#how cute would it be if the detective and their love do the same magical binding ceremony that rook and rebecca did🥹

[itsmistyeyedbi]

Your wish is my command @carriehobbs ! I'm making a separate post because this might be a long one lol.

I've talked about Zuri's feelings about marriage over here, so know that if she's getting married it's years into her relationship, with it not even coming up in her mind as something she and her partner can do until someone else brings it up. From the moment any type of proposal happens (there'd definitely need to be a conversation long before about what marriage would mean for her LI and how they'd feel about their relationship - otherwise her abandonment issues would flare up and the prospect would make her anxious) to the second she's walking down the aisle, she will be an emotional wreck.

She'd be so excited about getting married that the wedding planning would take a while - that level of emotion would make her take forever to even form an idea of what the wedding should look like. But whether she elopes or has a big wedding with all the fanfare, her outfit will be on point, always lol.

Eloping:

If she's eloping (which I think would probably be what happens if Morgan is her LI in twc), I think she'd wear something in her wardrobe. It would either be a slip dress with a shawl (I think that's what it is?) like the one on the left, or an asoebi dress she wore to one of her aunt's weddings on the right (asoebi translates to "family cloth", and symbolises unity and solidarity, so everyone who was her aunt's close family member wore dresses identical in colour and style).

Full On Wedding:

Traditional Wedding

If she's having a full on wedding, with a reception and ceremony and some cultural practices (and family flying over), she'd send her measurements to a designer in Nigeria that her family has been working with for years and a designer in Kenya that designed her father's wedding clothing (it would be hell trying to get this information out of Rebecca, but she'd be determined). There might end up being a lot of outfit changes, lol.

Honestly, I've been thinking on this for a while and I'm not entirely sure which culture she'd lean into the most. I think her Yoruba culture would be the main one considering her relationship with her grandma (Rebecca’s mom). Her relationship with her grandpa (Rebecca’s dad) is a lot more on the distant side, so her incorporating Igbo culture in her wedding is debatable. She doesn't have much family from Rook’s side, considering the fact that her grandparents had passed away long before he even met Rebecca, and his sister passed away when Zuri was still really young. Too young to even really remember her beyond what she's seen in pictures. But she'd want to incorporate his Kenyan culture in some way - I'm just not sure if that would include an outfit change or not.

So if she has a traditional wedding, she'd definitely have a slightly more modern Yoruba wedding dress with a gele (a traditional headwrap) and ipele (a cloth that's usually worn as a sash draped across one shoulder - she'd have it on her sleeve instead like it is in the picture), but the Igbo and Kikuyu (Kenyan) ones are a maybe

So the pictures of them are basically just me wanting to show what she would wear if she did lol - I spent too much time looking for them to not include them in this post. These are the dresses, respectively.

*If her partner has cultural practices that they want to have in the wedding, she'd stick with her Yoruba one so that there's enough time in the day for both. In twc, I can see Nate possibly having his Persian culture in the wedding. And if Farah had any desire to include union practices from the Echo World, Zuri would be so down and so excited to do them (but that may have to happen on the day of their white wedding since Zuri’s very human family would be here for this one).

Considering the fact that Zuri's extended family will be there, there will be money spraying. How comfortable each member of Unit Bravo would be being surrounded by people spraying them in money is interesting to think about lmao, Zuri would probably have to ask them to keep that part of the celebration short. I can see Farah loving it though.

White Wedding

I don't think she'd have a white wedding on the same day as the traditional one - it would be too stressful for her. This one would definitely be smaller, with mostly close friends - including some supernatural ones, Elidor, Tapeesa, and Unit Alpha are definitely invited.

Zuri's wedding dress would be an off the shoulder, mermaid (I think?) dress with a flower motif. Where the flowers come in is something I haven't completely decided on - having them on the dress can be really pretty, but be mistaken for regular lace if it isn't distinct enough. Having it on the train or veil instead is a possibility.

It would probably happen in a smaller venue than the one they had the traditional wedding in, and they could use the money they got from the spraying to fund it lol. Zuri's aunt's would not hold back in that regard.

[justhereforthemeta]

Romantic expectations and the story we didn't see: A magic trick hiding in plain sight

Here's a hopeful meta for all my fellow celestial brainrot sufferers out there. Cheers! :)

This idea started as a dead end, trying to track the movements of Crowley’s sideburns/tattoo because I thought time travel shenanigans were afoot. I had to abandon that theory when it was pointed out that David was simultaneously filming as the sideburns-having Fourteenth Doctor, and in-universe Crowley can do whatever he wants with his facial hair whenever he feels like it. But hey - null findings are still findings!

On the bright side, pausing the show to make notations in a spreadsheet forced me to slow down and notice other changes I'd overlooked the first time around: acting choices, costuming choices, references to book lore. And possibly a few surreptitious flicks of the wrist, in places where we’re meant to be focused on the magician’s other hand.

@amuseoffyre and @ineffablefood had a great exchange recently about romance and “the significance of misdirection and three-in-one (magic) tricks” throughout the show. I suspect Neil has done something brilliant with the audience’s long-standing expectations (since the 1990s, really) for the love story between Crowley and Aziraphale to develop. And while it is a wonderful story indeed, playing to this expectation lets Neil distract his audience from the blink-and-you'll-miss-them seeds he's planting for the final chapter.

Continued below the cut...

Let’s start at the beginning of Episode 2. First, context: In the previous installment, Crowley stormed out of the bookshop, was whisked away to Hell by Beelzebub where he learns about the Book of Life threat to Aziraphale’s existence, then returned to the bookshop to dance a little apology dance and hide Gabriel with an unintentionally massive joint miracle. In S2E2, we and Shax catch up with Crowley as he's snoozing in the Bentley.

Shax: “You’re in trouble”

A. J. Crowley, cool as a cucumber: “Obviously. Former demon, hated by Heaven, loathed by Hell. How will our hero cope?”

Interesting! Sarcastic? Yes, absolutely; but that’s also a good 4500 years and an averted apocalypse away from “I’m a demon. I lie,” wouldn’t you say? Someone is sounding a whole lot less depressed and aimless and navel-gazey (do snakes have navels?), and a whole lot more like he’s got a project to focus on, since his "what's the point?" ruminations on the park bench in E1.

And of course we all noticed the costume change right away. Hello, black turtleneck. Feeling cute today, thought I’d cover up my graceful long neck? That sounds unlikely. Let’s put a pin in this one.

There’s also an interesting acting choice going on here. Crowley speaks to Shax in a funny, drawling, too-cool-for-you voice that we haven’t heard in a while. Specifically, not since 1967. If you go back and give the S1E3 scene in the Dirty Donkey a listen, you’ll hear it (and if you know of another instance of it that I've missed, please let me know!). In S2E2, he keeps up this odd voice (if anybody knows what kind of affect this is supposed to be, please do tell!) throughout this dialogue with Shax, except for the brief moment when she first surprises him about the joint miracle having been detected.

1967 was a fun year. Crowley masterminded a heist! And seemed like he was having a ball doing it, right up until his little caper was called off after Aziraphale brought him the thermos of holy water. Crowley spoke to his co-conspirators in that same funny, very 60’s-caper-film voice. He wore a hip 60’s turtleneck. He bought petrol for the only time ever, so he could get those sweet James Bond bullet hole decals for his car (per the book, seen on the Bentley in the show).

Those James Bond bullet hole decals would of course have been part of a promotion for this 1967 release, which you just know our film-enjoying demon went to see in the theater:

Starring this suave, be-turtlenecked guy:

And now - begging your forgiveness - a brief rant.

There are a number of posts out there that refer to Crowley’s S2E2 turtleneck as a flirtatious sartorial choice - actually, ‘slutty’ seems to be the favored accusation. There are even a few posts floating around commenting on how sweet it is that Crowley swaps out his slutty, kinky, throw-me-over-your-desk-and-take-me turtleneck for a more dressy and appropriate collared shirt specifically to attend Aziraphale’s Jane Austen ball. 

Now this is all in good fun, and Crowley does indeed look fantastic here, and I do love a good fangirling sesh as much as the next person. However, fandom’s collective tendency to interpret what we are seeing on the screen through the lens of romantic expectation can, at times, give rise to a kind of blinkered enthusiasm that obscures the original text in a haze that is part Mandela Effect, part unrestrained horniness, and part in-group code talking and identity reinforcement.

Respectfully, Crowley’s black turtleneck does not appear at all in S2E5: The Ball. In fact, it never appears again after the end of S2E2.

For Someone’s sake, let’s collectively pull our heads out of the romantic fog/gutter for a moment and focus on what we are actually seeing in the book and on the screen. For Crowley, this is an uncharacteristic within-period costume change. There is a surreptitious flick of the wrist happening here, out in broad daylight, and we are all missing it.

So here’s a thing. Aziraphale appears to have settled comfortably into life on Earth, his neighborhood, his books, using Crowley as an outlet for sharing his good deeds that he would once have reported to Heaven. Meanwhile, at first glance, Crowley appears stuck in a rut. There he slouches on a park bench with Shax in S2E1: a guy who lives in his car, stagnantly clinging to old familiar habits, mulling over the pointlessness of it all.

Setting aside the bit about living in the Bentley (I’m going to attribute this to well-documented issues between him and Aziraphale, discussed in many other excellent metas, and move on), Crowley has at least two very good, proactive reasons for maintaining his contact with Hell through Shax. First and foremost, it’s a source of information he can use to keep ahead of potential threats to Aziraphale and himself.

But also, I would posit…he kinda likes it.

Recall that book GO was first conceived as a parody, with Aziraphale and Crowley as spy-against-spy (but not really) field operatives in an ages-old cold war between Heaven and Hell. Their entire book dynamic is rooted in the trope of two opposing agents who have been in the field for so long that they now have more in common with each other than with their respective head offices. Their St. James’s Park meetings among other spies and ministers trading secrets are a sendup of what was once a well-known Cold War-era cliché. 

Our contemporary Crowley still likes slick outfits and hellaciously expensive watches and high-performing vintage cars and pens that write underwater while looking like they could break the speed limit. He coaches Shax on how to blend in as a demon on Earth, and he helpfully redirects the wayward contact looking for the Azerbaijani sector chief. He loves improvising and getting away with shenanigans under the institutional radar. And boy golly was he impressed with Jane Austen: master spy, brandy smuggler, and mastermind of the 1810 Clerkenwell Diamond Robbery. 

And if you look at it a certain way, for as long as Crowley has considered himself to be on “[his] own side” - going at least as far back as Job - he could almost think of himself as a sort of double agent. It’s actually a very romantic sort of notion, befitting our hopeless romantic of a (professedly former) demon; but it’s romantic in a very different way than we, the audience, have been primed to watch for.

In other words, in a very “on my own side” kind of way, Crowley really gets a kick out of being a spy. Or at least, dressing up and accessorizing as one, and moonlighting as a good-doing double agent when he can get away with it. And also being a plotting criminal mastermind. Two sides of a coin, really. Just look at Jane Austen.

My point is: No, Crowley did not wait around for Shax to come find him in a turtleneck so that he could go flirt with Aziraphale later. He’ll flirt with Aziraphale no matter what. No, this:

is actually this:

Much like the one he wears to the Dirty Donkey in 1967: 

whilst holy water heist-plotting. Here's a clearer shot with gratuitous Bentley, because I love them:

…and which he'll wear again, with appropriate camouflage, while infiltrating Heaven in S2E6:

That is the 1967 planning a HEIST turtleneck for committing ESPIONAGE and STEALING THINGS in. Because turtlenecks are what modern human master spies wear to get their hands dirty - after all, he saw it in a movie once. 

Crowley dons his tactical turtleneck sometime during the first major break in the action (which doesn't happen until after the joint miracle to hide Gabriel) after he learns about the threat the Book of Life poses to Aziraphale. Loverboy started mentally preparing himself to go after that book immediately upon learning that it was in play as a genuine threat. 

Now let’s pick up at the S2E2 Dirty Donkey scene, reading the story from this angle. Of course, Crowley enables Aziraphale’s delusions about Heaven by hiding information from him, and does not disclose the Book of Life threat when they meet again. They go into the pub, Aziraphale shamelessly paws Crowley’s chest like the seductive Bond Girl he is, and Crowley gets to act all smooth and suave and intimidating as he chases off the interloping Mr. Brown (or Mr. Collins for the Pride & Prejudice fans, take your pick).

Ergo, theory: beginning in S2E2, Crowley is already thinking of himself as a Jane Austen/James Bond action hero (“How will our hero cope?”), psyching himself up to rescue Aziraphale by getting his spy game on and stealing the Book of Life.

Now, watch closely...This is where Aziraphale and Crowley brainstorm their plans to solve the problem they both know about: getting Maggie and Nina to fall in love and thereby get Heaven off their backs. Crowley’s vavoom plan is drawn from yet another movie (“Get humans wet and staring into each other’s eyes - vavoom, sorted. I saw it in a Richard Curtis film.”). But Crowley also implicitly shares his solution to the problem he hasn’t told Aziraphale about. And true to form, Crowley’s Jane Austen solution isn’t the same as Aziraphale’s Jane Austen solution. 

Two solutions that fail by the end of Season 2, and a secret third one that might still work...and there's our magic trick of three.

‘“I’m lost. Am I doing a rainstorm?” Yes, babe. And a heist, too - just not until season three. Can I get a wahoo!? 

I won’t spend time on A Companion to Owls during this meta, except to note that in all three minisodes, we get to watch stories that involve Crowley acting as a double agent on “his/their own side” - successfully making Hell and Heaven think he’s fulfilling their will while saving Job’s goats and children; failing to fool Hell when he does a good deed in Edinburgh; and of course, collaborating with Aziraphale whilst evading detection as an infernal turncoat during the Blitz.

(Because this is getting long, I'll also skip over Crowley's interrogation of Jim in this episode - I'll probably come back to that in another meta. But interrogating is a rather spy-ish thing to do.)

When we catch up with Crowley again later, he’s already slipped out of the bookshop, having left Aziraphale to his biblical reverie about Job. He saunters snakily down Whickber Street as usual, but with a very pointed and swift glance over his shoulder (see pic above). This demon is up to something - possibly something we didn’t get to see, something that may have happened offscreen while he stepped out. In any case, knowing there’ve been unfriendly angels in the neighborhood that morning, he’s rightly concerned about being spied on.

From this point until the beginning of episode six, there isn’t a whole lot of opportunity for Crowley to make any next moves. He babysits the bookshop, during which time he manages to wring some crucial information out of Jim; he follows his Crowley’s Angel around like a puppy, and downs a bottle of red like a good old fashioned lovesick boy once that’s been pointed out to him. If any plotting or scheming is underway, this occult being is keeping stumm for now.

This has been a long one, so I’ll wrap up with Crowley’s infiltration of Heaven with Muriel. The turtleneck disguise works (Archer fans, be vindicated!) long enough to gather some information that will be crucial not just to the denouement of S2, but also to Crowley’s journey in S3 (previous post on Crowley's Fall, Saraqael, and memory wiping). And Aziraphale gets to enjoy that view exactly zero times. The point isn’t oh, a turtleneck! How flirty! So cunty! So cute! Y’all. Everything matters. The costume change was a deliberate choice. In-universe, Crowley’s decision to wear his special spy turtleneck for spying in is a signal that he is out doing spy things, even as we watch.

In sum: Beginning in S2E2 and continuing through the end of the season, Aziraphale and Crowley are actively living out the scripts of two parallel, concurrent, and completely different Jane Austen stories. But you and I, dear fellow audience member, we came here for a comedy with a hefty jigger of romance, and that’s what Neil gave us to focus on. And right up until the Final 15, that was the only story we saw.

Meanwhile, Special Agent A. J. Crowley doesn’t have time to mope around at the end of S2E6. He’s kicked down, but he’s not out. He's got a Book of Life to steal, a very serious bone to pick with a certain memory-wiping angel, and his Angel and the world to save. 

“‘Heigh ho,’ said [romantic, optimist, former demon, hero, master spy] Anthony Crowley, and just drove anyway.”

[oatmealwrites]

Catch Kira, Not Feelings! [Headcanons]

[ NOTE: This goes with my long series fic Catch Kira, Not Feelings! but you don't have to be reading that to get the gist of this ‘Co-worker L’ headcanons! ]

CKNF Masterlist here | regular masterlist here

Small collection of headcanons I have for Co-Worker! Matsuda [SFW & NSFW below the cut!]

small a/n at the end~

Co-Worker! Matsuda who is ecstatic when Chief Yagami brings in you to officially meet the other officers. He has heard raving stories about you from the older man for quite some time now: Near the same age as him, working hard in graduate school, and a sweet personality that the entire Yagami family loves you; Matsuda is beyond curious. So when you walk into the police agency's usual staff meeting stating you would be graduating from your internship and begin working there part time… Matsuda is officially a goner. 

Co-Worker! Matsuda Knows it wrong to stare, but he genuinely can’t help it. It’s not that he thought you would be ugly or anything– he would never be so rude– it’s more that he didn’t expect to go completely slack jaw at your appearance. He swallows thickly and sinks into his seat when Aizawa throws him an elbow and laughs at his obvious enamorment with you; cheeks red and pupils dilated, even non-detectives can easily tell he’s flustered.  

Co-Worker! Matsuda tells himself it’s simply because the field is so male-dominanted that of course he would find himself gravitating to you– that it’s simply natural. It’s totally natural that he finds himself always taking the seat next to you in meetings. It’s totally natural that he insists that he should walk you to the metro station instead of the chief out of respect for the older senior’s time. And it’s totally natural that he lingers in the shampoo aisles of the supermarket trying to find out which damn scent it is you use, because there must be some sort of magic or secret ingredient that makes you smell so nice. 

Co-Worker! MatsudaDoesn’t act on these feelings on purpose for quite a long time. Yes, he’s kinda awkward and isn’t the most discreet in his attempts to spend time with you [even if it’s volunteering to help you with the most mundane tasks], but he’s also very respectful of his environment and colleagues. You’re the chief’s prodigy and the sweetheart of the agency, and he knows there are boundaries in this environment. The last thing he would ever want is to make you feel uncomfortable or ruin the relationship he has with you or his coworkers… so he buries it. Swallows it and pushes it to the side not only for the dynamics of you two, but also for insecurity reasons. He’s never really been the star of any project or been known for his extensive leadership skills, and this weighs down on his decision to ever come clean about his feelings. 

But Co-Worker! Matsuda knows he can only hide these feelings for so long… well to be fair, most of the agency is well aware of his crush, but now that you’re both working under L in an intimate setting…?! He’s convinced Ryuzaki is going to kill him for letting emotions get in the way of his work ethic and deductive reasoning. 

Though to be fair, and he’s not sure if he’s reading too far into it, sometimes he thinks that you might like him too. There’s only so many times you can offer to fix his tie, bring him coffee, and actually compliment his abilities before it’s no longer platonic. Right?

NSFW BELOW:

Co-Worker! Matsuda Is ashamed about how many boners he’s had to hide in the middle of the work day. People are going to think he has bladder issues from the amount of times he has to excuse himself to the restroom to tuck his erection up into his waistband. It’s not fair though! Why do form fitting slacks and cute colored work blouses have to somehow make you look so sexy?! 

He’s not sure he’s ever had a kink for a career-woman type, but by God is he reconsidering it now. White button shirts that show off the color of your lace bra when you don’t realize it’s partially see-through. Tight black slacks that hug the swell of your ass and leave nothing to the imagination. And when your hair is done nice and neatly with a few puffs of light perfume?! You’re driving him up the wall and his hand down his pants. 

Co-Worker! Matsuda Who knows it’s getting bad when not even porn can seem to get him the way it used to. Nude magazines, cheap xxx dvds, and even lingerie catalogues can’t seem to do it for him because they’re not you. Every moan doesn’t sound like how he imagines you would, and every model just doesn't have the same proportions that he drools over like you do. It gets to the point where he lets the adult movie play in the background while he’s fisting his cock with eyes screwed shut, wishing to the universe that it’s you doing this to him instead. [it’s the only way he can get off otherwise]

And he feels like he’s losing his damn mind for doing this!! He’s a young man too, and while most of his friends are perving over celebrities or girls at bars, Matsuda is visualizing the two of you peeling off each other’s work clothes. 

Co-Worker! MatsudaWho is fairly certain that while Kira can’t read minds, L and Light are pretty damn close to it. He sits on the couch at the task force meetings, acting as nonchalant as he can when you brush his bicep and offer a small joke or compliment when those two give him a look. 

He’s not even doing anything and yet it seems like they know?!

You scan through a variety of documents, brilliantly offering your deduction and impressing the crowd while Matsuda has to force himself to lock-in and listen rather than daydream about your future lives together. And in that exact moment, either Light or Ryuzaki, will shoot him a knowing dead-pan. [‘I know what you are’ kinda vibe].

And how can they?! His erection is firmly pressing into the waistband, so how can they tell he’s imagining bending you over the kitchenette table and fucking you nasty, stuffed full of his semen? That he would get on his hands and knees and fucking bark if you told him to? And what’s wrong with that? Can’t a guy want to beg to eat out the girl of his dreams, spelling his name on her cunt with his tongue until she cums and drips down his chin? Has the world not evolved to a place of understanding?!

Regardless, those two always give him the same look. 

Co-Worker! Matsuda Can’t even figure out how to ask you on a date when he’s already getting baby fever. It happens when Aizawa’s wife and child drop by outside the hotel with a bento for working so late when Matsuda’s brain is going haywire. 

Do you want kids? Because he’d give you as many as you want. But if you don’t, that’s ok too– just let him cum in you enough that it feels like he’s knocking you up and that will suffice. 

And it’s wrong, he knows it. You two are supposed to be close work colleagues and friends, yet here he is feeling like a pervert for imagining that white-picket fence sort of life with you. 

Co-Worker! Matsuda Always feels like he’s losing his mind one way or another, and ultimately keeps his feelings close to his chest despite his awkward tendencies. You’re an amazing detective who’s bound to excel in the field while he’s fighting for recognition amongst men who rarely see any value in his abilities to begin with. 

You deserve someone smarter, more physically fit, and doesn’t work the same shitty hours that comes with being in this industry. You deserve so much more than him. 

But he can’t help wanting to sit next to you at every meeting, texting you throughout your classes wondering when you’re coming back, and always volunteering to make the convenience store run when he can see you getting sleepy. He’s wrapped completely around your finger despite his best intentions… but one day, after the investigation, he’s determined to finally tell you everything. Besides, he’s supposed to be catching Kira, not feelings!

IM BACK

sorry pookies, I went on vacation after finals and just didn't rlly go online for a week but im back home now~~

also idk what came over me this morning, i just woke up as decided it was time for some matsuda luv

anyways~ i'll try to get more on schedule soon as i wrap up my thesis and apply for internships and stuff

LUV U POOKIES

-oatmeal

Taglist for the main series:

@kenqki @lechatparle24 @irissfoot @iheteeaifs @automaticpatroltragedy @greenapplesaucepi @thesimpnovao @leiiilaaaa @duckydee-0 @dija200 @cherry-san @hanakokunzz @maribellaaaaa @love-of-less @bakugouswaif @kakamixoxo @scintilated @napkincrunch @crumbl-pie @arisuscanongf @mr-crawlings-wife @girlwedontcare @madison777x

[icarusflewsworld]

Rhysand & Cassian & Azriel X OC

Hello, here is the chapter 19 of a fanfiction on the world of Acotar where our three favorite Batboys are the mates of a single woman.

I hope you enjoyed reading and had a good time!!!

Since it's Christmas next week, the next chapter or maybe the next chapters will be posted in a week. On Friday, December 27th.

So I wish you an excellent day and a good weekend. But above all I wish you a very very very merry Christmas with lots and beautiful presents under the your Christmas tree. I hope you are happy. With all my love, ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

! Don't forget to read the other chapters ! : Here

Enjoy the read ! ❤️❤️❤️

Chapter 19 

Azriel's leg bounced nervously up and down and his fists were clenched on his thighs. Despite the fact that he was sitting on the living-room sofa, his back was straight, contracted all over. He stared at his lord in awe, "You're not seriously considering this, Rhys?" He'd thought he was hallucinating when his brother had offered to take Luxiana to the Weaver to retrieve her mother's ring. He'd thought he was hallucinating when his brother had proposed taking his little, smiling, sunny, weak and fragile mate to steal from a creature as powerful, crazy, cruel and dangerous as the Weaver. "It's far too dangerous! She's only human!"

Rhysand sighed again. He had crossed his arms. He was trying to stand up straight and look confident as his two brothers stared at him in horror. "Precisely, as she has no magic, the Weaver won't feel her. She'll just have to be as quiet as possible." He'd given it a lot of thought last night. His mother had left his engagement ring with the Weaver for several reasons: so that he wouldn't misuse it, and to make sure that the woman he wanted to marry was strong enough. His mother had explained to him that becoming the wife of a high lord was dangerous, and that the person he wished to marry would have to be at least cunning and courageous enough to steal his ring from the Weaver. Even so, he couldn't quell the huge ball of anguish clenching his stomach violently. He knew Azriel was right. It was so dangerous and he was so afraid for his mate. 

"And if she detects her, what are we going to do, eh, Rhys?" spat Azriel, rising from the sofa abruptly. He could feel that his eyes were wide open and he could well imagine them injecting with blood. He wanted to make his brother eat the floor. How could he contemplate putting their soul mate in such danger over a stupid ring? He held back from staring at his lord with a grimace of disgust. He didn't deserve Luxiana. 

Cassian was on the other sofa. He had his neck bent back and a thinking gaze on the ceiling. He was thinking. His two brothers were right. He didn't like knowing his mate was in danger, but he knew Rhysand's mother would have wanted Luxiana to be able to get through this. Especially when she was linked to the three of them. He wanted so much to respect the woman who had saved him from cold and starvation, but at the same time, he was terrified that his cute little human would end up hurt. Or worse. But he also knew she was resourceful and could survive. In any case, he wouldn't let anything happen to her, even if he had to die under the power of the weaver, he'd get his future wife to safety first. "Then we'll go get her and protect her," he asserted to Az, straightening his head to stare at the Illyrian with the blue siphons.

Azriel turned towards Cassian to widen his eyes. "Because you're okay with this???" he shouted through clenched teeth. He felt like he'd been plunged into water so cold he couldn't breathe. He was tetanized by the hatred he felt for his brothers.  

"Cass is right, there's no reason for her to get hurt, we'll prevent that from happening," Rhysand added in a calm voice he didn't even know how he managed to have, while inside he was as anxious and trembling as Azriel. 

"What if we don't make it in time??" The spy master gesticulated in all directions. "Need I to remind you who the Weaver is? She's considered a goddess because she's so powerful! Far more powerful than the three of us put together, Rhys. She's protected by laws and a high lord isn't allowed near her. Whatever happens, it will only get us into trouble. And I don't want any of that trouble to be my soul mate being injured!"

Rhysand let all his air go as he dropped onto one of the sofas. He knew he'd break every law to keep his soulmate from getting hurt, and that he'd take the consequences without flinching. But he also knew that Azriel was not wrong and that many things could go wrong. He rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. He stayed like that for a moment, hating himself with every fiber of his being. He hated himself. He'd never get over it if Luxiana was hurt because of him. The Weaver was so powerful that anything could happen to Luxiana before he could reach her and teleport her away. But at the same time, all Luxiana had to do was to go in, steal the ring and come out all silent. The Weaver was blind, she wouldn't even know she was there.

He dropped his forearms to his thighs to stare at Azriel with a worried but sad look on his face. "I believe in fate and I'm convinced that my mother knew what she was doing. I'm convinced that she subconsciously knew that the three of us would share the same soul mate and that's why she adopted you. I'm convinced she suspected that our soul mate would be able to get that ring back. She wouldn't have left it there otherwise."

"Rhys, do you hear yourself?" shouted Azriel, flabbergasted. "Your mother wasn't a prophet! You want to risk our soulmate’s life for a stupid ring!"

Rhysand gritted his teeth and lowered his eyes.

Cassian leapt to his feet, anger pulsing through his veins all at once. "Be careful how you talk. She saved us. We owe her respect. And anyway, I told you, I wouldn't let our mate die."

Azriel glared at him. How dare he think he didn't respect Rhys's mother when he considered her his own. But he could believe whatever he wanted. The important thing now was his Luxiana. "What if she's hurt? Can you imagine her in pain? Can you bear the thought of her suffering, even for a second? I can't. I can't! It would destroy me to know she's in pain, even if it's just a scratch! And you too, for God's sake. Even ignoring the fact that she's our soul mate, we're Illyrians, it's in our fucking genes. It would kill us to see her hurt!" He grunted, trying to calm himself but failing. He turned to his lord to speak more calmly. "Rhys, you know I loved your mother, but there's no way she could have known our soul mate was human and fragile. She certainly wouldn't have left that ring there otherwise."

A heavy silence settled over them, pressing down on their chests. Azriel couldn't breathe, but he didn't even realize it, too absorbed in killing his two brothers with his eyes. Cassian looked doubtfully between Rhysand and Azriel. They were both right, and he was lost. He didn't know what to do or think. Rhysand was staring into space. He felt so bad. So guilty for having suggested this. He'd never get over it if Luxiana was hurt because of him. 

"Maybe we're getting in over our heads," Cassian finally says, forcing his two brothers to turn questioning irises on him. "Let's just tell her the idea and the risks and leave it at that. It's her choice, after all."

Azriel rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Haven't you figured out who she is yet? I mean, she's bound to want to. She doesn't seem to give a damn about putting her life in danger. It's up to us to stop her, but you don't seem to have figured that out yet."

Rhysand cleared his throat so as not to look as bad as he felt. "Maybe, but anyway, if we don't keep her busy, she's going to want us to go and get the book of breathing so she can get back to Feyre as soon as possible. At least this way, we keep her with us a little longer."

Azriel closed his eyes fiercely, his nostrils swelling. He couldn't believe his ears. None of them deserved Luxiana. And worst of all, he didn't stand a chance against them. They were two against him. 

"Let's go wake her up and talk to her about it," Cassian breathed as he rose to his feet. "We'll see what happens and what she says."

Rhysand nodded, stood up and set off. Azriel reluctantly followed his two brothers. They walked in a heavy silence. Azriel gritted his teeth so hard his skull ached. His gait was stiff. Rhysand walked swiftly with an air of determination, but it was mainly to get there as quickly as possible before ducking out. He felt like throwing up. Cassian could feel a mixture of similar emotions running through his veins. He felt everything his brothers felt. He was lost. He moved forward with folded arms.

They arrived in front of Luxiana's room. Rhysand's almost trembling hand rose to knock on the door, and they waited there, restraining themselves from running away. The door opened slowly, revealing their soul mate. And when they discovered her - in a white silk nightie reaching halfway up her thighs, with what seemed to be the remains of a bun around her tangled hair that went in all directions, with a face marked by the folds of the sheets as she looked at them with half-closed eyes - nothing else mattered. Nothing else mattered to the three Illyrians but her. 

"Hum?" she groaned, squinting a little more. She glanced at the morning sunlight seeping through her bay window before shifting her pupils to the three Illyrians. What time was it? What were they doing there? God, they were so sexy. She wasn't used to this kind of vision as soon as she woke up, but she liked the idea. She rubbed both eyelids with her fists. She rested her irises on the three Illyrians in front of her, whom she suddenly found abnormally white. "Is everything all right? What's going on?" She cleared her throat, but her voice was still raspy.

Cassian couldn't help but laugh tenderly, almost mockingly, as he detailed her. Her pupils sparkled so brightly he could feel them. He stared down at her hungrily. She was so sexy like that. The desire awakening inside him heated him up completely. God, he wanted to kiss every inch of her legs.

Fireworks exploded in Azriel's chest, spreading through his whole body to tickle him. His arm muscles burned, he wanted to hug her. His fingers stung, he wanted to touch her. He moistened his dry lips, he wanted to kiss her. How could anyone be so cute? His soul mate was the sweetest woman who'd ever walked this earth. There was no way he was going to let Rhysand put her in danger.

Rhysand's heart missed a long beat. A very long one. So long that he felt like falling, forcing him to take a step back to catch himself. He wanted to see this every morning. He just wanted to spend his life with this woman. His whole life. But she was only human. It would be so short. He had to preserve her to keep her alive as long as possible. Anyway, he couldn't even imagine hurting her. "Nothing," he finally breathed, smiling.

Cassian and Azriel turned a shocked, questioning gaze towards him. Rhysand took another step backwards, paying no attention to his brothers. "Nothing at all," he added in the same way. He took a deep breath, relieved. It was safer this way. "Sorry to have bothered you." Unable to restrain himself, he raised his hand to gently caress the angle of his soulmate's jaw with his fingertips. It had only lasted a second before his arm fell back, but he'd been electrocuted through and through. He took another step backwards.

"But Rhys...," Cassian began in their heads with total incomprehension and glancing at Azriel who was in the same state.

"Az was right, I'm an asshole," he replied telepathically. "How could I even think for a second about putting our soul mate in danger. Look at her. It's out of the question. I don't want to risk it," he turned to start walking away from the room. He cursed himself. How could he have considered taking such a risk?

Azriel took a deep breath as he closed his eyes. His brother had come to his senses. He wasn't so bad after all. He returned his gaze to Luxiana, who detailed them with a curious, tilted head. He smiled tenderly. She was so adorable. "Go back to bed." He reached for the handle to close the door, but Luxiana shook her head at the sight of him. 

She slipped through the room's narrowing opening to chase Rhys, grabbing him by the sleeve of his black jacket. The lord stopped abruptly to turn back to her with wide-open eyelids. "Why are you here?" the blonde insisted.

Rhysand took a breath to speak, but Luxiana interrupted him by crossing her arms with a stern look. "And don't tell me it's nothing. There's got to be a reason." She suspected he hadn't just come to wake her up, he would have told her otherwise. No, something had happened and she was determined to find out what.

Cassian leaned against the wall beside him, quietly watching the scene unfold before him. He smiled, knowing that Luxiana was about to martyr his two brothers.

Rhysand looked at her tenderly, he couldn't help it. She was so stubborn and reckless. He couldn't lie to her and anyway, he had no other explanation coming to him. "We...," he searched for his words as he lowered his eyes, feeling ashamed. "I wanted to take you somewhere but it's too dangerous after all. I've changed my mind." 

Luxiana frowned so hard that it distorted her whole face. She squinted. "Go where?" Then she smirked, "if it's dangerous, I'm in!"

Azriel looked up at the ceiling before casting a reproving look at his soulmate. "Of course," he growled. "That's why we're not going. You're too reckless."

"It doesn't matter anymore, anyway," Rhysand added, shaking his hand toward his brother. "We're not going, that's decided." 

Luxiana made a disappointed, whimsical pout. "If you don't want to go because I'd be in danger, don't you think that's for me to decide?" 

"That's exactly what I said," Cassian smiled proudly.

"Owwwn," moaned the blonde, turning to Cassian with a tender look on her face. "I knew it, you're the cutest of the three."

Cassian smiled with all his teeth as he puffed out his chest, but Azriel and Rhysand glowered at him. 

Luxiana turned back to Rhysand with determination and a little anger. At least, that's what she was trying to let on, because she wasn't really angry. She thought all three of them were cute. "Besides, I don't see why you're worried about me. It can't be that dangerous."

"It is," Azriel articulated, crossing his arms.

"That's for me to decide," she glanced sideways at the master spy before refocusing on the lord. "Where did you want to take me?" 

Rhysand, unsure of what to do, glanced at Cassian, who nodded in encouragement, then set his pupils on Azriel, who shook his head from left to right to dissuade him. The lord huffed. “We wanted to take you to see a creature called the Weaver. She's a fae who.... "

"Oh Stryga!?" she exclaimed, interrupting him with a big smile. "Yes, I know," she nodded, waving her hand in the air to urge Rhysand to abbreviate his explanation and resume.

The three Illyrians frowned, casting confused glances at each other. "What do you mean you know?" asked Azriel, staring at her from the side. Cassian straightened up to walk over to Rhysand and get a good look at his soulmate's face.

Luxiana looked up, opening her mouth several times in search of her words. She held back a grimace. She had spoken too fast again, without even thinking about what she was saying. She needed to collect herself now. "I read a lot of books," she shrugged, throwing the shadowsinger a smile, it wasn't a lie after all. "Stryga is the super-powered fae from another dimension exiled to the forest hundreds of years ago, blah, blah, blah, I know my stuff. So what did you want me to do? You wanted me to kill her?"

The three Illyrians raised their eyebrows in surprise, blinking several times at this unexpected statement. But although they found it strange, they didn't suspect it was a lie. In any case, there was no way she could have known the Weaver otherwise. 

Cassian blew out a laugh at the last words of his soul mate, who had the most serious face possible. "No, no, I doubt it's even possible to kill her, and even less by you."

"Oh well, I'm pretty sure I can," she asserted in all seriousness, nodding several times.

Azriel caught the bridge of his nose and sighed. Damn it, if she really knew who the Weaver was, how could she think she could kill her? She was so naive.

Rhysand looked at her tenderly. He smiled, shaking his head. "No, we wanted you to go steal something from her."

Luxiana darkened her brows, "Steal what? Why me?" Then she widened her eyes after a moment's thought. "This is some kind of test before summer court to make sure I'll be able to steal the book, right???"

Rhysand let out a little laugh with Cassian. He nodded, trying to hide the mocking glint in his pupils. "That's right, but...," resumed the lord before being interrupted by Luxiana.

"Hihi," she said, shaking both her clenched fists in front of her. She turned in one swift motion, gliding gracefully across the floor as she started to make a dash for her room. "I'm going to get ready."

Azriel had the reflex to catch her by the forearm before she entered her room. His soul mate turned to him to find out what he wanted. "We said no, we're not going. It's much too dangerous for you."

Luxiana turned to glare at the master spy. She crossed her arms. "But if I'm the one who'll be in danger, then that's my decision."

"No, precisely, it's not your decision, since you're not capable of making a reasonable one," Azriel spat dryly. Then he closed his eyes for a second, cursing himself for his tone and words, but Luxiana wasn't even a little intimidated or hurt. 

She shrugged with a doubtful grimace. "She's old and blind, certainly no threat to me." 

Azriel thought she was so cute, he could have smiled if he hadn't been so worried.

Luxiana anchored pupils glowing with supplication in those of the three Illyrians in turn. "Listen, I just want to prove to you that I can do it. Because I can. Trust me."

Rhysand's heart slammed against his ribs. He couldn't resist his mate’s adorable face. And he didn't want to hurt her when he trusted her. He took a deep breath. "Are you sure about this?" he asked her, because he wasn't sure at all.

"Yes," she assured serenely. "It's my decision, not yours."

"No," Azriel screamed in horror, turning to his brother. "The Weaver could disintegrate her just thinking about it." 

Cassian huffed, rolling his eyes. He was worried too, but his brother was abusing them. They were going to protect her and their mate was smart. She wasn't a child. "Stryga won't do it, she has a habit of slowly killing people who infiltrate her home." 

"Is that supposed to reassure me?" gasped Azriel with wide eyes. He was almost trembling with fear. He felt like he was going mad. Was he the only reasonable one here?

"She won't be hurt. We'll intervene first," Cassian assured, taking a threatening step towards Azriel, who was beginning to irritate him.

Rhysand breathed imperceptibly before stepping between his two brothers and breaking the distance between himself and his soul mate. He placed his hands on Luxiana's cheeks to cling to her face. He slowly drew his head closer to hers, while she merely looked at him with affectionate eyes and a reassuring smile. He swallowed hard. How could anyone look at someone who approached them like that? She was so sweet. 

Luxiana's heart pounded violently in her chest. The high lord approaching her was having quite an effect on her, and when he'd placed his hands on her cheeks, her whole body had begun to tickle. She did everything she could to keep smiling and not look as upset as she was.

Rhysand stopped only inches from his soulmate's lips, zoning in on them for a moment before plunging an intense gaze into the blonde's. "Are you sure you want to do this?" He lowered his eyes for a second. "To tell you the truth, it's an important object for me that you'll have to get back, but if you don't want it, we won't go. You're much more important. If you're feeling even the slightest bit of stress, or any other disturbing emotion, we'll stay here. You don't have to prove anything to us anyway."

"Rhys, I'm not afraid," she assured comfortingly. 

But Rhysand's heart had trembled. She'd called him by his nickname. Could he really risk putting her in such danger? What if something unexpected happened? What if something went wrong? It wasn't worth the risk.

Luxiana, almost able to read Rhysand's hesitation in his eyes, let out a small cry of frustration. "There's no point thinking about it any more. Now that I know all this, I'll go to the Weaver with or without you, even if it's years away. So either you stay here, or you come with me."

Rhysand laughed softly as he glanced at Cassian, who nodded to confirm that he suspected Luxiana would. Rhysand lowered his eyes to detail the blonde in his hands for another second. He was worried, but he suspected she'd try. She might even hurt herself trying. Or worse, she might succeed and they wouldn't even be there to defend her. He took a deep breath, then nodded in silent thanks. "She won't be able to see or smell you," he explained, suddenly regaining his seriousness.

"Fuck, Rhys," Azriel tried to interrupt, realizing that his brother was giving in. He put his hand on his lord's shoulder to get his attention, but Rhysand took no notice.

"If you're as quiet as possible, you can go in, steal the object and come out without her even knowing. She won't be able to hurt you."

"Rhys, I said no," Azriel shouted authoritatively, pushing Rhysand, who had to release Luxiana.

Cassian growled as he lashed out at his brother with his pupils. "It's her decision, Az, respect it. And if it's not then go, we'll go without you."

Azriel gave him a look so black that his irises were that color too. The three of them were against him. There was nothing he could do, and it was driving him mad. But there was no way they could go without him. He had to be able to protect his soul mate. He gritted his teeth but said nothing.

Cassian, having realized that his brother was giving up in spite of himself, turned to Luxiana with a confident, serious expression. "We'll be there in case of trouble. She won't hurt you, I'll make sure of that."

"If there's the slightest problem, we'll intervene," continued Rhysand with a reassuring face, but a ball of anguish emerged in his stomach. 

Luxiana simply nodded with a broad smile. Then she happily ran to her room to get ready. 

A few minutes later, while Azriel was still trying to convince his brothers not to go, and while they weren't even listening to him, Luxiana resurfaced. The three males turned to her and gasped. She was wearing black leather pants, equally dark thigh-high boots, a white shirt under a corset of the same color, and she'd pulled her hair back into a ponytail. "It's great," she raved happily. "All I have to do is ask at the house and she gives me the outfit I want, I love it!"

Cassian rolled his eyes to close them. He raised his head as he turned away from the blonde and ran his hands vigorously over his face. She looked so sexy in that outfit. He wanted to make love to her in this outfit, damn it. He was dying to jump on her, and he didn't know what kind of self-control would stop him, but he was admiring himself.

Rhysand smiled pretentiously as he detailed her with eager pupils. She immediately looked a lot less cute like this. He loved it, but he couldn't help smiling at the irony of the situation. She was so sexy when she was just cute. 

Azriel paced all around them. He was so anxious that he only noticed his sister's outfit for a second before he started walking nervously again. Damn, he'd have to make her a suit of armor. She wouldn't be protected enough with this leather.

Then Rhysand finally held out his hand. "Ready?"

She caught him with a confident smile and a strange gleam of coldness in her pupils. "Ready." 

Without further ado, the lord teleported them a few steps away from the Weaver's house. 

Luxiana spun around, letting go of Rhys, to take in the tall trees and dense vegetation that now surrounded her. She glanced coldly at Stryga's house. The corner of her mouth lifted in a kind of spasm that the Illyrians couldn't see. Then she turned her determined gaze back to the three males in front of her, who were staring at the building with apprehension and even fear for Azriel. "What shall I steal?" 

Rhysand turned his violet irises on her and was surprised for a second. She looked serious, her eyebrows slightly furrowed and her eyes cold with determination. The lord lifted his chin, smiling in a corner to give himself a haughty, confident air he didn't have at all. He didn't want to worry her, it was stress that made you make mistakes. "You will know when you see it," he replied simply.

Luxiana frowned, pulling her head back in surprise. "Probably not, no."

Azriel gritted his teeth and took a sharp breath. He glanced sideways at his brother. "Rhys, at least tell her what the object is that she has to steal, so that she spends as little time as possible in this damned shack." 

Rhysand didn't even turn to him to answer and remained with his eyes planted in the blonde's. "I'm sure she'll find what she has to steal. You'll feel it."

Luxiana scrutinized him for a second with squinted eyes. Then, as she detailed him, she realized that he seemed really sure that she was going to guess what to steal. And she believed him. Anyway, it wasn't as if she was risking anything. So she nodded once and only once. "All right, I'll trust you."

Cassian took a step closer to his soul mate. He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger to turn the blonde's head towards him and plant an authoritative gaze in hers. He was trying to calm the stress and anguish rising inside him and wanting to make him tremble. "You enter, opening the door as quietly as possible. Walk carefully, taking slow steps. Be careful not to breathe too heavily either, and above all, watch where you step. You absolutely mustn't make any noise! Don't rush," he advised with concern.

"Okay," Luxiana breathed, laughing softly with an expectant face. "You're too cute, but I swear everything's going to be fine. It'll be over in a jiffy." Then she turned to walk in the direction of the house. "I'll be right back." 

But fear suddenly exploded in Rhysand, who moved on his own to hold her by the arm. She turned to him. "Are you sure? We can still go away?" he said hastily, dying of worry.

Luxiana huffed and rolled her eyes, a little wearily. If only they knew. But they couldn't suspect anything. So she smiled to comfort him. "It's my decision. I am."

Rhysand let go of her, but before she could get going again, Azriel caught her by the arm and pulled her sharply towards him. "What ag...?" Luxiana couldn't finish her sentence as Azriel turned her around to tighten the strings of her corset and wedge them inside so they wouldn't disturb her or get caught somewhere. 

Azriel was scared to death. A mixture of adrenalin and terror coursed through his body, making his muscles feel like they were being torn apart. "You watch yourself and your surroundings," he warned with a cold voice. He turned her around again to face her, crouching for a second to pull a little more at the top of the blonde's boots and make sure they were secure and held in place. 

Luxiana watched him with wide-open eyes, completely paralyzed. Her heart was dancing in her chest. No one had ever been so kind to her. 

Azriel stood up, "If you're scared or feel something's wrong, you turn back immediately." He grabbed the wide sleeves of his soul mate’s white shirt to fold them a little dryly up to her elbows. "If something happens that we haven't felt or heard, you run. If she attacks you and we're not there, you call us, screaming at the top of your voice to warn us." Then he grabbed the back of the blonde's hand to raise it and present his palm to the sky. He grabbed Truth teller to pull it from its scabbard, twisting it between his fingers to grasp the blade and be able to slide the dagger's handle over his mate’s palm. "If she comes after you and we're not there, you shove this dagger down her throat. It won't kill her, but it'll give you some time, okay?" 

Luxiana shifted her pupils between Azriel and the weapon he had just given her, her mouth half-open in astonishment. Then her cheeks flushed in realization. She blinked in search of her words, but found none. She simply nodded, closing her fingers around the handle.

Azriel grabbed her by the shoulders to shake her once and back to accentuate his words. "You really must be as quiet as possible." Luxiana wanted to speak but Azriel cut her off. "Promise me! Promise me you won't do anything inconsiderate or stupid?"

Luxiana finally pulled herself together and managed an affectionate smile. "I promise."

Azriel slowly released her against his will. He had to fight every muscle in his body not to grab her and drag her away.

The blonde stared at the three of them hesitantly and a little wearily, to make sure none of them were going to interrupt her again. But they didn't seem to have anything left to say, and only looked at her with concern. She nodded, tucked the dagger away in her boot and turned, so that at last she could leap happily towards the Weaver's house.

Azriel could feel himself trembling as his soul mate walked to her death. "I swear, if anything happens to her, even a scratch, I'll kill you," he threatened in a nasty voice.

Rhysand's heart missed beat after beat. "If anything happens to her, we'll let you.”

"Damn the ass she's got," Cassian admired with a big grin and twinkling eyes while avidly detailing his soul mate as she walked. He hadn't heard a word his two brothers had just tell. That said, he snapped out of his trance and lost his smile as he felt Azriel's murderous and Rhysand's jaded gaze. "What? We've never seen her in pants before, I profit."

They gave back their attention to Luxiana. From where they stood, between the thick forest trees and a little diagonally from the house, they could see the front door from the side. Their mate stopped in front of it. 

"Come on, open it, all. slow.ly," Azriel mumbled, articulating each syllable to encourage the blonde, as if she could hear him. 

But... Luxiana raised her foot, gaining momentum with her leg to crush her heel on the wood and smash the door, which opened with a wrenching sound, slamming even louder against the wall that held it. 

The three Illyrians gasped, their eyes widening as the sound continued to spread through the trees. "Fuck!" shouted Cassian. Their hearts missed a beat. They started to run towards her, but halfway there, the blonde turned back to them, grinning with all her teeth. "There's no one there," she assured them with a shrug. 

The three Illyrians froze in their tracks a few steps from the house. They couldn't see inside, but if the Weaver had been there, she would already have pounced on their soulmate. They couldn't believe it. The three males glanced at each other in confusion. 

"She's not here?" exclaimed Cassian in an almost high-pitched voice, bewilderment distorting his features entirely. 

Rhysand shook his head, frowning, but his irises were still fixed on the blonde, and his muscles tense, ready to react if Stryga threw himself at Luxiana by surprise. "It's not possible, she can't leave her house." He couldn't believe it.

Azriel's breathing was rapid and noisy. He couldn't breathe. "No, something's wrong. We're leaving!" He took a step forward.

Luxiana prevented him from advancing any further by raising her palm towards him, and against all odds, he stopped. "No, it's all right. And Rhysand can’t come closer. I'll be right back." She infiltrated the house. 

Azriel hiccupped almost silently as he saw her enter. He was about to chase after her, but Cassian held him back by the arm. "Wait, let's give her some time. If the Weaver isn't there, she's safe." 

"He's right," Rhysand added uncertainly. He shoved his trembling hands into his pockets without taking his eyes off the house. "If she were here, she wouldn't have allowed Luxiana into her house. I don't know how it's possible, but she's certainly not present." 

But the weaver was there. She was there. She was standing in her living room, a few steps away from her door. Facing Luxiana. She was far too far from the light of the entrance to be visible to the Illyrians. 

She was there. The goddess of death was there, facing Luxiana, but she wasn't moving. In fact, from the outside, you'd have thought she was completely paralyzed, but... her muscles were trembling, her precarious, almost non-existent breathing was shaking her chest spasmodically, and her eyes were widening a little more every second with fright. 

Luxiana moved slowly towards her, entering the chalet a little further, making her disappear from the Illyrians' view. But even if they saw her from behind, the three males wouldn't suspect a thing. They couldn't imagine that, from the front, Luxiana's face was cold, haughty, and cruel. They wouldn't even be able to imagine that their soul mate was heading straight to one of the most powerful faes, totally terrorizing her. 

The weaver was blind, but when she heard her door being kicked in, she got up from her chair and ran to tear the thief's bones out. Only, she was paralyzed in her step. She had completely frozen in fear. She'd smelled her. She'd smelled that scent she knew so well. The scent she couldn't forget. The scent of cruelty, suffering and death wrapped in a touch of vanilla. 

The fae said nothing. She didn't move. She knew it would only make it worse. She was terrified. Why was she there this time? Was she going to kill her?  Or was she going to do one of those much worse things she knew so well how to do?

Luxaina walked quietly through the house, circling Stryga with a wry smile as she detailed her up and down like an animal around its prey. Then, remembering that the three Illyrians were waiting for her outside and that she had no time to play, she refocused on observing all the objects around her. She even began to touch and move them with her fingertips, hoping to irritate Stryga a little. 

She glanced at her sideways, but her smirk faded. The weaver didn't move. Luxiana was disappointed and made a pout that matched her feelings. She would have liked at least a little challenge, a little action. But apparently, Stryga had learned from her mistakes from last time. Anyway, with the three Illyrians just a few steps away, there wasn't much she could do.

She regained her seriousness and hurried to analyze all the objects. She had to get out of here as quickly as possible before they showed up and wondered why the god of death was terrorized in the middle of her living room. She couldn't see herself explaining. 

After a quick but meticulous search, she grabbed the object that attracted her most, then headed for the exit to join the Illyrians, but as she passed by the Weaver, she stopped. 

The blonde suddenly stood in front of her and smiled mockingly at Stryga who -sensing the presence of cruelty incarnate before her - flinched. Luxiana moved a little closer to the livid face and lifeless eyes of the Weaver - who was forcing herself not to back down but was still trembling a little more - to stare at her with a hungry smile, tilting her head left and right. 

Luxiana held back a laugh. In the end, she preferred it when Stryga greeted her like this. With fear. She deviated her face to reach the Weaver's ear and be able to whisper to her as quietly as possible so that the three Illyrians outside wouldn't hear. "Good girl."

She ignored the brunette's umpteenth startle to turn cheerfully and hop out of the house. She closed the rickety door behind her, smiling a little wider as she heard her host's body fall to its knees in relief at her departure. 

Then, she made her way towards the three Illyrians, who took a step forward when they saw her exit. Cassian leaned forward to put his hands on his knees and try not to fall. Azriel trembled, but took a deep breath. Rhysand's heart stilled and his breathing calmed.

"I don't know why, but no one was there," she assured them again, shrugging her shoulders as she came up in front of them. She threw a look at Azriel. She wasn’t lying, after all, no one else was there. 

"I don't want to know," said Cassian, moving his eyes frantically in all directions, expecting to see the Weaver emerge from the vegetation to attack them. 

Azriel whirled around his mate, looking her up and down to make sure she wasn't hurt. "It's fishy, let's get out of here," he ordered Rhysand.

The lord's eyebrows were furrowed and he looked at Luxiana and the house with confusion. It wasn't normal, but the main thing was that Luxiana wasn't hurt. They had to leave before the Weaver became aware of their presence. Without further ado, he teleported them all into the living room of the Town house. 

"Told you it'd be easy," Luxiana smiled happily, putting her fists on her hips. Then she hiccupped as she remembered she still had Azriel's dagger. She leaned forward to grab it and hold it out to him. "Thank you so much, I didn't need it."

Rhysand was completely paralyzed by shock and although he was staring at Luxiana, he couldn't even really see her, too busy thinking about what had just happened. 

Cassian ran his hands through his hair, sighing for a very long few seconds. "What the hell was that?" he articulated disbelievingly.

Azriel reacted at last, savagely grabbing his dagger from his soulmate's hands. "Damn it, she didn't do anything we told her to do," he shouted, killing the blonde with his eyes. His face was red under the anger provoked by the memory of the fear he'd felt. "You're completely insane!"

Luxiana winced with agreement as she nodded vigorously. "Because you doubted it until now?"

Azriel shrieked as he swung his dagger into the sofa. He turned to clamp his hands violently over his face as his shoulders rose and fell rapidly with his breathing. He couldn't believe it. How could his soul mate be so reckless and unconscious? She was the most fragile person he'd ever met, yet the one who took the most risks. He was scared to death. He wanted to cry. How was he going to protect her?

"He's right about that one," Cassian exclaimed sternly, crossing his arms to glare at Luxiana. They couldn't hide her temples throbbing with anger. "What possessed you to break down the door?"

"If the weaver had been there...," Rhysand rumbled in his cold high lord voice, unable to stop his shiver of anguish at the prospect of what would have happened. "She would have killed you on the spot. It was unconscious, irreflexive and incredibly stupid."

Azriel turned abruptly toward his soulmate, but when he noticed Luxiana's smirk, her laughing air and her innocently tilted head, his anger redoubled as it exploded in his chest.  "This isn't a game, Luxiana! We're talking about your life! We told you to be fucking quiet!"

Luxiana rolled her eyes, sighing exaggeratedly. "At least twenty times, yes." 

The three males could hardly breathe because of the anger oppressing them. Rhysand was doing all he could to keep his cool and his mind of steel, but he sensed that Luxiana was going to wear him down. Cassian had to fight with himself not to go and shake his soul mate to set her straight. Azriel broke the distance between him and the blonde, almost sticking to her with a menacing air. "Don't roll your eyes when we're talking about your life and safety! It's important, dammit!" he spat dryly, his voice vibrating with hatred. But Luxiana didn't flinch, just looked down at him with a curious smile and expression. Azriel breathed to speak more calmly. There was no point in shouting at her anyway, but he felt so bad. "You promised me to be careful, aren't promises worth anything to you?" 

Luxiana chuckled a cute laugh as she flashed her dimples, "well, technically, I promised not to do anything inconsiderate or stupid, but believe it or not, my door-busting was quite considerate and thoughtful." She crossed her hands behind her back and smiled innocently.

The three Illyrians were speechless. Fear and anguish made them want to vomit, shake and fall. Their soul mate was completely mad and suicidal.

Azriel took a step backwards, shaking his head, unsure of what to do. Then he turned back to his two brothers, pointing at her. "I'm going to lock her in a windowless room and tie her to her bed so she doesn't escape and put herself in danger."

Rhysand forced himself to take deep breaths as he closed his eyes to regain his composure." The important thing is that nothing serious happened and she's fine." He nodded. That was what mattered.

Cassian ran his hands through his hair and over his face, cursing. He glanced back at his mate.  "At least tell me it wasn’t all for nothing and that you found the object we wanted."

"Yes, I found it!" she exclaimed happily, jumping up and down as if poised on springs.

The eyes of the three Illyrians, especially Rhysand, began to sparkle.

Then Luxiana put her hand between her breasts, where she had hidden the object, under her corset. She pulled it out to show them with a big smile. "Tada!" 

But the three Illyrians lost their expressions and Rhysand's gaze went fade. She had stolen a necklace. A steel chain with a wire holding some kind of small, sparkling violet stone dangling from it. It wasn't her mother's ring. Rhysand touched the stone with his fingertips, not quite believing it. 

Cassian closed his eyes and huffed, completely disgusted.

Azriel gritted his teeth as he turned his head. "All of that for this, I don't believe it."

Luxiana frowned, playing innocent. "What?" She slowly lowered the necklace with a startled look, "this isn't the object you wanted, is it?"

Rhysand looked at her for a moment before giving her a gentle smile to reassure her. She looked so worried and sorry. "Don't worry, it's nothing." 

Luxiana opened her mouth as she furrowed her brows, adopting a guilty face. "I'm sorry, I had no idea what to look for."

"Of course not, it's not your fault," Cassian tried gently to reassure her.

"It's mine," Rhysand resumed, lowering his eyes. "I should have told you what we were talking about, but... I'd thought..." He had thought that, since she was his soul mate, she would have known it was the ring she was supposed to steal. Anyway, it wasn't as if he needed any more proof that this woman was really meant for him, but he would have liked it. His mother would have wanted her to. "Anyway, it was stupid. Let's forget it."

Luxiana studied them for a moment with half-closed eyelids. They had given her no clues, no answers. 

Rhysand, disappointed, was about to turn and leave, but Luxiana retrieved the very first object she'd stolen from her corset and held it out under the noses of the three Illyrians. "I suppose this isn't it either, then?"

All three looked up at her before widening their eyes. 

Cassian let out an exclamation of surprise. "So you found it?" 

Luxiana was still staring at them with squinted eyes, searching for information in their expressions. "Looks like it."

Rhysand began to bubble with joy and hope and a host of other emotions that could be seen sparkling in his irises.

Azriel looked at her in amazement before smirking. "So you were playing us with that necklace?"

Luxiana returned his smile. "Looks like it," she repeated, shrugging her shoulders with an air that was half provocative and half innocent.

Azriel's smile widened and his eyes sparkled. Oh, she was his soul mate, for sure. 

Rhysand raised his hands to grab the ring, but Luxiana moved her arm away, placing it behind her, as far away from the lord as possible. 

Rhysand threw her a quizzical expression as he dropped his arms.

Luxiana shook her head sharply. "I'm not giving you this object until you explain how I knew this was what I had to steal." No matter how much Luxiana racked her brain, she couldn't understand why she'd been drawn to that ring and why as soon as she'd seen it she'd known it was the one to retrieve.

"We could take it from you by force," Cassian smirked with a twinkle of amusement in his pupils.

"No you couldn't," Luxiana replied haughtily, wrinkling her nose. "So?" she insisted for answers. 

Rhysand smiled confidently without difficulty. He was just so certain now. She had passed her mother's test. It didn't matter if the Weaver hadn't been there, maybe it had even been fate, that Stryga hadn't been there to stop Luxiana getting the ring back. She was his soul mate. She was his wife. "You just knew, that's all." 

Luxiana glowered at him. "That doesn't answer my question."

"It'll answer it one day, believe me," laughs Cassian with irises shining with mischief.

Luxiana squinted her eyes to stare at them one by one, trying to understand what they were referring to, then huffed in defeat. Well, for now. Because she was determined to get the answer to her question. "May I at least know why this object is so important to you?"

Rhysand's smile turned wistful and his gaze sad. "That was my mother's engagement ring."

"What?!" gasped Luxiana, dropping her arm limply against her and frowning. "But what was she doing at the Weaver's??" 

Rhysand burst out laughing tenderly. "My mother dropped it off by herself to... keep me out of mischief." He searched for words, he had to be vague. "She was afraid I'd rush off and marry someone who... who wouldn't live up to her expectations."

Luxiana first widened her eyes in realization before hiccupping in surprise and then alarm. "And you used me to get it back?!" She clapped Rhysand on the shoulder, making all three of them laugh.

"Yes," he admitted deadpan. "I was convinced you were the right person for the job, and I was right." He leaned forward to catch the ring in Luxiana's hand, but she took a few steps away with an offended expression. 

"Then no, certainly not," she refused, shaking her head curtly from left to right and glowering at Rhysand. "There's no way I'm going to be one of the reasons you marry a woman your mother didn't think was up to the job. I'm not going to let you disappoint your mother, I'm telling you. This ring, I'll keep it and you'll have to introduce me to anyone you want to marry, and I'll..." she searched for words, thinking. 

The Illyrians glanced at each other with laughter. Cassian held back as best he could to keep from laughing even harder at the irony of the situation. Azriel shook his head, looking tenderly at his soul mate. Rhysand raised a provocative eyebrow to encourage Luxiana to continue.

"You know what? I'd put them through tests!" she exclaimed suddenly as she got the idea. "They'd have to be up to it to marry you, believe me, I'd be a lot worse than your mother or the Weaver." She crossed her arms to glare at Rhysand. "Ah, that'll teach you not to use me again to cheat your mother's goals. I wouldn't let you do that, no."

Cassian burst out laughing, unable to hold it in any longer. He laughed so hard that he leaned forward. 

Azriel detailed her in the same way before turning to Rhysand. "Oh I'm sure your mother would have loved her." 

Rhysand nodded without taking his eyes off his soulmate. He leaned forward with a smirk but a seductive gleam in his pupils. "You can keep it, Luxiana, this ring is for you anyway." 

Luxiana's heart leapt into her throat. She swallowed hard, forcing herself not to back down. She bit her tongue to keep her cheeks from heating up, but it didn't work. Her whole face was probably completely red. "You bastard," she muttered through her teeth, making all three of them burst out laughing.

[randomreadingtimewithtsuki]

I crawl out my cave once in a blue moon when I see someone opening requests for Dr. Stone. Also hi!! I love your background image i will now proceed to have Sugar Song to Bitter Step stuck in my head for the next couple of days!!

Id like to request a Gen x Reader (from the modern era) where Suika notices that the two have feelings for each other and tries to do something about it!

Thank you! Good luck on your requests!!

Hello!

I love Kekkai sensen and Klaus XD so i am not sorry for the song!

Thank you for requesting!

I hope this is of your liking please let me know what you think!

Tsuki's note: well, i did some background hope you don't mind? Also this is so cute! Detective/cupid Suika on the job! I Feel like this came out a bit weird

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You joined the kingdom of science soon after Tsukasa's empire crashed down. You weren't exactly on his side, but you also couldn't just leave.

When you joined the kingdom of science, you were soon placed on the negotiators/political team along with Gen. Why? you had a knack for raking information out of people in a sweet and discreet way. You were also great at reading people, catching the little nuances.

Team in itself was just the two of you. Because it was so small you ended up getting close to each other. At first, you would help Senku read the situation and understand what you guys needed. Gen did the negotiation for the goods, you just read the people around.

Soon enough, Gen started to get a bit anxious in letting you talk to menacing people on your own - what if thy hurt you? sure, Kohaku would be with you, but still.

You, on the other hand got very upset thinking he didnt' trust your skills. After all, he was a sweet talker, so even when he said you are great at negotiation you did not buy it.

These situations let to a few arguments between you two, which caused some worried in one of the youngest members - Suika.

As a great detective she is, she took time to talk to you both separately. She gathered some information out of the situation:

Gen did trust your abilities, he was just worried about your safety.

You wanted him to see value at what you did.

For some odd reason either of you didn't want to tell the other something.

She noticed how oddly frustrated you, you are not someone to get easily affected by this kind of thing, but here you were, beyond frustrated.

And Gen for some reason, was very anxious about you taking front in some occasion. He always trusted the fighting team to keep everyone safe. Odd.

She took upon her to watch you both more closely and try to get you to chat more with her. With time she came to realize that, even though there were this tensions, you two were very close.

Gen showed you magic tricks and you absolutely loved it! You helped him organize his next motivational speech aka trickery.

Suika noticed that most the magic tricks performed for you involved some kind of gift like a flower or a flower bracelet. You always got very happy and wore them until they whiltered. A slight blush could be seen in your face while you tied the bracelet.

Thats when it hitted her: what if you both had a crush on each other? It would explain why you'd get so frustrated and why Gen was oddly protective of you! Yes! makes sense!

But how could she approach you two about it? Asking you directly seemed an option but... Would either of you open up? Gen probably wouldn't, you? maybe.

She thought really hard for a few days. How could she trick you both? You could easily see through people...Until she had one plan! Suika figured if she asked both you for help you could bond or perhaps be honest with each other.

Her plan? pretty simple! Suika could recall somethings you absolutely loved in the modern era, she did not quite know what they were, so she decided to ask Gen what it was. Same story with you, she knew somethings he missed and asked you about it.

Why? to feed you both information about things and maybe you guys had a bit more things in common!

At first neither of you thought anything of it, just a kid being curious. But after a while it started getting oddly suspicious. Why she wouldn't ask directly to him?

The first one to confront Suika was Gen. He asked her why she never asked you about those things. She stuttered a bit claiming to be a bit shy to ask. Odd. something is up.

You asked her why she didn't ask Senku instead. She said she rather ask you. Odd.

After a few days when the both of you were together, you realized you knew quite a bit about one another - things about the past. You ended bonding over a few foods you missed, besides cola.

Thats when it hitted you and Gen. You only knew those things because of Suika. What was she trying to do? You didn't immediatly grasped her idea, but Gen did.

His face flared up suddenly and told you an excuse to leave. Minutes after he left you also realized her idea - make you two bond a bit more and talk more. Did she know you had a crush on him? But wait, wait wait. He left suddenly.

The gears on your head were on full spin, ears fuming with the idea that your crush had a crush on you.

The first moments after this event together was a bit awkward. But it didn't take long for Gen to start lowkey flirting with you. He knew you liked him too.

The observer of the whooooooooole thing, Suika, was more than happy to watch you both slowly becoming a lovely couple!

---------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading!

I am not going to lie it was hard to come up with the end i had tons of ideas but they all seem.... off.

[unagreeablegirl]

which companions from veilguard would sera get along with the best/worst etc?

i think sera's opinion of the veilguard companions would probably be mostly the same whether she is rook or just another helper hanging around the lighthouse, so i'm just gonna ruminate on her feelings for each of them without differentiating verses;

bellara :: (tl;dr: neutral-to-positive) i like to think that by the time sera reaches veilguard times, she has actually grappled a bit with her internalized racism towards dalish elves and gotten past that instinct to reject them for their cultural ties, especially if lavellan was the inquisitor. that being said, her extreme wariness and fear towards magic remains, and bellara's tinkering with magical artefacts would deeply unnerve her. she would not really enjoy having to help her with those things if taken along for that quest. she might even take bellara's story about her brother as proof that such tinkering is too dangerous to be trifled with. at the same time, bellara is...adorable. and sera is just a girl. she can't bring herself to fully dislike a cute dalish mage.

davrin :: (tl;dr: positive) with most of her internalized racism out of the way, i think sera would get along okay with davrin. i think he'd even have a bit of a steadying influence on her, with time. she likes that he's a non-magic user and generally no-nonsense about monster hunting. she also has a positive opinion of the wardens in general, at least until they meet the first warden and he's a total pissant, so that also plays in dav's favor. she might tease him a little about his dalish background, but in a much friendlier and less antagonistic way than she'd have treated it in the past. so overall, she likes him. he's cool. she'll hang with him even more if it means she can pet the griffon.

emmrich :: (tl;dr: uncomfortable-to-neutral) sera feels weird about the necromancy. she's not as adverse to it as taash seems to be in the beginning, but it does creep her out a lot. it's possible the way he talks about it makes her feel even more creeped out at first bc it doesn't make any sense to her, wanting to be around bodies and spirits and all that shite all the time. that being said, she's at least a little better about being open-minded by the time of veilguard, and over time i think she'd make peace with the necromancy thing. it might never be something she feels entirely comfortable with, but she eventually stops being such a little shit about it. and maybe she one day brings back a tea he mentioned liking once, because she's desperate to get him talking about anything else, honestly.

lace :: (tl;dr: highly positive) sera loves lace harding. they're old pals from inquisition times and sera has not forgotten. harding is already one of the good ones in sera's book, long before varric hires rook and starts putting together a team for the veilguard.

lucanis :: (tl;dr: uncomfortable-to-neutral) sera's issues with mages and magic rear their ugly head again with lucanis, but they're in conflict with feelings of sympathy for what he's been through. she realizes it was not even a little bit his fault that he became possessed, but her fear of demons can't help complicate any potential connection there. she has a hard time completely trusting him for a lot of the same reasons the others don't in the beginning. she keeps an eye on him like lace does, and tries not to judge. even though she loooooves to judge.

neve :: (tl;dr: neutral-to-postive) i think sera's feelings towards neve would be similar to how fenris feels about a mage!hawke, in that neve appears to really know what she's doing and have an expert handle on her magic, so sera doesn't feel nearly as fearful towards her as she might another mage. and let's be real, neve is hyper-competent in everything she does. sera's not even wrong to feel like she can trust the detective almost immediately.

taash :: (tl;dr: highly positive) taash is absolutely buckwild fucking awesome in sera's humble opinion. from that opening scene where they're introduced the little elf rogue is crushing hard. she is already trying to see if taash is free on friday. beyond that, i think sera might understand some of what taash is struggling with in terms of feeling a cultural pull in multiple directions. just because sera has largely rejected elven culture doesn't mean she never felt anything for it. so she gets that, in her own way, and would do her best to support taash through whatever path they decided to take. but also, she would like to smooch the hot lord of fortune pls & thank.

and...that is what i have for you thus far, nonny. keeping in mind that i literally just picked up sera as a muse on a whim today so the above is possibly open to change as i continue to explore her character....

[ecargmura]

Wonderful Precure Episode 13 Review - Ace Defectives

Be glad that Precure is a magical girl franchise because if it was a mystery show, the Wonderful Precure gang would be nominated for beings the worst detectives ever. I can’t believe they don’t even come to the conclusion that Nyammy and Yuki are the same even though they were questioning animals! Like, they were so close but not asking Yuki if she was Cure Nyammy was really frustrating.

Despite that, the search for Nyammy was cute and hilarious with the group being up to comedic shenanigans. I liked how comedic everything was. The part where Iroha was trying to get Komugi to say Nya was funny. I also liked how there were instances that Komugi got distracted, but Iroha and Satoru also got distracted when they saw the Komondor. Sometimes, the short attention span rubs onto each other.

I do hope that Mayu isn’t going to be the designated damsel for Nyammy to rescue from the GaruGarus. It’s twice that she needed saving. Well, this time around, she deliberately went to the GaruGaru’s location just to find her. Mayu, please don’t do anything stupid again. Though, there was a nice moment with Nyammy and Mayu with her carrying her around and such.

The Bear Kirarin Animal uses its paws for super strength. I find the paws super adorable. It’s nice to see something that isn’t shoes for once! I also learned that hedgehogs burrow underground. I honestly love learning new facts about animals!

I do wonder how long this Cure Nyammy plot line will drag out? When will her identity be revealed? I hope it’s sometime this month. What are your thoughts on this episode?

[loosesodamarble]

Hello senpai it's 🖤 anon. Can you answer 11,12 (both vacation and permanent) for Josele.

My 🖤 anon kouhai~! Hello~! Thanks for the questions! And since #12 was asked earlier, you gave me a chance to give new and possibly more interesting answers.

..........

"🖤 anon"? That sounds kinda cute. Hello there. I guess since you're real identity is obscured. Still, thanks for giving me more questions. It's very sweet of you.

11) What is your favorite type of media (TV, movie, books, etc)?  Name some specific favorites (which shows, movies, books, etc do you like)!

Mm, I'm not as cultured as some of my friends but I do read a little. Mostly mystery stories. The stories about people using their wit to save the day interests me since, while I'm not stupid (I hope at least) I'm better known for my brawn. The mystery books kinda helped me learn how to notice details and be an investigator, which helps as a Magic Knight.

Some favorites of mine? Well, I have a soft spot for "Club Investigation" which is a series of short stories about a group of children (who remind me of some of my kids and their friends, now that I think about it...) who form a club to solve some small town mysteries. It was the first book I read from cover to cover. Other mysteries I love are "Red Chains," "The Cordis Principle," and "You Have One Thousand Nights." My all-time favorite book though is "Murder of a Dead Man" which is a story about a detective who has to solve a case centered around what seems to be the same person being killed over and over. Believe me, there's a good explanation for it...

(Note: these are obviously fake titles. Giving Josele favorite media from the real world would've been weird...)

12) If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? (on vacation or permanently!)

Didn't I answer this before?

..... Oh I can pick a different location? And answer for a permanent move? 'Kay then...

If I had to pick a different place to go for vacation... Spade Kingdom! It sounds strange but I have my reasons. Clover's winter season isn't all that prominent, despite being along the same latitude as Spade. And so going to Spade which is basically locked in winter is a lovely change of pace. There's also some sentimental value in Spade for me. Nacht went to the kingdom to act as a spy. So I like visiting Spade in order to see the same sights and taste the food that Nacht experienced while on his mission, though with much less stress on my shoulders. And finally, Spade was where Nacht and I truly became a couple. He called me his girlfriend for the first time as snow fell and it was magical and...

Yeah. Spade Kingdom sure is special...

Now going anywhere and staying permanently... Honestly, I love the home that Nacht and I have in Raquey. Yes, the manor has some dark memories attached to it but ever since we married, we've been filling it with more light and love. But... if I had to choose a place, I'd say Lumi Kingdom. It's beyond Spade and Nacht's cousin Discordia is actually the queen there so I'd be welcomed with open arms! It's wintery like Spade. I hear the furs there are luxurious too! Although, I worry about needing to learn the language when I move...

(Discordia and Lumi Kingdom belong to @lyranova.)

[misarem]

Umineko Episode 5 Thoughts: The Part Where I Try To Lock In

I feel the need to just get this out while I have the chance to do this before I start episode 6. I think I finished this episode over a week ago at this point and have since been doing other stuff, been too busy with real life to pour over this vn, etc. My thoughts on the episode itself will be kinda minor but I'll compensate with my current theories on the overarching mystery and the murders. What I'm hoping to do is have preliminary theories ready for episode 6 so that I can develop them while reading it and be ready for endgame. I even started making a physical journal of my thoughts on each murder, character, and rule because after like 80% of my life in the education system this is all I know how to do to retain information, plus! itll be cute. but anyways

Doing what's easy for me and starting at the beginning and just working my way through. I'm still kinda burnt by Beato in episode 3 but I really do wanna believe she's like fully dejected now that Battler isn't matching her as an opponent the way she thought he would. Surreal to see her practically dead but I guess this is signaling that the game is becoming something much bigger than Battler vs Beatrice, to the point where Bern and Lambda are more active and Knox is now involved. Through some meta lens I almost wanna read this as like, an event within the world of detective fiction where a story spirals out of control and the foundations that do exist need to intervene. Feels like commentary on stories as a whole, what has been established as "good" and "reasonable" and what it means to subvert those paradigms, and how far you can reasonably go. And having these larger themes on fiction as a whole run parallel to the events of Rokkenjima, with the ideas of love and trust being established and broken between family mirroring the trust between an author and reader and the love for reading and storytelling, is very satisfying. And if you read the witches as authors and critics of mystery stories, or just stories in general, then the idea of fiction giving our lives fulfilment and meaning also operates on all these levels: the witches weave the narrative on Rokkenjima from a higher plane to stave off their boredom, those on Rokkenjima cope with the dire situation by blaming the murders on witches and demons, and outside of the murders, the people who struggle because of this family cope with fantasy, from Ange and Maria easing their loneliness with the sisters and Sakutaro, to, as we see later, Natsuhi finding refuge from her responsibilities in an imaginary Kinzo and his furniture.

Going off my ideas about black and white magic in the last episode, Natsuhi herself is beginning to resemble a white witch in the same way Maria did. Her and Jessica finally beginning to come to an understanding of one another only in the dire circumstances that were the murders of Rokkenjima was one of the first terrifyingly realo depictions of strained family relationships I latched onto in the game, and I was sorta sad to see her fall to the wayside in the rest of the Question Arcs (altho everyone else getting some focus was important). Very nice to see her in the forefront again here, this time focusing more on her self-sacrificing nature and her sense of duty to the image and wellbeing of the Ushiromiya family that feeds it.

Having THIS be the backdrop of her inner monologue is fitting considering the way everything she faces ends up spiraling into her own guilt and self-loathing, and how she needs to take everything on for her family. I can't even blame her at this point for imagining Kinzo recognizing her for her work cuz idk how else I would live like this. And when she tries to help her husband and he just keeps making the same types of decisions that fail his business ventures and she ends up just acquiescing every time. Wow its just harrowing. They can never make me hate Natsuhi. Also I forget if I addressed Maria's torture of Rosa in the last write up, I don't wanna say a whole lot besides the cycle of abuse within the Ushiromiya family is horrifying, and that it feels like this chapter, Maria's turn to inflicting harm on others to cope feels unaddressed in a concerning way. Like I'm scared

As for the new characters, I like Erika a decent amount so far, I'm mainly just waiting for her to fly off the handle because she was just so dominant here until the end of the episode. Her being an avatar of Bernkastel almost makes me think of her as like a joke on author insert characters in fiction, also makes me wonder just what Erika is, if she's supposed to be like a meta entity like the witches even tho she's meant to be a human? Does she just exist between reality and fiction as Berns fucked up creation? Its interesting to me. Also they keep namedropping Ange when talking abt Erika as a piece and its getting on my damn nerves keep my homegirls name out your mouth. I like Dlanor a lot too and how cordial and nice she can be. even tho formally she's usually an enemy.

Not much changed here besides moving Natsuhi up and Krauss down again lmao. I'll keep doing these just to track my opinions but it might be good to be more nuanced with it, add a few more tiers or find some other way to address the cast overall altho by this point, almost all of them in the okay tier or above are so well established and integrated into the story. If I take anything from this vn its gonna be the cast.

The murders themselves I was like fine with. I hope Jessica died painlessly she deserves a break. Obviously things went way differently but, I thought the way it worked was a little boring and I almost expect episode 6 to be some sort of do-over for it altho that feels unlikely at the same time. Altho I do understand it, this is supposed to be a breaking point for Battler, seeing someone actually be (wrongfully?) implicated but being powerless to fight against it before he has his epiphany moment so it's fine. The court scene also made up for it just in its style alone, the sound design, visual effects and transitions are such a treat and give this game such a strong identity among visual novels. The OST with tracks like patchwork chimera, ACI-L and totemblume is like incredible, -45 does such incredible work and I wish I could have them all on my vgm tag on this blog. I might need to liek stop being lazy and do my own vgm uploads and quit replying on other blogs to do it if i want them on my blog lmao. Still a good episode and it's obviously setting up for greater payoffs but it's hard for me to imagine that Bern and Lambda find this first game of theirs particularly interesting before the court scene.

What I'm interested about thought is Natsuhi's baby, if that will end up being a full-fledged piece of Lambda's, and if its the character who I think it is from the little snippets of him I've seen in the intro. It does kinda tickle me that the first twilight murders were all very deep, clean slices to the neck and there's just a Battler-aged, brown haired dude in the intro with a sword. Considering how hard he implicated Natsuhi by controlling her movements, his presence in the story is cooperative with Erika's sleuthing and I'm curious if they'll end up working together as, I guess meta entities in the story? We'll see.

Like I said before I go into ep 6 I wanted to just get down what I have as the solution so far. Nothing concrete still, and I know the how is super important even tho I kinda only have the who and sorta the why, but again I'm hoping episode 6 will help me develop that.

...

...

...

...

Anyways I really think it's Kyrie. PIOKJHGFHJKL:L I can't help it. I almost feel like I'm approaching it at the wrong angle and that she's a red herring or something, and I keep going back and forth, but at the same time, so much of the movement of the characters makes sense when you think of it as Kyrie manipulating things. Her face being completely smashed in the first twilight of episode 1. Her being the one to rile the other parents up by warning them about Beatrice in episode 2. The details she reveals about herself in episode 3 and the part of her and Hideyoshi's characters tab that alludes to her shooting him (maybe an accident but ???). And the way she positions herself slightly under Krauss when they're in the dungeon of episode 4, letting him take the reins but still having a lot of influence and command as well as watching them all die as they escape, being the only one to make it inside, being "missed" a bunch by the Chiesters and telling Battler in her own words to believe in magic while her version of the actual events as it is given to Battler is glossed over by the narration. The mystery of the code above the parlor in (i think) episode 3 and half of the numbers corresponding to Battler's birthday. And that, as Beatrice said, because of Battler's sin, people on the island die, that the sin feels like it could be connected to his unclear parentage and that the sin, by the fact that it occurred 6 years in the past, was close to Asumu's death, Rudolph's marriage to Kyrie and Ange's birth. Again I could be barking up the wrong tree cuz I really don't have the how or why down like, in a concrete way yet but I don't know it just feels so likely like I just feel it. And she at least has Genji or Shannon in cahoots too, not committing the murders but just helping with keys or acting as certain people. It would be easy to say they're acting on Kinzo's will but he's dead now so idk. But my vague guess is she wants revenge against the Ushiromiya family for how (like how it affects literally everyone elses like a huge trauma abuse machine) it affected her life, her relationship with Rudolph and the birth of her child. Maybe Battler really is hers but was taken at birth because Asumu's child had died or she has miscarriage and the family wanted to save face. And I think by manipulating the situation and her in-laws she managed to create a state of paranoia on the island, which facilitated most if not all of the murders even without her needing to act. Just because of some of the ways she dies, and some of the red truths restricting the possibilities, I don't know right now if it's possible for her to have killed everyone, but I think it's possible for her to have led people like Rosa and Eva to kill.

Kyrie is shown early on to be among the most shrewd and observant people on the island, at least concerning the battle for inheritance, and since her and the other siblings, besides Krauss and Natsuhi, are already in cooperation against Krauss, I don't find it hard to imagine that she could splinter the group further by influencing any one person in it on her own, away from the others, and I feel like that's how she got some things done in the first couple episodes, and maybe episode 3? Like for the first, I can imagine Kyrie taking Eva aside and using her competitiveness and resentment to convince her to go along with her plan to kill all the other siblings, blame Natsuhi to get her out of the way so the inheritance can be enjoyed by Eva and Hideyoshi with Kyrie taking a fraction while pretending to be dead. Eva goes along with it and after the murders, where Kyrie's whole face is obscured (and Shannon's half-face is hidden from George), and after they return to the parlor, Eva implicates Natsuhi heavily while stoking tensions even further by leaving with Hideyoshi and being very overt about setting the chain to their door and only coming out at precisely dinnertime. Going with the idea that Kyrie's still alive, she hides out in the designated guest room and kills the couple, escaping when Genji and Kanon discover it but leave to get help, escaping and resetting the chain from outside somehow, like with some sort of tool perhaps? and draws the magic circle and leaves, or if we believe Shannon is also alive, that her face was obscured for a reason and any confirmation that "Shannon is dead" can be bypassed with a loophole about her real name (Sayo I think I remember but if I google it I'll get spoiled), Shannon makes the circle and when Kanon and Kumasawa cut the chain, enter and move away from the door to one of the bodies, Kyrie slips out. I can't find any specific red text for this specific locked room other than the one for all locked rooms, so I'm guessing the instances where the entrances are unattended are deliberate. Kanon's death, from what I can find, isn't denied to have been with a trap like Natsuhi's is, so I'll guess that and then say the rest of the deaths were committed straightforwardly, with Shannon disguised as Beatrice for Maria and possibly Natsuhi as Kyrie kills them.

Episode 2 is weird cuz I don't feel like I can act like Kyrie can be proven to be alive atm but it feels like she could have been in contact with Rosa instead, potentially starting with the appearance of Beatrice at the "19th guest". Rosa witnesses her and while it isn't revealed in this episode, it's feels possible that this is likely Shannon in disguise having an effect on her because of how she watched Beatrice die as a kid. Kyrie is in the entrance when Beatrice "enters the mansion", and I think she likely pretended to see her to rile up the other siblings, saw Rosa as potentially weak and had her corroborate to seem more convincing. And later that night, at the chapel, Rosa kills the other siblings. No set motive for this, but when I read the red text which specifies that the key to the chapel didn't pass thru anyone else's hands before Rosa took it, it didn't, to my knowledge, specify that Rosa only took it once, so she could have grabbed the key around midnight and let them all in before killing them, forgetting or pretending she didn't, and then locking and leaving. I also think that the reason they were all at the chapel was over the gold, which we see three ingots after the discovery of the bodies. If the gold is real, I think Rosa could have solved the mystery here considering she solved it in episode 3, and brought some gold as proof, or Kyrie could have solved it and not said anything although that somehow seems less likely. Either way, over the fight about the gold, Rosa in a stupor or frenzy or something kills them and leaves. Since Shannon isn't shown here, maybe she pretends to be the Beatrice we see talking to them here and guts the corpses after, also placing the magic circle, but having Rosa return the key for her to find again. I don't know about the later deaths though I still have to work some of them out. Like what we see as Kanon being warped away and suddenly trudging around outside the kitchen might just be him being killed or gravely wounded and the body being taken and laid against that back door for Gohda to find. Stuff like that but I need to work it out.

Eva in episode 3 almost feels so obvious that it seems like a red herring. If Shannon and maybe Genji and mayyyyybe Kanon? are in kahoots then the six part locked room seems more doable. Eva killing the five after that feels really on the nose, I'm wondering if Beatrice losing some of the games to Battler's Eva culprit Hideyoshi accomplice theory was her playing her own game against him. Altho even with that there's still some mystery like the floating gun killing Hideyoshi which the character tips seem to imply was Kyrie's doing. Battler also proposes that Kyrie's idea about going to the mansion was to privately confront Hideyoshi, in his eyes to confirm that Eva was going out because Eva hated his smoke but a cigarette butt was found in an ashtray of the rom, and I think this is likely, but I also think that maybe, potentially like episode 1, Kyrie colluded with Eva and Hideyoshi and she wanted Hideyoshi to explain why Eva was acting suspicious, in the privacy of the mansion as the smaller guesthouse leaves more opportunity for conversation to be overheard. I also wonder if Kyrie knew that Eva found the gold. If Kyrie was with Rosa here the way she might have been in episode 2, Rosa might've told Kyrie that Eva found it, and besides that, I feel like Kyrie is the type of person to be able to deduce that Eva found it, but this is speculation. No clue what was happening as Kyrie's stomach was bleeding out in front of Eva though.

But this kind of is the best I got right now before I go into episode 6. All of this is assuming Kyrie's able to fake her death as a couple key points and that multiple murderers and servant accomplices are even permitted, I don't think I saw anything in red or any Knox rules against these things but that theory just makes things work better. Technically a lot of these murders can have anyone as the culprit with someone like Shannon as an accomplice but this is the most complete idea I can come up with. I don't even know about episode 5. Hopefully ep6 elucidates some things. Maybe Eva knew Kyrie was a killer and that's part of her resentment of Ange. Maybe there is some fucky true identity shit with Asumu and Kyrie. who knows! Also I had to text search and replace every time I called an episode a chapter because I'm barely cognizant of all the names of the individual chapters within the episodes and I'm just thinking of this like a big book god help me

[killian-whump]

Do you headcanon any of Colin’s characters as queer?

I sho' do! *pause* I think. I mean, it depends on your definition of "headcanon" and "canon" and "queer" and how much I'm thinking about it on a given day.

I mean, I headcanon Peter Sheerin as gay, but I personally think there's enough "hints" in the canon content that it doesn't really count as headcanon. But then again, it's definitely not stated and the hints are subtle, so it's also not canon, so... 🫠

WHAT IS CANON ANYWAY, OKAY?!

I think Gerry's ace, but I feel like maybe ALL the leprechauns are biologically asexual and reproduce magically by popping out of clover patches fully formed or something. I mean, look at that adorable little beansprout! He's never had sex in his life, and he'll never have to. BLESS.

Also, I think Wish Hook post-Gothel (which includes Old Hook) is asexual, but not necessarily by choice/nature, but due to trauma. However, Detective Rogers IS asexual by nature, because his persona was formed from Wish Hook's - so he's got the aversion to sex, but without the trauma that caused it, so he'd read as just plain ace.

But... Do those two (three? four?) count as queer? Depends on how you define "queer" and whether you consider these cases "true asexuality" (whatever the hell that means) or something else - and even whether you feel asexuality belongs under the LGBTQ+ umbrella or not (I personally feel it shouldn't, but accept that it usually does).

As for the others... Generally, I tend to assume any/every character could be bi unless canon gives ample evidence to the contrary. I mean, a 20 minute short or even a feature length film gives you so little information about a character's life that it's impossible to really rule anything out. Sure, Brennan's crazy about Nora... but who's to say twenty minutes after the film ends, he doesn't meet an amazing bloke in the audience and fall head over heels for him? And it would be an international crime to deprive the men of the world the beautiful fantasy that is the nameless lumberjack in The Words. Basically, I don't rule anything out unless canon rules it out, and then I'm a stickler for it.

Like with Killian Jones. This is where I differ from a lot of Hook fans. I know pirates tended to be gay or at least bi historically speaking, and I know people love to pair him with male characters (as do I, but only in whumpy ways)... but I just don't see it. Canon gives us non-stop evidence of his attraction to women - flirting with literally every one of them he meets, sizzling smolders, innuendoes galore, climbing towers and banging random strangers, etc... with ZERO of the same in regards to men. We never even got something on the same level as David's "Emma, I'm a married man!" So I just don't see it. At all. He's not the kind of guy to hide his attraction to... well, anyone. And given the historical gayness of pirates, there's no societal reason for him to hide any queerness he might have. I think he's just not into men.

I'm also a stickler for Gordo Cooper being straight. AFAIK, the real guy was straight, and when it comes to actual people, I don't think it's "okay" to headcanon them as anything other than what they present themselves as, even if they're presented in semi-fictional media and played by a super cute guy named Colin.

So... yeah. I mean, I think one dude IS queer, a couple more might be queer depending on how you define the term, a couple are straight... and the rest like girls, but might also like boys. I don't know, man. I only work here 🫠

[diagonal-queen]

dia entirely forgot it was thungo thursday until mayoi reminded her and she dropped everything to watch the ep. here are all her thoughts, live-documented, in chronological order (apologies for this):

NOT RANPO CHILLING LIKE SHIT'S SWEET WHEN THE CAR HE WAS IN JUST FUCKING CRASHED LMAOOOOO

ranpo is so small next to minoura. he's so tiny and cute i just wanna cuddle him sm (and yes i am a little taller than him- height means nothing to me. we all know where the rest of his inches went YKNOW WHAT IM SAYIN YA FEEL ME)

'the police of this nation are idiots' yes minoura you're absolutely correct but consider this: the police of every nation on god's green earth are idiots

isn't it amazing how it was written in this magical reality-bending book that nobody would believe in the agency's innocence and in a couple minutes worth of running his mouth, ranpo just...undid it?? for like hundreds of police officers??? the sheer power of this man

god i forgot just how fucking fantastic this intro is. tbh this is probably my favourite intro of all of them. the colours and imagery and the chaos of it all MWAH (also kishow voice mm)

bones. was this panel too hard to animate properly?? did you read the fucking manga bones?? do you HATE US BONES??????

i could listen to ranpo talk for HOURS. literally hours, in a language i don't even speak, about anything he wanted, for hours, and i wouldn't get bored. his voice just...*kicks feet and giggles*

i missed you tecchou <3 please keep cooking for fukuchi. you're doing great sweaty xx

some loser: 'when do you suppose a life ends?' even bigger loser: 'when it becomes unable to adapt to change' fukuchi on his celestia ludenberg arc ok

IT'S BEEN LIKE ONE FUCKING WEEK AND THE UN IS ALREADY MAKING AN ANTI-TERRORIST GROUP??? THEY'RE FULLY READY TO FIND AND EXECUTE THE AGENCY MEMBERS IN UNDER A WEEK?? THE ICC LEGALLY CAN'T EVEN DETAIN CRIMINALS ON THEIR OWN IRL

i wish people reacted to seeing my posts on their dash the same way that the united nations reacted when fukuchi appeared onstage

congressmen will excuse mass shootings of gay ppl and then have shirtless fukuchi posters hanging above their beds where they half-heartedly fuck their wives and go to sleep before the thought of helping her also cum even crosses their mind

wait. *pauses and zooms in*. WAIT. YOU'RE TEL

YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT

TH

THAT ABRAHAM STOKER WAS THICC?????? THAT HE HAD A DUMPY???? THAT HE HAD SOME JUNK IN THAT TRUNK???? ALL THAT ASS INSIDE THOSE JEANS???? CURSE YOU FUKUCHI OUCHI FOR RIDDING THE WORLD OF BRAM'S CAKES

thinking about it, doesn't the decay of angels sound like a really cool name for an operatic metal band??

fukuchi: *enters room* ranpo: YOOOOOO STEPDAD GUESS WHO'S AN ENEMY OF STATE :DDDDDDD

fukuchi really is like 'you havent changed at all, boy' ranpo is literally eight years older than me. if he's a boy i'm primordial soup

fukuchi also said that ranpo's title of 'excellent detective' is self claimed. the thousands of people whose lives ranpo's probably saved must all be like 'say sike rn'

ranpo trusting fukuchi solely because the president said he trusts him. crying screaming throwing up ranpo GIVE ME ONE CHANCE (that's right guys we're back to this again)

fukuchi thinks he's hot shit cus he can jump high?? well my ocs can also do that fukuchi. sucks to be basic huh

IT'S NOT RANPO'S FAULT HE WAS BORN LATER AND THUS MET FUKUZAWA LATER??????? FUCK OFF FUKUCHI (also i love the way they're sitting they're all so silly mwehehehe)

omg ranpo also commented on the 'boy' thing lmaooo he and i are so good for each other <3 if only he'd give me a chance... </3

i wonder what portion of atsushi's budget goes towards emergency ramune. also imagine someone caring enough about you that they always keep one of your favourite snacks on you in case you get hungry or something. that's so cute i can't <3333

imagine coming up with a complex plan, twelve or so years in the making, to end the world, all because u asked ur friend out like thirty years ago and he said no T-T

fukuchi: *tilts neck* *minecraft skelly noise*

oh atsushi. i know other people won't like me saying this but you're so hot and i want to do the sex with you <3333333

wow bones. you've outdone yourself. this has to be the best fisheye yet- maybe even beating lucy's fisheye for how terrifying it is. i'm genuinely speechless

AKUTAGAWA

omg atsushi's speech on how loneliness is his biggest fear and how much he cares about his loved ones (kinnie moment), and the one thing he needs, truly needs right now is someone to fight alongside him to save all that he has to lose and the world as he knows it, and then akutagawa appears? soulmates. i mean it's not even like this is a surprise to me as someone who read the manga but, like, it's different when i'm watching it. soulmates. soulmates soulmates soulmates

and that's a wrap for tonight's edition of dia's thungo thursdays!! be sure to tune in for next week and see them cry tears of hopelessness and despair!!

[goggles-mcgee]

Hi Goggles! Uh I was wondering if you could/how would you re-rwrite dark parables 8: the little mermaid and the purple tide? As someone who played the Beta and the game... the plot just seemed off to me for some reason. I would love to see how you would write it.

Owe the game I dislike the most???? Hoooooooooooo boy. Okay.

First I recommend reading my rant about it because I don't really want to make a post about it again: -> UwU Rant

I'm glad others agree with me that the game felt off!!! Especially someone who beta tested!

It just never felt like it tied in with the other games despite Pinocchio making a guest appearance 👀😭

I don't mind Pinocchio there but the fact they made him revert to wooden puppet after the fact it wasn't due to the stupid orb it was because both his parents sacrificed their souls to give Pinocchio his own and turn him into a real boy. I will not question that magic. So instead of the stupid orb, the reason why Pinocchio is there when the temple appeared and everything is because he is also tracking down that last Elemental Orb and he had heard about it in some of his father's old journals.

He's searching for it in hopes it will bring back his parents or Katherine is in trouble and Pinocchio thinks the only way to help her is to track down this Elemental Orb.

Anyways, that's why he's there, because his father's journals spoke of this Wood Orb from before he became corrupted by the Forbbiden Grove. He had originally thought to find this Wood Orb and use it in Pinocchio, and after Pinocchio was successful, he tried to track it down once more to use it in the Beast he made to protect his son. He failed each time, but came so so close.

Princess Althea and her father had no idea the Orb was hidden in the temple and could only be retrieved by a being who has overcome many obstacles and grown from them. (i.e Pinocchio) It was a failsafe the Goddess put in in case she was ever in danger or man became to greedy.

Pinocchio is still swallowed by the eel but the Princess is tasked with getting him out because she overheard he and the Detective talking about the Orb that he believes is close by them. Thus he would be kept prisoner unless he showed the princess and king where the Orb was and how to get it. The Detective secretly saves him and they both go to find the Orb. Pinocchio is able to retrieve it but is once more grabbed by the eel who was following the two on the orders of the princess and king. Though he is not swallowed just trapped in the mouth maybe even trapped literally between a couple of teeth that are threatening to stab him.

The Detective is unable to get to him and the Orb is given to Althea by a desperate Pinocchio. She runs again to give her father the Orb but alas, when the eel drops Pinocchio, it's teeth do scrape him and surprise surprise, the bite (or scrape) from this monster is poisonous. Pinocchio is wounded and the Detective is on a time crunch.

Final battle can go about the same. Sea goddess free, she mad, she tries to flood the basically empty palace anyway. Detective frees her.

Now, the goddess could heal Pinocchio or this can go with Althea and the King vowing to heal him as it was their pet that caused this.

I want a happy ending and I don't want Pinocchio hurt, nor do I trust this shady ass people with his health so I vote Sea Goddess heals him as payment to the Detective for freeing her and boom! End story.

Cute scene to temple where yes, you had explored with Pinocchio but while exploring you saw many connections to past games but also something unfamiliar a dusty hourglass, the cut scene cuts back to this hourglass after all the destruction the eel and the goddess brought to the temple and it is now broken and leaking purple sand. Maybe even onto a parchment with a map Montafleur on it catching the sand or a smudged picture of sandman catching the sand. Idk something please!

Or maybe the cutscene can even be Pinocchio talking another Montafleur being mentioned in his mother's journal. Something about a cursed prince after they see the hourglass, maybe they go into the temple to see of anything is salvageable. Idk.

But yeah! That's how I would have played it!

[the-fab-fox]

I'm probably the only weirdo who thinks Raverne is alive and is Crowley. I 100 percent believe both of these.

Do I want it? Unless Crowley is actually 10000 percent a useless idiot who got it right 1 time in his life, (Getting with Maeleanor and having Malleus), then not really no.

The above would be hilarious in my opinion. If it were the same but Crowley has been playing it up this whole time, I think that would just feel boring and I wouldn't really be content with it.

Your idea though. Regardless of if it is right, or not, should be the true conclusion of that. Because I'm just finding little scenes in my head of malleus going on trips during school nights (I mean does he need to sleep? His grades are fine. Who's gonna stop him?) and like visiting the gargoyles gathering information he's been gathering for YEARS and basically playing detective.

Yuu finds out and wants to help! For one, Malleus was the first person they met who hasn't either insulted them, bullied them, accused basically of messing with the magic mirror to get there (with what magic in this magic-less human), and basically told in order to stay (remember we never asked to come and have no idea how we got there) that we have to work and pay for our own food and stuff and room and board with a very low stipend.

Us ... At a PRESTIGIOUS BOARDING SCHOOL. And we have to use the money we are given for our work, even as we become students, and still do work outside of our school work to keep getting paid. All the while the teacher's aren't doing anything to help about this (just teaching us and being hard on us even though we don't have magic and Grim is new to being taught magically, never mind that Grim should be praised for learning to talk and honing his magic the little bit he's been able to over his years of existence). Sorry, as you can see I have a lot of contention on this part. Lol

So back to your idea. I thought it would be cute if, within your idea, (doesn't have to be shippy but can be, though I see it first and foremost as platonic) Yuu starts to question Malleus about these trips because they always come with Malleus visiting them, or rather Ramshackle, before taking off. So once Malleus tells them, in full or partial or however much he would say at whatever given time the information is told to them, basically Yuu ends up helping out.

For an extra funny scene, I was thinking it would be so funny if we got an on caffeine-but-running-on-two-hours-of-sleep Yuu, looking like Charlie Day specifically from that one It's Always Sunny episode.

Malleus coming to see Yuu one day at random:

Yuu:

So finally Malleus has to get the whole gang together (who have all, even Ruggie when he can even we explicitly tell him we understand if he can't help but it's all coming from Leona anyway so we don't try to hard, and Leona, who claims it was cause Vil and Malleus wouldn't leave him alone about it—but basically all the cast of characters have been helping us out with room and board and meals because they aren't idiots and this isn't below their playgrade <like not to diss the teachers because I love them and I know it's mostly due to plot, but come on. Not a single teacher/adult in this acted as an adult (a responsible one) would act, and before you say it's a magic world and things are different—yeah but for the most part people act roughly the same and they have a lot of the same things we do and s lot of the same general beliefs and ways things are handled. All of these students are considered children. All of them have parents (for the most part) that are paying tuition and room and board. And you teachers are just gonna be like yep. We have a new student now. Welcome. Your first essay is do last night. Oops now your work is late.

Haha sorry went on a tangent there. Anyway so we basically b to back to helping malleus out, perhaps with the help of our good friends among the cast, and together with help from Leona and Vil and Jamil and others, they are able to cover more ground and about a week from graduation for the 3rd years, Intel comes back and Vil is pretty sure they found a gargoyle would most likely be the correct "age and species" of malleus's father.

Turns out it is and so with everyone except Crowley, and Sam, helps to get his dad transferred to NRC. And ofc, he is placed on the rooftop ledge of Ramshackle and Malleus gets to meet with his father often.

Sorry I took over your post op just had a lot of thoughts about this lol

has anyone ever brought up the fact that Diablo in the Sleeping Beauty film turns into stone at the end?? and Malleus has an obsession for gargoyles?? so what im saying is..........

what if Raverne (his father who WENT MISSING during the fae-human wars) is still somewhere out there.... but just turned to stone??? I MEAN??? that would explain why no one has ever been able to find/track him down. how could u track someone down who was turned to stone/petrified somewhere?? and who would even be looking for something like that??

plus it would be so cool to see that somehow, some way, Malleus' gargoyle obsession plays a big part on him somehow finding his long lost father who was turned to stone and yes i am a full believer that Raverne is still out there somewhere (ya deadbeat 😤)

[anonymeqaupdates]

Well what about the rest on jealously? Sebek is always seen jealous when someone approach Silver. I mean Silver is so handsome and beautiful with impressive knight skills that many men and women would fall in love making Sebek just a crocodile to them.

As it turns out Sebek's rant aren't always about Malleus and Lilia. Silver had the 'honor' to be the main subject of a good number of them. Though he doesn't know about it.

As for the other first year, Because of all the Kaito Kid related media that were release since last year for the new movie I did came up with a scenario for the first years poly.

AU were Yuu comes from the Case Closed universe.

In a museum that belongs to the Suzuki corporation.

Ace : Seriously, I can't believe he pulled that off!

Cater : Yeah, that's way more impressive than your card tricks Ace!

Jack, Deuce and Epel : (Uh oh, Ace is not going to like this.)

Ace : I know! I don't think even my brother could pull this off! And you say he's going to try and steal something here today?

Yuu (putting his phone down after showing them a video of one of Kaito kid's heist) : Yup! I had no idea before we showed up but isn't that exiting? And from what I heard he's hot too!

Jack, Deuce and Epel : (Wait, what? Why isn't he getting pissy?)

Ace : Seriously? He got the skills, charisma and the looks?! Dude we have to stick around! I don't want to miss this!

Sonoko (Who had overheard the whole thing and smelt the smell of a new Kaito Kid super fan, and want to do something nice since it's rare for cute boys to be a fan, (and also secretly hopes one of them is kid in disguise)) : Well since you recognize how great Kid sama can be how about I let you guys stays?! I'm sure my uncle wouldn't mind!

Cut to Yuu, Ace and Sonoko discussing Kid's career and past heist while Jack, Deuce and Epel are joined by Malleus and Makoto and stares angrily at the three, clearly plotting Kid's demise.

Conan and Ran (Kid) on the other side of the room:

Conan (pretending he hadn't notice Kid has disguised himself in Ran again and looking for revenge) : Wow, it seems like Kid is in serious trouble this time around.

Ran(Kid) (Trying to not show he's scared of those furious five) Y-Yup, I wouldn't want to be him!

So yeah usually it's Ace that gets a bit jealous and start acting pissy until he gets the attention he wants from his bfs. However sometime his obliviousness or flirty attitude manages to rile up the other three and well, thank goodness for Kid he's an escape artist. As for how he managed to escape Malleus...

Two days before :

Yuu : No magic while in my world. It's too risky! And no show of superhuman strength either, looking at you Malleus!

During the heist :

Kid had exchanged his Ran costume for a Yuu one, gets cornered on the roof by Malleus and Conan.

Yuu(kid): I can't believe you think I'm Kid! How dare you suggest I'm a criminal Malleus?!

Malleus: Don't insult me. I can make the difference between a fake and my lover.

Conan : Also, Toboso san doesn't call him that, were you really in such a hurry that you forgot about it?

Kid : Oh well, it was worth a shot. But if you know I'm not your boyfriend then shouldn't you be searching for him? I don't think you want the police to find him first you know?

Malleus : Explain.

Kid (tugging on Yuu's clothes) : Well I had to get these from somewhere....

Conan (trying to stop Malleus from running back to where they came from and failing) : Wait that's a trick! ... I can't believe you used the same trick on him than the one you used with the black pearl.

Kid (taking off his disguise, throws the jewel at Conan and flying away) : Don't judge me. It was a matter of survival. See you next time detective!

Meanwhile Malleus arrives towards where Yuu had been hidden but people had found him. Starts to panic but then Yuu run up to him, fully clothed like before and looking really exited.

Yuu : So did you see him? Did he get away? Ace told me you and the kid had went running after him when he escaped! Tell me everything!

Malleus : ... That damned thief tricked me!

[rottenbrainstuff]

BG3 playthrough - Endless Act 3 quests

Spoilers below the cut!

OH MY GOD there’s too many things in Rivington…….. Luckily it seems most of these quests are small and self-contained so I can play by slowly advancing through areas and finishing whatever NPC thing is there before moving on?

Hey fellow dark urge players - have you ever noticed that if you look in the magic mirror, it resets your tav’s name back to The Dark Urge? And you will have to retype out the name you want? It does not do this for normal tavs. I wonder if this is just a bug. MORE interesting would be if they did it on purpose, and you are constantly having to reassert your new identity.

I was going through some old papers and letters and in a roundabout way realized there was a whole cutscene with Karlach that I missed back in Moonrise Towers. If you approach the bugbear trader with Karlach on your team, you will get a whole scene about an old friend of hers from Avernus. I love that there are little details like this in the game, and even though I am uncovering I think all or close to all of the little plot points, there will still be additional surprises like this if I replay with different teammates.

God, Rivington and especially Wyrm’s Crossing are so damned full of people. My computer is just lagging the fuck out. Not inspiring. I wish there was some way to optimize this better. Maybe reduce the rendering radius even more or something I dunno?

I found Arfur and his delightful little plot to blow up refugee children with toy bombs! What a delight that was. Too bad for this motherfucker, my brain-scrambled durge tav imprinted like a baby chick on the tiefling refugees during his first few days off the nautiloid, and this guy’s ass is now grass.

I’ve noticed that online guides seem to be incomplete (A SHOCK!) about how to resolve the situation with him, saying that you must either side with Arfur and the squatters leave, or else you side with the squatters which causes Arfur to go to Sharess’ Caress, and you can confront him there later about the plot. Me, I’m trying to take this enormous area in little pieces and I don’t really feel like opening up yet another new area yet - what if I want to deal with him right here and now?

There might be other dialogue branches to get to the same result, but here’s what I did: if you use detect thoughts during the confrontation, you can see Arfur is nervous about the squatters finding his basement. You can ask him about his basement, then ask him if you should go check it out. He will lose his patience and instruct his hired goons to attack. Once you kick their asses, (which btw you can safely do, as far as I can see, this fight does not aggro anyone else in the area) he stays in the area without running off, waiting for you to make a decision.You are then free to go and explore the basement and do the whole exploding toys quest. When Manip Nestor tells you to go find the one responsible for this, Arfur is still standing right there in front of his house, and you can finish the quest right here instead of going all the way to Sharess’ Caress. I’m assuming this conclusion is all exactly the same as if it was at Sharess’ Caress: you can agree to let him go, you can accept his bribe, or you can insist he’s going to be arrested. Then he walks away, presumably off to turn himself in at the jail like a good boy lmao, and the squatters thank you for allowing them to stay. Easy peasy and no need to go track Arfur down in some brand new area.

OMG Tara is so cute. If you approach her with Gale, she has a longer conversation with you. Is that the only time we see her?? Please say no! I love Tara so much!

Hey so I talked to the ironhand gnomes, went up through the ladder in their hideout, and discovered, surprisingly, that it leads to the smith’s rooms??? I wanted to ask him about it, why he has a secret hatch that leads to a domestic terrorist organization, but when I came through the hatch, I found he had been murdered by Orin!!! Is it possible to talk to him somehow that I missed?

Speaking of Orin - I know a lot of people are annoyed with her “ooooh it’s Orin, what an unexpected surprise!” schtick, but I actually do like the way she pops up. I like how you start speaking to an NPC and the conversation slowly starts to get more and more deranged. Before I realize it’s Orin, there is a second where it’s a genuine “what the hell is happening?” reaction. What I think the problem with Orin is, is that it happens too close together. Like, I spoke to the guard at the refugee camp, then extremely shortly after that, I spoke to the blacksmith and found her again. I am less annoyed with this concept, I think it’s cool, I kind of like the implication that Orin is out there gathering intel on you so you maybe need to watch what information you give out to random strangers, I just think the meetings needed to be a bit more spaced out, and it might avoid that annoyance that some players have with her.

I loved the courier’s zhentarim note that they hadn’t heard from the group in Waukeen’s Rest for a while. In my game, I killed all those guys when I found their hideout. I think it’s neat you have options to ally with them, but my tav personally has no use for a mafia that deals in slaves and tadpoles. If you didn’t kill the zhents in Waukeen’s Rest, does the letter still say they’ve lost contact, or does it change and say something else?

I’m finding an awful lot of murdered refugees all strewn about. I’m not exactly sure what’s happening here. I know Orin is being shitty, I know we have these doppleganger freaks, and I know there’s other stuff going on as well that I haven’t even explored yet, so who knows. I wish there was some kind of reaction line from tav or companions or something? Like. When we approached the blighted village, they commented on the dead villagers on the road. Here, I climbed down a well and found like four murdered refugees all in a pile, and there’s no comment??

I LOVED the weirdness of finding a child next to the southern checkpoint gate that was actually voiced by a real child, and not an adult VA. Very very jarring! As this is the only actual child voice in the entire game that I’ve seen so far, I assume this must be one of the dev’s kids that they put in to be cute, and I think that’s fun.

[salty-dracon]

genshin impact 4.0, or as i like to call it, fantasy tears of themis ft. lifeweaver overwatch/kale vandelay hfr/mael stronghart tgaac/idk but people are drawing him with that specific kind of face and i love it

liveblog begins now

Get Out Of India And Get Your Ass To France!

People can find my previous liveblog and livetweets for what I think of the Sumeru section. I thought it was great, I loved the heist scene, but *grumbles in desi* you know how one of the most popular (and thirsted after) characters in the west right now is a DARK SKINNED INDIAN SPIDERMAN-

Paimon lore...she got tired, fell in a whirlpool, and got sucked out to sea...

sus.

... Niagara Falls...... somehow geographically across from a desert.... which also ends in a big cliff...

welcome to fontaine. literally just french for "fountain". Looks like any steampunk city but with more blue and stars. God I miss Arcane: A League of Legends story.

Neuvilette. That's the Mael Stronghart looking guy's name.

Lyney and Lynette. They're uh. little guys

we're just normal men.

CAITLYN KIRAMANN ARCANE?!

... Is this Fischl's VA? Has the same smug aura. Also, why are her eyes two different colors? Is she tainted by the Abyss or a Schneznayan puppet or something?

I'm not writing all that down Furina but I don't fuck with celebrities. I only fuck with gods.

She's so grand I hate it.

Tears of Themis 🤝 Genshin Impact Fontaine

I'm too poor and ugly for this shit

FIGHTING GODS?! BITCH I'VE GOT A RESUME

..... what the fuck is happening in this place. first god wants to beat me up, then god wants to battle me in court ace attorney - er, tears of themis style, while the rabble are saying that god-slayer traveler's DUEL would be boring while a COURT battle would be more exciting..... and now there are weird laws

that's not called being absolved of sin that's called climate change

why would you build boats that function like subway trains on giant aqueducts when you could just... make bridges with... okay I guess depending on how you do it, having aqueducts instead of roads could be pretty fast in a world without cars

How many little siblings does this guy HAVE

How many dragons is that now? There was Dvalin, Durin, Ahzdaha, the one Raiden killed, and now the Hydro one. Was there a Dendro one?

You'd think that a HYDRO city would have some kind of STEAM POWER

I love cute engineer girls! Damn, she's just an NPC.

... wh. YOU'RE A GOD OF WATER IN A STEAMPUNK CITY JUST USE HYDRO POWER TURBINES

nothing like getting the Italian mafia to beat up the French mafia

sorry to this guy who has now voiced characters in two games where his fantastic voice work is badly complimented by piss poor lip sync (swank from rain code)

Oh shit are we going to ace attorney childe? that would be really funny. he'd be such an ace attorney witness too

traveler: childe, why are you in fontaine?

childe: depression arc

So these little humanoid dog creatures are "Melusine".

Friends with benefits (the benefits are knowing all their siblings and also theater tickets)

There he is. Mr. Justice man.

Neuvilette: I think she wants you to look at her.

Paimon: Yeah, sure...

Furina: Hehehe~

Traveler: *holds up middle finger at Furina*

Oh he's literally Mael Stronghart

Lyney's VA is pulling out all the stops for this stage magician cutscene

A "bang" right in the middle of a magic show?? For sure we're going to be Ace Attorneying this chapter.

OH YEAH. OH YEAH THATS A CLEAR CASE OF SOMEONE USING STAGE MAGIC TO MURDER LIKE IN DRV3 OR AA6

Paimon puts on Groucho Goggles while quoting Sherlock Holmes. Fun...

Waiting for Rosa Tears of Themis to get isekaid to this universe with a random boy. Because I like Rosa and she's cute. And never alone.

So Lyney's rope was replaced with a flammable one. That explains the murder method, But how did Lyney switch places with Carrow, and where did Halsey disappear to?

Navia, a mob boss. Or a detective. Not sure which.

There's honestly no way they didn't take at least a LITTLE inspiration from Arcane because that's the only steampunk setting I can think of where little furry guys are common. Pookas are in Odin Sphere, but that story isn't exactly steampunk... Well, it is. And supposedly Neuvilette is the only male one.

That's how the trick itself was performed. The audience member basically got put on a giant rotating, moving elevator. So in the middle of it, someone must have hijacked the trick. They forced Halsey out and Cowell in, then escaped with Halsey.

... Lyney didn't hear the thud? How? Why?!

THEY'RE FATUI?!

It literally is the most Ace Attorney sort of thing to ask the judge for a brief recess and then talk with your client who immediately admits to being a Russian spy whose excuse for not being present during a murder scene was that he was doing spy things

yeah I was thinking, it had to be someone from the crew. how else do you tamper with the random number generator and the rope? but the real question is how did he become a victim of his own scene after the fact?

what

this is entirely out of left field. they should have gotten one of the tears of themis writers on this one.

girl your drink was spiked

yeah that was what I was thinking too. the disappeared people are being dissolved and ending up in the fountain somehow

oceanid!

aether: bye pretty oceanid! I'll find your lover for you- OH GOD THERE'S ROBOTS

... Did they honestly watch Arcane and get nothing from it? Looks like they tried to recreate Zaun and missed the fact that Zaun isn't run by women in big hats

girl...

I'm just bored throughout this entire investigation segment and then I learn that the Italian Mafia got arrested for water crimes

We're unwatering the water crimes

I was also wondering if vacher was the one who murdered the oceanid. yeah it was. and looks like we hunted down the mastermind of one piece of the murder plot

sometimes I fear that the gimmick for AA7's prosecutor will be a robot and this is why. at least we get to see the guy go ham again

Oh yeah that guy's girlfriend is in the place where all water flows to, Doyha District the fountain.

... Imagine you're a baliff, and you're at court, and the defendant wants to see his wife who has dissolved into a fountain, and the chief justice helps him, and so the chief justice takes him to the fountain, and then five minutes later the chief justice comes back and says he stuck his face in the fountain and drowned