#it was so not good that we scrapped the whole thing

[mikaila-orchard]

How to fix Shadowlands.

So awhile back, I made a post on how to fix BFA which I largely still stand by. I mentioned possibly doing a followup for Shadowlands as it was the culmination of all the bad decisions Blizz made in BFA prior and over two years later, I'm keeping that promise.

1. Fixing the setting.

The Shadowlands themselves are going to have to get perhaps the biggest overhaul. First and foremost, we're nixing everything to do with the First Ones. Zerith Mortus is fucking out. The idea that all the dieties are 3d printed robots? Also out. In their place, we're gonna have it that Titan traveled to the realm of death in an attempt to bring Order™ to the place Mortal Souls go. They created Oribos to organize the souls based on deeds and nature, Bastion where they put the souls to work upholding the grand vision, Revendreth to 'rehabilitate' discordant souls, and the Maw for those deemed too undesirable. And naturally, they left keepers here to oversee everything, including Kyrestia, Denathrius and Zovaal.

Also, yes. This means that Domination magic is Death magic + Titan magic, which is honestly very fitting.

What about Maldraxxus and Ardenweald, M'kay?

Well, we're nixing Maldraxxus because it's awful. But more importantly, Ardenweald is going to represent what the Shadowlands were before the Titans swooped in. It's a safe haven for mortal souls who don't prescribe to the Titans ideals, like the trolls and the Night elves. Loa, Wild Gods and Elune all have a presence there and are crucial in saving the Titan Realms from the mess they made for themselves.

2. Fixing Zovaal

This one's surprisingly easy. First, we stick with Zovaal's look in the concept art because it's way cooler and the Primus has been written out of this version anyway. This is what the Progenitor of the Lich King should look like.

Second, we fix his motivation. Rather than trying to reforge all of reality which is a goal the lore had to break itself in half to give him, we're gonna give him the same motivation as all the other cosmic forces. Dominion over Azeroth's world soul.

So everything from giving the Scourge to the Legion to disrupting the machine of death to pull all those souls into the Maw to the veil being shattered above Icecrown, all of it is done so that Zovaal has a clear shot to channel enough death magic through the Forge of Souls, straight to the core until Azeroth emerges as an entity of Death and Domination. This keeps the stakes ceiling on par with expansions like Legion rather than trying to one up it like a tryhard.

3. Fixing Sylvanas (MOST IMPORTANT)

Fortunately, since we already fixed BFA, most of the work has already been done for us in terms of characterization. We just have to tweak a few things.

Firstly, we're going to make her the hero of this expansion leading the fight against Zovaal while Bolvar is going to be his lackey, as was set up back in Legion. We keep the fight on Icecrown, we keep Sylvanas shattering the Helm. But this time, Bolvar is going to retreat to his master, having been long since been swayed by him. And Sylvanas is going to take the fight to the Maw rather than trying to run from it as she had been since Edge of Night.

To better focus on this task, she names Baine Warchief and names Nathanos regent of the Forsaken, trusting them to handle things on Azeroth while she wages war against the Jailer.

Also, to no one's surprise, the whole split soul thing is getting completely scrapped. I don't care if there was a clever way to do it. It's just not worth it as a story beat. The Sylvanas we've spent 22 years getting to know is the Sylvanas. Full stop.

And there we are. That's all you need to change to make the story work. Everything else, you can keep. Wanna keep Anduin becoming Zovaal's discord kitten? Go right ahead. Wanna keep Torghast? Sure. Wanna keep the Dreadlords being Denathrius' little bitches? Sure. Just stick to these three reworks and you'll have a good expac.

[t4tozier]

let's think about jayvik after the finale. they're magically alive and okay 👍

how do they get along with the other characters? what do they get up to in their free time? do they ever get pets? etc etc. head full of self indulgent happy jayvik bc they desperately need normalcy

hmmm this is very internesting. so in terms of their interactions with other characters i have to say that i realized that rather than arcane as a whole being my new hyperfixation it’s literally just jayvik (and zaundads to a lesser extent) so these hcs may be mid. but we persist

if jayvik don’t die then neither do jinx and vander. first of all. viktor doesn’t have the capacity to undo the warwickification of vander but they work something out

and i’ve always loved the hc of jayvik mentoring jinx and ekko so that definitely continues. chaos ensues but it’s good for jinx to have an outlet to create (and continue blowing things up) with adult supervision, and they both have new perspectives and creative ideas that occasionally make jayvik kick themselves for not thinking of it first

i don’t think that either jayce or viktor would be happy if they weren’t still innovating and creating, but they kind of. let hextech die out. which sucks, especially for jayce, whose entire life’s work had to be scrapped because they got too big for their britches, essentially.

i think jayce and viktor both deal with a lot of grief and guilt for their actions. they both blame themselves for the creation of hextech in the first place, jayce blames himself for killing viktor (even though vik understands after. yknow. everything) and that his idea was the one to lay waste to piltover. viktor, though jayce tries to insist that it was the hexcore controlling him and that he didn’t really know what he was doing, still feels responsible for his actions

but this time they have each other, and they have their friends, and it’s both harder and easier than it used to be to deal with their feelings

anyway onto the happy stuff

viktor and caitlyn have a wary sort of allyship. they both hold grudges but they try to get along for jayce’s sake

jayce is personally elated that cait has found someone. especially someone he can roughhouse because vi always brings out his immature side <3 he definitely gets his ass handed to him though

they both keep the long hair. jayce keeps the beard. viktor complains about beard burn but also thinks jayce looks very handsome with it so he suffers through it <3

viktor gets an axolotl. he loves that thing like a child.

jayce finds a stray dog on the streets after the war and feeds him. he ends up following jayce home and he has to sheepishly explain to viktor that he won’t leave jayce alone so he figured he should just bring him home.

viktor isn’t particularly mad about this—except for when the dog takes his spot in bed. that’s unacceptable. jayce will just scoop the dog up and put him on the other side so he’s the middle spoon between vik and the dog.

(also. jayce with a service dog ??)

…viktor with a service axolotl??

the arcane/astral plane did not completely heal either of them—they both still require their leg braces, and jayce gets a crutch for when it gets cold—but viktor’s no longer terminally ill. jayce cries when they find out.

even though the arcane no longer powers their inventions, they do go back to their initial ideas from way back when, bringing their inventions to the people, rebuilding the filtration system in zaun, building better and stronger mobility aids and prosthetics for anyone who needs it. the talis fortune pays for much of this—they no longer want investors, or anyone else, to tell them what they should build

[shewantsitall]

The way that I am excited about teaching tomorrow instead of dreading it????? Amazing

[arolesbianism]

Alright gamers!!!! New dupe icons have been obtained, so now I shall!!! Share them!!!!

Very important note! These guys seem to be part of the next dlc, and as such they are likely incredibly prone to change or even to being scrapped entirely. This is just a showcase of some of the stuff I was able to find while datamining, and it should not be taken as stuff that will guaranteed be in game in the future.

Anyways! Enjoy your datamined dupes under the cut >:3

Starting with this fella, Chip!

Description: This Chip is extremely good at guessing their friends' passwords.

This one is Edwiredo

Description: This Edwiredo once rolled his eye so hard he powered himself off and on again.

This is Gizmo

Description: Gizmos love nothing more than a big juicy info dump.

This one is Steela! They're my personal favorite

Description: Steelas aren't programmed to put up with nonsense, but they do enjoy the occasional shenanigan.

I got these from the sprite sheets, so forgive the other sprite intruding on lovely Sonyar's icon

Description: Sonyars would sooner burn down the colony than read an instruction manual.

And lastly, Ulti!

Description: The only dance move this Ulti knows is The Robot.

Here's some bonus stuff I found in the files! Just got you! (Again note that this stuff is very prone to being changed or scrapped)

The new duplicants seem to be a new type of duplicant called bionic duplicants. They are a mix of organic and inorganic components, so my cyborg dupe theory does indeed seem to be correct! It seems like they have power banks and oxygen tanks that will need managed, and they seem to require oil to operate as well. As time goes on, a new material called gunk will build up in their systems, and they will need to visit something called the gunk extractor to be cleaned up. Their oxygen tanks also allow them to work in low oxygen environments, and it can be assumed that they won't need sleep, and potentially not even need food. They also seem to be able to install booster packs that increase their skills, and can come with preinstalled booster packs with some on print traits, including one that allows them to locate undiscovered geysers (which doesn't sound super useful tbh but it's still neat)

[blackswallowtailbutterfly]

That documentary American Nightmare is crazy. Like imagine being the victims of something like that and everyone from the media to police to the FBI are like, damn, that is crazy. So crazy it didn't happen. You're lying, you killed her--oh...She turned up alive...Uh...She's lying. Wait, uh...oops. Never mind. This other cop who actually bothered to do her job and talked to all the women other cops ignored caught the guy. Um...anyway you're both alive and not in jail so we're just gonna pretend this never happened. I mean it's not like we could have known; there was a movie where the lady set everything up and was lying! How can you expect us to have actually investigated what was reported to us?

At least that one reporter had a conscience. And he actually did forward the emails he got to the police, so, y'know, he at least was doing his job. It's funny how when something like this happens, the people who did the least, all things considered, are the ones to step up and be like, yeah, I fucked up, and the ones who made blunder after blunder from sheer laziness and their own tunnel vision are just like no comment, that didn't happen, and our internal investigation found no wrong-doing on the part of us.

[hcdragonwrites]

I’m dragging my feet because this part is so detailed in my writing but I have to make it so bland atm because brain cannot give detail.

Me at my brain rn

[gedwimora]

the way i could probably sit down and work out family trees, cadet branches and lil blurbs for some npc family member people for like, most of the houses.......

[inbabylontheywept]

the house i grew up in was a little bit of a fixer upper. for the first 19 years, my dad just sort of slowly fixed it, but pretty early on in college, he came into a large amount of cash and decided to just do the whole thing at once. so he rented a different house for like, 2 months that was just a block down from us, and then got a bunch of contractors to fix original house ASAP. it was kind of crazy, but it compressed many years of work into like, three months.

the sitting in a new house for three months was actually pretty fun. and i shouldnt really complain at all (staying at home while in college is a sweet deal)

but.

but. my parents are fairly hard of hearing, and their bedroom in the old house was in the furthest possible annex from everyone else. wheras in the rental it was just in the middle of the house. so without going into details, i was extremely aware that my parents were having sex like, eight times a day. my dad had just retired and i guess they were celebrating, which is great i guess, having parents that really like each other is way better than the alternative, but also, it did make me envy their deafness. i kept headphones on for so long that year i got literal ear calluses.

at the same time, the house my buddy from the shoe incident grew up in flooded. turbo flooded. they burst like, two pipes at once and the damage was so severe they had to redo all the flooring and all the drywall. his family actually had homeowners insurance, which is either incredible or suspicious for a family that used the drained pool in their backyard to store rusty scrap metal. so insurance was handling the work, but in the meantime, they were crammed into a very small hotel room space. we did the math on it then, it averaged about 80 square feet a person.

so one day i got home, and i was chilling, and then six rolled around, and apparently six o'clock was sex o'clock because my parents decided to flex their cardio. i grabbed my headphones and prayed that god would do for me what he did for beethoven, but that failed to work, and then seven rolled around and my parents were still at it, which again, very impressive, but was pushing me to swap out judas for mozart in those prayers. there's a definitive point where you stop praying to be deaf and instead pray that god could take you to a nice field and pop you like a gore-balloon.

i was about five minutes away from that point when my friend called me and basically said i have been stuck in a 500 square foot space with 6 people and i didn't have many marbles to start but what few i had are gone. please. if we are friends, if we were ever friends, take me out of here just for a moment.

and i was still pretty mad at him, but i had pity on the poor guy. also helped that i was desperate to leave the house. so i drove the chickenshitmobile to the hotel and i picked him up, and then we did our normal hangout activity, which was go to food city and buy produce. his normal house was, on a good day, nasty, and his backyard was, as i stated before, mostly used to store mosquito larvae and rusty metal, so what we'd always done before was just walk to the grocery store a half block away and leer at vegetables.

so we did that and it was like old times again. they had some radishes that were expired, so i could buy like, literally an entire grocery bag of them for about $5. so i did. i really like radishes. he got a coconut because he liked fruit and beating things with hammers.

which probably would've been great except we didn't have a hammer, so instead we spent about 30 minutes stomping itike it owed us money. when it finally cracked we cheered like we just got the winning touchball at the superdome and then he ate some of the flesh, and i ate some of the radishes, and we admired the black, starless sky of the city before i took him back to his hotel room.

and then we got pulled over.

i forgot to turn my lights on because the street all around the food city was ludicrously well lit. so it went from being pretty bright, to pretty bright and flashy, then i pulled into a parking lot and a cop came to ask us for IDs which is where everything went to shit:

i’d forgotten my license at home. 

the cop was was actually kind of chill about it - he said he could get by with just an address. except i did not know my address. i hadn't memorized the new one yet. so i told the cop, my house is getting remodeled, i don't know my address right now. and then he went to my friend, and my friend said the exact same thing. house getting remodeled, staying somewhere else, no address, sowwwwwwy.

now the cop genuinely didn't know what to do. he went back to his car, and i was stressed that i was about to get into HUGE trouble so i started eating the radishes and my buddy started eating more of his coconut, and we actually managed to eat like a quarter of both before the cop came back. we ate enough produce that he could smell something weird in the air, and he asked what the smell was, and i said radishes, and my buddy said coconut, and the cop said which, and then we produced a large bag of droopy radishes and an absolutely brutalized coconut, and the cop was just like

so my buddy tried explaining how he was sharing a 500 square foot apartment with 6 people and wanted a fruit he could fight with power tools, and i tried explaining how i'd actually tried buying my parents like, board games and puzzles and stuff but nothing worked - the only thing my parents seemed to like doing right now was each other, and we both went on long enough and pathetically enough that the cop eventually went:

ok. stop.

and we stopped.

and he said do you know why i pulled you over?

and i said, because of my headlights, and my friend (who is hispanic) and the cop both looked at me like like i was the dumbest person in the entire world. and then the cop said no. that's why i'm allowed to pull you over. i checked your car because this neighborhood has a terrible sex trafficking problem, and i pull over every car i can to make sure no one is buying or selling sex. and you two are obviously doing neither. now i could give you, like, four tickets right now, but that would do nothing to make this area safer, so just turn your lights on, go home, drive safe, and try to be less stupid in the future.

and i said okay but i was thinking, you know, damn, this is just how i live man, i don't have a hidden third gear i can shift into. people can't just get smarter because it would be convenient. it's always convenient to be smart. i am literally trying my best.

but i didn't say anything because i was, slowly, learning how to filter what i said. instead i nodded and the cop left then i dropped my buddy off, and the last thing he said was said he owed me for responding to his SOS. I said he owed me for a lot of things, and he agreed that was true. then i drove home with my lights on, 5 under the speed limit, and arrived to a peaceful quiet home. I could’ve wept with relief but instead I went to bed.

the relief was short lived. i was woken up at 6 am by my parents. i swore, and then i prayed, and when i did not explode, i swore again. then i got up to make breakfast before my first class.

[choslut]

# PUSSY TALK !! (vi x reader)

$YNOPSIS. you’ve been feelin’ a little insecure about yourself lately. good thing you have a girlfriend who’s head over heels for you, no matter what! // wc. 2.4k

warnings. insecure!reader, talk of body image + weight, face sitting, spanking (ass + clit), praise, dirty talk, stripping, oral sex, size kink (?), teasing, fingering, begging, squirting, overstimulation, mirrors, awkward aftercare, spooning, pet names

NSFW below the cut. minors, stay away. enjoy your read!

Dresses aren’t your favourite piece of clothing. They never have been and they never will be, and even as you stare at yourself in the floor length mirror of your bedroom, you absolutely hate how this dress looks on you.

When you asked for something flared that would hide your curves, you didn’t expect your tailor to make you look like an overstuffed cream puff. The flared sleeves hang off of your arms like misplaced scraps of fabric, and the material pools at your feet, surrounding you in an unceremonious circle. You look frumpy, you feel frumpy, and nothing in the world could have convinced you that this is the dress you were going to wear to the annual Councillor’s Gala.

“What the fuck…” You turn around to inspect the back, and it’s even worse than you thought. It seems as if the tailor has attempted a daring backless design, but to you, it just looks like a gaping hole, the fabric tight and loose in all the wrong places before messily accumulating just above the apple of your ass. It looks horrible, and if you weren’t insecure enough, this dress makes you feel like a laughing stock. 

And that’s when the dreaded words come out of your mouth. “I seriously need to lose weight.”

Someone doesn’t like that, because out of nowhere, you feel a strong pair of arms wrap around your waist and a sharp chin on your shoulder. “And why’s that? I think it looks perfect.” 

Vi loves seeing you in dresses. She thinks they make you look so graceful, no matter what shape you choose. It solidifies the fact that you are her perfect princess, and she will never understand why you hate them when they make you look so pretty. 

She also doesn’t understand this whole weight thing you have going on. If anything, one of the things that first had her on her knees for you was your body, and like now, she always feels a need to be touching it, whether it be stroking your thighs or kissing your collarbone or, like now, wrapping her arms around your perfect waist and pulling you into her chest. 

“‘M not perfect though, Vi,�� you grumble, hands running along the sides of your chest and resting over where her hands cradle your tummy. “I look like a creampuff.” 

“Creampuffs are sweet. I like creampuffs,” she says, her eyes making contact with yours in the mirror as she noses your neck. “I like you.”

You roll your eyes and whine. “I know you like me, Vi. But that’s not gonna change the fact that I hate this dress.” 

“Take it off then.” She says it like it’s the simplest thing in the world, like you’re not going to be stuck in it for three whole hours, playing the part of a member of high society whilst trying your hardest to ignore the obvious stares at the atrocity which is your outfit. You want to tell Vi that it seriously isn’t as easy as that, but you’re distracted by her hands slipping into the open back of your dress. 

“I can help you,” she whispers in your ear, and you can feel the cold metal of her nose piercing against your heated skin. “Take it off, I mean. Relax.” 

“Vi…”

“Can we try something?” She begins to kiss your neck slowly, and you whimper when you feel the rough scar on her lip brush against your heated flesh. “I know you’ve been feeling some way about your body lately, and to be honest, I have no idea why because your body is already so fucking perfect…” Her hands slide up the insides of your dress, and you lift your shoulders automatically as she slips those god awful sleeves off of your shoulders. “There’s something I want you to do for me.”

After all this time, she hasn’t broken eye contact once, and you notice her eyes go dark when she shoves the front of your dress down, only to find your perky nipples staring right back at her. “What is it?” 

“Sit on my face,” she states simply, hands coming round to rub at your tits. “I want all of it, baby. Your whole body. I want you to fuckin’ suffocate me.”

You probably will. You stare at your girlfriend in the mirror incredulously, because there’s no way in the universe that you’re going to sit on her face. Not in a million years, and certainly not today. “No.”

“Give me one good reason why not.” She has a point, because it’s getting increasingly hard to refute her when her hands are making their way underneath the front material of your dress, letting it drop to the floor and revealing your regulation panties. “Go on, give me one good reason why you shouldn’t sit on my face.” Before you can open your mouth to protest, Vi smiles and bites your shoulder. “And your weight is not a valid answer.” 

You raise your eyebrows. “Violet.”

“Yes, baby?” She acts like nothing is wrong, like asking you to crush her skull in between your legs a couple hours before the most important event of the year is a completely normal request. And she continues to act this way, even when she slips her hand into your panties, fingers eagerly in search of your clit. “So what I’m hearing is you don’t want to sit on my face, and you don’t want me to make you feel so good that you forget all about this stupid dress and that stupid gala?” 

Your back arches into her chest when she starts rubbing your clit in small circles, lips widening into a smile as she watches you unravel against her. “That’s not what I said.” 

“So why are you acting like you don’t want it?” She’s taunting you now, fingers halting all movement on your clit and sliding down lower, tips starting to tease your quivering hole. “Because I know you want it, baby. She’s telling me you want it.” 

You hate how Vi can read you like a book. You do want this, but you’re worried, and she makes sure to eliminate of all of that worry by slipping her fingers into your cunt, mouth dropping open in wonder when you begin to crumple against her.

“Vi, please.” 

“No.” Stubborn. “You’re not cumming unless you’re where you're supposed to be, princess. My game, my rules, and no amount of that pretty begging is gonna change that.” 

You bite your lip as you feel her palm grind against your clit, fingers speeding up and continually assaulting your sweet spot. It’s so hard not to beg her to let you cum, especially with the way she’s holding eye contact with you so intensely. 

“Say the words, and that orgasm’s yours,” she mumbles, smile ever present as her fingers alternate speeds. “Come on baby, I know you can.”

You can, you will, and you do. Your pleas to cum are replaced with nonsensical begging and whimpering, your hands futilely clawing at her biceps as you try to rip her fingers away from your weeping hole. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it, just let me cum, Vi, please-”

All of a sudden, the pressure building up inside of you dissipates, and you notice Vi licking her fingers clean as she backs towards the bed. “That’s what I like to hear,” she laughs, sitting down on the bed in a way that has you weak in the knees. “Come take a seat, princess.” 

Embarrassingly enough, that’s all it takes to have you stepping out of the pool of fabric on the floor and crawling onto the bed towards her, legs planted on either side of her hips as you bend over and catch her lips in a heated kiss. It’s loud and it’s messy, her hands sliding up your thighs and onto your covered ass as you grind down onto her knee, tongue intertwining with hers in a clash of passion and need. 

“Good fucking girl,” she groans, squeezing the flesh of your ass before slapping it hard, drawing a quiet gasp from your lips. “Come on, baby, c’mere, come sit.” 

Your hands splay the surface of her chest as you push her back onto the bed lightly, chest heaving gently with every heated breath you take. Vi looks up at you like you’re the most beautiful girl in the world, because to her, you are, and she wouldn’t want to be underneath anyone else. 

“There she is,” she whispers as you situate yourself comfortably on her chest. “My pretty girl, huh?” 

“I’m nervous,” you mumble, hips beginning to move slowly as you plant your hands on either side of her head. “I… don’t wanna hurt you.”

“Trust me, you won’t.” She captures your hips in her strong hands and pulls you further up her body, letting you hover just above her collarbone. “I’ve lifted this perfect body with my own two hands before. What makes you think a little face sitting will hurt me?” 

In a way, she’s right. Vi is strong, more so than most people. If it got too much, she would be able to move you effortlessly, and-

You’re pulled out of your train of thought by the feeling of Vi’s nose nestling in between your legs, rubbing up against your pulsing clit under your panties. “Vi…”

“You’re thinkin’ too much, baby,” she groans, voice muffled in between your thighs. “Just do it.” This time, she doesn’t leave you any time to think, because she’s now mouthing at your cunt through your panties, strong arms wrapping around your thighs and pulling you ever closer. You gasp in surprise, one hand coming up to grip onto the headboard as you fight not to lose balance. 

Another thing about Vi: she’s impatient. And when you hesitate to begin moving your hips, she does it for you, fingers pulling the seat of your underwear to one side and arms pushing you down hard. 

“She’s so wet, baby, I don’t know how you can say you don’t want this.” Her tongue darts out to lick your throbbing clit and you whine, hips stuttering as you stare hazily at the mess of pink hair in between your legs. Vi is staring up at you with lust swirling in her eyes, and you can feel her smile on your cunt as her tongue slides downwards to your entrance. “I mean, she is practically begging me to eat her out. Is that what you want?”

Before you can answer her, you’re caught off guard by her hand slapping at your clit playfully, sending pleasured shockwaves throughout your system. “ ‘M not talking to you anymore, silly,” she laughs, thumbs rubbing at the area she just assaulted. “I’m talking to her, since my girl doesn’t seem to know what she wants anymore.”

“Stop it,” you grumble, but Vi pays no notice, resuming her languid licks on your pussy. Your protests are quickly turned into prolonged whines and whimpers of her name, the pressure once taken from you beginning to build in your core with each shallow thrust of her tongue into your hole. 

“Not until she’s satisfied, angel.” And she means it, because the grip she has on your thighs is nothing next to lethal, and you feel yourself begin to shake as the pressure builds more and more. “And she’s getting close, don’t you think?”

She is. Your head begins to swim and you tangle your fingers in Vi’s hair in an attempt to stabilise yourself but it proves futile, mouth dropping open as you beg her to let you finish. “Vi, please, please, I’m sorry, I-”

“Nothin’ to apologise for, angel, you’re doing a great job.” You have no idea how she still manages to speak when she’s being all but crushed in the trap that is your quivering thighs, but her voice drives you ever closer, your hips grinding down onto her happily awaiting tongue as you chase your orgasm desperately. You want it- no, you need it, and when she begins to massage your ass sensually, you think you might just squirt.

“Vi...”

“Yeah, baby? Is she telling you something?” She loves playing this game, delaying your orgasm as long as possible whilst making it impossible to hold yourself back. It feels like her hands are everywhere because suddenly her thumb is massaging your clit, and you’re begging her like there’s no tomorrow.

She seems satisfied by your begging, because she takes one arm off of your thigh to use her fingers to fuck your needy cunt. “Cum for me baby, c,mon. Give it to me.”

And give it to her, do you, and in gracious abundance at that. Your juices drench her face unceremoniously as you twitch above her, spine shaking as you hold on to her hair for dear life. You’re all but riding her tongue, and she’s moaning profusely into your cunt, the vibrations only heightening your sensitivity. And try as you might, you can’t pull her away, her mouth a suction as she pushes you unforgivingly into overstimulation.

When you’re all but ready to surrender your stability to her relentless assault in between your legs, you feel a strong pair of hands lifting you off of her mouth gently, and light kisses being littered all over the expanse of your thighs. Vi’s mouth travels along your skin lazily, her powdery blue eyes looking up at your shaky form with nothing but love etched into her irises. You barely begin to register the sweet praises she gives you, instead basking in the afterglow of your intense climax mixed with the feeling of her hands stroking your back.

Moments later and you’re laying down on the bed next to her, curled in a foetal position as you fight the army of sleep threatening to overthrow you. “Are you tired?”

“Mhm.”

“Why don’t you… skip the gala? Stay here with me, I’ll cook, and…”

You think the difference between the Vi laying next to you now and the Vi who made you climax to the brink of passing out is a cute one. She’s never been too good with aftercare, instead trying to make awkward conversation in an attempt to divert from the fact that she just rocked your world in more ways than one. “We can stay home. I’ll tell the organisers I wasn’t feeling too well.” That, and the fact that god awful dress made you want to bust a nerve.

Vi smiles at you gently, and you wish you could stay like this with her forever. “Sounds good. I’m looking forward to it.”

© this work belongs to choslut. do not copy, translate, repost or feed my work into any regenerative ai system.

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[dw-flagler]

i'm giving it more credit than it deserves, since this is really true of any fallout game, but i will always appreciate fallout 4 for how i interacted with the brotherhood for the first time.

When i first played 4, i joined the brotherhood. They were so cool, with all that power armor and their big airship. When i first met the brotherhood in that cambridge police station quest, i didn't go there immediately, i first went back to sanctuary so that i could collect that suit of power armor the game gives you and pick up the laser musket so that I could be more impressive. like, hey guys, look, i have power armor and lasers too, i'm cool!

and i did the brotherhood quests. and like, i kept ignoring increasingly obvious signs that something about them was clearly wrong. like, my favorite companion for that first playthrough was nick valentine, and the brotherhood knights kept saying mean things about him and i was like "oh don't worry nick, they don't really mean that!"

Like, when paladin danse is revealed to be a synth, and the brotherhood tells you to kill him, i was genuinely confused. Like what are you guys talking about, so what if he's a synth? he's your friend! Obviously, i took the compromise where he continued to live but out of sight

anyway this culminated in the final battle of the main story where i was like "i'll never accept you, you're an abomination!" to the synth shaun, even though i literally didn't believe it and just didn't want the brotherhood to get mad at me. I then got the notification that "Nick Valentine hated that" and was genuinely confused. it was a real are we the baddies moment for me. like why would nick valentine hate that? i was just saying what the brotherhood wanted to hear because they're cool. I ended up sitting down for like 20 minutes trying to parse it out.

so like even though 90-95% of that whole series of interactions was because of me being a stupid kid rather than a sense of brilliance on the game's part, it's always gonna stick with me.

I should be clear, I will fully dunk on Fallout 4. It's not good as compared to many other RPGs, and especially pales in comparison to New Vegas.

The companions are flat and one-note. None of the factions are interesting, and the Institute fails to be a compelling villain or viable choice to side with. ("Why are you doing all this evil shit?" "It's... hard to explain." Fuck off.) I'm not even interested in the settlement building.

But sometimes I wanna tune up a customized power armor and stomp around blasting mirelurks with my tricked out laser rifle while my Pipboy blasts Atom Bomb Baby.

It's a fun little playground with Fallout paint on it.

[ratatattouille]

Why The Arcane S2 Finale Fumbled, Part I

arcane season 2 was artistically beautiful and thematically cheap. every interesting and meaningful thing it did with its characters (even in season 2 act 2) was reduced to romanticized bullshit, utterly divorced from its season 1 roots. it's so bad it can be considered pro-status quo propaganda (and i do mean that). good ships aside (and i do mean the caitivi, jayvik, timebomb holy triad), this season squats and shits on every zaunite character in the show. not just their zaunite-ness, but how it literally shaped who they were as characters.

Let's start with Vi:

Vi and Vander:

Vi's loyalty to The Lanes always went beyond Powder. Zaun was her father's, Vander's dream. Zaun was her friends and her family. When she's giving Caitlyn a tour of The Lanes, we see how much she embodies and revels in Zaunite culture (esp in the food scene). She took responsibility for the vulnerable, like Vander taught her to. Her "protective" trait extended to ALL the vulnerable in The Lanes, because Vander taught her that. It wasn't EVER just Powder. Zaun is her HOME. As a child, she wanted to make a name for herself IN ZAUN "one day, this city's gonna respect us." You can make the excuse that Vander's death meant that side of her died, but it clearly didn't because of how she regarded it while showing Caitlyn around. "Family" to Vander, extended to the vulnerable of Zaun, which is how Vi and Powder came to be his "daughters" in the first place. Because Zaun was for THEM. Zaun WAS THEM. Vander and Silco "weren't allowed to fail" at Zaun (i.e. the two daughters).

Additionally, Vi and Jinx were supposed to succeed where Vander and Silco hadn't: forgiving each other and uniting so they could realize their dream for a free Zaun. A big reason why Zaun struggles to be free is because of their own internal divisions (the different gangs fighting for scraps). But if they united, they would be able to liberate themselves from Piltover (who is still the enemy). The whole reason the others are prosperous in the alternate timeline Ekko and Heimerdinger travel to is because Vander and Silco reconcile (not because Vi dies).

Vander also passes on his sense of responsibility to Vi. He tells a repeatedly vengeful Vi how her ambition to show up her oppressors can overshadow the more pressing priority of looking after those more vulnerable than her i.e. Powder. Like Silco, his advice to his daughter is steeped in his own trauma of getting so zealous he didn’t stop to think what it would cost.

Vi and Caitlyn:

Caitlyn was an interesting development for Vi, particularly because Caitlyn mirrored Vander's care for all people. Caitlyn was an enforcer that wanted to truly understand and help people. This challenged Vi's biases and also gave them a common goal. Caitlyn appealed to Vi because she gave Vi renewed hope for peace in The Lanes. That Zaun could be free through co-operation instead of violence. Her whole teaming up with Caitlyn, romance aside, was predicated on Vi brokering for peace between Zaun and Piltover (and getting revenge on Silco).

The first break-up between the two (Season 1's "Oil and Water") centred around Jinx, more or less. Vi believes Silco is a threat to peace between Piltover and Zaun (even though The Lanes aren't known as Zaun to her, I'm just using the names interchangeably). She believes Jinx is acting out due to Silco's influence, as well (and she isn't wrong). Had Caitlyn not been injured on the bridge (and had Jinx not felt betrayed by Vi), Vi was going to leave her in pursuit of Jinx. Vi has also never fit into Piltover (and that's also shown in Season 2 act 1-2). She makes no connections with Piltovians besides Cait and (an already disillusioned) Loris who we see for like two seconds.

Vi and Jinx:

This show was ALWAYS about a tale of two sisters/cities. When Vi becomes an enforcer, it isn't because she's switched loyalties. She wants peace for The Lanes, she just wants to take Silco's creation--Jinx--out of the equation so it can work. Her priority, like Vander’s, is to keep the vulnerable of The Lanes safe, and both were willing to co-operate with Piltover to protect the people they loved. She believes, like Vander did with Silco, that Jinx (and by extension Zaun) is her responsibility. That the reason bad things happened to Zaunites (Vi’s and Powder’s parents dead on the bridge, Jinx’s mania) is their fault.

Vi blames herself for creating Jinx as Vander does for creating Silco. The only reason Vi agrees to Caitlyn's plan is because, again, their two goals align: get Jinx. The difference is Vi wants to kill Jinx to kill Silco, while Cait wants to kill Jinx to get her city (mother) back. Vi is still explicitly concerned about Jinx, who she has come to see as a threat to other people she loves (e.g. Ekko, Cait, etc). Vi became an enforcer to protect The Lanes and the (appearance) of peace. Vi internalized Vander’s words and doesn’t want war, even if it means Zaun never becomes independent. But she is doing it as penance for what she feels she didn’t do that led Jinx to become what she is.

The show in season 2 TOTALLY LOST THIS FOCUS. Vi's guilt at hunting down her own people with enforcers is ALSO ignored a lot by fandom, especially because her post-breakup scene where she goes full goth is framed as regret for letting Cait down (rather than the self-disgust she would feel for joining her oppressors). Vi played a part in creating Jinx and her enforcer-arc is still centred around Jinx. This gets shoved aside for romance with Cait. All the time we could spend post-breakup focusing on the sisters, quickly circles back to Cait.

Cait, who, literally became a dictator and weaponized the air ducts her mother had created to SAVE ZAUNITES. The whole thing is viewed as Vi betraying Cait instead of Vi betraying Jinx/Zaun/her family and Cait betraying Vi ("promise me you won't change") and her mother. Cait was the one who sought to help Zaun (like her mother) but betrayed who she was when she was willing to kill Isha, an innocent child.

Vi would feel even more guilty at how she is literally in an enforcer's suit when she is about to kill Jinx, the only family she has left. She is literally hunting down Jinx, a Zaunite, like the enforcers had her parents. But we barely explore that. It’s just off to chasing Vander/Warwick only for it to not matter anyways!

(ALSO IMPORTANT: Just to further prove my point on how integral the sister's love for each other was, every show started with a record playing. The cover of the disc was Vi and Jinx. They were always the center focus of the story. The song that the record played? Likely "Our Love" by Curtis Harding and Jazmine Sullivan which goes "Our love is a bubblin' fountain, our love, that flows into the sea, our love, deeper than the ocean, our love for eternity." This love deeper-than-the-ocean can apparently crumble in the face of a dictator girlfriend you've known for less than a year lmao).

Summary of Fumbles:

-Vi's and Jinx's relationship becomes secondary not just to the entire plot of the show but to Vi's arc. Zaun and Piltover's conflict was set up to be the epitome of the show, and the fact that it got shelved for some (ahem military propaganda) epic battle between humans and robots is very telling about the writers and showrunners.

-Vi forgives Cait easily and prematurely, trashing Vi's true loyalties as established in earlier seasons/episodes and robbing Cait’s actions of their appropriate weight.

-(above is an excerpt from Amanda Overton's interview with TheGamer) The culmination of love for Vi's character ends with Caitlyn and not Jinx. Vi's character, whose love is explicitly centred on Zaun and her family, reaches its peak in romance with a Piltovian. To quote Amanda further: "If Vi had no one left to protect, she would fall in love." As if Vi had no ambition outside of protecting her family. As if her dream since she was a kid wasn't tied so much into Zaun. As if the reason she wore an enforcer outfit wasn't because of Zaun. As if Zaunites aren't suffering right under her nose. As if she was the only kid in Stillwater Prison and struggled to survive the whole time she was there. I can't pretend to stomach it. (Again, it's not that Vi shouldn't be happy, it's that the ship had to shove this aspect of her character aside for it to work). If they wanted to really commit to the Vi-in-video game origin story, they should have set it up better and stuck to it.

-Vi herself takes a back seat in most of season 2, and becomes a passive, guilt-riddled yes-man to Cait

-Vander's re-introduction is almost completely worthless to the plot and narrative (he comes back just to die), and he is used as a cheap way to re-unite (and then separate) the daughters in a way that has no significance to the themes (also, Silco as Jinx's father is completely ignored during this time)

-Cait's deferral to fascism should have been permanent. Idc about the shippers at this point. Vi and Cait should have never come back from Cait shoving the back of her gun into Vi's injured side (let alone the gassing of the ducts). Vi would've never forgiven her, attraction or no. The fact that Cait could become a dictator after losing one parent is proof of their class divides (after all, Vi held onto hope despite losing all her parents to enforcers and Jinx was all she had left of her family). That should have cemented the death of that relationship (and it would have made for more compelling storytelling on class). I’m thinking it was kept because it matters more to white Western audiences to have a Romeo x Juliet rendition that assuages their classist sensitivities. Cait becoming a fascist made sense and was true to her character and the world. Vi forgiving her (and then having sex with her in the prison she was thrown into as a child?) destroyed both her character and the narrative.

Yeah, yeah, Vi was overwhelmed by the breadth of love and forgiveness Caitlyn had in letting Jinx go, but that's bare minimum shit. Vi "always choosing wrong" because she *checks notes* keeps trying to reconcile with her sister instead of letting her go since she isn't Powder anymore? So she resolves her guilt by choosing her own pleasure and putting herself first for once. Okay, I don't have a problem with that except that Vi and Jinx were supposed to succeed where Vander and Silco hadn't--by reconciling! And you still won't get me to like the fact that so much of Vi's character arc gets held up in a Piltovian who encouraged her to do the worst shit to her OWN PEOPLE and then fucking turned on her when she couldn't kill her sister. It is frankly amazing how we're supposed to celebrate Caitlyn literally coming between the sisters. I'd rather Vi forgiving Jinx than Caitlyn. And if the whole appeal of Vi's relationship with Caitlyn is that she was overwhelmed with love for how Caitlyn forgave Jinx after she killed her mother, I don't see how a relationship with Cait automatically makes Vi feel less guilty, since Cait also makes her feel guilty for choosing Jinx (remember her accusation "you will always choose her" like sorry I don't want to kill my orphaned, traumatized sister who I ripped into for making an honest mistake as a child and who has carried that since). Caitlyn (as others have pointed out) got a whole ceremony for her mother and instantly turned on Vi's people. The Vi I know would have been like, "You really are all the same," and FUCKING DIPPED. And there's a little acknowledgement of this in act 1 where Vi accuses Caitlyn of acting like Jinx.

Both Jinx and Caitlyn are emotional labour for Vi. Vi still wants to protect Caitlyn from Jinx. There's not that much of a difference, lol, except that Caitlyn is a privileged Piltovian and Jinx is a victim of the abysmal childhood she suffered at the hands of enforcers. Yet the show is more or less saying Vi pursuing reconciliation with Jinx was a bad choice for Vi and the reason the cycle of violence continued (for some reason). The sister reconciliation was what I was here for, personally. Cute ships aside. But noooo, Vi should forgive Cait (not Jinx) to stop the cycle.

And having jail sex is a liberating act for her because it's where they had their meet-cute. (And we're all good bc Caitlyn gave up the Kiramman seat, lmao, like sure okay).

It's frankly made the ship that much more unpalatable. If Vi had to be destroyed as a character for the ship to work, then the ship wasn't all that good (even though it started off that way). It's honestly left such a bad taste in my mouth. What a fuck you to oppressed groups that whole subplot was. (And it's made worse by the fact that the creator thought that was somehow an empowering and liberating act for Vi, like fuck that).

Let's Talk About Victor:

Viktor and Heimerdinger:

Heimerdinger and Viktor were the most polar of opposites. Heimerdinger was not only a privileged, ulta-wealthy Piltovian, but he had a comparatively endless lifespan while Viktor's own human life-span was cut short due to being a Zaunite, born at the bottom of the barrel and raised on toxic fumes that led to his terminal illness. Viktor's desperation to unlock the Arcane was explicitly about him overcoming his circumstances, his illness, his premature death. It wasn't merely about his internalized ableism, but the unjust way in which he had to suffer. Heimmerdinger could afford patience because he had all the time and resources in the world, but Viktor didn't. Not merely because he was a mortal, but because he was a Zaunite.

Viktor and Singed:

Viktor's arc with hextech is foreshadowed with his childhood interaction with Singed. I understand that in the games, Viktor is a villain-type character and his catchphrase or whatever is "Join the Glorious Evolution," which the show hinted at from Season 1 when Singed explained his experiments to Viktor. While Viktor is horrified by Singed killing the creature that he eventually uses for shimmer, Viktor later says, "I understand," hinting that he saw the sacrifice (and death) necessary to "heal" the world of its ailments. Both Viktor and Singed grow up in The Lanes, and both have ailments they want to cure (for Viktor it is his lung cancer and for Singed its his daughter's dying). In season 2, Viktor tells Singed that while he understands what healing all those people could cost him, he will not sacrifice their humanity for Singed's cause. This is because of Sky’s death (which is partly why it is her who is in the Arcane with him).

Sky’s death is what makes Viktor beg Jayce to destroy the hex core, since he couldn’t do it himself. He is willing to die if that means no more innocent people do. But here’s where I get a little touchy. VIKTOR didn’t KNOW she was there. Viktor was simply desperate to live. Sky’s death was not malicious (even if it’s true to his character that he’d feel guilty anyways). It is at this point that Viktor has Jayce promise him to destroy the hex core (and by god is this where a lot of my contention with the finale comes from). Also, it is important to note that Viktor’s self-loathing is depicted only in regard to Sky’s death (NOT HIS BAD LEG). Now Viktor feels guilty not just for Sky’s death, but also necessarily for trying to live (AND PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND). TRYING TO LIVE is subtly treated as an AMBITION that, for Viktor, interfered with his ethics. (And please note that in the end, Singed, who repeatedly embraces unethical practices for reviving his dying daughter gets what he wants).

Anyway, in S2, Jayce blasts Viktor in the chest and all that conviction goes out the window. All this despite Sky (his conscience and “humanity”) being there with him in the astro-nether. Now Viktor's idea of becoming a higher being is just getting rid of emotion (apparently because Jayce did it or something). Jayce killing him without explanation was all of a sudden all he needed to become a divine dictator. The same Viktor that looked terminal illness in the face and preferred to spare others instead of himself? The same Viktor who's immediate action after waking up with a new body was to go and use the arcane he wished had been destroyed to help others? Because the arcane is corrupting him? That’s convenient for a certain political narrative. Especially because anyone would hesitate pressing a button (in Viktor’s case smashing the hex core) that would guarantee their death. Viktor was being human, not corrupt.

Viktor and Jayce:

Now, I think Jayce's speech had some merit and could have been framed better with a little more time and thought. The philosophical idea of perfection or a perfect world (one which Piltoverians strive toward) being untenable, maybe even undesirable, is a fascinating concept worth exploring. BUT MAKING IT ABOUT SOME INTERNALIZED ABLEISM FROM VIKTOR IS FUCKING STUPID!!!! I'm sorry, but Piltover being the city of progress until it actually included becoming progressive with Zaun was absolutely one of the things Jayce and Viktor's sub-plot was trying to explore.

Viktor WANTED TO LIVE. Viktor wanted his people to STOP SUFFERING. Viktor WAS RIGHT. He wasn't merely eliminating "imperfections" (and of FUCKING COURSE A PILTOVIAN WOULD SEE IT THAT WAY), he was trying to cure sick and dying people who did nothing to deserve it. He was buying them time that people like Jayce and Heimmerdinger had in spades, but Viktor and Zaunites had stolen from them.

Children dying of disease and violence in The Lanes was by Piltovian design! It was not some predestined cosmic necessity. Viktor WAS RIGHT TO HATE HIS FUCKING TERMINAL ILLNESS ARE THESE GUYS INSANE??! Wtf kind of message is Viktor embracing it as part of himself sending to vulnerable, impoverished and ill people? Is that supposed to be some kind of fucking comfort? Fuck off right to hell!

Like I'm glad if it resonated with any disabled people, but Viktor's struggle with his body was a protest against Piltover, not himself, and I hate that the writers gutted that character development. Viktor's and Jayce's paths "diverged a long time ago" because Jayce had the luxury and time of pursuing his dream while Viktor didn't. Viktor, even up there as a scholar of Piltover, was still getting the Zaunite treatment.

Jayce had the time to pursue a better world, while Viktor had to struggle for a little more time. When Viktor becomes part of the arcane, suddenly he has all the time in the world to realize HIS OWN DREAM. Why would wanting a better world for others have to result in "dreamless solitude"? Why does wanting progress equal wanting perfection? You are changing the subject and that is cheating!!!!

Viktor becoming obsessed with fixing what ailed humanity was warranted, and his extremism was hinted to have been due in part to the effect the arcane had on him, but it still made the themes of arcane a joke. There was so much potential and the writers (and showrunners) just squandered it for some more romantic bullshit.

The Glorious Fumblings (A Summary):

-"Humanity, our very essence, is inescapable. Our emotions, rage, compassion, hate. Two sides of the same coin, intractably bound. That which inspires us to our greatest good is also the cause of our greatest evil.” That's a neat quote, but wars don't start simply due to emotions or whatever. This lacks class analysis, and it's annoying that the writers made this the whole theme of season 2 (and retroactively the show) in a story on class divides. Cait did not merely gas the Zaunites because of her mother, but because of her privileged upbringing that made it more acceptable to her to view Zaunites as animals (remember Ekko telling her enforcers “hunt us down like animals"). Cait knew the humanity of Zaunites was real. She just chose to ignore it because she could afford to. While it is interesting that Viktor would come to see being human as a flaw that destroys any hope of achieving peace (conflict theory would like a word with you), it ignored that fascism is not an inherently human trait and detracts from how or why it persists in the first place. It's almost the same as saying men/white people oppress women/poc because the latter were mean to them. It's victim-blaming (and false lmao). The British didn't colonize the Americans because the natives did anything to them. All prejudice is unjustified, that's what makes it prejudice. Again, Cait became a fascist when her mom died, but Vi still drew the line at killing children and even council members despite losing every single one of her family members to Piltover's violence against The Lanes. AND THAT’S JUST IT. Why the Zaunites do what they do isn’t simply because of love and hate, but because of the desperate circumstances they are forced into by their oppressors. Why the Piltovians do what they do, isn’t because of love or hate, but because they are bread in luxury and affluence. Pretending that’s not the case is an insult to the work put into Arcane’s first season (and anyone with a brain and basic empathy).

-Jayce's speech would have been cute in another story, but it's downright insulting in Arcane's. Yes, yes, Jayce's words would have been the only ones to have broken the real Viktor out of Arcane Viktor's grasp by appealing to this deep childhood wound, but Viktor's desperation was not to belong (because his leg kept him from playing with other children) but TO LIVE (because he was dying of an illness). Jayce's speech isn't bad, just misplaced. Like most of the finale.

-Viktor did not have to become a fascist-aligned deity in his quest to heal people. It is a typical MCU thing to have a "villain" that's technically right and then destroy their entire character to make their (correct) philosophy untenable by making them do something extreme. Typical pro-status quo propaganda trope. I DON’T CARE if it was so we could get some game version of him. Viktor was right in bringing progress and his discoveries to The Lanes instead of devoting his efforts to Piltover, the fake city of progress.

-While I am annoyed that the climax of the show hinged on Jayce and Viktor and hextech (a tool to explore the inequalities of Piltover and Zaun) instead of Jinx and Vi, I think it kinda makes sense. Hextech built what Piltover has now become. Jayce, Viktor and hextech kinda represent Piltover (what it could be) and Jinx and Vi represent The Lanes (and the Zaun it could be). Both would have been integral, but the story shouldn't have hinged on hextech, IMO. Hextech should have remained a tool to explore the politics of both cities, but instead it overshadowed everything, cheapening the story's themes, characters and world-building.

-Jayce calling the Zaunites to arms was downright absurd. But not as absurd as Zaunites volunteering.

And Then There's Jinx:

Jinx and Isha:

Isha's only use, as far as I'm concerned, was to be a reconciling force between the sisters. When Cait was willing to shoot her to get to Jinx, that should have stopped Vi right there and brought her back to defending Jinx 100% I DON’T CARE. When Isha sacrificed her life to save Jinx, that should have been Jinx's wake-up call right there and helped her understand why Vi kept leaving her out of missions as a kid. But instead what do we get? Depressed, suicidal Jinx and an astoundingly even more resentful and indifferent Vi. Now Jinx sees herself as even more of a poison to those she loves (because she can’t protect them like Vi can and frequently kills them while trying to do so). Jinx, who has always wanted to be useful to those she loves. Who pursued her own hextech inventions in order to give her siblings a fighting chance when facing down Silco. Who wants to give Zaun a fighting chance as Silco's daughter (and Isha’s surrogate mother). To be useful to the goals and dreams of her family. Isha was the perfect opportunity to bring the sisters together and get Jinx to embrace all she is (both the Jinx that Vi rejects and the Powder that Silco rejected), but no. Instead, the kid was some kind of foreshadowing to Jinx's own heroic self-sacrifice for her sister (a message that left both sister's arcs unfinished). Or perhaps, Isha was a commentary on the cycle of violence. But that this sub-plot really wasn't needed given what we'd already established in Season 1.

Why do I say this?

Because the cycle of violence is not a "Jinx" issue, but a Piltover one, and the writers making it an interpersonal issue instead of a political/sociological one damaged the story and what Jinx's character could have meant to mentally ill people like her. It wasn't illogical storytelling, just far less meaningful than it could have been. It would have been more powerful and moving and impactful for Jinx to realize where the true cycle of violence (as established the whole fucking show from the dead parents on the bridge, to Vander and Silco, to Jinx and Vi, to Jinx and Ekko, to Isha and Warwick, to Cait and Vi, etc) was coming from.

Jinx needed to accept herself and the love others showed toward her (Silco, Vander, Ekko and Vi). Jinx keeps blowing things up because she repeatedly rejects herself (both Powder and Jinx), ignoring the good she's done and tried to do. Isha was a call back to the good Jinx has done and can continue to do for Zaun and others. Isha and Sevika understood (even though Silco unfairly set it up) that Jinx was actually their good luck, their hope, more than just a hex (pun intended) on the city. After all, Jinx made Sevika her new arm (even though she's the reason Sevika lost her arm in the first place), which further proves that Jinx had the capacity to fix some of what she broke. It would have been better for her to embrace responsibility and have the faith to try and fix things (ESP her relationship with Vi). While it is not unrealistic or necessarily bad writing that she would fake her own death to run away and start over (or just die) trying to save Vi, the arc people she represented deserved was her embracing Vi back, not accepting that she was a curse in Vi's life. And most definitely NOT romanticizing her pain.

Jinx and Ekko:

Ekko's and Jinx's relationship is precisely an exploration of how Piltover's violence against Zaun forced these children with entire futures ahead of them (they are both child prodigies) into endless war and hellish heroism. Ekko and Jinx are repeatedly shown to be hesitant and even unwilling to participate in violence against others, especially their own. Ekko does not hate Jinx, though he wants to, and Jinx does not like who she is when she's violent. She is trigger-happy because she already expects Vi and Ekko to want to kill her (projecting her self-loathing on them, but not entirely unreasonably). She doesn't have faith in their love or mercy because she doesn't see any part of herself as redeemable or loveable, which is why she consistently sabotages her life (but not without help from Vi and others).

Ekko and Jinx are symbols of progress for Zaun AND Piltover (and Heimerdinger saw that, especially when Ekko insisted he had to go back to his timeline, even if the one he had landed in was better). Heimmerdinger saw what they could have been in the alternate timeline, all the genius that was squandered in The Lanes. Jinx and Ekko are the ones most willing to put an end to violence and injustice because both of them are nostalgic for their families. All that’s ever kept them going is the love of their families. Jinx just doesn't have the same faith in her ability to be their hero as Ekko does, but Ekko manages to convince her for a moment anyways.

Ekko recognizes (like Silco, Viktor and Isha) how integral Jinx is to the creation of a new world. She injects colour and life and hope into Zaun and is the only one who can unite all warring factions in Zaun in the first place. I know people have gripes with this Jinx being the hero of Zaun when she literally killed Silco, opening the market for other gangs, but her most famous act is the bombing of the Council, which pretty much all Zaunites were unaware was about to grant them independence. To the average citizen of Zaun and Piltover, Jinx was the symbol of a revolution (even if Jinx didn’t see herself that way and didn’t really want to be). Both her and Ekko are rebel leaders, but that is hardly used in Zaun's interests in the end. (ALSO THAT WHOLE CONVERSATION WITH VIKTOR AND JINX WHERE HE SAID SHE COULD BE USEFUL TO HIS WORK. This show would have won with a Viktor and Jinx team-up to unite Zaun--also in parallel to Jayce and Vi's team up. We could have had it all!)

Jinx and Silco:

This, is only second to Vi in the most FUMBLED things about Jinx. Silco was her guide once Vander died and Vi ran away. Silco not only took care of her, but gave her purpose (someone to love and be loved by and protect) and nurtured her talent (one that many others scorned). Silco accepted Jinx even though he weaponized her (which backfired for him). As much as Silco WAS WRONG to lie about Vi (manipulating Jinx) and even try to kill Vi (which was a dumbass move on his part), he wasn't wrong about Jinx's path to healing: self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. And even though Silco's own stupidity led Jinx to "embrace" Silco's version of Jinx to the point that she bombed the Council right when they'd granted Zaun independence (I wanted to fucking kill myself watching that), Jinx was still not ENTIRELY a jinx as Jinx (e.g. when she rescued Zaunites from Stillwater Prison). This fucked up dude did a whole John-the-Baptist thing where Vander tried to drown him with Jinx so she could embrace her Jinx-ness. But I don't think he was telling her to embrace that she was a curse like Vi meant it, but to embrace her new life (baptism is all about death and rebirth) and her new self and take responsibility for it.

Silco, like Ekko, was the one who saved Jinx from death and offered Jinx a home. While everyone else patronized Jinx for her own childhood trauma, Silco was gentle, understanding and provided space for that, even when her psychosis killed him. He showed zero resentment toward her. But when Silco dies and Vander returns, Jinx just . . . oopsie, doopsie! Forgets about Silco until one final hallucination she has of him in the jail cell. The only one she has where he talks. And what does he say? She needs to break the cycle. How? Not by eliminating Piltover or gaining Zaun's independence like he'd talked about and dreamed about. Not by accepting herself as Jinx and Powder, the inventor, the fighter, daughter of both Silco and Vander, but by offing herself? Leaving her family to think she's dead? Embracing the lie that she really was the poison in their lives and the reason none of them could be happy? The reason they died? NICE! SWELL! WHAT A SATISFYING, INSPIRING CONCLUSION! Even worse, they made her "death" staged. I'm sorry, but do we really believe that this same girl who killed herself multiple times in front of Ekko just 24 hours ago somehow found the will to live and escape into air ducts when she was falling with Vander? She decided to live right when she was about to die? And let's not forget that she was falling to the same song that was playing when she was trying to commit suicide. Why? And why would a heroic death (staged or not) be any form of character growth for Jinx in the first place? When her whole thing is distrusting the love offered to her? Or was she accepting herself by being the one to kill Vander because she knew Vi couldn't? Either way, it's cheap!

I Wonder Who Put All Those Holes In You (Fumbling Summary):

-Vander's letter to Silco could have been why she hallucinated Silco talking to her about forgiveness, but breaking the cycle here is about forgiving (unapologetic) Piltovians instead of herself, which needed to happen to complete her arc.

-Isha and Vander misery porn

-(above is an excerpt from Amanda Overton's TheGamer interview) to paraphrase: "SO OUR GRAND CONCLUSION TO VI AND JINX'S ARC WAS TO CONFIRM THAT YES, JINX WAS INDEED A JINX (AND NOT PILTOVER OR ANYTHING HAHA) AND THE SISTERS WOULD ONLY HAVE PEACE IF THEY NEVER RECONCILED - JUST LIKE THEIR FATHERS BECAUSE THAT WORKED OUT SO WELL THE FIRST TIME! :D THE REASON THEIR LIVES ARE IN SHAMBLES ARE PURELY BECAUSE OF THEIR OWN PERSONAL FAILINGS AND NOT AT ALL BECAUSE OF THE SITUATION PILTOVIANS HAVE PUT ZAUNITES IN! XD WE THINK THIS IS ALSO A FANTASTIC THING TO TELL MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE." :)

-Jinx being the reluctant Girl Saviour of Zaun after clinging onto her identity as a jinx so she didn't have to take responsibility for Zaun should have been the completion of her arc, IMO. As far as Jinx's arc is concerned, she was meant to reject the identity of jinx that Vi gave her and embrace the identity of Jinx that Zaun gave her. Loveable and capable of doing the right thing and saving others. Using hex-tech, something Jayce and Piltover had levelled against her people, against them. And she does this to some extent, but we don't even get a hint as to why Ekko's speech worked (and how he got her to fight alongside him and the Firelights in the first place). We know she does so for Vi, but she so quickly gives up once she and her sister are back on the same team. She allies herself with her sister just to die and then fuck off to another land? BRUH! Like act 3 is SO FRUSTRATING!

Conclusion

If the focus had been on the coming war between Zaun and Piltover, then we could have better explored the internal struggles happening with Vi's and Jinx's characters. Using Isha and Vander as misery porn for Jinx was a bad move. I stand by that. Isha didn't need to die that uselessly. Jinx did not need more "trauma" for any character development (positive or negative). It's not unrealistic that Jinx would be depressed after Isha's death (and that Isha was likely meant to symbolize the constant cycle of violence), but that this sub-plot really wasn't needed given what we'd already established in Season 1.

These are where my gripes with Jinx's and Viktor's arcs in S2 really lie: the story tries to strip the political from the personal! Viktor, on waking up with the arcane in him, goes back to The Lanes, and what does he see? The cycle that Silco mentions in Jinx's hallucination in the cell. This cycle is not merely coming from the interpersonal struggle Zaunites have, but rather, the forces behind those struggles: the starvation, the lack of resources, the poverty. All caused by Piltover. Where Season 2 fails while Season 1 succeeded, is it points the camera away from Piltover as the origin of all this mess, and instead, makes it a stupid cosmic clash between chaos and order (kinda fascist ngl). Zaun lost, and Arcane Season 1 had the tits to show why those in The Lanes were always on a losing streak: Piltover. The commitment to saving Piltover instead of destroying it ruined so many arcs, most notoriously Vi's and Jinx's. This should have ended in a war between the two cities, not one where both fought against robo-people and Ambessa.

But what, instead, do the writers brandish as this solution to the cycle?

Fucking forgiveness (of those who harm and oppress you) and acceptance of your (physical) imperfections (like that's what we were apparently talking about, which no, it wasn't). By refusing to acknowledge Piltover's hand in the desperation and violence and struggle the Zaunite characters find themselves, the show inadvertently ends up excusing Piltover.

TLDR: Bad message to send to oppressed people, mentally ill people, and people dying of terminal illnesses, lmao. The Zaunites ALL LOST with this one.

And I'm going to make a Part 2 to really get into it, but from the perspective of three Piltover characters (and one Zaunite) that really prove my point: Jayce, Mel, Caitlyn and Ekko.

P.S.: It's okay if you think the show is good because it succeeds in many other things, I just think it drops the ball in the places I've mentioned. But if your main criticism of my criticisms is going to be defending your ships, please find another post. Oppression is a serious reality that deserves serious depiction and it's insulting to have such necessary political discussions devolve into dumbass ship wars.

EDIT: I honestly did not expect this post to get more than 20 likes lmao, and i must admit that this was more of a thought dump than a super-deep analysis, but i'm glad a lot of it has resonated with so many of you!

EDIT AGAIN: Here's PART 2.

[jiminrings]

mature

pairing: jungkook x reader

wordcount: 8k

glimpse: the good thing about professing your feelings to jungkook is that it'd be over with, whether or not he likes you back — the bad thing is that he rejects you, even if you haven't confessed.

alternatively, crushing on jungkook who's in your friend group is, has, and will never be a good idea.

[ push n pull fic YIPPPEEEEE, fluff, angst, So Much Yearning, friends to lovers trope, jealousy, dunking on a stewpid jk (as one does), arguments that kinda hit home, redemption!! ]

notes: WE R SO BACK!!!! thank u for waiting 🫂🤍

as always, lmk what you think <3 send in feedback n love to my askbox anytime!!

You will never tell Jungkook how desperately you want to be loved.

In your defense (much to Jungkook’s offence), you want to be loved as desperately as he acts on an everyday basis. He’s not pathetic in the sense that he’s hopeless, but rather pathetic in the light that you want the entirety of him (stubbornness and occasional dimness included) to rub off on you.

You want to be loved pathetically in the same way that Jungkook never computes his expenses when it comes to self-indulgence yet always calculates when it comes to actual requirements. You want to be loved as wholly by the guy who can get by one DIY dorm dinner at a time by asking for scraps from the whole floor with a grin and his hands cupped in begging.

Jungkook’s one of your friends, if not the best you’ve ever had, and it’s a miracle that you haven’t jumped at each and every available chance to confess your growing feelings for him.

You bit your tongue that one time he bought you "one of those silly blind boxes you like" on a whim from a bookstore he only went inside to in the first place because he was dying outside in the heat, only to open it for you with your eyes closed and earn you an extra rare figure.

You had to physically restrain yourself (read: clasp your hands together in front of you) when Jungkook made you swap your counterfeit, barely-holding-on kitten heels for his trustworthy slides on the way home because your research presentation prior had you pacing nervously.

Every time that he gives you your tax of whatever he ordered (which always ends up being the best variant that your friend group could possibly order for a meal or a sweet treat), you have to etch into your head clearly, with ballpoint pen, that you will never tell Jungkook how desperately you want him to love you.

Every time that he gives you a one-on-one friend outing, just as he does with everyone else from your circle of ten people and counting (you lost count because you figure that all of you are about to outgrow the long table in the library that nobody else could fill), you convince yourself to never tell him how much you want it to be just you.

You figure that you’ll tell Jungkook that you do hold a candle for him, despite not detailing the extent, in this lifetime— maybe even the next time you get a moment alone with him, but you figure you won’t do it now; now, when he’s berating you for just a tiny sacrifice you made that’s minuscule for everything he does for you and everyone else.

“You’re impossible!” he huffs, his annoyance for you being loud enough to stop his faux display of studying and gather attention from everyone else in the library who actually is. Jungkook holds up his phone for you to read, brows scrunched at your look of amusement. “Jimin told me you were lactose intolerant!”

You can’t figure how and why Jungkook and Jimin’s conversation even flitted towards you when you recall clearly that the lactose-filled meal in question was from two weeks ago. You don’t question it because you already know that even giving it a second thought would already be too pompous of you, and you don’t question either why Jungkook looks too devastated at the realization.

“I just tolerated it,” you snort, burying your nose back into your notes, missing the flash of regret in Jungkook’s features.

He doesn’t know whether he’d feel more sorry over the fact that he didn’t know you were lactose intolerant, or that you didn’t speak up at all to preserve his excitement over eating at the restaurant he wanted to try out.

“But why would you?” he sulks, completely foregoing the textbook he has opened on the same page for the last hour.

You know exactly why you did, but you’d rather not tell Jungkook now. 

You’ll tell him some other time, that much you’re sure of, but not now — not now when he’s too devastated over your tummy issues, and not now when he’s just one revelation away from chewing you out over something he has to learn from someone else.

“Your broke ass bought it so I had to,” you murmur, rolling your eyes as you rest your chin on the palm of your hand.

“Foul,” Jungkook immediately chuckles, shaking his head at your retort even if he knows you’re just kidding around (he knows you won’t hurt him like that that), finally opening his laptop.

Jungkook, your friend, finally types on his laptop, yet it’s not for the contribution that he badly needs to put in for a group project.

Instead, he opens up the Google Doc and writes in a bullet point underneath your name, the words do not give cheese acquainted with three exclamation points — along with your name, is the names of your mutual friends and Jungkook’s observations that would come in handy for an outing, a gift, or both.

Jungkook’s that good of a friend, and that’s why you’ll never tell him how desperately you want to be loved by him.

( ♡ ) 

Getting gifts for someone who has a credit card and has no inhibitions when it comes to buying whatever they want is a difficult task.

Getting Jungkook for Secret Santa this year is even harder than the last, and that was when Jin snuck five strips of his name and left more than five of you (you don’t even know how that happened) without gifts, all while he was laughing to himself after he successfully gaslit everyone into thinking that they were all drunk and made the mistake themselves.

You don’t know what to give Jungkook that he doesn’t already have. He doesn’t have a girlfriend the last time you checked and while you can’t exactly wrap yourself in ugly, recycled kraft paper (as opposed to Jimin’s dumb, all-knowing-about-your-hidden-feelings suggestion), you’d rather not drive Jungkook away, even if you don’t know either how to drive him in.

You don’t have the slightest clue to what his ‘surprise me ;)’ scribble underneath his name means and it makes you feel guilty, far more than he ever could have after Jimin’s revelation of your dietary restrictions. 

It’s not the dilemma of who would sit next to who in the large albeit crowded dining table in the cabin that you rented out, nor is it the cooking and wrapping duties that each of you are tasked with that stresses you out this holiday season.

You wish so badly that the largest champagne problem you have at the moment was wondering if your Christmas gift for your nitpicky mom and nonchalant dad back at home arrived in time. You pray that your biggest hurdle is either convincing Namjoon that his room is just cold and not haunted, or breaking off a fight between Eunwoo and Soomin because they keep fighting over whose overpriced film camera will be used for the picture by the tree, or even talking Mingyu down from smacking Jin in his sleep.

The largest champagne problem that you have, even if it’s actually between life and living said life in peace without minding your inevitable heartbreak, is worrying about Jungkook’s gift.

You hold your breath as soon as Hoseok gathers everyone into the living room, your nerves probably getting the best of you because you hear Jungkook hollering to whoever’s closest to the thermostat to adjust it because your teeth kept chattering.

You have nothing to be nervous about, you convince yourself as Jungkook steps up into the middle and awaits with wide arms, your best friend being another victim of assuming that the comically large wrapped present is his (it’s not).

Jungkook doesn’t have any expectations for you to meet, you convince yourself as he becomes even more hyper when he learns that it’s you, so much so that he takes a lap around the backyard with his hands clapping furiously.

You can’t love Jungkook any more than you do now, you realize as you see Jungkook throw his head back in glee when he opens up your gift.

It’s only a Himalayan salt lamp. It’s only a lamp that you didn’t buy for so much. It’s only a thing that Jungkook said to you in passing one time, yet he’s beyond grateful — enough for him to carry you in his arms and take another lap around the backyard.

“God, you love me soooo bad,” he lulls, teasing you mercilessly as he unceremoniously drops you so he could adore the lamp up close. “I always wanted to lick one!”

“You’re so stupid,” you mutter, rolling your eyes at his excitement over something so simple; something so insignificant in the world of thoughtful, expensive gifts.

You affectionately think that Jungkook’s stupid, yet you can’t tear your eyes away from him.

“I didn’t hear a no,” Jungkook hums with his tongue out, eyes wide and flickering between you and the lamp. “Should I do it? Should I? I’m doing-…!”

You put a spoonful of cake into his mouth instead, the whine that escapes his throat still sounding like gratefulness to your ears.

Tonight’s not the night wherein you tell Jungkook how badly you want to be loved by him — not when he’s so preoccupied with his new salt lamp that he keeps daring people to take a lick of, not when he’s the one who’s being convinced that there’s a ghost in Namjoon's room and being bullied into sleeping in.

Not when Jungkook’s being the perfect, lovable friend that he is during the holidays and every other day.

( ♡ ) 

You’re well-aware that Jungkook’s a catch.

You know that he’s a catch and he’ll never live it down, and neither can you.

You’re very painfully aware that Jungkook’s a catch because you’re reminded of it every single day whenever you’re with your friends. You know that atleast two of them were integrated into the group in the first place because they liked Jungkook, and that doesn’t really bother you (more than it should, atleast) anymore. 

Sora’s crush formed out of boredom on Jungkook disappeared as soon as she got a boyfriend, but you understand why her gaze lingered on him in the first place.

Eunji’s crush on Jungkook already dissipated the moment she learned about his GPA, but you get why she had been attracted to his charm anyway.

You know that he’s a catch and that he’s not solely yours either, and the latter makes you humble.

“There’s flowers on your desk again,” you point out, the arrangement irking you for more reasons than one. “Why do you have to be so popular and handsome.. and lovable,” you mumble, the tail end of your mini rant barely being heard by Jungkook because he's too busy admiring his gift.

“What’s that now?” Jin piped up, eyebrows furrowed upon picking up your angry muttering. He's beyond confused, maybe just as much as you are, when you just snarl at him for his unintentional use of supersonic hearing.

“And why do I have to sit next to you even if I have allergies,” you redirect your attention to Jungkook who has to sweep the flowers to a beaten-up paper bag for safekeeping, the item in his backpack being the most used object for all of the admiration towards him.

“Because you’re the best-est friend ever,” he rolls his eyes, the faux pout on his lips surprisingly softening you instead of the opposite. “And maybe I’m the worst-est one to keep putting you through this.”

“You sound so stupid,” you reply automatically, crossing your arms and keeping them there. “But you’re right,” you exhale through your nose, conceding your defeat over willingly letting him put you through this, carrying the blame by yourself.

Jungkook doesn’t only act like this with you anyway. There’s no special treatment, there’s no false hopes being promised — it’s just you genuinely happening to fall for him.

“Come on, just tolerate it! Pinch your nose or something!”

“Why should I? Find another seatmate,” you sulk, making a point to angle your back away from him and towards Jin who’s at your right, doing his best at holding in a laugh over how ridiculous the both of you look.

“Obviously you’re the one with the latest phone so you have to take pictures of me with the flowers!” Jungkook whines, punctuating his sentence with a hand on his hip. He’s sulking because you’re sulking, and you’ve never hated him more at the moment. “Why else would I force you to sit with me?”

Jungkook’s stupid, and so are you, so you’d rather not tell him how desperately you want to be loved by him today.

( ♡ ) 

In all fairness, you thought you would lose nothing.

You thought you would lose nothing because in the first place, you barely expected anything out of Jungkook. Liking him didn’t mean that you were indebted to him, and liking you back isn’t something that he owed to you either.

You weren’t expecting Jungkook to fall on his knees and say something stupid to hint at his mutual love for you (although you did think about it a couple of times), but you atleast expected a little bit of respect from him to try and see the strength it took you to even confess.

You planned it perfectly, even taking a page off his book and making a whole word document for it wherein you spent days typing whatever crossed your mind throughout the day and erasing what seemed the most impossible throughout the night. 

In your word document, you and Jungkook would be out in the snow, skating in an outdoor rink even if neither of you know how to. You figure that you won’t attempt to drag (read: hobble with) him to the middle of the ice because in case he doesn’t like you back, the waddle back to the exit wouldn’t be as awkward; if Jungkook does like you back, you’ll still be hobbling to the exit, albeit happily.

In your word document, there’s a spine of a script that you would say when the day comes. You’ll skim along the lines of how you’ve never been so enamored with someone in your entire life (with the internal note that you’ll dial it back a bit if his expression turns sour), of how bright he makes your days for you, and how he doesn’t have to be obligated to like you back.

In your word document, you’re set. You’ve planned a foolproof blueprint of what would turn out, whether or not Jungkook is set on loving you the way you desperately want to be —

Except now, Jungkook completely undoes everything you’ve ever worked for.

Now, he looks at you with a glint in his eye that looks more apologetic than it is endearing. You don’t even know what led to your heartbreak exactly because one minute, you were just studying, and by the next, Jungkook’s already letting you down even if you haven't had the chance to rise.

You swear on your life that you weren’t giving any signals at all that you were actually about to confess. You were only silent, refusing to talk to him because you were too stressed over your task and that you were scared you would burst into tears if you tried mouthing the formula out loud, yet Jungkook mistakes it for your love.

Whatever you do on a daily basis, whatever you do based on your nature, Jungkook mistakes it for a confession that he wasn’t even supposed to hear until the end of the week.

He wasn’t wrong about the fact that you love him — what he’s wrong about is his assumption that your silence around him when it’s just the two of you, right now while you lose your mind over an assignment as you’re dressed in last week’s sweater and last semester’s horror, is your confession.

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” Jungkook winces, gently patting you on the shoulder as you’re yet to digest his rejection. “But I just don’t think we’ll work out.”

( ♡ ) 

You theorized that getting over Jungkook would be fairly easy on the chance that he rejects you after your confession.

You figure that Jungkook himself as a concept would be drastically difficult to move on from because he was just so lovable. He doesn’t know how to read a room and it’s one of his better quirks when you’re worrying over nothing. He doesn’t know much about knowing when to let up, and it comes in clutch when he’s pushing you to wholeheartedly do an assignment even if you’re already burnt out from crying.

Jungkook, as a concept, is indestructible. He’s the everyday variant of the goodness that some frat guys possess occasionally. He’s the realistic, attainable version of a main lead in a manhwa that’s only perfect 1/4 into the plot. 

He’s the manifestation of every good deed a stranger has done for you, except he’s someone you know with your heart and not just someone you could sketch from memory. 

With that, you also figured that moving on from Jungkook can’t be that hard because he was too out of reach despite being in the same friend group as you. Surely, it wouldn’t be so catastrophically hard to move on from a guy who just gasps for air every five minutes when he’s in charge of cooking in the BBQ hangout (instead of using the exhaust like a normal person), or from a guy who thinks citing references for a paper is only a suggestion.

The funny thing about it all is that you never actually confessed to Jungkook.

Actually (and contrary to the assumptions of the other friends you have from your circle), you’ve never said it to his face that you do have a crush on him. You’re ultimately known to be the friendliest person to ever walk the campus, and while not the most confrontational, they atleast expected for you to confess to Jungkook in your own way.

What actually happened was that Jungkook read through you — he does happen to be right about your feelings for him! He’s the second friendliest person right beneath you, and so the way he rejected you should never sting this much.

Jungkook thought it out meticulously. He read into the way you spent extra attention listening to him with your eyes practically gleaming. He read into the way you’d lag back behind him and hold him by his wrist whenever you were all crossing the street. Hell, he even read into the way you would take a shot at opening the extremely tight water bottle from the vending machine before everyone else.

The funny, tragic thing about it is that whilst Jungkook wasn’t wrong about pinpointing your feelings for him — you never confessed.

Jeon Jungkook, the second, ultimate friendliest man that your university has ever known, rejected you without even hearing the actual words from you.

He’s turned his back on you even before you could reach him, and the realization sinks in you unsettlingly. You never expected for him to like you back because it would be unfair of you, and you knew that; what just happened to hurt you most was that Jungkook didn’t even think twice.

He hadn’t given you the chance to pour your heart out at the very least.

He hadn’t even given you the space to breathe right after the rejection, because he skips and puts a smile on before winking, telling you that he’ll never speak of it again because you must probably be embarrassed.

The funniest thing about it all is that you aren’t embarrassed — you’re actually devastated about it.

It’s an odd event for Jungkook to feel lonely because with such a big friend group, he never thought he’d feel a little empty despite literally rubbing elbows in a circular table. He never thought he’d come to be a little annoyed at Jimin and his routine, playful, borderline offensive banter he’d always have with you at the top of the morning, and he never thought he’d even be more annoyed over the absence of it.

There’s one less laugh in the circle. One less bag strewn underneath the table, one less coffee order written on the notes app, and one less person to look for when hanging out.

You’re missing from the friend group, and oddly enough, Jungkook seems to be the most devastated about it.

“Why is Y/N not here?” he asks in the middle of Jin retelling his drunken fishing story, grabbing the attention of everyone in the table and maybe just about everyone else’s in the common area with the way his voice is frantic. “And why is she there with the new kid instead?”

Everyone flits through separate conversations after Jungkook’s interruption, some even wincing to themselves because although they know about your admiration for the guy and not your confession-that-wasn’t-one, they figure that nothing good could come out of Jungkook sucker-punching the new kid in his head.

“I don’t know, man. Buddy system, maybe?” Jin shrugs, stealing his food because it was obvious that Jungkook’s attention is everywhere but himself and the table.

Jungkook snorts, crossing his arms tightly to the point that even he feels a little suffocated. His entire face is crumpled with hurt, eyebrows furrowed out of frustration when you still aren’t looking at him; when you’re still not looking at him with confusion in your eyes, silently telling him off for glaring.

“Buddy system? We’re in uni. Who the fuck would bully that guy?”

“By the looks of it, probably you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he huffs, refusing to unclench his fists on his thighs.

“Well, what’s it to you that Y/N’s hanging out with someone new? What are you so heated for?” Jin elaborates, eyes flitting to you again.

Jungkook could only glare at you.

“What are you so nosy for?” he asks defensively, leaning back on his chair in a faux display of relaxation when all he wants to do is to remove the stupid smile on the guy’s face as he watches you talk.

Unlike Jungkook, Yoongi’s not stupid at all — in fact, he’s been vigilantly aware of Jungkook’s glare on the side of his face ever since you sat in front of him.

Yoongi’s not stupid, so he angles himself in a way that Jungkook gets to see him more. He doesn’t know the guy personally, but he does know of him and his “charm” that seems to make everyone go nuts for him. 

If looks could kill, then Yoongi would’ve already had mourners at his feet, but if provocation could poison, then Jungkook would already be frothing at the mouth.

The thing is, Yoongi doesn’t even know about your admiration nor your foiled confession to Jungkook. The latter hasn’t even done anything personally to him. 

All he knows is that you’re in a big friend group and that you chose to sit with him, your friend whom you share a couple of advanced classes with but not a friend-friend like Jungkook is, and that you’re very easy on the eyes and admirable yourself if he thinks about it (he doesn’t need much time to ponder over it) — and, that he doesn’t really like being glared at.

“No really, I insist!” he laughs, pulling out a handwritten reviewer from his backpack with a grin. “I don’t know anybody else who likes making reviewers anymore by hand, so really, you’re just perfect to get them.”

“But you worked so hard on them,” you gasp, eyes already widening in both surprise and awe at the thick stack of papers in front of you. Yoongi’s handwriting and formatting are perfect; there’s no unnecessary calligraphy, the vividness of the highlighter is just right, and there’s even sticky notes at the bottom for additional details and references you could cross-check. “I.. I don’t want you to feel that I’m taking advantage-…”

“But I offered! You didn’t ask for reviewers from me shamelessly like every other opportunist does,” Yoongi laughs, throwing his head back as he slides the papers closer to you. “I’d be a really shitty senior not to give you any help. If anything, I think you deserve even better than-…”

Jungkook can’t resist.

Jungkook can’t take any more of watching you and Yoongi push and pull over whatever topic he can’t hear nor force Jin to eavesdrop on. He can’t take another second of seeing you be so happy talking to a guy that he doesn’t know, so much so that he comes up to you without a second thought.

“Hey,” he greets, his body only turned to you, completely ignoring Yoongi and blocking him off from your sight. “You didn’t order any coffee.”

You angle your body slightly to excuse yourself, except Jungkook conveniently happens to mirror your every move, confusing you even more. “Oh, I wasn’t feeling like it,” you trail, looking up at him in confusion while Yoongi could see right through him.

“Really?” Jungkook replies, the smile on his face being far from amused, eyes narrowed as he tries to catch up with the own annoyance that he harbors. “Because I’m seeing two coffees right now, and one’s in front of you, so…” he trails, shrugging his shoulders exaggeratedly.

Jungkook’s jaw is still clenched, along with his fists by his sides. He’s standing tall between you and Yoongi with his shoulders squared and his face steeled, the immovable forces that are him and the unnamed pit in his stomach starting to garner attention.

Namjoon has his phone out. 

Hoseok only has one cheek remaining on the seat because he’s ready to stand up and collect bets. 

You’re still sitting, mostly confused, when you realize the attention that’s starting to build towards the three of you.

“Yes, Jungkook. Great observation,” you snicker, the discreet roll of your eyes making him take offense.

“Oh okay, I see. So you were lying by saying that you weren’t feeling it, and I don’t get the hold-up of you-…”

“What did you come here for now, Jungkook?” you angrily whisper, keeping your head down as you retain your gaze on him and lightly tap at the table to indicate to Yoongi for the both of you to move. “It’s a little far-fetched for you to come all over here to pick a fight about coffee.”

Jungkook huffs, turning his head back to Yoongi behind him because he most definitely saw your signal. The lazy, amused gaze of Yoongi is what sets him off even further, the anger in his eyes unmistakable, except you recognize it for only what it is and not jealousy, because Jungkook doesn’t see you like that.

Or atleast that’s what the both of you assume.

Jungkook, your best friend, scoffs loudly.

“You sound so defensive right now.”

( ♡ ) 

You don’t respond much to Jungkook’s calls. 

As a matter of fact, you don’t respond much to Jungkook at all.

You don’t show up whenever he’s present, meaning that you’re only magically available whenever there’s half of your friend group at the most because if there’s more, then the search for the missing members would ensue, then you’d end up squished in a long table next to Jungkook again.

It’s very much like him to form grudges, yet he can’t even tell if he’s capable of having one towards you. Jungkook, with all his chest and afflictions, wants so badly to hate you because you’ve been blowing him off ever since he literally and physically came between you and Yoongi.

He apologized to you for that (and not to Yoongi because he didn’t really matter to him at all), and he doesn’t know the answer for it yet because his messages still remain unread. He’s enlisted the help of your mutual friends on various occasions by trying to get them to give all his little treats for you, yet you refuse them as soon as you catch wind that it’s from Jungkook.

He even tried studying for real in the library in hopes that reverse psychology (he thinks that’s what it’s called) would work and that thinking he doesn’t want you to come would make you do the opposite, yet it still doesn’t work. Jungkook’s already mad that he studied for nothing (he’s more interested in getting you to notice him than to actually learn), but he becomes even more heated to realize that your anger for him is just directed at him alone.

You still talk to your best friends, with the exception of him, and Jungkook has never been more envious of people who are apparently of the same status as him.

Jungkook wants you to drag him like you drag Sora to the nail salon and have you whisper at his ear to tell the nail tech not to cut your cuticles because you’ve been afraid of getting them done since that 1/34th part of a medical drama episode you watched on your phone.

Jungkook wants you to complain to him like you complain to Namjoon when you’re frustrated with a professor whom you’re convinced is only critical to you and no one else, later making him promise not to tell anyone else from your friend group because they like said professor.

Jungkook wants you to run to him as you always did, just because you feel like it. He wants to sit in silence with you again and put his hand on your knee when you’re in the verge of tears just looking at your schedule for the week.

He wants to stand guard again outside the bathroom door of the expensive coffee shop because it’s either the lock is broken or because Namjoon's managed to instill in you the existence of ghosts in cold spots.

He wants to be the Jungkook like you’ve always known, again, because it seems like you’ve forgotten him completely. You have the Yoongi now, it seems like — the smarter, more composed, and more charismatic variant of him that he wants to get rid of because Jungkook never predicted the existence of him.

Even more, Jungkook didn’t even entertain the concept of him being replaced because it was always the two of you together, even in a sea of friends. 

He’s your best friend, your confidant even, but nothing more — all Jungkook feels is that he’s even less than the status the both of you are assigned to be. 

He’s angry and sad and disappointed all at the same time because he thought he had almost lost you since he rejected your confession. You were fine; you were as fine as you could be for someone rejected when it comes to yearning to be his, and yet the moment you let Yoongi in, Jungkook feels as if you threw everything the both of you had just for him.

“Just so you know, student-teacher relationships are illegal,” he corners you one morning in your dorm, two godforsaken weeks after chasing you around the campus yet turning up empty.

“What the fuck are you on about?” you immediately scrunch your nose at him, the accusation he throws at you being too farfetched to the point that you don’t even think of shutting the door at him, ignoring Eunji’s betrayal for you by pretending to come over.

“What am I on about?” Jungkook exasperates, the scoff that leaves him making you feel small in front of him. “You’re literally the one who’s getting chummy with fucking Yoongi of all people!"

"Yoongi's a teaching assistant! He's our senior! Do you not know that?"

"Do I look like I'm interested in any other people outside of our circle?" he retorts, lips turned up in a snarl. Jungkook provokes you with a sarcastic glare, the look on his face enough to make you throw your head back in irritation.

"Come on, even Jin and Jimin are friends with Yoongi and-..."

"This is not about them!" 

"But you just-..." you stop as soon Jungkook interrupts you, losing your gaze on him for a single second to close your door and when you look back, you find that he’s already comfortable being vindictive on your bed, his arms crossed and his back straight.

"Also, teacher and teaching assistant both have the word teach so it's literally still illegal," he narrows his eyes sarcastically, the tone to his voice unclear despite his words suggesting otherwise. "You look so stupid right now."

"Jungkook can you stop?!" you burst, your temples stinging at the back and forth that Jungkook’s thrown the both of you in. “What the hell is going on with you?"

Jungkook had sworn to himself up and down that he has so much stuff to pick with you. He knows he has so much baggage to unpack and how much shit he has to bring up, even if it’s only been two weeks with you. He’s partly relieved that you’re in front of him and you still haven’t fled, yet a large part of him is beyond frustrated with you because you don’t even look like as if your time apart has taken a toll on you.

Between the two of you, it’s only Jungkook who looks like his distraught has manned him completely beyond surrender. Even coming to see you by hatching a plan with a hesitant friend is something he considers an act beyond surrender — whatever the space is between surrender and demand is where Jungkook lies with you.

"No, what's going on with you!” he argues, standing to his feet to come face-to-face with you. “You can't just spin this around when I've done nothing but be a good friend to you!"

"You think I'm not being a good friend to you just because I don't spend every single minute attached to you? I can still hang out outside of our friend group without being-..."

"This is not about our friend group!" Jungkook emphasizes once again, the tell-tale sting of tears behind his eyes coming up because he feels as if you can’t hear him no matter how much he repeats himself. ”This is about us and how you abandoned me ever since I rejected you!"

"I didn't abandon you, Jungkook!" you spit, pushing at his chest lightly with your finger to get him to back up from your face yet he refuses to. He’s still insistent at staring you down with his jaw clenched, eyes wide and unblinking because he knows that if he moves even just a millimeter askew, he’d cry. “You didn't even give me the chance to confess to you! You rejected me without even hearing me out. Do you think I would still be able to talk to you, face to face like how you want so badly, as if nothing happened?"

"The answer would've been the same even if you confessed,” he grits with his chest heavy, not at the way he keeps holding his breath in order not to break down in front of you, but because you look at him with so much disdain that it makes him want to puke.

"Do you not think I know that?" you laugh humorlessly, gnawing on your bottom lip as you don’t drop his gaze. “Do you think I didn't prepare for that possibility? I knew what could've happened if I confessed and I'd still be okay with it, Jungkook!" you raise your voice, throat already giving out at the slightest pressure because you know you lost the fight ever since you let him in. "What I'm not okay with is that you didn't even give me the chance.”

It’s evil, really, with the way no amount of self-pity could ever pull you from the grave you’ve dug up. You went for Jungkook, carrying all grief you knew you were bound to feel, and yet you still feel unprepared. You still feel unworthy even moping for someone like Jungkook because not even his rejection, nor anyone else’s acceptance of your admiration by some sort of miracle, is enough to make you feel like you’d be missed.

Your two weeks without Jungkook is your rehearsal for the two months, then two years, then two forevers eventually without him by your side. You had still been able to live by yourself and with your friends, excluding him, and you thought you were fine because it feels as if nothing had changed.

You thought you were fine until Jungkook gets in your face to tell you that it’s not, and all over again, you’re reminded of how desperately you want to be loved by him to the point that you’d rather drown in your own pity to try and preserve whatever’s left of you.

"I told you the answer would-..."

"Shut up!" you cry, steeling your nerves when you realize that Jungkook’s angrily crying in front of you, wiping at his eyes hastily. ”For the love of god, shut up!"

Jungkook stays quiet, not because you told him to, but because nothing good comes to mind when he realizes that you’re crying because of him.

"See? You don't even get where I'm coming from because you're not even giving me the chance to explain myself without making it all about you,” you sob, finally pushing him away, to which he lets you. "That's the problem with you, Jungkook. You're too self-involved."

"Not true," Jungkook whispers, shaking his head earnestly even if he feels the stupidest he has ever did in his life in front of you.

He follows your steps out of routine even if his brain had convinced his system that he hates you just seconds ago, arms instinctively trying to crowd you when you almost trip on the flooring on your way to the coat rack.

"Since you keep insisting that I abandoned you," you chuckle dryly before grabbing your jacket, turning your back on Jungkook and on your own space, which had just been the default hangout place of the both of you for the longest time, in pursuit of your own quiet without him. "Let me follow through."

Jungkook doesn’t want to tell you how desperately he wants you to want him again, to love him as you already did, and neither do you.

( ♡ ) 

The perks of having a big friend group is that the absence of several members wouldn’t make that much of a difference when it comes to hanging out. It would still sustain itself without a few extra voices joining in on the chatter watching movies and the bullying when it comes to a forgotten birthday greeting here and there.

The downside of being in one, is that said big friend group doesn’t matter at all to Jungkook when you’re not in it.

The lengths that your friend (read: a word that Jungkook’s come to abhor) has went through since your fight at your dorm are basically incomprehensible because he’s fully involved himself.

He’s pining after you pathetically, just like how you had always dreamed of, yet seeing him take turn after turn just trying to gain your forgiveness for something you’ve always pitied yourself for makes you feel guilty.

In Jungkook’s defense, he wants to be forgiven and loved (again) as desperately as he acts on an everyday basis. Not only is he pathetic in the sense that he’s hopeless, but also pathetic in the light that he wants the entirety of you (stubbornness and occasional sharpness included) to rub off on him.

“I know I’m stupid. I-I.. I know that I was unfair for not even letting you confess your feelings because I felt like dying when you started to ignore me,” he mumbles to your bedsheets, his legs crossed on the ground and his head muffled by the fabric because he doesn’t even want to sit next to you in fear of you revoking his chance to apologize in person, again, as if that’s not what he had been doing the past weeks. “Y/N, you don’t deserve someone as stupid as me and I hate it so, so bad.”

The sound of Jungkook apologizing to you has already been repeated enough to the point you’ve learned when to tune him out, but with the way his heart precedes his tone this time, you stop folding your clothes in favor of Jungkook who’s just two seconds away from passing out on your bed by fabric conditioner-bathed quilt-induced suffocation, to which he couldn’t pass up on because it was your scent and he missed hugging you.

“I can’t catch up with you on anything that you’re talking about with Yoongi. The only times I open a book are when I want to look at you but I don’t want you to see me. I can’t— I can barely even talk to you without feeling like I’m beneath you,” he admits lowly, the truth of his rejection finally springing up a little too much, and almost a little too late. “I thought, stupidly, that we wouldn’t work because you deserve someone better.”

“I don’t need you to catch up with me, Jungkook,” you murmur, lightly slapping his cheeks because he looks sleepy from all the sniffing he’s done on your quilt, but really, his eyes are only narrowed into slits because he feels like he’s about to cry. Again.

“But I need to, b-because when we run out of things to talk about that you’re willingly to dumb down to my level, what else could we catch up on?” 

“You’re not stupid. I just say-…”

“No. Don’t make excuses for me,” he laughs lightly, still sat on your carpet obediently like a dog because he doesn’t want to push your boundaries. “I’m beneath you and I didn’t want to drag you down with me because I.. I didn’t feel that you deserve me,” he confesses. “But I want you so badly, Y/N. You have no idea.”

Jungkook wants you so badly, that in your insistence of self-pity, it was his self-preservation that led him to cry by himself when you finally left the library after not-confessing to him.

He wants you so badly, that in his fit of self-preservation disguised into stubbornness, he had tamped down his desperation for you.

“I want to catch up with you, not you to slow down for me,” Jungkook rests his chin on your thigh, his wide, pleading eyes looking up at you. “I’m so sorry, my baby. I’m so, so, so sorry for being stupid enough to let you go the first time,” he tilts his head, resting his cheek on your awaiting hand. “Please. I’m just begging you to slow down for me this one time,” Jungkook swallows the lump in his throat, nudging your hand gently with his cheek. “Please let me look stupid trying to earn you.”

Jungkook, without fail, tells you how desperately he wants to be loved by you.

[hedge-rambles]

Harrow is exceptional but I'm pretty sure the average bone adept can raise a skeleton easy enough. Harrow's OP status is more the fact she can raise a skeleton from a single finger bone. Very few bone adepts can do as much with as little as Harrow can.

The standard Ninth cavalier wears panniers to carry around kilos of bone for their necro to use. Gideon doesn't have to though, because Harrow doesn't need that. She could conquer the average town with nothing but the contents of her pockets.

Fighting the average bone adept is "two skeletons burst out of a corpse and shamble towards you". Fighting Harrow is "weird looking goth kid throws some dice (?) on the floor, they transform into a battalion of skeleton soldiers moving in perfect lockstep before pulling you all apart".

Most adepts can do the standard tricks of their houses I think, but you're 100% right that we've mostly seen either the absolute cream of the crop: some of the most talented necros in the system (and also Judith) or fucking lyctors. Most are not nearly as good at them.

But even the Ninth had spirit callers who could bring Wake back for a few seconds. Abigail is special because while your average Fifth can call someone 400 years dead with their bones, Abigail could do it with one of their old socks. Dr Sex was dead for like 250-300 years when some Fifth academic called him back, which wasn't considered particularly noteworthy (merely rude, let the man rest).

BoE still make headway though because they use guerrilla tactics and specialist knowledge. They know not to fight head on if they can avoid it, and they know what can make it all go terribly wrong (e.g. sniping someone who's not the necro). And also because, well, outside the Dominicus system necromancers are a lot weaker. There's just so much less ambient thanergy to work with, hence the need for fresh deaths. Without those to power them, a necro on a thalergenic planet is just a nerd who gets out of breath tying their shoes.

The Nine Houses must be absolutely terrifying to fight.

And not just because their invasions start with a drop ship full of pimply 14 year olds inexplicably armed with zweihanders whose entire remit is to cause a mass casualty event for necromantic purposes...

We're mostly introduced to the schools of necromancy at the beginning of GTN, before we have broader context beyond "ooh, new magic system." But if you think about it in light of what we later learn about the Cohort:

Second House: they can literally drain your life force to power up their cavaliers. "It’s said they all die screaming"

Third House: that pile of corpses in no man's land? They're being used as a power up. Also, someone's just rearranged your face; your arse is on backwards.

Fourth House: that pile of corpses in no man's land? They're bombs now. And if you corner a Fourth House necro, they're a bomb too!

Fifth House: at best, they're the weird technicians for the Houses' horrifying blood and monolith based FTL system. At worst, it doesn't matter if you kill yourself to avoid capture or if you hold out under interrogation until you expire, they can still interrogate your ghost.

Sixth House: drop a cigarette or shed a hair on a clandestine operation? These guys now know your age, shoe size, and approximate location. They know what you had for breakfast. They know what you held in the last 12 hours.

Seventh House: that pile of corpses in no man's land? They're armed and marching on you now.

Eigth House: why is he glowing? WHY IS HE GLOWING?!

Ninth House: the guy next to you's bones just became an IED.

[corvus-frugilegus]

The real tragedy of the Dellamortes is how inevitable Illario's betrayal was.

Caterina's refusal to really see either of her grandsons for who they are sets all three of them on this path. Lucanis's mother was Caterina's favourite, she was probably the person Caterina had in mind to succeed her. That loss, the loss of so much of Caterina's legacy had to have been devastating. She'd built so much and it was all torn away in a single conflict. All she has left in the wake of it is two young boys and this tenacity that will not allow her to give up on what she's built.

So she puts it all on Lucanis. The son of her favourite (bonus angst if he looks like his mother). She's unable to see this sweet boy who loves wyverns and just had his life ripped apart for who he is. She just see's her legacy. The daughter she lost. She puts it all into him, he's pushed into the role of favourite.

Lucanis responds to this by shoving down the parts of himself she doesn't want to see- his gentle heart, his love of wyverns, the little boy who needs to be loved. If he's good enough, strong enough, the perfect crow, the perfect granson- then and only then will she love him, will he be safe.

And then you have Illario! There isn't as much to go on in the text about his family or what he was like as a boy but there's a few things we can pretty confidently infer. Like Lucanis, Illario violently loses everything he has at a very young age. All he has left are the other two Dellamorte's.

But he isn't the child of Caterina's favourite. She isn't automatically putting all of her legacy on his shoulders the way she does Lucanis. He still gets the training, and what we do see in the wigmaker job and the wake and even in the codex entires in the game is that Illario does become a comptent and capable crow. He has a level of skill that I suspect is broadly expected of house Dellamorte, he was trained by the first talon herself. But the Illario we meet as an adult has this laissez-faire affect and presents himself as a seducer and a bit of a peakcock. He also very overtly refers to himself as Dellamorte-the-lesser and at the end of the wigmaker job when they're discussing the title of first talon you can feel the resentment below the surface.

For Illario it's not about the power and the prestige that comes from the title of first talon. It's not even about having the title itself. It's about FINALLY earning Caterina's love and respect. Things he undoubtly never felt as a boy.

How could he? When he's a child the only two people he has left in the world have this special bond that he never gets to be a part of. His only caretaker has a clear favourite and she shows it. He's lived his whole life in Lucanis's shadow, and a shadow that Lucanis never wanted to cast! Which if anything just adds insult to injury for Illario.

Lucanis has everything Illario wants and he doesn't even want it.

I imagine as a boy Illario tries SO HARD to win her love, her favour, he'll do anything to feel like he's loved and wanted and valued. And when after YEARS it doesn't work even though Lucanis clearly doesn't want the role he's been forced into? Illario gets resentful, he gets angry, he starts acting up. He becomes the suave peacock, the grandson who fucks up sometimes- probably not because he's bad at being a crow but because at least Caterina's ire is attention. It's a scrap of love.

Illario and Lucanis love each other. They're brothers. Illario resents Lucanis for being loved and favoured. Lucanis wants nothing more than to give it all to Illario. Illario doesn't want that he wants Caterina to love him on his own merit. At the same time (pre-inner demons) Lucanis will never actually give the title up because it means he's loved, he's valued, he matters.

The title of first talon has been synonymous with emotional safety and love for these two for their entire lives, and it's twisted them up so badly.

The real irony of it all is that this whole time Illario is so much more like the person Caterina wants Lucanis to be. Her heir, the Dellamorte best suited to be the next first talon has been right there infront of her all along, but she's so caught up in grief and legacy she misses it. She never really see's either of her grandsons for who they are.

I actually suspect that when it all comes to light, even though she's furious with him, Caterina finally starts to see what she's been overlooking in Illario all along. And Lucanis who's started to heal... well I think she's starting to see him too, and the truth of who he is is something she'll struggle to face.

When the day finally comes that Lucanis tells her he doesn't want the job, when him and Illario both accept that their lives have meaning outside of Caterina's opinion of them, is the day that the Dellamorte's can maybe start to really see each other.

[hxlxnaaa]

𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠

★ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: in order to get a creepy coworker off your back, you begrudgingly let sylus play the part of your fake boyfriend. unfortunately, your emotions and pride quickly spiral out of control.

★ 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫: sylus

★ 𝐜𝐰/𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: first person pov, enemies to lovers, fake dating, part 1 out of 2, angst, some swearing

★ 𝐰𝐜: 5k

★ 𝐚/𝐧: i had HELLA writers block while writing this, so if it seems chaotic and rushed that's why. i really wanted to scrap this but i spent so long on it i would be disappointed if i did. this is part one out of two, and i promise to get part two out super soon! it should be a lot better than this one *sob*

“Is that a new necklace?”

I grimace, the annoying twerp’s voice sounding like nails on a chalkboard.

“No, Nicholas, it's the one I always wear.” I press my lips into a tight line, staring at the papers in front of me. After everything I’ve tried, I don’t know how he hasn’t caught on with how absolutely, utterly disinterested I am.

Nicholas was a recent graduate from the academy, starting his first year here at the Association. At first he seemed sweet, like an infatuated kid, but it quickly worsened and now I have to deal with harassment every day at work.

He’d do anything and everything to spark a conversation, trying to work any attention out of me despite all my efforts of ignoring him. I tried to be nice originally, letting him down easily whenever he’d pay me compliments and ask me out to lunch.

That didn’t work.

He became more persistent, and I resorted to either giving him the silent treatment or being straight up rude. Throwing him off my back seemed like an impossible task, and I was convinced I had developed some sort of parasite that was bound to me until I retired.

“Ah, I’ve never noticed…” Nicholas sat himself in front of me, and I could feel his stare on my face.

Don’t look up, don’t look up, don’t look up.

“Hey guys!”

Thank God.

Forcing a smile at Tara’s cheerfulness, Nicholas paid her a nod, clearly unsettled with her interruption. She came up behind me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. If there was anyone who was capable of putting a wedge in between me and my borderline stalker, it was Tara.

“Are you excited for the Hunter’s Ball? I can't believe it’s already coming up…” She sighed dreamily behind me, resting her cheek on the top of my head. While the Hunter’s Ball wasn’t my favorite event, it was typically a good time.

Well, at least before Nicholas came along.

I couldn’t imagine how it would go this year, him crawling six feet up my ass as I try to shake him off the whole night. It’s bad enough I have to deal with him sober, I can’t even imagine how much more unbearable he’d become with drinks in his system. This was the one night of the year the Association actually shows their appreciation for their employees, and I’d be damned if I couldn’t enjoy myself.

“It’s always nice we get a plus one,” Tara mentions, “I can't wait to see who everyone brings." She nudges my shoulder with her arm, laughing.

The look in Nicholas’ eyes told me everything he was about to say. I could practically hear the words come out of his mouth before he even spoke them-

“Yeah, I’m gonna bring my boyfriend.” I spoke before thinking, the words an act of desperation. Nicholas’ eyes widened and Tara’s arms flew from my body, as she whipped herself to stand in front of me.

Oh no, why would I say that- Why did I say that?!

“Your… what!” She started grasping at my hands, questions flying out of her mouth before I couldn’t even process half of them, “Since when? What’s his name? Where’d you meet him? Do you have any pictures?”

I knew I had gotten myself into trouble, I didn’t even have the slightest clue as to who I could possibly feign to be my boyfriend; but the look on Nicholas’ face told me I needed to keep up whatever I was doing, because it was working.

I smiled innocently, “We’ve been keeping it on the down low, things are still pretty new. I was planning to hard launch us at the Ball.” Chuckling nervously, I was convinced nobody was believing a word I was saying.

“Ohmygosh Mystery Man! I’m so excited!” Tara continued to blabber on, trying to pull any detail she could out of me. I made eye contact with Nicholas and thought about how soon the Ball was - only a week away.

Letting out a sigh of relief because of my believable lie, the feeling soon faded and was replaced with chest crushing stress. I had no boyfriend, and no plan; I was going to have to think fast.

-

Laying in my bed that night, I scoured my brain for any potential suitor. I thought maybe Zayne, a cardiac surgeon and childhood best friend. He’d be perfect, all my coworkers would be so pleased, but a cow would have to jump over the moon before he’d even think about complying. Maybe Xavier’s friend Jeremiah? A sweet florist…No, Xavier would never let me do that.

I flipped onto my stomach, screaming into my pillow. Smushing my face into the fabric, I silently prayed I’d suffocate and be free from this mess I’d webbed myself into.

Before I could pass out and be put out of my misery, my phone started to ring.

Not even looking at the caller id, I picked it up and answered with a disgruntled, “Hello?”

“You never sound pleased to hear from me, Kitten.”

I screamed into the pillow again, Sylus being the complete utter last person I wanted to hear from right now.

He chuckled over the line, “Actually, I think that might be the unhappiest I’ve heard you.”

“What do you want?”

“Can I not just call to talk? I’ve had a rough day and wanted to hear your voice.”

I let out a forced laugh, “You’ve had a rough day? YOU’VE had a rough day? You will not believe the day I had then.”

His voice softened, “Talk to me about it then.”

While I most definitely realized my day couldn’t be comparable to his, as he was essentially a mob boss running the N109 Zone, venting about my problems felt nice. As much as I couldn’t stand Sylus, with his incessant arrogance and backhanded flattery, he was easy to talk to sometimes.

Sometimes.

“I don’t even know how I got myself into this situation. Well, I do know, I just didn’t mean to!” I groaned, throwing my face into my hands.

He sits in silence for a minute, and I can hear the soft playing of one of his records in the background. It’s annoying how he feels the need to call and bother me, with a side of music, to wind down at night.

“When is it?” He finally asks, and I hear shuffling.

“Next Saturday, so…” I can practically see the clock ticking down, “Shit, a week from today.”

“What time?”

“9- Sylus, why?”

“I’ll be there at 8:30 then.” There’s mirth in his voice and my face goes pale, “Sylus, no, don’t you dare. It cannot be you, just let me borrow one of your men or something.”

Sylus lets out a low laugh, “Now why would I do that when I could just be your date?”

“Not date,” I cut him off, “fake boyfriend.”

“Of course, fake boyfriend.” He clucked his tongue, “Why would I let someone else be your fake boyfriend?”

“I don’t know, maybe the fact that you’re the big bad Onychinus boss?” Pressing a finger to my temple to ease the headache that he was becoming, I started to pace my floor. “You’re stepping into enemy territory at this event, there’s no way I’ll be able to save your ass if you get found out, let alone what will happen to me and my place at the Association.”

“I’ve already met some of your coworkers before, remember? It’s best if it's me instead of some stranger, and trust me sweetie, they won’t know.”

My coworkers did take a liking to him when they met during one of our outings, Sylus just had this charisma about him that sucked everyone in; the mysterious fruit vendor Skye who was absolutely horrid at karaoke. He stole their hearts quickly, and I’m lucky if they don’t ask me at least once a week how he’s doing. Sylus was just magnetic like that, even if you tried your damndest to hate him, there’s just something about his demeanor that’s magic.

He has a point here, and it’s killing me to admit he’s right.

“Fine,” I snap, “but absolutely no funny business.”

“I’m not sure what you could possibly mean by that, Kitten.” Sylus lets out a low laugh that makes me want to punch my phone, “I’ll be there at 8:30.”

Before I can respond, he quickly hangs up. I’m left sitting on my bed with racing thoughts of everything that could possibly go wrong. Was bringing Sylus really worth getting this creep off my back? Well, if there was anyone who could scare him off, it would be the leader of Onychinus. Worst case scenario, I have Sylus pull a gun out on him.

I shake my head, trying to clear my stupid thoughts.

I sent him a picture of the invitation, which included the dress code. I wasn’t too worried about him making a fool out of me, just the overwhelming anxiety of bringing a top criminal as my date to a work event where we quite literally are attempting to hunt this exact man down.

Trying to trust Sylus isn’t the easily discoverable type, I make a miserable attempt to put my mind to rest, and get some sleep.

-

The next week following my abrupt news of a boyfriend was hell. Not to my surprise, word was quickly spread through the Association, and I was constantly being flooded with questions and endless pressure to just ‘give them a name!’. I even had Xavier at my desk with questions one morning, and he was always the type to steer away from work related gossip.

Not to mention Sylus himself was being utterly insufferable. He was taking this far too seriously, sending lunch and flowers to my work with paper love notes attached. It was bringing on more attention at work, and every time I told him to stop, he’d just send more extravagant bouquets that cluttered my desk and made the surrounding area smell like a funeral.

At one point, I woke up to a box in the mail. Inside was a black velvet dress, a ruby necklace, and heels. Sending him an angry text about how I have my own clothes, he just responded by transferring 200 dollars into my bank account saying, ‘Get your nails done too. Match the outfit.’

By Saturday night, I was almost ready for everyone to meet Sylus, just so people would stop with the ‘fake boyfriend trivia’ while I’m on the clock, and his annoying attempts at romantic gestures.

The night of, at 8:30 on the dot, I heard a knock at my door.

On the other side was a well dressed Sylus; I think it was the first time I had ever seen him done up so nicely. He wasn’t ever one to slack on his looks, but in his black pinstripe suit and red tie that matched my gifted necklace, I had to take a second. Even though he made me constantly want to take my gun and replicate the time I shot him, I could never deny he’s hot. His arguably perfect looks just adds to the hatred.

He looked me up and down, smirking. The dress he had gotten me was backless and stopped at my ankles, with a slit up to my thigh that had me worried that with one wrong move I’d flash all my coworkers. Opening his mouth to I’m sure to make a snide comment, I cut him off.

“I have to put on my shoes and that necklace, but then I’m ready.” I walked over to the coffee table and grabbed the ruby piece that was gifted, struggling with the clasp thanks to the nails I was practically forced to get.

“Here.” Coming up behind me, Sylus took the necklace from my hands. Brushing my hair out of the way, I felt his fingers against my neck as he secured the jewelry with ease. I turned around to face him, and he smiled down at me.

He gestured to the couch, “Sit.”

His one word commands were starting to get on my nerves. “What?” I glared at him.

Grabbing my shoulder and softly pushing me back, I tumbled onto the couch. Sylus snickered, “I said sit, Kitten.”

Getting on his knees, he picked up my ankle, slipping the heel onto my foot.

“I could’ve done this myself.” Scoffing, I averted my eyes to anywhere that wasn’t Sylus on his knees in front of me.

“I’m sure you could with those nails, sweetie.” He hooked the straps around my ankle, and I felt my skin burn red where his fingers danced. It was definitely red with anger.

For sure.

Standing when he was done, Sylus reached a hand out to me. Narrowing my eyes at his hand, I ignored the help. To my dismay, I stood up too fast in heels and lost a bit of my balance. Sylus caught my waist and gave me a smug smile, pulling me into him. “You look absolutely beautiful tonight, my love.”

I grimaced, pulling away from his grasp and heading to the door. “Oh, do not do that. No more of that.”

“We have to get into character, I’m just being prepared.”

“Be in character when we’re there. Not here.”

“I have to get into the mindset.” Sylus creeped closer to me, and I stepped back. At this point, I was essentially pinned in between him and the door. “After all, I have to practice so I can impress everybody.” He leaned down, his breath fanning against the side of my neck.

“Right.” I rolled my eyes, opening the door behind me and taking a backwards step out. Sylus stumbled at the sudden movement, and I smirked at his loss of composure. “Let’s go, we’ll be late.”

-

When we arrived, I felt my heart begin to race. All the mental preparation I had done for this exact night fled my mind as soon as Sylus put the car into park. My worry was not of showing off my new fancy fake boyfriend, it was the fact that I was bringing my new fancy fake boyfriend into an arena that was hunting him. Over the past week I’ve tried telling myself he’s not easily discoverable, I mean, if he was, the Association would’ve had him tracked down by now. However, knowing my luck, I was preparing for the worst.

Sylus gently placed his hand on my thigh, attempting to give me a reassuring smile, “It’ll be okay, Kitten. Just follow my lead.”

We’re fucked.

He walked around, opening the door for me. His car was clearly the nicest and most expensive out of all the guests tonight, and I knew if anybody saw I’d never hear the end of it.

When we were nearing the entrance, I sighed, shoving down my pride and grabbing Sylus’ arm, wrapping myself sweetly around his bicep. I watched his lips curve upward into a smug smile, and I suppressed the urge to throw myself off and take my heel to his-

“Invitation please.” Sylus handed the men working the door the two slips of paper, and I begrudgingly walked in clinging to his arm.

‘Playing the character’, I thought.

The venue the Ball was being held at was extravagant, with a high, golden ceiling, and golden marble floors.

It was filled to the brim with people that worked for the Association, plus their guests. I winced at the sheer amount of people, automatically going into defense mode due to the overwhelming fact that we were outnumbered.

“Smile, sweetie.” Letting go of his arm, Sylus took his pointer finger and thumb, lightly pulling the corners of my mouth upward.

I nipped at his finger, and he poked my nose as a warning.

I heard someone shriek my name, and I whipped around to see Tara quickly approaching. “Oh wow, you’re beautiful!” She wrapped me up in a tight hug, rocking me side to side. Letting go of me just as fast, Tara gasped when she saw Sylus.

“Skye! Oh my gosh it’s you, how sweet!” She fawned over us, and he smiled kindly at her, “You look lovely tonight, Tara.” If he kept up the nice talk, I was going to put my head through one of the walls.

“Here, come with me. Some of us already have a table together!”

Tara dragged us over to a table where a few of my most nagging coworkers stood around talking. Introducing him to the ones who had never met him, I groaned internally, ready for the torment of questions to begin.

“So,” Tara dropped the first bomb, “how long have you two been a thing?” I know this has been weighing on her worse than me all week.

“About a month now.” Sylus answered with ease. I tried to suppress a shocked look on my face, because I was planning on doing all the talking; but that continued, them rapid firing questions and Sylus answering all of them as if he had this all thought out. I mean, shit, he was convincing me.

“I have to know how this happened!” One of them said, and Sylus tucked my hair behind my ear, pretending to recall the moment.

“I had feelings for her for a while,” He said, smiling down at me, “and it got to a point where I couldn’t take it anymore. It was spur of the moment, but I showed up at her door in the middle of the night and had to ask her if she felt the same.”

Damn. He was good.

All the girls squealed, “That's so romantic!”

I placed my hand on Sylus’ chest, batting my eyelashes up at him, “I’m gonna go get a drink, d’you want anything?” He grabbed my hand, matching my energy, and kissing my knuckles, “No, sweetie, that’s quite alright. I’ll stay here and entertain your friends.”

All of them cooed at the sight, probably thinking we were so lovesick for each other it hurt. Well, it did hurt, this whole thing was a pain in my ass I needed to be over.

I grabbed a glass of wine from the drink table, the group out of sight. Sighing, I resisted the urge to down the glass all at once. While I was uncomfortable, I couldn’t deny everything was going well. Everyone was pleased, so I tried to relax.

“That's a pretty necklace,” I heard from behind me, “is it new?”

Nevermind.

Turning around, there stood Nicholas. His eyelids drooped, and he reeked of wine.

“What did you say?” I asked, looking around for the quickest exit route.

“I said I liked your necklace. Is it new?”

God, does this twerp have any other material?

“Yes, it is.” A low voice said, and I felt an arm wrap around my waist. My head shot up to meet Sylus in the eyes; I guess my face was screaming, ‘Help me!’, because he gave my side a soft squeeze of reassurance.

“Oh.” Was all Nicholas replied, shooting his eyes back and forth between Sylus and I. In his head, I imagined the pieces clicking together. ‘This is it,’ I thought, ‘finally he’ll leave me alone!’

“This song is nice… Would you care to dance?” There were no thoughts behind his eyes. This guy was genuinely dense. I could’ve sworn my jaw dropped at his stupidity, and Sylus chuckled next to me.

“So sorry, but tonight she’s mine.” Swiftly sweeping me away, Nicholas and my glass of wine were quickly left behind.

“Why don’t you dance with me instead, sweetie?” Sylus said, leading me to the open floor where people were dancing to the soft classical music.

Sylus put my hand on his shoulder, intertwining my other hand with his. Placing his hand on my lower back, he pulled me in closer to him.

“Look at me.”

His eyes stared into mine, and there was something behind them I couldn’t quite place my finger on. We started slowly ballroom dancing in our own little spot on the floor, a bit away from everyone else. As much as I wanted to strangle this man, I could relax a little in his arms. He just felt safe sometimes.

Sometimes.

“You’re doing good tonight.” Sylus said, still looking into my eyes.

“Thanks.” I started playing with the hair on the nape of his neck, “So where do we go from here?”

He raised a brow, “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I really don’t think I do, Kitten.”

“How am I going to tell my coworkers that we ‘broke up’ right after this? They’ll be suspicious.”

“We could keep doing this for a while.” Sylus shrugged, smirking.

Groaning, I slammed my head on his shoulder, “Tonight was bad enough, I can’t do this for any longer.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

He was right. I didn’t have a better idea.

-

So we did just that.

I was going to give it two months. Then, it would say we were together for three months total, which looked like a completely reasonable time to test run a relationship and then call it quits.

At first, I was completely miserable. I already couldn’t stand Sylus as a friend, how could I stand him as my ‘boyfriend’? After that night at the Ball, to my dismay, he completely won everybody over. It made me feel like I had to put more effort into faking all of this.

The extravagant gifts sent to my work started getting sent to my place too. I told him he didn’t have to send them to me outside of work, let alone at all, but he always insisted so he could “stay in character”.

Whether it was convincing me to let him take me out to fancy places, like dinner or a show, it was always just to keep him ‘in character’. I think he just liked using that excuse so I would be forced to hang out with him and not be able to deny or complain about it.

Though, after a bit, it became easy to slip into a groove.

I started to not mind the talk about Sylus; everything started to become bearable, and dare I say it, kind of fun.

We had played with the claw machines once, and he won a white cat plushie. Jokingly, I had told him it looks exactly like him, and snapped a picture of the cat next to his face to prove a point.

I made that photo my wallpaper, to make things more realistic. It freaked me out for a while whenever I’d open my phone, but I came to like it after a while. Sylus looked kind of cute in the photo, his expression mocking the plushies. He looked kind, warm, a soft look on his face you didn’t see on him often. The more I saw the photo, the more it made me smile.

I began looking forward to his calls, his texts. He’d call me to say good morning, or tell me goodnight, even if he was in the middle of a meeting. The ‘fake dates’ became less uncomfortable as I grew more accustomed to the situation we had put ourselves into. The roles we were playing came easier and easier with time.

Which was causing a problem.

It wasn’t hard to notice the way my body would flush when he touched me, or how my once strong demeanor around him would start to falter. Words and actions of his that would be fast to anger me, quickly changed into something else.

I was starting to care about him. How annoying.

There was one day when Sylus decided he was going to pick me up from work. “Your coworkers will think it's cute.” He had said, and who was I to deny a free ride home.

He showed up on his bike in his leather jacket, in all his badass glory. Leaning against the bike, he stood up straight and smiled at me when I came outside. As time had gone on, Sylus was slowly becoming less hard and uncaring towards me. He began treating me like I was fragile, always so gentle with me. Him getting into character I suppose.

Sylus held his hand out towards me, and when I took it, he pulled me into his chest. I squealed, laughing at the sudden gesture.

“They’re looking,” He said, glancing at a few of my coworkers still inside, watching us intensely, “Kiss me.”

I choked, “What?”

He grabbed my chin, tilting it up slightly. He cocked his head to the side a bit, almost as if to ask, ‘is this okay?’.

Nodding my head yes, Sylus smirked before leaning down and pressing his lips against mine. For how aggressive he can be as the leader of Onychinus, the kiss was unusually soft. I had imagined kissing him, for all of this, and I never expected him to be the type to be so kind and gentle.

My blood was rushing in my ears and I thought I was going to melt under his hands. I didn’t realize just how bad I subconsciously wanted this until it was happening, and I wanted more. I wanted to kiss him so hard I could steal the air from his lungs, I wanted to grip his shirt so tightly my knuckles turned white because I could finally have him.

When he pulled away, and kissed the corner of my eye, I knew I was fucked.

I didn’t just care about him, I wanted him. I wanted Sylus to be mine, I wanted this to be real, I wanted-

No, I couldn’t want anything.

It would never work. Our lives were too different, we were too different, everything would be doomed from the start. He was a faraway dream that would never come true. He could never be what I wanted.

I always wanted security, someone stable and safe. Sylus could never give me that.

So why do I want him so badly?

-

It was my friend's birthday party.

I had invited Sylus, because what had originally been a fake relationship to get a creep coworker off my back, spread like a wildfire to a fake relationship that was now known by all my friends.

I only invited him because I knew it would be strange if I showed up without him.

After he kissed me, and my feelings became a living hell to deal with, I started to pull back; started to psych myself out mentally, constantly spending time just trying to convince myself how bad we would be for each other. Trying to will myself to hate him again, go back to where I was two months ago. When Sylus was a nuisance, an annoying pest.

I don’t even really think he noticed. Or if he did, I couldn’t tell.

When we got to the party, the music and laughter could be heard from outside, a drastic change from the almost silent car ride. Sylus tried to make conversation, and I shut him down almost every time.

We walked in, and my friends all greeted him with easy familiarity. They gave him hugs, pats on the back, and he was welcomed effortlessly.

I stood a distance away as he laughed with my friends, and my chest began to hurt. Guilt, dread, I felt doomed. He wasn’t meant to be here, he was never meant to be here. Sylus doesn’t belong with my friends. Sylus doesn’t belong with me.

None of this is real. All of this is one little lie that spun into a web of something so much bigger, and I’m stuck in it.

He looks happy with them, happy with my friends. Happy in my space, with my people. How could he? He’s an intruder, he knows it.

I knew tonight was the night I was done. This couldn’t go on any longer. No more playing house with Sylus, no more pretending. We’re adults, and this whole thing was so childish, and it ends now.

I stepped outside, sitting on the back patio. The night air was cold, and I wasn’t sure if it was the sharp air of my distress that was making my lungs constrict.

“There you are.”

I didn’t turn around to meet the voice, just kept staring into the trees ahead.

Sylus stood beside me, running his fingers through the top of my hair. I relished the feeling, ‘one last time, it’s okay’.

He didn’t ask any questions, didn’t ask why I was out here, if I was okay. I was happy for that, it could give me another reason to be mad at him. To hate him again. To try and rile up all my old feelings, stir old bitterness.

“I want to go home.” I finally said, breaking the silence.

We got in the car, this time he didn’t try to speak. His face was hard again, the soft look long gone. I think, in a way, he knew too. He knows this is for the better.

I said goodbye, told him goodnight before he left. Told him to drive safely.

It had been two months, that’s what I gave him. It was time for it to be over anyways. I changed my wallpaper, changed his name back. I didn’t care if I had to deal with Nicholas at my job anymore, anything was better than the gutted feeling I got from every interaction with Sylus. Nothing was worth that.

The next day, it was radio silence. For the first time in two months, there was nothing. No good morning, no texts throughout the day, no calls to tell me goodnight; and that just continued. For days. Silence.

I had perfected the speech I was going to tell my coworkers, “We gave it our best, but it just wasn’t going to work out between us.” It was reassurance for them, and myself.

It just wasn’t going to work out between us.

(divider by cafekitsune)

[wolfiesmoon]

Ratted out

sometimes friends and family accidentally (or purposefully) reveal things they shouldnt :)

characters featured: Leona, Kalim, Jade, Jack

ufff idk whats wrong with me but i ended up creating an entire (unrelated to this fic) movie plan related to twst this is mentally stable activities, truly

also unrelated but the new event got me SCREAMING how do they look so good😫

ᐟᐟ☆๋࣭ ⭑໑ Leona Kingscholar

when hanging out with your boyfriend Leona, a little lion boy suddenly jumps him and he immediately lets you go

who is this child???

"Uncle Leona!" the boy clings onto him and you can feel the annoyance eminating from Leona

it's like its own aura thats how annoyed he is🥴

so his nephew (you presume) looks to you all of a sudden and asks "who are you?" with an innocent look on his face

"I'm his lover...?" you said, a little unsure. But when you looked to Leona, he had a look of pure horror on his face...? What is even going on?????

"What?! No way, you're dating Uncle Leona?!" the kid got all excited and ran off somewhere before you could stop him

"...What have you done?" Leona hissed at you through clenched teeth, holding his forehead

you do realise you just revealed that he's dating you to the most big mouthed child in the world, right? that his whole family will know in a matter of minutes, right? that you've basically just invited yourself to every future family gathering at once, right?

and sure enough, in a few minutes he got a surprised text from his brother which he left on read 💀

"Damn brat..." he muttered under his breath, you still confused over what just happened

ᐟᐟ☆๋࣭ ⭑໑ Kalim Al-Asim

let's be real babes there is nothing for his siblings to rat him out on because he immediately told his family he was dating you

however....😈

his siblings happened to overhear a little something...

"Hey, hey." one of Kalim's younger brothers pulled your sleeve, wanting to tell you something

"yes?" you answered absentmindedly, thinking he's going to start talking about a strange thing he saw today or something

"Kalim's gonna marry you." he whispered to you, looking around to make sure no one heard

You laughed a little. "If you think so." you pat his little head

"No, he was like, asking mom if he can marry you soon. We heard it." another one of his brothers joined in after hearing the tea being spilled

"What?! Really?!" you're both extremely surprised and happy and mad at his brothers for ruining the surprise right now

oh well, what's done is done, and now you know Kalim is SERIOUS about you

that gets you thinking about wedding stuff now...🤔

What none of you know tho is that Jamil overheard all of you

"Okay, maybe we need to scrap the whole surprise wedding proposal thing..." he sighs, making a mental note of it and preparing to dissapoint poor Kalim

ᐟᐟ☆๋࣭ ⭑໑ Jade Leech

jade is like... oddly nice to you after you first meet him

you're a little wary of him considering his reputation but he hasn't done anything weird at all so... might as well accept his gifts?

one time he approaches you with jade in tow and you think absolutely nothing of it since they're together like 90% of the time anyways

"Hello there, are you enjoying your lunch?" he just sat down next to you without asking if he can at all 😔

"Uh, yeah, I suppose." you didn't really know what to tell him and it seems he doesnt know how to continue the conversation either so u just kinda... stare at eachother while Floyd casually steals a bit of ur food

"Maaaan, aren't you like, supposed to be crushing on Little Shrimpy or something? Then taaalk about stuff, I'm bored." Floyd looked bored when he saw the two of you didn't start talking about weird stuff

Jade simply smiled at you, telling you to ignore Floyd

But on the inside he was planning approximately 10 ways to... get rid of someone without others noticing

or alternatively, just beating the everloving crap out of his twin brother if the first plan is not a possibility

"Do you have a crush on me?" you wanted to know now...

"That's for you to think about." he smiled oddly eerily, but then just started talking abt something mundane 😥

ᐟᐟ☆๋࣭ ⭑໑ Jack Howl

You're visiting him for the first time because you got curious what his family is like

OF COURSE HE'S AN OLDER BROTHER IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW

his younger siblings immediately ambushed you with their little sniffer noses as soon as you stepped in the house🤔

"Who are you?" they asked, always curious about anyone that Jack brings over

When you told them who you were, they immediately ran away to "TELL MOM" and were literally screaming that the two of you are dating so loudly that the whole neighborhood could hear

You could also hear some woman (who you presume is his mom) laughing from somewhere in the house so uhhh.... atleast she isn't mad about it?

You looked back at Jack who seemed more annoyed than anything

"Aren't you gonna... go stop them?" you asked, raising a brow.

"Nah, I was gonna tell mom I'm dating you anyways. I'm just mad that they beat me to it." he crossed his arms, huffing in annoyance

"Actually, speaking of, isn't me dating you kinda a big deal? You told me before that wolves have one partner for life." you actually got kinda nervous, i mean, you gotta impress his family good now

"It is. But I think everyone's just happy I got someone at all." Jack looked at his overly excited siblings who were still celebrating

"Wow, that's sad." you sassed him 😝

"...I shouldn't have brought you."