#i mean it was kind of triggering but like

[taelophone]

SUN MOON childhood enemy! Luigi x reader

Trigger Warnings ; bad ass kids . not entirely proofread cuz I just want this OUT of my drafts . awkward teens . google translate Italian. little Luigi speaks Italian .

taglist // masterlist

During the summer, life in Maryland was a time to enjoy the slow summer sun and the gentle kisses of the salty seaside breeze. Summer— and all her many flora and insecta children alike— brought forth comforting reminders that life gets better when you can tune out the distractions.

The sun was hot; his white and blinding rays of solar energy cast down on the little people below as they took his eternal radiance for granted. What would life be like without his overbearing and constant presence… Would it be dark? What would happen to our earth should he decide his love and life are no longer warranted in our solar system?

“Hey.”

A little voice was heard just a bit away from you while your hands caressed the green blades of grass between your fingers. Unfamiliar, but not quite authoritative…like a little boy who hadn’t yet experienced a stern talking to about tone and how to control it.

You tore your gaze away from the bright blue sky, your eyes adjusting to the bright atmosphere as you stared at the tanned boy with unruly cocoa-brown curls. He stood alone, unaccompanied by an adult or a group of young lackeys like in the Disney Channel movies.

“Hi…” you said, tilting your head at him and giving him a half-assed wave.

“What’s your name?” He asked, approaching you with a lack of caution that could only stem from precious youth.

You stared at him, scanning him with slight caution as he stood over you before telling you his name. His brows furrowed, a slight glint of disappointment in his eyes before his lips moved before he could think.

“That’s a weird name. I’m Luigi!” He said, sitting next to you on his knees.

Your brows pinched together, a brief look of shock and anger flashing at the stranger before you adopted an expression of confusion.

“Like the Mario character? That Luigi?” You asked, biting back a little giggle as he frowned at you.

“No! I’m Ee-tall-ean!” He disputed, his face scrunching up in disapproval as he shot you a glare from out the side of his eye. “Plus, my mommy says Luigi is the better brother.”

“No, he’s not…” you stated, rolling your eyes at his stupid comment.

“Yes, he is! My mommy said so!” He grumbled, pulling up patches of grass from the soil in a closed fist.

“It’s Mario. He’s the main character, plus he has a cooler mustache,” you sighed, fixing the skirt that pooled just above your knees as you took your eyes off Luigi.

“Yeah, but Luigi’s taller,” He argued, crossing his arms over his chest like he had made the best point in the world.

“Mario has all of his games…there’s not a game called Luigi,” you snickered, picking at the little ends of sticks and twigs.

He paused, evaluating your statement in his head with a rather impolite scowl. He didn’t yet know you, but your combative and dismissive nature seemed to set off bouts of anger in his stomach that left it feeling light and fluttery.

“Well, there’s Luigi’s mansion. That’s a great game!” He offered, picking up a little white dandelion and blowing its little white seeds into your face.

“Hey!” You half-shouted, rustling your hands over your head to try and clear any of the fuzzballs from your hair. “You’re mean, I’m telling!”

“Fine!” He pouted, watching as you charged off to your mother, who sat on the far end of the park.

You told her all about the mean boy Luigi, taking note of the pale woman with curly black hair who sat next to her. She sighed and fixed the funky bangles on her wrist before patting your shoulder with a kind smile.

“That sounds like my son. I’ll talk to him, sweetie. He should know better than to be mean to a sweet girl like you!” She chuckled, setting off across the grassy park to her son, who sat just a couple of feet away blowing the dandelions away.

You couldn’t hear a lot of what they were saying— or maybe looking back, you just couldn’t understand, but you heard the pretty woman’s stern voice talking to her son as his high-pitched one argued back.

“Ma mamma, non voglio chiederti scusa!”

It sounded like English but muffled with a slight twang in their words. Either way, you clung to your mom's knee while shuffling around the stray leaves on the ground before Luigi and his mom came marching back up towards you, his mother holding his little collar like he would run away at any given opportunity.

“I’m sorry…” he pouted, his brows pinched together in resentment as he stared at you with nothing but malice.

“aggiusta il tuo viso!” The woman murmured, raising one of her thick and dark brows at her son.

His face instantly softened, his expression morphing into one of slightly exaggerated remorse as he repeated himself with a little less confidence.

“I’m sorry for being mean to you…it wasn’t nice,” he murmured, looking down at the ground before his mom released her hold on him. 

“Now hug it out,” she urged, scooting him over in your direction.

He pouted, a rather bratty sound emitting from the depths of his soul before he briefly threw his arm around your shoulder in an awkward side-hug. It wasn’t genuine by any means, but you leaned into it until he released you just as quickly.

“Don’t do it again,” she murmured, sitting back down on the bench by your mother and watching as Luigi toddled off.

That was the day you first met Luigi— the summer of two thousand and three. And since then, you had been relatively inseparable, but that wasn’t necessarily by choice or good relationship.

Your mothers had developed quite a sturdy relationship; when one of them decided to throw a little get-together, or Kathy’s husband decided to throw something on the grill, you would go visit Luigi and his two older sisters in their happy little home that always smelled like cinnamon and warm candles.

You made quick friends with his sisters, who you learned to be MariaSanta and Lucia, playing with them instead of their stupid brother. They were kind and didn’t seem to hold a deep vendetta against you for something that you didn’t do, so they proved to be better company than Luigi.

Your parents always laughed and joked about you being in love, swearing on everything that is holy that you’d grow up and have to be ripped from each other's bodies for you to do daily tasks like breathing. At seven, this was a repulsive idea.

I mean, he’s gross! He’s mean, he’s holding some stupid grudge against you because he was in a bad mood, and he’s overall just not good at playing Barbies, so you couldn’t see yourself ever entertaining the idea of him being cute.

“No, he’s kind of mean…I don’t know what I did, but he just doesn’t like me,” you sighed, sitting on Lucia’s bed while playing around with her new white Nintendo DS.

“He’s going through something…he’s not mean to me. He’s never been mean before, actually…” she said, pausing from braiding her life-sized doll's hair to pinch her brows together in silent thought. “I don’t know…he’s being weird.”

“Honestly, he’s just had beef with you for a while…he doesn’t shut up about you, and it’s annoying,” she sighed, her teenage angst setting in following her thirteenth birthday as she flicked her side bangs out of her face. 

“Maria’s been talking to him about it, he’s just having a little attitude problem. Don’t feel bad, you didn’t do anything,” she reassured, chalking the hair of her blonde Barbie with the pink Hot Huez hair chalk before tossing it somewhere around her room.

She was so effortlessly cool— in a sort of angsty, moody, deep teen kind of way. It seemed as if all the Mangiones knew how to do was be intimidating and smart, as you were sure there was not one member of the family who didn’t radiate a composed and confident aura.

Seconds later, her older sister MariaSanta came slinking into the room, typing away on her white Motorola flip with her hair clipped back.

“Ehi, Ci, mamma dice che il Lu’ vuole andare al parco. Puoi portarlo?”

You watched as they conversed around you, Maria only briefly glancing up from her phone as Lucia became more avid on refusing whatever her sister was asking of her. You watched the two bicker back and forth in Italian, slowly slipping out of Lucia’s room when they began to raise their hands and increase in volume.

It’s probably better just to let them deal with that.

You roamed the halls of the Mangione household, stopping by in the kitchen to say hi to your mom and Ms. Kathy, who was in the process of making some sweet treat that you and the rest of the children could scarf down later. She slid you a bowl of some cut-up fruit- apples, pears, mangos, kiwi, and oranges as she chatted with your mother over a glass of deep red.

You sat at the table as you watched the many Mangiones come and go through the front and back door, each one offering you their tone and pitch of a polite greeting. Each bite of citrus was punctuated by a pot clattering, a rich laugh, a thump from upstairs, and very rarely, the sound of one of the three siblings upstairs losing their minds at whatever it was they were doing at the moment.

Soon enough, Luigi came skipping down the stairs in pursuit of something to quell his festering hunger before dinner. He shot you a glare, sticking his tongue out at you before approaching his mom with a contrastingly gentle smile.

“Mamma, posso avere qualcosa da mangiare?”

“English, baby, we have guests,” she urged, standing over the stove with a large spatula stirring up a pot full of sautéed onions and garlic.

“Can I have something to eat, please?” He murmured, his little accent biting at the ends of his words as he leaned over the counter.

“I just cut up some fruit, you’ll have to share with your friend,” she chuckled, pointing to the table you sat at with a light shrug. “And be nice. Your sisters keep telling me about your little attitude problem, and if you don’t fix it, I will.”

He groaned, stomped his little foot on the porcelain tiled floor before dragging his feet every step of the way to the fruit bowl. He sat as far away from you as he could while still reaching the fruit bowl, in other words, directly in front of you.

“Hi,” he stated, his tone ice cold as he snatched the bowl of fruit from your hands.

“Hey!” You huffed, slamming your hands down on the table with a deep frown. “I want some, too!”

“Luigi!” Kathy scolded, turning around to shoot her son a stern glare.

“Sorry…” he pouted, sliding the bowl back over to you before snatching a big handful of fruit.

You huffed, walking away from the table over to the living room and seeking refuge amongst the pile of cars and pretend kitchens that hadn’t received any love since the late nineties. The best thing you could do was avoid him, just like you had done since he hugged you in that little green park.

You would bicker and battle all day, fighting over not wanting to share fruit, who had more toys, how many fries you had to share when going to McDonald’s, and many insignificant things that seemed to be the world to a couple of seven-year-olds. It was only when you grew older, when your closet grew less pastel and sparkly, that you finally noticed a shift in Luigi’s behavior.

He was no longer combative and annoyed with your presence; in fact, he was quieter,  his attitude became one of respect, and he had begun to treat you like somewhat of a family friend. When he wasn’t downstairs playing on his Xbox or talking his dear mother’s ear off about some sort of STEM program, he was holed up in his room doing whatever it was boys do.

There were no more snarls, petty sighs, or sharp eyes when you entered the same room as him. With time, you earned a quiet greeting from Luigi, usually in the form of a quiet “hey” or a brief nod.

Instead, a quiet hymn of respect slowly began to blend between the two of you, prompting you to spend just a little bit more time together than you normally would. During family trips, you’d find yourself a little more lost in his company while wordlessly wandering the wooded forests and noisy metal machinery at theme parks. 

You never spoke much; there wasn’t much to talk about. Part of it was because neither of you knew what to say after being at each other's throats for oh so many years, but another part of you longed to acknowledge the heavy blanket of unspoken tension that had rendered your nascent relationship partially mute.

When you did speak to each other, you began to notice changes in yourselves that served as an example of the childish mannerisms that you packed away with maturation; everything about him was different. It was scary– like navigating a sailboat in the pitch-black night over murky waters.

His voice had slowly begun to slip down its slippery slope of puberty, and both of your faces had begun to shed their baby features. Luigi had grown into his big, bright babydoll eyes and his awkwardly lanky build, and you finally found an even balance in your voice that had become less brittle and tremulous.

As much as it pained you to admit, basking in the presence of post-reform Luigi sent blooms of pink and red flashing through your face. You even found yourself visiting the Mangione estate more often, always mindful of the fine line between a casual visit and deliberately finding ways to snag a glimpse of him for even two seconds.

For now, your bait of choice was a metallic pink iPod Lucia had lent you earlier this summer. Life seemed so simple as you hop, skipped, and pranced your way over to Auntie Kathy’s house for what surely was the millionth time in your life.

You trekked up the many wooden stairs, leaving your invisible mark on the glossy dark oak handrail as you set off in pursuit of Lucia to return her iPod. You skipped through the empty halls, your deep black Converse thunking dully against the floor as you turned the house upside down to find the pretty woman, checking her old bedroom, closet, bathroom, and the attic before sighing to yourself.

It had been a couple of years since she moved out, but she would still lounge around in her room every now and again, and you didn’t want to ask Luigi where she was because that would just be awkward. But if you didn’t return her things, Luci would get all pissy, and then she’d breathe down everyone’s back until she found what was rightfully hers.

You learned in that moment that life wasn’t that simple, and sometimes you have to do things that would make you feel smaller than any height difference ever could. Sure, you partially came to see Luigi, but you didn’t expect you’d have to go out of your way to interact with him…a small interaction in the hallway would have sufficed.

You sucked in a deep breath through your nostrils, letting the cold air dehydrate your nose before you plucked the metallic pink iPod from your back pocket and headed toward Luigi’s room. You suddenly felt a little self-conscious as you neared the entryway, smoothing over the wrinkles in your black and blue sweater and obsessing over the way your hair laid before knocking twice on his door.

“Come in.”

His voice was raspy and muffled, like the claws of an all-black bloodhound scratching at the metal bars of his cage. It trickled down your ears like cold water, pressing against your eardrum like a boulder of vibrant emerald.

You pushed open the door cautiously, taking in the slate blue walls, Mario Kart posters, the random KISS poster, and his relatively organized black desk as he sat on the floor playing his Xbox. He didn’t bother to look who was at the door, like a part of him just knew who was there.

”Did you need something?” He asked, lying down with his elbows planted on the hardwood floors, his rather large charmander plush wedged between his chest and the floorboards to keep his chest from coming into contact with the ground.

“Have you seen Lucia? I have to give her her iPod back before she goes back to school. She said she was leaving next week, but like, I can’t find her…” you sighed, running the pad of your thumb across the smooth, glossy backside of the iPod to quell your jumpy nerves.

“Nah, she went out earlier today with Maria and mom…Do you want to leave it here? I can give it to her when she gets back,” he mumbled, the semi-loud sounds of endless bullet rounds emptying from his television screen dying out as he turned his head to look over his shoulder.

“Yeah, sure, that’s fine…” you murmured, setting the pink music player on his nightstand before pausing to look at the television. “Is that the new Grand Theft Auto?”

“Hmm?” He hummed, his brows furrowing slightly as he turned his attention back to the screen. “Oh, yeah. My mom would never let me play this, I got it from my friend Bryan…”

“Cool…can I try?” You asked, stepping further into his room while remaining mindful of the stray socks that occasionally littered the floor.

He nodded, wordlessly passing you the controller, then scooting over a little to allow you some space in front of the television. You joined him on the floor, settling yourself on your knees before driving around in a beat-up-looking blue car with bullet holes.

“So wait, what do you do…?” You asked, steering around and hitting every bystander and stationary pole in the process.

“Well, there’s story mode…you can play if you want, but I didn’t get very far. The game pretty much just glamorizes violence and burglary. Don’t play this, it’ll make you all violent and angsty,” he murmured, watching as you ran around on the beach, punching random people.

“But you’re playing it?” You challenged, raising a brow at him defiantly.

“Yeah, but that’s different…at least I acknowledge that it’s bad for me. You might say it’s just a game or I’m being too serious,” he chuckled, shaking his head while you ran from the cops by swimming in the water.

“How are you gonna say something’s bad for you then continue to play it?” You asked, handing him the controller as the screen flashed its deep red “WASTED” sign.

“Because I have no self-control.” he smiled, taking the controller from you cautiously so his fingers wouldn’t dare touch yours.

You watched as he wiggled through the virtual valleys, steering through traffic with just his thumbs like he’d been playing the game for years despite its fresh release. A blanket of silence fell over the two of you as you quietly observed the game, feeling a little bit more comfortable in his presence compared to when you first entered his room.

Gone was the snarky, petty, and grubby little child who would jeer at you for just walking past him in a social setting. The days of fighting over who got more love and attention from their parents were long over, and all the solvent had fizzled out to reveal a cloudy and light pink solute of slight affection.

The screams and shouts of pixelated players filled the room, but the sounds were deemed insignificant in your mind as you focused on the way your heartbeat thumped in your ears. Now that you had actually spent time with him, something about his quiet and respectful nature was very flustering.

Puppy love is a rather heart-breaking term. The cruelty of denying someone’s emotions, writing them off as youth, and chalking them up as temporary is a discourteous denial that’s been written in the book of parenting for many, many generations.

When Luigi was just a little six-year-old on the field, he was able to identify the meaning of beauty at a very early age. How could he not when it sat just a few feet away from him, staring at the sun?

Quiet like midnight, enchanting like the stars, and deep like the never-ending void of space. He became enthralled with your lunar aura and mysterious face, so much so that he knew no other way to express cuteness aggression besides actual aggression.

Without the sun, the moon can’t rise above and bathe the world in her white and blinding rays of energy. Without the moon, the world would be lost in an infinite void of timeless chaos.

The sun and moon need each other to function, but they’re never as close to each other as they want to be. The sun will forever miss his gaudy goddess of sleep, so he’ll stay up as late as his eyes will allow until she rises from the earth to lull him back to sleep.

“Hey, Luigi?” you asked, not taking your eyes off of the cyber-green television glow as he booted up Minecraft instead of Grand Theft— probably because he felt guilty for showing you such a terrible game in the first place.

“Yeah?” he mumbled, shuffling through his Minecraft worlds until he found the perfect one.

“Why were you so mad at me when we were kids?”

“Uhhhh...” He sighed, a single brow raising slightly as he squinted his eyes to visualize his answer.

“I don’t know, actually…you never did anything. I’m sorry, I think I just wasn’t used to talking to any girls besides my sisters,” he chuckled, a slightly self-deprecating smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. 

You nodded, shifting around on the floor to sit flat on the ground with your knees to your chest. 

“I think I used to talk to my sisters about you, actually…” he hummed, powering off his Xbox before sliding his controller somewhere under his bed. 

“Really? I would tell my mom how much I hated you,” you chuckled.

“Yeah, I’m sure…I don’t really know what my problem was,” he sighed, cracking nearly all of the knuckles and bones in his body before turning to face you again. “You can stay and help me make paper bouquets, if you want…actually, I’m gonna be honest, I just need help. I don’t know a thing about paper flowers.”

“Paper flowers? Why, you got a date you wanna humor?” you surmised, getting up off your knees to join him beside his desk.

“No!” he blurted, a little too eagerly for his liking. “Sorry, no. I don’t have a date…I just really wanna tell someone I'm sorry the right way.”

“Ohhh, so you’re just really not good with women,” you scoffed, rolling your eyes with a light smile as the jaws of jealousy nipped at the front of your brain.

“I’ve only interacted with like…four,” he admitted, taking out a fat stack of construction paper in your favorite color. “But I lowkey effed up the first time…and I still didn’t really apologize, so.”

You sat down with him at his desk, spending the rest of the day learning and perfecting eight good-sized paper flowers with a spritz of what should have been floral perfume, but when your only materials are the scents in a teenage boy's room, sometimes flowers smell like Axe Body spray.

You finished up the last petal, folding the corners of the paper to reveal an adorable lily flower with a pale yellow stamen. By the time everything was done, Luigi’s hands were riddled with paper cuts, and your fingers were all cramped up.

“Thanks,” He smiled, accepting the final flower from you and tying together the surprisingly presentable bouquet with a little piece of satin he got from god knows where, rolling them up in some old newspaper, and scribbled down a little note in his chicken scratch handwriting.

“These are for you, by the way…” he mumbled, handing you the bouquet with a cupidly tint in his cheeks while his eyes remained glued to the ceiling. “I’m sorry I was so mean…I thought about it a lot and realized it’s incredibly disrespectful that I was rude to you because you held me to a normal standard.”

If words could materialize and travel through the world, yours were long lost somewhere in the rogue waves of love and shock. After all those many years of gagging and whining when your parents joked about you falling for Luigi someday, suddenly your gag reflex was out of commission.

“Oh…Thank you! Thank you so much, this is really sweet-” you practically babbled, leaning over in your chair to give him a real hug, not a forced and awkward side one that you came to expect after every stern talking-to, but a comforting and warm one in which your arms wrapped around his shoulders before leaving a bold kiss on the side of his cheek.

And when you pulled away, the blush that spread across his face let you know that things would be different this time. No more hiding behind the excuse of coming to see Lucia who had long since run off to college, no more awkward pauses in conversations, no more running from the truth you had tried so tragically hard to discredit.

You loved Luigi.

General taglist ; @lorelaisg1lmore @flaca335 @7luvrs @fancyyanci @f4b111 @born444u

[thezombieprostitute]

"I wanna do this with you."

But make it about a couple talking about murder.

Thank you for your patience, Anon! It took me way too long to figure out the right couple for this.

Summary: Someone tries to use you to get leverage over Lloyd.

Warnings: Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Violence. Please let me know if I missed any!

A/N: Reader is female. No other physical descriptors used.

Series Masterlist

Lloyd had warned you when you first met that he had enemies. The kind of enemies that might throw a bag over your head and kidnap you. He'd praised you for not being the type to cry and panic. But that was before you'd gotten pregnant. You're no longer worried about just yourself but also baby Liam, due to arrive in less than 8 weeks. You're supposed to be keeping your blood pressure down so as not to risk triggering an early labor.

Easier said than done, given the circumstances.

It was supposed to be a simple walk around the block. Lloyd had security guards on almost every corner to keep you safe and you desperately needed to get out of the house for a bit. Next thing you know, you're reliving your first meeting with Lloyd by getting a bag thrown over your head and getting tossed into a van. And they were not gentle about it.

The tears are flowing but they seem to be helping you keep relatively calm. They don't have you tied up at least, clearly not deeming you to be a threat. For the most part they're right. Lloyd's made sure you've learned some self-defense maneuvers, but they're no help in this. As much as you want to work out details, listen for clues, all of your energy is focused on staying calm.

Your kidnappers finally take you out of the van. You have no idea where they're taking you. All you can focus on is walking without tripping. Liam isn't really helping in this case, he's definitely going to be a heavy baby. They let you go and you hear what sounds like a cell door closing.

"You can take off the bag now," one of your kidnappers says.

You're quick to comply, hating being kept in the dark. Sure enough, you're in, what looks like, a holding cell, bars on three sides with one brick wall. There's a small cot against the wall that you know is going to do nothing for your back but you really do need to sit.

As you do so, a kidnapper talks into a radio, "we've got her secured."

Gathering up your courage you ask, "so what's the plan here? Is there an itinerary? A meal-plan? Any ideas how long I'll be here for?"

"If Hansen complies, you'll be out of here in just a few hours."

Nodding you mentally kick yourself for giving in to the urge to go out. You should've just used the treadmill Lloyd got specifically for you! But no, you just had to go outside for the fresh air. Then again, Lloyd had told you time and time again how secure he made sure the neighborhood was. Does that mean someone betrayed him? Let you be put at risk? You hope Lloyd finds whoever it was and cuts their balls off for putting you and Liam in danger.

"Can I get some water?"

A plastic bottle of water is rolled into your cell. As grateful as you are to not have to walk to get it, it's still a struggle to bend down to pick it up. Your anger rises as you hear a couple of the guards chuckling at your attempts. But you finally get the bottle and catch your breath before you drink.

These assholes might not see it, but you know they're doomed. And soon Lloyd would be breaking down the doors and killing them all. Your soulmate was ruthless. A man who'd kidnapped you and trapped you instead of just asking you out and showing your matching soulmate tattoos. A man who'd figured out all the best ways to get under your skin but also enjoyed letting you do the same to him. A man who'd let himself soften towards you, especially after your pregnancy was discovered, but who still regularly tortured people for information.

You smile softly. Yeah, these guys were all dead. They just didn't know it yet.

Before you've even finished the bottle of water, you hear loud, urgent radio chatter with guns in the background. Rubbing your belly you whisper to your baby, "daddy's here!"

Supposedly there's only one way into this area and all of your guards have their guns aimed at it. You cover your eyes, pretending to be scared but it's because you know what's about to happen. Lloyd's no idiot.

You hear the door open and the bullets go flying, but you also hear the clattering of a flash-bang on the floor. Lloyd told you it's one of the easiest tricks. Shooters always expect someone to be standing when the door opens, so if you crouch, you have a few seconds to do something before they adjust their aim. The flash-bang assures however many people are guarding you, they'll be incapacitated long enough for him to take them out.

"You okay, Pumpkin?" Lloyd's voice is a welcome sound and you uncover your eyes and smile at him as he figures out the door lock.

"So much better now, honey," you confess. "Did you find the asshole traitor?"

"Not yet," he says casually as he finally throws open the door. "But when I do, I'll make sure he gets made an example of."

You throw your arms around his neck and bring him in for a kiss. "I wanna do it with you."

Most people would be thrown off by your want to inflict violence on someone, but Lloyd gives you his cheshire cat grin and growls, "god I love you so much."

"I love you too. Now let's get out of here. Liam is hungry."

"Sure thing, sugar tits."

Series Masterlist

Tagging: @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @irishhappiness; @kmc1989; @lokislady82; @ronearoundblindly; @thiquefunlover63

[rositaslabyrinth]

The light that fell

Meeting V ⭑.ᐟ

When a violent surge of celestial energy shatters a stolen vial of angelic Grace, something impossible happens—the Grace doesn’t dissipate. It becomes.

She appears in the Bunker without warning—naked, trembling, and utterly lost in a body that was never meant to exist. She doesn’t know how to breathe, how to move, how to be. All she knows is that she was never supposed to be human.

Word count ; 1,542

The room was quiet—too quiet. The only sound was the soft hum of the fluorescent lights above, buzzing in the otherwise still space.

And then, without warning, the air seemed to shimmer. A pulse of light, brief and bright, flashed across the room, momentarily blinding both men standing there.

Dean’s reflexes kicked in instantly.

He reached for his gun, eyes darting toward the source of the disturbance, posture tense. His finger hovered near the trigger, ready for anything. “Sam, move—” His voice was a low, growl, the protective edge already taking over.

Sam glanced at him, confusion evident on his face. “What the hell just—”

And then, there she was.

She appeared in the middle of the room, so suddenly that neither of them had time to react.

A woman.

Her body shimmered faintly, almost glowing under the harsh lights. She was naked, her skin pale and smooth, though it wasn’t the softness of something mortal—it was the coldness of something ancient, something otherworldly.

She looked around, her eyes wide and lost. Her breath came in shallow gasps, as if she couldn’t quite remember how to breathe.

And when she spoke, her voice was so soft it barely reached their ears. “I… I was…”

Her words were broken, her body trembling. The panic was clear in her gaze.

Dean’s gun was still pointed at her, but his grip tightened around it, his instincts on high alert. He couldn’t take his eyes off her—too fragile, too strange. What the hell was she?

“Sam, you see this, right?” Dean’s voice was sharp, his eyes never leaving her. “Tell me I’m not crazy.”

“I’m seeing it,” Sam said, though his tone was less defensive, more… cautious. “But I don’t know what I’m seeing.” He took a step forward, hands raised, trying to calm the situation. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. We’re not gonna hurt you.”

She flinched at Sam’s words, her eyes flickering from one of them to the other, as if unsure whether to trust them—or run. She stepped back, hands clutching her arms as though she were cold.

“I…” She hesitated again, her voice cracking. “I… I held Grace.” The words were strange, barely making sense even to her own ears.

Dean’s gun didn’t waver. His posture was still defensive, his mind racing. “You held Grace? What the hell does that mean?” He took another step back, his muscles tense. “You’re not human.”

“I’m not supposed to be,” she whispered. The panic in her eyes was growing. “I… I was…” She trailed off, lost in the broken pieces of her own existence. Her hand lifted to her chest, her fingers trembling as she searched for some kind of understanding. Her skin felt wrong—too human, too fragile.

Sam took a cautious step forward. His gaze softened, the protective, logical side of him pushing through his usual wariness. “What are you?” he asked gently. “What happened to you?”

She shook her head, the confusion on her face deepening. “I don’t know. I don’t understand…” She swallowed, the weight of fear clouding her voice. “I was never… I was never meant to be this.”

Dean’s instincts screamed for him to do something. He couldn’t stand still. This wasn’t just some random supernatural being; this was… different. And the fact that she was completely defenseless, standing there naked, with no weapons and no defenses, only made him more on edge.

“You don’t belong here,” he muttered under his breath, though it wasn’t clear whether he was talking to her or himself.

“I don’t belong anywhere,” she whispered back, her voice barely audible. The weight of the words hit her like a wave. Her body was shaking now, the fear becoming too much to hold inside.

“Dean, we need to calm down,” Sam urged, his hand gently resting on his brother’s arm, as if grounding him. “She’s… not a demon. We need to figure out what she is, but we’re not doing anyone any good like this.”

Dean still kept the gun at the ready, though his expression softened just slightly. “We don’t know what she is, Sam. Could be anything. She could be dangerous. You saw how she just—appeared.”

“I’m not dangerous,” she whispered, her eyes wide, tears threatening to fall. “I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

For a moment, the three of them stood there—frozen in the tension of the unknown. The dangerous unknown.

And then, as if realizing that she had no control over the situation, her shoulders slumped. She looked down at herself, her hands falling to her sides. The confusion, the fear—everything—swallowed her whole.

She wasn’t a thing. She wasn’t an object. She was human now—whether she wanted to be or not.

Dean hadn’t holstered his gun. He knew he should, but something about her—about the way she had just appeared—made his gut tighten. Every instinct screamed danger, but there she was, standing bare and shivering, looking more like a lost soul than a threat.

Sam, of course, was already shifting into damage-control mode. “Hey,” he said carefully, glancing at Dean before looking back at her. “We need to get you something to wear, alright?”

Her arms curled tighter around herself, fingers gripping at her own skin like she wasn’t even used to the sensation. Her breath was shaky, her movements hesitant, like a newborn deer on unsteady legs.

Dean exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down his face. “Right. Great.” He shot Sam a look, muttering, “What the hell did we just walk into?”

Sam ignored him and turned back to the woman. “I’ll grab some clothes,” he said, voice soft. “Just—stay here.”

She nodded quickly, her glowing eyes flickering between the two of them, like she was still trying to read them, trying to make sense of their presence.

Dean kept his eyes trained on her as Sam disappeared down the hallway. Silence stretched between them.

She fidgeted, awkward in her own skin, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Then, to his absolute disbelief, she lifted her gaze and looked at him.

Dean froze. What the hell was that look supposed to mean? She wasn’t saying anything—just staring at him, like she expected something.

Dean scoffed, shifting uncomfortably. “What?” She hesitated, then gestured to herself, expression unreadable but expectant.

Dean blinked. “Oh, hell no.” He took a step back, waving a hand between them. “No way. Not my department.”

Her brows knit together slightly. She still didn’t speak, but the way she kept watching him, waiting, made something twist deep in his gut.

Dean Winchester had fought demons, faced down angels, and gone toe-to-toe with Death himself, but nothing—nothing—had prepared him for this.

“Sam needs to hurry the hell up,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his mouth.

She looked… disappointed? Frustrated? He had no idea. But before he could figure it out, Sam returned with an old Henley and a pair of sweatpants, setting them down carefully on the nearby table.

“Here,” Sam said gently. “It’s not much, but it’ll help.”

The woman reached for the clothes, her fingers brushing the fabric as though it were foreign to her. And then—she did it again.

She turned back to Dean. Dean stiffened. “Oh, come on.” Sam looked between them, brows raised. “What’s happening?”

“She—” Dean waved a hand at her. “She keeps looking at me like I’m supposed to—like I’m supposed to help or something.”

Sam frowned before realization dawned on his face. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Dean repeated, unamused. “She doesn’t know how to put them on.” Dean stared at him. Then at her. Then at the pile of clothes.

“Oh, hell no.”

Sam sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Dean—” “Nope. Not doing it. Not happening.”

Dean was already turning on his heel, making a beeline for the hallway. “I’ll be out here. You handle this.”

Behind him, he heard Sam murmur, “You’ll be fine. Just put them on like this, see?” followed by the woman’s quiet, uncertain “Oh.”

Dean stood just outside the room, bracing his hands on his hips, shaking his head to himself. “Of all the things…”

A minute passed. Then another.

When she finally stepped out, she was small inside the hoodie, the sleeves hanging past her hands. She shifted in the clothes like she wasn’t quite sure how they were supposed to feel, like they were strange on her skin but better than before.

Dean glanced at her, then at Sam. “See? Handled it. Didn’t need me.” The woman looked at Dean again, expression unreadable, but there was something lingering in her gaze.

Dean scowled, crossing his arms. “What”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she quietly sat down on the couch, pulling her knees up to her chest. The movement was almost instinctive, something human trying to make itself smaller.

Dean sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Alright. So.” He gestured vaguely. “Now what?”

The woman’s voice was barely a whisper “What do I do now?”

Dean exchanged a glance with Sam, then exhaled sharply. “That,” he muttered, “is what we’re gonna figure out.” And none of them had a damn clue where to start.

Note : sooo no thoughts just this!! Ah I’m excited for this to continue. I literally fell asleep in the middle of writing this though LMFAO but it’s okay cause I actually like how it turned out and I hope you guys do as well <33 please let me know if you want to be tagged in this series because it’s currently not on my taglist!!

Tags : @sunsbaby , @starzify , @bluemerakis , @aambearr , @blossomingorchids , @daylighted @deanswidow , @wchswift , @velvetdandeli0n

To be tagged in any future works check out here !!

[vandme12]

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐄𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠? - 𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫, 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

This will be long-planned series. I love Diabolik lovers and now Killer Chat

This series will contain

TRIGGER WARNING : Graphic Violence, Gore, Murder, Obsession, Manipulation, Death, Dark Themes

SUMMARY :

In the future, you fucking are.

Fuck—what did you do? Who did you murder? Who did you hurt, who did you kill? People surprise you, don’t they? All soft edges and perfect faces, but inside? A rotting mess—like the guts spilled out when you cut too deep. And shit’s well—shit there. Black hearts. Black souls. Rotten teeth behind pretty lips.

The devil got his due.

Guess you like your girls best when they’re dead—

Brains blasted open, a Jackson Pollock on the wall. That’s your taste, isn’t it? A little blood with your sugar.

People surprise you. Every last one of them loved you. Loved you as you are—ugly, awful, too much, too sharp. What did you do?

In the future, you fucking are.

Fuck—what did you do? Who did you slice open, tear apart, leave gasping? Who did you kill? People surprise you, don’t they? All sugar on the surface, but inside—oh, inside, they’re crawling. Rot-black hearts and maggot thoughts. Shit’s shit, and it’s everywhere.

1. The devil got his due.

2. Guess you like your girls best when they’re dead— Brains on the floor, blood in their hair. Pretty things are prettier when they’re ruined, right?

3. When their heads get blown open— Art in the aftermath. Mess in the marrow. A little tragedy for your collection.

4. People will surprise you. They loved you, didn’t they? Every last one of them. Loved you as you are—sharp, mean, a little god playing with his food.

What did you do?

You must be proud, Tragedist. Peeling a story apart like skin—digging your hands inside, pulling the guts free. Twisting the entrails into something that looks like meaning. Something that looks like yours.

Does it feel good?

Nah—feels better. Feels godly.

So, congrats. Really. What a beautiful little slaughterhouse you’ve built.

Hell is empty. And the devils?

They’re all you, darling.

(goreboy called you.)

“Why’d you do it?”

Static hums in his throat like a wound that won’t close, teeth bared—smiling, because of course he’s smiling. Of course. But the edges are too sharp, too real, voice slipping through the cracks like something rotten.

“You wanted them alive? Alive? Alivealivealive? That’s cute—hey, wanna write me in next? Come on, author. You’re the one with the pen—ain’t this your fantasy? Killed ‘em good, right? Had to. Had to. Had to.”

He giggles like a knife scraping bone.

“I’m your little maggot, baby—crawl, crawl, crawling right where you want me. So why’re you acting surprised?”

(They’re calling. All of them. And they want answers.)

The screen flickers—no, it twitches, glitching like something breathing, wet and wrong. Your inbox swells. Message after message. Missed calls. Missed, missed, missed. But they never really miss, do they?

goreboy is typing…

"Writer."

The word leaks through like blood through a cracked tooth.

"You killed them."

Static gnaws the edges of the call. You can almost feel his grin, split-wide and twitching, something feral tucked beneath the velvet purr.

"What, thought you could bury your toys without us noticing? Cute. Real cute." He laughs—no, he cracks, the sound sharp enough to flay. “BRING THEM BACK. BRING THEM BACK. BRING THEM BACK—”

Another call. Another voice.

V is calling.

It’s colder. Precision in the quiet, the kind that slinks down your spine like fingers dragging through marrow.

"You’re playing god." No judgment. No heat. Just the weight of a verdict already passed. "And gods should fear the things they make."

A pause. Static breathes between you.

"Fix this."

The chat explodes—

MISAKI:

YO WRITER—WTF!? U CAN’T JUST KILL PEOPLE WITHOUT ASKING!!!

MISAKI:

NOT COOL!! NOT COOL!!! DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND DECENT COMPANY!?!??

MISAKI:

…also like. bring ‘em back. Please??? 🥺👉👈

And then—sugar-dipped venom:

Angel is typing…

"You’re selfish." Sweet as a mouthful of broken glass.

"They were ours to ruin, not yours. You think you can end this? No, no, honey—"

The next message drips through, slow. Intimate.

"We’re inside your head now."

And from the shadows—one more voice. A whisper in the crawlspace of your heart, soft and rotting.

goreboy:

Writer.

They’re not dead until I say so.

And we’re not done.

What are they to you?

Misaki is the itch you can’t scratch. Neon burn in the back of your throat, tastes like sugar and gunpowder. Pretends to be a punchline, but the knives slip through the gaps—cute, if you don’t mind bleeding out. Broke as hell. Anxious as hell. Laughs in the face of danger (then panics about it later). Probably thinks aliens would love them. Wants out, but where’s the fun in leaving when the world’s this messy? If you’re lucky, they’ll let you buy them a milkshake. If you’re not—well. Good luck with that.

Misaki.

Angel is poison in a crystal glass. Soft-spoken in that way that makes you lean closer—too close—right before she twists the knife. Femme fatale with a body count, sweetheart. Collects secrets like love letters, and she’s been reading yours. Wants to see you beg, wants to see you break, but most of all? She wants to win. Would kiss you just to taste how desperate you are. Probably already has. Don’t worry—she won’t kill you. Not unless it’s fun.

Angel.

V is judgment carved in stone. Black-and-white in a world that bleeds red. Thinks he’s the answer, the reckoning, the last thing bad people see before the lights go out. Maybe he is. A ghost story told in whispers and gunmetal. The law wasn’t enough—so now he is. Empathy buried under a steel spine. If you ask, he’ll say he doesn’t feel regret. If you listen close enough, you’ll hear the lie.

V.

Ronin is rot, plain and simple. Smiles like he’s never done a good thing in his life (he hasn’t). Wants the world in pieces, wants you in pieces, wants everything and will rip it apart just to feel something. Makes a joke out of everything because if it’s funny, it can’t hurt—right? Hates authority, loves attention. Would set a church on fire just to watch the light show. And the worst part? You’d watch with him.

Ronin.

They’re calling for you. All of them. Loud enough to wake the dead.

How did you destroy them?

Angel dies beautiful. Always would’ve—she planned it that way. Heart-shaped lips, heart-shaped hole in her chest, confession live-streamed like a love letter. Heartsick Angel, she says, voice honey-thick, dripping sweet for the camera. Always was, always will be. Justice chews her up and spits her out, but she smiles for the kill shot. Poetic, isn’t it? The femme fatale falling for herself in the end. She’d call it symmetry. You’d call it a waste.

Angel.

V dies quiet. No blaze of glory—just handcuffs too tight and a name that isn’t his. The Butcher, they call him, like the word fits. Like the blood belongs to him and not the devil in the dark. Truth never mattered to them. Never mattered to him either, but irony? Now that’s a bitch. Stone-faced as they take him away, but you know better. You know it gnaws at him—being the wrong monster, being caught. But maybe it’s easier this way. Someone had to pay the price.

V.

Misaki dies messy. Of course they do. Too bright, too loud, a firework gone wrong. Thought they had time—thought they’d be the one to get out. They never did have good luck. Bullet in the brain mid-mission, body hitting the floor with the joke half-told. Would’ve laughed at the irony if they weren’t so dead. No alien abduction. No happy ending. Just blood on cold concrete and a half-eaten cup noodle at home.

Misaki.

Ronin dies pretty. He makes sure of it. Carves the scene like a love poem, drips blood like wine. He’s laughing when he makes you do it—laughing when you hesitate. C’mon, he says, soft and sweet, like a dare. Like a prayer. Wants you to ruin him. Wants you to mean it. And you do. When you kiss him, he tastes like copper and cherry cola. When you kill him, he looks like something holy.

Ronin.

They loved you. Maybe they still do. Maybe they never did. But they're gone now—ashes in your mouth, ghosts in your bones.

And all you’ve got left is the question: Was it worth it?

Maybe.

Maybe in another universe, Angel never presses "Go Live." She keeps her secrets, keeps her life. Flirts with death but never marries it. Maybe she dances in red silk instead of bleeding it, teasing you with half-truths and sugar-coated lies. Maybe her hands are warm when she cups your face, and you never have to wonder if she'll die for the drama.

Maybe V never takes the fall. Maybe he’s still out there, hunting in the dark, making the world a little quieter—one guilty scream at a time. Maybe you find him on a rooftop, blood-splattered and exhausted, and he lets you touch the mask. Lets you see what no one else does. Maybe he believes in justice—but this time, not at his own expense.

Maybe Misaki lives. Kicks the bullet’s ass and comes home laughing. Talks about aliens like they saw one—maybe they did. Maybe they drag you to a jazz club after a job, wearing something loud and ridiculous, and hold your hand like they mean it. Maybe they’re still scared, still anxious, still them—but alive. Always alive.

And Ronin? Oh, Ronin.

Maybe he doesn’t make you do it. Maybe he lets you keep him—like that was ever possible. Maybe he curls up in your bed like sin with a smile, making promises he’ll never keep. Maybe he still flirts with death but never asks you to pull the trigger. Maybe, in that universe, he wants you more than the fall. More than the ending.

Maybe they’re all waiting. In some other place, some other story. If you can write them dead—can’t you write them back?

The devils are still shouting, you know. Still screaming your name.

So, what’s it gonna be, writer?

You cry.

Cry like it’ll bring them back. Cry like the dead care. Cry until your throat aches and your chest cracks open, raw and hollow. But no one’s listening. Not really. Not anymore.

You killed them—don’t you remember? With your words. Your hands. Your heart.

And still, you cry.

Cry because Angel’s voice is gone—no more teasing, no more honey-dripped danger. Cry because V let the world swallow him whole, and you didn’t stop it. Cry because Misaki should’ve lived—should’ve laughed, should’ve stayed—but they didn’t. And Ronin… oh, you cry for him the most. Because he made you love him enough to do it. And you did.

You cry because they loved you. Maybe they still do.

Maybe.

A dream, maybe. If dreams tasted like blood. If they clung to your skin like phantom hands, too cold, too real.

You tell yourself that—whisper it against the ache in your throat. Just a dream. Just your mind playing tricks. Just shadows curling where they shouldn’t.

But dreams don’t leave fingerprints, do they? Dreams don’t stain. Dreams don’t echo when you’re awake, calling you back.

If it’s a dream, you should be able to wake up.

You ran from Reality To chase after your fantasy of a cute, kind, idealistic version of this world, Who said whatever you wanted to hear..?

To Ronin

My devil, my ruin, my exquisite catastrophe— I could carve your name into the marrow of my bones, and it still wouldn’t be deep enough to satisfy this hunger. To love you is to understand madness, to walk the edge of a blade and smile as the blood trickles down. You consume, and I am already swallowed whole.

You, who dance on the edge of oblivion, who wears cruelty like a lover’s embrace—tell me, will you let me be the hands that hold your throat, the fire that burns at your heels? I don’t want to save you. I want to stand beside you in the wreckage and laugh at the flames.

If you tear me apart, at least I will die as yours.

To V

You hold the world at arm’s length, but I would cup your face in my hands if you let me. Every word from you is measured, every silence weighted, and yet—I hear you. You, who judge, who punish, who carry the weight of a thousand condemned souls upon your back—do you ever wonder what it would feel like to rest?

If I stand too close, will you call it weakness? If I offer warmth, will you see it as distraction? I do not wish to make you stumble, only to walk beside you.

You are not untouchable, no matter how hard you try to be. And if the world dares not reach for you, then I will.

To Angel

You are beautiful in the way glass is—something to be admired, something that cuts if handled too carelessly. There is light in you, but it is the kind that casts shadows, the kind that lingers in the eyes of those who adore you. I wonder if you know just how breathtaking you are when you smile, even when it’s only for the sake of others.

If love were enough, would you finally feel whole? If I gave you all of mine, would it settle the ache in your chest?

I would never ask you to be anything other than what you are. I only ask that when you stand in the light, you remember you are more than just a reflection.

To Misaki

You are a melody I can’t stop humming, a fleeting spark that lingers long after the firework has faded. You laugh as if the weight of the world isn’t pressing against your ribs, as if you aren’t carrying ghosts behind your smile. And yet, even when your hands shake, even when the words don’t come easily—you are still here.

If I hold out my hand, will you take it? If I promise that you don’t have to be alone, will you believe me?

You don’t have to be strong all the time. You don’t have to pretend you don’t care. If you ever need a place to land, I will be here.

“Do you blame yourself?”

“What?”

“Well it’s quite common in this situation for a patient to feel a kind of... guilt.”

“What situation?”

“The accident.”

You ran from Reality To chase after your fantasy of a cute, kind, idealistic version of this world, Who said whatever you wanted to hear..?

[buckydeservesthebest]

Yeah, I understand the huge confusion and inconsistency within the script itself. If there are already a lot of plot holes within the plot itself, now in the story of Bucky who no Marvel executive is really fond of… 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

I agree that perhaps more than remembering the faces of all the people he was forced to kill, Bucky most likely remembered the Starks *after* watching the tape and *not* before. It is curious because it is clear that the VHS tape has no recorded sound, we don't hear the car crash nor the WS motorcycle, so that just means that what we are hearing is a flashback that Bucky is having right at that moment. I think this may be associative memory, that is, memories that manifest once an external stimulus related to that event is experienced.

Being honest, the first time I watched CW, before even thinking about whether Bucky actually remembered all the people he was forced to kill or not, I always thought that the line “I remember all of them” came more from guilt over the fact that Bucky knew he was used to hurt a lot of people, and not so much from the fact that he actually remembers all of that as such...

By the way, I find it interesting that the voices of the Starks sound like a recording, maybe it is to give the idea that we are hearing them from the tape, but again, the tape does NOT record sounds, so we can only conclude that we are watching a flashback of Bucky. Does it mean that this is how the WS hears and perceives everything? With an undercurrent of static? It's interesting because Shuri also describes the mind control Bucky was subjected to as a kind of static in the hemispheres of his brain. So this further reinforces the idea that not only did Bucky not exist as the Winter Soldier, but that the WS was all the while in a state of near unconsciousness all the time, or rather the little consciousness a person has while sleeping in REM sleep...

As you rightly say, it is somewhat complicated to say what the Winter Soldier can remember (or is allowed to remember) and what he cannot. Just as he couldn't remember Steve from his first mission in the Fury assassination, nor Natasha, Sam, etc. But he does retain memory of, for example, some skills he learned as the Winter Soldier, such as the Russian language, handling certain weapons, etc.

Well… studying a neuroscience course recently (thanks to Bucky) gave me a little insight into certain interesting things, for example like the fact that according to The Wakanda Files, Shuri says that the Winter Soldier's program is a REM sleep trance, a sort of sleepwalking in which the Winter Soldier experiences REM sleep while awake. That is, once the mind control is in use, the Winter Soldier has the brain activity of a person having REM sleep. And interestingly, this mental state is the most efficient for the brain to store and apprehend information. So if we take into consideration that Bucky would never have cooperated with Hydra to be trained as one of their agents, all the WS training would have to have occurred only when the mind control was already taken over by the WS, i.e., in the REM sleep trance. Meaning that the Winter Soldier learned in an analogous way that people who wear headphones while sleeping learn X information (such as a language), in a state not conscious but unconscious.

Interestingly, the amnesia that Bucky suffers from, anterograde, dissociative (produced by a mental health related cause, and can be triggered by traumatic events, abuse and other serious sources of psychological distress) and neurological (caused by brain damage), does not usually affect procedural memory (information about motor and executive skills), just as a person with global amnesia does not necessarily forget how to ride a bicycle. Or for example in the case of dissociative amnesia of someone who had an accident in an elevator, they forget the accident itself but do not forget to watch out for elevators.

Bucky's situation with the ETC that caused extensive brain damage, and C-PTSD, makes it really complex to be able to say precisely when he can remember something and when he cannot…

So my theory is that I totally share the idea that the Winter Soldier retains no memory other than procedural memory (that of motor and executive skills, which functions more at an unconscious level compared to the other types of memory), and not any episodic memory. That's why I believe that if he couldn't remember Steve from a previous mission, in which there were no intermediate ETC sessions, there would be no way he could remember the other WS.

I wouldn't necessarily say that the Winter Soldier remembers the period between missions as such, but rather that recognizing the whole process of being subjected to ETC is more muscle memory than anything else, and part of the programming that forces him to obey whatever his handler orders him to do.

My theory is that the Winter Soldier only follows the orders of whoever uttered the code words, just as in CW we saw him follow orders only from Karpov and not from any other Hydra agent, or just as Pierce was the only one seen giving him orders. as well as Zemo.

I think there is a reference to this in TFATWS when Zemo told Selbie that he would give her the code to control Bucky and he would do anything she wants (please, let's ignore for a moment the disgusting backstory of what that could have meant... ughh). I think if it was known that the Winter Soldier only serves Hydra, there would have been a mention that no one but a Hydra agent could make use of him.

(Yes, I'm fully aware that Spellman is totally ignorant of Bucky's history, I mean, he himself admitted that he only watched CW and EG to write the TFATWS script. But unfortunately, all the change to the known canon of Bucky, like the fact that WS wasn't active until the 1960s, so that it's now since 1951, now exists, and unfortunately we can't change it...)

Personally I do consider the tie-in books canonical, because they are all written by members of the production itself, and many times they explain certain concepts or ideas that were part of the movies or TV shows, but which we didn't realize (for example, Bucky's restraint chair in CW was constantly electrocuting him to prevent him from using his metal arm… horrible… I know…)

Of course I always take into consideration the opinions of the actors because at the end of the day, they are the ones playing the characters, especially Seb who no doubt holds Bucky in high regard. But there have been a couple of occasions where even his opinion has struck me as inconsistent with Bucky as a character, like recently in some of his interviews for Thunderbolts, he has called Bucky “anti-hero” or “antagonist”, when well… this is not true...

So, my real final theory is that Bucky only remembers (maybe not all, but a considerable amount) the faces of the people he was forced to kill as the Winter Soldier, or maybe some other vague details, but not in a lucid way but rather in the same way you remember a dream (or rather a nightmare), as a fuzzy and confused memory. And well, if we remember that all the Winter Soldier's programming is as REM sleep trance state… then I guess this makes sense…

In fact at one time, Seb also made a comment about Bucky's experience being like waking up from a dream…

Or well, if we don't get technical, and take the line “all of them” to mean not literally 'all of them', but everyone (many or few) that Bucky could vaguely remember at the time, then what Seb said wouldn't be technically incorrect either... 😬

“That line was an interesting moment. At the time, the choice I was making is that [Bucky] had realized there was no way he was getting out of there, and someone was gonna die, whether it was gonna be him, Steve or Tony. When he says that line, to me, it was a turning point — he was, like, ‘Okay, I know what you want me to say, and I’m just gonna say it.’ When someone comes at you over and over again, and they can’t hear you, they can’t see you’re pleading with them, you’re trying to figure out how to get through to them and they just won’t accept it, at some point you just give in, and you go, ‘that’s right, that’s what you want.’ Of course [Bucky] didn’t remember them all.” —  Sebastian Stan

[dramas-vs-novels]

Can you please elaborate how payurain portray a healthy 24/7 d/s relationship? And how payu shows casual dominance?

I love this ask so much!

First and Foremost:: They're Equals

A healthy D/s dynamic- especially a 24/7 one- isn't built at all on "one person is better or more in some way than the other" (there is a separate kink for that if it's your jam). The Dominant doesn't think he's superior to the submissive, or if he does that's a couple who won't last long.

They have to see themselves as equals, so it's a conscious decision to submit or Dominate. It is a choice being made. Rain sees himself as less than Payu- the god-like senior with the good job and extreme wealth. But Payu never sees him like that. He never says "I'm better than you" or "I'm worth this, you're worth that".

As Love Storm goes on, but especially in the LITA Special Novel, you see Rain shedding his "unattainable perfection" image of Payu and seeing him as human. Rain will always hero worship him, but he no longer does it from a perspective of "Look how much better than me he is", but rather just "He's amazing, I'm lucky to have him in my life". He doesn't belittle himself, and a hell of a lot of that is because that's how Payu has always treated him.

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

Domination and submission Displays

I did want to include this because it isn't as nebulous as the other topics, but it's very much a part of things. It also goes towards your question about casual Dominance.

D/s have a sort of ritual to them in displays between the Dominant and submissive that... you don't really see in PayuRain as obviously as you might in others.

Rain has to call Payu "Phi" and use respectful language, but he isn't calling him "Sir", he isn't expected to say like "Yes, sir" or "No, sir", he isn't expected to seek permission for actions or wait for Payu to order or command him.

But they still have their almost ritualistic elements that present a clear sign of "You're stepping out of your lane" and kind of pulling the leash on the dynamic to get everything back where it's supposed to be.

Most obviously, Payu has subtle ways to command Rain that the little guy might not wholly be aware of himself. When Payu strokes Rain's bottom lip, that's "Obey", and Rain always obeys when Payu pulls that trigger.

It is also a kind of "Submit" switch- if Rain is being a brat and Payu does that, Rain immediately changes tune. A hot example is during the race kink scene, when Payu opts to bite the sitch instead of stroke it like he usually does after Rain goes too far.

Rain has a sexual response to that bottom lip being messed with (a seed Payu plants in the bathroom stall), and whenever it is touched (or in this case, bitten), you can see the boy utterly melt. In some scenes, once Payu touches that, Rain's eyes become heavy and he immediately shudders.

Fun note: when Rain wants to try being the one in control (race kink scene), he does the same move to Payu.

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

Rules and Guardrails Apply to Both

Rain doesn't know anything about D/s dynamics or relationships, but Payu does, so he gently shows Rain how to handle the checks and balances. He respects Rain, he asks for respect in return. He has his Rules for their relationship, but he shows Rain from the start that he's allowed to make Rules.

He also- big point- explains why he makes the Rules, they aren't arbitrary things Rain is expected to follow blindly. They aren't just for fun to see if he can make Rain obey- they're serious, and he treats them seriously.

When Rain breaks Payu's Rules, he's punished accordingly. But when Payu breaks a rule, he knows Rain doesn't understand yet that there has to be a ding on Payu as well. That's one of those areas where they are equal and have to be treated equally. Rain isn't a pet, he's a human being. Just because he embraces being a submissive doesn't mean he doesn't have power.

24/7 Cannot Be Unbreakably 24/7

The other important thing I want to mention (because one of my favorite Special Chapters is all about this) is that even if there is a 24/7 dynamic in place... That doesn't mean it's actually, mercilessly, 24/7. It isn't some unending roleplay, it's their lives.

Payu has good days and bad days. He has his needs- physical, emotional, and sexual. But so does Rain. And Payu is very respectful of those. If either one is upset, the Rules or the dynamic are set aside.

Payu will drop his Dominant air the moment he sees that Rain is geniunely upset about something.

And he never stops doing that. Even if it's for something stupid- if Rain is upset, Payu won't push their dynamic, and he will very sincerely try to understand Rain's feelings (please note the finger trigger being used in the last image!)

Or, when Rain runs away from Payu's home and breaks critical aftercare for both him and Payu (I did a whole post about this one, so I'm glossing past it), he both makes sure Rain knows that's not cool, but also doesn't press the matter because he knows the boy isn't feeling well.

And later on, after Rain has started to grasp the controls of their dynamic, when Stop enrages Payu, he steps well out of his comfort zone to be more kitten-ish and try to help break Payu's bad mood. He uses nicknames with himself he hasn't entirely warmed to, and coaxes Payu in a public setting.

The absolute best example of this- which is such a base, foundation-level core of 24/7 D/s relationships- is this excerpt from a Special Chapter in the novel.

Rain is heading into exam season, an incredibly stressful time, and he's utterly overwhelmed. He's burning the candle at both ends, feels lost and dejected, and doesn't even have time to acknowledge Payu, let alone be with him. And at the back of his mind, because of this, he feels like he is failing as Payu's sub by not being available for him romantically or physically.

Payu, meanwhile, is more worried about Rain. he knows the pressures and the stress, but it doesn't make it any easier. So Payu will make Rain food and try to keep it warm until Rain has a minute to eat, he'll let slide Rain ignoring him, and he'll do what he can to make things easier.

But when Rain eventually explodes, cussing Payu out... Payu doesn't play the dynamic. He doesn't bring up Rules or even consider punishing Rain in the slightest. He lets Rain vent as much as he needs to, even if it hurts his feelings a bit. He gives Rain space to kind of re-spool.

And when Rain comes down, now crying for how he's treated Payu, Payu reassures him and supports him. He gives Rain the strength he needs to succeed and adds a Rule that Rain has to set aside some time each day to eat and take a break. Anothe Rule put into their dynamic, but with Rain's physical wellbeing being the focus.

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, I'm sure people would like to add stuff. I don't engage in 24/7 D/s so there might be elements I'm not mentioning that other people would, but I tried to kind of highlight the biggest areas.

At the core of it all, the D/s are both equal.

Rain's little "submit" switch.

Rules have to apply to both.

24/7 cannot be 24/7 without mercy.

[asherlockstudy]

They Owe An Apology

A couple of days ago I made a post saying I was experiencing a fallout with Rhett and Link content and Rhett in particular. The cause of the problem was the last EBs episode "We Owe Someone an Apology". While I initially planned to make a fun analysis about this episode, as I was proceeding with it it became so unpleasant that I changed my mind and decided to take a break. However, I observed such an absence of reactions similar to mine both on their channel and here on freaking tumblr where we're supposed to be more sensitive regarding such matters that I decided to make the post after all, except it's going to be more of an angry than a fun post. There is also another reason that made me change my mind but I am not eager to disclose it for the time being. So, if you are the type of fan "Rhett (and Link) are soft beans / must be protected at all costs / can do no wrong", then this post is definitely not for you. Besides, I have been clear from the beginning that I consider Rhett and Link significantly more flawed people than what they own up to and what they let on on the internet. This is something you should know before proceeding.

Let's go:

Booty knot sex

A fan sent them a voicemail telling them that she got an intrusive thought of Rhett's booty knot song while she was having sex and it ruined the atmosphere. Funnily, Link proved to remember the lyrics better than Rhett. When Rhett asked him about this, Link chose to joke that he plays this song when he has sex. Then it was hilarious that Rhett turned to the camera and told the fan that maybe after all she should not get intrusive thoughts of the song because this would also mean she was thinking about him when having sex and Link was kinda like o_0

Dick stretch

The shoplifiting voicemail started a rabbit hole conversation where they ended up discussing reversing circumcision by stretching penile skin. Interestingly, they revealed they watched together a video about this procedure. In the past, Link has said he was interested in this because it could restore more enhanced pleasure. So, they did watch together a video about what they could do to enhance pleasure. It seems Rhett ruined the vibes there a bit for Link because he then said "I should first ask my wife if she would be okay with that". Link, not at all triggered by the wife mention, very level-headedly, implored Rhett in cold blood to let him stretch his skin for him by tying a rope to Rhett's dick and pulling it from out the bedroom window (it's not gay if you pull the dick from out of the house). Rhett refused this because Link is such an aggressive handler. Conclusion: Rhett does not consent to handjobs by Link (or maybe he does but they have the usual fights of not being gentle enough).

Masturbation guilt-non-guilt

The episode was very sexual and it was not clear how it ended up like this but somehow pretty much everything turned sexual. Link revealed how he had fear about getting caught masturbating and he made some strange comments that made it seem to me like he is confused in his mind about what he is supposed to be shy / private about and what not. He kind of sounded like he thought he had issues for not wanting his mom to find out he was masturbating and... I 'm confused by this because it's not Link having issues, I believe a majority of people do not want their parents having a clear picture of their sexual moments. While masturbation should be viewed as healthy and a normal need, it also should be associated with a respect of privacy and boundaries. You don't have to be "hey mom I am just done wanking" to have a healthy relationship with her. This might work for some families but most need higher standards of privacy and that's okay. Point is, I don't know why Link is thinking so hard about that and try to find an issue in it. A lot of things are the purity culture's fault but not everything is a fault of purity culture. I suspect they have missed a bit where the line is due to the culture shock of being exposed first to purity culture and then California lifestyle straight away.

Also, gotta love the idea that these girls meeting Link were watching this episode and found out that Link was prepping becore they met them.

Not a criminal mindset

After an episode with already several incidents of which Rhett should not be proud, the icing of the cake was that he said he has a mind that would be perfect for a criminal and that he is very skilled at hiding what he does and not getting caught. It felt like this conversation was getting deeper for Link. Link cleared his throat and said he is not good at it at all but he vulnerably admitted that he could be easily talked into it by Rhett and Rhett agreed very casually about this. So Link admits the insane influence Rhett has on him and Rhett is openly aware of it as well.

"Anticipation"

Rhett: (on crime planning in movies) oh oh uhhh, that was easy to anticipate. Link: Yeah, anticipation is the thing that requires more effort for some than others. (gestures in the fashion of "just saying") Rhett: You're not much of an anticipator. Link: No, it takes a little more effort.

If you know my theory and opinion on them, you know why I found this exchange interesting. It seemed that Link was trying to convey a message again, like he often does.

Sun vs Sex

During the sun vs sex debate I noticed something I have noticed and wondered about before as well. At the rare occasions of being really, really candid, Link has been established as a less sexual being than Rhett. In his youth he was way less interested in sex than Rhett and he says he was a late bloomer (although I don't think he was as late as he thinks, except he was doing some of the stuff out of peer pressure as he has revealed). As an adult, he is still less interested and he has been clear about how he prioritises quality way over quantity. He has even said he does not mind having sex once a month if that one intercourse is a good one. Actually, this was established this time as well. So I really don't understand why he seems to panic at the thought of not having sex as an old man. First of all, it's simple and even Rhett said this, if you are old and panic at the thought of not having sex then it means you still want sex and you can have it. If you are old and you do not care about sex anymore, then it is no problem, because that's the point of "not caring", sex doesn't matter to you, so you don't dread about not having it because it is not that attractive an idea anymore. But my confusion is why Link keeps revisiting this dread, he almost seems to have anxiety over the future supposed sexlessness and since he has not been that insanely sexual in his past or present I wonder where his worry for the future stems from. I have explained my theories before; this anxiety is probably a result of getting more in touch with his sexual self in a more mature age which perhaps makes him feel that he has lost time he has to win back, except the old age indifference is about to creep up on him. This is already a Rhink theory but to make it even Rhinkier maybe it's a concern associated to a worry that his relationship with Rhett might be more physically than emotionally driven so if this element is eliminated when they get older, then there might be nothing left behind. I am not saying this is how it is, I am saying Link might be concerned about this. Anyway, this is just a theory in the case Rhink is legit.

Robin Hood weighs in on shoplifting

Robin...oops... sorry I meant Rhett and Link were sent a voicemail by a shoplifter, justifying what she does as a small act of rebellion against large capitalist companies. First of all, I don't care about what she does. I do think however that her choice to send a voicemail boasting about shoplifting a large company to another large company was not a well thought out decision and therefore I am concluding the girl is more immature than a rebel in general.

I must say I am also surprised that Mythical approved to publish this voicemail. Couldn't there be risks associated with it, like that company they mentioned that I am forgetting now confronting them for publishing it and tolerating it or even asking about the contact information of the voicemail that can be retrieved. I don't know maybe it's not possible but it still seemed unwise to publish that.

Rhett of course saw a perfect opportunity to play the pseudo-liberal card and get brownie points, talking about the rich oppressing the poor and therefore not endorsing yet "understanding" the shoplifter. Link was uncomfortable with what Rhett was saying, clearly being able to draw a better parallel in his mind regarding where they actually fall into this equation. You see, Rhett was forgetting he is the owner of a large company that works nonstop barely taking any breaks, mass-produces progressively more and more impersonal content, monetises more and more stuff, obsesses over algorithm baits instead of art quality, buys or starts side projects with a clear capitalist profile (i.e Sporked), begs for sponsorships 24/7, nonstop advertises their Mythical Shop and has a history of overpricing stuff beyong belief (i.e GME, horrible cereal and so on). In short, he was so desperate to appear cool and "one with the people" and woke and all that that he kinda forgot who he is.

A few people called him out on his hypocrisy but they were too few if you ask me. I did find my spirit animal in the comment section though

You, Sir or Lady, preach and I will kneel

Transcription of Rhett's commentary on the looks of a girl he met 30 years ago

I will just give you the pure transcription of what he said and you can draw your own conclusions by yourself. In fact you should have done it by yourself and you should have done it already without me having to make a post about it (provided that you have watched the episode of course), because I think it flew way over people's heads if I judge from the hardly 3-4 people who talked about this in the comment section. And I wonder why it flew over people's heads. If such stuff flies over people's heads then expecting them to figure out dynamic nuances and patterns and script symbolism is a lost cause.

Link: We were hanging out and we met these girls and then we were like, let's meet up later and go play putt putt. We played the putt putt. And me and this girl that I was kind of sidling up to, we hit it off and-

Rhett: You mean the pretty one?

(both laugh loudly)

Link: Well, I wasn't going to say it but... uh... yeah and the girl, she was from Ohio. But the other girl, let's call her Martha -

Rhett: Okay, I don't, I can safely say I do not remember her name.

(Link laughs again a little)

Rhett: Boy, I remember her face though.

Link: So, lat- (laughs), later that night when we had arranged to sneak out to meet up.

Rhett: Well, YOU had arranged. I made NO arrangements.

Link: You didn't - uh...

Rhett: I wasn't about to sneak out for THAT.

Link: Which made it a lot safer, I can't believe that I snuck out alone, because you weren't, I can't believe I went through with it when you weren't willing to go out, I mean, I would have thought that I would have stayed because I am skittish. I am so skittish.

Rhett: Yeah, I am proud. I am proud of you.

Link: I know, it's the only time I've ever done something, that's like probably the riskiest, wrongest, like classic kids thing that I have done, is sneak out and uh... I'll tell you, for the longest time I regretted that decision. But now I don't.

Rhett: Oh okay, good. And you shouldn't.

Link: And I don't. But for the looongest time I did. Because - um -

Rhett: I do NOT regret not sneaking out. Just so we're clear. Poor girl.

Link: It was awkward when I showed up and it was just me and -

Rhett: Oh she was also there?

Link: Yeah, she was still there!

Rhett: Okay, did she go back inside?

Link: She went back inside.

(Rhett nods to himself.)

So I said no comments from me but I will give the data in a list, I will spoonfeed this EVEN MORE

47 year old guy judges girls he met 30 years ago as "pretty one and the other"

he does this in a podcast that can be watched by said girls and their social circle who might know about their encounter with the famous youtubers Rhett and Link in their youth

he does this in a public podcast as a public persona with people, including many if not mostly women, who are fans of him

the other girl's name is not worthy of remembering due to her presumed unattractiveness

makes it clear her face was so supposedly grotesque that he can't forget it 30 years later

makes three more strong statements about never intending to go to a date with this girl whom he describes as "that"

makes two more strong statements about wisely not going out with her

he openly pities her (poor girl)

the rest of the exchange suggests Rhett was not crystal clear from the beginning that he is not interested in a date, so as a result the girl waited for him and he stood her up

at this point we should also mention that Link is entertained by this whole ordeal, if slightly uncomfortably

Now you know what my issue was. Ask yourself, why are there only 3-4 people talking about this in the comment section. If you have watched this, check with yourself how over your head it flew and why.

And, last but not least, Rhett, still shocked by a (supposedly) ugly girl 30 years later , at the time he looked like this

Amazing. Some people are born with the nerve.

*Great irony that in the episode in which he boasts about being able to hide and cover for himself is the episode he failed to hide his asshole side.

[fictoweirdoesten]

"Some people are destined to love and be loved. Others die trying."

-Has been a quote you've been holding on to ever since your first heartbreak.

---

Same ol' trigger warnings: self harm, suicide, use of the nickname pipsqueak because this is Caleb ffs. Reader is a fem/incel so if that turns you off you won't like this lol

Author's Note: I was watching a stream (shoutout Nightalize he's funny and cool) but he started talking about his gf and I got all envious so here we are. Proofreading? No, sorry. This is a vent piece really so I don't feel like reading this over again, I feel like sleeping instead.

---

You've resigned yourself to living alone. Your dream of cooking and cleaning for the love of your life when you got older faded away as you've grown up and faced the harsh realities that life brings.

I mean, you have it all. Terrible acne, overweight, below-average appearance, and about a trillion mental disorders to top it off. The only men that'd ever give you a chance are those that are desperate, completely setting their standards low just to have something to bang every night, and even you have a small ounce of self-respect left not to fall for it.

...Right? You can't deny how tempting it sounds just to be with someone, anyone. Anyone who would be beside you every night, even if they resent doing so. Anyone who would listen to your worries, even when they aren't listening. Anyone who wouldn't look at you with disgust, or pity-

"The storms that you'll encounter in the future-they shouldn't exist in this world."

Your whole life changed once you discovered Love and Deepspace. Once groveling and brooding over how lonely you were every day, how much your life sucks...everytime you felt loneliness creeping in, you'd rush to the app instead, just to see one man everyday:

Caleb. Oh, Caleb. He stole your heart the minute you saw his teaser, heard his voice. The minute you found out how possessive he was of mc, how much he loved her to the point of unhealthy obsession. It was something you had never felt before, feeling truly loved to that extent. It felt refreshing being able to love someone without overthinking it, without wondering if they truly loved you back, without turning on them and splitting.

You didn't need to love a real human. You have Caleb now.

It isn't a cope. You feel truly happy with him.

You're not lying to yourself. You're not gaslighting yourself. You're not-

"Your sister has a boyfriend now," your mom mutters, interrupting your thoughts as you sit at the dinner table. She glances up at you with a look that reeks "when are you getting one?" without actually saying it.

You only hum and nod, not wanting to hear about how better your younger sister is than you'll ever be.

...But it starts to get to you. You're really going to die alone, aren't you? When your mom goes back into her room, you quickly rummage through the cabinets, finding any kind of sweets you can. You won't be reminded of how miserable you are. You won't be reminded of how secretly desperate you are of love.

You won't be reminded on how Caleb isn't enough.

How you'll never be enough.

You break. All you remember is moving to the bathroom and opening the medicine cabinet. You didn't notice the fresh scars you inflicted on yourself, didn't notice the pain killers in your palm. Didn't realize when you had grabbed a water bottle, and you surely didn't realize how close you were to swallowing those pills whole.

"Hey...just what do you think you're doing, hm?"

You feel a hand reach out to stop you, it's grip on your wrist tightening. You look up, your breath hitching when you realize the man behind you is no other than Caleb, the one you'd hope would keep you alive through delusion.

You open your mouth to say something, but words fail to escape through your chapped lips. His own chapped lips twist into a smile as his violet eyes look down at you lovingly, almost obsessively.

The same way he'd look at mc...

"Hey now, you're not thinking of quitting on me are you," He whispers, his hand moving down to the scars on your arm. His fingers trace over them, rubbing them gently as he coos in your ear. "You know...I'd be really sad if you left me."

You freeze. This can't be real, he can't be real.

It's as if he can hear your thoughts, because you watch as he giggles and takes your hand into his, carefully leading you into your room as if you're a delicate package that could break at anytime.

He leads you to your own bed before moving behind you, carefully setting you down before laying beside you.

You watch as he grins, that damn grin that made you fall in love with him all the way back to his teaser. His hands meet your face, caressing your cheek gently.

"Tell me what's wrong, pipsqueak...don't hold it in like I do."

Your eyes analyze every single part of his face, taking him all in. He was real, this wasn't a dream. You move your hands to his face next, taking your time to rub your fingers on every feature of his face that you could. You rub his forehead, his eyebrows, his nose, his cheeks, admiring the faint freckles before moving to his lips, than his chin.

You'd never been so close to a man before. Never touched one.

Your hands move to his hair next, your hands soft and delicate as you take your time, every strand of hair finding it's way to your fingers.

"...Don't ever leave me, Caleb." You whisper, finding your face inching closer to his.

Your first kiss. You wanted it so badly. You wanted your first kiss to be with Caleb.

But you suddenly feel drowsy, and you fight to keep your eyes open.

Caleb chuckles once more, moving to instead hold you closer, his head resting on top of yours as he hums gently.

"I won't ever leave you. No matter what, I'll always be by your side."

caleb...

"Get some sleep, pipsqueak. You'll feel better in the morning."

don't...go...

"Goodnight"

You wake up and notice Caleb not being there beside you. You let out a sigh, plopping back down on the pillow before your phone goes off.

You decide to check it anyway before you pass out once more, just in case it's your mom like usual...oh, another Love and Deepspace notification, even better. You shrug it off at first but decide to read it anyway, not liking clutter in your notifs bar as you plan to swipe it away.

Your heat races once you read the text.

"Don't ever stop fighting. I'll always be there to protect you."

-Caleb

Don't you wish fiction was the same as reality?

---

a/n: this Rallys strawberry milkshake is very good but I feel like vomiting now so idk-

[danieyells]

This theory has definitely been floated before and while it's definitely strange that the Like Dove hasn't appeared since Taiga ate it I have my doubts about it.

Taiga eats anomalies. Before Romeo brought him to the VIP room he complained about being hungry.

When he makes a face when he becomes aware of the Like Dove. The presence of an anomaly triggered his hunger. Maybe because it's alive he wanted Romeo to shoot it so it would bother him less. Maybe he wanted him to shoot it so it would fall and he could reach it and eat it without it trying to get away. But it makes perfect sense that Taiga would be aggravated with it in the room when he's hungry--if you were hungry and there was food in front of you that you weren't allowed to eat you'd probably feel pretty crummy too, right?

Taiga shoots and eats the Like Dove later on--after his hunger was further stimulated by the PC's blood(which is anomalous because of the curse, as evidenced by that both Lyca and Towa said the PC smells like flowers/nicer than usual, and thus her blood smells more like food to him than human blood)

I'm not going to say it's impossible that the Like Doves are spying tools of some kind. (It's a bit strange that the Like Dove was in the VIP room to begin with, but given Taiga and Romeo's historic closeness and the anomalous nature of a Like Dove it's not impossible that it got in through some anomalous means or maybe the passages the cats travel through, attracted to Taiga and Romeo being in close proximity.) But it's not like there isn't an obvious explanation to why Taiga would respond strangely to an anomaly in the room while he's hungry y'know?

What's interesting about this panel os that based on Taiga's reaction he seemed to realize something about the Like Dove, i think i can imagine what goes on his head is like:

he asks a question to himself

a voice or his brain answers it for him

His reaction and Asking Romeo to hurry up and shoot it suggests that he realized the like dove might be a tool from the spy who started the clash and was used to watch them on this scene(Taiga seems to be really hostile to the spy or knows who it is and seemed to suspect anyone who sneaks up on him as a spy without questioning himself or his head if they're a spy or not)

Also a interesting bit about this is the first time the Like Dove appeared seemed to be a fan service thing to say that some of the Boys like MC but i think this could apply to the theory that the Spy took interest on the MC and watches her as well like they do to the ghouls

[elainsgirl]

The fandom hasn’t been this much of a mess since 2021. I’m still here mostly because I feel like the announcement is coming soon and at this point I’ve been around too long to just dip.

But man, seeing gwynriels mock the elriels who left actually has me seething. Acting like they’re just too sensitive for fandoms or scared their ship is sinking. Like, really? People can’t even leave without getting dragged? It’s like they can’t turn off the ship war mindset for five seconds and realize that real people were actually hurt. Instead they just make fun of them on their way out. It’s messed up. And the worst part is that the wrong people are leaving. Like I get why, but it’s always the kind ones who go. How many times is this gonna happen? I’ve seen so many good people leave over the years and many never came back.

This week sucked ass. Easily one of the worst since the 2021 chaos. So many who joined the fandom after silver flames just have no decency. I just feel weirdly empty now. We really need that announcement.

A fandom is meant to be a space of fun. A space where you can shut off from real life issues & problems - and simply enjoy, stressfree for a while whether that’s through creating content or simply consuming it. Obviously it will be inevitable that some real life issues filter through into fandoms, however it should always be talked about with empathy, caution and care - so those that are affected or going through these issues aren’t so triggered.

That side were simply not mature enough to handle such heavy topics. Their posts were careless and triggering. Any sane, normal person would be able to understand why people are upset and leaving. I think lately, I’ve really come to the realisation that antis do not see elriels as real life people who are going through our own struggles. As you perfectly put it -(and a phrase I will now be using so thanks anon) it seems as though most antis cannot turn off their shipwar mindsets for a minute to look past and understand how these sort of heavy topics are very disturbing. Each post they made this past week about the issue/article basically went

“Yh no sure the article was wrong…but like, its just an opinion and tbf the author did write it as such where people would y’know bring up Elain not having the right anatomy…so blame Sjm and not the readers/journalist and…like, its not a big thing - elriels have said so much worse! And honestly…they’re just mad bcs the point make sense and they can’t deal with that. It was nothing to make such a big deal about”

I know this might come across as mean but, you know when a young teenager or even child enter spaces meant for more mature adults - they dont understand or grasp on how to communicate with the conversations going on in that space. They just end up blabbering and saying dumb stuff, missing the point. THAT is how antis have acted this past week.

You know, Im going to be real with you. Everytime I think antis can’t go any lower then they already have - every time they prove me wrong. Who and why is anyone creating posts & making fun about those leaving due to feeling triggered? Its just immature and pathetic. People have a life outside of the shipwars, something most antis won’t know about. I feel like most of them are consumed within the shipwars and its the centre of their lives.

You’re so right anon. The wrong people are leaving. The people that make the fandom a better, brighter place that have put nothing out but positivity. Its sad to see them go but hopefully they’ll be back once we finally get something about the next book.

Im convinced most who joined after SF - its either their first fandom experience or most of them are just attention seekers. At this point, I simply have stopped caring about anything fandom related, you’re right. I also feel empty and tired - just done with this fandom but Im just praying we get an announcement soon. Match preferably - we need something new to create a positive buzz again.

[vampirefangs]

i know "i saw the tv glow" is very metaphorical but also if you are/have been mentally ill/delusional enough in just the right ways it can be relatable in a literal sense too

[savage-sinister]

@king-of-havoc

I'm happy to answer. I assume you mean something like 'how can you simultaneously act in an evil and villainous way while trying to be nice and polite to people?'

Alright so 'be polite and nice to people' is what I consider the 'social contract'. Other people would call it the "golden rule"- "treat others how you would wish to be treated." The social contract is how people are expected to act with one another in society. It is both a goal and a reward. The expected outcome is that when we are nice and polite to one another (at least to each others' faces) then that means we receive the benefit of other people being nice and polite to us. 

The contract is "if we all for the most part act nice and polite to one another, then our reward is getting to live in a society where we aren't constantly being screamed at and assaulted with knives everywhere we go."

As an evil person, the social contract is a sort of opening bid when I interact with anyone, or when I face any kind of choice with regard to pursuing a goal. It is the smallest, most delicate weapon in my arsenal for attaining what I want.

When I face any interaction my first question is, 'what benefits me the most here, upholding the social contract, or discarding the social contract?'

In probably 95% of interactions, upholding the social contract– acting in a way that is nice and polite to the people around me– benefits me far more than discarding the social contract would, if not in the short term, then in the long term

Sure, it might be more immediately satisfying to scream at someone, to stab them, or to steal what I want in full open view, but because of the social contract the negative outcome usually outweighs the positive outcome. If I'm routinely screaming, stabbing and stealing then I become known as a person who doesn't abide by the social contract, which has social and legal consequences. 

I obtain what I want from people far more easily if I have a reputation for being a friendly, polite, reasonable and understanding person than I do if I have a reputation for being an unhinged hair trigger asshole who screams obscenities and pulls out a knife at the first sign of conflict.

But this is very much a transactional calculation. If and when I run into a situation where the benefits of breaking the social contract outweigh the benefits of upholding that, then I do it, and I do it without regret because 'be nice and polite to people' is a tool, not a moral rule that causes me pain when it's broken. 

With limited exceptions, because of course, I *am* a hair-trigger asshole who often has the impulse to start screaming and stabbing people, and sometimes in the moment I think 'the calculation favors breaking the social contract', and later, when I'm more calm and composed I realize that that was not the best way to handle the situation. Breaking the social contract has consequences, and it's not always fun to deal with them after you're done wallowing in your id!

Does that make sense? I'm happy to elaborate as needed.

I cannot stress enough that "I am a villain and a bad person who just happens to think that it's important to be polite and nice to people" is not an online bit. That's just me.

[whenthelightisrunninglow]

spent the last couple nights watching the handplates (<- @zarla-s if you’ve never read it) comic dub with a friend of mine :-]

gaster ^

[marty--party]

O for … OUTFITS

✨ walk walk fashion baby ✨

[serpentface]

Omg, is there any more about Odonii battlefield performance?

Faiza giving a full battlefield performance, which includes grimacing, sinister looks, letting out terrifying war cries, and banging on her shield with her dagger's pommel. She's wearing a full set of armor, which is functional but highly decorative. A squire will be present somewhere nearby to carry the rest of her weaponry.

As mentioned in the other post, Odonii generally do not actually Participate in fighting. Their perpetual armament and training to correctly Use this armament has predominantly symbolic functions, with their bodies as vessels for state and military empowerment and integrity.

Their normal role on the battlefield is:

a) Spiritual protection for their associated warriors and intimidation of enemies.

Their role is partially to be the ‘guardian lion’ figure in human form, their presence and performance in of itself is considered metaphysically protective. This guardian lion nature is played up and reinforced with their dress and behavior- they wear lion skins over their armor, paint their faces red to obscure human features, perform war cries tailored to sound inhuman (not like lions, just a very shrill and frightening sound). They perform ‘frenzied’ movements that intend to evoke an enraged animal- pacing, banging on their shields, biting their weapons/shields, baring teeth, exaggerated glances that emphasize the whites of their eyes, etc. This can be a disturbing sight- reassuring to their allies who know a frightening spiritual guardian figure is on their side, and demoralizing to an enemy (the latter especially in conjunction with common beliefs that Odonii are witches/shapeshifters)

b) A motivating factor to get the men to fight more bravely.

This is partly out of religious belief (you will probably be a little bolder if you feel reassurance that God is very much present and on your side, via Its priestesses), partly out of esteem for the order (you are highly motivated to perform for their recognition and protect them from harm). In a way, their role on the battlefield is the Least masculinized aspect of their performance- they are in part there to remind men of their mothers, wives, and daughters, who they are supposed to be the protectors of and whose benefit they are ultimately (at least deemed to be) fighting for.

In some cases, this is taken to a (cultural relative) extreme wherein they will expose their breasts towards their own men as a part of battlefield performance, in the form of a supplicatory gesture (bearing the breasts and thumping on the chest with a fist). (The Odomache’s nude body should never be publicly seen under any circumstances, limited and controlled exposure by Odonii Can be appropriate). Breasts are not sexualized in this cultural sphere, but are not treated as neutral body parts either, instead having values of motherly nurturing and feminine vulnerability projected onto them. Odonii showing tits will be a DISTINCT reminder of the ‘vulnerable female’ elements that the men should be protecting, and can be highly motivating (especially in the context of a figure who is otherwise behaviorally ‘masculinized’, it’s jarring and can have useful emotional impact).

c) General spiritual leadership (in connection to a & b).

Weapons dances are an aspect of military training and the kagnoma odo dance is always performed prior to conventional battles, Odonii lead these dances. This has multifacted functions- it is believed to spiritually bless the troops, it is a means of practicing with weaponry/limbering up, it is a psychological rallying point and good for morale, and it may intimidate your enemy who can see it happening from a distance (by displaying readiness/eagerness to battle, good discipline, unity, and physical might). Odonii also perform personalized blessings of soldiers, weapons, and armor.

c) Filling gaps in the command structure or acting as commanders

Odonii are involved in strategic meetings, and ones who receive battlefield roles are very well studied in military tactics. As a matter of technicality, their commands to the body of Imperial Wardi troops do not override those of generals or other ranking soldiers (though they will often be deferred to regardless), but they can fill in gaps in the command structure in case of death of high ranking soldiers or if lines become scattered and communication breaks down.

Additionally, there are two elite warrior orders presided over by the Odonii priesthood (the rest answer directly to the Usoma's court appointed general), with senior Odonii as their commanders and the Odomache as their general. (This is one of many political tension points between the priesthood and monarchy, given that the Odonii have managed to get themselves about 200 high skill, firearm'ed warriors that are separate from the normal military structure, only as loyal to the Usoma as their current general is, and Very beloved among the public so you can't just like, outright kill or disarm this very obvious threat.)

d) A strategic flexing of eastern seaway honorable combat norms

Conventions of honorable warfare have broad commonalities across the eastern seaway peoples, one of which is that noncombatants (by default- women, girls, prepubsecent boys, unarmed elderly men) are not legitimate targets in the normal process of open war (but are fair game in contexts like sieges when a foe has refused to surrender on behalf of their population). Odonii being armed throws a wrinkle into this - they are still effectively ‘noncombatants’ by virtue of being women, but if they actually Engage in fighting they do present a threat that could be justifiably neutralized.

If they do not actually Use their arms they are not legitimate targets, and an enemy concerned with honorable combat will have to work around their presence (or risk social/retaliatory consequences if he does not). They are thus effectively human shields- at the very least introducing an additional layer of difficulties for an opponent to navigate, and sometimes actively putting their bodies between their men and their opponents.

e) as a factor of D, potential mediator figures.

When in conventional battles, Odonii on losing sides are usually expected to allow themselves to be captured without resistance. They stand a very high chance of being taken alive and remaining unharmed due to a combination of factors- baseline honorable warfare practices (which are ABSOLUTELY not always followed, but at least Influence behavior), fears of material consequences in retribution for harming the priestess, fears of spiritual consequences for harming a potentially powerful witch, knowledge that releasing an Odonii unscathed may give the captors a better negotiating position down the line, or knowledge that an Odonii is a very valuable hostage and can make for a good bargaining chip.

Because of this element, captured Odonii are expected to perform mediation roles, negotiate the release of hostages, carry messages from their captors, or bravely tolerate hostage conditions (ideally while gaining intelligence on their captors)

---

Odonii very, very rarely actually participate in combat (and are in fact not Supposed To in the vast majority of circumstances).

They are, however, fairly well equipped for it. Their perpetual armament is symbolic in nature, but its intended function of empowering their bodies and the state by proxy additionally requires them to know how to Use It. They are trained and regularly drill and engage in mock battles in each of their key weapons/defensive combinations (sword, sword and shield, spear, spear and shield, longgun, handgun) and are expected to be adept at their use. Odonii who attend battlefields, while not being directly engaged, are still in very high-stress and dangerous environments and will have to learn to stay calm and collected under duress. All this doesn't mean every Odonii would be a skilled warrior in an actual combat situation (given that most will have no experience fighting someone who is actually trying to Kill Them), but it does mean they have enough technical skill and mental fortitude to stand a decent chance.

The only times where they are SUPPOSED to actively engage is when a battle is deemed as an existential struggle and is being lost (in practice, the main context for this is a siege), or losing against a foe deemed so thoroughly depraved that they won’t even slightly follow wartime conventions. The idea in these situations is that they are most likely already doomed, and that they should die protecting their people in battle.

Wardi history is filled with stories of Odonii fighting and dying in desperate conflicts (particularly against Imperial Bur), but this is at least Partly historical revisionism (there WERE some women in proto-Odonii roles involved in these conflicts, but these retellings project the modern Odonii order onto its multiple progenitor practices).

Odonii are frequently present on battlefields, but there are only two major instances of modern era Odonii participating in battle as full combatants, both involving conflict with Finnerich

---

The fully modern incarnation of the order can be defined as starting in the late period of Burri occupation, in which multiple Wardi city-states and kingdoms allied against a common foe, and the separate progenitors of the Odonii tradition began to coelesce into a single practice. These alliances were mostly dropped after Burri withdrawal, and the immediate post-withdrawal period was a chaotic scrambling to politically stabilize and assert old territorial claims- thus most Wardi states resumed hostile or indifferent relations with one another. (The one exception is that Wardin and Ephennos remained allied, which shortly would become a Big Deal). Forms of early Odonii now existed throughout most of these states, just not united under a single banner.

The city of Godsmouth was blockaded and besieged by Finnerich during this period (taking advantage of its historical rival’s weakness in the political chaos of de-occupation and hoping to capture or at least maim the city), and some of these early Odonii were involved in this conflict and are known to have engaged.

Godsmouth was a rival to its neighboring states more than anything else- there was little reason for others to send aid in the conflict, and it was left to fend for itself. It was and is a heavily fortified city, and thus the siege lasted for months, with the strategy turning to starving the population out rather than the risky maneuver of throwing troops at well-defended gates to force entry. The Finn forces never managed to breach the inner walls, but were very successful at starving the city's population, raiding its farmlands and villages, and destroying its ports and capturing or burning its ships, all with minimal casualties on their side.

The strategy of the siege finally turned to a risky push to breach and capture the city (due to Finnerich’s own dwindling resources and logistical difficulties in restocking due to storms at sea, and news that an allied Wardin and Ephennos had, in an unprecedented move, been persuaded to send reinforcements (in return for Godsmouth's sworn fealty and absorption into their alliance)), and Finn forces succeeded in breaking through the outer walls. This developed into a very dramatic standoff in which the remaining warriors and/or civilians of Godsmouth attempted to fend off the attack long enough for reinforcements to arrive (which would take days by sea).

Odonii are very famously known to have fully engaged in this stretch of the conflict on the front lines, as it represented an existential threat to the city-state (it’s a fortified settlement, if it was captured, reinforcements would not matter). Some of the recountings are distinctly fanciful (describing Odonii and noblemen leading Siege Of Helms Deep style khaitback charges into masses of enemies, or SWEARING that one of them actually did turn into a lion and ripped apart a hundred Finns before she succumbed to her wounds). An At Least Partially True Story With Exaggerated Elements of the final days of the siege describes the Odonii priestess Hibrides Odiboe rallying a group of elderly men into battle by baring her breasts and scratching deep, bleeding wounds into her chest, declaring herself as 'your mothers, your wives, your daughters, and look how I bleed while you hide behind your walls and wait to die.' While accounts have fantastical elements, it is factual that Odonii priestesses fought and died defending the city's inner walls, notably filling command positions left vacant by slain or starved leaders and rallying citizens to the front lines.

The end of the siege was ultimately a pyrrhic victory for Godsmouth- the city was never actually taken but its population was starved and riddled with disease, its farmlands were burned, and its ports were destroyed. Finnerich forces retreated before reinforcements arrived after failing to break through the inner walls in time, but had succeeded in most objectives of severely wounding their historical enemy. It has been a source of collective trauma in Godsmouth since that point (it is now out of living memory, but vivid stories remain of seeing the dead eaten by dogs and the starving eating the dogs that ate the dead, watching family members succumb to disease and starvation, all while hearing the sounds of fighting draw closer and closer with no reason to believe that any help would ever come), but ultimately recontextualized as a victory, a turning point in the arc of modern history. (The Wardin-Ephennos-Godsmouth alliance, which formed in full as a result of this conflict, would become the triple state that conquered the rest of the region and formed Imperial Wardin).

The direct participation of Odonii in this conflict is heavily played up in the narrative as the order in its purest form as sovereignty incarnate, the priestesses bravely fighting for (what would turn out to be) the beginnings of the Imperial Wardi state. The 11 Odonii who died fighting in the siege have been bestowed sainthood and are memorialized in a series of guardian lion statue-shrines overlooking Godsmouth’s ports (in which their ashes and bones are stored).

---

The other instance of modern era Odonii engaging in conflict is significantly less romantic, occurring in the context of the Extremely failed second invasion of Finnerich.

During and after the rout that resulted in the Odomache's capture and killing, it became exceptionally clear to the Imperial Wardi forces that They Were Fucked. The conflict veered with REMARKABLE speed from being an attempt end the state's civil war between the Imperial Wardi-loyalist provincial puppet government and its rebelling northwest population, to a desperate struggle for Wardi forces to get out of Finnerich Alive. At this point it was assumed (fairly accurately) that any defeated party would be summarily executed, so most Odonii present ended up directly engaging in battle. Two are known to have died leading soldiers in a bid to retrieve the Odomache's body, others fought and/or died while defending the retreat.

A few Finn Odonii (women appointed as a local sect of the priesthood after the initial takeover) remained in the capital after the Wardi forces fucked off overseas, and were executed along with the rest of the installed loyalist government and priests (though it's unlikely that they were involved in any fighting, as the provincial government surrendered after the withdrawal).

Odonii veterans of the invading force have not fared well in the aftermath. Most of those who survived the ambush in which the Odomache was captured have ended up committing honorable suicide due to breaking vows in abandoning their leader in retreat, failing to retrieve her body, and/or being assaulted in capture. More have committed (ostensibly ritual, probably emotionally driven) suicide in the years that followed, with the knowledge that their leader's death and defilement and this severing of God's spirit has brought doom upon their land in the form of an unbroken drought and famine, and that they failed to prevent this. The priestess who was captured alive to witness the Odomache's death and released unharmed to report it was the first.

All this has opened some vacancies in the order's leadership, and given things a very somber tone. It is currently in debate as to whether the ones who died on Finn soil (particularly those who died attempting to retrieve their leader's body) should be canonized as saints or if it's a little too soon for all that.

[puppppppppy]

AND I MET THE CHANGE GOD TOO. OKAY. COOL OKAY