#i was half conflicted but mainly positive when it came out

[warlenys]

a year on and i love dennis takes a mental health day like the leniency that he affords the workers of the system representing him reframing himself and/or the gang as simply victims who deserve kindness and forgiveness and that then allowing him to dial back his anger towards them and himself. the sweet unhealthy drinks he shouldn’t get but then actually really enjoys because self care is about treating yourself and he needs to start existing outside of his self inflicted rules and standards. n for nancy b for boy because. well. then the second n for nancy there are two n for nancys which is. well. then “who is the person who created your customer service system in such a way that the information entered into the computer isn’t passed on to the Human representative”. emphasis very much on Human. then obviously pressure cooking a diamond out of the cold heart of the system’s creator. eating it. accepting it. birthing something new and beautiful out of something now recognised as damaging and obsolete. it being gentle and merciful and crazy gay. then it all ends with him impressing and arguably minorly flirting with a security guard. incredible episode

[mikachusblog]

Aria lore!

I have posted Aria before here and here, but I wanted to have at least one post dedicated to his lore and backstory on my blog! See it as a proper introduction kinda.. though it'll mainly just be me blabbering.. you can read about him under the cut! ໒꒰ྀིᵔ ᵕ ᵔ ꒱ྀི১

Aria Nazari, gen 5 of my legacy, 17 years old, he/him, half persian. Bisexual, currently in the closet.

Traits: party animal, music lover Aspiration: aspiring party planner Home: evergreen harbor Likes: piano, singing, snowboarding, streetwear fashion, high energy sims, deep conversations, tattoos, dyeing (frying) his hair, 80s rock, being the center of attention (but only when it's positive), manga, videogames, carrot cake Dislikes: public displays of affection, small talk, the color yellow, shrimp, cucumbers, being told what to do, the smell of scented candles

Bio! Writing this made me realise i made him go through sm this poor kid

Raised by parents consumed by addiction, Aria and his two older siblings had to fend for themselves, growing up under very poor circumstances. He keeps minimal contact with his siblings in present day.

Aria was put into a foster system at age 10, following the death of his parents. After being placed into his first foster home, he met Mable and Nathan at school. The trio quickly became inseparable.

Mable is Aria's closest friend, the one person he confides in. Nathan was his first in a lot of aspects; his first love, first kiss and first relationship. Before this blooming love got the chance to develop any further, Nathan passed away in a motorcycle accident. This marked the end of the few years of genuine happiness in Aria's life.

He bounced between various foster homes, his charismatic spirit and histrionic personality disorder masking the scars of a deeply traumatic childhood. His journey took a turn when he was placed with a new foster family, a couple determinded to offer him warmth and stability, albeit for just one year.

He was hesitant about attempting to get close to them, as he knew how easily his previous foster homes had dropped him. Conflicts and strained relationships followed, as Aria's behaviour was far from exemplary in high school. His foster parents Deryn and Xin Yi's love for him however, remained.

Mable kept in contact with him throughout the years following their separation, but the two didn't get to see each other again until their senior year of high school. They reunited at age 17, when Aria moved back to Evergreen Harbor to live with Deryn and Xin Yi purely by chance. He told Mable about the nature of his relationship with Nathan, which came as no surprise to her. She literally had her suspicions since day 1.

Aria met his next love interest, Niamh, at a party. Immediate attraction and easy-flowing conversations followed. He eventually asked her out on a date. Despite Aria's initial trust in his ability to move on from Nathan, frequent panic attacks and feelings of guilt proved the opposite. Niamh confronted him on the night of prom with a false rumour about him cheating on her. He hesitantly went along with it despite it being untrue, thinking it would be an easier and less painful way out compared to coming clean about his relationship with his dead friend. Didn't go as planned obviously, both of them were heartbroken and Aria got his ass beat by Niamh's best friend Nika.

He is currently prepping his uni application with Mable. The two are aiming to go to Britechester together.

Some random facts

Music has always been an outlet for Aria, ever since his elementary school teacher introduced him to the piano. He's a talented singer too!

He's afraid of death and the dark.

He smokes and grows his own weed but stays away from other drugs.

He picked up babysitting as a side gig, partially to avoid raising his foster parents suspicions regarding the money he makes from selling weed.

[cassynite]

Do you have any PF:WotR (or Kingmaker) OC's? I'd love to hear about them.

Aaaaah thank you so much for asking! I do have OCs, but I'm not terribly used to talking about them, hopefully this is entertaining! I have two main OCs that I like to write about in WOTR.

The first is Sparrow, who's my main Knight Commander. After she was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Cheliax as a child, Sparrow spent most of her life as a bodyguard and body-double for the young Lady Evaethi of House Arvanxi, a Chelish noble house that had fallen out of favor with the queen. Her main job was to keep Evaethi safe during events deemed low-risk for Evaethi, and to pretend to be Evaethi at events where it was considered too dangerous for Evaethi to show up at all.

A few years before the Fifth Crusade, Evaethi and Sparrow were sent to Mendev as part of a diplomatic envoy. Evaethi, out of her controlling father's immediate sphere of influence for the first time in her life, ran away for a life of freedom and adventure with only a written half-hearted apology for Sparrow to find. Sparrow, now on the line for the missing lady but unable to run away herself due to a tracking spell placed on her, pretended to be Evaethi in Mendev to keep Evaethi's family from finding out she ran away. While doing so she looked find a way to undo the spell on her that allows Evaethi's father to track her wherever she goes.

She was traveling to Kenabres to meet with an artificer who had offered a solution to her problem for a hefty fee. She ends up never meeting him; on the way there she is attacked, and the next thing she knows she's waking up in Kenabres with a wound on her chest :3

Sparrow is a quiet aasimar woman of about twenty-three years old. She has rather muted coloring for an aasimar, with straight brassy hair and pale brown eyes. She doesn't trust easily, is cautious almost the point of decision paralysis at times, and is always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Her first instinct is to follow the advice and directives of those around her to avoid conflict, and her first instinct in the face of conflict is to go silent and endure until it's over. She is terrified of the exposure she gains from becoming a public figure and resents the series of events as well as the people that placed her in such a position of power. When she lets her guard down, though, or comes across something or someone she cares for very much, she can get incredibly emotional and passionate. And when she decides to commit to something--as she eventually does the duty of leading the Crusade--she puts her all into it.

Uuuuuh she's a Sword Saint who wields a scimitar, goes on the angel path, and romances Daeran <3

--

The other main OC that I work with is one that I imagined mainly as a companion in wrath. Kallesto Voness, called Vonzi, is introduced as a woman without a past, an oracle with incredible abilities over cold and frostbitten hands, but difficulty communicating and concentrating. She has little memory of who she was before the start of the game and only knows that she came to Kenabres to do "something important." She also ends up staying on the Crusade as the Commander's powers end up helping her mental state, giving her periods of lucidity where she is shown to be a forthright, carefree person with a dry sense of humor.

Her big thing is that her abilities over cold are actually just a byproduct of her real powers, given to her by a rogue Aeon--she can travel back in time, but doing so takes a toll on her body and mind until she loses her "grip" on the time she traveled to and "snaps" back into her present, undoing whatever she had done while existing in the past. The only way she can ever make changes to the past permanent is by continuing to exist in that time, which slowly destroys her mind and body, and dying in the past, which keeps her from snapping back. She traveled back in time to stop her entire family from dying while working for the Crusade and her mental state is due to her powers slowly breaking down her body and her brain as she forces herself to remain in the past. With the KC's help she can save her family, but ultimately the KC will have to choose whether to let her die from the collapsing weight of her own abilities or let go of her family and what happened to them, causing her to reset the timeline and kill them all over again.

She's an Oracle, Wave Mystery, with additional plot powers and a homebrew variation of the burned hands curse to fit with her theme of cold. Most of my thoughts with her involves her past growing up in Sargava and her relationship with her family, which is Very Complicated.

[a-tale-never-told]

A Speilburg fan huh? Then have you seen Schafrillias' video ranking all his movies? If so, what are your thoughts on it?

//I've seen it before, and I do believe he made some pretty valid points and criticisms regarding Spielberg's notoriously filmography, considering that ranking all of Steven Spielberg's movies would' honestly be an in-depth analysis within of itself, and I'm already starting to feel fatigued after watching and spending an endless amount of time watching these movies, so that's an analysis which will be created sometime in the possible future.

//While I mostly agree with Schafrillas's judgment about the films and his astute reasoning as to why they're ranked in the positions that they are located in, and Schindler's List wholeheartedly deserved to be placed as the greatest and finest work Speilberg's ever made in his entire career as a director and producer, I disagreed with him when it came to his reviewing of the Indiana Jones franchise, as well as some other particular entries on his list, but I'll mainly focus on reviewing his beliefs on Indiana Jones for tonight because I'm feeling drained out due to typing the story chapter.

//Don't get my intentions wrong, I'd mostly agree with him in terms of the rankings of these movies and why they're placed at the ranking, to begin with. However, his reasoning and explanatory statements about why these films have problematic issues are rather baffling and downright bizarre at the worst opportunity of times.

//For example, during his review of Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, he states that the majority of the first half of the film was pretty spectacular in the sense that it brought back a feeling of nostalgia for Indiana Jones fans who wanted to experience that feeling once the original trilogy had concluded, and I surely cannot disagree with that.

//However, when he mentioned that the opening scene of the film was a strong part that hooked us into the story, I frowned in dismay, because I realized that he left out on one of the more significant issues in this movie and that the entirety of the open act plainly doesn't make sense when you're given the full, detailed, and reasonable context of how this scene plays.

//Given that almost half of my followers don't understand much historical knowledge, allow me to elaborate on that statement. Since the setting is based on the backdrop of the Cold War, the high-intensity, mutually embittered hatred, conflict between The United States and Soviet Russia, the notion of Irina Spalko and her troops infiltrating a US Army base in Nevada, disguised as US servicemen to obtain and capture Indiana, was absolutely nonsensical to me.

//Any plausible believably for the story was automatically lost for me once I watched that particular scene. If this occurred in a more grounded, realistic setting, World War 3 would've almost certainly happened, and, likely, the entirety of the storyline for this movie wouldn't have happened, as they'd all just get bombarded by the sheer amount of shockwaves and radium coming from the nuclear arsenal of both the Soviet Union and the USA, respectively.

//I'd promptly like to remind an entire portion of you that both America and the Soviets have unlimited resources and endless access to nuclear weaponry and technology, and it's very plausible that they would've eliminated each other within seconds if information regarding this blatant disregard of international law was breached. Yet the opening scene somehow ignores the political consequences and ramifications that could result from a situation like this, and instead forsakes realism for the sake of creating an awesome opening.

//It's not that you're unable to write this scene and let it transition intentionally the way you want it to function, but there's gotta be a sense of realistic writing and certainly a clear understanding of the extending consequences and problems that might arise from situations to make a scene like this work, which this film obviously didn't learn, and I felt weirdly confused as to why Schafrillas left that gigantic plot point out of the review.

//Another key issue I have is with his criticisms of Raiders Of the Lost Ark, and his statements that the film wasn't as character-motivated or directly driven towards fleshing out their characterization. Now, I'm not one of those blind, Raiders fanboys who constantly dismiss any valid critiques of the movie as "heresy, because I've watched the movie, and while I do think that it's an undisputed classic that's worth a rewatch, I strongly have a belief that objectively speaking, Last Crusade is the overall more compelling Indiana Jones film to me.

//Schafrillas, unfortunately, seems to neglect the amount of character depth Raiders made within an hour's worth of runtime. While I solemnly believe that compared to the Last Crusade, Raider's methods of handling characterization were a bit underwhelming, considering that Indy's portrayal in Raiders does come off as generally simplistic, but what he honestly failed to realize is that Raiders had a fair share of character depth, despite it not being that relevant.

//In the first act of the film, we'd got to establish the character's personalities and their motivations for wanting to discover the Ark Of The Covenant, though I felt it should've been executed a little better than what we ended up with. Indy and Marion's motivations for recovering the Ark could be interpreted as trying to preserve such a sacred, holy, artifact from falling into the hands of the Nazis, but also wanting to avenge the death of Abner Ravenwood, Marion's father, whom the Nazis presumably killed once they got all of the valuable information from him.

//And Belloq's motivations for wanting to obtain the Ark for himself and only aligning himself with the Nazis simply because they'd already started searching for the Ark, and Belloq needed them for knowledge on how to locate it can be perfectly seen as a believable motivation for his actions, though I sadly wished they'd flesh him out more as a three-dimensional character than they did in the actual film, aside from a few scenes where he truly establishes himself with some iconic one-liners and great scenes.

//I do agree with Schafrilla's assessment that compared to the Last Crusade, Raider's characterization and in-depth writing of the characters and complex motivations of the antagonists don't feel as narratively impactful to me as Last Crusade was, but he neglected crucial scenes that depict some fair amount of character writing when it's shown, like with Indy and Marion's tumultuous relationship or Belloq and Indy conversating with each other over their mutual interest in archeology.

//I'm not saying that Raiders is an objectively weak movie because it's quite the opposite of what I'm trying to say here, but compared to the absolute near-masterpiece that was Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, it could've done better in regards to handling it's characterization and character writing, aside from Sallah, who's the character with the most enjoyable writing in the film^^

[cjsinkythoughts]

Inner Conflict

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader

Word Count: 3586

Warnings: !FATWS SPOILERS!, Cursing, Some Angst, Some Fluff, Sam and Bucky being idiots, Mentions of PTSD, Anxiety, and Depression

A/N: Here’s Part Three to my FATWS Series, which I’m making a masterlist for that you can find Here. 

Uh…it’s a little long, and I apologize for that. It doesn’t even encompass the whole second episode, only the first half, so a Part 3.5 will be coming out later today probably (it’s my day off work so I have all day to relax and write!) I tried not doing a line for line rewrite of the episode, but there are quotes from the show in here. Mostly it’s Reader’s thoughts and feelings towards what’s happening while conversations are going on around. Reader’s backstory is a bit more unfurled. It’s more action packed and more scene-for-scene of the episode than the previous two. Less emotions shared and less hurt/comfort type of thing, but that’ll be back in the next part probably along with more scenes not in the show. The next part I’m planning won’t be as long, it’ll mainly just be the Couples Therapy scene and a bit more angst with her and Sam and her and Bucky.

Because there’s four more episodes and I don’t know what’s going to happen in them, I’m kinda hesitant on spilling out exactly what is going on with the Reader and what her role was on the original team, but we’ll get there. Also, I wasn’t expecting to be writing multiple pieces for one episode, but if the other episodes are as packed as this one, prepare yourself for more parts than anticipated. We’re already on Part 3 and I’ve got Part 3.5 coming. Just bare with me as I don’t know what’s going to happen in future episodes! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy it! 

(Not beta’d so excuse any mistakes.)

!SPOILERS UNDER CUT!

Walking out of the shower, ruffling a towel through your hair to dry it off, you froze at the sound of the TV. A sigh left your lips. It’s all he’d been doing the last few days - watching the news. Keeping up with the tour for the new Captain America.

You peeked out of the small bedroom to find Bucky sitting on the floor, brow creased as he watched John Walker talk to the Good Morning America hostess.

“You shouldn’t be watching that.” You spoke up, leaning on the doorway, still patting your hair dry. He glanced over to you, taking in the towel wrapped around you, before looking back at the TV. Seeing you like that wasn’t anything new. “Buck, I’m serious. Brooding over it won’t make anything better.”

“What do you want me to do?”

You let out a sigh, shifting your feet and biting your lip as you thought about how to respond. “I-I haven’t figured it out yet. But obsessing over the new guy-”

“Aren’t you mad?”

You frowned at his question, his eyes meeting yours once more. “I told you already that I am.”

He tilted his head, which he did when he was confused, his eyes narrowing. “Why don’t you show it? Why aren’t you screaming or cursing or crying or something? You, of all people-”

“Because it won’t help anything, Buck.” You shook your head, pushing off the wall. “I want to. But if I let myself go down that road…” Dropping your gaze to the floor, you take a breath, collecting your thoughts. “This is such a complicated situation, James. I’m being contacted left and right for a statement on the new Captain. People trying to see my reaction. Senators trying to get me to meet with him. I can’t let myself snap. I can’t.”

He scowled. “They’re still bothering you?”

A dry chuckle escaped your lips and you nodded. “Makes me miss the days when no one knew who I was; when I was the behind-the-scenes seventh Avenger. But I made that choice to come out, and I have to deal with the consequences now. Blowing up will only-”

“Even though I never met him…he feels like a brother.”

That one statement stopped you in your tracks. Bucky’s head whipped back to the TV, his jaw ticking, his nose scrunching up.

“Did he really just say that?”

Bucky merely nodded, his chest heaving as he tried getting his breathing under control. “Feel like snapping now?”

You purse your lips as you held in the tears stinging your eyes. After composing yourself, you moved over and grabbed the remote, letting out a tiny sniffle as you did so. You tentatively touched Bucky’s shoulder, silently asking him if he needed anything from you. His response was to open his arms, so you quickly got down besides him to hold him.

“He is my brother, doll.”

“I know, Buck.” You pressed a soft kiss to his head, which rested against your bare shoulder.

Your bare knees are pressed harshly against the wooden panels of the floor, and you’re twisted awkwardly, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. As long as he was comfortable, you would take the uncomfortable position. As long as he was being held, you would take the soreness it would leave. As long as you could help him be some sort of okay, you would take not being okay in this position.

 You two sat like that for a few more moments before your phone buzzed. You gave a sigh, pulling back and holding his cheeks in either hand. He wasn’t crying, although he was on the verge of doing so. You’d seen him cry before, so you knew he didn’t mind. For you it was a different story.

Bucky had maybe seen you cry twice since the whole Blip thing went down. And one of them was over the phone, so he didn’t see it so much as he heard it. You didn’t let yourself cry in front of him. Or anyone, for that matter. It was a part of you. The only person you ever felt comfortable enough around to cry in front of…wasn’t there. And you couldn’t change that.

“We’ll figure it out.” You told him, nodding gently and letting a small, sad smile quirk the corners of your lips up. “Okay? We’ll figure it out.”

The clench in his jaw loosened as your fingers worked circles into the hinge, making him relax and nod back. You pressed a tender kiss to his forehead before standing up, moving across the room to where your phone was on the counter. You assumed it’d be another government official or news reporter, so you were slightly shocked to see ‘Sammy’ flashing up at you.

Your eyebrows furrowed as you read his message, a slight pout forming on your face. 

“Doll?” Toned arms wrapped around you, warm and cool, his chin setting on your shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Sam. He needs my help with something.”

“I’m coming with you.”

You turned in his arms, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Why?”

He shrugged, licking his lips. “You might need help.”

“Bucky, you can’t go if you’re just going to yell at him.”

“I won’t.”

You studied his features. He was lying, you knew that. Of course he was going to snap at Sam for giving up the shield. He was mad and they got on each others’ nerves every chance they could find, so of course he was going to.

But you still found yourself saying yes and telling him to go pack a bag. You were never able to say no to Steve and it seemed that got passed on. What a nuisance it was.

****************

And you were so right. It was the first thing he said once Sam came into view coming down the stairs.

“You shouldn’t have given up the shield, Sam.”

“James.” You squeezed the hand he was holding, voice pleading for him not to do this right now. He huffed, stepping back to let you greet Sam properly, giving the man a hug. “Hi, Sammy.”

“It’s been a while.” Sam commented, pulling back and holding you by the shoulders. “You look good. Not that you’ve ever looked otherwise.”

You gave him a small smile. “You do too.”

“Thanks for coming. I know it’s short notice, but-”

“It’s fine, Sam. Really.” You insist.

Sam nodded, before eyeing Bucky. “Did you have to bring him?”

“Samuel-”

“This is wrong.” Bucky cut in, staring Sam down, falling into step besides him as the man started heading outside.

“James-”

“Hey, hey. Look. I’m working, all right?”

You rolled your eyes as the two started arguing, stopping your stride to take a breather. You used to joke about babysitting them, but it didn’t feel like a joke anymore and you were getting tired of it. All the bickering for no reason. The contempt they held for one another. Steve made you promise that you would look out for them, and you were trying, but they weren’t making it easy.

When you joined them again, you raised an eyebrow at the direction the conversation turned. How the hell did they get from arguing about the shield to what a wizard is?

“Ahh! Haha! A sorcerer is a wizard without a hat!”

You gave Sam a look as he babbled about how he was right. “Sorcerer Mickey has a hat. Isn’t that, like, how he gets his powers and everything?”

Bucky grinned at you. “Thank you!”

“Excuse you!” Sam scoffed, pointing an accusing finger at you. “We were having a conversation!”

“Yeah. A stupid conversation I just ended. Now I’m gonna be in the plane. Feel free to join me when you’re done being idiots.”

They both spluttered, but you were already walking away, leaving no room for arguments. As you loaded onto the plane, you spotted the Lieutenant whom Sam mentioned who had been helping him out with missions. Torres, you thought, remembering his name from a previous phone call with your friend.

“You Lieutenant Torres?” You asked, walking up to him.

He blinked, before his eyes widened, a grin appearing on his face. He seemed young, which you were perfectly okay with considering you’ve been working alongside old men for the past decade. It was always nice to work with a fresh face, which you found after you started working with Wanda and Peter.

The thought of the two youngest members made you falter, not having heard from either of them since Christmas almost six months prior, but you quickly recovered yourself, shaking away the worries you had for them.

“You’re Y/N Y/L/N! I’m a huge fan! I’ve read all your files!”

Chuckling a little, you held out your hand. “Most of those are heavily classified.”

He ducked his head with a little blush, rubbing the back of his neck after shaking your hand. “I, uh, I might’ve…used connections.”

“It’s okay.” You reassured him, throwing him a wink. “I won’t tell. Can you tell me what’s going on? Sam didn’t exactly explain the situation.”

He nodded, getting into ‘work mode’, something you’ve seen in most military men, informing you of their recent missions and the group known as the Flag-Smashers and giving you a file on them. He was in the middle of telling you about his solo mission in Germany when your two fellas came in, sending each other small glares, but remaining quiet.

Bucky caught your eye and sent an apologetic look your way, to which you just smiled at before turning back to Torres.

“Well I’m glad you’re okay.” You told him once he was done.

“Oh yeah. It wasn’t that bad.”

You laughed and nodded. “I’m sure. You seem like a tough kid.”

He smiled, before looking around and jabbing his thumb behind his shoulder. “I-I’ve gotta go, but-”

“We can talk later.” You promised with a grin.

“Really?!”

“Of course! I have a feeling we’ll be working together more, and I like getting to know who’s gonna have my back.”

He beamed and nodded, walking backwards. “That’d be awesome! Talk to you later then!”

You giggled as he turned around and jogged off, pumping his fist in the air. You turned to a grinning Sam and nodded towards where Torres left. “I like him. Seems like a nice kid.”

“He is. Very energetic. A little reckless, but he’s got a good heart.”

You hummed, the smile falling from your face as you flipped through the file Torres gave you. “So…Munich?”

“Yeah. Listen, I’m sorry again for taking you away from the search, but-”

“Search is off.” You informed him quickly, not looking up. “Until further notice.”

The plane went quiet, before Sam cleared his throat. “So…no sign of Wanda yet, then?”

You shut the file, looking up at the men whose features were laced with concern. “I’m gonna go talk to the pilot. Behave while I’m gone. No pushing each other off the plane.”

“Doll?”

You were stopped by the hand that grabbed your wrist as you passed Bucky. You shot him another smile, knowing it wasn’t convincing enough for him, but it being the best one you had. “I’m okay. I’ve just gotta ask him some questions.”

************

Opening your mouth to stop him, you groaned when Bucky jumped out of the plane before you could speak. First Sam jumps without sharing the plan, then Bucky jumps without having a plan. Or a parachute. Or wings. Or anything.

Torres looked at you, but all you could do was shrug. “I dunno what to tell you, kid.”

“You’re not gonna do that, are you?”

“No.” You reassured him, shaking your head. “I’m gonna wait ‘til we land like a normal person and take my bike. I just have to pray that they’ll wait to do anything stupid until I get there.”

They didn’t wait. You’re pretty sure they didn’t even think about waiting. By the time you got to them, they were fighting - and losing, might you add - to six really strong people on top of two semi trucks.

Because why wouldn’t they?

Oh, oh. And on top of that, the fake was there, throwing the shield. The shield that didn’t belong to him. The shield that meant so much more than he would ever know.

“Hi, doll! Sorry we started the party without you!” Bucky shouted from where he was hanging off the edge, that close to the street and getting his head torn off by the tire.

“I’m so tired of babysitting you two, you know that?!”

“Oh! Sorry we’re such an inconvenience for you! Blame him! He jumped the gun!” Sam shouted, coming to fly next to you as you rolled up your sleeves, standing on your bike, using one hand to steer.

“Can I get a little help already?!”

“Sam-!”

“On it!”

Knowing that no matter how much they pissed each other off, Sam would make sure Bucky was okay and vice versa, you focused on getting to the top, where Walker and a buddy of his were struggling a little bit.

You climbed up to the roof of the semi no one was on, wincing when you heard your bike skidding across the pavement. There goes half your salary.

You couldn’t dwell on it for very long, considering one of the guys appeared in front of you. You recognized the fighting - the strength - and faltered, a memory resurfacing at a very bad time.

~

“C’mon, honey. You can do better than that.” Steve grinned at you, holding out a hand to help you up.

“Excuse me for not having super strength, Rogers.” You huffed out, taking it and letting him pull you up.

“You don’t need to be stronger than me. You just need to be smarter.”

“That’ll be easy.” You teased, stretching your arms before getting into your stance again. “You’re a dumbass sometimes.”

“Yeah, well, who chose to be friends with this dumbass?”

“Everyone needs a dumbass for a friend.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “So I’m your dumbass?”

“If you want.”

The grin he shot you made your heart skip a beat. “If you’ll have me.”

~

You blinked, but Steve wasn’t in front of you anymore and you weren’t in the gym in DC. 

The guy caught the punch you distractedly threw and twisted your arm, making you cry out, kicking him in the back of the knee and flipping him over your shoulder.

You went to kick him again, but he caught your leg and threw you against the side of the other semi. You were able to grab onto where Bucky had ripped through the side, but you winced as the metal cut through your palm. Sam had just flown under the trucks, taking Buck with him, and you knew when a fight wasn’t worth it, so you quickly moved around the truck, letting Walker and his pal distract the Flag-Smashers, before letting yourself fall onto the side where the grass was.

You wanted to lay there, to catch your breath and curse yourself for getting distracted. You hadn’t had a flashback like that in a while. But you didn’t let yourself. You had to make sure the guys were okay.

Standing up made you cringe; you could feel the throbbing in your shoulder from where it was no doubt dislocated and your leg was aching, the muscle probably pulled when the guy threw you.

“Doll!” You turned, seeing Bucky and Sam sprinting towards you a few yards down the road. “Hey, hey.” Bucky immediately had his hands hovering over you, scanning your body. “Are you okay?”

You nodded, shoving his hands away. “I’m fine.”

“What’s wrong with your shoulder?”

“I think I dislocated it.”

Sam frowned. “What the hell happened?”

You gave him a weird look, starting to limp across the field to where you noticed a side road earlier. “They were super soldiers, Sam. And we got our asses kicked.”

“Yeah, but you know how to fight a super soldier-”

“It’s been a while.”

“Bullshit.” Sam side stepped in front of you, making you stop. “What happened?”

“I-I just got distracted, okay?”

“Y/N. Look at me.” Bucky took your face between his palms, eyes worried. “Are you okay?”

You nodded. A tired sigh left your lips and you looked anywhere but his eyes. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just hurting. My leg, I think I pulled it or something-”

“C’mere.” Bucky turned and crouched down, making you blink.

“What?”

“You shouldn’t be walking. We don’t wanna make it worse.”

“But it’s just a strain, it won’t-”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Just get on the man’s back, Y/N.”

You bit your lip before sighing and carefully climbing on his back. He shifted you gently, making sure to hold your leg with caution, leaning his head into yours when you hooked your chin on his shoulder. “You-you don’t have to talk about what happened. Just-just know that when you do…I’ll be here, okay?”

You nodded, moving to press your nose against the column of his throat. “Okay.”

But you could never tell them. How could you? How could you tell the world’s longest POW that you were having nightmares? How could you complain to an Air Force vet who served two tours in Afghanistan and watched his best friend get blown out of the air that you were having flashbacks?

You weren’t sure if it was PTSD or anxiety or depression. Maybe all three. It didn’t matter, though, because you didn’t want to admit it. You wouldn’t admit it. No one thought the Blip messed you up that badly. No one thought Steve leaving did that much damage. And you were okay with that. You were okay with them thinking you were healing - that you were fine - because they needed to see that it could be done. That they could be fine, too. Especially the men walking, Sam teasing Bucky per usual.

It wasn’t until a horn honked that you allowed yourself to be pulled out of your thoughts. A scoff left you when you realized who it was, switching the side you were laying on so your cheek pressed up against the cool metal of his left shoulder, facing away from the jeep.

You tried ignoring the guy as he talked about working together and shit, taking a shuddering breath, making Bucky squeeze your uninjured thigh. There was no way you were working with him. You couldn’t. It’d be like betraying Steve and you didn’t need that on top of all the other things you were dealing with.

You couldn’t deny the need for a ride though. The airport was 20 miles away and you were hurting pretty bad. You suspected that was the reason the guys relented, Bucky tenderly setting you down in the jeep between him and Sam, careful of your injuries.

You stared at your lap as Walker and Sam talked shop. You understood where they were coming from, you were always able to see both sides of the coin, but it didn’t mean you were going to willingly work with him.

“I got mad respect for all of y’all, but you were kind of getting your asses kicked till we showed up.”

You scoffed at that, finally raising your eyes to meet Walker’s friend’s. “Like you were doing any better?”

Bucky reached over to grab her hand that was resting on her lap. “You know, I’ve been trying to get in contact with you.” Walker faced you, eyes raking down your form. Bucky shifted in his spot, but you ran your thumb over his knuckles before he could do or say anything stupid.

“Yeah. I know. My phone hasn’t stopped blowing up for a week. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Walker frowned. “If you just answered-”

“I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what you’ve done. I’ve been a little busy doing my job to blow smoke up your ass on national television. Sorry if my saving people’s lives has been an inconvenience for you, but some wannabe playing dress up isn’t my top priority.”

Walker’s brows furrowed and he was about to say something, when Bucky cut in, asking his friend who he was. You were already that close to jumping out of the jeep, when the guy, Hoskins, told you three that he went by ‘Battlestar’.

If the situation wasn’t so aggravating, you would’ve laughed when Bucky immediately told the driver to stop, opening the door before the car even stopped. “C’mere, doll.” He murmured, lifting you up into his arms bridal style, before walking off, tuning out Walker as he shouted after you two.

You pouted a little when you saw Sam still talking to the guy. “What’re they talking about, Buck?”

“Some nonsense about him not replacing Steve. Just trying to be the best Captain America he can.”

You laid your head against Bucky’s chest. “The best Captain America is Steve. He can never be Steve.”

“I know, doll.”

“Steve told me once that all he was trying to do was be a good man…it’ll always amaze me that he didn’t see he was the best.”

You missed the distraught look Bucky shot towards you, the look in his eyes almost heartbroken while you talked fondly about his best friend. The tortured scrunch to his features seemed to melt away at your next words, though, and he held you tighter as you curled into his hold.

“Just like it amazes me that you don’t know how important you are to me too, Buckaroo.”

[rabbittwinrithings]

do you have any tidbits on varrick you're willing to share? i'm super excited for an evil-aligned follower from you!! (also looking forward to the potential romance option LOL)

There's some stuff I'm happy to share! Mainly things that will be known from the get-go of downloading him. (Do keep in mind, some Things are also concepts and may not make it to the final version.)

1. His evilness is subjective. He does worship Boethiah. However, he tends to not follow the teachings of every other cultists. Where some cultists view Boethiah's teaching as just kill and bloodlust, Varrrick views it as a means of survival. Boethiah asks for death and challenges her followers so they can, in simplest terms, get good.

Nirn is a cruel world where the un-trained do not survive. And Boethiah teaches her followers to survive.

Though, Varrick does love a good fight and will damn souls to Boethiah in combat! However, he also has limits. He won't just kill to kill. Half way due to his means of survival and his views on those born in an unfair position.

When in a town, he won't just kill an innocent civilian. He knows if he does he will be outnumbered and the guards will kill him. But he also knows that someone like a simple farmer isn't even worth the kill. Not only does he get anything out of it skill wise, he also knows the farmer was not born into a position of learning to fight. Varrick hates how cruel Nirn can be, and he won't contribute that onto those that are unable to fight back.

Along with this, he rather instead teach the farmer to fight. He spreads Boethiah's teaching by training the less fortunate to fight back against enemies and oppressors. At times he may teach the trainee about Boethiah, but he'll never push it. Because to Varrick and what he believes, at the end of the day is teaching others is that survival is all that matters.

I'm the type of person who does have trouble writing an evil character, especially since I play mostly good characters, this ideology of Varrick is a way for me to write an evil character who can be viewed as evil or not.

Sorry that was a bit long. Now for:

2. He does tell dad jokes and will be a bit of a soft boy. Kind of the type that looks like a terrifying man you shouldn't get in 10 yards of, but seriously is a very sweet guy underneath. (The dad joke thing also came about from a YouTube video of the voice actor of Kratos doing dad jokes and thought that would be a fun quirk.)

3. Unlike my other followers who are open to romance anyone at any time regardless of marriage status, but don't really say anything on it, Varrick will be the first one who will state he is open to a poly realtionship. I also plan for his romance to be conditional, so if you do say the wrong thing when asking about his past, he won't be romancable. And yes, he will be an utterly chaotic bisexual.

4. He will be found outside of Morthal and his initial meeting with the player is the player finding him surrounded by a bunch of dead vigilants and his reaction is basically "Oh shit."

5. He's also a bit of a return to the type of follower Khash is. Where Caryalind and Fir are important or supernatural, Khash is just an ordinary person, and so is Varrick. This is more of a hope that he won't conflict on possible non-lore friendliness as much as possible.

6. He's around 50s - 60s and is a Nord mage.

That's all I can think of for now, but if I come up with anymore ill make sure to make a post about it as I really love talking about this guy 😆

[blazestarre]

I finished Golden Wildfire, so I decided to share my thoughts. This is mainly on the Eisner family. As little screen-time as they get, I actually have a lot to say. I’ll get to Claude in a separate post since this is gonna be long.

I recruited Byleth and Jeralt - oh my god, that whole chapter was such a pain. I had to restart four times, I think? Eventually I figured out bookmarks, but they do not make it easy. Nor do they give clear instructions, especially since it works nothing like recruiting any other unit. I definitely fucked it up the first time. Got to see Jeralt and Judith die before I restarted. When I get to that point in SB and AG, I’m looking it up beforehand. 

Everyone talking about Claude, but much less talk about Sothis. WTH? Her being pissed in the scene she shows up in makes sense - Byleth is nearly killed by someone who’s related to the Agarthans and Sothis clearly has more of her memories here. That’s not the part I think is stupid (though referring to Byleth as her vessel is a huh? moment). It’s the scene after. They made her seem downright evil, acting like Byleth is a meat-puppet, which is not how Sothis ever acted before (and Sothis does get her memories back somewhat by the time they merge in 3H, so no, her memories aren’t an excuse). Just changing the dialogue in that scene would have improved things, like her saying hey, ‘I was just trying to protect you! A little thanks would be nice!’ Something closer to her actual character.

Arval is so disconnected with the story. Even getting his backstory, you only get half of what’s going on. Is Shez his descendent? Actually, what is the deal with Shez? Maybe more is revealed in other routes. BUT! When Arval takes over Shez to attack Byleth? That was pretty dope, not gonna lie. That whole chapter was intense. And then the whole thing’s dropped. No one going to ask why Arval was after Byleth in the first place? Especially since Arval does indirectly hint at something unusual about Byleth while in Zahras. 

Byleth and Shez’s A support was interesting. Was Byleth implying that she and Sothis have completely merged at this point? But then at the end, when Shez walks away, Byleth says that what she told Shez came from the goddess. So either Sothis is still there, talking to Byleth and wanted Byleth to convey her feelings on the matter or Byleth and Sothis merged completely and Byleth now views herself as sort-of inheriting that position. 

Rhea recognizes Byleth as Sitri’s child and is pretty distraught to be fighting her, at least in the final battle. The first battle, Rhea doesn’t believe it could be Byleth, because why would they be fighting each other? Notice that Rhea refers to Byleth as Sitri’s child, not Sothis’s vessel, because Rhea placed the crest stone in Byleth to save her life, not to make her a vessel. It just worked out that way.

Rhea and Jeralt also have some interesting battle dialogue. Rhea is surprised and sad to be fighting Jeralt the first time. Jeralt, for all the trust he lost in Rhea, isn’t actually all that happy to be fighting her and is clearly only doing it because he’s getting paid. He repeatedly says that the relationship is complicated. He doesn’t trust her, but he doesn’t hate her. By the second battle, Rhea is legit angry at Jeralt, saying that he better not make her regret saving him. These two interactions really show that yes, they used to be good friends. On that note...

Jeralt and Rhea met 300 years ago. Finally! Age confirmation for Jeralt! Which means Jeralt was around for the last major conflict in Fodlan.

Jeralt and Byleth’s A-support is filled with irony. Byleth:’I wish I got to see the Officer’s Academy’. Jeralt:’You’d be a student. Not like you’re qualified to be a teacher, right?’ Oh boy... But their supports do show just how important Jeralt is to Byleth. It seems like Byleth is content following her father around. As long as he’s around, she’s happy. But it’s also a detriment to her. She’s clearly doesn’t think she should lead - that’s her father’s thing. 3H repeatedly says that Byleth really changed after becoming a teacher, but it’s interesting to see what she was like before she was encouraged to come into her own.

Leonie’s interactions with Jeralt are nice, and Leonie’s jealousy of Byleth does get brought up. Shez calls her out on it during their supports, saying that duh Jeralt is closer with Byleth, that’s his kid. But it was nice getting more insight on when Jeralt and Leonie met, and where Byleth was. Turns out she was too young to go on jobs. I don’t think it’s mentioned directly, but I guess that means someone was babysitting Byleth while Jeralt did his thing. Jeralt admits several times he’s really not a great father and that he isn’t really suited for it (even though he really does love Byleth - bring Jeralt along on the mission when Arval is attacking Byleth and you can hear the Papa Wolf start to come out), but he wasn’t completely irresponsible.

Jeralt only taught Byleth the basics of swordplay and how to live as a mercenary. Everything else was talent/instinct. Even he has no idea how that happened. Just an interesting tidbit.

Wish Jeralt and Byleth would have shared their thoughts on Byleth’s nickname. 3H implies she doesn’t like it (she’s visibly upset when Hanneman mentions it), but not a peep here. I get why the developers wanted to use it (Byleth doesn’t have the Professor moniker and the name is customizable, so they needed something to refer to her as) and having Byleth say she doesn’t like it would make its usage awkward. Still something I wished could have been brought up.

Why is Alois there? When did he join up? He just up and appears with Jeralt and Byleth. I believe Ignatz is the one who questions when Alois left the knights, but it still is something that’s left in the air. Maybe it gets answered in AG, since you get to see the Church’s side?

I wished they’d show Byleth interacting with the others. I know they didn’t give her supports because she supports everyone in 3H and it might be redundant, but it would have bee nice to see how everyone reacts to her when they don’t know her as a professor. This is really made worse because she sends a letter to Shez at the end of the route, saying how she finally made friends. And yes, she says friends, plural. So why didn’t we get to see that? 

I’m sure there’s more I could say, but I think I’ll wait until I played the other routes.

[shihalyfie]

The Kaiser wasn’t very good at being a villain (and that’s the point, actually)

Ken’s journey of redemption is generally well-documented overall, and it was explicit enough in the series that there’s only so much you really need to explain it, but due to the blurred boundary of what was supernatural influence from the Dark Seed and what was Ken’s own emotional problems wreaking havoc, it’s somewhat more difficult to bridge that gap between the Kaiser and Ken, and how they can be the same person.

The easiest way to understand it comes from both directions. One is that Ken, even in his normal element, is much more assertive than he’s often given credit for -- it’s just that the Kaiser is a (fragile) manifestation of that very carefully cultivated to channel that in all of the wrong directions. The other has to do with the fact that the Kaiser is actually really terrible at being a villain, and the persona itself is very fragile and difficult for him to maintain.

Rewatching the first half of 02 shows multiple indications that, for all he seemed to be the stereotype “evil genius”, Ken was forcing himself into the mold. He was never cut out for it from day one. Even from the beginning, Ken’s actual nature as a lonely and inherently kind eleven-year-old child was tearing apart at the Kaiser persona, and the fateful episode 21 was not so much a single turning point for him as much as it was the last straw in a series of things tumbling down for him.

Before we continue: While all of the meta on this blog is only possible thanks to support and input from a handful of friends (whose names will not be disclosed on account of privacy requests), this one in particular arose from a long and extensive discussion with said friends that I am extremely grateful for. As always, I hope I was able to convey your points well.

Well, firstly, it’s important to understand that, much like nearly any other character in this series, Ken’s surface demeanor is a bit deceptive. The Crest of Kindness has the original Japanese name of yasashisa (優しさ), which has a secondary meaning of “gentleness” (lost in translation, but still apparent with the bubble metaphor in 02 episode 23). That also ties into the secondary meaning of “kind” -- it’s not just about being naturally “soft”, but actively choosing to be gentle with others even when you’re theoretically capable of not doing so. (For those of you who have seen Appmon, the entire point of that series was about what it means to consciously and deliberately choose to be kind, and, in fact, quite a few parallels could be made between Ken and Haru...)

The contrast between Daisuke and Ken goes far beyond just the surface. Daisuke’s surface demeanor is abrasive, but he’s not actually very good at being assertive until push comes to shove, and he otherwise tends to bend easily to others or get overwhelmed; in contrast, Ken has a more polite demeanor and for the most part seems non-confrontational, but has much stronger control of his emotions and is more easily able to be assertive than Daisuke is. (Of course, both of them share the common point of being like-minded when it’s something that really matters, but Ken is much better at imposing his will and getting what he wants done before Daisuke ever gets to that point, which is what fuels the whole punchline of Daisuke and Ken’s Shopping Carol.)

So, the point is: Daisuke is kind out of instinct and just “naturally” being so, but Ken is kind because he consciously believes in treating others well and not causing conflict, and not causing pain to others.

That’s not to say that Ken’s behavior is out of suppression or anything! It’s not a case like Takeru, who’s trying to push complicated emotions down while pretending they’re not boiling under the surface, nor is he like Hikari, who’s compulsively pressing her emotions down out of a desire not to burden others. Rather, even as early as 02 episode 26, he’s very straightforward about what his issue is and what he thinks about it. Ken’s “shyness” during the latter half of 02 is largely due to shame and hesitation from not knowing the other 02 kids well, but as the series goes on and as we go into post-02 material, he indicates that he’s perfectly wiling to be vocal about what he thinks without necessarily fighting any compulsion to suppress it. For someone who claims he doesn’t know much about his own heart, he arguably seems to have the best grip on understanding himself compared to a lot of this cast!

So in essence, the main take-home here is that Ken is theoretically capable of being strong-willed and assertive, and is very good at choosing when he wants to be assertive and when he wants to hold back. And he likes seeing people get along, and he wants everyone to be happy, and he doesn’t like seeing people be hurt or hurting others, and under normal circumstances, Ken has very good control of his emotions for the most part and quite a lot of self-awareness. That’s why Ken is the one to get the unique designation of this Crest; everyone in this cast can be said to be generous and supportive of others in some form, but there’s a difference between being a “natural” doormat who defers to others by default (Daisuke being a very good indicator of how this kind of mentality has a flip side of lack of self-esteem and high insecurity, and Tamers’s Takato being a good indication of how “being deferential” doesn’t necessarily preclude you from having tendencies towards selfishness or cowardice), versus choosing to be kind by understanding everything and still being gentle out of a belief that it’s the right thing to do (again: see Shinkai Haru). And it’s why Wormmon says in the 02 episode 23 flashback that Ken’s kindness can be used against him; being “kind” in this way requires a lot of mental fortitude, strength, and guts, all of which are things that could easily be very bad things when applied in the wrong direction.

This means that all the Dark Seed really needed to do in order to turn him into the Kaiser...was make him lose grip on that self-control.

Actually, Ken says it himself in less-than-subtle words in Spring 2003:

…It was revenge. But who was this revenge against? Did I want to triumph over the ones who made fun of me? The ones who looked down on me and used me? But… In the end, it was revenge against myself. I couldn’t do anything but deny the kind of human being that I was.

So in other words, the Kaiser persona was, effectively, a self-loathing eleven-year-old boy throwing a massive tantrum. A lot of the Kaiser’s actions in the first half of 02 are honestly rather petty -- he’s basically upset at the kids spoiling his holiday in 02 episode 6, he attempts torturing Daisuke out of a petty grudge over a soccer sliding tackle in 02 episode 8, and everything to do with expanding his territory and eventually (hopefully?) becoming ruler of the Digital World is frankly very sloppy. For all he’s said to be a genius, his genius only seems to extend to book smarts, and his “tactical planning abilities” never really expand beyond that of a soccer field sort of affair; his way of locking down control on other things is basically just “brainwash it harder” or “whip it harder” and applying harder brute force instead of doing something in the long-term like, say, trying to rule with charisma and recruiting allies.

(Again, bringing Appmon back into this, seeing Cloud in action will give you a much better example of a charismatic human villain who’s actually competent at his job. Or, heck, you can even look back at Savers’s Kurata, who at least was savvy enough to pull strings with people in powerful positions. Or even the Kaiser’s predecessor Saiba Neo from V-Tamer, who may have been openly sadistic but still had the sense to align himself with background power. Really, compared to all of these folks, the Kaiser is downright pathetic.)

Remembering that Ken fell into the Kaiser persona partially as a desperate attempt to become a “perfect person” like Osamu, Ken “imitated” Osamu’s cruelty to him because he felt that was how he could improve himself to become a “strong” person better than him. But the irony here is that Osamu’s “cruelty” was something that he himself never liked, and mainly came from lashing out at Ken due to feeling like he had a lack of control over his own life. So Osamu was never happy in that position, and Ken, who is indirectly pointed out via the bubble metaphor to be even more fundamentally inclined towards gentleness, is probably even more miserable.

Because everything Ken does as the Kaiser is “unfocused lashing out at everyone”, the Kaiser has less control over his emotions than Ken normally would. Takeru manages to emotionally pin him to a corner by confronting him with enough assertion in 02 episode 19 (this is before he punches him), and correctly points out that the Kaiser isn’t capable of winning with words (i.e. ideologically) and resorts to violence as the first thing he can think of. You’d think that if the Kaiser were actually someone with the self-confidence to consider the other Chosen Children beneath him, he wouldn’t even bother giving them the time of day, but Takeru just happening to be a little assertive is enough to make him lose his composure and start falling apart, and a lot of his shaken “insects!” yelling comes from him seeming pretty desperate to cling onto that rather than being all that confident about his natural superiority over anyone. 02 episode 20 establishes that he’s getting himself in over his head by tampering with the powers of darkness he can’t control, and while, on a plot level, it means that he’s misjudged his own capabilities, on a metaphorical level, it corresponds to the fact that even Ken himself is incapable of getting himself out of the emotional abyss he’s in.

And on the flip side, one of the biggest “tells” that Ken is still miserable during all of this is 02 episode 9, where he’s seen ruminating on the “glory” he’s getting in the real world despite having just decided to leave it all behind. The episode prior, after all, had been called “The Digimon Kaiser’s Loneliness”. The media is using him like some kind of “hot topic”, his parents’ affection (in his mind) is shallow and based only on his achievements, and he has no friends (how much of a role Akiyama Ryou played in his childhood is unclear, but either way, he’s no longer around now). With no emotional support coming from any direction in the real world, he’s resorting to at least trying to have some “fun” in what he perceives to be a “game”, and yet he’s still not having fun at all.

If you look carefully at a lot of the Kaiser’s actions during the first half of the series, one thing you’ll notice is that there are multiple indications that he’s not quite up to par to being as sadistic as you’d think he’d be. Recalling that we learn in 02 episodes 20-21 that the Kaiser is under the impression that the Digital World is like a game that he can “reset” and the Digimon in it not real living beings, it has interesting implications of the fact that he’s actually very hesitant to physically harm other human beings -- he certainly likes emotionally toying with them, but even when he’s trying to take petty revenge on Daisuke in 02 episode 8, he goes out of his way to set up a trap with Bakemon to torture him rather than, well, actually using the kids as hostages. That’s a hell of a lot of work to do, but he instead uses this extremely roundabout way to get them out of the picture in a somewhat less harmful way, risking having them escape (which is exactly what happens).

And in 02 episode 19, when Takeru confronts him and he ends up whipping him, you can hear a slight “...gh?” in the Japanese audio for a split second right after that, meaning that the Kaiser is, for some reason, having a hard time dealing with the fact that he just hit Takeru, and he does a very poor job defending himself against Takeru punching him out despite ostensibly being trained in judo. (Seriously, if you watch the animation of the scene, he’s just lying there while Takeru repeatedly punches the hell out of him, because he’s so out of it.) Regarding the Digimon, he’s convinced himself that they’re not living beings, but regarding the human Chosen Children, who undeniably are, no matter how much he might look down on them, he has a suspiciously hard time harming them as much as he could...

On top of that, one interesting question that might come up to one rewatching the first half of 02 is the strange “contradiction” of why the Kaiser ostensibly seems to hate Wormmon so much, calling him an unworthy idea of a partner in 02 episodes 10 and 19, and yet does remarkably little to get Wormmon away from him or off his case (he hates Wormmon calling him “Ken-chan”, yet doesn’t really try very hard to stop him). He could have easily locked Wormmon away in a cage or something if he really wanted to -- actually, there’s the question, why doesn’t he slap an Evil Ring on him? Because in the end, Wormmon is the only emotional support he’s really getting, and so it’s likely he unconsciously doesn’t want to lose that. Recalling that Digimon are fundamentally linked to the inner self, the Kaiser rejecting Wormmon for being “weak” is analogous to Ken rejecting his own self for being “weak” and “not perfect” -- which means that the fact he still keeps Wormmon around is analogous to the fact that Ken hasn’t really been able to bring himself to completely let his fundamental nature go. And, hence, it’s why he gets so initially incensed at Wormmon’s “betrayal” at 02 episode 10 (and yet still keeps him around despite that), and is ultimately emotionally destroyed by his death in 02 episode 21.

Although, actually, if you look carefully at 02 episode 21, it’s not quite Wormmon’s death that necessarily does it -- the turning point where he sheds the Kaiser persona is right before that (and in case you have any doubts, the animation puts highlights in his eyes for the first time in the series right at that point). Wormmon’s death is the first major consequence of his actions that he has to deal with, but what actually brought Ken back to his senses was his own realization that Digimon are living beings, that his actions have had permanent effects this whole time, and that he can’t take back anything he’d done.

Remember that 02 is a series that is largely about moving on and accepting that you can’t change the past, and that you have to move forward regardless of that. Ken’s fall into sadism was only possible by driving him into extremely deep-seated denial -- he was already starting to face the potential reality of Digimon being real, existing beings in the real world an episode prior. He says, outright, in 02 episode 21, that part of the reason he came to the Digital World to do all of this was escapism -- and, presumably, under the idea that any mistake he made could be rolled back and redone, unlike Osamu’s death. But the Digital World is not a place you can reset like a game, Ken will have to live with the consequences of his actions again, and moreover, every single one of the actions he’d been convincing himself were relatively meaningless had caused severe and permanent harm, and the entire thing overwhelms him.

It’s also important to point out that this was probably where the Dark Seed had to work a lot of magic to get Ken to embrace this kind of denial so easily -- after all, it’s established in the final quarter of the series that it does have a tangible impact on personality and puts a damper on one’s ability to feel empathy. In the flashback in 02 episode 23, regardless of whether Ken considered the Digital World to be a “game” or “able to be reversed” or not, he clearly still didn’t care and treated those around him with proper kindness (even if he did consider it to be all of that, it probably wouldn’t have been entirely unlike how a lot of us have a hard time picking rude choices in video games). It’s a very complicated chain reaction of events that allowed this to be even possible, and it was so against his fundamental nature that once the denial broke and Ken reached his limit, he wasn’t able to do it anymore. The Chosen Children’s main role in 02 episode 21 was really just cleaning up the massive mess he’d made in the form of Chimeramon, but as far as the whole thing about the Kaiser’s persona completely falling apart and Ken being forced to confront his own self goes, that was pretty much all Ken and Wormmon, in a series of dominoes that had already been collapsing for episodes on end.

The following episodes have Ken treat the 02 team with a certain amount of detachment, and this is often construed by a handful of people as being reflective of Ken being standoffish of some sort. The fact that Daisuke and Ken are often promoted in franchise materials as “rivals” mainly due to them being in the “protagonist and right-hand-man” position such characters are in might tempt you to think that way, but they are most definitely not!! (Considering that even saying that Taichi and Yamato fit that mold is a bit questionable, and neither Ruki nor Jian quite fulfill the expectations of the role in regards to the genre-subverting Tamers, Frontier, which is explicitly said to be deliberately written to be conventional, is probably the first proper execution of this trope in the form of Takuya and Kouji.) Ken’s detachment from the group at this time in the series is something he actually gives the reason for quite directly: he believes it’s his fault and doesn’t want to burden them with what he considers to be his job, and in the end Daisuke ultimately breaks through to him and they become completely normal friends who get along. “Rival” what?

Ken is, at worst, distant during this point of the series, but he’s actually very straightforward about what he wants and intends to do; it’s just that he’s being a bit blunt about it because he’s still drowning in his shame and not sure how to approach them. (Also, consider the fact he was rather lacking in friends or a support group before all of this; he doesn’t have a lot of experience in socializing, either.) So he keeps everyone at arm’s length, and the reason he comes off as so standoffish is because he’s so assertive! He directly and bluntly makes some very strong remarks about how he believes everyone else shouldn’t be getting involved! Again, when left to his own devices and not being manipulated into by a supernatural evil seed into multiple levels of denial, Ken is very in control of what he wants and thinks, and is even very open about speaking his mind.

That’s even when they’re not good decisions, mind you. Ken starts off the climax of 02 episode 26 being very firm about wanting to suicidally throw himself into the reactor in order to stop it, and 02 episode 30 has him consider himself a burden to the team after the fallout with Iori and try to stay out of it despite them very badly needing his presence, which Daisuke (of all people!) rightfully calls him out for being childish about. But he also listens to reason very quickly and acknowledges the others’ point very easily, with Daisuke reminding him in 02 episode 26 that his suicidal recklessness is actually pretty self-centered and short-sighted of him, since it’ll prevent him from doing anything else to take responsibility for his actions going forward, and Miyako, uh, slapping him in 02 episode 30. (But he comes quietly right away as if acknowledging his own idiocy, and never holds it against her thereafter.)

Nevertheless, the point is: you can see that this kind of assertiveness is the same kind of assertiveness he had as the Kaiser, just channeled in a different direction and for a different purpose. But as the Kaiser, he was angrily lashing out at anything and everything and stepping on anything he could just so he could have a show of power; once he comes back to his senses, he reserves that force for it being something he consciously believes is the right thing to do (regardless of whether it’s actually the right thing to do or not).

Because of the fact Ken spends a lot of the last quarter of 02 suffering and parsing a lot of trauma, a lot of people have tended to pin him as constantly sad and being a soft crybaby, but that couldn’t be further from the truth! Despite all the emotional pain he goes through, Ken has a hell of a ton of strength through all of this -- he even flings a well-aimed quip at Oikawa in 02 episode 44 despite being in a completely helpless situation, and in 02 episode 45 he himself is the one who volunteers to open the gate to the Dark Ocean, despite knowing exactly what it entails. That takes a lot of guts, and all things considered, his recovery from being the Kaiser spans only four months and is altogether incredibly fast given what he went through -- it did not take long for him to regain his bearings and get himself back on track. Again, it’s the same kind of “assertiveness” and capacity for action that fuels what the Kaiser did, just better controlled and in a direction Ken knows he actually wants.

This is also why I tend to object to insinuations that Ken would be overly touchy about or traumatized by the mere discussion of him being the Kaiser in the aftermath of 02, because the series itself, multiple times, portrayed him as being very able to talk about his experiences bluntly and honestly, at worst maybe considering it a bit of an awkward topic. He has no problems admitting that it was a thing that happened, especially if it involves discussing it as part of taking responsibility or preventing further damage -- it’s just that he of course doesn’t enjoy it either, and is equally as open about the shame he feels as a result. All of the times Ken loses his composure in the latter half of 02 involve either physical pain being inflicted on him, or a lot more actively vicious invocation of his memories and insecurities, and even then he gets himself back on his feet with a rather prompt amount of speed. Poorly timed of a statement as it may have been, Miyako is not incorrect when she says in 02 episode 31 that he has a certain amount of natural resilience that he carried from being the Kaiser.

All the way back in 02 episode 9, shortly after it was revealed to the group that Ken was the Kaiser, Iori, Hikari, and Takeru all label Ken as someone who doesn’t look like someone who could do something so horrible, and Hikari even says that his smile looks “gentle” (note that this is yasashisou, a word derived from the same root word used for his Crest). So in other words, even all three of them were able to catch on to his actual nature betraying himself even during that awful period of time. It’s still poking through, all things considered.

But we as the audience know he’s putting on that face for the camera, and his eyes are still as dead-eyed as they are for the first half of the series, and when Miyako accidentally makes him laugh during the Christmas party in 02 episode 38, it’s very much framed as probably the first time Ken has been this genuinely happy in a long while. He was never able to be this happy even when “satisfying” himself by stepping on others as the Kaiser.

And that’s why it’s so extremely unlikely that Ken will ever be able to lapse back into the Kaiser persona after the events of 02, even with the Dark Seed technically still inside his neck. He wasn’t enjoying it anyway; the Kaiser persona wasn’t a habit that he fell into out of emotional suppression or even catharsis, but rather him forcing himself into a role he was never comfortable in to begin with. He was never truly satisfied with anything he was getting out of it, and moreover, it took the combination of supernatural influence and a hell of a lot of denial to allow it to get that far in the first place, because of how far against his fundamental nature that was.  (Again, for those of you who have seen Appmon: think about what it would take to get Haru to embrace sadism.) Even Osamu wasn’t enjoying being cold; being kind and living your life with positivity is a lot more fulfilling and fun, anyway.

In 02 episode 48, Ken describes the influence of the Seed as “horrible” in retrospect; even if it didn’t involve physical pain and exhaustion the way it did for the Dark Seed children, the entire experience sucked even back then. And while Ken theorizes about the Dark Seed’s influence being countered by the power of love earlier in the episode, when you look at the whole of 02, it’s not just his family’s love -- Ken now has the emotional support of his family, and Wormmon, and his newfound friends, and that’s giving him all of the fulfillment he wanted that putting on a front of sadism wasn’t giving him, and he doesn’t really need anything else anymore.

02 itself is very much about the fact that it’s not a bad thing to rely on the support of others to be happy; the Ken and Kaiser are undoubtedly the same person, but the latter’s existence requires a very specific lineup of events and factors to happen, and one of the massive parts behind that was a severe lack of emotional support or anyone who properly understood him. And by the end of the series, Ken has more than enough strength of heart to accept everything that’s happened and move on, and to stop reaching out to denial and clinging onto the past, and he has emotional support and understanding from a whole new group of friends that thoroughly understand everything he did and went through, and wholeheartedly accept and love him anyway.

He is never going to have a gaping hole in his life like that again.

[smolfailure]

FUCK IT, DREAM SMP HOMESTUCK AU

but it's only half shitposts and there are actual Thoughts in there.

You don't need to have read the comic to understand because I tried not to spoil anything major, but it'd help if you knew basic stuff about classpects, SBURB and the hemospectrum.

disclaimer: i'm not a good pixel artist and this is my first actual sprites ever so please be kind to my weird pixels

The Kids:

Tommy

Fundy

Techno

Tubbo

tommy, tubbo and fundy one of the kids because they're the kids in dream smp canon (with fundy being son of wilbur)

techno's there because i want to make a dave strider reference (haha get it because techno's name is also da-- *gets shot) and also because they are both coolguys except instead of using irony, techno has adhd

The Trolls:

Wilbur Soohte (fuschia)

?????? Ehrret (violet)

J????? Shlatt (purple)

Nihacu Niikki (indigo)

Skeppy Diamon (cerulean)

Quacki Tthiey (teal)

Philza Myncra (jade)

Dreame Wastkn (lime disguising as olive)

George Notfou (gold)

Sapphe Nahfpe (bronze)

Badboy Haelow (burgundy)

don't come at me saying only females are allowed to be jades and fuschias; gender is fake and this is an au

more of the AU and the talksprites are under the cut:

Tommy

Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Red

chaotic. the first person to be introduced.

when he gets introduced instead of the “Zoosmell Pooplord” bit, Tommy is initially going to be the name inputted but then backspaced it and decided that Tommyinnit was better and he was fuming until he’s named Tommy.

Gives me big Blood/Hope vibes. Blood because a lot of the conflict of the dream smp connected to someone breaking his trust or harming the things he cares about, Hope because a lot of the plot of the dream smp stems from Tommy starting shit based on his ideals and what he thinks is right.

the first to instigate fighting against the trolls

bbh contacts him once and tommy keeps cursing until he disconnects from frustration rip

wields Gunkind and his only strife weapon at the beginning is the Vlog gun. He has Gunkind as his strife specibus mainly because he looked up at schlatt and he imitates him.

Fundy

Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Orange

it was his idea to play SBURB but only through Dream.

he talks to dream the most among the other trolls fwt stans getcha juice this is the rosemary of the session

dream’s the one giving him exposition about the game so that’s how he knows how to play SBURB.

wilbur trolls fundy once and instantly adopts him.

“You’re my son.” “How does that even work??” “I was one of the people who created your universe. It’s basically the same thing.”

Fundy relents anyway.

Techno

Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Pink

dave strider but dead-inside voice + rose lalonde english major vibes

he slices the text box when you try to name him "Dave " like in

techno gives me time player vibes (contantly on the move. his skyblock series, his “stays in the pit” monologue,) but also rage vibes (anarchy,  the “theseus” monologue, political alignment is Chaos) alas i am not sure what class

uses Tridentkind and claims "it came from god"

 it was dream, he accidentally transportalized one of wilbur’s weapon while he testing the transportalizer.

Tubbo

Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Green

the jade harley of this session. the only thing keeping them from going apeshit. where would they be without him.

but also jade harley in a sense that he seems nice and wholesome but also don’t fuck with them they can mess you up

Heart/Life vibes??? someone good at classpecting help

i put them in prospit bc of the "tubbo third eye" instead of tubbo having a sixth sense or smth, they see the future from the clouds of skaia when they sleep

wields Stress-relieverKind at some point

bonus: everyone’s actual hair colors

Ideas about the Trolls

no i haven’t done their sprites yet bc it would take so much time and i’m not even sure if people wanna see more of this au skjdkdsakdfkl,, but i have Design Ideas.

events of the dsmp revolution are just a FLARP session drawing parallels to how the homestuck trolls had a FLARP session that spoiler alert: destroyed friendships. dtrio, eret, will are involved. eret betrays will's faction and wilbur's still Bitter over that.

on the context of alternia (highbloods and lowbloods) lmanburg and dreamsmp have their roles SWAPPED.  the emancipation theme thing is completely gone since highbloods are in more power than the lowbloods (the dream team) . 

wilbur made a faction called l’manburg because he wants a place where he and his fellow highbloods could make drugs vibe.they take a piece of land that was owned by the dream team. in normal circumstances, they shouldve stood down because lowbloods aren't supposed to start shit with highbloods (especially a group of highbloods that has the alternian heir among them)  but dream turned it into an activism thing about lowblood rights. the story plays as close as possible without tommy or tubbo in it (which is pretty hard ik but this is the best can do).

like in the dreamsmp revolution, dream kinda let wilbur do what he wants but this time he has more reason to because he’s in a lower caste. dream really only fought back when wilbur announced that he’d be building lmanburg on their land and calling it theirs.

eret betrays wilbur by supporting the lowbloods and wilbur and co. technically won but only because he finally called the drones in, as a reference to how lmanburg absolutely got crushed by the dream team in the smp but technically won. l’manburg keeps the piece of land and the dream team scatter away to find a new home.

wilbur soot's a fuschia because a) he's in a position that has a lot of power, b) yknow how he wrote a song about squids and his thing with sally… yeah.

eret's a violet because nobility!! dream looks down on him because he's ambivalent on fighting for lowblood rights when he's in a power to do so "you just sit there, and you look pretty that's it"

also like eridan he has a minor aesthetic mutation (herobrine eyes) that won't classify him as a mutant.

jschlatt is purple because it makes sense thematically because of the gamzee parallels (a. substance abuse b. if you know what happens in act 6, you know this already but spoiler alert, he ruins the main protagonists' lives) also he's a funnyman he deserves the clown caste

 quackity's a teal because he’s a law student. moving on--

 ok but for real it also makes sense thematically because he's the one who wrote the thing that tricked schlatt into agreeing also he gets manipulated by schlatt which also draws parallels to certain events in the comic

skeppy and bbh are BEST FRIENDS despite being highblood and lowblood respectively. initially, skeppy just wanted to bother bbh but they grew to be good friends in time. y’know like how they actually becane friends :D

philza minecraft is a jade because dad friend. also works thematically, because spoiler alert he gets to murder a seadweller for going batshit crazy. 

he also god tiers early. he dies fighting his quick undead denizen (haha baby zombie) but the consorts of his land carry him to his quest bed because he’s treated them all so well.

dream was initially going to be another caste but then i realized that means i have to make his hoodie something other than green which is unacceptable so its a good thing the fact that he's a lime works out

dream was the one who thought of playing sgrub in the first place- initially only planned to have gogy, sap, and bbh in the session but then realized that they four won't be enough so he invited more into his session

he’s also the first to go godtier ez clap blind speedrun not sure what classpect tho

the only reason why dream avoided being culled at birth for being a limeblood is because his rng is That Good. he quickly picked up the fact that he’s not supposed to exist and masqueraded as an oliveblood and kept mostly to himself to avoid suspicion.

george is still colorblind but he has lazer eyes along with it instead. dream lives with him in the same hive since being a mutant means dream doesn’t get a lusus of his own (dnf fans getcha juice “and they were roommates”) 

despite living in the same hive, he never really figures out that dream is a limeblood. possibly because a) he’s colorblind and when he sees dream bleeding he just sees yellow b) he’s just that fucking oblivious and it’s so valid of him.

sapnap’s a bronzeblood mainly because i know he’s the instigator of the pet war with tommy also because i associate him with the color orang in my mind so bronze it is

that’s the end of this long-ass post!! if you have other ideas PLEASE i want to hear them. i don’t know the other streamers i mentioned in here very well so if you have ideas that would be fitting to them like with classpect or lunar sway that would be GREAT. 

the only thing i’m confident about in here are the kids’ lunar sways. i’m not an expert in classpects and homestuck lore so there’s that too!! i just wanted to make this post because adhd means that the idea wouldn’t shut up until i finished it. This initially started as a single shitpost edit of tommyinnit talksprite but then the hiveswap 2 trailer came out and that means i have to combine my two hyperfixations.

also i have ideas about potential quadrants but idk how much of that is breaking some streamers’ boundaries about shipping (even the non romantic quads such as kismesistude, morallegiance and auspisticism) so i decided not to include it.

edit: apparently people want more so i made a discord server as a place to brainstorm!! please pm me to join!

[likeastarstar]

8:34 PM- Jimin

(A/N: this characterization of jimin isn't how I see him, this is fiction bitch I made it up!)

Jimin was hard to define.

He wasn't a nice person, per say. It was doubtful anyone would say he's rude or malicious, but he wasn't the type of man to go out of his way to do anything for anyone. His morals were shaky at best, his motives were almost entirely self-centered and as long as he got what he wanted, that was fine.

"Who is that?" He asked the nearest person when he had spotted the girl with sleek hair and less than present eyes. You weren't aware of his stares, completely zoned out halfway across the room.

The girl next to him said your name like it was a bad word, raising her eyebrows in a particular way.

He didn't know what the look meant, or how it should've affected what he did next, but he got up anyway to go introduce himself.

You, as it turned out, were not a nice person either. You however, erred on the side of cruel but had friends despite this on account of your humor- which was both unexpected and offhand. You were a balancing act, a perfect example of duality. There was the side of you that was thoughtful and pensive but it was ruined by your stubborn will to do whatever first came to mind as a good idea. You could be crass and mean but would always marry it with the truth so well the receiving end would thank you for your input.

You were also a sort of social enigma in your circle- mainly because of the floating stories about you, which a man like Jimin, who had no interest in gossip whatsoever, wouldn't have heard of.

"Hello," He said, walking up to you. He was quite a bit taller than you and was the opposite in every way. In both looks and demeanor, the contrast was stark.

You peered at him in response, sipping the drink in your hand lightly. You had been floating around the party for hours now, getting sucked into conversation after conversation so thoroughly Jimin was confused as to how you knew so many people here. "Hi," you said quietly, your expression reading slightly disinterested.

"I'm Jimin, what are you drinking?" He asked calmly. His voice was deep and mellow, making you gravitate towards him unconsciously. The man was good looking, that was clear. Part of you was intrigued by him, a larger part was wary.

"It's a vodka sprite." You informed shortly, telling him your name a beat later. He nodded approvingly and offered to get you another, which you agreed to since you weren't exactly looking forward to buying yourself another.

"Are you here with someone?" He asked, gesturing to the bar. He moved in a way that felt too smooth to be real, a finesse to all of his gestures that made you want to pay attention to him as much as he wanted to do the same to you.

"I'm here with a lot of someones. I know about you." You said, smiling a little. You were almost positive he was the kind of guy who had girls falling for his charms easily, the piercing gaze, the fluffy quaffed hair, the full lips that always seemed to be sporting a smirk like he knew a secret he wasn't letting you in on. Too bad you had heard things about him, from friends of friends and overheard conversations at social gatherings.

Jimin raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Do you?"

"I do," You grinned, nodding. "I've heard about the way you treat girls. It's awful- you're kind of the worst, you know that?"

Jimin was taken aback by her bluntness but wasn't exactly disagreeing with her. "And why would you say that?" He chuckled, taking a step towards you. Jimin had to admit, your willingness to be so honest was disarmingly attractive and if you kept smiling at him like that he'd find himself completely defenseless.

"I would say that because you broke up with your last girlfriend of a year and a half over a text message and then proceeded to sleep with her roommate." You explained, taking a sip of the drink he had just bought you and taking a step towards him as well. "You haven't heard of me?"

"I'm sorry to say I haven't," He answered quickly, still not disagreeing with your accusations. "Who told you that very fun fact about me?"

"The roommate." You shrugged. "She said you have an interesting tattoo somewhere- is that one true as well?"

Jimin smirked and shrugged offhandedly. "Would you like to find out?"

"No," You laughed, bruising Arlo's ego slightly. He frowned and took a step back, which only had you laughing again. Jimin was conflicted- on one hand, he had just been turned down. On the other, your laugh was the most charming thing he had ever heard. You noticed him back off and took his hand to keep him near you, still with that smile on your face. "Oh, I'm sorry- I didn't mean anything by it. But come on, if you were in my shoes- meaning, if your friend told you all of those things about me, would you still want to talk to me?"

"Yes," He laughed ironically, "You're gorgeous, you could tell me you're the worst person on this earth and I would still want to talk to you."

You pressed your lips into a conflicted smile and looked up at Jimin, crinkling your nose slightly as he studied your facial expression. It was one of those looks where you clearly had a thought forming in your head and while usually Jimin was quite good at determining what people thought of him, with you things could go either way.

"Well maybe I'm not as desperate for affection." You shrugged, turning your attention back to your drink.

You didn't feel like indulging anyone's ego. Not even someone as pretty as Jimin. You finished your drink off and nudged Jimin for another, smiling when he agreed immediately.

"Do you know what phase the moon is in tonight?" You asked, following Jimin to the bar.

You kept close behind him, making sure to always keep at least one finger in physical contact with the man. Jimin felt heat from where you touched him, but again couldn't determine what it meant. Were you just trying to make sure you didn't lose him? Or were you flirting?

"No, I don't really pay attention to that stuff." He shrugged, wondering who the hell kept track of the moon. He got the attention of a bartender and ordered another vodka sprite for you and a whiskey for himself, wishing he was at home and could just drink wine instead. It was dumb of him not to just order what he wanted, but his older brother once said a man ordering a glass of wine at a bar was like announcing to the world that he was 85 and golfed on the weekends to avoid a loveless marriage- and Jimin really hated golf.

"I think it's a full moon. This building has a rooftop garden, did you know that?" You asked.

"No, why would I know that?" He snorted. You shrugged, taking your drink in one hand and thanked Jimin quietly as if you was being forced to. It made him laugh, the way you were only begrudgingly nice to him. "So you've heard all of those things about me, why are you humoring me right now?"

You sighed, looking around the room. "Did you notice that every girl here is either wearing a neutral color? I mean seriously, no one thought to wear anything interesting? And the men- they're all in casual suits that age them." You commented, scrunching your nose.

Jimin looked down at his attire immediately, realizing he too was wearing a casual suit that probably did age him. Then he looked at what you were wearing- a jade green dress that was too complicated to describe. All he knew was that it was sheer in the right places and the fabric was so interesting Jimin almost wanted to reach out and touch it. You were special, that much was so clear to him.

"What are you getting at?" Jimin asked, wondering what clothes had to do with his question.

"I'm saying, I'm bored. Everyone looks the same and I've had the same conversation five times over tonight. But when you came up to me and suddenly, things seem less boring." You explained slowly. He looked down at you, slightly weirded out with how quickly this conversation was progressing.

"What I'm getting at is, do you want to go look at the moon with me?" You asked, pointing towards the roof.

masterlist.

[imnotusedtobeingloved]

WATCH OUT

(PLEASE DON’T REBLOG!)

Warnings: heartbreak, betrayal.

Pairing: Zuko x f!Reader

Characters: Zuko, Aang, Katara, Toph, Sokka.

Requested: Yes!

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, nor the gif. Credit to the owners.

Summary: Part three of “destiny is a funny thing”

find part two here!

A/N: Hullo! i’m back to blow your minds again, lol. The request for this came within, like, five minutes of posting the last part. So thanks to @zvkonation​. I’m glad you guys seem to enjoy it. I hope this part will be to your liking. Altough i think it’s a bit of a mess haha.

“Hello, Zuko here!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you muttered upon the sight of him. Team Avatar formed a half-circle, ready to fight.

You hadn’t seen him since the battle in the Crystal Catacombs, and you’d wanted it to stay that way. After his betrayal it took some time to look ahead. To stop dwelling on it and accept that it was over. Of course you had to tell the others what had happened at some point. And you did. From the fight with Jet, to their false identities, and about the tea shop. Everything but the fact that you harbored feelings for their worst enemy.

“I heard you guys flying around down there, so... I just thought i’d wait for you here,” No one responded. No one but Appa, whose gigantic tongue greeted the prince one second later. Zuko groaned at the caress, but he didn’t reject it. “I know you must be surprised to see me here,”

“Not really, since you followed us all over the world,” Sokka answered defensively, already reaching for his weapon.

“Right... Well uh... Anyway. What i wanted to tell you about is that i’ve changed, and i’m good now. And, well, i think i should join your group. Oh! and i can teach firebending to the Avatar,” He continued.

Changed. There it was again. The gaang remained silent, not giving up their fighting stances. Now the Air Temple could become a war zone at any second.

“You wanna, what now?” Toph was the first one to recover. Her face was scrunched up, black strands dangling in front of her forehead. "We all know what happened the last time you 'changed'," You sneered, raising your hands. "(Y/N), please-," This time he was the one pleading, but you wouldn't have it. You didn't want to waste any more time with him. "Save your explanation for someone who cares!" Flames appeared in your palms, burning from within.

“You can’t possibly think that any of us would trust you, can you? I mean how stupid do you think we are?” Katara wasn’t acting any calmer than in their last encounter. And rightfully so. You’d witnessed the conflict firsthand and empathised with her pain. Both of you had fallen for his trap at the same time.

“Yeah, all you’ve ever done is try to hunt us down and capture Aang,” Sokka threw in. “And besides, (Y/N) is a fire bender. She can teach him,” You pursed your lips, but remained silent. He was right. You could teach Aang. But would that truly be enough? You doubted it. All your techniques were mainly made up from watching other fire benders in your childhood. You’d never had a real teacher. If you were honest to yourself, Zuko was probably the better choice. But the risk of him killing your student made up for it.

“I’ve done some good things! I helped (Y/N) after she got attacked by Jet! Right?” The prince argued, gesturing wildly. He caught your gaze, hoping for some kind of support. But he was met with indifference. "You didn't even know that I was with the Avatar back then," You argued, growing more impatient by the second. Zuko quickly came up with another story. “I could’ve stolen your bison in Ba Sing Se, but i set him free! That's something,” The animal proceeded to lick him again, growling fondly.

“Appa does seem to like him,” The earth-bender said, relaxing her stance slightly. Her features softened. “He probably just covered himself in honey or something, so that Appa would lick him. I’m not buying it!” Sokka declined, making a cutting motion through the air, to underline his statement.

“I can understand why you wouldn’t trust me. And i know i’ve made some mistakes in the past,” Zuko acknowledged, lowering his gaze. The slight breeze tugged at his garments. For the first time since you’d known him, he wore Fire Nation clothing. The ruby red, mixed with gold and black, revealed his true heritage. His was a simple robe, instead of the royal attire you would’ve expected. Just like yours.

“Like when you attacked our village?” Your friend asked, sarcastically. “Or when you stole my mother’s necklace and used it to track us down and capture us?” His sister balled her fists, barely able to hold back. “Or when you betrayed us in the Catacombs?” You hissed.

Seeing him again was unbearable. Unbelievable. It was like the past came back to haunt you all over again. Every time you looked at him, it reminded you of the horror you'd faced. Of Aang dying in your arms. And he just wouldn’t stop trying. “Look, i admit i’ve done some awful things. I was wrong to try to capture you and to betray you. I’m sorry that i attacked the water tribe. And i never should’ve send that Fire Nation Assassin after you. I’m going to try to stop-,”

“Wait! You sent Combustion-Man after us?” One sibling interrupted, his voice getting a few octaves higher. Your eyes widened. The others seemed no less shocked, than you. Just when you’d thought it couldn’t get any worse... It did. “Well, that’s not his name, but-” Zuko tried to explain, but clearly focused on the wrong point. “Oh, sorry, i didn’t mean to insult your friend,” Sokka scoffed, holding up his boomerang. Now there was one more reason not to trust him. How many more would he add? You weren’t eager to find out. “He’s not my friend!” The fire bender exclaimed, bewildered. “That guy locked me and Katara in jail and tried to blow us all up!” Toph pointed an accusatory finger at him. He lowered his eyes, closing them briefly.

You said nothing, only staring at him, until he looked up. “(Y/N)...” He tried, his eyes softening, but you shook your head. He looked terribly lost. So lost that you almost believed him. But where love once was now resided resentment and anger. His lies were revolting. You wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” He redirected his attention to Aang. “You once said you thought we could be friends. You know i have good in me,” Out of the corner of your eye you saw Sokka shake his head at him.

“There’s no way we can trust you after everything you’ve done. We’ll never let you join us,” The Avatar decided. “You need to get out of here. Now!” The water bender ordered, her locks framing her face like a thundercloud. “I’m trying to explain that i’m not that person anymore!” His desperate tone made your heart clench. You had to look away.

“Either you leave, or we attack!” Sokka stepped forward, boomerang gripped tightly.

Zuko sunk to his knees. "If you won’t accept me as a friend, then maybe you’ll take me as a prisoner,”

“No. We won’t!” Katara unleashed a splash of water, knocking him back. “Get out of here and don’t come back. And if we ever see you again... Well, we better not see you again!”

The air was tense as he walked off. Your fear didn’t subside.

How long would it take for his next strike to hit you?

And how many more could you take?

“Why would he try to fool us like that?” Katara questioned a while later. “Obviously he wants to lead us in some kind of trap,” Her brother stated, following her deeper into the temple. Aang and you trailed after them silently. “This is just like when we were in prison together in Ba Sing Se. He starts talking about his mother and making it seem like he’s an actual human being with feelings,” Her words hurt. But you had to admit that she spoke the truth. The tender moments you’d had with him would stay until the end of time, pointing out your failure. Your naivety. When you thought about him, you felt nothing but rage and pain making your stomach twist.

“He want’s you to trust him and feel sorry for him. Then you let your guard down and he strikes!” Sokka said gesturing furiously. His short ponytail wiggled along with his movements. “The thing is, it worked,” Katara put her sleeping bag down, kneeling to roll it out. “I did feel sorry for him. I felt like he was really confused and hurt. But, obviously, when the time came he made his choice. And we payed the price. We can’t trust him,” You nodded, hugging your own bag to your chest. “I believed everything he told me, when i lived with them. He was nice. And then he turned around and stabbed me in the back,” His amber eyes had seemed so genuine at the time... So loving. But it was all a game. A pastime as long as you were around, only to throw you away later. He’d made his choice. And you hadn’t been enough to be choosen. The memories left a burning feeling in your chest.

“I kind of have a confession to make,” the Avatar cut in. “Remember when you got sick and i got captured by Zhao?” You all ignored Sokka’s rant about Aang making him suck on frozen frogs. His poor sister had taken a look at his throat multiple times before. And to be honest, you all had. Involuntarily.

“Anyway. When Zhao had me chained up, it was Zuko who came in and got me out. He risked his life to save me,” You furrowed your brows. This was the last thing you wanted to hear about. What even was the point? Listing the few good deeds he seemed to have done, wouldn’t undo the mistakes. “No way! I’m sure he only did it so he could capture you himself,” Katara dismissed his idea. “Yeah! Face it Aang, You’re nothing but a big price to him,” Her brother agreed. “And what was all that crazy stuff about setting Appa free? What a liar,” The siblings had choosen a clear position in this debate. It didn’t really surprise you that they had each others backs. And so did you.

“Actually, he wasn’t lying,” Toph chimed in, leaning against a pillar connected to the ceiling. “Oh, hurray! In a lifetime of evil, at least he didn’t add animal cruelty to the list,” She paid no mind to Sokka’s antics and remained calm. “I’m just saying that, considering his messed up family and how he was raised, he could’ve turned out a lot worse,” You didn’t know why she would vouch for him, but you wouldn’t put her down. The sooner this discussion was over, the better. “You’re right, Toph. Let’s go find him and give him a medal! The ‘Not as much of a jerk as you could’ve been’ Award!” Katara mocked, spreading her arms in frustration. The earth bender crossed her arms, relying on her factual point of view. “All i know is, that while he was talking to us, he was sincere. Maybe you’re all just letting your hurt feelings keep you from thinking clearly,”

The group continued to bicker back and forth. “Why would you even try to defend him?” Toph pushed herself off the column, walking up to them. “Because, Katara, you’re all ignoring one crucial fact. Aang needs a fire bending teacher. It’s true, we have (Y/N), but she was never trained herself. And she never denied that she doesn’t have much knowledge about most techniques. And then another one shows up on a silver platter and you won’t even consider it?” She stomped. The rest of them turned to look at you, but you only shrugged. She was right. You’d been open with them from the beginning. “I admit that i don’t have as much... deep understanding for it as others may have. But i’m willing to give my best,”

Your reasoning seemed to be enough for the Avatar to pass. “I’m not having Zuko as my teacher,” he said. “You’re damn right, you’re not, buddy.” Sokka crossed his arms. “Well, i guess that’s settled,” You agreed. Toph grunted in frustration. “I’m beginning to wonder who’s really the blind one around here,”

The girl ranted as she walked away, only to return one day later, with burned soles.

“Toph! What happened?” She’d crawled in on her stomach, feet in the air. The front of her clothes was completely stained with dirt. Or as she liked to call it, a ‘healthy coating of earth’. ‘“My feet got burned,” Katara immediatly looked at the outcome. The skin was red and tender. Too sensitive to be touched. “Oh no! What happened?” You had no idea where she’d been all day, but considering the argument about a certain fire bender, a suspicion formed in your head. “I just told you, my feet got burned,” The brunette furrowed her brows. “I meant, how?” She hesitated, but answered while Katara used her healing powers to save whatever she could. “Well, i kind of went to see Zuko last night,” Your hunch got confirmed. The gaang was shocked to say the least. “See? You trusted Zuko and you got burned. Literally!” Sokka scolded, as he and Aang proceeded to carry Toph to the little fountain where she could stick her feet into the water. “Now i know how the rest of you feel. Not being able to see with your feet stinks,” You chuckled at her words, moving to stand behind her and putting your hands on her shoulders. She was like a little sister to you. And there was no doubt that you would make Zuko pay for what he'd done to her, should you ever see him again.

To your own dismay, that happened sooner than you’d expected.

A few seconds later to be exact.

“Watch out!” You yelled, spotting the assassin, as an explosion shook the temple. The man stood on a platform above, shooting at you. Or, to be precise, at Aang.

“Stop!” You weren’t that surprised to see Zuko next to him. The shock came more with the words he was saying. “I don’t want you hunting the Avatar anymore!” He commanded, but it was of no use. The boys grabbed Toph, making sure she was safe between them, as you all hid behind what was left of the fountain. “The mission is off! I’m ordering you to stop!” But no matter what he said, he was only cast aside. “I won’t pay you, if you keep attacking!” The prince kept trying to get to him. Not even his flames seemed to impress the man. “I’ll pay you double to stop!”

The assassin didn’t stop. Instead he aimed at Zuko himself. Your heart stopped for a second when he conjured flames around him to escape the attack. Then he was gone. Peaking over the stones you hid behind, you could faintly spot a silhouette clinging to the braches below.

You used the opening, screamed as you ran forward, throwing fireballs at the assassin with all your might. You couldn’t let him kill the prince. That task was already reserved for you, personally. The Avatar soon joined you, producing a cyclone. But neither that, nor Katara’s ice spikes could stop him. Everything you threw at him, he shrugged off. And he continued to destroy the temple in the process. “He’s going to blast this whole place right off the cliffside!” Toph shouted over the noise. “I can’t get out to water bend at him without getting blown up,” Katara stated, when you all covered behind a wall. You dared to poke your head out for a second, but you couldn’t see anything before he took another shot. “I can’t get an angle on him from down here,”

The Team was at a loss, until Sokka seemed to have an idea. “I know how to get an angle on him!” He followed the line of fire with his eyes, and took the chance, flinging his boomerang. And he hit. The assassin stumbled on his feet, trying to shoot once more, only to go down in the process.

The platform under him exploded, erasing what remained of him. 

Raising your head you could see Zuko managing to get back up.

He’d made it.

“I can’t believe i’m saying this, but thanks, Zuko,” Aang stood in between all of you, being the first to greet him. “Hey, what about me? i did the boomerang thing,” Sokka said, striking a pose. You raised a brow at him, but gave him a pat on the shoulder, which seemed to raise his spirits.

“Listen, i know i didn’t explain myself very well yesterday. I’ve been through a lot in the past three years. It’s been hard. But i’m realizing that i had to go through all those things to learn the truth. I thought i had lost my honor and that somehow my father was the only one who could return it to me. But i know now that no one can give you your honor. It’s something you earn for yourself, by choosing to do what’s right. All i want now is to play my part in ending this war. And i know my destiny is to help you restore balance in the world,” He turned and bowed to Toph. A traditional sign of respect in the Fire Nation. “And i’m sorry for what i did to you. It was an accident. Fire can be dangerous and wild. So as a firebender i need to be more careful and control my bending, so i don’t hurt people unintentionally,”

You clenched your hands at your sides. He didn’t even need his bending to hurt people. And to your horror, Aang seemed to be considering it.

“I think you are supposed to be my fire bending teacher. When i first tried to learn fire bending, i hurt Katara. And after that, i never wanted to fire bend again. (Y/N) helped me overcome my innitial fear. And yet destiny keeps bringing us together. Now that i know you understand how easy it is to hurt the people you love, i can’t ignore that any longer,” He gifted Zuko with a bow of his own. “I’d like you to teach me,” The prince immitated his gesture. “Thank you. I’m so happy you’ve accepted me into your group,”

“Not so fast. I still have to ask my friends if it’s ok with them,” He turned back to face you. “Toph, you’re the one that Zuko burned. What do you think?” She sat on a rock next to you, shrugging. “Go ahead and let him join. It’ll give me plenty of time to get back at him for burning my feet,” Her motion clearly indicated that she would beat him up later. Thoroughly.

“Sokka?” The boy remained silent for a second, but eventually came around. “Hey, all i want is to defeat the Fire Lord. If you think this is the way to do it, then i’m all for it,” The Avatar smiled upon hearing his answer and nodded, hoping to gain more approval from the rest of you.

“Katara?” She wasn’t thrilled about the idea. She didn’t even bother to hide it. But she agreed for Aang’s sake. “I’ll go along with whatever you think is right,” The prince was ecstatic, a smile spreading on his face. “I won’t let you down, i promise!”

Everyone seemed to agree.

“And (Y/N)?” Aang looked at you with curious eyes, ready to hear your opinion. You could see Zuko breaking a sweat behind him, as you glared at his face. “I’m sorry Aang, but i can’t be a part of the group. Not if he is,” You said, flames coming to life around your fists. “But i do want to stay by your side. So i’ll prove to you that i am the better choice,” Passing the Avatar you walked up to the prince, until his face was only centimeters apart from yours.

“Prince Zuko,” Your tone was sharper than a knife. “I challenge you to an Agni Kai,”

on to part four!

tags: @zvkonation​ @viva-la-millennia​ @randomness501​ @drheinzd​ @kaylove12​  @duh-dobrik​ @yeetscreetiwannaeat​  @ashnkamfeun @hailkyoshi​ @shortmexicangirl​​

(if you want to be added/removed from any taglist, please tell me in the comments)

[ladyeliot]

“Let's go home?”

Request: @mycosmicparadise - Hi there! I think your idea is great, cheer up. I wanted to make an request, and don't worry if it takes a while. I had in mind Chris Evans x female reader, with Dodger please and make it fluff. Everything else I leave to you. Thanks a lot!

Thank you very much! You are the first request and my first one-shot at Tumblr. I hope you like it!

Pairing: Chris Evans x FemReader 

Word count: 1536

Notes: Fluff + Dodger / English is not my native language, sorry for the mistakes.

The sunset was near, the large windows of the room no longer allowed those warm rays to pass through that had disappeared just a few minutes ago. The sound that enveloped the atmosphere was concentrated in the non-stop tapping of the keys on the laptop, the last few days had been really exhausting. Last week you returned from a long week's holiday, which together with your move to New York had barely allowed you to keep up with the developments in your work, so you had a lot of work to do.

A small grunt from the chair caught your attention and made you look away from the computer screen for a few seconds, then smile as you continued to type and respond to emails. Your eyes focused on the small clock at the bottom of the computer window, which made you realise that the whole afternoon had passed without you even moving from your chair in front of the desk. You sighed and leaned back on the chair, thanking the change of position and being able to see through the shop as the street lamps were already lighting up the streets. You looked back at the chair to see that half-white, half-tan snout that was resting on a cushion.

"Don't look at me like that," you smile as he rests his face in his hands. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

Dodger, realizing that he was paying attention to him, raised his head and with a small jump he went down to the ground. He seemed happy because he soon jumped over you to be caressed while expressing his emotion through some barking. It took you only a couple of minutes to get ready and go out into the street, the air crashed into your face, for even though it was the month of September the weather reported that the cold was approaching New York. Greenwich Village was a lively neighbourhood, the streets were busy at the time, and you had chosen to hide under a Red Sox cap that you had stolen from your beloved boyfriend. Dodger knew what the route was, since every afternoon you used to go for a walk along the Hudson River. Near where you lived there was a park that allowed you to escape from all the tumult of the big city, to find yourself in a moment of peace and tranquility.

You wouldn't know how long you were walking, but night was already falling on the big city. You both sat on a small wooden bench where you could look out over the other side of Jersey City. The lights produced a strange melancholy in you, however something distracted you from your own thoughts. Dodger began to bark and try to get off the leash when he saw a figure in the distance, somewhat blurred by the low light produced by the streetlights. You got up from the bench and turned to look at the person who was approaching, until you could discover who it was and a smile lit up your face.

"I knew I'd find you here," he said as he bent down to pet Dodger. "Where else would you be?"

You kept your smile on your face until Chris approached her to kiss your lips. It was a kiss full of tenderness, just like he used to give you after a day without seeing you.

"Did you miss me?" he moved only a few inches away from your face and stroked your cheek.

"Do you really want me to answer?” you bit your lower lip, while showing a little crooked smile.

"I see," he muttered, nodding to himself. "I guess not much, because I've been calling you on the phone and you didn't answer... Until I got home and realised that you had left it there.

Chris took the mobile phone out of his pocket, but the moment you reached for it, he waved it away again. 

"I don't think you need it right now," whispered Chris as he placed a small kiss on the tip of your nose.

In a thousandth of a second your lips would merge in an intense and warm kiss again. The air that flooded New York City that night stopped for a moment around you, avoiding creating discomfort and breaking that moment. Chris slowly caressed the locks of your hair that fell on your shoulders while at the same time he held his other hand on your chin making that kiss unfinished. You couldn't help but draw a little smile as his beard took over the kiss itself, touching the corners of your mouth. At that very moment, a bark from the floor caught your attention, undoing the probably most romantic moment of the day you were living. You looked at Dodger and where he was looking at, just ten meters away from them there was a person leaning on the railing looking at the Hudson riverbed, but what inspired Dodger to bark was the fact that there was a Husky next to that person who seemed to have caught his full attention. Chris bent down to catch up with his dog and stroked him as he was being sucked by him, which he barely tried to avoid.

"We'd better go, we don't want Dodger to break any more hearts this afternoon," Chris stood up and took the strap from your hands, intertwined your fingers and placed a little kiss on your cheek. “What would you like to do for dinner tonight?”

"What did you have in mind for me?"

You put your other hand to the one you both had intertwined and looked up to contemplate with a wide smile Chris' face that was a few inches higher than yours.

"What did I have in mind to prepare for you," Chris repeated with a small laugh and nod at the end of the question.  "Let me think..." he paused slightly as he bathed his lips with his tongue. "How about a plate of cool ranch doritos combined with avocado sauce?

"Very appetizing" you said with ironic certainty nodding, as your boyfriend began to laugh and deposited a kiss on your forehead that was at the height of his lips. "By the way, this afternoon I have been informed that I have to travel a week earlier to Scotland, there have been a number of problems due to the weather, and the merger between the companies has had to be brought forward".

"And when are you supposed to leave?" asked Chris in a calm tone of voice, but at the same time showing his discontent in his scowl.

"Next week," you barely let out a thread of voice with inner guilt. "But I'll only be gone a couple of weeks.”

"Oh, come on! That means that when you go home, I'll go to Atlanta" his voice contained a tone of heaviness, while showing a bit of desperation when it came to gestures.  "And I wasn't going back to Atlanta until the end of the month.”

"I know and I'm sorry, I was hoping to spend time in New York with you at least until you started filming again, but it seems that these impediments have arisen," both were detained in the park by the river. Chris rested his back on the railing, while showing a gesture of regret on his face, he had already broken eye contact with her.  "I'm very sorry, I know we'll hardly see each other for the next two months, but I promise you we can make up for all that time.”

They both knew that their lifestyle would cause this series of situations, they had experienced it before in the other relationships and it could be a source of conflict in order to cope with their day to day life, however they were fully aware that both were willing to face them. You positioned yourself in front of him by dropping your body onto Chris' body, put your arms around him and looked upwards for his gaze. Your boyfriend kept his gaze fixed on the distance, his face turned to the right avoiding eye contact. You smiled melancholy, you knew Chris' tactic, he used it whenever he didn't want to argue with you.You raised your right hand to caress his cheek, which caused Chris to look into your eyes.

"Let's go home?" she asked, waiting for an affirmative answer from him, who, after smiling back at you, nodded his face.

Those were the first months of a relationship that began in a certain way. Hope was not placed in them, much less that feelings would arise so deep that they would plan a life together, making their residence in New York City official. However, in that brief period of time in which they had been able to meet and find the real person that the other was hiding inside, they had been able to verify that for some reason both were in that place and in that instant together, and that reason mainly was why they were going to fight.

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Tag list:  @imerdwarf​ @mycosmicparadise

[madaras-housewife]

Nighthawk

I’ve had this idea in my head for like 2 days and I wanted to put it on paper really badly so I wrote it on a whim. It’s poorly edited too so forgive me if there are any grammatical erorrs. 3 am vibes babyyyyy 

pairing: Madara Uchiha x reader

length: 1.8k

tw: none

It wouldn’t be too contrived to compare Madara to the weather outside. He was a storm; majestic, grandiose and powerful. And yet, there he slept next to you, in the same bed you had been sharing for a while now. Had it been two years already? Your mind was too foggy to think about something even as simple as that; or maybe the pouring rain was at fault. It was almost too loud for you to hear your own thoughts, but you still heard them, nonetheless.

Somehow, you wished the rain could drown them out, the way you knew your newly planted crops would be soggy by morning. What a shame. Madara was going to be so disappointed after pestering you about planting a garden and having worked so hard on it. He had several skills, ranging from diplomacy to combat, but gardening was not one of them. Nevertheless, he insisted that it would be healthy for your growing family.

 Even though your husband was near you, the abrasive feeling of loneliness filled your bones. It was always this way when it stormed, wasn’t it? Especially that night. 

You turned your head to the side, squinting your eyes, but the room was too dark to see the clock. Carefully enough, you stood straight so as not to bother your man and rubbed your dry cheek. The thought of sleeping was way past you and, if you weren’t already certain about that, you definitely were when a billowing thunder roared so closely to you, you felt it rock your body with intensity. Before realising it, you recoiled and stubbornly balled your fists. 

That night marked five years since Izuna had died. You only met him a few times, before you and Madara had become a couple. It often felt like the Uchiha compound was empty, as if it was missing something. Would it have been odd to say that you were missing someone you barely even knew? That was not quite right. In fact, you knew a great deal about the younger brother from Madara’s stories about their childhood, their squabbles and frequent conflicts regarding war. At one point, it started consuming Izuna’s consciousness, warping it into something dangerous, something that not even his elder brother possessed at the time; desire for conflict. 

Whereas you counted years, Madara counted every day, even though he would never tell you that. It was obvious when he called that name in his sleep, almost every night, in a meek, broken voice that sounded nothing like the man you knew. If anything, he sounded like a scared child who wandered alone in the darkness. Even when you hurriedly draped your arms over him and clung onto him, his brows never fully unfurrowed. 

Not even when he slept was he at peace. 

Without realising, you turned your body to his side of the bed. Madara was sleeping on his back, soundly, as small snores parted his lips. He hated snoring and he swore he would never sleep in that position again, saying that shinobi must have control over themselves at all times. You smiled and promised yourself you wouldn’t mention it when morning came. All you wanted was to bend down to give him a small peck, but instead, you settled for brushing the hair out of his face, caressing his face so gently that you barely touched his skin. Your husband would usually wake up at the smallest touch, since you knew him as a light sleeper, but on that night, he seemed to be more tired than usual. Even in the darkness, you could make out that the creases below his eyes were a tad more prominent than usual. Peace was… exhausting sometimes, to say the least. 

A flash of lightning cracked the midnight sky into two, brightening the room enough for you to see that he had a slight frown on his face. Your hand pressed itself against his forehead until you felt the tension slowly disperse. Now he looked rather calm and stress-free, as if a burden had been lifted from him. He seemed to have many of those these days and they piled up, almost forming a wall between the two of you. Deep within your heart, you wondered if that wall would become impenetrable, if you wouldn’t be able to reach him anymore. 

You truly wished Izuna had been there instead. Though it was nothing more than an oversimplified solution to the numerous problems you and Madara faced(when, in fact, it wouldn’t even be that anymore, now that his little brother had been gone for so long), you liked to think that he could make your husband happy, happier than you made him. The comparison felt silly, unfair and unwarranted. You even felt selfish for thinking such a thing. Despite rarely ever showing it, his stares had grown a little fonder and his hugs a bit tighter since he received the news, and it was your candle of hope during the grim days, when he chose solidarity over comfort, working all night long, going on missions only to separate himself from the village and the clan which had caused him so much pain. 

There would soon be another source of joy in his life and you wondered if you were up to the task. It was something that you had been ruminating over for months, but couldn’t quite put into words until now, though not exactly sure why. Maybe the chaotic life of inhabiting a shinobi clan had made it more difficult for you to truly look at yourself, to see what was inside. So instead, you chose to lash out at your husband again and again, until your anger poisoned him and all the patience he mustered for both of your sakes. But you were blessed with a headstrong man, who, in all that vast sea of insecurities and responsibilities, rarely ever mistreated your heart. Especially lately, when Madara had been sharing the same fears as you did. 

On the other hand, Madara didn’t take out his anger on you the way you did. He lets all his fury simmer, lets all his misgivings haunt him, until everything builds up to a tempestuous wrath which befalls him out of thin air. That was how he was taught, and it was one of the few lessons from his father, Tajima, which he didn’t reject. It was what his father had left him with, besides agonizing memories of war. However, when his last sibling passed away, it seemed as if all of Izuna’s own burdens were passed down, leaving him with double, maybe even triple the cargo(or maybe, you couldn’t really quantify suffering in mere numbers, the same way you couldn’t with words). 

Madara’s shoulders were heavier. You felt it every day, when you gave him the regular massage in the evening. What was it that you promised him on your wedding day? (It was hard to remember, now that so much had happened.) You promised him you would always be his pillar, so that he wouldn’t tumble when it was too dim to see what was ahead of him, (in reality, no one could ever see what was ahead of them; one can only row the boat facing backwards), but marriage wasn’t as simple as that. If love is controlling, then wedlock is a dictator. It demands a home, sex, patience, shared meals, babies, empathy and eternity.  

Another thunder roared mercilessly, making the earth quake below you. Sucking in a sharp breath, you wrapped your arms around yourself, cradling your stomach. The disagreements had become too frequent, the scowls too obstinate and the distance between you too lengthy. How long would it be until you completely failed, until you wouldn’t be an adequate wife for Madara Uchiha anymore? Until you weren’t fit to carry his children? 

The rain now hammered the ground, like a deafening fusillade of bullets and, in a moment of insanity, you thought it was taunting you, mocking you. It was so loud that you didn’t even hear the raspy groan next to you, until you felt a hand on your forearm.

“Can’t rest?”. His dozy voice seemed to have pulled you out of your disquiet pitfall of thoughts. Without facing him, you shook your head. The lump in your throat was too thick to even open your mouth. 

Your husband then grabbed your shoulder and gently pulled you down, until your back hit the now-cold sheets. For a split second, you glanced at his face and noticed that his half-lidded eyes were locked on your belly, but as soon as he felt you looking at him, he stared back. When Madara noticed your pursed lips and glimmering eyes, he sluggishly crawled closer to you, turning you on your side until his chest was pressed against your back. Wrapping his arm around you, you heard him inhaling deeply into your messy hair. 

You eased into your man’s embrace. “Did I wake you up?”

“No. Now come sleep.”, Madara said. 

You meekly nodded, pushing yourself against his warm body, the worries gradually dissolving into nothing more than what looked like particles of dust, ready to be washed away by the rain. But when he didn’t hear you reply, he placed a deep kiss on your soft spot, the crevasse between your neck and shoulder. 

“You’re going to be a great mother, you know. I love you.” 

Could he have read your mind? You didn’t know, but you also didn’t care about the answer. You were at home, exactly where you needed to be, with the person you needed. In that moment, you realised that Madara was going to be a great father, too.

“I love you too.” 

Your husband always knew the right words to say; it was as if he could hear you even when you didn’t speak, mainly when you didn’t even want to. It might be that he just understood you that well. After all, he had a knack for reading people. Sometimes you would curse that talent of his, but it was in rare moments such as those when you were infinitely thankful for it, for it all.

It wouldn’t be too contrived to compare Madara to a storm. He was a majestic thunder in the sky, capricious, striking fear and admiration into your heart; a grandiose ocean which didn’t fall from the sky, but was driven, torrential, carving mountains and earth to his own pleasure, omniscient, poised; the powerful wind, howling loudly, as if yearning for a melody to sing his tune, bending trees and tearing houses in his way, almost seeking to outrun everyone else, until he felt forlorn. The floods were promised, the might of nature had already been unleashed, but there would be sunshine and warmth by morning.

[scribbleseas]

Unfiltered, Chapter 2: A Little White Lie

Description: You are a freshly graduated cadet of the 104th Training Corps with charisma and beauty to spare. Sleeping with three very different men pushes you into the center of the most complicated web of secrets and lies that can only be unraveled by one thing: the truth. The same truth that you hide at every turn to shield your carefully crafted exterior and the future of your unborn child.

Story Warnings: Explicit content: detailed descriptions of unprotected sex, really just a lot of sex, so if smut makes you uncomfy, this isn’t the fic for you! Accidental pregnancy, vomiting, cursing, slut-shaming, mentions of blood, angst with a bittersweet ending, hinted abandonment issues, mentions of a terminal illness.

Chapter Warnings: No chapter warnings that I can think of!

Author’s Note: Thank you for all of the support on the first chapter of this story! It was heartwarming to see.  (Also, Eren and the rest of the 104th are aged up in this fic!!)

Happy Reading!

- Dan

⇠ PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER ⇢

. . .

Daily training within the Scout Corps was rigorous on its own, but the added challenge of maneuvering with sore limbs and a battered core was excruciating, the pain nagging you with every step, a bitter reminder of your lack of orgasm and the same inappropriate argument with your superior. 

Everything about Captain Levi was infuriating- his indifference, the way he can simply ignore you outside of sex and orders. Sex and orders- was there even a difference between the two at this point? He couldn’t keep casting you off as an afterthought if he wanted this to continue, which he did. It was either you or a cold midnight jerk-off, and you knew he’d do anything to avoid the latter. Meanwhile, you had options and quite a few at that. 

Since the end of March, the weather was quickly picking up to a warmer, sunnier disposition- which meant training was outside once again. Squads were put into training groups, conversing with each other and going through warm-up drills while you took the time to subtly look over your comrades, searching for a proper candidate to dangle yourself in front of. 

You halfheartedly pulled your right arm across your body to appear busy to avoid a harsh scolding from a superior for being lazy. Out of all the scouts, the cadets from the 104th Training Corps were the best candidates, simply for their lack of prestige. Levi wouldn’t care if you picked any scout or any other officer, but you knew he’d notice if you liked someone that he considered below him. 

Someone he had yet to respect.

Particularly…

Your eyes landed on Eren Jaeger- a friend of yours and, fortunately, the titan shifter who Levi was tasked with keeping an eye on for the time being. Eren was always easily flustered- to the point you had suspected he had a crush on you during your training days. Reigniting those feelings with a smile and a few strategic touches should be more than enough to coax him into bed; sooner than later.

“Hey, Eren!” you chirped, approaching the shifter without entertaining another thought. He was conversing with his two closest friends- Mikasa and Armin when he was supposed to be training with Levi’s squad. “Mikasa, Armin,” you addressed, mainly to avoid being rude.

“Y/n, hey. How are you?” Eren grinned, his shoulders straightening as you stood before him, completing the subconscious triangle that he had made in the midst of conversation. You could feel Mikasa’s stare bear into your side profile, glaring. Her arms crossed before you approached, but her hands curled into firm firsts, tightening the longer you stood there. 

“Could you help me stretch?” You asked. “Yesterday’s training made me really stiff,” your words were half true since a lot of your body was sore and painful to maneuver, but it wasn’t from training. You were in pain from the toll that pleasuring Levi took as you vividly recalled his firm grip trapping your wrists down, and his body kept your leg up throughout the entire ordeal. 

A little white lie never hurt anyone.

“I would, but...” although you expected Eren’s response to be instantaneous, you had been wrong. Instead, the shifter looked from you to Squad Levi- where he needed to report to, conflicted between having free access to touching you and to his duty as a soldier. His will wasn’t that strong, given that he was only a pent-up eighteen-year-old guy when it came down to it. 

“Please,” you tilted your head, offering a meek smile to suggest that you were embarrassed to ask for help. “It’ll only be a few minutes.”

“I-” Eren, throat bobbed as he swallowed, blind to the concerned look that Armin was giving him. “Sure. What can I do?” He asked, his metaphorical armor falling to the ground. Confidence takes one a long way.

“Let’s go to the grass,” you suggested, gesturing to the large patch where other scouts were preparing for the day by also stretching, some in pairs.

“Alright- I’ll...see you guys at dinner,” Eren waved to Mikasa and Armin and quickly followed you as you led him to an empty spot. The spot was well in Levi’s view but far enough to give you plausible deniability. 

“We’ll save you a spot!” Armin yelled, his voice nearly out of earshot to you. He was referring to Eren, anyways. You sat with your class because you were the most familiar with them, not because you were a part of their close (top ten) band. 

“It’s mainly in my legs- I might’ve landed awkwardly at some point yesterday,” you mused, slowly laying down on the warm grass. The sun shined in your eyes, causing you to squint at Eren as he sank to his knees to avoid having too big of a gap between you. “Can you push my legs down?” you requested, bringing the soles of your brown boots together and a few inches away from your groin. 

“Oh, yeah. I’ve done this for..um, Krista, before...so I think I know what to do,” Eren’s face grew red as he kneed in front of you, his thighs clamping your feet in place, which kept your legs bent and fanned out. His hands were much larger than Levi’s and warmer, too, as they pressed down on the sides of your kneecaps, unintentionally teasing your lower thighs. Eren was too naive to know how to tease, and in all honesty, he was more gentle than you deserved. 

“That’s kind of you,” you commented, growing disinterested in the conversation and instead focusing on the delicious stretch that Eren was giving your hips and inner thigh muscles. He was staring down at his hands, focusing on the way your supple muscles moved and tensed each time he pushed down. You both knew that his hands were a little higher than they should’ve been for that particular stretch. “How about my quadriceps?” You gave Eren’s hands a soft tap, and he allowed you to move onto your stomach.

Eren’s breath hitched rather noticeably, and you imagined that his gaze was now trained on your ass, the definition of it clear from your tight uniform trousers. “You know what to do, right?” you asked, feigning complete ignorance as to what you were doing and how it affected him. 

“Oh- yeah, I do,” Eren moved slowly, his left hand coming down on your lower back first, flirting with the curve of your ass. His right took hold of your right kneecap. He slowly pulled the muscle upwards while pushing down on your back.

“Don’t let me kick you,” you joked to release a little of the building tension since your raised knee was bent under his lunging body, leaving the toe of your boot little ways under his chin. You rested on your elbows to support your upper body, taking the time to look to the side, where Levi watched you from his group. Watching was in fact, an understatement because his meticulous eyes narrowed, focused on the positioning of Eren’s hands. That expression caused satisfaction to bloom in your chest, the thrill comparable to the good pain that this stretch provided you.

Eren chuckled and, after a few more seconds, switched which leg he was stretching. You were flexible, and as tempted as you were to tell him that, you refrained. A little went a long way, and too much could scare him off. “I’m sure I could take you if you did,” Eren replied, pushing your back down firmly, causing your back to crack. It hurt, but ultimately, the sensation was euphoric- the closest to orgasm you’ve been in days.

The short whine that slipped past your lips made no effort to hide that fact. Although the sound (and volume) were unintentional, it caused a few people to look in your direction, driving your face to color. You pretended not to take notice of Levi’s glare and instead looked ahead of you as Eren switched legs. As shameless as you could be, even you had your limits, drawing the line around voyeurism. In an attempt to regain control of the situation, you laughed at yourself, praying that each chuckle sounded more natural than forced as you let your head dip.

“You really have done this before, haven’t you?” You teased, turning the heat back onto Eren, who faltered at the dirty insinuation. The noise of protest was more than enough confirmation that he hadn’t done anything beyond innocent stretching, which would make this much more fun for you. 

“That’s not-...come on, let’s get to our squads before Captain Levi gives me an earful,” Eren dismissed. You would have to be obtuse not to notice how his hands lagged in coming off your body- particularly the one that pushed down on your lower back. 

You were more likely to get an earful from Levi than Eren was, anyway.

“Oh, alright,” you said with a soft laugh, groaning as you got to your feet. The pain in your legs had yet to subside completely, but the dutiful stretching did help soothe it some. “Save me a seat in the mess hall later, yeah?” You requested, arching your eyebrows as you gave your shoulders a slow roll. 

“Uh- yeah, sure,” Eren stumbled over his words as you already began walking back towards your training squad, dispersing with the rest of the scouts that were using the large patch of grass to warm up for the hard day’s labor properly. 

. . .

Eren did indeed save a seat for you on his left side, Armin usually sat, but instead, the blond took the seat across from Eren without a problem. Mikasa merely watched you as you pulled out the chair, her face completely sober while you put your metal tray down in front of you with a soft clink.

“Hey guys,” you smiled, freshly showered, your hair tied back lazily. Despite having expended a year’s worth of energy on training in the heat, the food on your tray (a cut of bread and a little bowl of potato soup) was the last thing on your mind. Instead, you were more focused on formulating a plan.  A phase two, if you will.

“Oh- Y/n, hey,” Armin greeted you first, offering a wary smile as if he was trying to talk down a gunman. You weren’t sure if that was something to be offended by or not, seeing as Armin was a skittish soldier to begin with. 

“How did training go?” you decided to take his hesitance as a compliment, a testament to the strength of the faux certitude you expressed. Boldly sitting next to Eren was the key to this interaction, and if it went according to plan, you’d have him that night. That was record time when you compared it to the weeks of batting your eyelashes and flirting about you wasted on seducing Levi. Your crush on him was only physical, and he was the subject of the wettest of your dreams- seemingly impossible. The chase was supposed to be worth the quality of the catch, and yet, last night was the final straw.  “It wuzsh goof,” Eren answered for Armin, his mouth full with a bite of bread that he devoured. His cheeks bulged with it, but you suspected that he only intervened to remind you that he was there, as if you could forget. “Tirin-g,” he admitted, swallowing down the piece of it.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Mikasa admonished from her seat on Eren’s right. She never spoke to you directly unless she had to for the legion, and as much as you tried in the past, she made no effort to budge. “You’ll choke.” 

“I won’t choke, Mikasa. I’m not a kid,” Eren argued defensively, his voice rising to subtly accuse her of not trusting his abilities. He sent her a fast glare that you wouldn’t have caught if you weren’t looking at him.

“They were pretty hard on us today,” you purposely changed the conversation back to the original topic to fill the silence that followed the awkwardly unbalanced dynamic of Eren and Mikasa. “Squad Leader Finn had my group do several rounds of interval training before we even touched our gear,” you complained, shuddering at the memory of the rocky soil pressing into your palms each time you pushed your legs back to plank.  The skin was raw and pink, and it particularly stung when you exposed it to lukewarm shower water and bar soap.

“They’re just trying to keep us sharp. You know titans are always more active during the spring and summer,” Eren said, “Section Commander Hanji hasn’t let up with her experiments, though. She asked me for a lock of my hair this morning.”

“I think that’s pretty tame for Section Commander Hanji,” you joked, breaking off a flake of the crusty outer layer of the bread to prop in your mouth. It was primarily stale, but you appreciated the warmth that seeped on your tongue. 

“She could’ve made an even cut,” Eren mumbled as he finished off his cut of bread, gesturing to his sideburn, where there was indeed a chunk of his brown hair missing. 

You chuckled at the comment as some of the other cadets from your grade populated the long table- Connie Springer was making some shoddy impression of Commander Erwin. At the same time, Sasha Blouse nearly dropped her tray of food from laughter, utterly with Jean Kirsten rolling his eyes at their antics. Even Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Hoover took to the isolated end of the table to speak to each other, albeit Reiner’s gaze traveling to Krista Lenz every handful of seconds. Your comrades were very predictable on a day-to-day basis, which was one of the many reasons why you weren’t close with most of them. People tended to bore you quickly, which left something to be desired, more often than not. 

The conversation at this dining table rarely included you, as you preferred to sit passively and wait for the exact moment to make your next move, which was slightly less predictable than your interaction that morning. 

You picked up your soup bowl, the metal circumference small enough for you to be able to wrap your hands around it and have your fingers touch. The soup itself was watered down and bland as you thoughtlessly swirled it around with the bottom of your spoon, frowning at it. Before your mother left, she made it with heavy cream and tiny slivers of smoked bacon. The only thing that had in common with the food sitting in front of you was the use of potatoes. 

Rather than dwelling on that woman, you turned your sights back to Eren. Getting him to want you was a goal you concluded that morning and now, you only needed him to act on it. Which he wouldn’t without your provoking him.

Purposely, you fumbled with the bowl of watery ‘soup’ and watched it fall, the warm contents spilling down your shirt and landing on Eren’s lap from your proximity. Since the rest of the table was engaged in watching Connie attempt to impersonate Oluo Bozado, a member of Levi’s Squad. Until the sound of your metal bowl hitting the floor (as well as your surprised yelp) caught their attention.

“I’m so sorry. I wasn’t paying any attention,” you explained, instantaneously rounding your eyes to make your apology seem entirely genuine. Mikasa glared at you before sharing a look with Armin, who widened his eyes to alert her that you had caught on. You did not attempt to press. 

Eren’s frustrated expression quickly melted as he looked from his lap to you. “It’s just soup, Y/n. It’s fine,” he grinned, evidently attempting to lift some of the guilt as you picked up a napkin to try to blot the soup on your shirt. 

“I don’t think it’ll stain if we clean it off now,” you put the crumpled napkin on your tray, next to the empty bowl. “Let’s go to the washroom,” you suggested, motioning to the way the napkins had only absorbed the soup rather than removing the dark grey stain that was left.

“You’re probably right about that,” Eren gave his lap one final look before standing up with you, your dominant hand coming to wrap around his wrist to establish physical contact. 

“We’ll be right back,” you chirped nonchalantly, quite literally, leading the titan shifter through the middle of the mess hall. A fast glance over your shoulder revealed Mikasa starting to get up to follow, but Armin gently patted her forearm to make her sit back down. Her instincts knew better than his, but she seemed to write hers off as her usual overprotective tendency for Eren. You doubted she wanted to be scolded for it again.

The unofficial ‘Superiors’ Table’ was the closest to the entrance of the mess hall, the table formation resembling a simple cafeteria in many rows of horizontal tables, which made it easy for Levi to watch you and Eren pass him. For a moment, you locked eyes with him and offered a chaste smile to deepen the blow. The way you held Eren’s wrist as he trailed you was a signature tell of a quickie- you’d done it to Levi countless times, and now he was recognizing it as a bystander.

A slight dip of your chin expressed that you were completely serious about using Eren to make him envious. If this didn’t teach him, then you were positive nothing would.

. . .

[nanagoswife]

Please, Don’t Go. - Chapter 5

Summary: Qui-Gon comes back with bad news.

W/C: 2.9k

Warnings: mention of blood, mention of mass murder, loss, angst

A kiss being pressed to the top of your head brought you out of your slumber. The comfort of his arms was still around you.

In a sleepy haze, you leaned closer into his body. You heard him lightly chuckle as he rubbed your arm as you slowly were brought back into the waking world.

“Darling,” Obi-Wan said as he pressed another kiss to your head, “we should head inside. Qui-Gon will probably be back soon.”

With a slightly annoyed grumble, you sat up and finally opened your eyes. Thankfully, it wasn’t bright enough to hurt your eyes too badly.

“Do we have to,” you whined and shifted further into Obi-Wan’s side. This earned a chuckle from him as he gave a gentle squeeze and placed a kiss to your temple. His warmth contrasted the cool breeze of the morning.

Then he nodded, “I’m afraid so.”

Grumbling, you finally separated yourself from his embrace. That’s when you noticed the stiffness from sleeping the way you did. Besides that, you shivered from the cool air hitting the warmest parts of your body.

Obi-Wan got up first and offered a hand to help you stand. As you did, you slightly stumbled but he caught you, pulling your body to his to steady you.

“Alright?” he asked in a concerned tone. If it weren’t for his teasing smile, you’d think that he really was worried.

Playfully you pushed him away by his chest and made your way to the ship’s ramp while you laughed. He jogged to catch up to you with his own laugh.

The two of you were about to head up the ramp until you heard something rustle in the bushes behind you. Without hesitation, Obi-Wan pushed you behind him, blocking you with himself like a human shield. His hand hovered over his lightsaber, ready for whatever the threat could be.

After a moment, you saw Obi-Wan relax and it confused you. After straightening back up, he turned to you.

“Qui-Gon,” he told you, seeing your confusion. You immediately relaxed. Until that moment, you never noticed how scared you would be if an actual threat revealed itself. Well, if you were honest, the thrill of a good chase would be enjoyable too.

Soon after, Qui-Gon emerged from the bushes. When you locked eyes with Qui-Gon, his usual positive gaze was gone. There was a forced optimism in his eyes but you easily saw through it.

“Princess, padawan,” he greeted as he made it in front of the two of you.

“What’s the news, Master?” Obi-Wan said, trying to sound more light-hearted about it. You knew he didn’t only see Qui-Gon’s uneasiness, but could feel it, unlike you.

At first, Qui-Gon was going to say something about it right away. He thought better of it. “We should probably step inside. Everyone should be comfortable when I say this.”

Obi-Wan and you share a confused glance before nodding and finally making your way up the ramp.

All of you decided on settling in the cockpit. It’s the only area that could be anywhere close to be considered a sitting area. There’s a thick air surrounding everything right now. For you, anticipation filled you as you desperately wanted to know what was happening.

Looking across from you, Obi-Wan was desperate to know as well, but he had the force. He knew what nature of the news held. It scared you as he was wearing a worried frown.

Taking a deep breath, Qui-Gon finally spoke, “I have good news and bad news. What would you like to hear first, princess?”

For a moment, you were going to say the good news first. After years of being in your position, though, you learned to never start with good news. Especially if the bad news is worse than you originally anticipated.

“May as well start with the worst of it.” You tried desperately to keep your voice calm, not letting your running emotions show.

“Y/N,” Qui-Gon addressed you by your first name for what felt like the first time. This is when you knew this really wasn’t going to be good. “Captain Baize has gone missing,” he said in a lower tone.

You knew it was to try and show how he wanted to support you, but it didn’t matter. It felt like your heart had stopped.

“With the circumstances, they assume the worst. There’s a high probability that he has passed.”

“There’s still a chance that he’s alive though,” Obi-Wan cut in. He could feel the overwhelming pain that was flowing through you. It hit him with such a ferocity that it wrenched his heart almost like your pain was his. Something in him desperately wanted you to hang on to hope instead of thinking the worst.

Almost as if he picked up on Obi-Wan’s sentiment, Qui-Gon nodded. He was eternally grateful that his padawan was so in tune with other people’s emotions. Since Qui-Gon could only go off of studying people on the outside, there were many times he missed things. Now was one of those times, other than the fact that you and Obi-Wan were closer as well.

Even though you appreciated the sentiment, it did little to ease the pain. Not only were you grieving the fact that you may have lost a friend, but Kenth was more than a friend. A second dad, another brother, your protector and number one fan and supporter. What was life going to be like without him? What was it going to be like without feeling his embrace or not having him with you to accompany you on your whims?

“What’s the good news?” You said this so quietly that the other two probably hardly heard you. If you spoke any louder, you would break and you wanted to stay composed until you could be in the safety of your room.

“The conflict is being brought down by your brother.”

“At what cost?” Your immediate response almost stunned Qui-Gon. He wasn’t expecting you to jump this quickly to this topic.

Although he, even Obi-Wan, wasn’t expecting it, you were mainly referring to Kenth Baize. If he was lost, who else has been sacrificed to bring down the conflict. Who else needed to die just so that the killing would stop altogether. It was almost like your whole life has been surrounded with death and hurt.

Sure, some of it was more entertaining and made into a sort of game because it was you, but this wasn’t you. These were the people that you loved and cared about more than you did yourself. They were your people one way or another. Whether you would have to take the throne or follow your dream to be in the senate.

“I… don’t know, your highness,” Qui-Gon said as he looked to the ground. It almost seemed like he was chiding himself for not realizing what effect this had on you.

“I-If that’s all,” you started with a shaky breath. To try and compose yourself a bit more, you took a deep breath before continuing, “I would like to go to my room.” You couldn’t bring yourself to make eye contact with either of the Jedi. You knew, especially when it came to Obi-Wan, that you wouldn’t be able to keep yourself together if you did.

Even though you asked, you didn’t wait to hear an answer. Quickly, you got up and made your way to your small, but cozy space. There, you would have privacy to let it out.

-

Obi-Wan waited a little bit before he went to check on you. He knew that you were needing time alone. There was something that told him silently that you would need him, just not right away. You needed to have time to put everything together alone before you had any other thoughts introduced.

As he stood at your door, he could feel your turmoil. There were so many emotions that were mingling together. Like always, there was one more prominent one. This time, it wasn’t fear. It wasn’t necessarily sadness, it was sadness but in a different name.

Grief. Grief was the exact feeling that overwhelmed everything else. Then suddenly, he was barreled over by the force of something before he started seeing visions. No, not visions, but memories. Your memories. Your memories with Captain Kenth Baize. Memories that spanned from when you were a small child, to ones that had happened not so long ago.

Obi-Wan has never been through something like this. Not even when training with fellow Jedi to learn how to navigate an unshielded mind, being let in. In a way, he guessed you probably wanted him to see this whether it was your conscious intentions or not. Or, maybe, it was the force. There were so many possibilities that he was going through until your door opened.

You stood in the doorway, eyes red and puffy but showing one thing. You knew that he was there. Not only did you let him see what was troubling you, but the connection he had to you through the force only amplified it and made it even more real.

“Hi,” you said quietly, sniffling and trying to wipe your face dry without success.

“How did you know I was here?”

“I don’t know. I just… did,” you replied.

Slowly, he nodded. This was all strange, but the force worked in strange ways. It was a Jedi’s job to be a servant of that, not question it.

“Will you come in?” you asked, voice louder and the most hopeful he’s heard it since about half an hour ago.

Without much hesitation, he nodded. He knew exactly what he was going to do after that door closed. When it did, he quickly pulled you into his embrace. You gasped in surprise but quickly melted into his arms. The tears that you had managed to stop came back and started to dampen a spot on Obi-Wan’s tunic. He didn’t mind. He would never mind as long as it brought comfort to you.

After a moment, you pulled him in closer by gripping his tabards. He held you by your back and one hand on the back of your head, like he was shielding you.

Once you started to calm once again, you didn’t dare part from Obi-Wan’s arms. This was the only comfort that you could actually cling to anymore. Everyone was gone and in such a short amount of time. Sure, Davin was still alive, but you couldn’t be sure it would stay like that. You weren’t even sure how safe you would be, even though no one has even threatened you since the day you met Obi-Wan. Since the day the losses started.

“Will you stay with me,” you say against his chest. “At least for a little bit.” You were sure your voice was bordering on begging, but you didn’t care.

He didn’t either as he easily agreed. The need to comfort you has been nagging at him this whole time. It was even there the day he met you with blood, scrapes and bruises covering many surfaces. It had been a wonder that you didn’t have a broken bone or even a concussion.

Still, that was nowhere close to the kind of pain you were in now. Physical pain was easier to gain a tolerance for when you’re constantly exposed. Emotional pain, not so much.

“Would you like to talk about it? Or would you rather us just get a bit more comfortable?” he said gently. He wanted to make you feel more comforted and feel you release more tension rather than gaining more.

Also, he was hoping that you would want to get comfortable one way or another. There was something that was urging a sense of wanting to lie with you in the decently sized bed that would accommodate the two of you nicely.

Almost like you sensed this, you hardly pulled away and pulled him with you to the comforts of the mattress. Sure, it wasn’t the softest, but it was much better than the ground and boulder you were up against the night before.

Obi-Wan let you get comfortable before he joined you, taking off his boots and placing them neatly at the end of the bed. He joined you under the blanket and was turned to face you. A hair had fallen into your face and he carefully brushed it behind your ear so that he could properly see your eyes.

He suddenly felt slightly awkward as he did this. A life as a Jedi never prepared one for moments like this. Was there something he was supposed to do? How can he comfort you?

Little did he know, this is all you needed. Just his mere presence was comforting for you. The two of you just looked into the other’s eyes until you made a decision. You wanted to tell him, but you didn’t know how.

“Obi,” you started softly, “I really do want to talk about this. I… just don’t know how to put it into words. For the first time in my life I can’t think of a single thing to say.”

“If it will make you feel better, I know a way that you can tell me without a single word.”

Shock filled you initially until you remembered who you were with. He hasn’t been training as a Jedi for nothing.

Placing a hand to your cheek, he gave you a comforting smile. “Only if you want to. If at any point you don’t want me in your mind anymore, then you can shut me back out. I only want you to feel better.”

The look he had was genuine. He was concerned that, if you didn’t at least tell someone, it would only make it worse. Obi-Wan was giving you an opportunity to let it go and lessen the weight of all that has happened.

“Okay,” you whispered as you nodded. “What do I do?”

“Just relax. Let yourself give permission for me to see. I promise I won’t look for anything else besides for this moment. I promise.”

Nodding again, he then moved his hand so that it was resting on your temple. Closing your eyes, you focused on the sound of his breath and the gentle warmth his hand brought you. Then, you felt as a force entered your mind. You felt Obi-Wan.

His presence in your head was comforting and kind.

“Good,” he said quietly, so as to not startle you. “Now, this way you can show me without any words.”

“I won’t hurt you?”

“No. I’ll feel exactly what you feel, but it will only be temporary.” Opening your eyes, you saw that Obi-Wan’s were closed. You assumed it was for concentration; to ‘see’ better.

Carefully, you nodded against his palm. Then, you showed him everything.

First, it was the memories that he had first seen before he had joined you in here. Although they were all happy moments, a sadness now hung over them that shouldn’t have to be there.

This went on until more started to show. You started showing images of your brother being assassinated, your people being massacred, your world on fire. There was so much fear being projected through these images. It was almost like it was real. That just showed how powerful your imagination was.

Concentrating further, he could now hear screams, feel the pain, feel the death.

Then, the two of you were suddenly no longer on your world. No, you were on another that he couldn’t quite place. Not only that, it was no longer him seeing from your perspective. He was standing right beside you, Qui-Gon on the other side. There was a distant sound of blaster fire behind you and a shadowy figure stood in front of the three of you. Fear was still evident, but it wasn’t necessarily from you, but from in front. It was mingling with hate and anger.

Before anything else happened, both of you were ripped from the sudden moment. Obi-Wan knew it wasn’t you who shut him out. You were radiating the same confusion he was.

“What was that?” You asked in a slight panic.

“I don’t know.” He had never gotten a vision while connecting with another. “I know it was a vision, but I’ve never heard of one happening like that.”

For a moment, you both laid in silence, still facing the other. Neither of you looked into the other’s eyes.

“Thank you,” you said after a bit. “All things considered, that did make me feel better.”

Obi-Wan smiled and brought his hand back to your cheek. “Of course,” he said before dragging his thoughts back to how he should deal with what happened. “I should tell Qui-Gon,” he started to get up, “I’ll say I was medi-“

He was cut off by you grabbing his sleeve and keeping him from moving further, “Please, don’t go yet.”

A smile passed by his lips and he moved back down to you. Instead of staying separated, you curled up into his chest as he wrapped his arms around you.

“Just a little longer,” you said muffled as you spoke into his chest.

“Of course, darling.”

@stardancerluv @where-fantasy-meets-reality @jaydenwoo @madmax2003 @hopeladybug

[mc-critical]

Do you think MC hurrem, before the bayezid and selim conflict of course, ever considered that the traditional fratricide could possibly happen amongst her sons? Mustafa hypothetically killing her sons if he became sultan is constantly used as a reason for why she had to get rid of him but how could multiple princes having the same mother resolve any potential conflict for the throne? Sorry idk if what i said makes sense

Don't worry at all, I understood you perfectly! ^^

No, I don't think MC Hürrem considered that possibility as strongly before the inevitable occured.

First off, her adaption to the harem was a slow and gradual process and she certainly didn't become aware of all the rules, all the sudden. (as when she was surprised that Mustafa was getting his own harem before the sanjack) She knew enough to set a goal in her mind from the first episode, but didn't get to see the full picture until she went through fulfilling that goal step by step and saw an obstacle that would be impossible to ignore. She was so focused on the path to survive, she brushed off the cost of said path in the first place.

It's true that in the beginning, there wasn't a reason for her to consider possible ongoing rivalry or fratricide between her sons. Nigar told her that she would rule the world if she gives the Sultan a child and when she becomes aware of the competition in the harem, what would make her prevail over them all, guided by her desire to make SS only hers and maintain power, for she would stop undergoing the same trauma and disrespect all over again? More children! We could argue that, throughout season 1, she views having more children as a privilege - not only does it secure more her position as a favorite, but it makes her gain advantage and power over her rival in this game. Notice how she boasts about the possibility alone in front of Mahidevran in both E06 and E11! ("It will be a boy. Then it will be a boy again. Then it will be a boy again and again..."; "I will give birth to many princes, but you won't even give birth to a girl.") These lines could be an attempt of assertion and a mask of vulnerability and insecurity, in a way, but this is far from the only thing going on. Not just the children, but the princes specifically are capilatized on, because bearing one is considered an honor in this harem and for every pregnancy, Hürrem expresses an almost firm confidence that it will be, without a doubt, a prince. The whole system in the show, sadly enough, encourages that whoever has more sons is more powerful and will get everyone else out of their way eventually, without shining a light on the more grim implications and what the mothers will possibly have to go through with their many sons, to the point it simply leaves them to find this out by themselves. It puts the princes in idealized superiority that is one of the first things Hürrem gets used to and that's why she was initially taken aback when Mihrimah was born instead of another prince she wanted so much. By that point, she had no time to consider eventual conflicts or fratricide because of her (initial) upper hand.

The higher stakes were kept under wraps in the series itself, too, because of its Cerebus Syndrome nature that lets you endear with the characters at first in lighter, more mainly interpersonal situations and then move to the wider scale of the historical themes, having them grow as people and political players and realize the bigger context along with the evolution of the narrative. That is coupled with the children's ages, for the small age, to me, was presented as a symbol of innocence. There's this prevailing trend in Hürrem's character during season 2 where she kept saying that Mustafa is too little for doing certain stuff (like going to a campaign, to a province, etc.) and that, I think, is telling enough of the amount of awareness she had for an eventual conflict between her sons. That was a general theme of the show, too, because both Mahidevran and Hürrem held no ill will against the other's children when they were small, as seen by them taking care of them during the janissary rebellion and Mahidevran saving Mehmet in E16. The children themselves weren't a priority of eradication for them back then and when they were little, they were something worth protecting as a mother's value, not tools to be moulded for the future battle for the throne. When their mothers find a common ground in this aspect, would a conflict between children of one and the same mother be possible? Only when they grow up, awareness comes to the surface, bacause by the time they're still small, they're harmless and innocent. (handicapped by SS's words to Mustafa in E46: "As you grow up, the innocence between us disappears, my Mustafa.") Even Hürrem set herself against Mustafa only by E38 and she didn't want his death until then. Knowing this, could she predict that something could go wrong between her own sons, no less? Doesn't she have other stuff to do until she reaches that point? Isn't she too busy in forging her own survival path and not think as much about her children before they grow up?

Then again, Hürrem has shown to be capable of anything to always remain in SS's good graces both because she is devoted to him and for her own goals. The princes play a part in this, because they have to gain the padişah's support first and foremost and that simply cannot be done through quarrels. Hürrem may have grown wise to this, with the many cases of her ordering the children to go away once a conflict of any kind ensues and especially, always telling them throughout season 3 not to fight with each other, not even because of her, and stressing that family is the most important thing. She may have wanted their childhoods to be as peaceful as possible, rendering them (except Mihrimah) oblivious to what she's gone through, which gave them a sense of naivety in the process. And while that naivety turned out to be a double-edged sword (as we saw with Mehmet fully believing Illyas and Cihangir believing in SS's promise that he won't sacrifice Mustafa), it could've been a way for Hürrem to make sure that her children in general would always seek a consensus and look good in front of the sultan. That didn't end up being the case. Despite of these possible measures of hers, I doubt she got fully aware of the possibility, precisely because of her set goals. Even though the dismissal of Selim and Bayezid's conflict became a main arc of Hürrem's in S04, there were also hints of this in S02, shown by E53: "Such a sun will rise that that sun will only rise for me and my children." Her fixation on Mustafa as the single pivotal moment of her life fight is a huge character flaw of hers almost right from the moment she began to see him as a threat and even from her first attempt, as we see by the quote above, she thinks that by eliminating him, it would be all over, assuringly discarding everything else afterwards. And Selim and Bayezid were already arguing by that episode and it only escalated further since then, because of her ignorance as a part of the whole issue.

It's even questionable whether she has ever thought that, maybe there is more work to be done after Mustafa, because Hürrem's fixation became more predominant as the series progressed, in conjunction with the evergrowing Selim and Bayezid conflict. It was already so prevalent by S04 that Hürrem went as far as to blame Mustafa for the first big scandal between them in E112 and Mihrimah had to remind her of their rivalry-slowly-turning-to-enmity's very existence in the first half of the season that is there in spite of who Hürrem thinks is the bigger problem. She didn't give it the significant attention it deserved when they were little and I, for one, believe that she had to investigate more when Selim set Bayezid's arrow up for failure around E91/92 and not scold only Bayezid, for it only heightened his resentment for Selim. She didn't think of it as something that big to deal with, it was probably a problem they would fix by themselves for good measure, because they're still children after all, aren't they? But a resentment of a child could only continue to live on, especially in such a time period, so if Hürrem, knowing how paranoid she could be and how much she tried to evade everything that could oppose her success, predicted the future mass of the conflict, wouldn't she do something more, wouldn't she nullify it? It's a given that she can't be next to them in every single minute of the day, but the possible outcome itself just screams for tiiiny bit more involvement on her part. The earlier you interfere, the earlier would stop the obstacle in its entirety. Hürrem is smart enough to know this, so the logical thing is that she didn't fully take all that into account. She couldn't, and possibly didn't, want to predict this as a mother.

The very realization of the actual massive power of Selim and Bayezid's enmity and her newfound inability to interfere almost at all to it came as such a surprise for her. She not only completely miscalculated, but it broke her heart into pieces. She didn't see coming any conflict of the like, because if she did, even before the whole fiasco happened, early into S01-2, she would never let it reach such extremes. And the realization hit her in such an unexpected way that she wanted to escape the shock that she had to choose and try to solve things as she has always had, doing things that should've been done such a long time ago. Would she be so helpless when she finally came to terms with the following fratricide, if she saw it coming before the conflict even started?

In summary: Hürrem didn't think of something like this at all early on and when it happened, she did see the roots, but could never, not even in her dreams, imagine the devastating results.

Though yeah, could a conflict between sons of the same mother fully be resolved in circumstances like these? I very much doubt it. Even if the mother removed the tension between them, there are other factors we shouldn't forget (I refer to SS's reign in particular): they are sons of the same mother, but they're still candidates for the throne, hence they're rivals and both the people and the padişah will have to pick a favourite. No matter how impartial a sultan seems to be, he does end up picking sides eventually - whether it's about the province one is sent in, when they're sent in it, how often does he visit them, what in them does he approve or disprove of or how competent they are in his eyes. It's inevitable for them to live in absolute peace in an environment that would sooner or later cause them to fight until one's absolute and total failure.