#how could anyone expect something like this to happen

[kenwio]

Joker's kid! reader and how they life in manor started

Author's note 1: This part is huge, and it was a huge struggle for me to write (and rewrite), so I apologize if it feels crumpled T^T and there will be other author's notes

Warnings: long read, grammar mistakes (English is not my first language), mental issues, abuse

Bruce knew that eventually you will leave the madbay, you were there long enough to heal, but he had no idea how to bring you to the manor and he can't predict your reaction, seeing your reaction of everything in medbay, your confusion and fear that you showed looking at the simplest things. But other things concerned him even more.

Firstly, he knew that taking you to manor would include revealing of his identity to you, and identities of rest of the family. Secondly, the family.... he was worried about how they would react on you being there. So far, non of the kids interacted with you, and only Dick visited you while you were in the medbay, but he never saw you awake, thanks for the side effects of medicine that made you incredibly sleepy. And thirdly, you were a child of a villain, who knows what you are capable of? So what if you seemed harmless in the madbay? Plus, Bruce knew Tim and Jay expected only bad for you and Damians opinion of you was as bad if not worse somehow. Bruce knows it's going to be tough and he is not sure he can deal with it

Today was the day he would let you see his face and lead you up to the mansion. So, why did the world greatest detective was feeling icky? Was he afraid of you? No, you are just a kid, yes Joker's kid, but still a kid. Was he afraid your potential reaction? Not really, but he was troubled that he could predict it.

Maybe you didn't really show emotions, which was concerning, but also was made him feel more at ease, since you didn't show any signs of acting like your father.

You were sitting at your bed in medaby staring at your blurred reflection in the mirror. You couldn't clearly see yourself, but you were sure you looked a bit different and the clothes you were wearing now, simple t-shirt and pants, were much more comy and much more suited for a child, unlike that horrible suit.

- Hey, little one, how are you feeling? - he asked with strained gentleness

- I'm okay - you answered simply

- Since you are mostly recovered you will have to leave the medbay - he started saying. You were expecting something like that to happend, because why would he let you stick around? He alredy done much for you. As you were staying in the medbay you remember that Batman had a rule - a rule of not killing. Maybe that's why he helped you and healed you up, he probably just didn't want to let you die. You knew your father wouldn't really care of something happened to you, and he wouldn't even avange you, because why would he? You are just a pawn and he has bigger cards to cards to care about.

- So you will bring me back? -you asked, simply, which shoked Batman. You just now simply and dully asked him if he will bring you back to the crime alley ? How? Why? He felt his heart stinging at your emotionless reaction.

- No, I want to give you your new home

- New home? - you asked, confused. What did he meant by that?

- Yes. You will live with me, Alfred, and my sons. - he said calmly, looking at you, studying your reaction, he moved his hands closer to his mask. - that means you will know who I'm, and who are my allies are, which brings me to the point, before we could go to your new home, you must learn few rules, you understand right? - you only nodded in response. You were really confused. Why he wants you to live with you? Why is he okay with it? What was his reasoning?

The rules included: do not reveal our dentities to anyone, no wepons, no sharp object, no violence, no disobedience, mandatory emotional check-ins, mandatory seek of help when you need it, respect of boundaries and few other. You listened carefully when he explained every rule, trying to remember every detail, but you couldn't really understand that all. And you didn't really understood what will happened if you break the rule, but you didn't wanted to take chances.

After he explained the rules and you nodded to confirm you got the idea, he finally took his mask, and his face seemed to be familiar, and after few sections of thinking you said

- Oh, you are a man from newspapers - you remember seeing his face on some of the newspapers you used as blankets back in the crime alley.

- So I guess you know me? And you know my name - he asked, a bit confused by your reaction and use of wording

- uh.. I saw you, I don't really who you are - and it was true, you may saw him on newspapers, but you didn't really read them, there was too much words you didn't understand

- My name is Bruce Wayne, you can just call me Bruce. And since I introduced myself, it's time for you to introduce yourself too - he gave you a slight, gentle smile, encouraging you to speak up

- my name is (your name)

- Follow me, (your name)

So now you were following Bat...uh Bruce into various corridors of ... giant house? Castle? You didn't really know, but it was. You looked around, trying to take in at least some of the surroundings, but it was too much for you to remember. All you could say, the place was really luxurious... really like a castle, like one you saw in story book you manage to found one day.

Finally you arrived at the corridors there you assumed lived residents of the place. If you understood correctly while listening to Bruce, here manor two of his sons lived permanent: Tim and Damian, and two others, Richard and Jason, occasionally payed a visit. As you looked around corridor, you suddenly heard unfamiliar voice

- Father, you really decided to let them live here? - that voice sounded annoyed and angry

- Damian, we've talked about it - answered Bruce. You looked to father and son, who started conversation, taking in the appearance of short boy with spiky hair, and bright green eyes. So this is Damian.... as you looked at him, you noticed that his angry gaze never leaving you. His cold anger mixed with with annoyance made you visibly flinched.

- and I still stand my words, they are dangerous - young boy said, walking past his father, stopping in front of you - I was raised by assassins, don't think I won't see through your games - he said closing walking in his room and closing his door. You looked at him go, you expected this kind of greeting.

- Damian can be a little hostile at first- Bruce tried to soften up the atmosphere Damian created

- oh, it's fine, I understand -you answered calmly.

- so, most of those rooms are free so, feel free to chose one.

You walked through the corridor, checking if the room was taken or not, and you stopped at the far away room in the end for the corridor. Knowing that you would probably annoy others with your existence in the manor, you decided to choose exactly this room. You understood that your life here depended on how Batman, or how he told to call him Bruce, and his sons, and if you wanted to live peacefully you needed to try hard and not make him angry.

Bruce wanted to encourage you to take a room closer to others, but decided not to, so he would not discourage you

As you and and him walked in, you couldnt stop looking around. You would be living here now, and it felt like a dream.

- if you need anything call Alfred, and if you need me, just say so to him. - said Bruce as he left you to settle down. You looked around, taking in a surroundings by a bit empty previous guest room that just became yours. You sat down on the bed, feeling it's softness. You were still a confused, you felt fear as always, but also there was something else in the mix of your feelings, something much more lighter.

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In the morning you was woken up by the rays of sun. You didn't figured out how to close the curtains. Previously you didn't feel like going to dinner, so Alfred brought you sandwiches in your room so you at least could have a bite.

You looked out if the window, seeing beautiful geen garden. The sight was new to you, who grew up in the surroundings of dirty bricks and broken concrete. You watched sky, which looked more clear than in crime alley, clouds, birds, trees. It felt surreal, and it made this light feeling in your chest become stronger.

Alfred knocked soon after, he reminded you to wash your face and brush your teeth (something old butler had to explain you how to do) and said that he would lead you to the dining room.

Damian was already there, he tensed up once he saw you. You sat far away from him, sinking in your chair under his gaze.

Soon after you heard yawning coming form the way you've just walked in.

-Morning, Dams, morning Alfred - you heard the sleepy voice say - B left already?

- yes, master Tim - said the old butler putting coffee on place on the table near Damian's one.

- Drake - Damian said through teeth

- oh, look someon in a bad mood since morning, how - the boy sat down, suddenly stopping when he noticed you. He looked at you, not a word leaving him as he quietly staredat you for a few seconds with unreadable expression. Not knowing you decided at least to try to make the situation more strange

- hello? - you mumbled. And he just nodded. His gaze lingered a bit longer on your hair, before he looked away, looking visible uncomfortable. Alfred served the food soon after. It was one of the most tasty things you've ever ate, even if you could feel tension in the air that could be cut with the knife.

After Alfred was lead you back to your room and Bruce made a quick check up on you few hours latter you were left alone. You didn't really had anything to do: the books that were in the room were a bit difficult for you, and you didn't really had an idea what to do with crayons, because all the paintings that came in your mind were ones that were present on your father's "show scene". As you were loking at the window, you heard a sudden knock on your room's door. You turned around, awaiting too see an old butler, but was greeted with the sight of tall young man with wavy black hair, blue eyes, and slightly akward but nonetheless friendly simile.

- Hey, little one - he greeted - what are you up to.

- Hello - you mumbled rather shyly, looking at the window, when back at him.

- Oh, good-old window watching huh - you nodded, soon after adding

- You are?

- Right, I'm Dick, and what's your name?

- (your name)

- Nice to meat you. So, how are you here so far - he tried to striked up the conversation, before you heard familiar annoyed voice of Damian

- Grayson, I require your presence, now!

- Dami, just a minute - he answered

- now! - Damian repeated

Richard gave you an apologetic look - sorry, gotta go, but I would like to hang around you next time, if you Don't mind.

-I do not mind - you mumbled as you watched him left. The way he talked to you was unusual for you. It reminded the way how Bruce or Alfred talked with you, but it was warmer. It made that light feeling in your chest stronger for a bit, until it was taken away. It was strange to be talked with like that, but it was nice. Suddenly, you couldn't help but wish but to be talked with like that more.

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As day went by, you started slowly getting used to the life in here and rutine. You mostly spend your time around Alfred, following him as if you were a little ducking. He helped you around, explained how to do one or other things, helped you to find books you could read through, also old butler introduced to tw, but you quickly found out that cartoons were a bit much to you, so insted you settled on nature documentaries.

So here you were in the living room watching about life of animals in tropical jungle, when you heard heavy footsteps behind door, after that you hears how doors were heavily pushed open, you turned around, and saw tall and built tall and muscular guy, with short black hair with few white strands on them and book in his hands. Judging by his looks and what Alfeed told you so far you guessed it was Jason. Though, he seemed somehow familiar to you, yet you couldn't understand why...

- hello - you mumbled, looking at him.

He instantly frowned, you could see the same expression of anger on his face, the one you noticed on Damian constantly.

- what, old man really had his sanity kicked out? - he grumbled.

You were unsure of how to react, what to do. On one hand you could clearly see that Jason was mad at you the same way Damin were, so the plan was ether to hide in your room, or to stay quiet. On the other hand, even if you really didn't understand how to interact with others, in a short time you've been in the manor Alfred told you some basics of social interactions and politeness, one of which was to iniciate conversions, which made you want to give it a go.

- I just found out that some animals pretend to be dead so they wouldn't become a prey - you mumbled quietly, you really just learned that fact so you decided to share it. But it.your words seemed to make Jason even more mad.

- tsk, I see you, little psycho, are not so different from your crazy Dad - he spat out angrily, leaving you feeling down. You weren't like your dad, were you?

- I uh - you struggled to say, but you couldn't form your thought. What to answer to that? You weren't sure.

- don't even try, I don't like clowns -he spat out. Before you could say anything or he could continue saying things that left you sad, Alfred walked in.

- Master Jason, master Bruce awaits you in a batcave

- thanks - he said as he walked out, leaning you alone with your confusion and sadness, or so it was until you heard Alfred's cautious voice

- Master (your name)? Are you feeling alright? You seem to be a in your thoughts.

- I'm okay - you answered immediately, not wanting to worry old butler

- I see. - he answered, a bit thoughtfully, before speaking again - would you like to have some tea with cookies? - you nodded eagerly, remembering their sweet taste -when follow me to the kitchen

While you were enjoying tea with cookies, and looking how Alfred was busy preparing lunch, cutting greens with cooking scissors and chopping vegetables. He done this all fast and gracefully, leaving you amazed by his skills. In the middle of him cutting yet another green leaf, Alfeed was asked to go down to the cave by Jason, who walked away immediately after. Old butler put scissors near the edge of counter, and asked you if you knew how to get back to your room, before leaving. You just finished eating last cookie, when you heard metallic ring of fallen scissors. You walked to pick them up, but seeing your blurred reflection in them gave you an idea difference of original idea. Now you were on the way in your room.

Honestly speaking, you understood why your father was hated in this house, and you could understand why they hated you too, Joker is your dad after all, but you didn't like him to. In fact, he only brought you suffering. And you knew there wasn't a way to undone it,

But there is one thing you could do.

You walked in your room, I'm your bathroom, and in mirror you saw that one thing that reminded you of your father's the most. Your damaged green hair. Although while you were staying here, your hair grew longer and you could see your original color of hair, but green was still there and you hated longer green parts of your hair, his parts of your hair. Damian, Jason and Tim probably hated them too.

Chop.

You started cutting the green parts, leaving only strands of YOUR hair. It took awhile, it was hard. But few minutes after you were without them, and with fluffy uneven mess of a haircut on your head.

Putting all your green hair in a trash, you hurried back to kitchen. To your surprise, Alfred wasn't there yet. You put scissors in the sink, and returned to your tea, happy thay now you didn't had reminder of your dad on your head.

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After your sudden haircut, scolding, and another, but more professional haircut latter, Alfred decided to keep an eye on you. He had to admit that your desire to show difference form your dad finally made him warm up to you. But he was even more surprised when you said that you wanted to help him with tasks around the house and managing requests of boys and Bruce. Bruce found it a welcome change, but not all boys agreed with him

Which leads you to the present moment, you were cautiously carrying tray with coffee and snacks for Tim, since he skipped lunch yet again making Alfred worried yet again, when you were walking past Damian.To avoid him, you took a little to the other side, almost kicking off some sort of sculpture, which he caught, stopping in front of you, glaring at you

- Tt... use your eyes when you are going anywhere, pay attention - he grunted.

- I'm sorry - you said calmly, - cool move by the way - you said in attempt to soften the move

- I wasn't asking for your opinion. - he said, glaring at you one more time and saying - One false move and you'll find yourself dismantled faster than these figurines could hit the ground. Touch anything else in Father's collection, and you'll be practice dummy for my katana.

You tried not to flinch at Damian words, but did so anyways. It took you few minutes to calm down and continue your way towards Tim's room. You prepared to knock, but door was slightly agape.

- Tim? - you called, imitating Alfreds tone of voice. You saw how his hand gestured you to come in, so you did. You placed tray with coffee and snacks on his table. He glanced at you only for a second, before his eyes returned to the screen of his laptop, in that moment some sort of text appeared there, making him jolt, put laptop down and run away. You just stood there, not knowing what to do, you looked between door from which he left, and screen of his computer device, when another text appeared on it, and this time you could read it - "low battery. connect the charger"

Thanks to Alfred, you already knew what charger is, you just have to find it! You looked around, seeing too many wires around the room. You looked at the laptop, and saw too many ports. As you were unsuccessfully trying to find the right wire and right port, laptop's screen went dark. In that moment Tim walked in.

- What did you do?! - he asked almost yelling. Immediately going to the laptop

Nothing! - you panicked, and stepped away. He raised a hand and wave it. Not noticing yor flinch.

- just go, go away! You are messing all up!

If you thought you were shaky after encounter with Damian, this one definitely did.

Judging by Tim's reaction, you broke his computer. You didn't mean to, and you didn't knew if anyone will believe you that you didn't mean to do so. Maybe you'll need to apologize later, but right now, all you wanted is to talk with Alfred or to use up Bruces offer and talk with him if you needed it. In the state of panick you must have took the wrong turn, and bot seeing clearly before yourself, you bumped into Jason, after what you was pushed back and fell down in the process.

- you, little psycho! Don't you dare to touch me! - he yelled, making you flinch. For a second you felt like you was back with your father, pushed around, beaten and yelled at. As you were processing what happened, you didn't hear soft footsteps,

Jay, it was an accident. They just didn't not you - said Richard, trying to calm Jason down -yes, little one? - he said turning to you, but you were already running back to your room.

You cruled up in your blanket, hiding from the world and trying to calm down. You felt like crying. You probably did cry. It was all your fault. You almost broke figurine from Bruces collection, you probably broke Tim's computer, and you made Jason angry, so , Dick too was probably angry at you. Why had you just break thing, make everything worse. Maybe you should talk to Bruce.

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You didn't even notice how you feel asleep for a short time, but when you woke up, you decided to see Bruce, if anyone, he should know how to get allong with boys. And that's what you really wanted, to get along with them, just to feel safe.

The problem however was to find Bruce. You remember Bruce showing you where his cabinet and room was, however, you don't remember where exactly they are. You managed to find Alfred, who gave you a concerned look, but explained you where he was. He also said that all of them were having a movie night - Richard decided that everyone needed at least one bounding day a month, where all of them would gather and do something together. That got you a bit worried, because what if you ruin their movie night just like how you ruined everything today. But maybe you could apologize in front of everyone for being inconvenience and making them angry? You'll have to brace yourself . While thinking about it, you walked through various corridors, until you reached movie room.

There they were: While movie were playing on a big screen they sat on cozy sofa and armchairs. Bruce sat in the armchair, occasionally looking on the boys. You could see smile on his face. Dick sat in the middle of the sofa, watching with enthusiasm and actively commenting on the plot, eating popcorn. On one side if him, putting his head on Dick's shoulder, sat Tim, who was lazily laying on sofa. He sometimes corrected Dick or commented on CGI, whatever it is. On the other side of the Dick sat Damian, who tried to make an impression that he didn't like being here, yet even you could see through his act, and who tried to keep Tim's and Jason's hands away from popcorn. And near Tim, in the corner of sofa sat Jason, who teased Damian and Tim most of the time, argued with Dick on which character is better and successfully stole Dick's popcorn.

You've never seen a sight, that was as warm as this. It felt so warm, so cozy, so homy

It felt like family.

And here you were: in the shadow, not daring to make a step, to come in to join them, to afraid to ruin this perfect moment

You've never had a family in that sense of word, and what you had as a family, you wouldn't dare to call as such. In your family was no warmth, no care. There weren't a moment like this. But you needed them.

After you were taken in my Bruce you found out what care was, but even so it felt like it still was too far away from you, so far that you couldn't reach it. Maybe you didn't deserve it, but you wanted care you wanted love. You wished you could be a part of family you see right now. You want to come in. But you know you can't, you know you will ruin the moment if you will walk in now. You know that Damian will add another threat to a previous one, Jason will yell, Tim will shoosh away, and probably Dick and Bruce will silently agree with them and will say to you to come another time.

Your father is Joker, that's instantly makes you undeserving of care and attention. Well, whay to say if your own mother left you. And as for the batfamily, it's only natural to hate a child of their main enemy.

But what if you can prove you are not like your father? What if love and care are earned, and that's exactly why you didn't get them. When you will have to try and earn it. But for now, all you could do now, is to hide behind the door in another room, listen intently on every sound they make, cry silently, afraid of making any noise so you couldn't ruin the moment and wish you could be with them. Wish you was loved at least once in your life. Wish you were a part of their family.

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Thank you for reading and feel free to share your opinion 💖 have a good day

Author's note 2: I really badly wanna draw Joker's kid. I'd you are interested in my artworks , please let me know

Author's note 3: (1) In one of anonymous asks (here) one user had similar idea of what I had in mind. I hope I've done it good > - < (2) And I wanted to fit this idea from another ask (here) in the plot to, but I couldn't done it fully, I'm sorry T^T

Author's note 4 : to be honest, I have no idea what is tag list and how it works (I'm really sorry, but I'm not active social-media user), but few amazing people asked to tag them, and i hope I'm doing it right: @socially-embarrassing , @leovergurl , @deathbynarcisstick , @cryptic-arr0w , @lynns-cornerr

[f1ora1f1owerswrites]

the way he loves you

Summary: The Dagger Squad starts to notice the subtle ways Jake Seresin shows his love for you, from quiet moments at home to stolen glances at the Hard Deck. As each of them pieces it together, they realize Jake isn’t just Hangman—he’s yours.

Warnings: use of Y/N, she/her, fluff.

Word count: 1121 (oops i got a bit carried away)

A/N: someone reposted my last “curious gazes” and requested one with all the daggers, and i’ve been thinking about it ever since. i finally got time to write it so i hope you enjoy, i’ve been loving these!!

***

Jake “Hangman” Seresin had a reputation for being bold and larger than life. To most, nothing more than a cocky, overconfident pilot, the kind of guy who never seemed to take life too seriously. But when the Daggers met you, they began to see a side of Jake they’d never expected—a side that made them realize there was far more to him than they ever realized.

And it happened in little moments, each one chipping away at the image of Hangman and revealing Jake.

***

Phoenix

Natasha had always been sharp. She could read people easily, and Jake was no exception. She’d noticed the changes in him before anyone else: how he wasn’t as quick to boast, how he lingered on his phone more often, smiling at something no one else could see.

Still, it wasn’t until that night at the Hard Deck that she put the pieces together.

Jake walked in with you by his side, and Natasha immediately noticed the way he looked at you. It wasn’t the casual charm he used on everyone else—it was softer, almost reverent.

“Guys, this is Y/N,” Jake said, his voice filled with a kind of pride that made Natasha blink in surprise.

You smiled and waved, introducing yourself as Jake’s girlfriend, though you didn’t need to. Natasha had already figured it out.

She watched as Jake stayed close to you all night, not in his usual attention-seeking way, but quietly, as if he couldn’t bear to let you out of his sight. When you laughed, he leaned in just a little closer. When you spoke, he listened like your words were the most important thing in the world.

Later, as Jake brushed a strand of hair out of your face, his fingers lingering on your cheek and a soft smile, Natasha smirked and leaned over to Bob. “He’s gone.”

Bob

Bob Floyd noticed it in the details, in the quiet moments that others might overlook.

When Jake and you invited the squad over for dinner, Bob didn’t know what to expect. He’d never pictured Jake as the hosting type, but as he stepped into your cozy home, he could tell this was different.

“Make yourself at home,” you said warmly, handing Bob a glass of sweet tea.

Jake was in the kitchen, wearing an apron—an apron, of all things—as he stirred something on the stove. Bob couldn’t hide his surprise.

“You’re domesticated, Seresin,” Rooster teased, leaning against the counter.

Jake smirked without looking up. “Happy wife, happy life,” he said easily, earning a laugh from you.

“Not your wife yet,” you teased.

“Yet,” Jake said, glancing at you with a grin and tossing you a wink that made Bob’s chest ache with secondhand fondness.

Bob noticed the way you moved around each other, wordlessly passing utensils and dishes, finishing each other’s sentences. There was a quiet rhythm to it, a kind of unspoken understanding that came from deep love and trust.

When dessert came out, Jake set the plate in front of you first, brushing a kiss to your temple. Bob caught the way you smiled, the way Jake’s hand lingered on yours for just a moment longer than necessary.

Bob glanced at Phoenix, who raised her eyebrows knowingly. “That’s love,” she whispered, and Bob couldn’t agree more.

Rooster

Bradley Bradshaw noticed it during a pool game at the Hard Deck.

Jake had always been competitive, but tonight, he wasn’t playing to win against the squad—he was playing to impress you.

Every shot he made, he’d glance over at you, his grin widening when you clapped or cheered. But it wasn’t just the showmanship that caught Bradley’s attention. It was the way Jake handed you the pool cue, guiding you through your shots with a patience Bradley hadn’t thought him capable of.

“Am I doing this right?” you asked, laughing as you tried to line up your shot.

“You’re perfect,” Jake said softly, his voice so low that only you and Bradley heard.

Bradley rolled his eyes but couldn’t hide the grin tugging at his lips. “You’re whipped, Seresin.”

“And happy about it,” Jake shot back, winking.

Bradley couldn’t argue with that.

Payback & Fanboy

Fanboy and Payback noticed it on the beach.

It was a rare day off, and the squad had decided to hit the sand for some football and relaxation. You’d tagged along, sitting under an umbrella with a book in hand while the others played.

Jake kept sneaking glances at you between plays, his grin growing every time you looked up and smiled.

When the game ended, Jake jogged over to you, dropping to his knees in the sand beside your chair. “Having fun?” he asked, brushing sand off his hands.

You smiled, closing your book. “Always, when I’m with you.”

Mickey nudged Reuben, jerking his chin toward the two of you. “Look at him. That’s not the Hangman we know.”

“Nope,” Reuben said with a grin. “That’s Jake. Big difference.”

Coyote

Javy had known from the beginning.

He’d been there when Jake first mentioned you, his voice tinged with something Javy hadn’t heard before: vulnerability. He’d watched as Jake navigated the early days of your relationship, unsure of himself in a way that was both endearing and rare.

At a barbecue one weekend, Javy pulled Jake aside, nodding toward you as you chatted with Phoenix and Bob.

“She’s good for you, man,” Javy said.

Jake nodded, his gaze fixed on you. “Yeah. She is.”

“You ever gonna tell her how whipped you are?” Javy teased.

Jake smirked. “She already knows, no need to say it.”

The Moment They All Realized

The squad’s collective realization came during another gathering at your house.

It was late, and the group was sprawled across the living room, laughing and swapping stories. You were in the kitchen, tidying up, when Jake disappeared without a word.

A few minutes later, he returned with a dish towel over his shoulder, carefully carrying a handful of freshly washed glasses.

“Need a hand, sweetheart?” he asked, walking straight to you.

The room went silent as the squad watched him press a kiss to your temple before helping you dry the dishes.

Phoenix broke the silence first. “Holy shit. He’s a househusband.”

The room erupted in laughter, and Jake looked over his shoulder with a smirk. “Jealous?”

“Absolutely,” Natasha said, grinning.

As the laughter died down, Javy raised his beer. “To Y/N,” he said.

You looked up, surprised. “To me?”

Javy nodded. “Yeah. You turned Hangman into Jake. And we love you for it.”

The squad cheered, and as Jake’s hand found yours, you squeezed it, your heart full.

Because while Jake might not have always been the loudest about his love, the people who mattered most could see it clear as day.

[httpwintersoldier]

『sweet little thing p.3 | b. barnes x reader』

pairing: bucky barnes x afab!reader words: it's real long okay, it even has THREE parts (or more?) summary: what happens when the guy you have a crush on happens to have a dad, who is older, hotter and rougher? 『 part 1 』 『 part 2 』 『 part 3 』

fluff ; angst ; smut

To say that things were complicated after that day was an understatement. On the night of the game you and Bucky had to wait for everyone to leave and for Andy to go to bed, before he could sneak you out of the house - at the end of the ride you had to force yourselves off of each other, or the night would become a lot longer than intended.

You had kept in constant contact, yearning to repeat what had happened the day (and night) of the game. If the day had more hours, and if the week had more days, you would've spent even that extra time messaging each other, as it appeared that the twenty-four hours of contact were (seemingly) not enough.

Bucky didn't tell you, obviously, but he was afraid that you'd stop showing interest right after, due to his age - he considered the possibility of being an experiment to you. On the other hand, you had also considered that he had only wanted you as a trophy, the young piece of ass that he'd tell his friends about. However, as time passed and as messages were exchanged, it was clear to the both of you that your worries were nothing but mere fiction made up by your overthinking.

You: lazy day today...

Mr. Barnes: does that mean I'm not getting a pic of one those cute little outfits you like to wear?

You: 1 attachment

You: this is the only outfit I'm wearing today, good enough? 😇

"Fuck..." Bucky muttered, and licked his lips as he looked at the image you had sent him.

The t-shirt was loose, but you were laying on your back so your curves and your nipples were very distinguishable. You had purposefully pulled it up, so your panties peeked from underneath the fabric, teasing him purposefully.

Something within him flared up, all the while you stared at the phone, anxiously awaiting his reply. You saw the text go from sent, to delivered, to seen, to... ignored?

You frowned, he had never taken that long to respond... You thought the both of you were "in a mood", but apparently you were wrong. Minutes went by and there was still no response, and suddenly you wondered if you had done something wrong.

The sound of the doorbell echoed in your place, bringing you back to reality. You were confused, you hadn't ordered anything, and you weren't expecting anyone, it was also quite late, which definitely raised an alarm.

You quietly walked to the door and looked through the peephole. Your eyes widened as you realized that, on the other side of the door, stood none other than James Barnes, he looked angry... no, desperate.

You swung the door open and, before you could say a word, Bucky cupped one of your cheeks and the other hand gripped your waist, pushing you against the wall as he closed the door with his foot. His lips smashed against yours, devouring you in a hungry kiss while his shameless hand travelled to your ass and gripped it harshly, bringing your hips forward. You could feel the outline of his hardened cock pressing against your hip, and you couldn't help the moan that escaped into the kiss.

"How are you here? I texted you like... ten minutes ago. You live twenty minutes away." You asked, looking at him through half lidded eyes as you caressed his cheek.

"My foot was on the floor with that gas pedal."

You leaned your head against the wall and laughed, giving him an opening to kiss and bite your neck.

"You risked getting pulled over just to come here quickly?"

"It was an urgent matter..." The man rolled his hips against you as he spoke, fully letting you feel his boner. "This time..." he paused, biting your neck in the middle of the sentence "there's no one around, so I want to hear you call my name real loud."

A string of cures left your lips as you grabbed his hand and hurriedly dragged him into your bedroom.

Bucky was quick to throw you onto your bed, discarding of his shirt and working on his jeans as he hovered over you. His impatience was clear, he didn't even remove your panties, the man simply pulled them to the side as he slid into you with ease.

Your moans and his grunts were muffled out by the hungry kiss you two shared. Your legs wrapped around his waist, giving Bucky a better angle to thrust deeper into you.

"Y-you feel so good!" You moaned, fueling Bucky to fuck you even harder.

He gripped the hem of your shirt and pulled it off of you, so that he could see your tits bouncing with each thrust of his hips. The man gripped and squeezed every inch of your body, seemingly hypnotized by the way you looked when being fucked by him.

"I'm not lasting long, sweetheart." Bucky admitted.

"C-cum in me."

Those three words alone nearly had him climaxing, your pretty voice saying those dirty words for him, as your pretty eyes looked at him with that little sparkle in them... It took real commitment not to spill inside of you that very second.

"You're sure, baby?"

You could only nod and, before long, his hips snapped against yours in one final thrust, and his cock twitched inside of you, filling you with his cum. Bucky bent over, and kissed you slowly to drown out his groans.

"That's it, take it all in..." He paused, and kissed your temple. "Good girl..."

Once he was done, Bucky was careful when pulling out. He laid beside you, placing several kisses to your temple.

"You okay?"

You looked at him and nodded. Bucky looked back at you, with adoration plastered on his face. You were a grown adult, but the expression on your face when you stared at him was simply too cute, too much to bear, he wanted to hold onto you forever.

"I will wash up and get us some water, okay?" You said, brushing stray strands of hair away from his face.

Bucky nodded and slapped your ass as you walked away, earning a small shriek in return.

A couple minutes later, his phone vibrated on the pocket of his jeans that were lying somewhere on the floor. Bucky cursed and rummaged through the clothes until he found the device, picking up without looking at the caller ID.

"Dad? Where are you? I just got home and you're nowhere, I tried calling you like, three times. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine, I left home like forty minutes ago." Bucky clarified with a sigh - sometimes he felt like the child.

"Where are you?"

Just as the man was about to answer and give some shitty excuse, your voice echoed in the house.

"Hey Bucky, do you want a beer instead or-" You stopped in your tracks when you walked into the room and saw Bucky sitting there, with wide eyes and his phone to his ear.

"Dad? Who was that? Oh my God are you on a date?!" The boy asked, with a teasing tone.

"No, Andy, I'm not on a date, see you later, okay?" Bucky responded, making sure to say his name so that you'd understand who it was on the other side.

"Sure dad, see you."

You sat beside him on the bed, giving him the beer you had brought for him.

"Do you think he recognized my voice?" You asked as you bit your lip, suddenly feeling uneasy and nervous.

"No, he would've given me Hell on the phone if he had. But it is kind of late, I should head back." The man said, placing a kiss to your lips, as he got ready to stand up.

You grabbed his wrist and stopped him. He looked at you as you pressed your lips together and averted your gaze - you were clearly itching to ask something, but you were too nervous.

"What?" He asked with a chuckle and a small smile, knowing very well what you were going to question next.

"No need to head back... It's so late, why don't you spend the night?"

Bucky kissed your lips softly, and then kissed you a little deeper, just enough so you could taste the alcohol on his tongue.

"I thought you were gonna make me do the walk of shame."

Bucky strolled into his house with a small smile, as he thought of you, of your body, and of the time you had spent together. It was hard to conceal how happy you made him, and the man didn't try hard to hide it either.

The second the front door closed, a curious Andy came in the room.

"Hey dad, where did you spend the night, hm?" The boy asked teasingly, hinting at the feminine voice he had heard on the phone.

The dad chuckled, and the spark in his eye instantly died down as he remembered that you were his son's crush and he had just spent the night fucking you.

"No one." Bucky responded simply, throwing his phone and keys onto the table.

"Come on dad, I'm not going to be mad! You and mom have been divorced long enough, I knew it was going to happen eventually." The boy insisted, in a whiny voice, as he followed his dad up the stairs.

Little did Andy know, but he definitely would care.

"You're being a pain in the ass, kid." Bucky warned, evading the question once more.

Before Andy could say anything else, the man walked into the bathroom and shut the door, creating a physical barrier between the two of them, hoping that Andy would stop pushing him for answers on such an uncomfortable matter.

As Bucky walked down the stairs after his shower, in search for his phone, he understood why there had been a deafening silence in the house for so long.

His son stood in the middle of the hallway, holding Bucky's phone. The man couldn't see what he had opened, but once Andy lifted his head, with red, tear-stained eyes, it was pretty clear.

"You're fucking Y/N?..." He asked, with a faint, shaky voice, but it wasn't really a question.

Bucky's mouth opened, but closed right after, as he had no idea what to say.

"You're fucking Y/N?!" Andy repeated, now yelling.

The tears streaming down his face were those of sadness, anger and frustration - he couldn't comprehend what was happening, and he was unable to assimilate that it was real life, surely it had to be a dream, a nightmare. His face was contorted in hate and betrayal, and the whole situation made him feel so, so small.

"Andy, I'm sorry..." That was the only thing Bucky could muster the courage to say.

"Are you!? Are you really!? 'Cause you didn't seem sorry at all when you were coming in the house! You knew I fucking liked her, I told you!"

The man opened his mouth to say something, but Andy was quicker.

"I don't wanna hear whatever bullshit excuse you're going to make up to make yourself feel better."

Andy dropped his dad's phone on the floor with force and dashed out of the door.

Bucky stood there, all of what he had done hitting him like a brick wall. Soon after, he heard the tires of Andy's car screeching as he sped down the street.

Fuck.

"You're fucking my dad?!"

It felt as if your world had crumbled around you. You had been startled by someone banging on your door, and, when you opened the door to find Andy in his disheveled state you didn't expect that to come out of his mouth.

"H-how..."

"I saw it. On his phone."

"Oh..."

"That's all you have to say!? 'Oh'!?" Andy yelled, his whole body was shaking and his face was red, there was not a single negative emotion he had not been feeling.

It was all you could say, it was all that your dry, aching throat would allow you to utter. Your body was shaking too, but your legs were frozen in the spot.

"How fucking could you?! You have to have known that I fucking liked you! And I invite you to my house and what, you fuck my dad?! What the fuck is wrong with you!" By the end of his speech, Andy was laughing, out of anger and anxiousness, laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation, at how he had been played.

"I-I didn't! Andy I swear that I didn't know you liked me!" You shrieked back, but it sounded more like a plea than anything.

"You're a fucking liar!" He yelled, pointing his index finger at you.

"Andy I liked you! I liked you too but..." You confessed, holding your palms in front of your chest, as if protecting yourself from him.

You couldn't finish your sentence, but you didn't need to, Andy understood.

"You liked me?..." The boy asked.

His voice had become soft, as if he had realized, just then, that he had had the opportunity he wanted and had lost it, to his dad.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!" Andy repeated, his voice harsher and louder.

As he stepped forward towards you, you stepped backwards, until your back was against the wall. Andy towered over you, staring down into your eyes with anger and disgust.

"I-I didn't mean to hurt you, I'm sorry... But after I met Buck- your dad, I... I'm sorry."

You averted your gaze and stumbled on your words, nothing you said made sense and you couldn't bring yourself to make a full sentence.

Suddenly, Andy was pushed away from you by something, and, when you looked in his direction, you saw Bucky behind him, with a stern, rigid expression. The man had pulled his son back by the arm and kept a strong grip on it, preventing Andy from going up to you again.

"Not at her. You don't yell at her like that, and you especially don't treat her like that." The man told his son.

"Oh, aren't you the cutest couple." Andy retorted, in a snarky and ironic voice, while trying to escape his dad's grip.

"Don't be a fucking idiot, I've taught you better than to yell at women. You want to be angry then be angry at me. I fucked up. I knew about it, she didn't, so you want to get up in someone's face, get up in mine." Bucky snarled.

It was weird, he felt intense guilt for betraying his son's trust in such a vulnerable way, but at the same time his stomach churned and his face burned when he saw his son treat you like that.

Andy looked up at his dad and, knowing it was a fight he wasn't going to win, violently shook his dad's hand off of his arm.

"See you at home, dad." He said, and left, slamming your front door as loudly as he could.

Once the silence had settled in, and once your mind processed what had happened, you dropped to your knees. Your chest heaved up and down quickly and tears flowed down your face incessantly, the droplets forming a polka-dot pattern on the floor beneath you.

Bucky said nothing, he simply knelt beside you and wrapped his arms around you, pulling you towards his chest.

"Sh... It's fine..." He told you softly, as one of his hands caressed your face and the other caressed your hair.

You had no idea how long you had stayed on the floor crying against Bucky's chest, but the man had not attempted to get up even once. He stayed there, holding you and whispering sweet words until you had calmed down. He waited for you to shower and made you some tea (after opening and closing nearly every cabinet in your kitchen).

"So... Y/N..." He started, with a sigh, breaking the seemingly never-ending silence, as he sat across from you "I think we should stop whatever we have going on."

Bucky was met with silence and a blank expression.

"What?"

You had to have heard it wrong, there was no way the two of you had risked so much for him to end things like that.

"I don't think this is a good idea Y/N... I-I have already hurt my son, and I can't sacrifice my relationship with my son like this-"

You stood up abruptly, accidentally knocking over the tea he had made you.

"You're a coward!" You snapped, shooting daggers at him with your eyes.

Bucky stood up carefully, he was now the one locked in a cage with a wolf, as it seemed.

"Y/N, please don't make this harder than it has to be..." The man stepped towards you and tried to grab your hands, but you moved them away.

"Coward! Asshole! I was just a piece of ass to you, wasn't I?! The second trouble came your way you didn't even hesitate to throw me to the curb!" You yelled, smacking his chest.

Bucky's jaw tightened and he tried to make you stop once more, he tried to calm you down, but to no avail.

"You were not just a piece of ass Y/N, you know it, but I can't do it if I'm hurting-"

You continued on smacking his chest, while crying and cursing at him - you didn't want to listen to whatever he was saying. Bucky was older than you, but he wasn't made of iron and his heart wasn't made of stone, your words and actions had hurt him just as much as his confession had hurt you.

"This is what I get for fucking around with kids." Bucky mumbled angrily under his breath, his jaw still clenched.

You stopped everything and slowly lifted your eyes to meet his gaze. You were enraged, disappointed and hurt, but his eyes... The emotions were far too vast, sorrow, regret, hurt...

You stepped closer and looked deep into his eyes.

"I wasn't a kid when you were fucking me earlier today." You spat.

Bucky had had enough. He finally grabbed your hands and pushed you against the wall of the kitchen, pinning your wrists above your head with one hand.

Neither of you said anything, and both of you refused to break the intense eye contact.

It happened quickly, like a flash of light, but your lips were brought together by the tension and your hands roamed each other's bodies like wild animals. Moans, groans and curses echoed in the air as the the two of you made out against the wall.

The man picked you up with ease and swung you over his shoulder, spanking you ass several times on your way to the bedroom. When he dropped you on your bed, your body had not finished bouncing on the mattress and he had already jumped on top of you.

Your hands fidgeted with the button and the zipper of his jeans, while his fingers gripped the waistband of your shorts and of your panties, pulling them off your body in one harsh pull. The man pulled away for a second, to fully remove his pants, and to strip from his shirt, before removing your shirt with haste and attaching his lips to your neck. He stained your skin with bites that would leave a mark for certain, a small, dirty trail that followed from your neck down to your chest.

As one of his hands played with one of your nipples, his mouth attached to the other, roughly sucking on it, and giving it playful bites. Your hands found their way to his hair, tugging on it from time to time.

A long, strained moan was ripped from your throat as his fingers found your pussy, his index and middle finger slowly entering you as his thumb circled your clit. The man's lips pulled away from your tits, so that he could watch your face as his fingers fucked you.

The pace quickened at a steady pace, and he watched your pleasure-struck expression with a shit-eating grin.

"You like it, sweetheart?" He asked, bending over so he could whisper in your ear and bite your earlobe "Do you like it when I make you feel good, hm?"

"Y-yes sir." You moaned out.

Suddenly, Bucky removed his fingers entirely, licking them clean right in front of your face before gripping your neck with his hand, applying just enough pressure.

"Now, what did I say about calling me sir?" The man asked, with a glint in his eye, glad to have something to punish you about.

"S-sorry-"

"Too late, sweetheart."

Bucky flipped you around on the mattress, and pulled your hips up, so you'd be on all fours. He knelt behind you, so that his hips would be lined up with your ass, and slowly inserted himself into you, groaning as he felt your walls tightened around him. It felt heavenly, to be filled by him and to be wrapped around by you.

His hips snapped against yours at a fast, rough pace right from the start. The man's hands made a makeshift ponytail with your hair and he tugged on it from time to time, as if punishing you for talking back to him.

"Who's fucking you this good? Hm?"

"Y-you!" You yelled.

His free hand spanked your ass a couple of times.

"Who are you a whore for, pretty girl?"

"You!"

Spank.

"Say my name!"

"F-fuck! You Bucky! You fuck me so well- shit!" You cursed as you could feel the familiar knot forming on your stomach.

You arms gave in and your back arched, allowing for Bucky to somehow hit a better spot in you. With a cry for his name, and a string of undecipherable curses, you came.

The way his name left your lips made Bucky climax instantly, filling you up with his cum as he praised you.

As you both came down from your high, the man bent over and kissed your shoulder blades, before pulling out.

"You did really good, sweetheart." He whispered, before slowly flipping you around and pulling you towards him.

As you laid on his chest, Bucky played with your hair, sharing a minute of silence while the two of you caught your breaths.

"So... Is this goodbye?" You said, unwilling to meet his eye.

"It can't be..." The man admitted.

After that confession, you slowly looked up at him. His face was unreadable, the emotions were far too many to be able to decipher just one.

"Then why would you say that... earlier."

Bucky pressed his lips together and sighed. He didn't know how you had done it, but you snuck into his heart and tripled its size. Bucky found himself thinking of you day and night, you made him feel things he hadn't felt in a long time.

"It seemed like the best option- the only option. I mean fuck, my son likes you, and here I am with you. And it's selfish but..." He paused and sighed once more, unsure if he should speak his mind "This has already been done, I've already hurt my son, unfortunately. All I can do is ask for forgiveness, but if I stopped seeing you... Then three people would end up being hurt."

You squeezed Bucky tightly - you hadn't known him for long, but you could tell that it was hard for him to be selfish, to act in his own interest instead of putting everyone else before him.

"We'll figure this out..."

"minors dni" banner credit - @cafekitsune taglist: @bookofriverr ; @starfly-nicole @deafening-roar-of-angry-students

[gs29]

The Tiny Frontman

Squid Game Master list

Gong Yoo had never really thought of mixing his personal life with his work. But today, things were different. You had asked him to bring you and your baby to the headquarters for a rare visit. You’d been feeling a bit isolated at home lately, and he thought it might be a good idea to show you a side of his life that you’d never seen before.

"Just don’t expect much," he warned with a smile as he fastened his suit jacket. "It’s a bit… unconventional."

You laughed, holding your daughter in your arms. "I’m sure it’ll be fine. We just want to see where you work, Gong Yoo."

With a kiss on your cheek, he left the apartment with you and your baby, heading toward the secretive base. The air was thick with mystery, and you could sense Gong Yoo’s usual seriousness as he glanced over at you, always the protective husband.

When you arrived, the guards let you in with little question, recognizing Gong Yoo immediately. He led you down a long, sterile hallway, and as you passed through dark rooms filled with monitors and equipment, you couldn't help but marvel at the level of secrecy that surrounded him. It was like stepping into a whole different world—a world where the stakes were high, and everything operated like clockwork.

Gong Yoo finally led you to a large, open room where the Frontman typically conducted his business. The atmosphere was tense and clinical, but it felt strangely normal now that you were standing there with him, your baby cradled in your arms.

"Alright, here we are," Gong Yoo said, motioning to the chair opposite a massive desk. "The Frontman will be here soon."

Your daughter was squirming in your arms, clearly interested in everything around her. She seemed fascinated by the dim lighting and the eerie quietness of the space.

Not long after, the Frontman walked in—silent as always, his tall figure cloaked in darkness, his signature black mask in place. He looked just as intimidating as you'd imagined, his presence commanding the room.

Gong Yoo stood up to greet him, but as you took a seat with your baby on your lap, your little one suddenly began reaching for something on the table.

"Hey, no—don’t touch that," you said instinctively, but it was too late. In a flash, your daughter’s tiny hands had grabbed hold of the Frontman’s mask, which was resting casually on a chair beside him.

The Frontman looked up in surprise, his expression unreadable under the mask. But before anyone could react, your daughter tugged the mask off the chair and—much to everyone’s shock—placed it over her little head, a perfect fit for her tiny face.

"Uh-oh…" you said, wide-eyed. "I think she likes it."

Gong Yoo stifled a laugh, trying to keep the situation light-hearted, but the Frontman just stood there, unmoving, his hands behind his back.

Your daughter, completely oblivious to the tension in the room, took a few wobbly steps toward the mic that stood on the desk, and without hesitation, grabbed the microphone with both hands, pulling it toward her.

The silence in the room deepened.

Gong Yoo raised an eyebrow as he watched the spectacle unfold. "What is she doing now…?"

With the mask still on her face, the baby, surprisingly, spoke into the mic in her adorable, babbling baby voice. Her words were a garbled mess, but somehow, it sounded like she was trying to "order" something.

"Guh-guh-uh… Guh… Yuh-uh… Gah!" she said into the mic, as if giving instructions to the guards standing by.

The guards, stationed around the room, exchanged confused looks. They weren’t sure if they were supposed to acknowledge this little ‘command’ from someone so tiny. The whole room was silent, except for the soft sound of your daughter’s giggling as she clutched the microphone.

"U-um…" one of the guards stammered, unsure how to respond. "Should we—?"

The Frontman took a slow, deliberate step forward, his voice cold and commanding. "What is happening right now?"

Before anyone could say anything else, your daughter, still wearing the mask, continued babbling. She raised her arms up as though directing the guards, her tiny hands moving like she was orchestrating some unseen force.

You couldn’t help it—your laughter bubbled up as you watched her play pretend, utterly unaware of the effect she was having on the entire room.

"She’s giving orders to the guards," Gong Yoo said in a half-amused, half-incredulous tone, shaking his head. "I swear, she’s more intimidating than I am."

The Frontman didn’t move, his posture as stiff and unmoving as always, but you could see the faintest hint of amusement in his eyes. He wasn’t used to being overshadowed—especially not by a baby in a mask.

"Should we… do something?" one of the guards asked, still perplexed.

"No," the Frontman replied in his usual low, calm voice. "Let her play. It’s… quite entertaining."

You couldn’t hold back your laughter any longer. "It seems like she’s already taken over your job."

The Frontman didn’t say anything, but there was a slight, almost imperceptible shift in his posture. Perhaps it was a hint of amusement—or maybe just the realization that the tiniest member of this chaotic world had already outwitted them all.

As your daughter babbled into the mic, the guards began to cautiously follow her "orders," stepping in time with her gestures as if they were following the tiniest, most unpredictable commander.

Eventually, you gently removed the mask from your daughter’s head, bringing her back to reality as the room relaxed. The Frontman stood silently, still watching, but his lips curled slightly at the corners.

"Well," Gong Yoo said, giving his wife and daughter a playful side glance, "I think she’s got a future in this business."

You laughed, holding your daughter closer to you. "Maybe one day she’ll be running the whole show."

"Perhaps," the Frontman said, his voice low and almost amused. "But for now, she’s already stolen the spotlight."

As you all left the room, Gong Yoo looked down at his daughter with a proud smile. "Looks like you’ve already beaten me to the punch."

Your daughter cooed happily in response, blissfully unaware of the chaos she had caused. But one thing was certain—she was already in charge.

And somehow, Gong Yoo couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, she’d be running things sooner than anyone expected.

[asairayn]

OKAY HERE'S THE ANALYSIS OF ORIGINAL ECLIPSE

I LOVE THIS. such good interpretations of every version of eclipse.

I do want to talk about the original Eclipse, though, because I have a lot of thoughts on him and his motivation and his issues- I might be a little bit biased towards him (I wrote over 20k words about him over about eight months and wasn't even CLOSE to done).

So! Trying to analyze Eclipse at the very start is kind of difficult because... so much has been retconned, or forgotten about, or turned out to be just Not True- remember when Eclipse said he caused July 16th? Hard to tell whether that was him lying or something that got retconned as soon as they realized they needed a second villain.

But! from the best I can gather, largely from much later episodes that talk about the beginning, the original Eclipse was actually very heavily motivated by feeling betrayed. He actually said it himself

The original Eclipse was Moon. He started out as Moon, he had all the same memories... and then he was abandoned. Fully. Before he even existed. And then he was left in Sun's head for... an indeterminably long time (has the timeline been cleared up yet? how goddamn long before the show starts did july 16th happen?? because he was conscious in Sun's head for long enough before that to create Bloodmoon.), where he was able to hear and maybe see what was going on around Sun... but not do anything. Solitary confinement will get to anyone!

(He actually talked about that as a betrayal and how much it Sucked to be stuck in Sun's head in this clip (well. the reincarnation did. but good fucking luck finding the original eclipse talking about feelings.))

So he was Moon, and then he came to consciousness stuck in Sun's head with Moon's memories still thinking he was Moon, and then was stuck there for... a long time. He created Bloodmoon fairly early... and then was immediately abandoned again. Somehow, in however long he spent in the void in Sun's head (I have a lot of thoughts on that void, but they're not technically canon), he managed to craft himself a new identity. Because he was Moon!

And then he watched Sun and Moon get to exist and have a life while he was stuck for a long time in what was essentially solitary confinement. He hated them- he hated them a lot. It's mentioned many times, especially in the first few episodes with teaps Sun and Moon (i'm at that point in trying to catch up, so. i don't know whatever's happened beyond that), that Eclipse fucking hated being stuck in Sun's head- he hated loss of control, he hated having to watch.

And it shows in what he was trying to do! He hated Moon for abandoning him, and he hated Sun for not letting him have control... so he tortured Moon and completely revoked all control from Sun. Technically his goal in that era is to get the star, to... erase the world and make it better, or something, but. To me, that doesn't show at all- he doesn't act like that's his goal, he mostly acts like that's a fun pastime while he tries to lock Sun and Moon away permanently.

That all doesn't work, evidently. Lunar betrays him, which everybody but him expected, and lets Moon help Sun figure out what the hell to do, and eventually Eclipse gets killed/expelled from Sun's head. Goodbye to the original Eclipse, sucks to suck loser, shouldn't have abused your brother.

But the original Eclipse, at his core, hated Moon for abandoning him but hated Sun for locking him away.

He was mostly motivated by hatred- he'd had a long time to stew in it. He had a lot of abandonment issues and a lot of spite.

Quite literally, at that time, the only way that he could have any kind of control was by shoving Sun into his own head... which made both Sun and Moon hate him more. There wasn't actually any way he could take control without pissing them off- excluding maybe communication, but it's Eclipse. and he'd have to be communicating with Moon (notoriously bad at communication). He also had zero communication skills- he was Moon and then spent a long time unable to talk to anyone.

BUT THE JULY 16TH THING THAT I MENTIONED EARLIER IS IMPORTANT. I forgot I was going to talk about that.

So! The biggest thing that made Sun and Moon hate Eclipse from the beginning was that he claimed he was the one who took over Sun's body and killed a bunch of children on July 16th. Well, technically, he may have just said that he caused it and let Sun and Moon come to their own conclusions about how- but in the beginning, he was definitely saying that he was the one who killed people on July 16th.

And... that was a lie. Or retconned. Hard to say. You could technically say that he did still cause July 16th by creating Bloodmoon, but that's still a different thing. He didn't take control and murder children with his own hands- he created a person who got bored and took control to murder children.

But that means that Sun and Moon originally hated him for something he didn't do. They had other reasons to dislike him, sure, and he certainly gave them more reasons, but. The original thing wasn't actually him.

That has very little actual bearing on anything. They don't bring that up- it's not a Thing. but. it means something to me, I suppose. When Eclipse first showed up, the only Bad Thing™ that he'd done directly was take control by force. He portrayed himself from the beginning as the Big Bad, but he hadn't really done anything yet. I'm sure at least part of that was because- at least from what I can tell- they didn't actually have any plans for Bloodmoon yet so at that point he was the July 16th killer, but retcons just mean more fun for me.

Eclipse intentionally showed himself as the Bad Guy. He hated Moon for abandoning him, hated Sun because he was stuck in his head, and everything he did for the first few months was just... based in the kill code. He basically just did violence, until he started fucking with Sun and Moon, at which point he was filled with so much spite he couldn't be convinced to do anything else- and they didn't try.

Eclipse threatened Sun- the only person who Moon cared about ("Hi, I'm Moondrop, I don't care about anybody aside from my brother."). No matter what, Moon was going to hate him from that point on. Eclipse started by doing the one thing that Moon would not tolerate.

And then Eclipse created Lunar, for... somewhat vague reasons. And was awful to him, somewhat unsurprisingly. And, because he was horrible to Lunar, he would NEVER be forgiven (Until he came back from the third time, and was enough of a new person for Earth- who also Wasn't There- to not care).

I'm... very clearly biased towards the original Eclipse. I hate him so much and I've written so much about him and everything I wrote keeps being proven correct EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY TALK ABOUT THE ORIGINAL ECLIPSE.

Um. I'll be honest I don't actually know where the fuck I was going with this and I maybe just wanted an excuse to scream about Eclipse. And accidentally wrote over a thousand words of it.

Is there a certain way you go about the characterizations of the different incarnations of Eclipse?

Their motivations!

So at his core, Eclipse is an angry, paranoid, spiteful, arrogant, lonely, possessive, socially-inept person who can't communicate to save his own life. No matter where in his life you're writing him from, these traits persist.

The differences come in what his goal is, and which of his core traits are being amplified because of it.

I've written the Original Eclipse the least, mostly because I actually got interested in the show following his death 8'D. This Eclipse is the most closed off of all of them, the least likely to change his mind, the angriest and most vindictive. He hasn't been betrayed yet, he hasn't really failed yet, so his arrogance is at an all time high.

On the flip side, after his defeat and expulsion from Sun's head, this is also the rawest point in Eclipse's life. There's a lot of good fics about scraping his broken ass out of the woods and patching him up, and for good reason. Strip his arrogance away with his loss, and he has nothing.

My favorite is the Backup Eclipse. Eclipse 2.0, my beloved! Still arrogant, still angry, but spite is his strongest trait. He was defeated and he knows it, and he's learned that he needs to be a bit smarter in manipulating those around him. By escalating the game to the next level when he amplified Moon's kill code (giving us the guy, Kill Code), Eclipse started a chain reaction that is STILL going on in current canon.

The Backup is my favorite because his characterization runs from one end of the spectrum to the other. He comes back as a bedraggled version of himself, forced to deal with basically being Bloodmoon's prisoner while also getting them to work for him. He manages to enact one victory after another, culminating in him actually gaining the star. He did it, he won!

And then he fucking crashes.

Possession and loneliness are his strongest traits in the second half of his arc, and he picks up depression as well. Spite has become bitterness. Eclipse was never supposed to win, and he knows it. The star was only ever a means to an end, a way to get Moon's attention. And when Moon resets himself... Eclipse doesn't know what to do. He attempts to respark that rivalry, but New Moon isn't interested.

With no goal to latch on to, Eclipse crumples under his own misery and lack of purpose. On his way to winning, he destroyed everything that made his life interesting.

And then he got space lasered.

And then finally Eclipse 3.0, the Recreated Eclipse. I don't make a distinction between who he was before Lunar blew up his body and after, though I know some folks do.

Eclipse 3.0 starts off with anger, of course, and a lot of confusion and desperation. For a good amount of time in there he was p much feral. This one is mired in self-pity, and lashes out because of it.

Because that's what makes this one really interesting. He's picking up from where the Backup left off-- he has no purpose. I think he sunk his claws into the goal of 'find my creator' just to HAVE a goal. He's also interacting regularly with other people for the first time in his life(s), even if he does spend a lot of time taunting Moon for stuff that neither of them were personally there for.

Two things, I think, really helped Eclipse start stabilizing. The first was, uh. Solar's death 8'D More specifically, it was Puppet giving him an impossible task to focus on, and Eclipse always needs a goal. The second was Earth started socializing him. Which I love-- hell, I wrote that myself back in Sunk Cost. Earth always had the advantage of not being personally victimized by Eclipse like her siblings were, which let her be more tolerant of him.

Eclipse in his current state is still arrogant and possessive, and his people skills still suck. He's 'better' as a kind of side effect to Puppet's request; bringing Solar back, doing this Super Important Thing That Even Moon Failed At? Was a major ego boost. Eclipse learned a very important lesson:

Doing good things gets you attention and praise.

Which is why I think he had such a rocky start with the new dimension Sun and Moon 8'D He was chasing the high of being the hero, at the cost of actually paying attention to what was going on. He knew how things were supposed to go, that made him The Smartest. He's a good guy for extremely selfish reasons XD

But he's also finally made it to where a lot of fanfic authors have gotten him. A little less lonely, a few wounds healed. He does have people he cares about, without any intent for manipulation involved.

So yeah. I guess in summary:

Original Eclipse (Upright): Vindictive, angry. Would bite your hand off rather than take it Original Eclipse (Reversed): Lost, bewildered. A feral animal, but one that can be tamed.

Backup Eclipse (Upright): Spiteful, serious. Lost the game once already, has no intention of losing again. Backup Eclipse (Reversed): Bitter, desolate. An Eclipse without a purpose, can be coaxed onto new paths. Still will probably bite you a few times first. Recreated Eclipse (Upright): Arrogant, possessive. The end goal of many a fanfic, actually able to get along as a functional member of society... mostly. Recreated Eclipse (Reversed): Feral, desperate. Clinging onto what fragments he has in a life he didn't ask for, and hating every second of it.

Idk if that was useful but there you go!!!

[targaryenrealnessdarling]

A Duet of Fire and Fate

Part Four | Series Masterlist

Summary: Aemond can't seem to steer clear of the pianist, and it's not the outcome either were expecting | Word Count: 8.4k~ | Warnings: smut, hate sex, oral sex (f receiving), sabotage

It was the third day in a row Aemond had been unable to function in the morning without standing in the shower, forehead against the tiles, water lapping against his shoulders and eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he fisted his length to completion.

It wasn't always this hard to get off, was it?

Each build to that blissful peak was haunted by the memory of her. How warm she'd been. How tight. Her face as she clenched hard around him. And he'd stop, not wanting that memory to be the thing that hurled him off the edge.

But it was the third day in a row he'd failed to do so. It was always her. Lips parted, cheeks flushed, her necklace taught across her heaving collarbone, that finished him off.

At first, he groaned in annoyance. But slowly, as his control each time wavered, acceptance began to creep in. And with that, regret.

She was easy to avoid. Being a rival school meant that he didn't even have to see her if he didn't want to. And it partly made him realise that he saw her so often before this because he'd secretly hope he'd bump into her.

Now it couldn't be more different.

He sat in the practice room, several students tuned their instruments. His grandfather advising them. Aemond’s fingers ghosted over the strings of his cello, the vibrations almost too subtle to feel beneath his fingertips. He hadn’t planned on letting things go as far as they did. But each rehearsal, each rivalry-fuelled exchange, and then finally…

He’d left her there.

The regret lingered like an uninvited guest, seated firmly at the back of his mind, as he replayed that night over and over. He didn’t mean to think of her, but it happened without effort.

Aemond’s bow slipped on the strings, producing an unsteady note. His jaw clenched.

He hadn’t spoken to her since.

He hadn’t allowed himself to. If anyone knew about it, his family, Otto, they’d see it as a distraction, a sign of weakness. He couldn't afford that. Not with his performance on the horizon. Not with the pressure to perfect every movement, every sound. He had worked too hard for too long to let a single night get in the way of his future.

His hand reached for his phone, hesitating before he let it fall back to his side. Realising perhaps that he didn't even have her number. Only her Instagram in his search history.

He wanted to know if she was thinking about him too, or if she had written him off as cold, arrogant. He wasn't sure which possibility unsettled him more. His pulse quickened as he imagined her face when he left, maybe angry, or worse, indifferent.

Otto, hands in pockets, stood in front of him, encouraging Aemond to raise his gaze.

“Good. Keep going.”

There was something unsettling about how nice Otto was being today.

Aemond’s bow hesitated just above the strings. He hadn’t played his best moments ago, distracted by thoughts of her. His grip tightened. Otto didn’t seem to notice the mistakes, or worse, he didn’t care.

His grandfather had always pushed him toward perfection, to sharpen every note like a blade. So why did he feel so...forgiving now?

Aemond straightened his back, shifting his weight. Something was off, and he hated it. His grandfather wasn’t the type to offer encouragement, not like this, not when he should have been correcting the slight tremor in Aemond’s bow hand or the uneven pacing. His praise was always earned, and Aemond had always known how to achieve it. But this? This wasn’t earned.

He adjusted his grip on the bow, unsure whether to obey or question Otto’s uncharacteristic behaviour. Aemond’s focus wavered again, the image of the pianist still clinging to his thoughts, and with it, the same suffocating mix of regret and uncertainty.

He could feel Otto’s attention sharpen, even if the older man didn’t say a word. It was the silence, the way he let the imperfection hang in the air, unaddressed, that gnawed at Aemond. His grandfather never let mistakes slide. He always demanded more, always expected Aemond to rise above his peers, to be better, stronger, sharper. Perfect.

But not today.

Today, Otto’s silence was suffocating.

When the last note faded, Aemond let the bow drop to his lap, frustration twisting in his gut. His breaths were shallow, controlled, but the tension refused to release.

Otto didn’t move. His eyes stayed locked on Aemond, the weight of his presence unbearable.

“I don’t need...this,” Aemond finally muttered, his voice harsher than he intended. “If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

Otto’s lips pressed into a thin line, and for a moment, Aemond thought he saw the flicker of something, a knowing, a calculation, one of those silent judgments Otto was famous for. But then his expression smoothed into that unnerving calm again.

“I’m just observing, Aemond,” Otto said, his tone measured, as if he hadn’t noticed the frustration brimming beneath the surface. “You’ve been different lately. Distracted.”

Aemond bristled, his fingers gripping the bow tighter. “I’m fine.”

“Are you?” Otto tilted his head slightly, his gaze piercing. “I’ve seen this before, you know. You’re slipping. Like you were when you were with her.”

Alys.

The accusation hit Aemond like a cold blade, slicing through the control he’d been struggling to maintain. Slipping? He wasn’t slipping. He was still practising every day, still working toward the recital, still chasing perfection as he always had.

Being distracted by Alys and then by the pianist were two different tortures. He wanted to open his mouth to speak in support of Alys, for she hadn't done anything to slight him, not really.

But she kept slipping into his mind, no matter how much he tried to push her out.

Aemond’s jaw clenched. “I’m not slipping.”

Otto took a slow step forward, his eyes narrowing as if he could see right through Aemond, see the truth buried beneath the surface. “You think I don’t know when my grandson is distracted?”

Aemond tried to steady his breathing, tried to push back against the overwhelming sense that his grandfather had already pieced it together. He couldn’t let Otto know. Not about her. Not about what happened. It was supposed to be nothing, a moment of weakness, something he could forget. But Otto could read him too well.

“I’m not distracted,” Aemond shot back, his voice sharper now, more defensive. “I’ve been practising. I’m ready.”

Otto raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “Perfection requires more than practice,” he said slowly, as if lecturing a student who wasn’t quite understanding the lesson. “It requires control. And you, right now, are lacking it.”

Aemond’s chest tightened. It wasn’t just his playing that Otto was talking about, it was his discipline, his focus. His life.

“Whatever it is,” Otto continued, his tone growing harder now, “you will end it.”

“There isn’t anything to end,” Aemond replied, his voice steady but edged with defiance. He looked Otto in the eye, unwilling to show the tension that was building inside him. “There never was.”

It wasn’t a lie. Not really. Because whatever had happened, it was a mistake. One he shouldn’t have made in the first place. And yet, as he spoke the words, a flicker of doubt settled in his chest, gnawing at the truth he was trying so hard to maintain.

“Good. Now play again.”

As Aemond finished packing up his cello, carefully placing the bow into its case, he heard the familiar shuffle of footsteps approaching. He glanced up to see Oscar Tully, his classmate, standing in the doorway with a wide grin plastered on his face. Oscar was one of the more easygoing students, always looking for some distraction from the gruelling practice schedules that everyone else seemed to thrive on.

“Ah! Aemond! Did I give you one already?”

Aemond gestures dismissively, “I don't—”

But somehow the leaflet ended up in his hand anyway. And upon looking at the shorter man before him, he didn't muster up the courage to say he didn't want it. Oscar’s voice was practically buzzing with excitement.

“There's an amazing music venue off Crownland Plaza. You should come, have a look!”

Aemond raised an eyebrow, closing the latch on his cello case with a soft click. “Crownland Plaza?” he repeated, frowning slightly. He ran through the mental list of all the concert halls and events he frequented. The Royal Opera House, the exclusive classical recitals, the private performances he’d been invited to, but Crownland Plaza? It didn’t ring any bells. 

“It’s incredible! They’ve got these outdoor performances, indoor as well of course, a real mix of stuff too. Not just the highbrow stuff, but, you know...real music.” He emphasised the last two words as if it held more meaning than Aemond could understand.

Aemond’s expression remained neutral, though his curiosity flickered briefly. He knew the best music events in the city, the ones that mattered, the ones that attracted the critics and the virtuosos. How could there be something he'd missed? Something that wasn’t on his radar?

“What kind of music?” Aemond asked, unable to fully mask his interest.

“Everything, man, but they make it feel so alive, you know?” Oscar’s eyes sparkled as he spoke. “And the crowd! They’re not like the stiff ones we get at our recitals. These people are there to feel the music. To live it.”

Those words sound familiar.

A pang in his chest accompanies that thought.

Before he could respond, Oscar clapped him on the shoulder, his smile never fading. “You should come! It’s a fun vibe, and I think you could use it. I mean, I never see you at anything like this.”

Aemond opened his mouth to refuse instinctively, but Oscar was already backing out of the room, waving his hand in the air as he walked. “Think about it! It’d be good to see you loosen up for once.”

He wanted to screw up the leaflet in frustration. Annoyed that people had been able to see his detachment.

Was there really a music scene, so far from the perfection and formality of classical music, that he never knew about?

He shook his head and turned back to his cello, lifting the case with one hand. He had a routine, a plan. He didn’t need to waste his time at some event where people felt the music without understanding the discipline behind it. But the seed of curiosity had been planted.

And tonight he'd find out.

The bar off Crownland Plaza was nothing like the grand concert halls Aemond was used to. It was small, intimate, almost hidden, the kind of place you wouldn’t notice unless you knew exactly where to look. From outside, he could already hear the faint strains of music filtering through the walls, not the elegant, calculated compositions he was familiar with, but something looser, wilder.

He stood outside for a moment, his fingers flexing at his sides as if instinctively preparing to grip his cello again, to find the order in the chaos. But there was none here. It was messy, unpredictable. He wasn’t sure if he hated it already.

I can always get a drink, he told himself. If the music grated on his nerves, at least he could distract himself with a drink, and maybe make a quick exit before Oscar could find him.

He stepped inside, the door swinging shut behind him, and was immediately engulfed in sound. The music wasn’t just something you listened to here, it was something you felt. People laughed, danced, and clapped. 

The low, steady hum of the bass vibrated through the floor, while trumpets blared in sudden bursts, sharp and brassy, filling the room with energy. A piano, somewhere in the back, played rapid, uneven chords, cutting through the noise with a rhythm that seemed to defy expectation.

Glancing towards the stage, the scent of beer and heavy perfumes floating through the dark atmosphere, he spotted a man playing a double bass almost the size of him. So much like a cello, Aemond thought, but the way he was playing it, as if he were stringing his very smile into the music, without the refinement Aemond was so used to, he was ashamed almost, embarrassed, to admit to himself that he was captivated.

Feeling wholly out of his depth, he slid to the bar, tapping his card and craving the familiar touch of the amber liquid that would calm his nerves. Something strong, he thought. 

The glass barely touched his lips before he saw her.

She was sat at a table by herself, perched on a stool in a darkened corner, with a warm, almost orange light casting shadows on her features. She watched the performance, one hand perched on her cheek, smiling slightly but with a sense of unease that she could only distance with her drink in front of her.

Discomfort rose in his throat. Did he feel bad? Should he feel bad? It was difficult to tell.

One thing was for certain. It would certainly not be her falling over her words if they did happen to exchange them that night. That much he knew about her.

The little that he did.

The song eased off and she applauded, and it was easy to spot her eyes scanning the space as if she could feel she was being watched. Landing on him.

Any smile immediately dissipates. Replaced by a sharp, unreadable look that stilled him to his spot. She didn’t make any move to wave him over or call out, yet something in her expression told him everything. 

If you don’t choose to come over now, don’t bother again.

It felt like an ultimatum. He could sense the line in the sand as clearly as if she’d spoken it aloud. Aemond took a breath, then made his way over, hoping his usual composure would hold steady under her gaze.

When he reached her, she didn’t waste a second. “What are you doing here?” she asked, arching an eyebrow, her tone dripping with challenge.

“Apparently not what you’d expect,” he replied evenly, trying to meet her edge for edge. But she just crossed her arms, eyes narrowing as she looked him over, sizing him up. “Believe it or not,” he replied, a touch defensive, “I don’t follow you around.”

She let out a dry laugh. "Right. You don’t follow me," she shot back, her voice low but cutting. "You just leave me half-naked in a storage closet without a word.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but she kept going, her voice laced with bitterness and a hint of disbelief. 

“I'm not fucking stupid, Aemond. It's not like I was expecting this grand declaration of love or some bullshit like that, but you could have at least said something.”

He looked away, the weight of her gaze pressing on him as if challenging him to face what he’d done, who he’d become. “I didn't mean to make you feel that way.”

“Oh, well, that fixes it,” she shot back, bitterness seeping through every syllable. 

He clenched his jaw, grappling with the truth of it. The fact was, he hadn’t thought past that moment. Hadn’t questioned what it meant to him, or to her, only that he’d needed an escape, a release. That pull between them had flared too brightly, burning too hot to ignore. But standing here, he could see her hurt, her pride cut through, and it unsettled him more than he’d ever admit.

“Look,” he said finally, his voice forced calm. “I'll be the first person to say it was a fucking mistake. Whatever you think of me, I never wanted to make you feel used.”

She narrowed her eyes, clearly unconvinced, her mouth set in a firm line. “I will not be a placeholder for whatever it is you can’t face. I don’t expect anything from you, Aemond, but I’m not here to stroke your ego or be another one of your distractions.”

For the first time, he felt the weight of her words sink in entirely. She wasn’t expecting him to change, wasn’t even expecting him to care, only that he’d own up to his part in this, instead of hiding behind his own fear and avoidance.

She saw through him, and if he was honest, that terrified him. With her, the easy deflection wouldn't come, and he found his words flooding from his lips unbidden.

“I know I have a problem, don't need you to rub it in my face.” The words felt like they scraped their way out, a truth he’d barely acknowledged even to himself. For a moment, he felt stripped down, like he’d handed her a piece of himself he wasn’t sure he’d ever get back. And there was a strange, unsettling relief in it.

But she only crossed her arms, her face unreadable, her silence somehow louder than any answer.

“If your plan is to keep distracting me, or using me, or whatever this is, don’t bother. And I’m not stupid, I know there’s always somebody else—”

“She’s gone,” Aemond said quickly, his voice sharper than he intended.

Her laugh was bitter, hollow. “Good for you. But it doesn’t change anything for me. It’s not about her, Aemond. It’s about you.” She gestured at him with a short, deliberate motion.

He felt the irritation gnaw at him again, the same one he felt in that dark, stuffy closet before they fucked. He clenched his fists. Hating that she was right. Hating that this…stranger, saw him so deeply and shamelessly.

“If you're looking for someone to save you, it's not going to be me.”

He loved that look on her face. That firm, serious expression that gave way when he touched her, watching her crumble. Why did pushing her too far excite him? It was a dangerous game. One that if played too much would repel her too far.

And before he could say anything else, she was up and gone, her head disappearing into the lively, dark crowd.

He wasn't sure if she had friends here already or if she was just an easy personality, because the way she morphed back into the rampant crowd and immediately found a dancing partner was borderline impressive. Even if it did make his fingers tighten around his glass watching her.

He reminded himself he had no right to feel that way.

But as aggravated as he was. He stayed. Watched her face light up with warmth as she danced and clapped to the vibrant music on stage. He had to admit there was charm to it. Even if he couldn't see himself dead doing what she was, so carefree.

The words of Otto Hightower didn't even cross his mind as he drank another. And another. His gaze following her somewhat lazily now as the night dragged on, his head swimming with thoughts that had no right being there.

She drank too, sipping various gin and tonics. Not drunk. But certainly flushed. She wore sheer black tights, a tank top and skirt, and whenever she raised her arms to clap, her nipples poked against the fabric, the swell of her breasts spilling over the straps slightly.

Sometimes she would glance over to see if he was still there. Or still watching her. And this time, when she did catch him, she rolled her eyes and slipped through the crowd to the fire exit for air, where several smokers were gathered to chat.

The cool night air hit her like a balm, easing the heat that had flushed her cheeks, though the irritation simmering beneath the surface didn’t dissipate as easily. She leaned against the brick wall, her phone clutched tightly in her hand, the screen glowing as she tapped at it with unnecessary force. The smokers nearby didn’t pay her any mind, lost in their low, murmured conversations and the occasional flicker of lighters.

She opened her rideshare app again, squinting at the lack of available taxis. “Of course,” she muttered, half under her breath, her annoyance mounting. The night was supposed to have been an escape, a brief respite from everything, not another reminder of how much he lingered in the edges of her mind.

And speak of the devil.

“Trouble finding a ride?” Aemond’s voice cut through the haze of her irritation, smooth and maddeningly calm. She didn’t need to turn around to know he was standing there, likely looking as composed as ever, though she could feel the heat of his gaze on her back.

“What do you want, Aemond?” she snapped, whipping her head toward him. He was leaning casually against the frame of the fire exit, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket.

“Relax. Just offering to help,” he said with a shrug, though his one eye glinted with something that set her teeth on edge. “My place isn’t far. You can come there if you can’t find a ride.”

Her laugh was sharp, bitter, cutting through the cool night air like glass. “Gods, you are delusional,” she snapped, shoving her phone into her bag. “Why in the world would I want to go anywhere with you?”

Aemond tilted his head, his calm appearance unshaken. “Because you’re drunk, it’s late, and your so-called ride isn’t coming.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Don’t fucking call me stupid–”

The rumble of her phone in her pocket made her quip die in her throat. But nothing gave her that sinking feeling like seeing ‘Mum’ across her screen. With a huff, and hoping he wouldn’t notice, she shoved it back into her bag.

“You not answering that?” he asked, his voice cool but probing, as if he had the right to know.

“It’s none of your business.”

“It’s just a question. You’re acting like it’s a bomb or something.”

��Drop it,” she said firmly, but the way she gripped her bag strap betrayed her agitation.

Aemond looked as if he considered probing more, if not so that he could get more of a reaction out of her. Instead he exhaled, sharp, through his nose and gestured towards the street, pushing himself off the wall. “Suit yourself. Let’s go.”

She looked away, taking a deep breath as if considering whether to fire back or walk away without a ride. “Fine,” she strained, “but don’t act like you’re the one doing me a favour.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied, his lips quirking into a smug half-smile that made her want to smack it off his face.

The roads were mercifully quiet. No chance of anyone they both knew seeing them walking back to his place together, surely. If someone did, they’d no doubt blab to Lyonel, she’d get a sharp talking to about hanging around with someone who wasn’t from their school. Not like there was any secrets she could divulge, none that she even would. But all the same, being involved with someone from a rival school was not something to sneeze about. 

He made no attempt at conversation, which she was grateful for. Doubly so when he led her aside to a large apartment complex and swiped his key fob for the doors. Not that she was particularly thrilled to be spending the night on a guy’s sofa who she’d fucked once in a storage closet, but for tonight, it would have to do.

It was perhaps the slowest ascent in a lift she’d ever felt. More so, because she could practically feel his gaze on her. 

Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, her body angled away from him, but it didn’t stop her from feeling that heat. That suffocating awareness of him.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Aemond drawled.

She rolled her eyes but kept them fixed on the numbers lighting up above the doors. “Not everything needs to be filled with your commentary, you know.”

“I’m just making conversation.”

“You’re terrible at it.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, the smallest hint of a smirk, but his eye darkened, studying her. Before she could fire another quip, the lift came to a halt, the doors sliding open with a soft chime.

“Ladies first,” he said. 

His apartment was tidy, just like she had expected it to be. There were few ornaments, only what was needed. A stainless steel coffee machine stood proud in his kitchen, alongside a few mugs that were pastel colours. She stared at them as Aemond moved through the apartment. They seemed out of place alongside his cool, darker aesthetic. And her mind immediately went to the woman she’d seen him with the first time they’d met. For some reason, it made a bitter taste in her mouth. Wondering if he’d been telling the truth when he said she was gone.

Aemond puffed up some cushions on the sofa with the kind of detached efficiency that made it clear he didn’t care whether she was comfortable or not. “You can crash here,” he said flatly, tossing a blanket onto the armrest. His eye flicked to her briefly before he turned away, heading toward the kitchen.

“Was she here,” she asks. 

He scoffs, pulling an espresso cup out of a cupboard, “thought you didn’t care.”

“I don’t. Just curious.”

He turned fully now, leaning against the counter, his arms folded over his chest as he regarded her with an exasperated look. “No, she wasn’t here. Satisfied?”

“Thrilled,” she replied, the sarcasm dripping from her tone. She didn’t break eye contact, even as the silence between them grew heavier. “Did she get the same treatment as me?”

Aemond’s jaw tightened, his gaze narrowing as her words hung in the air like a gauntlet thrown at his feet. He didn’t answer right away, the tension between them coiling tighter with every passing second.

“What treatment would that be?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

“You know exactly what I mean.” She stepped closer, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. “The whole hit-and-run routine. Or was she special?”

He exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his hair in frustration. “You’re unbelievable,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Always trying to pick a fight.”

“And you’re always dodging,” she shot back, her voice rising slightly. “Maybe you are a sex addict.”

He was quiet. This was different than when she confronted him at the club. This was more intimate, she was right here before him, demanding a response, a reason. Wanting to see him squirm at least. His grip tightened, white knuckled on the counter. And he found he didn’t have a reply.

She huffed, “are you embarrassed of me, or something?” she asks, her voice softening slightly as if the idea of it genuinely bothered her. “Like, you don’t want to be seen with me.”

“Of course I don’t. If anyone found out I was fooling around with someone from a different school, someone I’m meant to compete against, what do you think that does for my reputation? What do you think people will think of me?”

Her arms fell to her sides, her posture rigid as she stared at him like he was a puzzle she wasn’t sure she wanted to solve. “You’re such a fucking coward,” she said, her tone low but biting.

He scoffed, though his defenses felt thinner now, threadbare. “Coward? No. Just realistic.”

This time it was her turn to scoff, “realistic. Fucking perfect–”

“Fine,” he snapped. “You want honesty? I’ll give it to you.” He stepped closer, his presence almost suffocating as he looked down at her, his single eye burning with intensity. “I am messed up. I’ve been messed up for a long time, and yeah, maybe I’m addicted to sex, alright? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

She swallowed. And knew he didn’t really want an answer. He just needed somewhere to direct his anger. 

“You challenge me. You don’t just roll over and play nice. You fight me, push me, tear me apart, and I fucking love it,” he admitted, “I love it and I fucking hate it. I loved it, you were right there, and I needed it.”

His hand was extended, as if tempted to grab her face but he didn’t. And she heard the strain of his skin as he clenched his fist. Her breath hitched, and she hated that his words, raw and vulnerable as they were, stirred something in her. 

“Bullshit,” she responded, “you didn’t need me. You just need something with a pulse.”

“Maybe,” he shot back, his voice rising again. “Maybe I take because I don’t know how to ask. Because needing someone feels like weakness, and I can’t afford to be weak.”

For a moment, they just stood there, the air between them thick with unspoken words and unresolved tension. She could see it in his face, the conflict, the self-loathing, the desperate need for something he didn’t know how to name.

“You’re a mess,” she said finally.

“And you’re perfect?” he shot back, though there was no malice in his words, only a tired sort of defiance.

The tension between them was unbearable, crackling like a live wire in the charged silence that followed. She opened her mouth, maybe to retort, maybe to leave, but before a word could escape, he closed the distance between them in one quick, purposeful stride.

He kissed her, hard and bruising, with all the pent-up frustration and confusion that had been simmering between them for weeks. It wasn’t gentle, wasn’t tender, it was raw and unrelenting, like a storm finally breaking.

She resisted, her hands pressing against his chest as if to shove him away, but it only lasted a second before she grabbed at his shirt, pulling him closer instead. Her nails scraped his skin through the thin fabric, her movements every bit as furious as his.

Her head tilted back as his mouth moved to her neck, biting and kissing with equal fervor. The line between anger and desire blurred so thoroughly it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

“Don’t think this means anything,” she warned, her voice shaking, though she didn’t let go.

“I don’t.”

Her lips crashed into his again, silencing whatever else he might have said. She hated how much she wanted this, hated that he made her feel like this, but in that moment, with his hands roaming her body and his lips leaving trails of heat along her skin, she didn’t care.

She tugged at his shirt impatiently, her fingers fumbling in her haste, and when it finally gave way, she pushed it off his shoulders with a growl of frustration. Her hands skimmed over the hard planes of his chest, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted fast, frantic, and over with. She wanted to get him out of her system, to snuff out the unbearable tension that had plagued her since that day in the storage room.

But Aemond had other ideas.

He pulled back, just enough to catch her wrists in his hands, stilling her movements.

“Not like this,” he murmured, his voice low and rough.

“Don’t—” she started, her words clipped with irritation.

“Not like this,” he repeated firmly, his grip on her wrists loosening as his hands slid down to her hips.

Before she could protest again, he scooped her up with maddening ease, his hands gripping her thighs as he carried her to the sofa. He set her down gently, his movements careful.

“Aemond,” she said, her voice laced with both annoyance and need, but he just shook his head, his hands already tugging her skirt higher and rolling her tights down her legs..

“Let me,” he said, his tone softer now, almost pleading. “I’m not rushing this.”

Her breath hitched as he knelt between her legs, his hands sliding up her thighs, spreading her open as he leaned in. His lips followed the path of his hands, pressing heated kisses against her skin as he pushed her skirt higher.

“Just fuck me—”

“Stop being so fucking stubborn.”

Her head fell back against the sofa with a groan, her fists clenching at her sides as she tried to fight the pull of his touch. “I don’t need this—”

“Yes, you do,” he cut her off, his voice quieter now but no less intense.

Before she could find the words to bite back, his lips found the sensitive skin at the crease of her thigh, and her thoughts scattered like leaves in the wind. He traced it with his tongue, rendering her mindless and unapologetically dragged his attention to the gusset of her underwear, fingers hooking indecently through them to pull them aside.

Despite telling her he wanted to take his time with her, this is one area where he did not hesitate to take what he wanted. As soon as his tongue met her, swiping lazily through her folds to taste her, her body trembled, the sharp gasp that escaped her lips was answer enough.

“See?” he murmured against her, his voice tinged with a smug satisfaction. “Not so stubborn now.”

She didn’t dignify him with a response. Couldn’t, even if she’d wanted to, because he set to work in earnest, his mouth and hands coaxing reactions from her that she didn’t want to give. Her nails bit into the sofa cushions, her hips shifting of their own accord as he drove her higher, slower than she wanted, but impossibly thorough.

Every time she thought she was close, he pulled back just enough to keep her on edge, forcing her to feel every second, every touch.

“Aemond,” she finally managed, her voice half annoyance and half need.

His response was a low hum against her that sent another wave of heat rolling through her, and she realised, with a mix of frustration and something far more dangerous, that he had her exactly where he wanted her.

Without warning, two fingers prodded at her, slipping inside her with a slow, measured thrust that made her entire body tense. He groaned softly, feeling the way she clenched around him, tight and wet, her body betraying just how much she wanted this despite her stubborn nature.

"Fuck," he murmured, pulling back just enough to speak, his lips sucking at her pearl, rolling his tongue over it as if to play with her.

Her head fell back, her lips parting as a shaky breath escaped her. His fingers moved in rhythm, curling slightly with each thrust, seeking out the spot that made her gasp and tighten around him.

Aemond finally pulled back, his fingers sliding out of her with an almost lazy care, his gaze glinting with satisfaction as he watched her try to catch her breath. He licked his lips, as if savouring the taste of her, and leaned forward to press a kiss to the inside of her thigh.

Her hips rolled to meet his lips, and he revelled in the control he had. And it didn't take long, the tension coiled in her stomach snapped with a sharp cry she couldn’t hold back, her body arching as the release washed over her in waves. He didn’t stop, didn’t let up, drawing out every last tremor until she was left gasping and trembling beneath him, her fingers that were in his moonlight hair so tight and gripping it burned.

“Told you,” he said quietly, his voice low and rough. “You just have to let go.”

As if he was telling her that, she thought with distaste.

Fucking hypocrite.

Instead of backing off, he leaned in closer, his hands skimming along her silky thighs. “What’s that look for?” he murmured, his tone almost teasing.

“You tell me,” she shot back, willing the shake out her voice.

Aemond smirked, tilting his head, “I think I know.”

She was about to say, ‘tell me what I'm thinking then, you smug asshole’, but Aemond straightened, confidently pulling his jeans with his boxers over his hips. She tried to keep her gaze fixed firmly on his face, but when they'd last had sex, she hadn't seen him, not really. But her curiosity betrayed her, and he caught her eyes flickering downwards.

Equally so, when his large hand took himself in his palm, and gave his length a few maddeningly slow, hard strokes, coaxing pearly liquid from the ruddy tip of him. 

Asshole.

His hands found her hips, tugging her closer to pull at the waistband of her skirt. But with a glare, she swatted his hands away, “I can do it myself.”

He scoffed, “please.”

He pulled her skirt over her hips, everything coming with it. His touch over her thighs firm and unapologetic. He made quick work over the rest of her clothes, savouring every second of her surrender. 

He smirked, a hand sliding up her spine to undo her lacy black bra, his breath shuddery against her neck, “cute,” he commented as the fabric fell from her skin.

“Stop staring,” she muttered, her hands coming to cover her now bare chest. 

His grip came to her wrist, “you always this bossy?”

“Only with you.”

“Hm, lucky me,” he grins, pushing her hands to the sofa so he could see the vast expanse of her body beneath him. She hated, hated, that he could make her pulse race like this.

Her breath hitched as he teased himself against her entrance, his previous actions making the friction deliciously non-existent. She knew he was doing it on purpose, running the head of him over her to coat himself in her slick, and dragging it to her bud, setting every nerve alight.

“Fucking— hurry up.”

He laughs lowly, “just taking my time, baby. Thought you might actually appreciate someone paying attention to you.”

Her glare could melt steel. “Are you seriously doing this right now?”

“What?” he asked innocently, his lips curving into a smirk as he shifted just enough to draw a gasp from her. “So fucking impatient.”

“You’re unbearable,” she hissed, though her voice trembled as he rolled his hips, barely pushing into her, then pulling back.

“Hm,” he hums, “I think you're talking too fucking much.”

Before she could fire back another insult, he slid forward, filling her in one fluid motion that knocked the breath from her lungs. She was prepared, but all the same, the stretch around him was distinctively overwhelming, stealing the words right out of her mouth. Her hands tightened where they gripped his shoulders, nails biting into his skin as her body adjusted to the sensation.

Aemond stilled for a moment, his jaw clenched, breathing laboured as if trying to maintain control. “Not so mouthy now, are you?” he muttered, though his voice came out more strained than smug.

Her breath hitched, but she wasn’t going to let him have the last word. “You’re still—oh gods—so insufferable,” she managed as he shifted his hips, a sharp gasp escaping her lips.

He smirked at that, clearly satisfied with the reaction, and began to move, his pace slow and deliberate at first, as if savouring the way she tensed and relaxed beneath him. The deliberate drag of him against her sent sparks rippling through her, and she bit her lip, determined not to give him the satisfaction of hearing how much it affected her.

“Thought you’d be louder,” he taunted, his voice strained as he buried himself deeper.

“Thought you’d be better.”

Aemond’s smirk faltered, replaced by a dark glint in his eye that made her pulse quicken. “Oh, you want better?” he rasped, his voice low and dangerous. Without waiting for a response, he pulled out and flipped her legs up, draping them over his shoulders with a swift, practised motion. The shift left her gasping as he pressed down, angling his body to sink into her again, this time with an intensity that had her clenching around him instantly.

“Fuck—Aemond—” she started, but the words dissolved into a strangled moan as he set a relentless pace, each thrust hitting deeper, harder, and more devastatingly accurate.

“You still think you can run your mouth?” he growled, his breath ragged as he drove into her with a force that made the sofa creak beneath them. His hands gripped her thighs, holding her in place as he leaned further into her, folding her nearly in half. “Fucking love it when you struggle to take me,” he bit out, his voice thick with triumph and lust.

Her nails dug into the fabric of the sofa, her head tipping back as the overwhelming pressure of him inside her and the angle of his movements sent her spiraling. Every thrust struck that sweet spot, over and over, leaving her helpless against the waves of pleasure crashing through her.

She couldn’t respond, couldn’t think, couldn’t even breathe properly as her body tightened and pulsed around him, her mind clouded by the intensity of it all. And he revelled in it, watching her crumble beneath him, her bravado finally stripped away as he watched her body move with the force of his rutting into her.

“You’re so fucking stubborn,” he muttered, his voice strained but edged with a dark satisfaction.

She tried to glare at him, to muster some kind of retort, but her body betrayed her, trembling violently as the coil deep within her snapped. A strangled cry tore from her throat, her walls clenching around him so tightly it nearly made him lose his rhythm.

“Fuck,” he growled, his voice rough and strained as his movements became frantic, erratic. The sight of her body trembling beneath him, the way she clung to him as though she couldn’t help it, was the final push he needed. Her walls clenched around him in the aftermath of her release, and the last few desperate squeezes undid him completely. 

He pulled from her quickly, not even having to stroke himself to completion as hot ropes of his release coated her stomach, her breasts, painting her gorgeous body until there was nothing left. Deep, rumbling groans were all she heard through her haze, and the warmth of his cum on her skin.

He stayed there for a moment, his gaze flickering over her, watching the way his release glistened on her body. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, though it lacked the usual smugness, replaced by something quieter, almost contemplative.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she uttered once her breath had calmed. 

“Can’t help it,” he replied, reaching for a discarded towel with a smirk. Their back and forth had certainly not faded. He began to gently wipe her skin, his movements surprisingly careful. It was almost disconcerting, seeing him like this, still snarky, but not cruel. The slow drag of the towel along her stomach, over her ribs, told her he was taking his time.

“Didn’t think you’d be the type to fuss over cleanup,” she quipped, arching a brow at him.

“Someone’s gotta do it,” he retorted, smirking a little. He offered a hand, helping her up. For a moment, they stood close, neither quite ready to step back. When she finally did, the fleeting press of their bodies parted, leaving them both a fraction colder as they gathered their clothes.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, stepping away to gather whatever clothing was still intact.

He nodded, rubbing at the back of his neck, eyes flicking to the floor. “Don’t get used to me being nice.”

She let out a small snort. “Trust me, that’s the last thing I’ll ever expect from you.” Despite the barbed words, her tone lacked its old venom, and the corner of her mouth twitched with something close to a smile.

She slipped her top over her head, glancing up at him as she smoothed it into place. “So,” she began, crossing her arms over her chest, half in defense, half in uncertainty. “We should probably talk. About this. About… us.”

His gaze flicked to hers, and for a moment, he looked uneasy. “Right,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair. “Guess we should.”

She took a step closer, feeling that familiar surge of defiance rise within her, though it was tempered now. “I’m not expecting some grand declaration of love,” she reminded him, her voice low. “I’ve never been that naïve. Especially not with you.”

He winced slightly, and she realised how that must have sounded, but there was no taking it back. “You really think I’m that incapable of—” He paused, shaking his head. “It’s not that I don’t care,” he corrected himself, his tone quieter than usual. “Just…not sure I know how to care the way you’d want me to.”

She frowned, fiddling with a loose thread. “All I ask is why you’re so keen on carrying on like this. If it’s because you think I’m just a good time—”

“No. No.”

Her brows lifted in skepticism, but she didn’t interrupt. Not this time.

He took a breath, gathering whatever fragments of honesty he could muster. “You…you challenge me,” he admitted finally, his voice low. “And I hate it. Except I don’t. It drives me crazy that you can get under my skin like this.”

She studied him for a moment, as if deciding whether to believe him. “We’re competitors,” she said, bluntly. “Different schools, different ideologies, different everything.”

He shrugged, though his eyes never left hers. “Can’t deny that.”

She sighs softly, “so we’re doomed, is that it?”

“I’m not saying we have to be,” he offered quietly.

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

Aemond exhaled. “Maybe I am.”

Her expression softened despite herself. She could see the conflict there, the way his posture had lost its usual confidence, how his shoulders seemed weighed down by something he didn’t want to name.

“I usually know what I want. But ever since…since Alys…” His voice trailed off, and he pressed his lips together. “She ended things because she felt I used her. And maybe she was right.”

She blinked, not expecting him to bring up Alys so bluntly. “And you think you’re doing the same thing with me?”

“Am I?” he asked, his voice low, almost pleading for an answer he couldn’t give himself. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. If I’m just—replacing her with you. Because it’s easier to fill that void than confront the fact that I might not know how to…be with someone.”

Her initial instinct was to lash out, to remind him she wasn’t a placeholder. But the look in his eye gave her pause. Instead, she inhaled slowly, weighing her words. “You think you’re just repeating the pattern,” she said quietly. “Different person, same problem.”

“Alys said it. And I was too damn proud to listen. She cut things off because she didn’t want to be the fix for whatever’s wrong with me.” A mirthless half-smile tugged at his lips. “Maybe she had a point.”

The admission brought a heaviness to her chest. “So…what now?” she asked gently, unsure if she even wanted the answer.

Aemond’s gaze flicked away, his jaw tightening. “Otto’s been breathing down my neck,” he said, clearing his throat. “He’s convinced I need total discipline for the competition. Zero distractions. I’ve…I’ve been trying to keep it together. But this?” He gestured vaguely between them. “Us? It’s not helping.”

Her lips parted in surprise, and a sting of hurt made itself known. “So you think we should—what? Pretend this never happened?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. We don’t have to pretend it never happened, but…we can’t let it happen again.”

She stared at him for a long moment, the words lodging in her throat. Part of her wanted to argue, to demand he face whatever was broken inside him instead of cutting her out. But she saw the raw conflict in his eyes, the fear that clung to him like a second skin. For a moment, she could see him for what he truly was. A man afraid of commitment or any true, real and raw feeling.

For a moment she simply saw the waves of silver that framed his face. The scar through his eye and brow. And cloudy blue of his left eye that stared back.

She wouldn't like to admit there was a strange beauty to it. Why would she? When he was the one turning her down. Bruising her ego.

“Fine,” she said, her voice hushed, almost hollow. She hated how final it sounded, but she couldn’t force him to confront his demons. Whatever they were.

Aemond nodded once, slowly, as if sealing a deal that left them both unsatisfied. “Yeah. Right. Better this way.”

Better this way, she repeated silently, wishing she believed it.

After Aemond disappeared into his room without another word, she glared at the closed door for a moment, frustration and something heavier gnawing at her. It shouldn’t hurt that he’d ended things so neatly, as if all of this, or rather, whatever it had been, was simply an inconvenient dream.

She sank onto the sofa, her mind a whirlwind, the competition, the tangled mess of emotions she could barely name, the strange pang of rejection. Did it matter that she’d thought there was something between them? Or that for the briefest moment, she felt seen in a way she hadn’t expected? 

None of it mattered now. He didn’t want her.

When her phone lit up, she felt the familiar thrum of annoyance that it might again be her mother. But instead replaced with confusion at the unknown number plastered across her screen. She frowned, the face ID unlocking her phone to reveal a photo of her and Aemond disappearing into his apartment building earlier that night. 

Her stomach dropped. A cold chill burning in her blood.

Below the image, the message read:

Did you have fun? I wonder what Lyonel would think if he knew you were sleeping with the enemy. Might want to consider your next moves carefully. Wouldn’t want your lovely solo compramised.

Her pulse pounded, anger and dread warring in her chest. A threat…aimed at both her reputation and her chances in the competition. She swallowed hard, staring at the ominous text. A wave of tired resignation washed over her, as if the night hadn’t already beaten her down enough. Her shaky hand raised to her mouth as if to muffle her gasp but nothing came out anyway, her face going dark as she locked her phone. 

Her heart drummed a rapid, uneasy rhythm. Even as she lay back against the sofa, pulling the blanket up around her shoulders, she couldn’t tear her thoughts away from the threat. This person knew her, had her phone number. 

Better this way, she repeated again, a mantra that felt emptier each time she said it. But she couldn’t pretend any longer that walking away was so simple, especially now that someone was determined to make her choices even harder.

✨ Please note ✨ I no longer do taglists. If you would updates, please follow @targaryenrealnessdarlingfics and turn on notifications!

[angelshizuka]

Anyone else suspect that Sinsmas has set up Andres fall by showing he’s not as smart as he thinks. He’s only smarter than Stella(let that sink in).

-He never came up with an idea it accidentally landed in his lap after months of being unable to think of anything.

-The plan only worked based on dumb luck with Stolas accidentally seeing the broadcast at the right time.

-He has already made an enemy of Vassago who clearly suspects he manipulated everything and is a powerful friend of Stolas atleast.

- He only has power till Via comes of age and he has wasted no time in alienating her.

- He has non experience with people who actually fight back and I can only imagine what will happen when Stolas gets his magic back. He is weaker then Via who hasn’t been fully trained properly.

-Biggest one of all is he hasn’t thought of what will happen when his manipulation of the system comes to light. There’s no indication he has killed striker and if he talks revealing perjury what will happen when Satan learns he was used like a tool.👿

I often think about Adrealphus' plan involving Stolas seeing the broadcast and immediately jumping into action.

Though, I do argue that makes him more dangerously unhinged. He was 100% prepared to put an imp's life on the line, because even if Stolas didn't show up, that life lost wouldn't have mattered to him and he'd just have to figure out another plan.

Considering how upset he was when he learned Stolas "only" got banished for 100 years and Via will be coming off age within the year, it does show he has plans or at least intentions to make sure it never gets passed down to her. Main question is, how he's gonna do it... either way I'm scared for my girl!

The Stolas vs Andrealphus fight is interesting, because you can tell Stolas was able to get some punches in, because Andrealphus didn't expect Stolas to fight back, BUT also if they were to do a fist fight without magic, Stolas could so easily beat his ass.

The only reason Andrealphus was able to fight back and gain the upper hand for a moment, is because he had powers and Stolas didn't, and even then still struggled against powerless imps (I'd also argue this comes down to them having something worth fighting for, power of love trope my beloved!)

But yeah, Octavia easily taking Andrealphus down, showing she'd still defend Stolas even when angry at him, definitely put her on his target list even more. Please, get my girl outta there!

[eriochromatic]

I love your Silco takes so I was wondering if you could share yours on Vander and the drowning incident because no matter what angle I look at, it doesn't make sense.

As far as I can tell from what we're shown, the riot was well under way before Silco threw that molotov, and it's confirmed that enforcers killed Felicia. Thing is, it's implicit that Felicia chose to participate in the riot because a.) Why else would she be there, and b.) She was down with Zaun being independent for HER KIDS. Also, anyone who participates in a riot, or even a peaceful protest, knows they're putting their life on the line. So while I understand reacting to loss with intense grief, it's not exactly a surprise? It's something you have to mentally prepare for when you take a stand against an oppressor?

But then, if you go the ideology route with Silco taking it too far and the riot was Silco's idea, that stunt on the bridge was most likely pre-planned, organized resistance. This means a sizable number in their community, including Felicia and Connol, supported it. Even if Vander had doubts, he went along with it. Otherwise, why does the show open with him beating an enforcer on the bridge? Vander had other options: he could have split the resistance group down the middle by sitting it out and/or trying to stop Silco, neither of which he did!

The letter highlights the loss of Felicia as Vander's triggering event, and Vander admits that there's blood on both their hands. To be honest, I kind of like this because it hints that Silco's violence was acceptable to Vander within the context of revolution, and he thought he could handle the sacrifices required. Ironically, when he couldn't handle it, HIS violence pushed Silco towards any-violence-necessary because you can't trust anyone ever anyway!

Anyway, I know this is the fault of flimsy writing in S2 and what feels like internal censorship with challenging political status quo during production, but two drowning attempts (which for Silco came out of nowhere), followed by expulsion from the Lanes (which he helped build), the guilt of Felicia's death, and the total loss of the friends and community he was fighting for ... I mean, at least Silco's villain era makes complete and total sense???

Ugh honestly I try not to think about the drowning incident or even make sense of it anymore because every time I do, it's just so obvious to me that the writers themselves had no idea what they're doing. Timelines are completely off, character motivations make no sense, so why is it up to me to untangle the mess they made?

I have a huge love hate relationship with season 2 because on one hand, I didn't expect as much Silco crumbs we got in the first place and I'm SO HAPPY we got to see him normally in episode 5 and thriving in episode 7. But the retcon… I was so pissed when Act 2 dropped because the whole bridge incident just stopped making sense like you said.

Then when Act 3 happened, it all clicked together, but not in the "ohhh the story makes sense now" way but in the "oh the writers needed to set up smth previously so this would work." and it completely took me out of it. Like. The writers wanted Vander and Silco to make up with each other. But they don't know how to do that. Let's add some underlying sentimentality between Vander and Silco and Vi's mom, then kill Vi off. That'll make them go back together (along with that STUPID LETTER Vander wrote). Sure that's a bandaid solution and on surface level it works, but I don't think the writers really thought we would think about Silco this much so the moment you peel back the layers nothing makes sense anymore. I think they could've crafted a way more interesting story if they ACTUALLY SAT DOWN AND TRIED to have Silco and Vander reconcile without using Felicia as a crutch, but season 2 has an overarching problem of "lets have all the important things happen offscreen and only imply that they happened" which is just… so lazy…. so I'm not surprised that this happened.

It just weakens so, so many parts of the story and raises way more questions than answer them. Why does Silco pull away and distance himself from Felicia's family? Surely Vi should know him from before? Does Silco only take in Powder because he knew she was Felicia's daughter? Why, WHY does Vander go like "there are worse things than enforcers out there" (implying Silco) in s1 while talking to Benzo????????? when he's apparently felt guilty this whole time ??????? what happened to "I've looked everywhere????" etc etc idk man. from s1 I always thought the bridge incident happened way, way earlier from Felicia dying bc Vi looked like she was about 7 years old during the bridge and around 14 during act one, but then if you see Silco during the s2 warwick flashback he looks like he's 25. maybe 30 at the maximum. aint no way he aged that much in 7 years, in act one he and Vander both feel like they're in their mid 40s idk.

This is lowkey why I kind of only want to draw young Silco.. I love old man yaoi but like. If everything I draw is just flashback version of him, I don't need to worry about logistics of the bridge thing bc it hasn't happened yet lmfao. Or the AU version where everything is solved and no one rlly thinks about that time anymore.

Honestly I've tried to write this response several times trying to spell out my version of the timeline but just. nothing makes any fucking sense. I don't like thinking about how badly the writers fucked up on this part. Silco magically gets an eye injury caused by Vander and they had yaoi divorce but it's fine now. That's just how it is for me and if I think about it even a little more in depth my head will explode and I have better things to do with my time like draw zaundads yaoi

[the-starlight-mistress]

Idk if anyone has done this already but I’m gonna analyze the fuck out of this shot now.

I’ve seen other people talk about the key in the middle of the book so I’m gonna skip that detail and go right into the symbols.

Going clockwise this is what I see:

- Top center is a small shiny sort of shape, most likely the hero symbol, Goldie’s sun. There isn’t a sun-like symbol elsewhere on the cover and this one is also directly opposite from the crescent key which we know is the villain (nox’s) symbol.

- next is a bell. I’m gonna be honestly this is one I didn’t really have an idea for. I feel like it’s such an interesting symbol to use but I have no idea what role it could correlate with

- a crown. For a while now I’ve had the thought that there might be a leader role, a king of the country sort of vibe.

- next is violet’s villainess diamond. which is interesting because her key is inserted where silvers symbol should be. Which I guess makes sense I just didn’t expect it.

- this is another symbol I’m not too sure about. Honestly I don’t even know what it’s supposed to be. It just looks like a shape rather than anything more specific. It is opposite to bronze’s helper apple so maybe it has something to do with that. Like maybe it is the villain’s helper which would be a minion/henchmen or something.

Next is a star. It’s opposite from the heart so my first thought was it might be some opposite to a romantic interest, however I feel like I saw punko say somewhere that there’s no romantic interest role. So I was wracking my brain trying to think of what the heart and by extension the star could be. It’s not a strong theory but this is what I landed on. The heart is the soulmate, whether that’s platonic, familial, or romantic. And the star is the unattainable idol. It’s a bit of a reach but I could see it happening.

- crescent moon. This is nox’s symbol. The villan key. The moon to Goldie’s sun. Not much to say about it that I haven’t already seen

- some sort of crossbow?? I’m not exactly sure if that’s what this shape is but that’s what it seemed like immediately. I saw a while ago someone conceptualize the idea of a thief key and even though that feels a bit too specific I kinda wonder if this key is something along those lines. This key is also opposite from the bell but idk what that would mean for either of them. Maybe the bell is the lawful good to the crossbow’s chaotic evil? However it doesn’t seem like every key has an “opposite” so their positioning might not mean everything

- next is a quill I think. My only guess for this would be a sort of narrator role. Like maybe this is the person who keeps the story in order. Given how season 1 ended I’m not sure how much the story needs that sort of role but it’s the only theory I could come up with.

- next is where silver’s heroine key should be if violet’s key wasn’t in the way.

- bronze’s helper apple is next. I honestly thought this was a pig with wings for the longest time. But it makes so much more sense as bronze’s apple

- finally is a heart. If the soulmate idea isn’t right i don’t really know what this one could be.

Idk just some thoughts. I’d love to hear some discussion because I’m so curious about what other people think of this.

[quartz-kilsviken]

Written in the Runes

Chapter 4

➸ Synopsis: Ekko, your mischievous yet endearing local troublemaker, trails a wealthy academy student from the topside. When you end up with the student’s satchel, you find a notebook filled with intriguing magical research. Unable to resist, you embark on a quest to uncover the secrets of this mysterious scholar.

➸Pairing: Jayvikxreader

➸Chapter word count: 2,009

➸Tags: Slow Burn, yearning, eventual smut, not

canon compliant

➸Notes: One more short chapter for today, because I had the day off and needed to continue getting my thoughts out. ∧( ‘Θ’ )∧ Oh, Heimerdinger, how I love your whimsy.

➸ Previous Chapter: Pt.3

The sunrise tells you it’s been hours since the three of you were told to stay in Heimerdinger’s lab. The noise of students starting their day in the courtyard is a small comfort, familiar in its chaos. Has Benzo noticed you’re missing yet? The thought tightens your chest. You used to slip away all the time, always returning just in time for one of his lectures. Back then, you thought his anger was just routine, but now you understand it was more than that. After your mother’s death, you didn’t believe anyone could be bothered by your absence. In the Undercity, that kind of concern is rare, and it took a long time to see how much it hurt him when you disappeared. The idea of causing him more trouble, of making Ekko worry too, weighs on you.

You can’t leave, though. The councilors made sure of that.

A loud snore breaks your thoughts. You glance over at Jayce, slumped against the wall, his face relaxed in deep sleep. Despite being in an unfamiliar place with two strangers, he’s completely at ease, his breathing steady and untroubled.

Viktor, who had paused his writing, watches Jayce with a faint smile. But when his eyes meet yours, something shifts. “He’s had an—” Viktor hesitates, then finishes, “…eventful few days.” His words are light, but there’s a quiet weight to them, a flicker of sadness that fades before you can fully place it.

You hum in response, imagining what happened between his visit to Benzo’s and your arrival the next night. You had seen the pieces of his devastation—the frustration in his research being taken from him. It’s a loss you understand too well. Your own connection to magic was ripped away, taken from you in ways that still sting, an emptiness that lingers. But you hope that, like you, the events of last night will help fill that void for both of you.

The click of the door snaps you from your thoughts as Counselor Medarda steps into the room. You quickly move to wake Jayce, his face still soft with sleep. She watches with quiet amusement as he jolts awake, clearly embarrassed, and straightens to attention clasping his hands behind his back. Viktor stays seated, unshaken, waiting for her to speak.

Her presence fills the room, calm and commanding despite the small group. “The three of you will present before the council today, in one hour.”

Her words hang in the air, and a tight knot forms in your stomach. Viktor’s voice breaks the silence, sharp with concern. “That’s not nearly enough time. What do you expect us to present, Counselor?”

Medarda’s gaze is unflinching as she smooths out the tension. “It will be an informal presentation—no need for preparation. Simply share your recent developments, and we’ll discuss further research. It will also be an opportunity for you,” she fixes her eyes on Jayce, “Mr. Talis, to have the incident involving your explosion retracted.”

Jayce exhales deeply, visibly relaxing, but you exchange a worried glance with Viktor. Neither of you feels ready to stand before the council—especially under these rushed conditions. Medarda adds, almost as an afterthought, “I’ll handle most of it. You’re expected outside the council chamber by 10 AM.”

You exhale a quiet sigh of relief as the door begins to close behind her, but the moment is shattered when Counselor Heimerdinger enters in a whirlwind. Before anyone can speak, he hurries straight up to you with a gleam in his eye. “Come with me, dear,” he says, his voice light and almost musical. “No time to dawdle!”

You hesitate, frozen in place. He stops, turns back, and gives you a knowing look as if he can read your discomfort. “You’re not in trouble, my dear, not in the slightest,” he adds, as though that should make everything better. But you wait for an explanation, and of course, there isn’t one. He simply smiles, waits, and then motions for you to follow.

Reluctantly, you move. To your surprise, Viktor and Jayce both follow. Heimerdinger notices and his eyes twinkle mischievously. “Ah, no need for a crowd!” he says, waving his tiny hands dismissively. “Only her. Don’t worry, boys. She’ll be back in no time!”

Viktor quickly moves to hand one of Jayce’s notebooks to him. “Professor—” he starts, his voice tight with concern.

With a dramatic flourish, Heimerdinger grabs the notebook and nods at Viktor before hustling down the hall. You follow, a little dazed. Students pass by, their eyes lingering, but Heimerdinger moves with such speed you barely register their gaze.

He leads you into a smaller office—thankfully empty—and you immediately notice how much more intimate this space feels compared to the Lab. He takes a seat behind the desk, dropping the open notebook in front of him with a dramatic flair. That’s when you realize, with a sinking feeling, it’s the same notebook you’d written in.

Heimerdinger flips through the pages, humming absently, unaware of the dread rising in your chest. “Where, pray tell, did you learn to transcribe Runes?” he asks, his tone light and casual, as if discussing the weather.

You swallow hard, trying to steady your nerves. You give the answer you’ve been giving everyone else: “I just have an interest in it.”

Heimerdinger pauses, peering over the top of the notebook with a raised brow. “Ah, interest—yes, of course,” he muses, clearly unconvinced. “But I do wonder—what else do you have an interest in? Sciences? Mathematics? History? Language?” He leaps from his chair with a sudden burst of energy, gesturing widely, as though he's narrating some grand spectacle. “Tell me, what do you excel in, hmm?”

The questions whirl around you, and you struggle to make sense of them. “I… I suppose I’m average?” you offer, unsure.

Heimerdinger’s eyes widen with exaggerated interest. “Average!” he exclaims, his hands flinging into the air. “Now that’s a word that means a thousand things, doesn’t it? What does it mean for you?”

You hesitate, trying to gather your thoughts. “I have a basic understanding, I wouldn’t say I ‘excel’ at any” you say, the words coming out slower. “But… History and Language have always been my strengths.”

Heimerdinger nods, clearly delighted by your answer before disappearing into a small closet. “Aha! History and Language! Excellent! But tell me, my dear, do you prefer trousers or a skirt?” His voice rings out from the closet, muffled by the door.

Your head snaps up, confused. What? Before you can process, Heimerdinger reappears from the closet with an enormous grin on his face. “Well, come now! What’s it going to be?”

“Uh—skirt?” you stammer, unsure where this is going.

Heimerdinger nods in delight, his voice suddenly taking on a dramatic tone. “Perfect! Perfect!” He strides over to the desk and places a stack of clothes in front of you, then skips over to a safe, unlocking it with exaggerated care before pulling out a gleaming key. “Now, you must be ready. The new semester begins soon. And you, my dear, will begin your studies in just a few weeks. The council will want you to start working on Hextech right away, no doubt. So!” He claps his hands together, startling you. “You’ll have early access to housing.”

“Housing?” you repeat, your voice strained with confusion.

He simply waves off your concern. “Oh, don’t worry! The room number is on the key. I’m sure the boys will show you the way once the council meeting completes.”

The confusion only deepens. “No, sir, I haven’t applied to the academy,” you say, your voice trembling with uncertainty.

He stops, blinking up at you. “Ah, well, last night was quite a remarkable application, wasn’t it?” His eyes gleam with mischievous delight.

Your heart sinks, and the ground beneath you feels like it’s giving way. You never wanted any of this. The academy? You’ve always known it would be safer with Benzo in the shop, keeping things predictable. But now—now everything is changing, and you feel like the universe is forcing it upon you. No longer a soft whisper leading you, but rather a hard shove. “I can’t afford tuition,” you stammer. “Even if I keep working while researching Hextech…”

Heimerdinger stops, considering you for a moment. Then, with a soft sigh, he closes the notebook and pushes it toward you gently. “No need to worry about that,” he says, his voice far kinder now. “Counselor Medarda has offered to sponsor your tuition. It’s clear you have a brilliant mind, one that deserves to be nurtured.”

Your chest tightens. You can’t believe what he’s saying. The world feels like it’s tilting, and the weight of everything presses on your shoulders.

Heimerdinger’s voice cuts through the spiraling thoughts, calm and reassuring. “The choice is yours, but I urge you to think about what you could become.”

The words hang in the air like an invitation, and despite the panic rising within you, you find yourself nodding. “Yeah,” you whisper, more to yourself than to him. “Yeah, sure. I’ll do it.”

Heimerdinger’s grin is back, wide and beaming. “Brilliant!” he says, practically bouncing with excitement. He scoops up the clothes, key, and notebook, shoving them into your hands with practiced flair before hurrying out the door.

You walk back toward the lab, the weight of your decision heavy on your chest. Heimerdinger suddenly stops in front of you, causing you to nearly run into him. He gestures toward a door. “Restroom’s here,” he says breezily “I suggest you change before meeting the council.”

Before you can respond, he twirls around you with a flurry of motion. “Not that your outfit isn’t lovely, mind you, but the uniform might be a tad more fitting for the occasion!”

With that, he dashes off, leaving you standing in stunned silence as students pass by, their gazes lingering.

Back in the lab, Jayce paces nervously. “Maybe we should check on her—”

Viktor leans back, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “Heimerdinger won’t do anything rash, Jayce. You shouldn’t worry.”

Jayce stops mid-step, his brows furrowing. “You worked for him, so you’re biased. I almost got banished by him.”

Viktor’s lips twitch, his own worry creeping into his expression.

Jayce continues, “We’re the ones who convinced her to come here anyways, so doesn’t that mean we’re like— responsible for her?”

Viktor grimaces. “Eh— maybe we should find them, just to be safe.”

But before they can leave, you barge in the door with a huff. “I thought the Undercity was a maze, but this place was designed by a drunken architect.”

After changing into the uniform and throwing your cloak over it in an attempt to hide the blinding color, you stepped out of the restroom—only to realize the professor had really left you to figure your own way back to the lab.

“Jayce, Can I borrow your bag again?”

Without waiting for a response, you start shoving your clothes into it. The action paused as the silence in the room makes you glance over your shoulder.

It looks like the two of them are deep in a silent argument. Jayce finally breaks away and steps in front of you, clearing his throat before speaking. “So, uh, you’re wearing a uniform now?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s called a cloak, Jayce,” Viktor says, his voice laced with a knowing tone.

Jayce turns back to him, seemingly picking up where their silent exchange left off, but his tone is more curious than annoyed. “Oh, is it? Then what would you call the clothes under the cloak?”

Viktor’s lips curl at one side, moving to gather items for the presentation. “Perhaps an attempt at blending in for the council?” He pauses, eyes glancing toward you, waiting for a response.

“It’s not blending in if I’m already, uh, in,” you reply, unsure of how they’ll react. You hope they won’t be too shocked—after everything that’s happened today, you can’t take any more surprises.

They both share a final, quick glance. Jayce smiles softly. “Well, alright then.” Viktor gives a subtle nod, clearly pleased.

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Most of the takes I’ve seen about Caitlyn’s Jinx-hunting strike team and their bit of light chemical warfare tend to focus on either justifying or condemning Caitlyn’s actions as if the characters are on some kind of morality points leaderboard, which makes even less sense than usual in the Everybody Does Terrible Things show. Litigating whether Caitlyn did a limited police action intended to minimize harm or a war crime is not only kind of pointless, but imo not really the intended function of this story element at all.

The point of this story element in the overall arc of S2 is that you can’t expect to do just a little bit of state violence and then stop. It’s the beginning of Caitlyn’s slide into her dictator era—using her power both as an enforcer and as a Kiramman to get the revenge she has fixated on in her grief.

(A lot of discussion of this sequence of events slides right over what to me is by far the most horrifying detail—which is that it seems like the plans for a major public works project in Zaun are proprietary to one single rich family in Piltover. Why? Because the Council couldn’t care less whether people in the Undercity were dying of Fantasy Pollution Consumption. Which left any mitigation up to the benevolence of private charity from wealthy Piltover families. And as we learn very early on by watching how Jayce is treated, Kiramman charity comes with conditions attached, and can be indistinguishable from control.)

Of course Caitlyn sees her plan as the lesser evil; as a limited and proportionate response that will be less destructive than a full police occupation of the Undercity. But the problem with a limited and proportionate response intended to only target Bad Guys is that it rarely stays that way. Because people will react to repression in ways that are often used to justify more repression.

And we see that it is a VERY short slide from the strike team into tactics that do broadly target civilians for things that in our world we would call protected political speech—things like dyeing your hair a symbolic color or standing around in a square listening to someone give a speech. We go from the strike team to checkpoints, mass arrests, and violent interrogations in like. One episode. Which anyone familiar with the dynamics of state violence in the real world could tell you was exactly what was gonna fucking happen.

(The scene with the cops harassing people at the checkpoint into Piltover is very sharp imo because it shows quite accurately that whatever the stated purpose of a police checkpoint is, the actual effect of a checkpoint is to force interactions between civilians and police, and if police are looking for reasons to target people they will find them.)

So on one level, this storyline is not really about Caitlyn’s personal moral compass at all. It’s about how the logic of state violence tends to drive escalating cycles of conflict.

But also…we’re not supposed to just be okay with a bit of light chemical warfare either! I think the show is pretty unambiguous about that! The whole sequence with Caitlyn’s strike team using the Gray is supposed to be a warning that things are going nowhere good! There’s a reason why the scene in the abandoned arcade, where Jinx learns Vi has become an enforcer, is set up to mirror the scene of child Powder and Vi hiding from enforcers in the same location in S1. We are shown that scene from Jinx’s POV in a way that invites us to sympathize with her. Caitlyn and Vi look like monsters, stalking through the fog in their enforcer gas masks, because they are doing something monstrous.

[whumblr]

Under the weather

Crossed out - Continued from ch.12 - Prologue

-

The morning buzzer tore him right out of his REM sleep.

Lucas squeezed his eyes back shut when the bright lights blinked on after several soft little pings of the fluorescent lamps. He didn’t even groan. Just lay still on his cot, letting the initial shock seep out of his body. Fuck, it felt like he had fallen asleep just twenty minutes ago. All he wanted was to fall back into that deep, deep sleep again.

With his eyes still closed, he swung his legs over the edge of the cot, the rest of his body sluggishly and reluctantly following. A familiar nausea of not getting enough sleep washed over him. He doubled over, head in his hands, cursing softly.

He knew what happened when he would ignore these early warning signs; powering through would usually leave him even worse off the next day, the nausea a soft prelude to actually falling ill. And out in the real world, he was absolutely useless like this so he had learned to just go back to bed for a few hours and catch up on work later.

Here, though, in hell, that was no option. He had to get up. Whether he wanted to or not.

He lingered on the bed for a few moments as if crawling back under the blanket was something to even consider. It absolutely wasn’t. The mere thought of Nero marching into his small cell was enough to get moving. He’d probably get thrown right over the railing if he asked for another hour of sleep. That would give a stronger shock of adrenaline than that buzzer though…

Rocking back and forth, as if gaining momentum to push off, he forced himself up.

A stronger wave of nausea hit him hard; worming up to his head, fogging his brain and making his head feel oh so light. It caught a hold of his legs and he teetered lightly. His body protested every stumbled step along the way, as if a magnet kept him tied to the bed, and it did not appreciate the cold water splashed in his face or the gross minty taste in his mouth.

To be fair, he was a little surprised his body had held on for so long. Given his injuries, that didn’t get time to heal and only increased with every passing day, the mental exhaustion and stress, the physical exhaustion—yeah, he’d expected to hit a limit earlier.

He got dressed, ignored the nausea’s tight grip around his stomach, and stepped ‘outside’, staring straight ahead and pretending like he did every day that these ordeals weren’t getting to him.

This too, will pass.

And of course, it did. Though it persisted through the entire day, eventually, his nausea retreated.

The next morning, predictably, he felt feverish.

Told you so, his body seemed to gloat.

Something hot and uncomfortable pressed against his forehead. There was no fever, yet. Just another warning to take his fucking rest today.

Yeah. Again, not an option.

He didn’t feel like getting flattened against the wall so he stood against it willingly, waiting for roll-call. When Nero got closer, he puffed himself up, forcing himself to look alive, blinked hard to expel the glaze over his eyes, and tensed his posture.

Nero passed him without giving him a second glance. Lucas deflated, both in relief and irritation.

But Nero did stop a few cells ahead, in front of a man who also seemed to be coming down with something but didn’t even have the strength to hide it. He stood slumped over, panting lightly, staring blankly at some point of nothing.

“How are you feeling, Santos?” Nero’s voice rumbled.

“Not too well, sir,” the man panted.

Nero studied him and was Lucas imagining it or did he actually looked concerned. Then he nodded and said: “You are excused for the day. Hoogland, can you take him to the infirmary after this?”

The other prisoner nodded.

Lucas clenched his jaw shut before anyone could see him gaping. But, what in the actual fuck, you could do that? That was allowed? Being sick?!

He watched, dumbfounded, as Santos and his cellmate shuffled along, coughing and sniffling, and he was rather jealous that the guy got to spent the day resting. But the moment had passed and he was going to have to suck it up today.

At breakfast he sat alone, because despite his best attempts to hide how he was feeling, everyone saw right through him and weren’t taking their chances of catching whatever was lurking in his system. Not to worry guys, this was merely a case of complete and utter exhaustion. Something that always lingered in the air here but probably wasn’t contagious. Still. He couldn’t blame them…

At a calm moment during laundry duty, he found a quiet place and snuggled up on the folded towels, crossed him arms, and allowed himself to close his eyes for a few moments. Bliss raced through him, his shoulders relaxed and he let out a content sigh.

“Lucas.” Trey’s gentle voice pulled him back.

“Hm.”

“Wake up, you can’t sleep here.”

“Nero’s not here anyway,” Lucas mumbled, lightly turning away.

“No.” Trey acknowledged. “But you’ll want to be careful. There are always people who are looking to get into Nero’s good books by ratting out fellow inmates.”

His eyes shot open. Found Trey’s wry smile and he glanced around to see if anyone had caught him breaking rules. Most inmates just focused on their own duties. A sigh. He squeezed his eyes closed for a second and when he opened them, found Trey’s outstretched hand in front of him. Reluctant yet grateful, he accepted it.

-

The next morning, he couldn’t pretend anymore. His fever had stormed up overnight and he felt like death. His head was pounding, every heartbeat banging against his skull, lighting up the pain all over his body, his bruises, his muscles.

He ran a hand over his face, scratching over his morning stubble and his skin was damp and uncomfortably hot.

Just getting out of bed left him panting and he caught himself leaning heavily on the toilet/sink combination thing. The basin felt eerily cold under his warm hands.

Boldened by what he’d seen yesterday, he allowed himself to show his weakness this time. He practically stumbled through the doorway and leant back against the wall for a moment to catch his breath. At the first sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, he pushed himself off, but didn’t stand up straight. Didn’t put on a show either. He slumped over, didn’t choke back his coughs, and took deep shuddering breaths that just didn’t give him enough air to calm his breathing.

The heavy footsteps stopped in front of him. Still panting lightly, Lucas glanced up at Nero. There was no concerned look on his face—he knew he had imagined it yesterday – but Nero didn’t straight up ignore him either.

“You don’t look well, Varga.”

“Running a fever, sir,” Lucas whispered. There was no need to feel his forehead – also really, just preferably don’t – he could practically feel the heat radiating from him.

“I see,” Nero said, already turning away. “That’s too bad.”

-

Tag list: @gala1981 @chaotic-orphan @lolrpop @andithewhumper @tippytappytyping @suspicious-whumping-egg @cherrychupachup @alexmundaythrufriday @defire @withdrawingramen @light-me-on-pyre @treasureguardingdragon @notactuallyluska @fortunately-cool-penguin @b0amagination

[loveandleases]

Guess who's here with another AU ask??? 👀

Supernatural scenario: The ROs are perhaps bounty hunters or just a simple fantasy character and, somehow, they are 'bonded' to a vampiric or demonic MC who is just...CHOOSING to stay with them (cheekily or affectionately soff, I leave that for you to decide!). How would they handle it and what would change once they hit that rela stage?

(I actually have about 3 more questions, but I wanna make sure you don't get overwhelmed! 💜)

Also, can totally picture MC being demonic or vampiric due to being sold to the supernatural at a very young age by their parents to protect Jade - sorry for le dark headcanon 🤣

Ally~ 😃 You're making me want to work on... the thing. Nothing like some supernatural fun. (totally imagining a monster au similar to a certain vn 😉) (The amount of world building I did for each of these... I"m going to have to write these at some point I think.)

❤️ Cam - (Of course it turns him on.) (Hunter/Vampire)

He became a hunter to protect MC—an inside-man kind of deal. To join the hunters, Cam had to become bonded to a vampire, and who better than his bestie?

Pre-Relationship Stage:

It’s always been this way—an unspoken co-dependency. Cam is shunned by other hunters, who see MC as nothing more than a killer, a tool. But because they’re friends, he keeps his emotions in check, pushing down his feelings and curiosities. To a point. That breaking point? Learning that some of the 'approved' blood MC drinks come straight from the source. (jealous lil guy)

Relationship Stage:

“No sucking” from anyone else. Period. That is problematic, considering the hunters still expect MC to feed. But the rules the hunters made to maintain some separation (aka no drinking from the person you're bonded to) were thrown out the window. Why shouldn’t they be? Cam offers himself on a silver platter—pain or no pain. (whimpering mess)

Given that his blood strengthens their bond, heightening everything: their emotions, their strength, even Cam’s life itself. He’s more protective, observant, clingy—and completely unapologetic about it. He reeks of MC and doesn’t care. Ask him to step in front of a stake. He’s already there.

💙 G - Long gone are the days of cleric G. Somehow, they've moved onto Necromancy. (I blame Emmrich Volkarin.) Plus, the amount of longing. 🫦They didn't imagine being tied to anyone, especially not a damn demon. It takes a certain level of control to use their magic. They raise the dead, command spirits, bend life and death to their will. Fate might have been involved, at least that's what they say. The one time G goes against the plans laid out for them, this happens. They tried to banish MC… and ended up bonded instead. 🙄I'm not saying someone performed a poorly worded ritual...

Pre-Relationship Stage: There was a freedom before, even though G had to obey the Necromancy Guild's order. They were left to themselves. Yeah, that's out the damn window. Their is a tether between them now, an unexplainable connection. Who knew a demon would be breaking down G's well planned barrier. They could leave, but for some reason, they don't. So, reluctantly, G lets them in. Who knew a Necromancer and a demon could have a good friendship? Though they do argue... a lot. MC has a well of knowledge they just want to share.

Relationship Stage: It was a slow process to get to the realization that there was something more there. They touched everything within each other. A lifeline. G's magic pulled from MC's very existence. And MC's existence pulled from G. Each kiss felt as if they were swallowing one another whole, but they weren't they were just melding into one another. G was making MC's existence permanent, and MC was making G human. They made G feel things they couldn't dream of, nor conjure up.

Before G hid behind a well thought out mask, even when they were affected by their emotions they could hide it. But not now, not around MC. They could feel each other's emotions, each other's very breath of life. And when they were close to one another, they could feel it as if it was a flame being stoked.

💚 Kara - (Different type of vamp bonding.) It began as a night meant for fun, a little indulgence, and a taste of danger. What started as a (blood) drunken kiss quickly escalated when Kara’s curiosity got the better of her. She’d always wondered—what would fangs against her skin feel like? Would it hurt, or would it thrill? Neither she nor MC were aware of what came next. The bond was accidental, a tether neither of them sought nor understood.

Pre-Relationship Stage: They weren't strangers, but their connection was surface-level - a mix of camaraderie and flirtation. Devoid of true depth. To be bonded to someone you're hiding secrets from, or choose not to admit a crush about, it's hell. MC could feel her emotions, each little time she tells a white lie there's an undercurrent, a change in her scent that just gives her away. It left her vulnerable. The bond forced her to confront a part of herself she'd long buried. She wasn't used to being truly seen. Always just an extra - the fleeting face people desired for a night but forgot by morning. But MC stayed. What began as obligation grew into something real.

Relationship Stage: Kara had loved before - or at least she thought she had. In her mind, those fleeting connections had been important at the time, but they were ephemeral. Everyone eventually took what they wanted and left. She'd believed she had nothing to offer anyone who could outlive the span of her years. Yet with MC, it was different. They didn't want anything grand or eternal. They didn't want power, her beauty, or her lineage. All they asked for was her time, a precious little thing she'd never realized could be enough to give. With MC, Kara found herself letting go of the guilt of caring. She embraced it. Allowed herself to feel every part of their bond. The joy of their affection, the thrill of their fangs sinking into her flesh, and the warmth that came from knowing she was wanted. Truly wanted. For the person beneath the skin, the nameless thing, that makes a body home.

💛 M - The poor thing opened up a tome one too many times, trying to find some fragment of inspiration. Only to have opened a book that held something far greater. A demon without a home, without a name. Surely, M could grant them that much? But you see, naming a demon isn't just an act of kindness. It's a commitment. To name a demon is to give it purpose, to give it meaning - a reason to stay. A 'bond' if you will.

Pre-Relationship Stage: They're excited, immeasurably so. How could they not be? How often does one get the chance to talk to a demon? M doesn't think anything of it, just a new friend they happened to have come across, who has tales of ancient things that are written about. Even experienced. A hierarchy that no one ever knew. All of it floods M with inspiration, with desire to write and create. To learn more about them, and little by little to care about them. At first it was a small part, a little inkling in the back of their had that they never really paid attention to. You care about friends right? You want what's good for them... you want to spend more time with them and see them when you wake. You want to kiss those lips that are just right there and... oh shit, M... M might very well have fallen for them. And much to their surprise, they fell too.

Relationship Stage: It's all new, exciting, and when the excitement wears off. What they call "newlywed stage', it's even better. For the first time, M understood what it meant to be truly loved, to be wanted. They felt it in small moments: the fleeting kiss pressed to their cheek, they way their energies intertwined late at night during their first time together, the hum of magic and intimacy beneath their skin. M couldn't believe they hadn't noticed it before - how their connection had been building all along, in late - night conversations and shared laughter. That feeling in their chest, so warm and fluttering, wasn’t just inspiration. It was love.

💜 Isaac - They had one target, simple enough. One demon to take out, their essence to be sold to the highest bidder. It was a shit job, dangerous even, but it was a job like any other. There was no way Isaac could predict that the tattoos that were carved into his skin, ancient relics, would have another purpose. They had only ever destroyed demons before... but imagine his surprise when he finds a person, wounded and bloody only covered by a sheet, that his tattoos barely react to. Until the moment his fingertips touch them, and the tattoos come alive, shining like never before. Imagine his surprise when this person informs Isaac that his tattoos, don't only kill demons they bind them. So why didn't they kill MC, like every demon before? Because they weren't just a demon, not entirely.

Pre-Relationship Stage: He's angry, the last things he needs is someone close, demon or not. He doesn't have time for this, or any kind of attachment. He needs to fulfill his goal, a promise he made to himself as he sat in front of his dying mother. No demon would be safe until he found the one responsible. No matter how hard Isaac tries, he can't keep his distance. He can't just sit and watch them die. Albeit reluctantly, Isaac and MC are together. In some unholy way, but it doesn't feel unholy. He spends many nights craving a drink to forget how it feels. The energy under his skin and along his arms, the way he can feel the weight of their gaze on him. And they probably feel his too. Or the way his breath catches when they're close. He's flirty with others, but it's a ruse, a ploy to keep people at arms reach. But the demon or half-demon, he is told over and over again. He would much rather reach his arms out for.

Relationship Stage: Their relationship grew naturally. Over time, MC began to see the pain etched into Isaac’s heart—the wounds left behind by his past, by the loss that shaped him. And he began to see them as more than just some bond - a remnant of something he thought was meant to destroy. But as a person. It was impossible not to since the day he saw them, he just wanted to fight it. There's a depth to him that comes out like vapor. His affection, a promise, of staying by their side and keeping them safe. A promise to not lose them like he did his mother, bond or no bond. Isaac has fallen for them in ways that makes his soul hurt. Because the piece that had been missing he finally found. He’s softer now, more caring. Imagine a demon hunter—someone forged in blood and vengeance—soft A demon hunter who learns that not all demons are evil or need to be killed. MC showed him that some of them, like them, belong.

And now Isaac knows… they belong together.

🖤 Ardent - An innkeeper, simple enough. Or it should be. But, of course, like everything else in his life, it isn't. Imagine his surprise when he goes to tell someone they’ve overstayed their welcome, only to find them bloody, half-naked, and unconscious. He grumbles the entire time, bitching that this isn't his job or his problem. But for some damn reason, he can’t just leave them. He’s seen it before—the aftermath of a vampire attack. The transition. The change. But the look of pain on MC’s face? He can’t bear it.

So, against his better judgment, he offers the one thing he has: blood. Human blood alone can’t bond a vampire—it’s magic that binds. And Ardent's blood, unknown to him, isn’t entirely human. It carries ancient, dormant magic. When MC drinks from him, the magic in Ardent's blood doesn’t just fill their body—it freezes the transition, preventing MC from fully succumbing to their vampiric nature. They remain in limbo: no longer human, not quite vampire. They hover on the precipice.

They still need to feed, but they aren’t consumed by it. They can stand in the sun but need more hours of rest. There is a lingering sensation of that magic in their body and a strange connection—an echo of life in Ardent’s hands.

Pre-Relationship Stage: Ardent is all "fuck me for being empathetic." He doesn’t need another mouth to feed, another person to be responsible for. And yet, somehow, he feels responsible. They aren’t dead, not exactly. They look at him with those warm eyes, as if he’s some kind of savior. No matter how much he hates it, how much he tries to fight it, Ardent just can’t turn them away or toss them out. A part of him actually enjoys their company.

Relationship Stage: His eyes might have lingered, and they might have noticed. When their lips curved into a smile, and the glint of their fangs caught the light, something in his stomach churned. A heat he tried to ignore. He’d gotten used to them being around, hell, he even liked it. He might even admit he would miss them if they left. And that is something he fears—that one day, they’ll wake up and realize they could be anywhere else. But instead, they choose to be with him. And that realization has him melting for them.

No one could get him on his knees willingly, except for MC. At first, he worries that his blood has enraptured them somehow. But the truth is, it’s the other way around. Their very existence has captured him—hook, line, and sinker. And if his heart was ice before, guarded and hidden away for safety, it’s ripe for the taking now.

[sosuigeneris]

Going by your post about daughters in high society being all-rounders, are they expected to learn certain languages, follow literary canons or maybe know specific geopolitical happenings? Is it a specific set of skills & information or is it more on a general knowledge basis?

you should definitely know your country’s language and English. Most competent girls I’ve noticed fall in two categories - either they’re extremely strong in arts (classic literature, art, music, food, essentially creative stuff) or STEM and finance.

as an overall, one normally has a general range of soft skills - the ability to converse with ease, socially confident, “respectful”, poised etc.

There are certain cheat codes to achieve this ^ and make it seem like you’re really an all rounder in the short term. Obviously in the long term you’ll have to work on your skills if you haven’t, but here’s what you can do. 1. Study the most common socially asked questions

How are you?

Where did you go for college/ uni?

What do you do?

Where have you travelled lately?

do you know about ….. ?

do you know XYZ person?

What are your hobbies?

and practice, practice these answers. Here’s your objective : to come across as knowledgeable, friendly and rational. don’t for instance, speak negatively about anyone or any experience. Instead of saying “oh my god this experience was absolutely ghastly” say “this is what I really liked and this is what I felt could be better.” You are seen as a refined woman then, not a bitchy teen. Use a wide range of vocabulary- CORRECTLY. Practice it so that it seems natural to you. Even fairly common words like “apt, apprehensive, sentient, derelict” - can make you seem a lot more polished than “so true, unsure, alive, run down”.

2. Be aware of three of the biggest news stories before any social event. Be it a dinner, party, a baby’s christening, anything. and here’s what will make you stand out - know those 2-3 stories in detail. In the age of people simply skimming over news and not making the effort to dig deeper, knowing something very well is an instant giveaway of being well read. For instance, Trump and the birthright citizenship situation. Something that an average person (especially if they are not American) may not know is that lots of non- American pregnant women - mostly Indian - in the US have begun approaching doctors to have their babies premature before the Feb 20 deadline. Now, when I mentioned that at an event recently in India, people were surprised. I was able to bring value, information to the table that no one else really knew about.

So when you speak, you want to drop a nugget of value. What you don’t want to do is get very high and mighty - you have to drop this information nonchalantly, as if you know everything. Nonchalance will give you bonus points.

3. Listen more than you speak… ATTENTIVELY. You cannot break eye contact, don’t lose focus. Nod slowly, tilt your head slightly, back straight, shoulders and hips turned towards the person who is speaking. Don’t rush and don’t rush them.

practice these small things even with your friends, school, teachers, workplace - to make something a habit, you need to practice it anywhere and everywhere. You can’t just be polished to one group of people, you must be polished to all.

4. Always approach the women/ aunties / mothers first. Compliment them genuinely. And then greet the man. The only times I break this rule is if the man is decades older, is someone I know very well, is a friend of my parents’, or if I know him better than his wife.

5. you won’t be expected to cook and clean and all that, these days it’s not really an expectation. And also, unless you want to attract men like that and you want to be that person too, it doesn’t make sense.

[cementcornfield]

You should post your thoughts on Ja’Marr and Kyle!! I’m so interested in their dynamic if that makes sense 😅

lmao anon i love you thank you because i was literally just typing a post up by itself. but now i get the benefit of looking like i'm not the ONLY person to care about this. (there's at least two of us!!)

ok so! too much rambling about things that i could no way actually know anything about irl BUT 

kyle and ja’marr being together in paris is VERY interesting to me. their whole relationship is really because like. okay. i have joked that kyle and ja’marr are there to pick out joe’s wardrobe for next year together lmao but like!!! the clothes saga is SUCH a thing with ja’marr. the man has a Complex about joe and fashion and his part in it. we know this. i hardly need to go over the clothes saga with y’all again. but i will because it’s fun for me. ja’marr claims in GQ that he buys clothes for joe all the time and drops them off at 'the house’ for him. which is insane enough if that’s true. then a few days after that article drops (and also joe’s appendix explodes) he says nah never mind i was lying! (“kinda”). and that’s insane too. but whatever, we let it go, there’s football to play. then that offseason tee decides to cause some chaos i guess and confirms that actually ja’marr HAS bought joe clothes ‘multiple times’ so that’s. something!!! (along with TB in that one pivot podcast with all three of them teasing ja’marr about it!!) and then SOMEHOW none of this gets brought up again until a few months ago when ja’marr is just like “yeah actually i’ve been buying him clothes since last year” which is still a year later than he first said he bought him clothes 🤔

ALL OF WHICH TO SAY that ja’marr is fucking weird about this. he may or may not buy joe clothes (i’m still leaning yes on this), and he may or may not want people to know about it. i think he realizes just how intimate of a thing that is, to repeatedly buy someone you care about clothes that you think he would like, that you’d like to see him in. and i think if we go back to my Vision of insecure at times ja’marr, it’s one way to explain his back and forth on this.

but then!! insert kyle, who i believe only became joe’s stylist within the last year. before that i don’t think joe ever really had anyone Official to help him out with specific outfits/styles/branding etc (i’m sure the joe girlies will correct me if i'm wrong on this). and now i can only imagine that ja’marr might be feeling a little…possessive of joe here (what else is new lol ‘that’s my qb not their qb’ type shit). like if we believe he’s been buying him clothes since at least 2021, that’s like…that’s ja’marr’s Thing at this point?? even if it only started happening in 2023, that’s still a long time of "oh hey i saw this and thought of you and will you wear it and when you wear it will i feel a little thrill knowing that you took my advice knowing that you value my opinion knowing that the clothes touching your skin are only doing so because i bought them for you in the first place etc etc." and now here’s joe paying someone else to do it?? and who the fuck is kyle why him why does HE get to do it he didn’t even win a national championship with him in college???? (ja’marr obviously would be more rational than that. of course joe should pay someone to help him out with style as he does events and builds his brand more. but as a fellow Emotional Person myself, the rational response is never the first or strongest one.) 

so like! there’s that. that alone could make ja’marr not inclined to LOVE Kyle, ya know? and then if we want to get really Deep and dive into internalized homophobia of Male Athlete Culture. of my version (MY VERSION JUST MY VERSION THIS IS NOT ME SAYING ANYTHING IRL ABOUT HIM) of ja’marr and how he might cope with feelings and attractions that do not neatly fall in line with what is Expected of him and Has Been Expected of him since he was a kid. like fuck. do we remember how his dad said ja’marr used to like to read with his cousins (who were girls) but then his male friends came around and made fun of him for it, so he stopped reading altogether as a child?? thinking about that still makes my heart hurt! aughhh Gender!! and then even a few weeks ago on stream when ja’marr accidentally said that kyrie was sexy and IMMEDIATELY the chat and his friends jumped on him for it!! like yeah it was all lighthearted and all that but he got all embarrassed and even fucking apologized??? just the immediate policing of language/behavior followed by the immediate apology and moving on to no longer watching kyrie clips lol. crazy!!! Male Athlete Culture is SUCH a trip!! 

and kyle is gay! very much out and proud and not hiding or ashamed of any of it (fucking good for him tbh. i know he’s not Loved in this fandom but like that does genuinely take guts to be yourself like that in a culture like this. and make a career out of it! and he seems to be thriving!) and i just have to wonder like, how many queer people ja’marr really knows well?? the nfl has their corporate pride month bullshit where they celebrate the like 1 out gay assisant coach? 1 out gay FORMER player? if there are more queer people in the nfl, they are not very public about it. so again, how much daily interaction does a typical football player like ja’marr get with queer people?? i do imagine all the connections that are growing with the fashion world help of course! like kyle! who it’s clear he’s at least friendly with, if not the best of friends. and so like, i wonder about how that could stir complicated emotions in ja’marr if we go with my (AGAIN JUST MINE I’M NOT ACTUALLY SAYING ANYTHING IRL) version of him as a guy who has Feelings about male teammates sometimes and struggles with Dealing With That. 

and throw in the fact that ja’marr primarily knows him as this guy who’s always hanging around joe lol. taking over his role as joe’s personal stylist?? being free and open and ALLOWED to be attracted to all these guys, to joe himself!! (and if he thinks too hard about that he REALLY gets in his feelings). and it’s not jealousy really because he knows how important he himself is in joe’s life. kyle’s not replacing their history, he’s certainly not replacing his value to joe on the field, their close friendship, etc. but! he occupies a space in joe’s life that ja’marr can’t touch. he can publicly and proudly buy joe clothes. something that ja’marr WANTS but keeps shying away from. he can feel any feelings and any attraction he happens to have, he’s not hiding any part of who he is. if he thinks joe’s hot, if he thinks joe looks particularly attractive in an outfit he chose for him, he can! he will! he does! and i think that that just HAS to drive ja’marr a little fucking crazy.

so yeah. he likes the guy. they’re friendly. he’ll do a goofy lil dance when prompted by him for social media. but it’s Complicated. it’s Very Complicated. (to me.) 

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

super indulgent genshin oc concept bc i've been thinking too much about capitano and ororon's dynamic in the story lore ramblings and ideas under the cut for anyone interested hahah;;, beware - long-ass post

(obviously spoilers ahead for the natlan AQ)

haven't picked out a name yet but we could probably scara him and call him 'vessel' or smth anyway, i was thinking too much abt how, in a way, ororon's situation sorta- idk if 'mirrors' is the word, but it has some similarities to what was ultimately going on w capitano? the difference was of course that while ororon failed to be a vessel to send lingering souls into the night kingdom, capitano didn't fail. quite famoulsy. so while that's super interesting and all, i couldn't help but think how they could've pushed that idea further? like you have to make this connection yourself. not even ororon, who spends a good chunk of the AQ thinking about what happened back then, made any remark about how similar it was to what ended up happening to capitano (that i recall?). did we ever find out if the ritual they tried w ororon had ever been performed before? i don't remember. it might've been, but it could've also been a hypothetical of sorts that they figured they could just try. anyway, regardless, i started thinking about if they HAD done it before, how interesting it would've been to actually get an account of what went down. as in- in further detail. bc then we could've possibly had a stronger/more evident connection between capitano's ordeal and ororon, and it would've been more clear what ororon sort of- dodged. if that makes any sense. like we know thanks to capitano but still, it's not the exact same scenario. so you can probably see where this is going lmao

this guy (we'll go with 'the vessel') is the result of my brainworms thinking about how it could've worked if we had one of the previous 'sacrifices' of the ritual (or maybe even the only other one) appear in the story. maybe he could've been from around the time citlali was still young (like before she realized she wasn't aging), so before she was renowned and in a position where she would've been able to easily stop the ritual. i think it would be really interesting if she could've like- still protested? y'know? but since she didn't have a high position she felt like it would've been pointless. this would make it all the more compelling the fact that she still didn't outright protest against ororon's ritual, and would've given more weight to her complicated guilt/relief over the whole ordeal. so all the way back then (like 200ish years?) they found a fella with an incomplete soul, trained him to prepare him since the situation wasn't nearly as dire n so there was time (and would make more sense if it was also the first time they were doing this), and then successfully performed the ritual. or at least as successfully as they thought, bc i think it would be all the more appaling if like- ororon's was always meant to be a capitano pre-ronova situation. he would've carried these souls w him and he would've been laid to rest but HE wouldn't have really rested, if that makes sense? not just killing him. maybe that's what it was and i just can't remember. anyway. if it was something like that, then the vessel would've been essentially put to sleep somewhere in a secret cave or whatever, acting as a sort of waiting room for the souls in him to stay w him and not roam the land until they could get into the night kingdom. but since the situation w the night kingdom was worse than anyone had expected, the souls sort of never moved on, and stayed w the vessel, dormant in that cave.

like that, ororon's ritual has failed and we have a more interesting situation going on – citlali's conflict is even more complex, the MotNW are more morally gray, ororon's 'failure' is more weighty given the vessel's ritual did seemingly help out a ton, and capitano has a more interesting parallel w the whole situation. in this scenario of course the natlan AQ has much better pacing etc. it would be more harrowing if we're allowed to stew w the souls disturbed from the night kingdom and sort of haunting the land like they were when we were helping them w citlali n xilonen, i feel like that happened too fast. if the souls were disturbed in that way, then so too would the vessel's rest be disturbed, and i think it would be hilarious if at some point in that little section we get the MotNW in a panic like 'HE IS GONE. HE IS OUT OF THE CAVE' and the traveler is like who???? it would be so funny. so the vessel essentially wakes up, accidentally escapes from his cave, n then starts wandering natlan in a daze bc he's like 200yrs in the future, he's confused, and he has a bunch of souls backseating his existence van hoenheim style. the gang could then meet him n we could have ororon have his little crisis over it n the vessel himself also have conflicting feelings over it etc capitano probably figured out/found out ororon's whole situation w the failed ritual, so when the vessel wakes up, capitano could probably show up and start sort of being oddly inclined to have chats w him. by that point in the story we wouldn't know capitano is in p much his exact same shoes, so this would be a weird sort of 'wtf is he planning' moment. the vesssel wouldn't be able to quite join in on capitano's plan, but since he was trained specifically for this whole ordeal, we could have him and capitano sort of compare notes n theorize how they could both just Fucking Rest. i think the ronova thing would play out the same (wouldn't want to take that away from capitano since that was his wholeass reason for being there), but they would've sort of off-camera (we get shown this afterwards) figured out that if capitano's plan works, then the vessel could sort of use him as a conduit to guide the souls through him and into the night kingdom. sort of like a passage that only he can access. so capitano goes and sits down, and then the vessel sort of sits down by his feet and joins him. then capitnao isn't alone and since i'm nothing if not a simp the first thing i thought when i saw him sitting there was those really heartwrenching fanarts people make of xiao kneeling by the rex lapis statue and resting his head on a thigh/knee, and i can't get the image out of my head, so. vessel -> xiao, capitano -> rex lapis statue, you get it i don't need to explain this any more LMAO i didn't even think of it as ship material (though you bet the fandom would make it so if this was canon. not that i'd protest), but more as a. sort of like- a sudden bastion of understanding and companionship at the end of the road. like yes both of them were alone but also not alone but also really really lonely for a good chunk of their long lives and even though it has now come to the end they both wanted they also managed to find a companion/comrade/someone who Gets It, even if it was just for a little while there at the end.

so yeah