#he is very powerful but i don't really buy him as a leader of any gang

[sleepynoons]

hi op feel free to ignore everything under - all you need to know is i love your writing *shakes head vigorously*

there are several things i think were immaculately done, but that'd require me to churn out an entire research paper, which i don't have the brain cells for anymore post-finals. so here are some scattered thoughts yep and yap

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i don't gravitate towards mysterious or reserved characters because my personality simply doesn't mesh well with them. in fact, when i was watching wbk, i was always so wary of suo, and felt lowkey a lil uncomfortable with him LMFAO

but strangely enough, i think this discomfort became a very integral and driving force throughout my reading experience. of course, this was already the case due to the violent and dark nature of yakuzas, underground sex work, etc., but emphasizing suo's yandere-ness and how he doesn't shy away from it really completed the tone of the story. also, i feel like i came to terms with suo's character, which i rarely ever experience in general. really, this is all to say that it makes total logical sense in my brain to imagine a route where suo evolves into a yandere, and part of me strongly believes his real background in the wbk manga/anime won't be too happy-go-lucky either (otherwise the alternative would be like him wearing an eyepatch for the shtick bc he's a chuuni??? idrk????).

anyway, the reoccurring theme of redirection in suo's tactics really sealed the deal for me, and i think it was a good way to tie in references to his relationship to his master, the martial arts that we know he's especially good at, and how all of these things he's kinda exploited and sullied to "become a worse person for you." suo being very knowing and intentional is so snakey and creepy but also, i get a lil fucked up when it comes to men who are obsessed, so also incredibly erotic LMFAO i also just want someone to buy me a luxury penthouse out of concern for my safety *sad fist bump*

one thing i did find unexpected is suo's leadership within the yakuza. yes, necessary for the plot, otherwise he wouldn't be able to pull any strings. but because source material heavily emphasizes leaders as individuals like umemiya or sakura or even hiiragi, it's interesting to place suo in juxtaposition with them. not sure if it's bc i don't find suo particularly reliable in general, but i think this fic made me realize that he's still wise beyond his years and very, very ruthless. it's def very telling that, throughout the story, suo resorts to fear to assert power. anyway, i j think it was a particularly interesting detail to add in his role in the succession conflict.

btw, i do like how suo's change and transition isn't fully told or revealed. it's not a story meant for us, as it's a truth really for suo and reader. but even reader can't really keep up with him at times, and i find that dynamic really charming, as sadistic as that sounds. i like that reader is so vulnerable. i like that reader is not afraid to be vulnerable around him in the ways that matter, even when she's aware that he's fucking insane. and i really like that reader is aware of how much it takes to be vulnerable, so she doesn't push him. i think reader restrains herself (un)knowingly, and that's her way of loving him. obv less romantic in real life lol (don't try to fix anyone, been there, done that, lost myself, and still finding myself), but i do like how reader is suo's salvation :,,, even if she doesn't think she's particularly patient, she really is - like girl, Fuck Him Already!!!!!!

(could go on and on about how juicy the friction and tension is between suo and reader but that's for pt 2 hehehe)

this is kinda my half-assed transition into talking about reader, and honestly, my thoughts from earlier encapsulate the general thesis i have about her: she's really a lot like suo, way more than she thinks. i think she operates in very similar ways, just goes about it differently.

i think reader is way more reckless. she's very self-sacrificing. she's very good at putting up a front, even when she's internally low in confidence and self-respect. i think she just wants to be happy with suo, and hopefully, with their other friends as well.

and truly, i think suo has very similar end goals. i just think, with how things turned out, suo made the very calculated yet risky (also aggressive?) decision to do the things that he did. making their underlying principals and values and reactions so oddly similar, from my perspective, is sooooo neat, and it adds more depth to why they go so well together.

also, reader is so brilliantly the comedic relief in this whole thing. usually, in storytelling, it's someone else and is used as fodder. i really like how reader is a lil awkward and bad with timing and everything else, cause it makes the reading experience flow so much better. really helped with the pacing of the story, gave it the character + breathing space needed to process everything. i also just like my readers a little fucking hilarious.

anyway, op, so beautifully written - see you in pt 2 gg

TOKYO VICE | part 1

You knew that if you agreed to move in with Suo, you'd be setting yourself up for a life without autonomy. You also knew that these alarming behaviours were all signs that he desperately needed therapy to process his master’s untimely death. Living with a man in constant grief, who refused to talk about his trauma unless he was making up a lie related to the nation of China, was probably not a good decision. Doubly so when this man was clearly paranoid about losing you, and triply so when he was a high-ranking member of a violent syndicate. Unfortunately for you, you rarely made good decisions. (Or: After joining the yakuza, Suo develops the concerning habit of controlling every facet of your life. This is somehow less worrying to you than your uncontrollable lust around him.)

8.7k words. suo x fem reader. deeply unserious yakuza au. yandere suo (not abusive and reader is into it), dark comedy, a little angst, smut. warnings: borderline sex work, off-screen criminal violence. nsft – no actual smut in this chapter, but there are still graphic discussions of sex. mdni. thank you to @sleepyqinfei for beta reading and to @/cafekitsune for the banner!

sequel to sincerity and this sakura/reader wip

part 2 here

You’re not exactly sure why you and Suo have never fucked.

It’s certainly strange, given that you're pretty sure that Suo has expressed at least passing interest in you over the years, and you have felt a lot of interest in him. (By ‘interest’, you mean that you feel an insatiable lust around him that you fight to ignore on a daily basis.) You can't exactly pinpoint why nothing has ever happened despite this mutual attraction, especially given your profession and indifferent feelings toward casual sex.

You can think of a number of probable reasons, which are separate from those you classify as stupid reasons. The latter class comprises silly concerns like a fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of not being pretty enough, fear of not being good enough, et cetera. All very juvenile feelings—insecurities that you had in your teenage years, the days in which Suo ran around Makochi as a delinquent while you worked an honest job at a bar. (It was a girls’ bar in the red light district, but that's neither here nor there.) Your circumstances have since changed, and those anxieties have since faded. None of them have any material consequence for your current life, so you don't see any point in thinking about them.

The stupid reasons, then, definitely don't have anything to do with why you've never fucked Suo. But you can think of a few, more concrete reasons that may explain it. For one, Suo has been your friend since childhood and it’s generally a bad idea to have sex with your long-time friends. He was also your roommate for a while and it’s an even messier idea to have sex with your roommates. And now, in your adulthood, he’s your landlord in addition to being your boss, which makes him the worst possible person you could have sex with. You could lose both your home and your livelihood if things go south—both severe, material consequences that should theoretically keep your lust at bay.

Also, he's also a member of the yakuza.

Now, strictly speaking—you're not really opposed to having sex with violent criminals. It’s definitely not a good idea, but you don't usually have good ideas anyway. But for the past several years, you’ve been pissed at Suo for joining the yakuza in the first place, which actually does keep your blatant attraction to him in check. You simply dry up when you think too hard about all the feelings of betrayal.

When Suo was on the cusp of graduating from Furin and thinking about his future, you’d grabbed him by the collar and made him promise not to join the yakuza. They constantly tried to recruit from Bofurin, and they especially wanted Sakura, Suo, and Sugishita. You were adamant about chasing them off from Suo and Sakura whenever they approached—you had no need to worry about Sugishita, as Umemiya had already said he shouldn't talk to them, so there was no chance he was going to—and you begged Suo over and over not to join. Delinquency was fine, but a crime syndicate was something else altogether.

Suo seemed serious about it when he said he'd listen to you. He even applied to colleges, talked about maybe becoming a teacher and eventually supporting you so you could stop working in the mizu shobai industry. Back then, he often teased you by saying that you should marry him and be his housewife (or he could be your trophy husband, if you so wished). You thought he was joking, but with the way he always talked about his life after his degree, you wondered if he would seriously suggest it.

Of course, it was most likely just teasing, and you were fine with that. You were simply excited that he'd found a career that would make him happy. Nirei had also been accepted to university at that point, and even Sakura had an honest job lined up on Keisei Street. The future had looked bright for everyone.

Then Suo’s master died, and he lost his fucking mind.

The two of you buried Suo’s master in a Chinese funeral. He had never had children of his own, having satisfied his paternal instincts by picking up strays, and he didn't have much in the way of family in Japan either, so you and Suo performed the shou ling yourselves. One person kept a constant vigil over his body while the other searched on Google for what arrangements should be made next. After all, while Suo’s master had immersed his foremost disciple in his culture, he had never taught Suo any funerary customs. He hadn't thought there would be a need.

Suo didn't cry nearly as much as you, but he was probably in more pain. Your master had trained you a little bit when you were a kid, and he'd taken you in for a while after your parents kicked you out, so of course you were gutted. But he had practically raised Suo, so it was naturally worse for him. More shattering.

You often think about the first night you decided you'd sleep with him in the same futon because he was crying so much. He insisted he was fine, but he didn't complain when you got under the sheets with him and started thumbing away his tears. When you took off his eyepatch, you found, to your astonishment, that he was crying from his missing eye as well. Both of you thought the tear ducts had been destroyed in either the accident or the enucleation, but it appeared that not even that prior trauma could mask his grief over this one.

Nevertheless, by the time of the funeral procession, Suo had stopped crying.

“Master supported us and taught us to stand on our own two feet,” he said as the joss paper burned. He took your hand in his and smiled. “So it'll be fine. We’ll be okay on our own. I'll make sure of it.”

At the time, you had found this very comforting. You didn’t think too much of it, as you had a bad habit of relying on Suo for your emotional stability. His master had raised him to be an emotionally intelligent person, so it had been fine, even though you had a track record of reckless decisions. He’d still exercised endless patience with you. He never once got angry with you, nor did he ever force you to do what he felt was the right thing. Instead, he gently redirected your self-damaging behaviours—not so different from the martial art that he practised.

He disapproved of the run-down and lonely conditions of your apartment, so he spent a great deal of time there and helped make it into a proper home. He didn't like how dangerous your job at the girls’ bar was, so he walked you to and from work every night until you never left without him. He worried when you started having sex with your customers, especially when you began having nervous breakdowns over it (you were, after all, still a teenager and really only interested in having romantic vanilla sex with Suo), so he staged an intervention with Nirei and Sakura. In this way, Suo convinced you that you were loved and protected and didn't need to do something you hated so much. They would get you out if you felt trapped. And you didn't feel trapped, per se, so you left on your own—but it was still only because of them. You promised them afterwards that you'd never do it again.

This was Suo’s brand of kindness as a teenager. He always taught people, guided them away from harm rather than steering them—a behaviour he’d mimicked from your master. Your master, in general, had defined all of Suo’s values and his way of living, which was honest and gentle and conscientious. It was one where he used his abilities to protect the weak and care for his friends. He even kept his spiteful and alarmingly violent tendencies under control, though sometimes he slipped when fighting genuine assholes. But he still tried. He tried because he strived to be as kind as his master—who represented everything that Suo wanted to be in his adult life.

Thus, the death of Suo’s master meant the death of his principles. It changed the kind of man that Suo wanted to be. You don't want to say that he became a worse person, but he absolutely became a worse person.

He especially became a worse person with you.

As it turned out, Suo’s idea of making sure that the two of you would be fine on your own was, well, not really fine. It wasn’t that he became cruel to you, per se. It was more that whenever he saw a problem with your behaviour, his approaches to redirecting it became—put as nicely as possible—heavy-handed.

After your master’s death, you got a job at a high end, yakuza-owned club. Two weeks later, Suo broke his promise to you and joined the yakuza. So I can stay close to you, he explained gently, wiping away your tears as you cried hysterically, but you're convinced to this day that he did it partly out of spite. So a few years later, when you started having sex with your customers again and he tried to stop you, you decided to spite him back. I need to stay on top of the rankings, you'd explained dispassionately. The mamasan said it's fine, and the manager doesn't care. He even thinks it's good for business.

Suo’s response was to simply become the owner of your club.

This move was very extreme, but also very effective. Any customer who so much as brushed against you on the premises was instantly thrown out, and the mamasan started watching you like a hawk to make sure you weren’t going to any love hotels after work. Douhan were off-limits. For the first time since your teens, you became completely celibate—not only because of your new workplace circumstances, but because you simply didn't want to find out what Suo would do if you got together with a man he despised (and he despised every man you dated).

His most absurd play was when he became concerned about your living conditions again. Your latest apartment was too plain, too small, and the area was too dangerous. It didn't even have a shower, and the other tenants behaved concerningly toward you when you went to the bathhouse at night. But the rent was cheap, and it was still an upgrade from your last place, so you shrugged it off when Suo suggested that you move. Even when someone tried to accost you at night, you were nonchalant about it. You kicked the shit out of them in a fight and continued your routine unbothered.

The next month, Suo bought a luxury penthouse and suggested you move in with him.

His offer (command) came with conditions. One of the bigger ones was that you'd let him accompany you out at night if you ever needed to run errands in dangerous places. Or—nevermind, actually. He should really just accompany you everywhere at night. Maybe during the day too. And—ah, there was no way you'd be going to work alone, nor coming back by yourself—you were now always to be driven by someone in his organisation, if he wasn't available himself. Rent was a point of contention, when you asked about it: you wanted to pay at market rate, and he insisted that there was no need to pay at all. He ended up proposing a highly discounted price, which would give you ample financial freedom, but questionable financial independence.

These were insane terms. You knew that if you agreed, you'd be setting yourself up for a life without autonomy. You also knew that these behaviours were all signs that Suo desperately needed therapy to process his master’s untimely death. Living with a man in constant grief, who refused to talk about his trauma unless he was making up a lie related to the nation of China, was probably not a good idea. Doubly so when this man was clearly paranoid about losing you, and triply so when he was a high-ranking member of a violent syndicate. Case in point—he was likely connected to the brutal accident that later befell the man who tried to assault you.

“I'm not sure what you're implying, but at least he didn't die,” Suo said cheerfully when you confronted him about it. Which really meant: At least I decided not to kill him. This was a flag bigger and redder than any other you've ever known, and you consider yourself an expert in red flags. You knew you should run in the other direction.

So naturally, you put your arms around him, tenderly said, I'm sorry I've been worrying you, and then you moved in the next day.

While Suo treats you with endless patience, you have personal limits to the patience that you exercise with him. Specifically, your patience with how he treats you.

You don't mind the lack of social freedom, nor the lack of personal freedom, nor the lack of freedom of movement. You also don't mind living with a man full of intractable trauma surrounding the death of every parental figure in his life; in fact, you'd rather be by his side than not, if he needs to cope with something so painful. And anyway, your friendship is otherwise unchanged if you ignore the heavy restrictions he's imposed on every facet of your life. So that's all fine.

But the celibate lifestyle that he's cornered you into? You simply aren't built for it. Holy shit, do you need to get laid.

Nearly two years without sex has brought you close to another nervous breakdown (there have been few better sources of entertainment or validation in your life), and worst of all, it has made your profound lust for Suo incredibly hard to ignore. Waking up every morning to him in a towel, his hair still wet from the shower and his broad silhouette exposed, tests the absolute limits of your self-control. The contours of his lean and muscled form are distracting enough; coupled with the vivid colours and lines of his irezumi, the sight of him becomes maddening. It is a horrible thing to be exposed to when you haven't gotten any dick nor strap in over a year. It gives you thoughts about him that are overtly sexual, which is bad, as you have materially consequential reasons for not wanting to fuck Suo.

Things with him must absolutely stay platonic. But with sexual frustration like yours, being platonic with him means that you need to get erotic with someone else. A boyfriend or girlfriend is out of the question; you don't want to be responsible for yet another brutal accident. So you instead decide to quit your job at his club and start working on Keisei Street. At least this way, you can start fucking your customers again.

It’s a perfect plan. Suo’s oyabun is very indulgent toward him, and everyone else in the family respects him too. He consequently has a tight grip on his organisation and the territory they control, despite his relatively young age. Not a single person is ever to touch Keisei Street—largely because Sakura is part of Roppo-Ichiza, and Suo is nearly as weird about Sakura as he is about you. Plus, many of his other fellow Furin alumni are in the gang as well. If Suo’s men ever started fucking with people on Keisei Street, it would not only have grave implications for gang relations—it would be personally upsetting for Suo. This means you can fuck all the Keisei Street customers you want, and not get a single one of them threatened or killed.

A pretty brilliant idea, if you do say so yourself.

Suo’s expression doesn't change when you break the news to him. He delicately places his teacup—custom-made from Yixing, just like the matching clay teapot—down on the mahogany tabletop, and he looks at you with a calm smile.

“Come again?”

“I'm quitting my job at Red Dragon,” you repeat. “I already gave the mamasan my resignation.”

“And she accepted it?” Suo asks, in a tone that is so carefully nonchalant that you know it means he is actually furious with her. “How interesting,” he muses. “What brought this on?”

“I've found a better paying opportunity on Keisei Street.”

“I'll give you a raise,” he says easily.

“A raise?” You cock a brow. “The pay is mostly commission-based at Red Dragon. You know that.”

“Then it would be unwise to leave. You have a loyal customer base at Red Dragon. All very rich, and”—his smile grows sharp—“very polite.”

Polite. An interesting word. It actually means: None of them will ever proposition or harass you because they know they'll be maimed if they do. An easy thought to use to your advantage.

“It's loyal but it's small. Everyone who's anyone in this part of town thinks that we’re married. Do you know how hard it is to pull new customers in when they're scared shitless of my yakuza husband? And anyway”—you frown, trying to look as pathetic as possible—“I'm lonely.”

Suo stares. He looks surprised, possibly because you absorb every minute of his free time with silly conversation, new restaurants, and skiing trips. (He likes snow, so you ask for these trips more for him to relax than anything else.) You also text him frequently on days he's working, and he very diligently replies, even if he's in the middle of something like a raid or a hit or brokering a massive deal. Suo still very strictly keeps to his rule of never touching his phone when in conversation with other people—unless he needs to text you.

So his suspicion is fair. Suo is very attentive and doesn't allow you much opportunity for loneliness. In turn, you’ve always been very happy spending time with him, even when it's only him.

“Lonely?” he repeats. “Are you, now?”

“Yes. You work so much,” you complain, which is not a lie, “and I don't have any friends to spend time with when you're gone.”

“You have friends from work.”

“No, I have competition at work. The hostesses are so cutthroat about rankings, they hate me. And each other.”

“You like Shuuhei and Hanzo,” he points out, referring to his men who most frequently chauffeur you.

“Yeah, they're friendly, and they're very funny. I like them, but I can't be their friend.” Suo stares at you, nonplussed, so you spell it out: “They're too scared of you to get close to me. What if it looks like they're trying to fuck the boss’ wife?”

“Hm…” Suo studies you, looking thoughtful. Perhaps for the first time, he's contemplating the consequences of restricting your freedoms and marking you as his. That is to say—maybe he's finally realising that you have no friends and no life.

The beads of his earrings glimmer as he tilts his head at you and frowns. Suo almost looks innocent with that confused face of his. “And how would working on Keisei Street help?” he asks.

“Because all our old friends are there!” you exclaim. “Sakura’s in Roppo-Ichiza now so he’ll definitely be coming by all the clubs. Tsubaki too. And Nirei and Kiryu visit them quite often—and even Tsugeura does sometimes, even though clubbing isn't one of his virtues.” You grab onto his arm, pull yourself close, and give him your most disarming, pleading expression. “Please, Suo?”

“Hm.” He strokes your cheek and looks at you fondly, in the way that one would do with an adorable and slightly annoying kitten. “I don’t think so. It’s not very safe there.”

He isn't wrong. Not only are you untouchable on his turf because of your association to him, Suo has also just crushed all the han-gure and petty criminals in his territory with brutal efficiency. His part of the red light district is, quite ironically, one of the safest places in the city, and certainly safer than Keisei Street.

But undeterred, you point out, “Shuuhei and Hanzo can still drive me there and back if you want. But I don't think it's necessary. Do you really think Sakura would let anything happen to me?”

This is the true brilliance of your plan: capitalising on the fact that Suo is as nearly as weird about Sakura as he is about you. He pauses as soon as you bring up the point, and you can practically see the gears turning. “Well, if it's him…”

“I even texted him about it. Look—here!” You whip out your phone, receipts ready. The corner of Suo's mouth lifts at your obviously rehearsed pitch. “He says he'd make sure I'm taken care of. And he says it'd be nice because he misses seeing us. Can you believe it—Sakura actually admitted that he misses us! Typed it with his own two hands and pressed send! I bet he was super embarrassed about it.”

“Huh. He even used a sticker. I've never seen him do that.” Suo smiles as he reads through the chat. He looks like his old self. You suddenly feel a little wistful, and also a lot bad. This started as a ploy to get laid, but it’s made you realise that you really do miss your friends—and Suo probably does too.

“If I worked on Keisei Street, then you would have plenty of reason to visit,” you point out, feeling somewhat tender.

“I guess that's true,” Suo says. Your heart aches a little bit at the look he gives you. It's a platonic ache, of course. Or at the very least, it isn't an erotic one. It doesn't really make you want to have sex with him anyway. But if you could lean forward and press your lips to his—platonically—then you definitely would.

Suo's civilian friendships are complicated by his double life. Quite unusually for yakuza, Suo’s syndicate insists on using pseudonyms and false histories to avoid anti-yakuza laws, on the off-chance that the police decide to do their jobs and actually enforce those laws someday. Lying for comedy is one of Suo’s greatest passions, so he was happy to manufacture an absurd backstory: his name is Yanzhao, and he learned kung fu in a Shaolin Temple before moving to Hong Kong and working for the triads. He wears the eyepatch because he lost his eye in an altercation with the cops, which he won. By the way, you're his criminally beautiful wife who he met in Macau. The two of you had to leave for Japan since he killed a police officer and now he's wanted by the governments of both China and Hong Kong. Also, he's a very devoted husband, so if anyone lays a hand on you, he’ll kill them too.

Somehow, everyone has bought into this story. Every criminal organisation in the red light district now fears a high-ranking yakuza known as Yanzhao, who is easily recognizable by his eyepatch and tassel earrings, and who is also homicidally obsessed with his beautiful wife.

In some ways, his infamy is convenient. No one wants to fuck with Suo, or with you by extension. But it also poses some issues: Suo has to keep a low profile in areas controlled by rival organisations, or else he might be ambushed. It also means he cannot easily go out and see his old friends. Even though he always masquerades as a civvie when he does, wearing stud earrings and a glass eye, it's still a little risky—especially since he likes to visit the strongest member of Roppo-Ichiza. While Roppo-Ichiza aren’t yakuza, they're still han-gure, so some of its more criminally entangled members might recognize him anyway.

But Sakura himself, bless him, has not put two and two together and figured out that Suo Hayato and Gui Yanzhao are the same person. This is partly because Suo lies very convincingly about his fictional career in the tea industry, but you think it's also because Sakura is so gullible it's endearing.

I use the glass eye now because it's better for networking, Suo had explained before Sakura could interrogate him too much, his voice too smooth and too quick for the other man to get in a word edgewise. My business partners find the eyepatch too silly. The tassel earrings too. By the way, would you like some Baimudan tea? I thought of you when I smelled it—I know you like fragrant things—so I picked some up for you on my last visit to China. I was there for business a couple of weeks ago.

He, of course, neglected to mention that said business involved meeting with the 14K triad.

Despite the enormity of Suo's omission (lie), Sakura is none the wiser whenever he meets with you. He thinks you're just a regular hostess who has freedom of movement and various other human rights, and that Suo’s just a regular guy who isn’t homicidally obsessed with you (a detail of Suo's fabricated life story that is unfortunately grounded in reality). All this to say, Sakura doesn't think twice about mentioning the fact that you have a routine of going to love hotels after work.

Suo, as always, remains calm in the face of unsettling information. He sets down his tea (just tea, without shochu), and politely says, “Pardon?” He's once again using the nonchalant kind of tone that suggests mortal danger.

“She's always going to love hotels after her shifts.” Sakura is frowning at you, pink but scowling. “I thought you said you were done with that stuff. You promised us you wouldn't do it anymore. Suo—are you really okay with this?”

On the one hand, you find it exceptionally sweet that Sakura, after all this time, remembers your promise and wishes to hold you to it. He was so worried about you when you started having those nervous breakdowns as a teenager, and he probably still is. On the other hand, you're shitting bricks at the fact that Suo is now aware of your activities. Because sure, he likely won't fuck with Keisei Street—but you realise, as he stares at you, that you can't be certain of this. After all, your fake yakuza husband has very real homicidal urges.

“Um,” you say. “It's just business.”

“Business,” Suo repeats.

“You don't have to do that stuff to keep good business,” Sakura grouses, unaware of Suo’s carefully suppressed rage. “You're real popular already.”

“Are you?” Suo asks, looking right at you.

“I mean—I told you the pay would be better, right?” you reply, voice oddly high and nervous, and this is when Sakura notices that something is wrong.

“Oh,” Sakura says, looking between the two of you. “Suo, you didn't know?”

“I didn't,” he says. “Actually, she told me specifically that she wasn't going to do that if she worked here.” He turns to you, still smiling. “That's the only reason why I allowed this at all, remember?”

A chill travels down your spine. You did, in fact, commit to a perpetually sexless lifestyle in order to be granted some semblance of freedom: Of course I won't sleep with any customers, you'd said. You know I don't really like doing that anyway. I promise I'll behave! I’ll be out of the clubs and right back home. Sakura said he’d make sure I’ll get to a cab safely after the bar closes and everything!

“Um,” you say again, but this time you have no follow-up.

“Wait,” Sakura demands, “what do you mean by ‘allowed her’? What, do you need to give her permission to work now or something?”

Suo smiles disarmingly at Sakura. Without missing a beat, he says, “Generally no. But we’re dating now, which complicates what she’s allowed to do with other men at her job.”

Sakura spits out his drink. You choke on your spit.

“I… um?!” Sakura’s staring at you, so you quickly recover. This is a mortifying lie, but it's better than Sakura finding out just how batshit Suo has become since his school days. “I thought we were going to keep that a secret, dear?”

“Ah, you're right. Sorry, I got too excited.” Suo gives you an endeared look before turning to Sakura. “We were going to keep it to ourselves unless we got serious about it. But we've been talking about marriage lately, so I thought it was fine to mention.”

“...”

You’re going to have an aneurysm. Why does every cover that Suo comes up with involve a marital relationship between the two of you?!

“Oh… holy shit.” Sakura’s expression is complicated—somehow, more complicated than yours, even though you’re the one getting cornered into a fake engagement. It's unbelievable how shy he still is about this kind of thing. Maybe it’s just particularly embarrassing since he's known you two for so long, you reason. Regardless, he remembers his social cues enough to say, “Congrats, guys. That's great. That's really great.”

Suo gazes fondly at you across the table. “We were thinking you could be our best man,” he adds, and you consider violently kicking his leg.

“O-oh. Uh, yeah! Sure! But what about Nirei?”

“Rather than having a maid of honour,” you say reflexively, used to lying through your teeth for Suo, “we’d like him to be our best man as well.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” Thrown off guard, Sakura completely forgets about the love hotel business. He whips out his phone. “When were you thinking of having your wedding? I'll put it in my calendar.”

“I’m not sure.” Suo turns to you. “What were we thinking again, dear?”

You're going to die. You're going to die and it's a good thing because if you survive this embarrassment, your future will be bleak. As soon as Nirei finds out about this, he’ll want to start helping you with wedding planning, and then it would just be too awkward to cancel things. You’ll have to enter a fake marriage with Suo, which will be completely sexless, because even with a vow of everlasting love, there are still too many concrete and materially consequential reasons for not sleeping with him.

Condemning yourself to a lifetime of sexual frustration, you reply, “I think we were talking about a summer wedding.”

The drive home is awkward.

Hanzo and Shuuhei pick the two of you up. Suo mentioned that he wanted to talk to you and you alone, so they bring the Rolls Royce with the privacy suite. The two of them are entirely cut off from you thanks to the soundproofing, which traps you with Suo, who’s drinking a bottle of oolong tea as the two of you sit in complete silence. You think he's waiting for you to squirm—which you do.

You stay like that for five, agonising minutes before Suo finally says, “So you're sleeping with your customers.”

You swallow. “Yes.”

“For business?”

“Yes.”

“How much do you make?”

You blink. “Huh?”

“How much do you get paid for a single night of work, including gifts that your customers give you in exchange for sleeping with them?”

You're halfway through citing your earnings when you realise where he's going with this.

“So you make less than you did at Red Dragon,” Suo concludes, “and you're very smart with your money, so I know you know that, and you probably went into this knowing that you'd end up at a net loss.” He turns to you, gives you a look so sharp that it almost scares you. All made worse by his civilian disguise, which makes him feel unfamiliar. His glass eye shines strangely in the light, and his scar tissue is hidden by the makeup you helped apply. You wish he'd taken it all off before having this conversation.

“So,” he says, “what’s the real reason you changed jobs?”

Already knowing that he’ll figure you out sooner or later, you admit, “I just wanted to start having sex again.”

Suo blinks. “You… what?”

“I wanted to have sex with people,” you repeat. “I hadn't been touched for nearly two years, okay? I needed to get laid or else I'd go insane.” You cross your arms and look away, suddenly feeling petulant. “I'm sure you've noticed that our arrangement makes it impossible for me to see people.”

He doesn't answer, because of course he's noticed. He’d designed his house rules with precisely this intent. If he accompanies you everywhere you go, then you can't exactly go on dates, and you definitely can't meet people for sex. Not unless you feel like having Suo watch as some anonymous guy fucks you, and you don't. As hot as the idea is, it’s definitely not platonic behaviour, and it would probably trigger the whole homicidal obsession thing.

“Do you like it?” Suo asks, startling you. You look at him, confused.

“What?”

“Do you enjoy having sex with your customers?” he asks. His voice and gaze are even. Unrelenting. “Does it make you happy?”

You stare at him, a deer caught in headlights. You didn't expect Suo to actually care about whether you enjoyed it or not, and you didn't really expect to care yourself either. But truthfully, you hated it. You simply weren't feeling it with most of your customers and avoided intercourse with all but one. Then in that one case you let someone earnestly fuck you, it was a complete letdown. Possibly the worst sex you'd ever had. You spent the whole time watching the clock, wondering how long it would take, and it turned out that your hookup had remarkable stamina but absolutely no technique. To pass the time, and in an attempt to feel something, you tried to imagine it was someone else who was inside you. You cycled through a whole list of people, including all of your exes, a few of your past customers, every single member of BTS, and then—finally, inevitably—your long-time friend, roommate, and landlord.

To your complete horror, when you imagined that it was Suo who had you folded in half, his cock so deep inside you that you could feel it in your throat, you came so hard that you drenched the sheets.

You lay there afterward as your customer showered, alone in the bed. Normally you'd be getting dressed at that point, but you were too distracted. You kept thinking about what it would feel like to be held by Suo after having your guts rearranged by him—embraced tenderly like you know he would do with you, kissing him platonically like you've always wanted to do with him—and you realised that you didn’t actually want to have sex with anyone else. Despite all your life experience, sexual experience, and job experience—in that moment, you felt like a lonely nineteen year old girl who wanted nothing more than to have romantic, vanilla sex with her best friend, but who was instead having impersonal, disappointing sex with various salarymen.

This was a feeling so disgusting that you’ve decided to never tell anyone at any cost.

“Yeah, it's fine. I guess I like it.” You pretend to study your nails. “Sometimes I cum, which is all I really want.”

Suo keeps staring at you. “That’s it?” he asks, voice measured and careful. You raise a brow, playing dumb.

“What do you mean?”

“That's all you want? Just to get off?”

You gaze out the window, trying not to look at his lips.

“Yes, that's all.”

No matter how batshit Suo gets, he always maintains a certain kindness and maturity in how he handles conflict with you. It's a lesson that he learned from his master, which has perhaps been distorted over time, but remains important to him nevertheless.

If you do something upsetting, Suo is never forceful about getting you to act differently. Sure, he has fucked up ways of either getting you to behave or making you understand the consequences of your actions, and perhaps he has his manipulative moments. It was probably not a good thing that he coaxed you into indefinite house arrest, for instance. But he never threatens you, and he never hits you, and he never disrespects you. In fact, more than anything, he makes it a point to never let you feel like you aren't loved.

So when Suo abandons you after that conversation in the Rolls Royce, you lose your fucking mind.

Suo doesn’t come home in the days following that evening, without any note nor explanation. For the first time in years, he stops replying to your texts. Your immediate thought is that he's been gravely injured or perhaps even killed, which sends you into a panicked spiral. But every one of his men who's come by to check on you has implied otherwise—but I'm not allowed to tell you anything else, anesan, I’m sorry, they all say. And when you realise that Suo is actually fine and he's just playing a fucked up mind game with you, one that makes you feel distinctly unloved, you feel simultaneously heartbroken and apoplectic. The man is not allowed to corner you into de facto imprisonment and then just fucking leave. In fact, if he tries, you might imprison him.

You spend a few days sitting at home and crying over this, as well as torturing yourself by thinking about useless things (fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, et cetera). But eventually, you get tired of wallowing in self-inflicted misery, and you decide to just track your fake husband down. His men have been adamant about not letting you out of their sight—presumably so you don’t fuck any more of your customers, because Suo can be spiteful like that—so you have to be strategic about your plan to find him.

You decide to do it during work. You tap out in the middle of a shift, feigning illness, so nobody bats an eye when you put on the most shapeless hoodie you own and throw on a face mask. Your chauffeurs (handlers) don't notice as you sneak off—and for the first time in years, you walk through the red light district all alone.

It feels strange not to be protected, and even stranger not to be surveilled. You marvel at the unfamiliar experience of complete freedom, and at the possibility of being able to run off and disappear if you so wished. But you don't, of course. Not only do you care too deeply for Suo to abandon him, you're also pretty sure he has your driver’s licence and ID card locked up somewhere. At least you haven't been able to find them, and Suo was oddly evasive about it when you asked. (I haven't seen them, he'd said, but I don't think you’d need either of those things immediately, anyway, do you? And you nodded in response, because it was true that you liked being his passenger princess too much to care about your licence.)

So rather than bolting for the subway, you head straight to your old workplace. The gleaming doors of Red Dragon welcome you as you cross its threshold, and you're greeted immediately by the scent of luxury colognes and expensive cigars—both evoking a strange nostalgia in you. Even the click of your heels against the marble floor feels familiar. You realise that you've missed the place despite its cutthroat culture and its owner’s authoritarian control over you, which you suppose isn't surprising. This club was more or less your home for years and, thanks to said owner, was the safest place you've ever worked.

And being that you feel you've returned to your very safe home, you don't expect it when you're abruptly stopped by the bouncer.

“Can I help you?” he asks, his arm in your way. You don't recognize him, but you see the edges of his irezumi peeking out from the rolled-up cuffs of his shirt.

“Yeah, actually,” you say. “I'm looking for Gui Yanzhao. Is he here right now?”

The bouncer—or chinpira, you guess—bristles.

“You're looking for who?”

“Yanzhao?” you say impatiently. “Eyepatch, tassel earrings? Owner of the club? Probably your boss?”

The bouncer steps forward and reaches for something in his pocket, which makes you suddenly nervous, and also makes you realise that in a hoodie and a face mask, you ordinarily wouldn't be allowed in this club, let alone into the room of its yakuza owner. You're so used to VIP treatment here that you simply forgot.

You take a step back. “Um. I think there's been a misunderstanding.” You lower your face mask, which doesn't help as you've never met this man, and he must be new. You’ll need to complain to Suo about his onboarding process later, if you aren't killed before you can find him.

It turns out that this yakuza rookie has a knife in his pocket, which is not the worst thing he could have been carrying, but is also not the best. You're getting ready to run in the other direction when a more senior member of the gang comes by. He gives you a startled look, which then turns alarmed when he sees his younger brother’s knife.

“Anesan!” he yells hurriedly, and he snatches the chinpira’s knife straight from his hand. His lunge for the weapon turns into a hurried bow. He pulls his colleague—whose face has turned very white in a very short amount of time—into an even deeper one. They look on the verge of prostrating.

“Oh, Yamashita. Hi! Is this guy new?”

“Yes! My sincerest apologies for my younger brother’s idiocy, and his insolence in raising a weapon at you.” There's a sheen of sweat on the back of his neck. “If you would like him to atone, then he would be more than happy to—”

“No, that's fine. I'd really like him to keep all his fingers.” If you have to see a rookie cut off his pinkie today, you think you might actually change your mind on running away. Fuck your documents—Suo can keep them. Surely life without proof of identity can't be that hard. “By the way,” you say, trying to change the topic before Yamashita can suggest alternative acts of atonement, “have you seen my husband?”

Yamashita hesitates at your question, looks conflicted. You feel a little bad for him, and for every other gang member who needs to worry about accidentally offending Suo. You watch him sweat for a full ten seconds before he says, “You can follow me. But anesan, you might find it unpleasant upstairs. I can find someone to drive you home instead, if you'd like.”

You give him a funny look. This was your workplace for a very long time—you can’t think of many things that would happen here that might seriously upset you. “What, is he cheating on me?” you guess.

“What? No! Aniki would never!” Yamashita seems genuinely shocked at the suggestion. “He's crazy about you!”

“Then I'm sure he’ll be happy to see me,” you say, although given that he's ignored your texts for four days straight, you aren't so sure. Regardless, this seems to be good enough reasoning for Yamashita, and you’re taken to the top floor of Red Dragon. You ponder the whole time, on the elevator ride up, just what exactly Suo’s been up to that's made Yamashita this nervous about letting you see him.

Then the door opens, and you’re given your answer in the form of several body bags—all cleanly zipped up and conscientiously laid out in front of the elevators in a single, neat row. A sight that is significantly worse than a rookie cutting off his pinkie finger.

“Oh,” you say faintly. You try not to throw up. “So this is why he hasn't been home.”

“Exactly!” Yamashita replies, beaming. “See, anesan, I told you. He'd never cheat on you!”

Suo is in the lounge of the top floor, which has been cleared of both civilians and corpses for the night. He's sitting on one of the couches, leaning back with his one eye closed, as if asleep. The golden tassels of his earrings are draped over the expensive leather of his seat, intertwined with his dark hair. A cup of tea sits in front of him, steaming. Even this far away, you recognize it by the scent alone: jasmine, probably from Longjing. One of the most expensive blends he has, and that which he saves for days he’s stressed, though he never admits it when he is.

The sight of him would almost look tranquil, except for all the blood on his knuckles and his cuffs.

Off to the side, two of his younger brothers are chatting away. One is pouring cups of some doubtlessly expensive liquor, and the other is smoking a cigar. There's karaage on the table too. You recognize all of this as part of a ritual that some of the guys like to do after a hit or a shootout, not dissimilar to getting ramen or McDonald’s after going to a club.

You catch a bit of their conversation as you approach. One of them holds up the liquor bottle (Isojiman sake, you now recognise from your girls’ bar days, one of the rarer bottles costing around nine million yen) and asks Suo if he wants to join. “No thanks,” he says predictably, “I'm on a diet.” Then he turns and looks right at you—startling you, because you had thought you were being fairly quiet—and gives you a smile so genuine that it reminds you of his Furin days. “Would my beautiful wife like to drink for me, though?”

“No thanks,” you reply, “but your beautiful wife would like to talk to you.”

The two guys clear out to give you some privacy. You’re left alone with Suo, feeling awkward after several days of resenting him for no reason. (You’d rather die than go to therapy, but the whole fear of abandonment thing is probably something you should start addressing.) You don't even know where you want to sit. Eventually, you settle for placing yourself next to him, which is a decision that Suo quickly overturns by pulling you into his lap.

A flutter erupts in your stomach as he settles you on top of him. This physiological reaction is absurd, as not even ten minutes ago, you were trying not to throw up at the line of corpses in front of the elevator. It should also scare you somewhat that Suo’s hands—delicately adjusting your body—are still covered in blood. But truthfully, you can't help but be happy when he makes you feel so loved.

You take one of the napkins on the table and start wiping at his knuckles. Tenderly, in case they're bruised or skinned.

“You didn't call or come home,” you start.

“I thought it would be too dangerous.”

You frown, thinking of all the bodies outside. “Was this a rival organisation?”

“No. They were ours.” He sighs. “A succession conflict. There are a few people who don't like how I'll run things if I take over.”

You nod. Suo is very old-fashioned in his ideals about the yakuza, which you think is an imprint of his master’s influence, and something that appeals to his current ‘father’. He values chivalry. He likes protecting the weak. His filial devotion to his deceased master has now extended to every member of his yakuza family, especially his oyassan. He’s almost certainly the top candidate for taking over after the oyabun dies, but being that part of his old-fashioned principles excludes lucrative projects such as sex trafficking, you suppose it’s natural that some people in his organisation would prefer him dead rather than in charge.

“You’ve never ghosted me during violent conflicts before though,” you say. “I was worried that something happened to you. Or that you were upset with me.”

Suo’s hand drops to your waist, pulling you a little closer.

“They knew where we live. They tried to get to you, you know.” Your eyes widen in alarm, so he cups your face with a palm. His thumb glides along your cheek, and your response is almost Pavlovian: your heart rate immediately slows at the comfort of his touch. “It’s fine. They won't bother you ever again.” The cheerful smile returns. “And if anyone else ever does, I'll handle them too.”

Your heart swells. Enthusiastic pledges of murder are not a healthy sign of affection, but after so much loneliness—whether from the past several days, or the years before that, you aren't sure—you can't find it in yourself to be disturbed. You feel and sound painfully fond when you reply, “I know.”

Suo’s expression dims a little then. “I thought you'd like the space anyway.”

“What?” You give him a confused look. You have never once given him any indication that you want even an inch of space from him. You'd crawl into his ribcage if you could. “Why would you think that?”

“I thought you felt suffocated. You left my club just so you could have sex with other people.” You blink, lingering on his wording. Other people. He continues before you can ask about it, sighing, “You didn't even ask me who I'd give permission to touch you. You just went ahead and decided on your own.”

“...”

You try not to look disturbed. Suo’s apparent wish to control your sexual decisions is news to you, and somehow more alarming than the murder pledge. And even worse—you immediately clench in response to his words. The thought of Suo dictating who does and doesn't get to touch your cunt is… well, your mind is heading in a distinctly non-platonic direction.

Trying to ignore the heat in between your thighs (but at the same time encouraging it), you ask: “Who would you have been, um, okay with touching me?”

“Sakura or Nirei,” he says immediately. “Though only Sakura would be interested.”

“What.” You gape at him, all arousal forgotten. “Bullshit. He would never.”

“Yes, he would.” Suo tilts his head. “Haven't you noticed?”

“I don't think there's anything to notice? And also—he’s so shy, I don't think he'd ever agree even if he were interested!” You give him a bewildered look. “He couldn't even look at us when we said we were getting married, he was so embarrassed!”

“Embarrassed?” Suo stares at you, an amused glint in his eye. “Is that what you thought was going on?”

“Was there anything else?”

He studies you for a moment, clearly entertained but not explaining why. “Well—it’s fine,” he says. “It doesn't matter for now. Especially since he's helping us plan a wedding and all.”

You make a face. “I still can't believe that's the cover you went for.”

“Are you upset with it?” he asks smoothly, and you huff and say yes, but from his sly look, you think he knows it's a lie.

Naturally, you deflect before he can further interrogate you. “So, given that you are now my fiancé, am I no longer allowed to work on Keisei Street and see customers after my shifts?”

You don’t expect it when Suo says, “No, you can.”

You stare. “What?”

“You can keep seeing customers if you'd like. You said it makes you happy, so why would I stop you?” Suo’s brow furrows, his usual calm replaced with concern. “Do you really think I do the things I do to make you miserable?”

Guilt gnaws at your heart. He looks so disappointed. “No,” you tell him. “I just thought it'd make you miserable that I was sleeping with people without your permission.” It is partly why you hid it from him in the first place, after all. You don't like to see him sad—you’re still haunted by the deep grief he was in, after your master died—and also, his misery tends to bring bodily harm to other people these days.

Cognizant of both concerns, you ask, “You’re really okay with me sleeping with my customers? I can stop, if you want.”

“No, it’s fine. I still don't like it, but you can continue for now if you want.”

Suo’s mouth curls—not in a gentle way, as has been his expression since seeing you walk in, but in a way that sets off your flight or fight response.

“I'm sure we’ll reach a mutual understanding soon enough.”

END PART 1

thank you genuinely if you read all that because this is a deranged au and I still can't believe I wrote it sldfkjsldfkj. please do let me know if you enjoyed my yandere suo delusions. sorry there was no smut in this chapter. I promise there is a ton in the next one (probably too much... lol. it's a 10k chapter and literally half of those words are about orgasm denial sldfkjalskdjdf). it's completely written and I hope to edit and have it up by next week!

also here is glossary of terms and world building notes if you are interested!

tagging @kweenkatsuki-fics !! <3

[maximura]

[ineffable-opinions]

A Banned BL Series and A Banned BL Sub-genre

GaoGan (High Cadre, 高干) is a sub-genre of danmei, unique to BL from Mainland China. It involves characters who directly hold high position within the Communist Party (be it the political wing or the People’s Liberation Army) or are related to such characters.

Works belonging to this sub-genre was fairly common in the first decade of 2000. Now it's a banned sub-genre and we will get to the specifics of it and how that works.

A little bit about the society in which this sub-genre was created. Back then both Communist party members as well as military members could get away with pretty much anything. Society back then was a little bit more open to such practices and consequences for their actions were very limited. There was very little civilian oversight, so to speak. This meant that not only sons and daughters of high cadre but relatives including extended kin, held positions of power.

Naturally, it became a problem. For the State, I mean.

A lot of leaders now are kids of leaders from the past. They also hold in immense sway in all fields, both business and bureaucracy.

They can bag tenders and participate in those public private partnership projects and reap profits while outsiders would struggle. Laws could be bent and broken and no one could do anything to them. People suffer because of that. But you cannot really go to the police against them. Yeah, pretty messed up.

It is in this context that Addicted (你丫上瘾了) by Chai JiDan (柴鸡蛋) was first serialized. But it is in no way an extreme or a quintessential gaogan danmei. It's basically campus story in the first half with basic coming of age elements, highschoolers falling in love and lot of it is smut too.

But the threat of what their futures hold because of who they are especially Gu Hai, being the only son of his father who is a General, looms large even in first part. This is underplayed in the series compared to the novel.

Gu Hai grew up in that environment of power and reach. A lot of his rough nature is a product of such unbridled power that followed him from the cradle. His father is domineering. He is similarly domineering but with a holier-than-thou “kind” heart. He rebels against his father’s nature. He doesn't want to be the kind of person his father is. He is at the risk of becoming the monster he is fighting. He is extreme in his means, just as his father (and his late mother) and a bunch of other people such as Gu Yang and Gu Hai’s maternal uncle.

It is contrasted with how gentle and amicable Bai LouYin’s father and stepmother are, and how their lives are completely different. They don't really take any extreme steps and always pave path to reconciliation.

While Addicted sort of shows the contrast, it is not the highlight. There are novels which were written in the beginning of the millennium that showed extreme versions – focused on showing how bad it could get - be it of people getting away with that they should not get away with ideally and all sorts of bad things happening to people who have no control over their lives when it comes to people with power.

Corruption, nepotism and exploitation of power clearly are not good practices. The critique in Addicted is not on the face. It's very subtle. You need to understand what exactly is going on to understand the politics of Addicted. It is not just a random parent being despotic parent. It is because of very specific social setups. Gu Hai can coax, coerce and buy his way into changing public schools in the middle of semester, get Bai LouYin’s father a good job, treat officers on lower rungs as his personal servants and get things to work in his favour all because of the power he holds by just being General Gu’s heir. No one would dare to report his overreach because no one wants to offend General Gu lest he is less favorable to them in their time of need. Bai LouYin can avail benefits of switching schools and such since he is Gu WeiTing’s step-son.

What would give Gu Hai more power than being General’s son? Being a high cadre member himself. But doesn’t want that. From the beginning of the novel, Gu Hai rejects the military environment he grew up in. He doesn’t want to pursue his father’s footsteps.

Bai LouYin learns this when he pries into what Gu Hai wants to do with his life. Gu Hai makes it clear that he wants to pursue business. Bai LouYin dedicates his life to make that possible for Gu Hai. He does so by means joining PLA and thereby becoming his step-father’s protégé. In exchange, Gu Hai is free to live a free life. When he sets up his own manufacturing business, it is directly linked to supplying to the military and thus the exploitation of his connections that gives him a definite edge over his competitors from less privileged backgrounds continue – now as Bai LouYin’s brother too. So, he actually gets to become a rich man at a young age in his own right. It's not just Gu Hai whose business flourishes thanks at least in part to influence. Gu Yang and Gu Hai’s uncle (who seems to be powerful in his own right) too benefits from their connections.

It's something that Chai JiDan explores in a lot of her other works too, even though Counterattack and Advanced Bravely live action adaptations removed gaogan elements from turning characters into civilians.

That brings us to the de facto ban on gaogan. State doesn't want to encourage such kind of practices. It totally doesn't want it to be an aesthetic or a glorified romantic trope, especially in danmei.

Danmei actually have a mixed history with the State. Chinese government is notorious for crackdowns, jailing authors, shutting down websites, forcing self-censorship and purges that throttled danmei production and distribution. (More on this here.)

Lesser known is the part where State benefited from it. There was the shipping of real-life high cadre politicians.

Former Chinese President Hu Jintao and former Premier Wen Jiabao were shipped by fans. (source)

There were also the Little Pinks - groups of presumably (some critics argue that it is just a presumption) young women who are nationalistic verging on jingoism, who would endorse Chinese government and its policies on various platforms. They are called so because their brand of rhetoric first started in the danmei forum of JJWXC, a popular web-publishing platform. Little Pinks started out on this platform, scolding authors and readers who wrote what they didn’t agree with. They have pervaded other social media sites and are compared to the Little Reds of Cultural Revolution. Little Pinks captured public attention. They became quite an eyesore for the general public and other BL fans. But State machinery, especially its media, have showered them with praise on occasions.

State of things have changed over the years and there have been understandable public anger against the sort of behaviors high cadre politicians and their kin engaged in as well as the unfair advantage they enjoyed. The State had to curb nepotism and accumulation of power in the hands of those from political families. Exploitation of power couldn't explicitly depict or endorsed on media.  

The new rules are imposed through censors, self-censorship and editorial overreach and what not. Compared to earlier days of danmei, today’s BL production space looks very difference since sites have disappear. There used to be revolutionary potential, not just in terms of furthering the rights of the queer community but also in many other aspects of society. It has disappeared over the years through purging and authors growing tired. Popularization and commercialization of danmei actually did not benefit the way one would imagine. As BL fans’ grip over what they could say disappeared, a lot of new authors came in who from the very beginning were willing to adjust to these demands from the State and were writing to accommodate, if not outright support, what the State willed.

So, before the ban on gaogan, there was period where fics were written praising the high cadre and highlighting their goodness, generosity and patriotism while being perfect gentlemen, paragons of virtue, upright citizen who valiantly fought enemies of the State, both internal and external.

When it aired, Addicted was fairly popular. By his own admission, Andy Lau was watching it. While exact reason for the ban is not known, there is a lot of speculation. One of the most cited reasons is simply its popularity and how that attracting attention to queer people (through the pairing of a very masculine men who were unlike the stereotypical “sissies”) and queer rights.

Another was the substance abuse related words in title and ship name such as shangyin and hailouyin which is another topic that State scrutinizes. But then A Round Trip to Love had multiple criminal elements including spiking, confinement and sexual abuse that aired.

It's not like gaogan genre just died. Authors went interstellar on their stories. So now when you open Addicted in LCRead you will be greeted by an intro page which claims that the story is not set on Earth and is set in another galaxy blah blah blah. Lot of later authors actually decided to pursue the safe, sci-fi route and decided to stick to lanes that would let them tell these stories without actually irritating the State.

This work around method will last while it can.

Quite frankly, Addicted couldn't have been made in other countries with its very specific political setting. Its essence lies in Bai LouYin joining PLA to help Gu Hai forsake the path laid out for him and Gu Hai repaying with devotion while alternatively sinking and floating in high cadre life as son, brother and husband. This won’t work in countries with mandatory military service or where military and politics interweave in a dangerous manner.

Honestly, I am not knowledgeable about Thailand to interpret what it means for Hero to walk out of ror dor (army cadet) exam (thank you @pharawee for the explanation). Also, Thai government is fully dedicated to their plan of using BL as a soft power tool. I am not sure how to feel about the Thai adaptation, Heroin the series, given the production chose to situate the beginning of the story in 2018* (four years after 2014 coup d'état). Addicted becoming a propaganda tool in favor of military at the hands of any State is a disturbing scenario to say the least.

*There is a eight year break in the relationship between the main couple in the original novel.

Seems like second season isn't happening. Makes me wonder...

-

Link to novel translations.

[air--so--sweet]

Okay so I noticed in the promo that Viktor doesn't join in with Allison and Luther here.

But I just presumed that was because he wasnt there when Ben died. Diego is offscreen but I thought he was also speaking, but listening back it's definitely just Allison and Luther's voices. And then this is from the in character recap posted on instagram -

Again it's just Allison and Luther.

Which is interesting in and of itself, but it becomes increasingly so when you consider that this was Allison and Luther at Ben's funeral.

While Luther didn't speak up, considering he was so devoted to being Reginald's Number One, for him to even give his father the stink eye was as good as active subordination on his part.

Reginald's speech to the children at Ben's funeral, while callous and cruel, was designed to try and make them a better team, by using shame and guilt as a motivator (obviously it backfiresmd since the academy disbanded shortly after this). Luther is still loyal enough to buy Reginald's version of events where they are to blame...

...but, as I said him willing to throw stink eye shows there were some cracks appearing in his blind faith and approval of his father. Additionally he was closest to Allison so if anyone was likely to sway him and make him think their father is wrong it was her. And if she couldn't sway him there was always the possibility of her using her power to convince him.

This was a problem for Hargreeves, he can't have the leader of the team and his daughter, who is basically capable of mind control, turn against him.

The others seem to be more or less in line. Diego seemed to think they were somewhat culpable based on his response to Viktor saying it was no one's fault.

And, even before he secretly conjured Ben, Klaus didn’t seem interested in fighting over blame so, as far as Hargreeves was concerned he wasn't a threat to his leadership or the stability of the team.

And Viktor wasn't there when Ben died so he didn't know what happened any way and it's not like his siblings held his words in high regard.

So what if he did something to manipulate Allison and Luther's memories to bring them in line and believe it was their fault? Fed them the line about them failing as a team.

It seems none of the siblings know the exact details of Ben's death so it could be that Reggie wiped Klaus and Diego's minds for good measure too, but it could also be that, while they were on the mission they didn't actually see how Ben died, just the aftermath. Klaus was the lookout after all (and likely drunk or high or both) and maybe Diego was tied up in a fight.

Or maybe Hargreeves brainwashed Allison and then had her rumour the others.

Either way when you think about it, we've heard them say very little about Ben's death and what they have said is incredibly vague.

There's this exchange between Viktor and Five -

(Viktor nods in response to this but you can't really convey that in a screen cap 😅)

And then there's this exchange between Klaus and Ben

So the closest we get to specifics is that it was 'bad' and it was 'violent', which tells us nothing really.

Or maybe Ben didn't die violently on a mission, maybe Hargreeves implanted that information in their minds from the start. When in reality whatever that is happening to Ben in season 4 was happening to Ben at 17. After all the one other person we see in the trailer experiencing anything similar to Ben is this woman, widely presumed to be Jennifer. Her having the same symptoms as Ben suggests she has something to do with him causing the apocalypse.

At Ben's funeral Hargreeves mentioned during his eulogy that they'd been training for weeks for the mission Ben died on. What if, during said training, he realised that something would happen which would cause Ben to cause the apocalypse and so he killed him in advance and planted a memory of a failed mission in the kids' heads somehow? I don't know how he manipulated their memories but maybe whatever method he used didn't allow for much specific details so he just implanted that it was gruesome and violent. Maybe even named it the Jennifer incident then and there so as to give them a way to refer to it that didn't require them to refer to the mechanism of Ben's death. But maybe he didn't account for Allison not seeing it as their fault or how Luther might support her. So he had to meddle with their minds further, to get them to stay in line, which is why they are the two siblings who spout the line about them having failed as a team.

[royonninjago]

The Ninja's Roles Within the Team

Something I think the various Ninjago shows do really well is the characterizations of each Ninja. If it was bad, then kids wouldn't wanna watch the show or buy the Lego sets to reenact their favorite moment and create new scenarios for the Ninja to go through.

However, for the past few years a problem I've had with the TV show is that some characters feel more... useful than others. Then there are moments when one character is missing, but the team seems to operate just fine without them, and I think that does a real disservice to the characters.

In contrast, take the ATLA episode "Sokka's Master". It's one of my favorites because it separates Sokka, the only non-bender in Team Avatar, from the rest of the team. The episode demonstrates to both us and the rest of Team Avatar why Sokka is essential to their team. Without him, they're bored, can't figure out where they are or where they're headed on a map, and are overall completely directionless. Its like the precursor to those dime a dozen fantasy mangas where the weak member of a dungeon divers gets fired and the rest of the party ends up deeply regretting it.

I want the Ninjago TV show to demonstrate to us why each member is essential to the Ninja Team, and why without one of them the Ninja Team is worse off or have to work twice as hard to compensate.

Dragons Rising had such a good opportunity to explore this, but unfortunately it seems like the biggest problem the Team faces from being separated across the merged realms is lack of manpower and not much else. In lieu of this, here are some of my ideas as to how each character could prove to be essential to the Ninja.

Lloyd - The Leader. This one is definitely the most obvious. He's had a very clear leadership role since he became the Green Ninja, and ever since Wu left this distinction has only gotten more pronounced. However, I do find myself wishing to see a bit more of a dark streak with him. He was originally introduced as an antagonist, and I don't know about y'all but I still find myself enjoying Three Days Grace ever since I played the Halo 3 campaign at a friend's house while listening to AMVs of their songs.

Kai - The Weapon Master. Although there was never anything to support this, I always thought that Kai made the weapons that the Ninja used in the pilots. He is a blacksmith, after all. I think it would be cool if this aspect was more leaned into and not only make him the guy that creates all the swords and throwing stars and whatever other simple weapons the Ninja use, but to also be the best one at using those weapons. A sword is obviously his go to, but put any kind of simple weapon in his hands and I think he'd be able to use it very well. Imagine how much cooler it would have been in season 11 if Kai managed to defeat Aspheera's sheer power with his incredible swordsmanship skills. It'd certainly tie into his arc that season much better than what we actually got.

Jay - The Scout. Remember that scene in the pilots where the Skulkin cars were trying to reach 88 mph or whatever and Jay was gaining on them just by running? The writers sure don't! Though in all seriousness, whenever the Ninja need to learn a new technique to do something, Jay always picks up on it really quickly. First to perform Spinjitzu and summon his Golden Weapon Vehicle, second to unlock his true potential, third to summon his Elemental Dragon, he managed to surprise Ronin when practicing Airjitzu, not to mention his laundry list of hobbies. If they really leaned into his speed, combining that with his skills as a Ninja would make him perfect for running ahead and reporting back on the enemy forces. In my own little world, I like to imagine him as a PG version of the Scout from TF2 (Jay even had a slight Boston accent in the pilots!).

Cole - The Muscle. This one is also fairly obvious due to Cole's signature Earth Punch, but I feel as though it should be noticed more when he's not around, especially in Master of the Mountain. If I'm remembering correctly, they don't fully acknowledge his absence until they're locked up in the Vengestone cage about to be executed. If I regularly hung out with a dude that could lift a car over his head, I'd be lamenting about his absence whenever I needed to lift a heavy box.

Zane - The Information Officer. Another obvious one, but in this case I feel as though they lean a bit too heavily into it. Yes, he's a robot and yes, it's his job to know things, but I want to see his more dorky and silly side from time to time. Give us more Zane following a bird because it danced and him just chilling (literally) in the fridge at midnight for no reason type of stuff. After all, his greatest fear is losing his humanity.

Nya - The Strategist. I feel as though on a 'don't judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree' level, Nya is just as smart as Zane. Due to his physiology, Zane can hold much more raw information many times over Nya, but I feel as though Nya is much better at putting that information to use. Going back to Master of the Mountain (I realize I'm referencing it a lot, its still fresh in my mind), when Kai and Zane were lost, they relied entirely on the raw data from Zane's internal compass, and because of that they got lost and had to rely on Geckles capturing them to reach their settlement. On the other hand, when Lloyd, Jay, and Nya were lost, Nya was able to determine the location of the Munce settlement by searching for signs of life and finding footprints. Also, I think this characterization fits the Master of Water really well considering water adapts to whatever environment it resides in.

The new Ninja from Dragons Rising are still very inexperienced and still haven't really found their grooves within the team, but I'm still gonna try and analyze them here.

Arin - ???. Right now, Arin's main skills are his unique Spinjitzu skills and his talent with a grappling hook. Its still so early in his Ninja training that he hasn't really carved out a distinct role for himself, though I hope this changes as time goes on. Not too long ago I proposed a cool idea for his future if any of y'all wanna take a look at that here.

Sora - The Technical Specialist. While I don't enjoy the idea of PIXAL being replaced as the Ninja's primary vehicle builder, with Sora being the Elemental Master of Tech it seems very possible that this is where things are headed. Instead of that, I think it better for her to either focus on using her skills in the field or to specialize in Mechs. Both of these ideas come from the Elemental Mech mini-series. I thought the idea of switching up parts on a mech in the middle of a battle to be a fun concept and one giving credence to her being a Field Tech, and whenever she uses her Elemental Powers its for the purpose of creating or altering or fixing a mech about half of the time.

Wyldfyre - The Dragon Expert. Even before the Merge, the Ninja encountered Dragons a lot. Now that there are dragons seemingly everywhere, Wyldfyre seems like the perfect liaison for communicating with these dragons, assuming she can learn to cool off when its needed. She also seems to know a good amount about dragons, considering that she was easily able to identify the Wasting Sickness and make a soup to help ease the pain it caused. There's still a lot she needs to learn before anyone can consider her an expert, but with her love of dragons and the belief that she is one, I think she'd be more than willing to learn.

And there you have it. If you have any ideas or head cannons or questions surrounding this topic, I'd love to hear them!

[thewertsearch]

TG: i thought about taking his sword TG: when i was there TG: but i couldnt TG: couldnt really bring myself to try to pull it out it was too weird

Even if you did, you’d have to break it in order to wield it - and unlike your regenerating sword, I don't think Bro's katana will be very effective as a half-blade.

GG: dave we have to stop him!!!!! TG: what GG: jack! […] GG: why dont you stop jumping around through time like a maniac and stop being like a hundred daves all the time and come to my house so we can make a plan to kill him??

I’m liking this new, more pro-active Jade. With Rose distracted by Doc Scratch's games, we probably need a new leader, and I think Jade could fit the bill.

However, I don’t think any number of Daves would be enough to take Jack down. That’s exactly what Aradia tried, and we all know how that turned out. If a thousand telekinetic necromancers can't put a scratch on him, I don't think Dave will fare much better.

TG: besides we cant beat him TG: look what he did to bro and davesprite together TG: im at the top of my echeladder with all the fraymotifs and i stand no chance

Dave’s already stronger than Future Dave was when he came back to the past. His progress is astounding - but the session's power creep has got so bad that it doesn’t even matter.

Like - let's imagine, for a second, that all four kids attacked Jack with their full power, right now. If they all synergized perfectly, taking full advantage of John's hurricanes, Rose's Horrorterror connections, and all the time duplicates Dave can make....

They'd still be reduced to a fine mist.

Jack has inherited a power strong enough to raze the entire Earth, and none of the kids can touch him. Becsprite initially seemed like an opportunity to match that power, Sun-to-Sun, but Vriska, for her own godforsaken reasons, nixed that plan.

The kids have got nothing. Even their plan to cheat by destroying the Green Sun is probably hopeless, because we know it ultimately serves Doc Scratch's ends, not ours. Things are really dire.

TG: only thing we can do is hold out until the scratch GG: what is the scratch? TG: guess i shouldnt really say TG: since you sort of lead the way in making that plan

And then there's the Scratch plan itself, which is apparently Jade's idea - although I'd be extremely surprised if Doc's grubby little fingers weren't all over this one, too.

Opening rifts in space is certainly Jade's department, so I think she's going to suggest it as a counter-plan to Rose's more risky Sun strategy.

TG: if we cant beat him TG: all we can really do is exile him to a place where he cant teleport back TG: which hopefully buys us some time TG: to try to take out his power source in a crazy suicide mission

A two-pronged approach, then. They trigger the Scratch, push Jack through a rift, and then send Rose's dream self out to destroy the sun before he's able to return.

...man, this is such a dangerous idea. Even if it wasn't being influenced by Doc, it'd still set off some huge alarm bells.

Like - sure, destroying the Green Sun might help this session survive, but what about every other session? Don't they need the Sun, to power their non-corrupted First Guardians? I just think we should maybe think for a second before deleting a critical piece of the reproductive mechanism for the entire multiverse.

[cry-ptidd]

Me and my sister watched Hellsing together. Here's her opinion on the characters

- Alucard: "He's a cunt, but he's entertaining. I'd probably pay to see him in a strip club. I didn't like him and his shit-eating grin and 'master' bullshit at first, but he grew on me quick and i don't like that he grew on me. He's a complex character, and he's hot asf when he cries. Also I wish we'd seen his Dracula form for longer; that was awesome. Him and Anderson had a thing going on."

- Seras: "Didn't really mind her at first, but liked her after she drank blood. Her transformation and the guns are really fucking cool. I didn't like her voice and her whining at first but it got better after a few episodes. I like her when her personality became a little bit more spunky. Her story's fucked up."

- Integra: "Absolute bad bitch. Her attitude reminds me of myself so idk if I should like it or hate it, she's got a lot of pride which I respect. Really human and I like it, she takes no one's shit and she's a badass. Didn't even FLINCH when she got her eye shot out. Girlboss. She gives me ace vibes also."

- Walter: "I liked him, he was funny. And then he betrayed everyone and became emo. He gave good advice, and he was cool as hell with that wise older veteran vibe. I'm disappointed in him, but the plot twist was actually good. You'd notice the signs if you suspected him from the beginning."

- Pip: "He's FINE. I'd braid his hair any day. I was in love and then I mourned. I'm widowed. He was hilarious, plus his voice actor nailed the French. My favorite character. Screeched when he came back. He's a good leader and I loved his speeches, also his death made me cry. And I don't often cry when watching anime."

- Anderson: "kinda neutral. I didn't like him at first, he was obnoxious as fuck. Then he respected women and opposed Maxwell and his orders so he grew in my esteem a bit. His character is cool as fuck tho. I wish he didn't turn into a monster, he fell to the same level as Alucard. It's like human greed or desperation for power. Him and Alucard had a thing going on."

- Enrico Maxwell: "Lucius Malfoy. I hate him but not the one I hate most."

- Heinkel & Yumie: "Really like these two lesbians. So cool and I respect their resolve, especially Heinkel's. Rip Yumi. You were cool. Heinkel being intersex is a dope detail, she's very androgynous too. I like their designs."

- The major: "Augustus Gloop? I like the fact he refused vampirism, that was cool, but he's an actual fucking sociopath and I hate him"

- The Captain: "Ngl, I actually find him quite dope, aside from the nazi thing. Literally no one respected him, that shit had me crying. His face is pretty and his tits are big, even if he looks a bit goofy at times. Wish we'd seen more of him. I felt kinda bad when he got defeated."

- Schrödinger: "I want this thing dead"

- Rip van winkle: "She gives me the vibes of a Dr Seuss character."

- Zorin: "Bleach Ichigo knockoff. Fuck this bitch in particular I hate her"

- The Valentine brothers: "A slav squat necrophile and his gay brother that used to be a runway model but got cancelled after a scandal"

Overall: A hit, neither of us expected her to like it. She likes the political and literary aspects, and also finds the characters interesting. She doesn't really know how to feel about the ending; she considers it realistic and a good end, but she wished it was more epic. But from a writing perspective it's good. Also she lowkey wished Alucard would turn Integra into a vampire, just because it would be cool. Now we send each other memes about it. She calls Nendocard a whore when she passes by him, but says she'd buy a Pip nendo in a heartbeat

[snoopledrooplecheesedoodle]

Day 10: Rebirth: Sabrina

Couldn't find any picture I liked so here have Sabrina being a cutie pie with Haunter. You have a Pokémon partner which is a Vileplume Bangkai (Indonesian word that can translate to flower and corpse). You are not a trainer.

TW: Sabrina is a mixture of the anime and game, mind games, kidnapping, cruelty (not towards the reader), don't really like this one as my idea wasn't super solid I'm just simping without a plan

Saffron City was alive with the holiday season as people and pokémon alike were buzzing with holiday cheer. You and your loyal Vileplume Bangkai walk side by side in the bustling streets.

You were no trainer, but everybody should have at least one pokémon with them for safety. Your raised Bangkai from a small Oddish and he was very loyal to you. "Vileplume!" Bangkai said eyes sparkling at the poffin stand, before turning to you with eager eyes. You giggle at how motivated by food Bangkai was.

"Alright Bangkai but no more until Christmas, can't have you getting too chubby." You grin as your Vileplume huffs the scarf you put on your beloved pokémon whips in the air. You wonder how Bangkai became so dramatic (like parent like child). The man at the poffin stand smiles as you walk up to him. "Hello valued customer, are you looking to buy a poffin for your pokémon?" You smile and gesture to Bangkai who was trying to grab one off the table.

"Yes, I'd like to get a couple poffins for my Vileplume." The stand owner's eyes shine with admiration at your gluttonous grass-poison pokemon. "My word that is by far the most beautiful Vileplume I've ever seen, are you a pokémon breeder by chance?"

Bangkai puffs spores out of its flower with pride, twirling in an arrogant dance. "No, I'm just a regular citizen of Saffron, Bangkai just keeps me company." The poffin seller visibly deflates. "What a shame I was hoping I could get a pokémon as beautiful as yours." Yeah, that's enough ego fluffing for your Vileplume.

"How much do I owe you?" You ask reaching into your pocket for money. You have a basket of poffins shoved into your hands. "No please take it on the house, for your perfect pokémon." You wanted to argue but Bangkai huffed and shouted an impatient "Vileplume!", signifying he wanted his food now. "Okay Bangbang, but no more before dinner." You toss your pokemon the Sinnoh region treat which the flower pokemon eagerly gobbles up. What are you going to do with this rascal?

Sabrina hid her identity with a cloak as the successful gym leader/model didn't wish to be recognized. People were something Sabrina still despised as they were all so shallow. They admired Sabrina for being a powerful psychic and a pretty face. The only creatures that didn't scrutinize her like that were pokémon.

Sabrina felt for her Alakazam's poke ball which moved under her touch as if he sensed her distress. The gym leader sighs brushing her dark locks behind her ear, she should return to her gym. The woman turns to go until she sees a sight that stops her heart. A vileplume and human walking so happily by each other's side. Sabrina must be imagining things as most humans don't care for their pokémon as anything other than pets or weapons. Using her telepathic powers, she read your vileplume's mind.

She could hear the pokemon's thoughts on you and was stunned. How could a pokemon hold so much love and respect for a human? Sabrina stared slack jawed as your pokemon hangs onto your arm playfully, shooting toxic spores away from you. Could you be someone that Sabrina could trust? She must know more about you the mysterious resident of Saffron City and your companion.

The next morning a firm knock on your door wakes you from your sleep. What a shame you were having such a pleasant dream. Bangkai grumbles sleepily and turns away from the noise, leaving you to have to go answer the door. You grumble and stretch walking to the door only to be greeted by a stranger in a white coat. "Hello." The stranger steps back in disgust, did you really look that bad in the morning?

"I am Jason the psychic and I'm here to extend an invitation to the Saffron City gym on behalf of Sabrina." Wait you were invited to the pokémon gym as a non-trainer? By the allusive gym leader/ actress Sabrina herself. This seemed too nonsensical to be real, you must still be dreaming. You yawn and move to close the door. "Well Jason tell 'Sabrina' I'm not coming." Before you could close the door, the door was forced open by a strong force.

"Listen here you twerp, you should be grateful that Sabrina even gives you the time of day. Most of us trainers are treated like dirt so get ready to go or else." You were pissed at this guy threatening you, but he was a psychic pokemon trainer a person with pokemon ready for battle, while you're a regular citizen and Bangkai is not trained to battle. Which leads Jason's coercion to work. "Alright, let me get dressed." Jason seems satisfied with your cooperation as he smiles. "Thank you don't take long, also bring your Vileplume too. Sabrina has taken an interest in it too."

Just what was Sabrina planning for you?

Entering the gym, you see multiple trainers in white coats practice harnessing their psychic powers. Some being more successful than others, Bangkai wandered around looking at the people in awe. Your Vileplume rarely interacted with trainers much less other pokemon.

Jason rolls his eyes at your awe and confusion at the new surroundings. He approaches very elaborate double doors and opens them with a flourish. On the other side is a long hallway with a throne where a beautiful woman with long flowing hair that was such a dark green it was almost black. While her face was bored her pinkish red eyes grow a sparkle of life when they spot you.

"Very good you're not totally useless, shut the door behind you." Jason spluttered at the gym leader's blunt response. "Sabrina I-I wanted to talk to you about something for a while. I-" The man was frozen in place screaming in terrible pain as a blue outline glowed around him. While Jason was a jerk you felt bad for the poor man.

"I don't speak to subordinates unless I wish to, you are excused Jason." You then see the poor man stumble to the door limping in pain. You jump when the doors shut leaving just you, Bangkai, and Sabrina.

"Come closer I wish to observe you up close." The flat monotone voice pulls you like you were hypnotized. "Plume!" Bangkai pulls on your outfit with a worried look. You stop and bend down to Bangkai's level. "It's okay buddy we're just visiting, when we leave, I'll take you to the pokecafe so you can play with the owner's Jigglypuff." Your Vileplume brightens once more, jumping on you excitedly at the word "play" and "pokemon".

You look to see Sabrina looking on at your interaction with Bangkai with interest. "You're Vileplume seems content with you." You grin sheepishly as you attempt to calm down the hyper poison type. "Bangkai's my best friend, he's been with me since he was a little Oddish. He's a stinker for sure but I love him all the same." Bangkai jumps for joy and exclaims a happy "Vilplume!"

Sabrina stares at you for a moment before nodding. "I would like to battle your Vilplume if you don't mind." You freeze with terror and step in front of Bangkai protectively. "Bangbang isn't a trained pokemon, I don't want him getting hurt." Sabrina's frown deepens. "I wasn't asking, I'm challenging you. It's common etiquette to accept a gym leader's challenge in her own gym." You sweat nervously, you known Sabrina specializes in psychic types, which are super effective against poison types like Bangkai.

You look at your Vileplume who looks at you with a new determined look. You've never seen Bangkai look so serious before, perhaps its worth a try. "Alright, I accept your challenge." Sabrina smirks before standing up from her chair. "Excellent, however I'd like to make a wager." You are further confused what could you possibly have that Sabrina would want. "Okay what are you betting?" Sabrina looks you up and down. "Loser must do whatever the winner commands." You blanch at this odd bet; she's expecting for you to become her toy.

"Okay seems fair, I'll do it." Sabrina's eyes glow with a new emotion you have yet to see on anyone. Sabrina guides you to the battlefield where you stand with Bangkai on one side, Sabrina on the other. "Mr. Mime come out." Sabrina tosses a pokeball which opens revealing the creepy mime pokemon in all its glory. Alright should be fine. You rack your brain for pokemon moves a grass poison type can use. Sabrina doesn't wait as her Mr. Mime use psybeam. "Bangkai dodge!" Your Vileplume jumps out of the way.

Sabrina sends psychic attack after psychic attack which you tell your Vileplume to dodge, hoping to just tire out her pokemon. Sabrina glares before returning her Mr. Mime to its pokeball. "Alakazam win this battle!" Oh no, not her famed Alakazam. You've heard nightmare stories about how ruthless this pokemon was towards their team.

Sabrina looks at her Alakazam who nods and instead of attacking your pokemon it sends a power psychic attack your way. Was this woman crazy, people could die if hit by a powerful pokemon! You duck praying the attack misses you, but hear something odd. "Plume!" Bangkai jumps in the way and shoots spores at the incoming attack destroying the ground instead of you.

"Bangkai...you saved me." Bangkai turns to you and nods protectively standing in front of you. Sabrina's Alakazam teleports forwards but Bangkai uses Petal blizzard which stops the Alakazam from getting closer. Your Vileplume uses moves you never thought possible, some even hitting the Alakazam. This is it you might win your first pokémon battle. However, Sabrina was prepared as Alakazams Future Sight hits Bangkai knocking the poor pokemon down.

"Plume..." The Vileplume weakly croaks out, that's it you were ending this. "Sabrina, I forfeit just please don't hurt Bangkai anymore." Sabrina lets a cruel grin cover her face. "Very well as the winner I now get to command you to do anything I want." You flinch hoping she would just hurt you and end this terrible moment.

"Kiss me." What? Did you hear the gym leader correctly? Sabrina narrows her eyes at your hesitancy, a powerful force brings you forward till your face was near hers. "Kiss me or I won't release you." You shiver at her power but do as she wants planting your lips softly on her own. You try to pull back quickly but the Psychic type trainers wraps her arms around you pulling you further into her.

When she's had her fill, she parts causing you to gasp for air. "As I thought you are perfect for me." You stand confused and scared. "Okay Sabrina I'm going to go to the pokemon center to heal Ban-" You're stopped by the beauty's psychic powers. "No you're not, an assistant of mine can do that. I command you to come sit on my lap." You are force to come sit on the emotionless woman's lap as she strokes your head. "You are now my partner, and you will be living with me from now on. Disobey me and I will hurt your Vileplume so bad that he'll wish for death." You stare at the pink eyed woman in fear, how could your city's gym leader be so cruel?

"Alright, just please don't hurt my buddy." Sabrina nods before tilting your chin up. "Tell me you love me." Afraid of the consequences you stammer an I love you out. Sabrina seems to genuinely smile for the first time since you've seen her.

"Good, now kiss me again."

Sabrina's ideas were reborn as she no longer hated all humans, you were human and she loved you dearly.

This is slightly longer than expected, I kind of want to make this into a full fic. If anyone wants a full Yandere Sabrina fic with Bangkai, let me know. Also the full fic will be better fleshed out and Sabrina will be a bit more sympathetic (she's still going to threaten everyone around you to get you to fall in line).

[gaywarcriminals]

hello! how are you going? do you have any svsss fic recs you enjoyed?

Aside from the usual Horrors, I'm quite well!! I hope you are too ^^

Oh wow, It's a bit hard to pick just a few because I've read a lot of SVSSS fics in the past few years, but here's the ones that came to mind/ I've been thinking about recently! (I'm excluding ones that I already recommended this week for the ask game, you can check out my "ask fish" tag to see those. Edit: I made a "fish recommends" tag too.)

Qijiu:

"i bury my voice for you" (series) by lithali. Space opera AU, Shen twins, everyone is aliens, intense qijiu longing, SJ’s unending font of angsty internal dialogue, and kinky qijiu sex feat transmasc SJ. I need more people to read this one!!!!!!!

"Palimpsest" by Azzandra. YQY loses his memories and tries to piece together how SJ fits in his life from what others tell him. I adore this fic, it's a really interesting examination of both their characters and why they love each other intrinsically. 

"You Were You, And I Was I" by MissMegh. Deaged qijiu being feral, clinging, and horny teenagers. Super cute and funny!

"what thing it is (that people most desire)" by Jinxed_Ink. A vaguely medieval AU based on an Arthurian legend where SJ disguises himself and blackmails YQY into marrying him for Revenge. SJ has Absolutely No Other Motive There. I didn't know how much I needed this particular brand of qijiu marriage shenanigans until I read it.

"I'm just as exposed (when i take off my clothes)" by owoxian. Qijjiu being weird and horny (as they deserve), being misinterpreted as abuse by accidental voyer MQF. 

"The Sect Leader’s Husband" by AMereDream. Canon divergence where YQY came back for SJ on time, and instead of becoming the QJP head disciple, SJ married YQY and became the power behind the throne. Cute power couple qijiu!!!

"The Heart Is A Sword" by Moonsheen. A-Su, a boy who is a sword, the emperor's weapon, is appointed personal attendant to the emperor's new consort Shen. PIDW post-canon.

Bingqiu:

"Rehearsal" by Prim_the_Amazing. Binghe, fresh from the abyss, uses a dream realm to run through all the ways his reunion with SQQ might go. This one is basically pure angst but it's SO good.

"How to Meal Prep - Household Tips, Recipes, and Ideas for a Better-Organised Life!" By x_los. Character study of 17-year-old preeminent housewife Binghe. It's cute, it's weird, and it's terribly tragic on account of the Dramatic Irony.

"Futility in Practice" by TGP. Time loop fic with a REALLY cool style of story telling. Repetitive but iterative text from Binghe, the non-looping character's POV as SQQ desperately tries to find the right answer to end the loop. Very angsty!

"it's not gay if you don't touch my ass ... unless?" by azunshi. Modern AU, SY wants to have sex with Binghe but ofc that would be gay, so instead he puts a cocksleeve up his ass for binghe to fuck instead. This fic is so deeply stupid (positive/complimentary), I love it, it's the exact brand of unhinged this whole fandom is slowlyy becoming.

"Songs of a Wayfarer" by foxflowering. Ballet AU with young prodigy LBH and his teacher SY! 

Binggeyuan:

"to find an intended (a bit unintentionally)" by nyoomerr. This is the classic. Wandering cultivator SY accidentally doms Bingge into being a good boy. 

"broken glass, swept away" by aaeph. Modern AU, SY buys a home only to find it haunted by the centuries old ghost of a demonic emperor. Bingge tries so hard to push SY away over and over, but SY is a stubborn man.

Jiuyuan:

"Jump To The Left" by ValiantBarnes (Cimila). I'm not sure quite how to describe this one without spoilers, but essentially, older Shen Yuan finds and saves SJ in the era he was following WYZ. SY takes SJ as a traveling companion/sort of disciple. CW for mentions of incest/psuedo-incest (no actual incest though).

"Immortal Shen Does Not Do Online Deliveries" by Anonymous. SY, a young cultivator and scholar, goes to ask the reclusive immoral master SQQ for an elixir. SQQ toys with him a little <3. Mean SQQ and flustered SY.

Gen/ No Ship:

"Rat Trap" by Azaisya. LQG & SJ. LQG and SJ are kidnapped, they get truth serum-ed, and they're forced to confront their different background and conflicting morals and methods that stem from that. I think this is my favorite execution of "LQG learns SJ's backstory and Has Regrets", because their conflict is explicitly framed as a class divide rather than just misunderstandings, and it addresses the flaws in both their resulting worldviews to some extent. 

"Sit With Your Soul" by Tossawary. SJ & SY. This is a fusion with His Dark Materials, but no knowledge is required. Basically everyone has an animal companion that's connected to and represents their soul, and SY transmigrates into SQQ's. 

[simpforchuchu]

War of Hearts ⎮1

storylist

It is highly unlikely to spend a quiet day in the SWORD region. You can come across a fight in every street and every town. But it is not ordinary for several schools to unite and attack a school.

Everyone in this alliance, established under the leadership of the leader of Senomon High School, had their own reasons. Power, money, revenge…

But Shoji Sameoka wasn't interested in any of that. He didn't want to leave his childhood friends alone in any fight. But he was quite uncomfortable with this alliance.

Students were shouting and fists flying in the air. He was so bored that he didn't even bother taking his hands out of his pockets. When the boy he hit hard rolled on the ground and stood under the feet of the leader he hated, he looked at him once again. He really didn't trust him. And he wanted to punch him hard.

~*~*~*~

Oya High School was having an ordinary day that morning. Fujio, Tsukasa, Jamuo, and YasuKiyo duo were arguing over a ridiculous incident. Todoroki was reading a book on the couch a little further away and Tsuji was playing a mobile game on his phone. Nakagoshi and Nakaoka were listening to their senpais’ heated argument.

It was an ordinary morning. The whereabouts of the two people who were not in the attic were a mystery. Tsuji looked up from the phone and looked around, realizing that the sound he heard was coming from the stairs.

He hadn't heard wrong; when the young girl ran into the attic, everyone turned to her.

“Oh, Yuuka-chan!”

When Fujio excitedly called out to the young girl, Yuuka ran towards Todoroki and Tsuji before she could look at him. When Tsuji stood up in surprise, Yuuka quickly hid behind the tall boy and whispered.

“Please hide me”

It didn't take long for Tsuji to figure out who the young girl was running away from. A minute or two later, he realized what had happened when Shiba entered the attic screaming.

"Where is she ?!"

"Who ?" Tsuji asked and everyone started listening. Todoroki was still calmly reading his book, he was quite used to this scene. Shiba looked at Tsuji as if to say are you serious? There was only one female student in this school.

“Yuuka, where is that little demon?!”

Tsuji wanted to laugh but remained serious. Even though his large body covered the young girl up, Yuuka's sneezing made all his efforts go in vain.

Even though the young girl wanted to run towards Fujio in fear, Shiba stood in front of her and pulled her by holding her hood.

"You are not going anywhere."

Yuuka smiled, raised her head, and looked at Shiba. Looking at them incomprehensibly, Fujio asked:

"What's going on?"

“She stole my lunch that I put in my locker, again.”

Tsuji grinned at what Shiba said and walked towards them. 

“But I was really hungry!”

He pulled Shiba back slightly and laughed

“Okay, that's enough. You argue every day over some stupid reason. Yuuka will treat us ramen today.”

"But-"

When Shiba turned to the young girl, she nodded and acknowledged him. She smiled sweetly and Tsuji pulled Shiba outside, went to buy something instead of his lunch.

Yuuka laughed and sat next to Todoroki and watched him silently for a while. Todoroki, who felt like he was being watched from the very beginning but wanted her to talk now, turned his head towards her.

"Is there a problem ?"

Yuuka shrugged.

“Then why are you starring at me ?”

“I don't know if it's actually a problem. But I heard that Senomon students raided my old high school.”

Todoroki didn't say anything. But when he thought that Senomon was quite far from there, he realized that something was wrong and that Yuuka suspected something. He also knew that after Murayama, other schools often challenged them, and he felt that danger was near.

~*~*~*~

Shoji was quite grumpy after the morning's fight. He was generally a quiet person anyway. Now he didn't speak at all.

Fujin knew that his friend was not happy with this alliance and couldn’t stand it.

“Same, we can't leave the alliance now.”

Shoji rolled his eyes and stood up.

“I told you from the beginning that we didn't need them. I don't like that bastard.”

“But-“

“But what ?” Shoji raised his voice but then stopped. “You know he is not like us. He is using money, not his fists!”

“Does it matter ?”

Shoji looked at his best friend and couldn’t say anything.He knew he wanted to say something else but he choosed to leave.Fujin shook his head and stopped his friend who was about to leave by holding his shoulder.

“We will just fight with Todoroki and it will be over. You know."

Shoji shook his head. He didn't want to fight. Without saying anything, he headed towards the door to leave the junkyard.

Fujin silently watched his friend leave. He knew Shoji would come back for them. He would always be there for the fight. But he knew he wasn't happy about it.

Shoji couldn't understand the reason for the uneasy feeling he had as he walked through the dark streets. He was going to get into this fight for his friends, but every time he thought about this fight, he thought of the girl he met at the arcade that day.

Was fate really going to bring the two of them face to face?

~*~*~*~

Yuuka, on the other hand, was not aware that the gift she received at the arcade would change her life. She often sees the little plush toy hanging in her bag, but she doesn't know that she will hate that toy very soon.

She knew that the danger in and around the school had increased lately. Even though she was the last one to come to this school, she loved her friends very much. They were like family to her. And Yuuka was a girl who was ready to do anything for her family.

Just, she didn't know that fate would bring her and the boy she liked face to face awfully because of her family...

[nevis-the-skeleton]

Hello : What if Starscream had found the minicons in Cybertron back when the war first started. The minicons ( Swindle, the Star Saber minicons, and the Sky boom shield minicons) were captured to be sold to clients but Starscream had rescued them and now the minicons trust him, enough to even show Starscream their power. Swindle had created a bond with Starscream while the rest had created a friendship bond with Starscream. The friendship bond is not as strong as the bond Swindle has with Starscream but it was a bond none the less. Being bonded meant They could feel each others feelings and Starscream could understand the beeping the minions did (He understands Swindle easier because he only has a friendship bond with the rest not because they don't trust him but because Starscream can not be bonded to more that one minicon ) .

Megatron does not know about the minicons living and hiding on his ship. He does find out in the end, making that Starscream run away. Starscream and the minicons were spotted by the Autobots when the Autobots got an Energon signal (Starscream and the Minicons Energon signal).

The Autobots attacked Starscream thinking that he was hurting the mini Cybertronians, They were able to cuff Starscream's wings and hands. What they didn't expect was for the mini Cybertronians to attack them! The Starscteam saber Minicons turned in to jets and flew around the Autobots whild the Skyboom Shield Minicons transformed and drove around the Autobots to distract them while Swindle attacks them with his null rays. Swindle almost kills Optimus if Starscream didn't tell him to stop and told the minicons that the Autobots were who they have been looking for, for the past week.

The Autobots take him to their base where they question him about the so called Minicons. I basically just added the Armada minicons in the the Transformers PRIME universe. (request on Ao3)

Thanks for your request Hello ^^ ! It's an interesting way to mix two universe ^^

~~~

Starscream usually shunned the Black Market like the Rust cosmic, but the Decepticons had some business to do with bounty hunters, although that didn't appeal to the jet.

The Market was generally not very safe for a Seeker, and especially for an Energon Seeker, but Megatron needed him so that they could talk to these mobsters, which justified his presence in this sordid place...

Starscream was camouflaged by a hooded cape, but he really couldn't wait to get out of here…! Hiding his wings was really painful, especially when he had to keep them in such an unpleasant and unusual position...

The leader of the Decepticons had of course specified to Starscream that he should not walk away from him in any way, which the Seeker had no intention of doing anyway. The ex-gladiator was the only bulwark between him and those grime-covered brigands, and there was no way a single one of them would touch him!

That was the basic plan, and he didn't quite understand how he had managed to lose his group... The jet looked around in confusion, wondering when he could have gotten distracted enough to be left behind by Megatron and the others...

Uh… Was panicking justified right now? Because he really wanted to. He began to look around in anguish, while insulting his leader of all names for having had the brilliant idea to take him with him. He didn't even want to come!

The Seeker paced the long maze of the Market, being approached every five minutes by a salesman who always took a certain pleasure in invading his personal space. He suddenly had his arm grabbed by someone and found himself face to face with a robot covered in grime.

“Hey! Wanna buy something?!"

The jet couldn't hide his disgust, and suddenly freed himself, before exclaiming:

"Don't touch me, you miserable ragamuffin!"

The flyer froze a little when he heard the huge silence that followed, and he really regretted his words… Why couldn't he shut up?! The old robot who had approached him scratched his chin, before putting on a very commercial smile, and saying:

“Excuse my brutality, my lord. Maybe I should've been more careful.

- Yeah… It's fine, goodbye… Starscream replied, fighting against his wings so that they didn't express his distrust and his stress.

- You seem like a mech with taste, you're interested in stuff?

- No…!

- You'ven't even looked! Com' on, sir, just take a look."

Starscream began to see the robots around him begin to approach, and that only made him more tense… Was he in the middle of an ambush…? Had he betrayed a Vossian accent in his anger…?

“~ Run away, quick…! ~”

The Seeker turned in surprise to the voice, and saw a minicon locked in a cage, along with others like him. There must have been at least seven of them in this tiny prison… Nobody seemed to hear the speech of the red minicon, who stared insistently at the flyer, urging him to leave.

"So this is how you treat your wares...?" the jet fumed, pointing at the little robots.

He couldn't help but feel sorry for these little beings, even though it really wasn't the time.

"Oh! Interested in this item?! smiled the Merchant, completely changing the subject.

- I did not say that…

- ~ Run! ~” repeated the red minicon insistently.

The jet noticed that he was getting more and more surrounded, and decided to cut the conversation short. He started to walk away without saying a word, when he was blocked by a large robot that got in his way. Starscream frowned, and had to refrain from raising his wings in his anger.

"Get out of my way!" the Seeker got angry.

The big robot shoved him roughly in response, sending the jet into the mud! The flyer dodged a sword thrust from another brigand, and retaliated by kicking him directly in the head, sending him into a wall! Time froze a bit, before everyone around him drew their weapons!

“… Oh…” Starscream stammered.

He dodged the shots, and jumped towards the Merchant, before sending him out of the counter to hide behind! He fired a missile at his attackers, and was suddenly grabbed by the Merchant! The robot caressed his arms with his filthy hands, and grabbed his waist. He smiled, before exclaiming:

“A Vossian is worth a lot! Very expensive!! Many love having their services! These are usually the ones that give the most pleasure!"

Starscream couldn't contain his wings, which flew up in rage and disgust! He brutally pushed this waste away and grabbed the first thing that came to hand, before smashing the object with force on the helmet of this disgusting pervert! The Merchant crashed head first, then the Seeker turned and fired at anyone who got too close for his liking.

He heard a small beep, and noted with shock that the blunt object he had used to crush the head of this pervert was the cage of the minicons. Two of them were rubbing their backs in pain, and the jet quickly took cover under the counter, before saying:

"Oh, scrap…! I'm sorry… !"

Part of the counter was blown up by a cannon shot, and the red minicon who had spoken to him earlier exclaimed:

“~ Free us! ~”

The flyer nodded, understanding that the little robots wanted to be free. He noticed a hole in a wall, big enough for them to pass through, and opened the cage.

“I think you can escape that way, just make sure you don't get caught." Starscream declared, pointing to their escape route.

All the minicons turned to him, and the Seeker gave a confused look when they looked at him with a hint of grief. The jet insisted with a wave of the hand, then exclaimed:

"Come on! What are you waiting for?!"

The shots continued to fly above them, and the flyer knew perfectly well that the counter was not going to last long…! It was then that he heard the loading of a cannon, and saw his enemies being propelled backwards by a large lilac explosion!

Starscream jumped up, and raised his wings, expecting this attacker to be a new opponent, who didn't want competitors. The Seeker unsheathed his blasters, and came out of hiding, before pointing his weapons at this enemy, ready to fire! The jet stopped quickly, when he saw who he had in front of him, and was surprised:

“Lord Megatron?!"

The latter approached angrily towards him, then exclaimed:

"What don't you understand about 'don't walk away from me'?!"

Starscream lowered his head in shame, knowing perfectly well that he had done scrap… The leader of the Decepticons had been very clear, and yet the Seeker had managed to get lost… The ex-gladiator finally calmed down, and sighed strongly, before asking:

"Are you hurt?

- No…" the jet replied simply, frowning, without looking at his leader.

He knew he had been wrong, but that didn't mean he had appreciated that Megatron yelled at him like to a Sparkling… The ex-gladiator noticed the mud on his Commander, then asked:

"You fell?

- I have been pushed.

- …

- And that pervert touched me!"

Starscream pointed an accusing finger with a look filled with disgust at the Merchant who had had the audacity to approach him, and Megatron motioned for the Vehicons to take care of his case, before motioning for the Seeker to follow him.

"He's not likely to do that now." the leader of the Decepticons declared, while screams could be heard in the distance.

~

After the long day, Starscream sighed in relief when he was finally able to lie down on his charging table. The Seeker rested his arms over his optics, shielding them from the light of his lamp.

It was then that the jet heard a familiar little beep, and quickly sat down on his bunk. He turned his head towards the sound, and couldn't contain a gasp of surprise when he found himself facing the minicons who were at the Black Market.

"Oh?! But what are you doing here?! How did you get in?!

- ~ We wanted to be with you! ~” replied the red minicon.

The others nodded vigorously, and the flyer knelt down to be level with them, unable to hide his concern. He looked at the door several times, fearing that someone would open it and discover the little beings…!

"No… ! You can't stay…!

- ~ Why? ~

- Because it's too dangerous…! If Shockwave finds out about you...!

- ~ It's dangerous everywhere. And then, we have nowhere to go… ~

- …

- ~ Instead of talking about the obvious, let's introduce ourselves! I'm Swindle, and you? ~”

The minicon had cut the discussion short, and Starscream had to admit that little Swindle was the stubborn type. He knew it wasn't safe for them here, but he also knew it wasn't better outside...

The Seeker thought about how he could always hide them in his room, away from prying eyes. Besides, those minicons weren't giving him any looks of disdain or contempt, it was kind of nice. Maybe it wasn't so bad to keep these little robots after all.

“My name is Starscream." smiled the jet.

~

Time passed, and the minicons never left Starscream. They very often wanted to accompany him out of his room, but the Seeker knew that it was far too dangerous for them. He didn't want them to suffer the same fate as Soundwave's minicons, being sent to the battlefield.

The jet knew Megatron, and he knew that these minicons would be used as weapons, especially with the powers they possessed. It had taken a while for the small group to show him their powers, but the flyer understood why, he was sure that was the primary reason that had brought them as wares to the Black Market.

Swindle had a special power called Null Rays, which allowed him to disable any form of electronic device, including robots. In addition to being a destructive ray in itself, it also had irreversible damage to the affected machines.

Starscream had learned this the hard way when he injured himself repairing a machine, and the minicon mistook it for an attack on the Seeker, and simply destroyed the device, rendering it useless.

Dirt Boss, Downshift, and Mirage were different from Swindle, as they needed to combine for their power to work. Their ability was to create an indestructible shield even more powerful than the Force Field Generator. The only time the minicons used it was during an inside attack.

A mole had planted bombs all over the Nemesis, which caused a lot of damage, as well as many deaths. And, Starscream knew that if the minicons hadn't been there for him, he would surely be one with the All-Spark by now.

Of course, the fact that the Seeker emerged unscathed from this attack had led to many suspicions about him, which had caused him a lot of problems. He was watched even more often by Soundwave, who was always looking for the culprit, and the jet was the number one suspect, obviously.

Swindle was able to get out of the chamber, mostly due to his power, which allowed him to turn off the cameras when needed. He was quick to find the mole, and quickly informed Starscream.

The red minicon was the only one the Seeker could fully understand, as he was the one he bonded with the first time they met. That didn't mean he wasn't attached to the other little robots, but the bond was only possible between a single Transformer and a single minicon. Kind of like Soundwave and Laserbeak.

Of course, when the jet found out who the mole was, he had only one thing on his mind, and that was to confront them! Because of this fragger he lived a daily hell, filled with this obvious suspicion and distrust from others, especially Megatron.

Starscream confronted the robot, and things didn't quite go as he had planned. Even if he hadn't planned much at the beginning, due to his impulsiveness… Jetstorm, Runway and Sonar were the ones who intervened, guided by Swindle who called them for help.

The Seeker then had in hand a simply devastating weapon, which got the better of his enemy in one shot! The truth was soon revealed afterwards, and of course no one thought it right to apologize to the jet for these terrible accusations against him. Apparently he didn't deserve it...

Starscream didn't care, he had ended up getting used to it… He was later tempted to annihilate all his ingrates with his new power, but quickly resigned himself. He couldn't do that to the minicons… Not after all the trust they had placed in him… He didn't feel like betraying them, because it meant losing the only friends he had.

~

The Decepticons eventually left Cybertron, in pursuit of the Autobots, and the war continued on Earth. What Starscream didn't know was that Swindle came out of his room very often to wander around the Nemesis. It wasn't long before the camera cuts were noticed by Soundwave, as the red minicon became less and less cautious.

What had to happen happened, and Swindle was caught by Megatron with the help of Soundwave. It didn't take long for the little robot to call for help, and Starscream froze when he saw the red minicon trapped in his leader's large hand.

“So the Autobots found minicons, huh! cried out the ex-gladiator angrily, tightening his grip on Swindle.

- Lord Megatron, don't kill him…! exclaimed the Seeker.

- And why this ?!"

Megatron angrily advanced towards his second-in-command, not understanding why the jet was so keen on keeping this spy alive. Swindle struggled in his grip, as the position he was in did not allow him to use his Null Rays, rendering him simply helpless.

"He has… maybe some… information…? About the Autobots…? spluttered the jet.

- Do you really think they would have given any information to a minicon?! Are you stupid?! Megatron replied.

- You're not even sure he's a spy…!

- Lord Megatron!" called out a Vehicon.

The trio looked towards the drone, and the flyer froze when he saw that he was holding Runway, the other minicons being held back by other soldiers.

“They were wandering around the ship looking for something! explained the Vehicon.

- Surely looking for their sidekick!" growled the leader of the Decepticons.

Starscream clenched his wings in anguish, as he slowly lost control of the situation. His stress didn't fail Soundwave, who tensed as he eyed him suspiciously.

"Let's get rid of these snoopers, before they send a distress signal to our enemies!" exclaimed the ex-gladiator.

The Seeker turned to the Communications Commander, but wasn't quite sure what he wanted from the spy plane. Maybe he wanted him to intervene, wanted that Soundwave stop Megatron from killing the minicons… The jet didn't even know what to do anymore, as panic took over.

The Decepticon leader's grip grew stronger on Swindle, who beeped in pain as the other minicons and the flyer looked on in bewilderment. Starscream wasn't quite sure when his body decided to react, but he barely had time to fire his missile at Megatron, as Soundwave launched his cables towards the Seeker to stop him.

The missile hit the ex-gladiator head-on, who in surprise and pain released his grip on Swindle! The red minicon quickly activated his Null Rays, and killed the Vehicons holding his friends back, before rushing towards Starscream, who was struggling against an angry Soundwave!

The Seeker clawed at the visor of the Communications Commander, who backed away and released his grip on the jet. Megatron soon got to his feet, his back smoking from the attack of his traitorous Commander, and yelled:

"You betrayed me for the last time, Starscream!"

He aimed his cannon at the flyer, and the Seeker knew he had no way to dodge…! Dirt Boss, Downshift and Mirage assembled before getting in front of the jet, and forming a shield that stopped the deadly attack of the ex-gladiator, under the shocked gaze of the Decepticons! Swindle created a breach in the ship with his power, and beeped:

“~ Quick! We must go! ~”

Starscream quickly grabbed the six minicons, before jumping into the void with Swindle, who had already left the ship. The Seeker transformed into his alternate mode, and allowed the smaller robots to enter his cockpit, before flying full speed away from the Nemesis, pursued by the Vehicons.

He wasted no time in defeating them all, with the help of Jetstorm, Runway and Sonar who together formed the destructive sword that allowed Starscream to defend himself from the mole! Megatron and Soundwave watched the short battle in shock, as the Vehicons all fell from the sky, while the Seeker flew away from the ship.

~

Starscream eventually lands, much later that night. The Seeker hid in a cave, and allowed the minicons out. Swindle didn't fail to notice the downcast state of the jet, which had his wings and his head down. The little red robot placed a comforting hand on the flyer's, and beeped:

"~ Are you okay…? ~"

- Honestly…? no… Starscream sighed.

- ~ … ~

- I almost lost you all today… I couldn't protect you… I'm sorry…

- ~… I'm the one who's sorry… I wasn't careful enough… Sorry, Starscream… ~

- It's fine… "

The other minicons approached in turn, showing in turn how sorry they were, and that they didn't want it to happen like this… They had seen that they had endangered the Seeker, and that had never been their intention.

"Let's not talk about it anymore, it's in the past now…" replied the jet, before lying down.

The minicons lay down next to the flyer, who hid his distress as best he could, as he realized they had nowhere left to go...

~

Starscream was awakened by footsteps not far from the cave, and raised his wings in alert, as the sounds got closer! The minicons soon got up as well, and tensed when they heard voices.

"Are you sure the signal was coming from here, Doc? asked a teasing voice.

- More than sure! And don't call me "Doc"! replied another with annoyance.

- In your opinion, where does this energon signal come from? someone beeped.

- I don't know, Bumblebee, but considering the energy that this thing deploys, it must be colossal, or of an unparalleled power." replied a deep, calm voice.

The Seeker went deeper into the cave, as he easily recognized the Autobots…! He had heard Wheeljack, Ratchet, Bumblebee and Optimus, but he didn't know if there were others with them.

The jet closed his optics and activated his energon radar, but he couldn't see anything, his radar being invaded by a huge energon source next to him. He opened his eyes and looked in surprise at the minicons. It was from them that all this energy came from?! How was that possible?!

Starscream cursed quietly, realizing that it was jamming his radar too much for him to be able to detect the exact presence of the Autobots, as well as their numbers! His motion radar wasn't precise enough… The Seeker motioned the minicons to follow him, and decided to take the path opposite the voices, hoping to find an exit there. It was then that he heard someone exclaim:

"Screamer?!"

The jet raised his wings in surprise, and didn't even waste time looking at who was behind him to fire his missile! Wheeljack narrowly dodged, and was knocked to the ground by the explosion, while the flyer took the opportunity to flee.

Starscream grabbed the minicons, because even though they could transform to go faster, the path in the cave was too perilous for their little alt modes to follow without crashing.

The jet saw light and wasted no time heading towards it, before stopping when he found himself facing Optimus, Bulkhead and Ratchet, who were waiting for him at the exit. The flyer heard blasters charging behind him, and his motion radar picked up three shapes. He couldn't use his energon radar to verify who it was, but he could tell there was Wheeljack and Bumblebee.

"Drop those minicons, Starscream!" hissed a female voice.

The Seeker thus guessed Arcee's presence, but did not obey her order, keeping the small robots close to him. His disobedience only made his enemies even more tense, who were soon all pointing their guns at him!

Starscream lifted his wings and squeezed them behind his back, finding himself surrounded! He thought about defending himself with his weapons, but he quickly received a message that prevented him from going further in his idea.

"Alert! Energon Remaining: 14%!"

Wheeljack saw the Seeker's wings unfurl, and didn't hesitate to shoot him several times in the back, without risking hitting the minicons in the process. The jet screamed in pain and dropped the little robots as he fell!

Swindle beeped in panic and horror, as the flyer collapsed to the ground hissing in pain, his back smoking and his wings damaged. Energon began to flow from Starscream's wounds, and all the minicons crowded around him, not knowing what to do.

The red minicon was the first to react, clenching his fists in rage, before his power energy began to surround him! The Autobots back away, and ducked just in time when a large explosion passed over them!

Jetstorm, Runway, and Sonar transformed into their flying modes and began attacking Transformers from the air, while Dirt Boss, Downshift, and Mirage attacked from the ground, their grounder modes having enough force to knock down smaller Autobots, such as Arcee or Bumblebee. Starscream watched the whole thing in panic, having never wanted a fight to start with the Autobots…!

They were the only chance for the little minicons to have a safe place to live, clearly not being able to stay renegade with the Seeker. It was far too dangerous for them…!

Swindle fired a first shot of Null Ray against Optimus, who, being more robust, resisted the attack even though he was very unsettled. Prime lost the use of his legs for a time, and couldn't hide his surprise. He put his arms out in front of him, as the red minicon was about to fire again, when they heard:

“Swindle, stop!"

The little robot ceased his action, and turned to Starscream, before running towards him. The other minicons were quick to follow Swindle, as the Seeker barely knelt on the ground, struggling to avoid moving his wings as much as possible.

"~ They attacked you…! They are mean! ~ angrily beeped the red minicon.

- No… listen… whispered the jet. You will go with them…”

The little robots made indignant sounds, flatly refusing the flyer's speech.

“~ They are evil! ~ Swindle insisted ardently.

- They thought they were doing well… I'm an enemy for them… answered Starscream discreetly.

- ~ We are also their enemies in this case! ~

- No, listen, it's too dangerous for you to stay with me…

- ~ Why?! ~

- I'm a renegade now, Swindle… That means no place to live, no energon, no security, no doctor… You understand?

- ~ It's dangerous for you too…~”

The minicons began to cry, much to the dismay of the Seeker who had no idea how to console them. He had never been very good at it, and no matter how hard he searched, he couldn't find a single solution that could calm them down.

The jet saw Optimus and Ratchet move closer to him, while the others all watched from a distance, with a hint of wariness. The flyer tightened his wings, despite his injuries, and cast a suspicious look at the pair of Autobots, who were getting too close for his liking.

Prime knelt down in front of Starscream, get on the same level as him, much to the Seeker's surprise. The jet frowned, and pulled away slightly, not trusting the closeness.

“You know I could easily rip your neck out from this distance." the flyer threatened, which resulted in tensing them all up, all but the leader of the Autobots.

Optimus was silent for a while, before asking:

"Do you intend to do this?

- Wh…?! uh... No… "

Starscream lowered his head and wings, then looked away, fists clenched. He just wanted the Autobots to take the minicons with them, and protect them, that's all! But he knew it wasn't a request he could easily make... They were suspicious and on their guard, and the slightest mistake could endanger him, but also the minicons...

"I'm not looking to fight…" the Seeker finally said, under the saddened gaze of Swindle, who kept trying to stop him in his speech.

The jet didn't know why it was so hard to make this request, when he knew perfectly well that it was best for the little robots. It was his only way to protect them, so why was it so hard?!

"I'm a renegade now… I have nowhere to go…

- You think we're going to take you on our team?! snapped Arcee vigorously.

- No…! Starscream replied, frowning.

- What are you looking for in this case? Bulkhead asked.

- I just want you to take these minicons with you…

- Why? Wheeljack wondered in wariness.

- Stop being suspicious for two seconds…! the Seeker hissed angrily, looking up at the Autobots. If I had wanted to destroy you I would have just had to ask Swindle and his friends to continue attacking you…!

- …

- What do you expect from us, Starscream? asked Optimus.

- Megatron is convinced that they are spies on your behalf, they are no longer safe with the Decepticons…

- I think a lot of explanation is needed. Ratchet said.

- I'm just asking you to take them, is it so difficult?!

- They have a phenomenal power, why not keep them? Bumblebee beeped.

- Renegade life is dangerous…! What a stupid question…!

- You don't want to join us? Optimus asked.

- Be serious for a second, Prime…!

- I'm serious.

- Optimus?! wondered the doctor.

- The minicons don't seem to want to abandon you, why force yourself to separate from them?

- They're kinda with me by default. replied the jet.

- I don't have that impression of it.

- …

- If they chose you, it's for a reason, you can be sure. Minicons do not choose by chance."

The flyer lowered his head in sorrow, before answering:

"Stop, you're only making it harder for me...

- No, I'm offering you an alternative.

- …?!

- Join us, Starscream."

Optimus stood up, and extended his hand towards the Seeker, who looked at it unsure how to react, before being encouraged by Swindle and the other minicons. Starscream grabbed the outstretched hand of this robot who was no gain in this, and stood up among this team, who would eventually accept him, and the minicons, into their family.

[aleksanderscult]

Analyzing "Demon in the Wood" (book) - Part 3

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 4 and Part 5 🫶)

⚠️TW: BULLYING⚠️

I managed to squeeze more than 20 images in this (yay!🎉) so prepare yourselves for a loong meta this time.

That's both amazing and creepy.

Imagine being so ancient that you have actually met those figures. While children in the future were being told fairytales at night, the Darkling lived inside those fairytales. He was part of them.

(It's like saying: "Oh my favorite fairytale is Cinderella!" and a guy next to you says: "Oh that girl? Yeah, met her. Not as pretty as they all say". And in the meantime, the story of Cinderella takes place at 1600s💀💀)

Baba Anezka appeared in "Little Knife".

Petyr of Brevno is a freaking Saint. The patron of archers.

Magda of the Black Woods appeared in "The Witch of Duva" and is a Saint as well. The patroness of bakers and abandoned women.

And Eryk has met them. (let that sink in)

Besides that, the obvious secretive life of Grisha is so painfully clear that antis seem to purposefully miss it. They need to seek each other by listening to rumors and looking in secret while most Grisha try to not be found at all.

Antis: "The Darkling forced Grisha to become soldiers and go to war!!"

And then accuse us for not reading the books.🙂

Before the Little Palace was built, the Grisha had no lives, with dignity and normality. They were living hidden in whatever they could find. Nothing was "permanent", like Eryk said in the Graphic Novel, always on the move and in fear. Trying to not draw attention to themselves out of fear of being exiled, killed, imprisoned, sold, tortured or experimented on.

Then the Darkling convinced the then-King of Ravka to allow him to build a home for them (after going to war for him). And when the Darkling went to find the Grisha, they were afraid of coming out of their hiding.

What if it was a trap from the King? What if they were killed?

Very few went with him and became soldiers because it was the only way for Ravka to accept them. Ravka was constantly involved in wars, so for Grisha to be soldiers was the only acceptable position they could have in this kingdom.

So no, Aleksander didn't make them soldiers because he didn't care for their fates. But because there was literally no other duty they would be allowed to carry. Become traders? No one would board their ship. Instead they would be captured. Become merchants? No one would buy from them. Instead they would be killed. Soldiers? Well yeah, because with their powers they would prove that they could be trusted with the safety of the kingdom. A safety the otkazat'sya needed. To fight the wars that the First Army couldn't win. Becoming servants of the Crown was their only option (and yes, the Darkling was also a servant of the Crown).

Okay I got this out of my chest 😭

Eryk seems really resigned that things will change. He's thirteen and hope for a change is bleak for him. He has seen first hand how low Grisha are in the "food chain". An ethnic group forsaken by everyone else.

His love for animals is so cute!!

I just imagine him standing down hidden and admiring wild animals from afar.

He just wanted to satisfy his needs. Stay at one place and go exploring and looking for tigers.

(The Darkling with any animal: "I just think it's NEAT!")

Also, his mother's "lessons" really annoy him. And it seems they do this wherever they go and with whoever they meet(?). Nevertheless, Aleksander was a brilliant child that grew to become a clever tactician and leader. Whenever his plans didn't work out in the Grisha trilogy, it was because he was letting his heart and feelings rule over his mind (aka: the whole Alina situation).

Baghra: "Aww you seem to really grow accustomed with power"

Baghra when her son gained power and position: "HELLO?? 911??"

Besides Baghra's hypocrisy, LOOK AT MY BABY'S SARCASM

"Your true name is written here. Tattooed on your heart. You don't let just anyone read it." - DitW.

"I want you to know my name. The name I was given, not the title I took for myself. Will you have it Alina?" - Ruin and Rising.

He didn't let just anyone read it. Only to the girl he fell in love with. Perhaps he did it to gain her trust back. Or out of his love of her. Or because he thought of her worthy to know it. She proved to be strong and also caring. She wouldn't betray his trust and let others know it.

"It's my own name I'm afraid of forgetting." - DitW.

"Aleksander. A boy's name, given up. Almost forgotten." - Ruin and Rising.

Or perhaps she gave his name to her so it wouldn't be forgotten.

All his life, his mother kept telling him "Don't say your name anywhere. Just don't. Don't let them touch you. Don't."

And yet he allowed both to Alina. It's not about him forgetting what his mother had taught him. But giving in to his feelings out of a desire to love and to be loved.

He loves evergreens 🥺

And let's not forget that he loved the forests so much that he decorated his room with it:

"The chamber was hexagonal, its dark wood walls carved into the illusion of a forest crowded with slender trees." - Siege and Storm.

Leigh explained in a Tumblr ask why she had the Darkling's room decorated with trees. I'll repost it one day for you.

Oh! And here's a fanart of the Darkling's bedroom from the books:

(art by @feyspeaker)

Beautiful and way better than what we got in the show. 😍

"It felt like summer was still alive", is this confirmation that his favorite season is summer??

GUYS HE TRIES SO HARD 😭😭

The way he was socially awkward as a kid and no one talks about it. When you have your mom telling you to stay away from people and peers then you don't socialise that much and (after a while) you don't how to properly do it.

Is he supposed to be friendly?

Is he supposed to be aloof?

His mother's constant warnings have made him confused about how to talk with other children.

"He'd stopped trying to make friends"

So he was making efforts to make friends and play but Baghra fucked this up and then he simply stopped trying. Reminds me how Leigh said that after losing his lovers, he stopped trying to be in relationships.

*that's your cue to cry*

Eryk: "Great. Another day for other children to run screaming from me. Just another lovely morning."

SYLVI IS SOOO CUTE (another baby to adopt 🥹)

And Eryk's certainty that she will be afraid of him.

STOP!! STOP RIGHT NOW!!

He smiled with her innocent curiosity. She didn't run. She liked it. And he was so relieved.😭

That sneaky, little baby 🥹

OH NO STOP--

"He should be used to it by now"

He couldn't get used to people's aggressiveness towards him. It hurt him, bro 😭

I feel sorry for Annika, man

She's not my favorite character in this book but I find her one of the most intriguing ones.

She has seen things. Lev hasn't. It's probable that he spent all his life inside that camp. But he definitely hasn't seen the way drüskelle hunt Grisha. Annika has and the way she's so overprotective with her sister shows how she can't afford to lose someone else too 😔

The evil villain was ready to defend a little otkazat'sya girl that he barely knew from a bully that insulted her.

Yup. We must hate him.

That just confirms my previous thoughts about how some Grisha only let the strong ones inside their camps. They can't afford to take anyone in. They only need more strength and protection not just random people.

Of course it's a possibility that the Ulle allows them to live there because he feels sorry for them. Throwing out a family is no easy thing.

The way he seems to care for the underdogs. Perhaps because, even though he had great powers, he too felt like one.

How he wanted to sound like: "LEAVE US ALONE!!"

How he probably sounded like: "leave us alone, okay?"

The Darkling is confirmed that he was a victim of bullying as a child.

It's such a far cry from the man that is portrayed in the trilogy. As a child we see him defending two girls (one of them otkazat'sya), he was bullied, he seemed giddy in the prospect of having a stable home and friends and showed regret and sadness when an otkazat'sya village was destroyed. As an adult he's a terrifying leading figure that inspires loyalty and respect and rarely shows his emotions.

It seems that somewhere down the line he hardened his heart, matured and learned and repressed any emotion that could sabotage his plans and heart.

Fuck immortality.

And he's so worried that he fucked up his hopes to stay at camp. He always worries that he'll ruin things. That he's a failure and a disaster for his mother and her plans.

Also, the way he's so afraid that they will fear him and run away from him. He does it "warily" so he still hasn't gotten used that. 😔

SYLVI IS MY ADOPTED DAUGHTER

Look at her being all cute!! Instead of being frightened of him, she wants to be like him 😭

His surprise 😭

It's so clear that he isn't used to this kind of treatment.

Just imagine how many times he's heard Baghra's scoldings to the point that he already knows what he is about to hear from her.

He had one hope and now he thinks it vanished. And he blames himself. For the danger that he'll bring to himself and his mother. He's so hard with himself...🥺

“It was hard not to pull away”

MY HEART IS ACHING

HE JUST CRAVES LOVE

“The unfamiliar pressure of her palm against his”

The feeling of someone holding his hand is strange to him. He doesn't know the feeling and hasn't been accustomed to it.

He wants to trust her and keeps finding good things in her as if he's trying to find reasons to do it.

"He had so many secrets. It felt good to share one"

So, contrary to popular belief, I don't think the Darkling was thriving and cheering inside of him for having so many secrets in TGT. Secrets are burdens you have to carry. He gave a personal one to Alina (his name) and he revealed some of his plans to her in S&B and S&S. He was a secretive person because he had to (and because he wanted to be one step ahead) but not because he enjoyed it.

That could have been the beginning of a beautiful friendship (or even a future cute romance, who can say?) but, alas, Grisha were living shit lives and were too desperate and scared.

(More in part 4)

[rat-rambles]

I acidently started making a modern au so first I should porbaly explain why I head cannon durgetash as age gap or at least power imbalance wether or not the 2 of them even realize it. So I don't think this is nessisarly the "cannon" per say but I have evidence based in the cannon.

first off we can make a educated guess that durge and gortash met less than 10 years pre game thanks to karlach. Karlach said gortash wasn't a bainite when she new him 10 years ago and he was also a established politician so minimum 20s at that point but more likely earily 30s. Now this part is more speculative on my part I don't think durge can be very old at least for a bhal spawn. So my best evidence for this is orin and them are both still alive and as we learn playing durge that can't last very long. How long is very long🤷‍♀️ but that full 10 years seems to long to me at least. So durges time line is they get to "maturity" (so like 18-21 depending on how bhal thinks) get put as cult leader then befriends gortash then you know the rest. So if we say just guessing that orin and durge can only co exist for 4 years before one lebotmize the outher than that means the best case with these parameters 23-26. This gets worse if durge is some verson of magically ages slower becuse that means there more likely to be funtionaly 21. So the best case is gortash is like 27 and durge is like 26. At worst durge is functioning as a 21 year old while gortash is 35. Personaly I feel like it's more like durge is 25 and gortash is 35 and there about 30 and 40 when the game starts. Like repectable but still makes the people who know them go wait what.

Now obvously age gaps in bg3 arnt what they are in real life shout out to astarion being 200 years young but there are some things that also make them a bit age gap coded to me at least. Most obvouly durge is littlerly liveing the is still liveing with abusive parent and can't move out life and gortash is well off and imanispated. He's also like has a job there both gods chosen but none of the bhallinites have jobs or money😅. And the biggest power imbalance is that gortash is durges only out wether there for or anti bhal. If there pro bhal then this is there best shit at ending the world and not going to blood pergitory ( we should talk more about blood pergotory) and if they hate bhal then gortash pre labotomy is there only ally in freeing themselfs.

Now would gortash leverage any of this I'd say porbaly not vecuase he clearly wants durge to like them but surely they must both be aware of it when gortash is going on about them being equals. Of corse he might actually buy that but if he is "lowering" him self to be durges equal that's kinda sweet in a werid way and very anti everything bain stands for if he genuinely wants a equal at all that'd very anti bain the whole point is to be the one person ruleing the world. Of corse I like them both toxic all of the time just adding some spice really.

[tieflingtareon]

My love, are you the devil? (Oh, call me a devil)

Chapter 38 | Words: 6.8k

Summary: Astarion found himself often surprised by his heroic companion. He had one goal. To become the favoured companion of the group, to earn the Tieflings loyalty, to make Tar'eons strength his own. Yet Tar'eon isn't like the usual target of his manipulations. Despite his naivety, he does not seem gullible. There is something very wrong with their 'leader' to begin with. Astarion isn't sure if he wants to control it or eradicate the threat it posed. But can he really do either when Tar'eon himself seems so...unwaveringly kind?

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50668558/chapters/127995079

"It feels so...empty now. This places feel more like a graveyard than the one we slept in." Astarion scoffed softly, looking around at the home he once called his own. "How quickly things can change..."

"Ballroom?" Tar'eon questioned, carrying the box of explosives over his shoulder. It took a bit of shimmying to pick the lock, but seeing as it was before dawn, there was no one in the store to catch them. Astarion had the right idea, collecting fodder to feed the flames.

"No, I think...the office. Half of it in there, half out here. Pass me some of that." Tar'eon smiled softly as he handed over a dozen fireworks to the vampire. Astarion smirked and looked up at him. "I'll go up to the Ballroom. You handle the down here."

"As you wish." Tar'eon leaned down and pecked his cheek sweetly before hauling off with the crate. Astarion smiled to himself as he watched him go, making his way up the stairs and past the ballroom doors. He slipped into the office and set about placing explosives precariously around the room. Tar'eon had definitely handed him the ones with the most power. He cracked one open and shook the powder inside past the doorway and into the ballroom, placing a small explosive there to set off the ones he'd put inside the room.

It was tempting to riffle through drawers and ransack the place, but honestly, he didn't want any of it. He hadn't taken the staff or the dagger because he didn't want the reminder. He was happy to do the same here too. He did however linger on the throne that sat, untouched by the battle within the ballroom. He sat himself down in it, playing with the final firecracker in his hands.

To think, he could have taken it for himself. Taken Cazador's throne, used his palace as his own, throwing lavish parties and watching over the elite guests, knowing he was above even them. It would have been a dream come true, once upon a time, being all powerful.

Now...it felt like a vague construction of his imagination, obscured by time and ageing maturity. Long forgotten. The desire was no longer there. Though, he'd admit, the throne was comfortable. Perhaps he'd get one of his own one day, just to lounge in while he embroidered or read. Living a life without power and status did not mean he had to forgo all luxuries. If he could not buy it, he would damn well make it. He deserved a throne, vampiric royalty or not.

He looked up when he heard Tar'eons familiar footsteps, eyes softening as the tiefling entered the ballroom, closing the distance. There was a small smile on his lips, and Astarion chuckled.

"Enjoying yourself?"

"Just reminiscing on all that could have been." He mused, running his fingers over the polished wood of the chair, the velvet cushioning. "It's a pity I don't have a throne of my own, I think I'd look just divine with one, don't you think?" He crossed one leg over the other and smirked.

Tar'eons gaze was achingly fond as he knelt down on one knee, taking his hand in his. Astarion watched as he pressed a gentle kiss to the top of his hand like some kind of knight in shining armour, then moved to his knuckles, before turning his palm upwards and kissing his inner wrist.

"You would. I think I'll make you one, once this is all over." He looked up at the elf, and Astarion knew he would. There was an unbelievable amount of devotion inside Tar'eon, a near terrifying amount. Astarion was glad he managed to wake up from near death with a moral compass, or he was sure the man would level cities on his request alone. He certainly wouldn't be where he was now if he had woken up as his former self.

"Get up." Astarion took his hands in his and guided the man to stand, the tiefling blinking, unspoken questions in his eyes. "You don't have to kneel before me, as nice as you look there, darling. I don't crave that kind of power, especially not over you. I prefer when you stand beside me." Tar'eons eyes widened before his expression softened, leaning down to kiss his brow.

"Then I will stand by you. Always." He promised, nuzzling white curls and inhaling deeply before he pulled back. "Are you ready?"

"You know what? I think I am. I'm completely, utterly done with this place." Astarion stood and placed the final firework upon Cazador's throne. "Let's watch it burn."

Tar'eon followed him to the entrance, looking back at the palace. The gaudy art, the antique furniture, the dreary atmosphere...

He turned to Astarion and gestured for him to go ahead. This was for him. He deserved to be the one to set it all alight. The elf smiled at him and stepped forward, fire curling around his fingers before he gave a shout.

"IGNIS!" It struck, and in succession, explosions followed, the fire burning through gunpowder. Tar'eon wrapped himself around the vampire and transported them away to the Lower City wall, looking up as the explosions continued to sound in the distance. Astarion's eyes shone as he watched windows shatter, smoke billowing out of the palace before them.

He laughed.

"There goes your legacy, bastard! Weep in the Hells!" He flipped his middle finger at the building, watching with bright eyes as parts began to crumble, falling into itself, brick and wood scorching beneath the raging fire that only grew in ferocity.

"I'm realising now that we probably should have made sure the fire wouldn't spread..." Tar'eon winced. He hadn't thought the far ahead. The palace was decently isolated he supposed...

He heard a familiar thudding and mechanical squeaking, whipping his head around to look at the Steel Watchers approaching from the distance, drawn to the property damage. He had no doubt Flaming Fist would follow soon after. He cursed and took Astarion's hand in his, pulling him away from sigil and the burning building. The Fists would take care of the fire, should it try to rage out of control.

"Fuck you, Cazador!" Astarion cackled, not hesitating to follow. He was filled with glee, cheeks ruddy and lips split in a wide, fanged grin, watching it disappear for good behind them. Cazador would be forgotten by the history books, his palace nothing but ash, his influence on Baldur's Gate fading to nothing, and Astarion loved it.

He would never be able to remove the scars the man left on him, but burning down the home, the prison, he was trapped in for two centuries was a beginning at healing some of the damage he'd done to him.

The sun broke over the horizon and Astarion relished in it's warm light, cutting through the early morning's cold bite. He threaded his fingers through Tar'eons as they ran. He didn't know how many days he had left in the sun, but...he knew he'd have more than Cazador ever would. He'd have more than Cazador ever did, even in the shadows.

He gave up the power, but in exchanged, he gained something far greater. He would have friends, love, a real family. A home, even if not physical. That was more that that bastard could have ever made for himself.

In the end, he won.

****

"Woah, where were you two?" Karlach blinked at the pair with a strip of meat half hanging out of her mouth, the two stumbling into the room as Astarion fell into Tar'eons chest in a fit of breathless giggles. After sleeping in a graveyard, breaking into a firework shop, setting Cazador's palace on fire, and running from Steel Watchers, it only made sense he'd need a moment to collect himself.

"Did you go for a pint without me?" Karlach whined a little, Shadowheart walking over in her pyjamas with a smirk, stealing a slice of toast from her lovers plate.

"They aren't drunk." She noted with ease and Astarion barked another laugh.

"No, no we are not." He grinned and slipped out of Tar'eons arms with a squeeze to his bicep. "I'm stealing the first bath. Go eat, darling, you must be starved." His eyes twinkled, winking at his lover and sauntering off. Karlach looked between the pair, brows jumping up in question to Tar'eon. The tiefling looked away, avoiding the silent query, but that was answer enough.

"You dog!" She laughed, slapping her thigh as Gale came over with two plates.

"Stop stealing Karlach's breakfast, I have yours right here." He tutted at Shadowheart who rolled her eyes and took the plate anyway, giving the barbarian half of her ham. Karlach smiled like a sap, pulling the cleric half into her lap so she could cuddle her while eating.

"Thank you, Gale." Tar'eon smiled as he took his own plate. He was pretty hungry.

"Why are you covered in dirt? Or is that ash?" Gale frowned.

"Uh, well..."

"Did you blow up Szaar's palace?" Wyll asked in shock, a thumb pointing back towards the window he'd just been looking out of. It was hard to miss the giant smoke cloud coming from that direction. "I can see it from here! Did you plan a two man heist while we slept?"

"Uh, no, that was kind of a last minute thing..." Tar'eon pursed his lips. "But yeah. That was us."

"Well...I can respect property damage." Shadowheart smirked. "Is that why he's so smiley today?"

"The adrenaline rush of crime can be quite addicting." Gale seemed to be on the same page as Shadowheart. "Let's hope he sticks to the petty sort of crimes, at least. Vandalism is preferable to arson."

"I think we're okay for now-" Tar'eon was cut of by Astarion called his name from the bathroom.

"Get in here and wash my back; seeing as it's entirely your fault I have dirt everywhere." Tar'eons tail perked up, wagging a little at the invitation. Karlach snorted and the Bhaalspawn flushed at being caught out by his blasted tail.

"Better get in there, solider. Sounds to me like you two made a right mess out there." She smirked and Tar'eon looked away, unable to hold her gaze as he stood and passed his plate off to Wyll who looked like he was trying so hard not to laugh at their leader. He knew himself to be reckless in his youth when it came to fits of passion, but in the dirt? It was quite amusing to see the usually stoic Tar'eon stumble over himself to get to his demanding lover.

"Try not to get water where it shouldn't be, you two." Shadowheart teased.

"Don't worry, darling, I'll leave some cold water for you, since you don't know when to stop playing with fire." Astarion sing-songed and Wyll stifled a choked laugh against his palm. Karlach grinned wolfishly and squeezed her girlfriend tight, the cleric offering Astarion her middle finger. Astarion blew a kiss her way, dragging Tar'eon into the bathroom by his collar.

"...What's the bets?" Gale quirked a brow, his voice knowing and expectant.

"Oh they definitely fucked." Karlach grinned.

"Boring, we already know that. What are the bets?"

"Ten gold on Tar'eon topping." Shadowheart shoved a slice of bread in her mouth.

"Fifteen on Astarion. I have to vouch for my best mate." Karlach shrugged.

"Setting?"

"Beach?" Karlach frowned thoughtfully.

"He said dirt, not sand." Gale shook his head. "I'm guessing the park."

"The park?" Wyll looked at them in bewilderment. "Let's give them some privacy, Gods."

"You don't have any thoughts? Any bets?"

"I'm not making bets on my companions intimate relations, Gale." Wyll rolled his eye and shook his head. "None of you are. Let it be."

Karlach pouted and Shadowheart looked bored, Gale giving a guilty smile and flush.

"Ah...Perhaps that's a little invasive. We'll let it be."

"Good." Wyll turned when he heard footsteps behind them. "Ah, Lae'zel, good morning."

"Fifteen on Tar'eon."

"Lae'zel."

"I suspect Astarion is the leader though." She smirked.

"Lae-bae, you are a genius."

"Call me that again, Karlach, and I will spill your viscera on the floor."

"Noted." Karlach grinned. Wyll sighed. So much for privacy. He supposed this was just how friends were. Some old fashioned teasing could never go amiss.

****

"You could have just asked me to join you." Tar'eon scrubbed at the dirt and blood that clung to Astarion's hair, massaging his scalp as the vampire rested back against his chest.

"Mm, perhaps." He hummed. "Gods, your hands feel nice."

Tar'eon huffed out a soft sound of amusement. He didn't need to be so thorough, but he enjoyed how relaxed Astarion was in his arms. Once he was certain he'd gotten all the muck out of his hair, he eased a cup of water over his curls, using his hand to keep the soap out of his eyes. He repeated the action a couple times before he was satisfied, smoothing the soaked strands from his face and kissing his widows peak.

"Better?"

"Much." Astarion smiled softly and opened his eyes to look up at the tiefling. "I must say, I much prefer your magical hand to Gale's."

Tar'eon snorted softly.

"I'd hope so." He twisted a curl around his finger and let it lay upon his brow in a ringlet. "How are you feeling? Now that's all...over."

Astarion sighed, looking up at the ceiling with a small frown.

"I'm not quite sure. It feels a little ridiculous, to still be thinking about Cazador. He's gone, and I'm here - I won." He shook his head and closed his eyes. "Yet I'm still left reliving it all. Everything that happened. Playing it over and over in my mind..." Tar'eons hand threaded through his hair once more, and he was grateful for the gentle touch. The reassurance.

"Do you think we did the right thing, freeing all those spawns?" Tar'eon asked. Astarion hadn't been wrong. It was a big risk. For all they knew, most of them would fall to their instincts, their hunger, and kill innocents. At the time, all Tar'eon had seen was those hallowed faces, seen Chessa's sad eyes, begging to go home even as she told him to leave them to rot. He knew giving them the chance to live their own lives was the right thing to do morally, but ethically? If they were wrong about them?

He supposed he'd simply have to carry that burden and keep a close eye on them, once this tadpole business was over.

"I have to hope so. And if not, at least there's only so much damage they can do in the Underdark." Astarion shrugged before smirking to himself. "But that first rush of freedom can be intoxicating - I didn't always make the best decisions when I first tasted it. They'll need guidance." He conceded.

"Are you volunteering for the job?" Tar'eon chuckled. He wouldn't mind spending some time in the Underdark, if that's what Astarion wanted to do. He would gladly enjoy the pretty luminescent environment, despite it's dangers, while Astarion guided the spawn on the right path. Astarion gave an infectious chuckle, obviously amused by the very notion of being a guide to seven thousand socially inept vampire spawns.

"No, much as I'd like to become a lord ruling over the Underdark's vampire spawn, we have unfinished business with the mind flayers."

"And after we wrap that up?"

"After that - who knows? Everything that happened to those spawn is my fault, in a way..." He admitted with a sadder smile this time. "I suppose that's the less convenient side of freedom - having to live with the choices you made." He pursed his lips before hesitating to continue.

"Back at the ritual, all I could see was the power on offer, and the safety it promised. I was so blinded by it..." He gave a small chuckle at the irony of it all. "Just as Cazador was." He sat up properly, turning around in the soapy water to look at Tar'eon.

"But you saw something in me...someone else I could be. Someone who could break the cycle of power and terror that started," He scoffed out a laugh, unable to fathom how long ago it was. "Centuries ago. You saved me back there. I may not have appreciated it at the time, but...I do now." He took Tar'eons hands in his and smiled softly, admiring the faint scars on his knuckles, the patches of white discolouration upon his hands.

"Thank you."

"You saved yourself. All I did was give you a push in the right direction." Tar'eon smiled softly and squeezed his hands. "The ritual - it would have changed you. I'm glad you resisted its temptations."

"So am I." Astarion was honestly a little surprised that he meant it. "Fun as all that power would have been, this feels more...'me'. When I look at my future, anything and everything feels possible now." Even the idea of walking in the sun again once the tadpole was gone felt possible. There was so much to explore now, both inside and around himself.

"And I get to share it with you, as a partner. An...equal." He'd never thought he'd have that. Being on equal ground with another person. Not above or below, but...standing right beside someone. It felt good. "You saved me from myself, and let me walk a new path where I can be free. Truly, honestly free."

The rituals powers would have made him safe, made him powerful, but it would not have freed him. Not like he wanted. He would have trapped himself. It would have been no better than selling his soul to the devil.

"This is a gift, you know." He leaned forward and rested his forehead against his, closing his eyes. Tar'eons arms came around him without having to ask and it made him smile. "Thank you. I won't forget it."

"Being able to share my life with you is just as grand a gift. Thank you." Tar'eon nuzzled his pointed ear and smiled fondly as he guided the man to rest upon his chest, raking his claws through pretty white-silver strands. There was nothing that could make him happier than knowing Astarion was happy too. That they'd have each other to watch their backs. Astarion didn't need some ritual to keep him safe; Tar'eon would gladly protect him with his life.

After a few minutes of basking in the warm water, Tar'eon spoke up softly.

"Astar?"

"Yes, love?"

"I...I just want you to know I promise to keep you safe. Always. You'll never want for the powers of the Ascendant." Astarion made a vague sound, pulling a face as he waved his hand.

"It would be nice not to have to rely on you as my great protector, but, well...I do appreciate the thought."

"I'm not trying to make you out to be a damsel, I promise." Tar'eon chuckled. "I know if it came down to it, you'd have my back in a fight. I know you'd protect me too, with everything you already have. I just...wanted you to know that I'll do everything I can to make you happy. Make you feel safe."

"All I've ever wanted was to be seen, and to not be alone - scared...Tar'eon, you've given me all I've ever wished for, and promised me even more. I don't think there's much else I can ask of you." Astarion tilted his chin up and Tar'eon took the invitation, kissing his lips softly. His bottom lip still stung a little from their 'night of passion'. He didn't mind it though. "You make me happy. I don't want anything else."

He paused.

"Except perhaps a really nice throne, and a couple more daggers for my collection. Maybe a new bow too." Tar'eon snorted and Astarion's lips split into a wide grin, watching the tiefling fall into his shoulder and shake with muffled laughter. "What? I never said I wasn't high maintenance, darling."

Tar'eon let out another laugh, warm and pleasant to the ear.

"No. You didn't, did you? I suppose that's my burden to bare, to keep your pretty face around."

"It is quite nice, isn't it?" Astarion's eyes twinkled. He'd seen his face through Tar'eons eyes more than once now, and he had to say, he may not look as young and handsome as he assumed, but...he did feel beautiful, when he saw himself in Tar'eons perspective.

"The nicest." Tar'eon agreed, cupping Astarion's face with pure adoration on his expression. He pressed a firm kiss to the space between his brows, Astarion relaxing the natural furrow of them when he realised how much tension he was putting there. "The water will get cold soon. I'm still pretty tired, and hungry. I think I might take a nap before I drag myself back out into the city again."

"Ah, and what will you do today?"

"Jaheria wants to find this guildhall to get a lead on an old friend. We might take a peak into the sewers. But there's still all those murders happening in the Lower City..."

"That sounds awful. Do I have to come?"

"You can stay back here today, if you want." Tar'eon offered and Astarion hummed thoughtfully.

"Well...I can't let you get yourself killed while I'm not around, not now. I suppose I'll come." He sighed like it was such a hardship to follow him around. Tar'eon smiled.

"Thank you."

"Oh hush. You, myself, Jaheria and...Lae'zel perhaps, should go investigate the guild. As for the others, I think we should get them scouting the city, collecting information on the murders. We can report back our findings later this evening. Two birds with one stone, so to speak."

"Sounds like a solid plan." Tar'eon smiled. He supposed he didn't have to do everything himself. "We'll cover more ground that way."

"Don't we just make the most excellent pair, my dear?" Astarion smirked as pulled himself up and out of the tub, walking over to the towel rack and drying his hair off. He tied the towel around his waist and ran his fingers through his hair, attempting to style it back into place. Tar'eon watched him from the tub, resting his cheek on his forearm.

"...Was I the first person you ever fed from?" He didn't know why it only struck him now, but it did. Maybe because his gaze kept falling upon the ring of teeth marks on the rouge's neck.

"Ah, well...yes. My diet wasn't exactly humanoid, darling, you know that. Cazador didn't allow it."

"Were you ever tempted though? To bite someone?" The vampire scoffed.

"Of course. I always wanted to, after all it's simply a vampire's nature, to want to feed off living things." Astarion frowned at his sudden curiosity, tilting his head at the other. "Why do you ask?"

"I...I keep having memories come back to me. Most of them don't make sense, not right now, but...I know I killed my family. My foster family, from before. I wonder if they were my first. I wonder if I...felt bad about it, back then. Or if I was so blinded by Bhaal's 'love' that I couldn't feel anything." Astarion took in the tieflings sad expression, his distant, glossy eyes. He sighed softly and came to kneel before the man, tilting his chin up gently so he would look at him. Focus on him, rather than the horrible, scrambled memories making him look like a kicked dog in the rain.

"You know...I tried once before. To bite someone. It was in the early days with Cazador. I couldn't have been with him more than a decade; he didn't let me out of his sight until he was sure I knew the rules. Until he knew I could lure back meals to him without going mad with bloodlust." He gave a weak laugh, shaking his head. "He was, dare I say it, kinder when it was just me. Before he made the others. He was still cruel, but he almost bothered to pretend I was just a clueless child, rather than being his disappointing eldest who should have known better. Not sure what that says about him, grooming his 'child' to be a lure for deviants." He sneered before reminding himself of the point of his story.

"But...eventually, he let me out of the palace to hunt for him. It was...startling, but exhilarating, being out in the world again. Seeing what changed and what hadn't. Back then, I still remembered some of my life before him. The turning...it can sometimes blur stuff, but you can still remember the important things. Maybe it's the shock of death that does it. But, the longer you live, the harder it is to remember it all. I don't remember anything but the barest bones of my past now. My old job title, my mother, the group of Gur who attacked me - I remember them, but I can't see their faces anymore, I can't hear their voices...I can't even remember the case that damned me to their wrath." He looked away, a touch...ashamed of who he once was.

"I can't remember my own mothers smile, or if my father was there at all. Yet I do remember that purple and blue were my favourite colours. I'm still fond of them, even if I look best in red and white." He chuckled, looking down at his hands, picking under his nails before he raised his gaze to meet Tar'eons.

"I don't remember the man I tried to bite either. But I remember how...horrified I was. Because when I leaned in to do it, to taste him...I smelt every other person he knew on him. His life. I could smell the perfume of his wife on his collar. I could smell the fur of his dog on his clothes. The oil that clung to his skin from his job where he was likely the best of the bunch...I could smell spittle of his newborn on his skin. Infants - they have a certain scent that's different to adults, to other children - and I couldn't do it. Not because of Cazador. But because I couldn't bring myself to." He shook his head and sighed. That man was probably long gone now. He was pretty sure he'd lured a different one that night, some drunkard in an alley, most likely.

"If you asked me now, I'd care very little for who I sank my teeth into, as long as they smelt appealing. A meal is a meal, but...It was still fresh back then. I was still...human, in a way. A scared child who didn't want to hurt anyone. Not quite the jaded man I am now." He admitted, smiling tightly. "The night I bit you - it was fuelled by many things. Spite, frustration...and desire to get back at Cazador for telling me I couldn't drink from thinking creatures. From restraining me and my vampiric nature." He gestured vaguely to the grandness of his undead status. It didn't feel so grand anymore. He was a vampire still, but...Tar'eon had managed to bring the man back to the surface. The one that actually cared for others. Who had the ability to love again, not just his friends, but himself. It would be a slow progress, but one day, he wanted to say confidently that he loved himself as much as he loved Tar'eon.

"What do you feel now? When you bite me?" Tar'eon asked softly and Astarion struggled to find the right words.

"I...You taste like wine, and warmth, and...spices I can't remember indulging in but know I have. It's not easy to describe. I suppose you taste of all the things I have a fondness for. The taste alone is delicious, I assure you, but...it's knowing you trust me that makes me so fang-happy around you. That, and you have a very...potent smell to you when you start sweating. Your heart is like a drum when you're excited, and...it's hard to ignore when your pulse only gets louder every time I'm near you."

Tar'eons cheeks grew ruddy, sinking a little deeper in the water.

"Oh. Sorry. I...didn't realise it was that obvious."

"Don't be. I think it's sweet. I have excellent self control...most of the time. So you don't have to worry. I like you far too much to drain you dry, my love."

"I'd hope so. I love you too much to let the Urge have you, so I guess I understand." Tar'eon smiled shyly and reached out to caress the rogue's cheek with his knuckles. "I suppose having your own blood bank always around eases the desire to nibble on others anyway."

"Oh, I still consider it. Shadowheart smells like bloody honeysuckle, who wouldn't want to take a bite of that?" Astarion purred, a twinkle in his eye. "And Wyll? He definitely tastes like righteousness itself."

"You are incorrigible."

"Did you learn that word from Gale, perhaps?" Tar'eon shoved him gently and Astarion laughed, standing. "Come on. Enough overthinking about the past. You're here now, aren't you? You've changed, and for the better from what I've heard. We both have. So don't go tying yourself in knots over things you can't change."

"It's hard not to. I might not remember, but I still did those things. I still...hurt people. A lot of people."

"You may have killed thousands in the past for all I know, but if I've learnt anything from you, it's that all you need is for someone to believe in you, and you can change. You can...be better. You have the chance now, same as I, to make things right. So quit moping and get your head in the game, love. We have a Bhaal cult to stop and an elder brain to kill, and we can't do either without you."

Tar'eon huffed softly and smiled. Astarion always knew what to say when he got wrapped up in his own head. He stood up and finally stepped out of the tube, wrapping Astarion up in his arms so he could squeeze him.

"Thank you."

"Yes, yes, I'm just amazing. Please try to avoid crushing my perfect body though." Tar'eon eased his hold on him and pulled back with a small smile. "It's my best asset."

"I'd disagree." Tar'eon kissed his forehead. "It's your hair." Astarion gave a surprised little giggle at the cheeky response and smacked his chest.

"I told you. I have the best hair in the camp."

"You really do." Tar'eon indulged the vampires ego for his own amusement before kissing his curls and pulling away to grab his own towel, wrapping it around himself. "About your armour - I know we lost it yesterday. I can ask Wyll or Gale if they have something extra in their packs?"

"It's fine, really. I'm sure we'll come across something soon anyway. I'll just wear something with a little extra padding today. Some coverage if we're going into the sewer of all places."

"As long as you're sure."

"I am. Your cloak does wonders anyway at keeping me hidden. If they can't see me, they can't attack me."

"Alright, alright. If we happen upon anything to your taste, just let me know."

"Oh, you know I will." Astarion winked and gave a delighted laugh. Once the pair were dressed, they joined everyone else for breakfast, the druids, Isobel and Aylin finally awake, as well as young Yenna who was attempting to feed Grub some ham.

"I heard you have taken succor in one another's bodies. Congratulations!" Aylin raised her glass to the pair and Tar'eon coughed, choking on his own spit. He hadn't been expecting such a greeting.

"Aylin!" Isobel flushed in embarrassment. Her lover really didn't understand the privacy needed for the topic when it came to speaking about it.

"This is a good thing, is it not?" Aylin frowned. "Physical intimacy is a holy form of expression of one's trust and devotion in another. It is an honour to indulge in another body, especially someone the one you love. We should be celebrating!"

"I don't think I've ever been congratulated for fucking before." Astarion mused. "I agree with you, Dame Aylin, as long as there's good wine in this celebration you're suggesting." He winked at her and laughed when Tar'eon grabbed his arm and dragged him down to sit with him on the cushions surrounding the table. The tieflings ruddy blush was simply delicious. Gale was kind enough to provide Tar'eon with a new plate, freshly heated, without any embarrassing comments.

"Holy honkers, what is on your neck, As?" Karlach gawked at the bite mark, drawing attention to it now. It had been fairly easy to miss when he stumbled in, face stained a faint red from blood anyway.

"Oh? I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, sweet Karlach. Mirrors are of no use to me." He replied coolly and Karlach gaped.

"Tar'eon."

"Please don't say my name like that."

"Soldier, I am shocked." Karlach was an awful liar. She was practically grinning ear to ear at the chance to tease the pair. "I can't believe you'd give As a taste of his own medicine."

"I can." Jaheria muttered as she took a sip of her tea. "Between a vampire and Bhaalspawn, it's safe to say there will be an abundance of teeth to go around."

"What can I say? I'm just that delicious." Astarion gave a haughty laugh and Tar'eon rolled his eyes fondly.

"We thought we'd split up into two groups today." He stated in hopes of changing the topic, popping a mushroom in his mouth. "Jaheria, Astarion, Lae'zel and myself will be heading into the sewers to find some connections in the Guildhall. I was hoping a few of you would volunteer to go out and scout the area for more on the Bhaal cultists and their list."

"Yeah, sure, 'Heart and I will go, right, babe?" Karlach offered and Shadowheart smiled.

"I suppose. If you stay inside too long you'll start eating the floorboards."

"Better than dirt." Astarion smirked. "Any other volunteers?"

"Ah, well, I had planned to pop into the Sorcerous Sundries today..." Gale excused, not sounding entirely truthful as he looked away to pick lint of his pyjamas. "Take a wander, if you will. Speak to an old friend or two."

Wyll glanced at the wizard and then to Tar'eon, giving an apologetic smile.

"I actually need to grab some things in town as well, so I think I'll go with Gale today. Perhaps you'd like to volunteer Halsin? Isobel?"

"I'd be happy to lend a hand, if you ladies need it." Isobel smiled at Karlach and Shadowheart. "It's only a simple scouting mission anyway." He noted, mostly for Aylin's sake.

"I'm afraid I have...duties to attend to." Halsin excused, standing from the table. "I should be off now, if I'm to be honest." Lae'zel who had been sharpening her short sword beside him glared at the druid from the corner of her eye.

"Oh, well, uh - enjoy whatever it is you're doing today?" Tar'eon smiled awkwardly as he watched the druid leave. He had seemed awkward about the city in general. He was probably feeling homesick, away from all the nature and wilderness.

"Alright then, we've got Gale and Wyll on shopping duty I suppose, if you two don't mind grabbing some extra things for all of us. Jaheria, Lae'zel, Astar and myself will go and find more about this Minsc fellow, and Shadowheart, Karlach and Isobel will scout the city for any more survivors on the murder list. Meeting adjourned?" With that sorted, others began to move from the table towards their own bunks to get ready for the day while Tar'eon ate.

"What about me?" Yenna asked and Gale laughed.

"I think it's best you stay here today. Least our wandering come upon any danger. Aylin makes fine company, don't you think?" He gestured to the only one who would not be leaving the Elfsong from his knowledge.

"I can teach you how to break the spine of men in two." Aylin said with fiery eyes and Yenna frowned.

"Um...okay?"

"Excellent. You'll make a fine warrior, little one."

"Please don't teach her violence, Aylin. Uh, keep it to a minimum?" Gale begged, placing a hand on Yenna's head.

"Hmm...I can teach her to use a blade instead?"

"I...I'll take it. Make it a wooden one, please, I really don't think children should be playing with swords."

"Gale, relax, Yenna's in safe hands with Dame Aylin, I promise." Wyll placed a hand on the wizard's shoulder and squeezed to help ease the tension out of him, smiling fondly at Gale's worry. "I'm certain you got up to far worse mischief as a child."

"Yes, but that was me, wizard prodigy and with a father proficient in healing magic. Yenna is not me, and I am not proficient in healing magic. If I was, I wouldn't be carrying around a dozen healing potions all the time." Gale narrowed his eyes at the swordsman who simply shook his head, looking the wizard in those flickering dark eyes.

"Relax." Wyll lowered his voice. "You've been tense ever since Elminster visited. I know you're anxious about...seeing her again."

"It's been years since I've had a proper audience with her. And she wants to tell me- to tell me what exactly? That she's disappointed I'm not dead? I don't know what she wants, but there's no comfort in the idea of seeing her, I tell you that."

"What do you think she's going to say, Gale?" Wyll gently took his brass hand in his beneath the table.

"Well, I doubt it's an apology for asking me to die on her behalf." Gale scowled. "Whatever it is, if it's important enough to send Elminster, we can be damned sure she's serious." He sighed. "This is a conversation long overdue - on both sides. I...owe it to her to hear her out, come what may afterwards."

"Then perhaps it's time to see her. Even if you're scared." Wyll knew what it was like, to both want to see and avoid someone all at once. He wanted nothing more than to speak with his father again, but he was rightfully scared to think about how it might go after the last time.

"I'm not scared; I'm the great Gale of Waterdeep. I fear nothing, and everything fears me." Gale huffed and Wyll smiled.

"Nothing? Not even spiders?" He teased.

"That was one time. They're creepy, alright? Do you know how horrifying it is to walk into a cobweb? The feeling of their silk never leaves your skin." He shuddered.

"All I'm saying is that it's okay to be nervous. You won't be alone, Gale."

"Yes, well...you can't exactly come in to the audience with me. It's kind of a...one on one thing."

"Then I'll be there when it's over. Whatever may come." He assured and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek. "Go, get dressed. I'll wash up."

"I could just do it with magic, you know..."

"A little hands on labour never hurt." Wyll chuckled, shooing the wizard off. He knew the man appreciated it when he did small things like washing up dishes. He may love showing off his magical prowess, but it was the times when Wyll didn't ask for it that he got that soft look in his eyes, like he was being presented with a sweet gift.

"I'll help dry!" Yenna piped up and Wyll grinned at her.

"Alright then. Teamwork is a valiant quality, I say." He offered out his fist and she bumped her own small one against his after a moment, a shy smile on her lips that drew a warm chuckle from his own.

Tar'eon polished off his plate as his armour was dropped over his head. He pulled it down with a huff and attempted to pull his chest plate off, but he'd managed to hook it around his horn. He growled quietly in frustration and Astarion laughed, helping him untangle himself and giving him a quick kiss.

"Lae'zel is itching to go out, I can tell. Your nap will have to wait, I'm afraid." Tar'eon groaned. He could manage, but he didn't like it. "Oh, I know, you poor thing. Look, ask Jaheria nicely, and I'm sure she'll fix that bloodloss of yours, meanwhile, I'll grab you some coffee from downstairs, hm? How does that sound, love?"

"I love you."

"I'll take that as a yes." Astarion chuckled and offering out a white piece of lace to his lover. "For your hair. To keep it out of your face." Tar'eon took the lace and smiled as Astarion kissed his cheek before making his way out of the room to get Tar'eon the coffee he desperately needed. Tar'eon tied the top half of his hair back like he always did and stood, getting into his armour.

Another day of adventures awaited him after all. Who knew what it would bring?

[sciderman]

EXTENDS MY HANDS.... DO YOU HAVE ANY CABLE COMIC RECS........ deadpool can be there too i guess

hilarious... hilarious... with all the cable comics i've been reading lately you'd THINK i'd have recs but honestly i don't. i've been reading all the cable comics i can get my hands on but his comics are really boring or confusing and i'm so sorry. it's no wonder they're always in the bargain bin. i'm so so so so so so sorry nathan summers. i still buy the comics because you look stupid hunky in them. and i'm a simple girl with simple needs.

nathan: [time-travel dialogue that makes no fucking sense to me] me, twirling my hair and kicking my feet: hahaha noo cable don't expo-dump me you're so hooot hahahaha...

i think the x-force stuff and the new mutants stuff might be more interesting - i think maybe cable works better as leader of a team (his usual role) or paired up with a foil (aka deadpool) vs solo, he's just not interesting enough to carry anything on his own (sorry)

that being said, my rec list will probably have a significant deadpool bias, because deadpool happens to often be the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, as it were - i think the thing that makes nate work is when other characters Point Out how ridiculous he is. and wade wilson kind of built an entire career off of that.

i think when nate's played straight (ha) he's just not my bag - i think he needs to play off of characters that reveal just how silly he is. especially since stakes are often so high with nate - time-stream space-time-continuum sort of stuff - it asks a lot of you. so you need someone there to keep things kind of silly. i always prefer lower-stake stuff, personally - otherwise, the thing needs levity from somewhere.

his most recent series was cute (bable my beloved) - written by duggan (who is Not my favourite deadpool writer, and also wrote uncanny avengers - general consensus is that duggan doesn't really Get Cable, but his stuff is still very readable.) (deadpool is there, also.)

on the topic - uncanny avengers (2015) - i kind of don't like the way nate is written here - very stoic, unfeeling, very hyper-macho. but he looks really sexy (even with his receding hairline.)

speaking of this particular artist that draws nate so sexily - deadpool vs x-force. beeeeeeyoing. i think it might be one of my favourite books with nate in. for entirely shallow reasons.

daddy? sorry. daddy? sorry. d

i've read the cable (2008) series and it was - kind of an infuriating experience, admittedly. the writing is confusing, and the art is actually insanely infuriating to me. like i wanted to scream while reading this series. it's sensory overload. a lot of cable comics feel like that for me, actually. i found this entire book in the bargain bin for like, £2 and STILL didn't buy it because i hated reading it so much.

that being said:

daddy? s

god. his head is so tiny. whatthefuck.

i think my favourite cable stuff i've read is probably niceiza's stuff (again. fuck.) and i think it's for the same reason why i like his deadpool stuff the most too - everywhere else I see nate he's this rugged tough guy who's kind of intentionally one-dimensional and hardcore - but when i read niceiza's nate he's kind of stupid sometimes. he's stupid and his worldview is kind of perplexing and ridiculous, and we're kind of perpetually infuriated by him but kind of feel for him because we have a real sense that he's trying so hard. it's not just cool-guy i have a massive gun check out my massive gun i don't have time for emotions i have a time-stream to fix sort of stuff - nate gets a weird kind of vulnerability in niceiza's stuff, and he's constantly, literally de-powered. niceiza loves de-powering him. and i love to see a nathan summers de-powered. he's so sexy when he's pathetic. i love pathetic men. and niceiza just so happens to have a knack for writing the most pathetic men i've ever seen.

so cable & deadpool (2004) and deadpool & cable: split second, obviously. do i even need to say it.

i'd love it if anyone had any recs for what people feel is the definitive cable - like, cable fans, if you could point at a book and say "THIS IS IT. THIS IS NATHAN SUMMERS AS HE WAS INTENDED." i'd love to read it, i'd love to read it. i know there's definitely comics i can point to for deadpool when it comes to that - but i think everyone takes something different from these characters - and a character like nate, i've seen so so so many different interpretations of him in fanon that always get me curious.

[lutawolf]

I Will Knock You Episode Three D/s point outs

Let's talk power imbalance. There are negative power imbalances: such as an extremely older person taking advantage of a younger person's immaturity to guide them into doing what they want. Then there is the D/s power imbalance, where one person willingly gives up control to the other person.

D/s relationships do not have to be sexual. I have many D/s friendship, some of which you've seen on here. There is a power imbalance within the friendship, but the power and control were willingly given to me. However, I do not have a sexual relationship with any of these people. They simply respect me as a Dom.

Yes, Noey is young, but some Doms are just born. Your Boss Daddy Doms if you will, are born and need control like others need water. They are prone to bullying and running wild because they have a high need for control. Noey is surrounded by many who will do what he says, but it's not enough to balance or mature him. We start seeing a difference when he has ultimate control of Thi. We see a softening. Is he soft? No, and likely never will be, but is he softening? Yes.

From the very start of episode 3, we see Dom not bullying. Now all of you could say. He is a gang leader Luta, they tell people what to do! Okay, and. Would you say that there is an imbalance of power within their relationship? I mean, really think about this. There is a difference between a boss who might ask you to do something and someone telling you to jump and expecting you to ask "How High?" Now, what really defines a D/s relationship is consensually giving over that power. That's a lot harder to portray in a show, so we'll also be looking for elements that show Thi giving consent.

We have Noey telling Thi to get his scrawny ass over to him and help bandage him up. He is commanding the whole time, but compared to episodes 1 and 2 we see the change in command. It's softer, he's taking Thi's feelings into consideration. He prays to the altar for Thi. Now, who here hasn't bandaged themselves. Noey could easily do it himself, but it meets a need for him to have Thi do it. Still, he goes to do it himself and Thi stops him. He says wait. Guys, he could have let Noey do it.

Notice how nice Noey is being, it's because he is repaying Thi. Which in the D/s world we call reward. It also showcases that Noey has rules that he lives buy, guidelines if you would. You know what other community has rules and guidelines? I'll give you a hint. It isn't usually the gang and bully life. Yup! The kink community!

The next morning sees Noey wanting to feed Thi. He commands that he sit down and eat. Thi is at a point he could just run away if he really didn't want to be there. He has a history of running. Instead, he listens to the command of Noey and sits. He even gives Thi from his own plate. Don't mistakenly think that because Noey is an ass that he doesn't care. Doms come in different classes. A Sadist demeaning Dom is not going to look the same as others, but that doesn't mean they don't value their submissive. That they won't protect and care for them. It means you have to be observant to see it. They don't flash their care around.

The following scene shows just how Sadistic Noey can be when punishing. Yet he still takes care of Thi. He makes sure he is fed. There is punishment, but it's not cruel. Dude goes around beating people, but he didn't with Thi. Instead, it was a very different kind of punishment.

Alright, that's it for this episode. Hope you guys enjoyed. 💜💜💜