the center

There’s a trophy that control gives to Rusty during Long live Rusty

GENERAL:

The screens in the back keep track of who’s in which heat and the race standings

More of the trains acknowledge control (ex gb pushes them out of the way at her entrance)

There’s a turn table that’s used in different points during the show such as freight and I do and the middle part of the stage raises up in ac/dc and other numbers

Hydra has a small vocal echo effect (idk if it’s for the whole show tho. I just heard it during the bits of his song in act 1 and during freight)

There’s fire effects in songs like wide smile and freight

this is all the notes I quickly took down during intermission and on the way back to my hotel. If any of you have seen the show and I’m missing something, feel free to sound off in the comments/tags!

Overall I had the time of my life, Al knott serves so much cunt and I love train lesbians

[chronicallysilly2001]

Backlog Entry #2

I Am Your Beast Completed: 10/27/2024 Playtime: 13 Hours Platform: PC Score: 9/10 Completion: 100%

“Because you’re my friend, babe.”

In their pursuit to create a new classic in the speedrun FPS genre, Strange Scaffold unintentionally wrote one of the greatest yaoi love stories to date.

I Am Your Beast is a high-octane, stylistic shooter reminiscent of Neon White and Hotline Miami. It uses a throw-and-swap gameplay style that keeps the action moving at a breakneck pace from start to finish. After taking out an enemy, you can pick up their weapon and throw it at any point to stun another enemy. This core concept is pushed to its limits near the end, where players may perform a sequence like leaping down from above for a drop takedown, picking up that soldiers knife, throwing it at an explosive barrel to take out a squad, catching one of their guns mid-air, and headshotting the last grunt. It’s moments like these where I Am Your Beast truly shines. Most of the 37 levels are time-attack challenges, with a few miscellaneous levels mixed in. While none of these misc levels felt like a chore, they never quite reached the excitement of chasing those time-attack S-ranks. One of the most underrated aspects of this game, which I haven’t heard enough praise for, is its unique scoring system. In most games, the fastest way to beat a level is to run straight to the end, ignoring all the enemies. But in IAYB, there’s a countdown timer that starts at S rank and decreases to A, B, C, and so on. If you run past all the enemies to reach the end of the level, it’s impossible to meet the time requirement for an S-rank. However, you can subtract time from your score by defeating enemies in specific ways—the more stylish, the greater the time bonus. By requiring players to earn time bonuses through stylish play, the game makes combat feel both rewarding and essential, rather than something to bypass. Achieving S-ranks demands this approach, and you can even gain such a large time bonus that your score turns negative. Grinding for these negative scores is where most of the replay value comes from, especially considering Strange Scaffold made the baffling decision not to include a leaderboard in their time-attack game.

The story follows a standard plot— a retired hitman is called out of retirement for one last job. It’s nothing to write home about, but the charming characters and unique presentation made it enjoyable enough to keep me interested in seeing where the story goes.

The last thing of note is the blood-pumping soundtrack by RJ Lake. The heavy bass of the OST blasting through my ears kept me going as I flew through levels, resetting over and over to shave seconds off my time. The soundtrack washes over you until you’re no longer conscious of your actions, moving purely on instinct.

[rwby-encrusted-blog]

Jaune: Okay, Why are you making me fire the rail gun?

Ruby: It's a Coil or Gauss Rifle. Not a rail gun.

Jaune: What's the difference?

Ruby: Coil/Gauss mechanisms have, as the name implies, coils that go along the barrel - not a single thread coiling along, but many separate sets of coils. The coils engage in sequence as the projectile travels along the barrel, which is controlled by a computer system.

Ruby: Railguns use electrified Rails on either side of the barrel, and the Projectile closes the circuit, and then it fires using the electromagnetism of the closed circuit.

Ruby: Coilguns have a much higher initial production cost, as the computers systems and individual coils need to be manufactured before assembly, but this comes with the benefit of easier maintenance. Railguns, while far simpler to construct, have the projectile in direct contact with the barrel, which causes the barrel to wear out FAR faster than any other weapon, meaning it requires constant upkeep.

Ruby: The biggest issue to date is the sheer cost of energy. Thankfully we have Electric dust, because if we had to rely on something like chemical batteries, there would be almost no feasible way to make a handheld version.

Jaune: Cool. Again, Why am I firing it.

Ruby: It would take any else's arm off. Ready?

[frankencanon]

Cora-san Lives AU

My sister and I were re-watching Law's backstory when I discovered the perfect little detail that if modified could create a "For Want of a Nail" AU where Corazón survives and Law still gets the Ope Ope no Mi, without making the fic unrealistic or out-of-character at all!

Click the :readmore: if you're interested...

—

First, let me recap the sequence of events that took place on Minion Island which ultimately led to Cora-san's untimely demise:

***[ Skip to the bullet points for a TL;DR since the numbered list kind of drags on, going into an unnecessary amount of detail... ]***

Cora-san and Law arrive at Minion Island. Cora-san at first tries to leave Law on the boat by himself, but Law stops him and makes sad eyes at him until he relents and takes Law with him—but not all the way. Cora-san leaves Law in an abandoned house in town, where Law wanders out onto the steps and falls asleep as snow rains down on him.

Cora-san attacks the Barrels Pirates and makes off with the Ope Ope no Mi. During his escape, he trips and falls and winds up surrounded by Barrels Pirates with guns. He gets away alive, but not before being shot several times.

One of the pirates—a kid with an X-shaped scar on his chin—flees the scene.

Cora-san heads back to Law with the Ope Ope no Mi.

When he finds Law asleep on the steps, Cora-san—for whatever reason—picks him up and carries him off somewhere before waiting for him to wake up to force-feed him the Devil Fruit.

Cora-san collapses. Before he can lose consciousness, he passes Law a capsule cylinder and tells him to deliver it to the Marines.

Law goes off on his own, trudging his way through the snow. He chickens out on approaching the first group of Marines that pass, but works up the courage to approach the next—Vergo—when he sees that he's alone. But before Vergo can leave, he begs him to come with him to perform first aid on Cora-san.

Vergo goes with Law, and when he sees Rosinante he immediately attacks him before reading the secret message and then brutally beating him; Law gets kicked around as well. With them down for the count, Vergo calls Doffy and relays the situation to him.

While he's distracted, Cora-san uses his Calm Calm Fruit to sneak away undetected. He hides Law in a treasure chest and uses his fruit to silence him and anything he touches.

Doflamingo and the rest of the Don Quixote Pirates descend on the island and begin to hunt Cora-san and Law down after Doffy creates a Birdcage for the first time.

The child with scar on his chin manages to get far enough away that he's clear of the Birdcage when it comes down. Afterwards, he is found by Marines and taken aboard their ship.

Cora-san makes himself bait and gets chased down and beaten while Law listens from his place trapped in the treasure chest. They hold back from killing him so Doffy can interrogate him about the locations of the Ope Ope no Mi and Law.

Cora-san tells him that Law ate the fruit and was promptly taken into custody by the Marines.

Almost immediately after, Baby 5 and Buffalo inform Doffy that they overhead a Marine transmission about finding a boy and taking him aboard their ship, thus convincing Doffy that Cora-san was telling the truth.

Doffy shoots Rosinante repeatedly. As he lay dying, the Don Quixote Pirates make off with the treasure chests.

With Law on the other side and Rosinante permanently down for the count, Doffy takes down the now seemingly pointless Birdcage.

As they are loading the treasure onto their ship, Tsuru shows up and chases them off the island forces them to hurry up and leave. Unbeknownst to them, Law sneaks off in the chaos.

Law escapes to the neighboring Sparrow Island, presumably with the small sailboat he and Cora-san had been traveling in.

...OK, I'll admit I went a little overboard with the details there, so allow me to quickly recap:

***[ TL;DR ]***

Rosinante and Law arrive on Minion Island.

Rosi wants to leave Law on the boat, but he refuses.

Law is left in a house instead as Rosi steals the Ope Ope no Mi.

Rosi is caught and heavily injured but manages to get away.

He returns to give Law the fruit before collapsing.

Law is sent off to deliver a message to the Marines, and he returns with Vergo who beats him and Rosi and contacts Doffy to spill everything.

In the background, Rosi quietly sneaks off.

Doffy arrives and puts up the Birdcage, forcing Rosi to take desperate measures to ensure Law's freedom and survival.

Rosi hides Law in a chest and uses himself as bait, convincing Doffy that Law had already escaped with the fruit in his belly.

Doffy kills Rosi and takes down the Birdcage.

Before he can loiter, Tsuru shows up to chase him off.

Law escapes on his own to the closest neighboring island.

Got that? Good. Now, here's how we can quickly and easily fix things so that most of the bad stuff never happens:

In the very beginning, Cora-san originally intends to leave Law on the boat while he gets the fruit, but Law stops him.

What would've happened if he hadn't?

With his sickness, Law has been in and out of it, often falling asleep. What if he'd been asleep when they first arrived and, rather than wake him up, Cora-san chose to leave Law a note telling him that he'd be back soon with the Ope Ope no Mi.

Law would have no way of following him had he eventually woken up, since Cora-san had to climb a very long rope to get to land.

As Law was not only sick and dying, but also far smaller than Cora-san, it's fair to say that he would have absolutely no luck trying to climb that rope.

Now, since Law is in the boat rather than in town, Cora-san's next destination after obtaining the Ope Ope no Mi would be to head back to the boat immediately.

I assume the reason he took Law to that broken wall in canon rather than feed him the fruit in town was because he was worried about being out in the open whilst the Barrels Pirates were all hunting him down—but he would have had no reason to do so had Law still been in the boat since that was far more hidden than some random half-wall could ever be.

...Plus it also had the potential for a quick getaway considering it's literally a boat.

Now let's try that scene again, but this time with Law and Cora-san in their little sailboat:

Law wakes up to a smiling Cora-san leaning over him with the Ope Ope no Mi in hand. Cora-san force-feeds him the fruit before collapsing. He then passes Law the capsule cylinder with the secret message, and tells him to pass it on to the Marines.

Now what does Law do? Does he go on the island to find a Marine? No! The kid is dying and can barely walk; Why would he do that when there's a perfectly good Marine ship parked just a little ways away? Especially since there's no way he'd even be able to climb that rope to get onto the island anyways, not unless Rosinante yeeted him up there or something.

Now, instead of running off, Law struggles to row the boat over to the nearby Marine ship. There, he is spotted by the Marines, the secret message is passed over, Rosinante's identity is verified, and Law is taken aboard the ship—for real this time.

In this scenario, Vergo is on the island when Rosinante and Law board the Marine ship. Maybe he hears a transmission about a boy and a heavily injured man being taken aboard, or maybe not. Maybe he identifies the man as Rosinante and reports it to Doffy, or maybe not.

It doesn't matter either way since they're now in Marine custody, under Marine protection, and there's nothing Vergo can do about it without breaking his cover.

In the meantime, considering the Marines' original reason for being there in the first place, the ship would undoubtedly be stocked with medical supplies and medics themselves, so that Rosinante would be able to receive prompt medical treatment—on Sengoku's orders, if nothing else.

Sengoku would likely command the ship to head straight towards him wherever he is, seeing as they most likely would have had to contact him personally to confirm Rosinante's identity.

Maybe he'll return to Sengoku and resume working as a Marine, or maybe not.

And seeing as he only had a few bullet holes in him at this point—which he was canonically able to run and jump around with, only really slowing down after Vergo and the other DonQuixote Pirates had beat the hell outta him and Doffy had shot him several more times—he should be able to recover just fine.

—

Before he died, there was a scene in canon where Rosinante had mentioned wanting to travel the world with Law once he was cured... Maybe in this AU they'll do exactly that.

Seeing as how Rosinante technically betrayed the Marines, it's entirely possible that not even Sengoku will be able to completely sweep it under the rug. At that point, it's not completely unbelievable that Rosinante and Law might wind up as pirates—for real this time—traveling the world and having adventures together.

Maybe they'll even drop by Sparrow Island for a bit, maybe pick up a kid or two...

...or a polar bear, even. You never know.

[extraterrestrialechos]

Edward Teach: How to (de)Construct a Legendary Villain

The show introduces us to the legendary Blackbeard as a traditional Hollywood villain. He’s positioned, specifically, as Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, head of the global criminal organization SPECTRE. 

This character came to define the trope of the criminal mastermind, including the trope of never showing the villain’s face. The chair obscuring Ed’s body while his minion takes orders from across the desk is classic Blofeld. 

Along with Black Pete’s story, this is meant to pour in information about and expectations for Blackbeard in the short three episode buildup to his reveal: He’s big news, he’s bad news, and he’s the undisputed big dog whose underlings are cogs in his evil schemes.

Yet even in his first scene, the show begins to highlight the artifice at play and humanize Blackbeard and his subordinate. 

Izzy is doing his level best to play the sufficiently professional henchman. Edward flirts with him until he’s forced to drop the pretense, his henchman act collapsing into an exhausted and familiar “Oh, Edward, can't I just send the boys?”

And, if we look closely in retrospect, the reason Ed doesn’t turn to the camera is that his leg is elevated to give relief to its nagging knee injury. There’s a cane in the bin in the foreground beside Izzy. These stereotypical trappings of villainy are partly a product of Edward’s high seas career wearing his body down. 

On to Episode 4

Episode 4 isn’t a significant departure from any other day at SPECTRE flotilla headquarters for Edward. Yes, he meets a fun new guy. He also shows off what kind of brilliance is routinely demanded of him by his profession (of being a criminal mastermind) day in and day out, even if he hits a hitch. The emotional beat of the episode is exposing how this intense workplace grind is wearing him down. 

Next, he decides he’ll sail with that fun new guy, murder him, desecrate his corpse and take his identity. The kind of nefarious scheme a pro would expect of himself. 

The subsequent plot, then, does not come out of the idea that Ed, as Blackbeard, is any less than a man who’s achieved the pinnacle of Big Bad attainment, who in conversation with his subordinate checks off on killing entire crews as part of “the uzsh.” He really is that good, and Stede really would have made the perfect and unwitting mark Ed identifies him for. 

Two things are true at once:

Blackbeard is his world’s all time pirate villain overseeing the dispatching of countless lives (we see the population of a whole merchant vessel butchered just in Episode 5 — but laugh, because the sequence is shot through with camp), and

Ed Teach “works for Blackbeard.” 

Blackbeard isn’t who Ed is but a product of Ed’s theatrical skills. 

The show has, already, in Episode 4 cast a realistic light on the inevitable psychological toll of being the Big Bad mastermind keeping yourself at peak performance all the time. 

On to Episode 6

In Episode 6, the show deconstructs how one man, who has one gun and one knife just like everyone else, could feasibly construct such a legend.

This is, at the same time, a meta interrogation of how much effort a man like Blofeld and his infinite villainous counterparts across all cinema would have to actually put in to maintain their seemingly effortless style. 

Here, the answer is Ed is a theatre kid at heart, relying on all the same techniques the real life crew themselves are using to bring us the show.

We’re given a scene of Ed seemingly teleporting around a clouded ship, delivering cinematic lines like “Flee and survive, or face me and burn!” 

Barrels of sparklers stream flash powder into the air. The unnatural fog turns out to be the product of stagehands hard at work behind the scenes. We can extrapolate the flashes of lighting were likely, seeing as we can’t assume stage lights, the product of even more flash powder prepped in the style of old time photography. 

Ed ends up in an elaborate harness. One that Izzy’s doubtlessly removed him from countless times, as he reminds Ed if they don’t work together Ed’s balls will chafe. (Ostensibly, this all used to go smoother before stress aged their relationship to the point of its present squabbles.)

Now we can spy back earlier in the show and see even in Episode 3 they were employing theatrics. 

The smoke steaming behind Izzy as he fixes his spyglass on the Revenge isn’t mysteriously atmospheric. It’s from a big cauldron kept stoked on the deck of the ship, the handle of which peeks through. It’s a constant effort to keep the Queen Anne billowing across the ocean. 

And Forward to the End...

Ed goes through multiple phases of trying on different Eds in the next four episodes. From living as tea with seven sugars Ed, to deciding he needs to physically move on if he’s not going to ice this guy but being prompted by Lucius to explore being “being in a relationship Ed,” to us seeing Jack’s Ed and his ability to relish brotivities, to stripped down Ed on the beach, a blank slate now able to open himself to considering what to paint there, to Ed choosing what to paint there.

Unfortunately, while it’s a new work, it's a dark one.

Having been rejected by Stede and Izzy successively as they see him trying out tidying house, become upset for individual reasons, and walk out of the room in nearly identical scenes, Ed takes stock of what he has left and what capacities in his repertoire will assure his future security. 

We now see Ed pinning (stabbing) up a picture of the archetype he’s going to take on. This is Ed in his make-up trailer, looking to a character design by a concept artist and building a costume around it.

Grease paint, sword earring, jacket shrugged back on, full gloves, and, we see later, Stede's black cravat tight around his neck as @speckled-jim describes (and discusses further here) “like the albatross of Ancient Mariner fame,” reminding him that love itself can be a burden and to never allow himself to be that vulnerable again. 

This new Blackbeard variant cuts a genius, poetic, unmistakably more dangerous image than the comparatively relaxed tough biker pirate we first met.

His newer, dialed up villainous persona, the Kraken, is face revealed with, among the many cinematic variations on the trope, what tightly resembles another more recent Blofeld shot, at once telegraphing this Ed is the Big Bad again and reminding us that being any Big Bad is a high camp performance.

The seams are already fraying. Fang and Ed are both shown drinking heavily to help cast off their sympathies for their recent associates and loose their MUAHAHAHAHA laughter. Already, before this scene, Izzy’s “Blackbeard is himself again!” is paired with the manic smile of a man who knows that whoever the new boss is, it’s not the original Blackbeard and he's in over his head.

But the three of them cut imposing figures on deck, and the future will tell if the movie magic holds.

Errata

Why would they think "Blofeld"?

It might be SPECTRE's trademark giant octopus.

[transgenderer]

(its a luger p08 in the hunter post)

thanks! what a wonderful gun!

this thing is such a contraption. it looks like a 50s raygun got greasepunkified

The Luger has a toggle-lock action that uses a jointed arm to lock, as opposed to the slide actions of many other semi-automatic pistols, such as the M1911. After a round is fired, the barrel and toggle assembly travel roughly 13 mm (0.5 in) rearward due to recoil, both locked together at this point. The toggle strikes a cam built into the frame, causing the knee joint to hinge and the toggle and breech assembly to unlock. The barrel strikes the frame and stops its rearward movement, but the toggle assembly continues moving, bending the knee joint upwards, extracting the spent casing from the chamber, and ejecting it. The toggle and breech assembly then travel forward under spring tension and the next round is loaded from the magazine into the chamber. The entire sequence occurs in a fraction of a second and contributes to the above average mud resistance[36] of the pistol.

he is a grasshopper....

oh man now i really want this gun. its expensive to get the originals though and no one makes working replicas i think. they hate my people. god what an awesome gun

[terrahistorian]

5e Character Concept - Artificer Gunslinger

A character I want to play one day, is an Artificer Gunslinger, patterned after classic western gunmen. I haven't done all the theory-crafting that this would take, but the flavor I want is a wicked fast gunman, with a sharp mind, and a sharper tongue, whose primary weapon is a six-shooter. This would take a lot of communication with the Game Master, but the goal would be to use the Artificer's Infusions to empower the gunman's ammunition, rather than their weapon. Returning, or Empowered Weapon, would be shoe-ins for this. Additionally, with some Rule of Cool elements, once Spell-Storing Item is unlocked, you could store destructive spells like Heat Metal into a bullet. You'd only get one shot of the spell, but it would be cast at the range of Gun.

Additionally, with the Artificer's Attunement increases, the character could have a built in Fetch Quest. What I would use is something called Mary's Arsenal - A series of powerful magic bullets, where each one is considered a magic item requiring attunement. In-lore, these would be desperate, last-stand, Hail Mary Shots (hence the name), but a Returning Infusion would make them permanent buffs to your six-shooter. Each one would just need to be tracked in the barrel sequence, with an optional Bonus Action way to Spin the Barrel, if you wanted a chance to use the same Hail Mary twice.

The character's motivation could be something as simple as power for power's sake, but I'd play with a revenge quest. Family killed by an Archfiend, for example, something hopelessly stronger than a level 1 adventurer. The quest for Mary's Arsenal could then culminate in a showdown with this Big Bad, where the party can help the gunman claim their vengeance.

In a perfectly thematic world, these are the dice I would use for this character -  https://amzn.to/3FkeIMc