#its so evident how much he cares about the people involved in the blackmail; and Jeremy Brett puts his all into conveying it in this

[pix-writes]

Found this soft interaction in the Master Blackmailer episode - Holmes touches Watson's shoulder so tenderly! and its very brief part in frame, but you can see how Holmes' hand lingers on touching his shoulder even as he moves away <3

(spoilers in thoughts under readmore)

Watching this there are some wonderful moments of justified anger in it, I can see how much this case and the injustice wounds Holmes, and in turn stresses Watson (who's concern in Sherlock is also very justified, that even he himself says he went about the case in ways he's not proud of, in the end... poor Aggie made me laugh initially, but then feel burning second-hand shame at how Holmes used her during this case.) Robert Hardy is an amazing villain in this!!!! I got goosebumps from the way Milverton looked at people during this whole episode, like a predator sizing up its prey. Chilling

[irish-urn]

Thank you so much for talking to me about this series, its a special interest I haven't found many ppl to talk about ( specially because i hyperfocus on the siblings dynamics ;;) I'm doing some insights of my own on Edwin and was wondering if you could share stuff that indicates Derek did the raising for him? I find it entirely believable but I'm wondering if there;s supporting stuff on the canon that I'm missing >..>

Dude, you're super welcome! There's actually a whole bunch of us that still love Life with Derek, it's just a lot of the fandom are shy. That's not a character trait God gave me though, and so here we are.

I'm gonna be perfectly honest with you: my biggest evidence that Derek was very influential to Edwin's raising is that Edwin is kind of a little shit. Unlike Casey, who takes a lot of pride in giving good advice to the kids and trying to help out, Derek... Doesn't. Now, does he care about his siblings? Very much so! But with Marti, he's more concerned with keeping her safe than actually disciplining her, and as long as Edwin doesn't do anything to hurt Derek, he doesn't really care what the kid does. Even Lizzie, Derek helps as long as it helps *him*, I'm mostly thinking of the He Scoots, She Scores! episode where he teaches Lizzie hockey because he can't have someone in his family being bad at it.

(but please also note that in this episode, he is protective over Edwin getting used by the girl who is bullying Lizzie and actually negotiates with Casey in order to keep him safe)

Edwin also clearly worships his brother -- he does a lot of the same things as Derek, like pranks and blackmail and flirting with girls, or gets involved in the things Derek likes, like hockey or D-Rock. While part of this is probably because Derek is a genuinely cool dude, Edwin doesn't follow George's lead like he follows Derek's. And although there's a part of Edwin that clearly resents Derek's bossing him around, he either gets his revenge in small ways, or recognizes that Derek *trusts* Edwin to do these things for him. Edwin may be Derek's henchman, but he's Derek's most TRUSTED henchman. And that's quite a compliment when you're competing with an entire kingdom. And, like, Derek obviously has a soft spot for Edwin, in that he lets Edwin do tasks that... He probably shouldn't have him do? Is part of that because Derek is lazy? Sure. But he also has an entire high school that likes him; he could find someone else. But he trusts Edwin. That's because for a long time... They had each other.

There's also the fact that Edwin is still learning to be a person and who he is, and I think the McDonalds in his life help him stand up to Derek and explore who Edwin Venturi is. And, like, how the coolest thing about this blended family is how they all help one another grow and be better.

But yeah! Those are my thoughts on why I think Derek was a big part of Edwin being raised. There's something about Edwin's loyalty to Derek, and Derek's protectiveness over him (that he tries his best to play cool about), that gives the impression that they went through some trauma together. And while I think Derek tried to keep as much of it from Edwin as he could, Edwin is very clever and very observant, and I think he knew what was happening and the weight Derek carried. I also think he sees how people perceive Derek, especially their parents, and it may be one of the reasons he lets Derek treat him like he does; because he gets that Derek is trying to regain control in one aspect of his life when he's lost it in another (although, I think that's something Edwin would never be able to word, but also may be why? If that makes sense? Like, he does it without knowing WHY he does it).

...*jazz hands*

[trenchgardens-ooc-ooc-ooc-ooc]

How about questions #34 and #38 for whichever characters of your choosing! (If you can’t pick, how about Detheo, Bucket, and/or Somati) - the barkers, canisbeasts :]

Blackmail my ocs with... hmmm...

Detheo B Blackmail - Perpep. It might not work because everything he has done to her is legal. Nervous Tells - He starts talking more and in less flowery sentences. He starts gritting his teeth. His expressions are extremely subtle, he still fidgets with the hem of his clothes, he hides his stress behind screens.

Bucket B Blackmail - She very very rarely gives any shits, but she would do a lot of things to keep information about her Dark Impulses regarding grubs from being thought about. She doesn't work with that half of the caverns for a reason. Intrusive thoughts are a bitch. Nervous Tells - She gets nauseous fast, so her nervousness and sweatiness are directly linked.

Somati B Blackmail - I don't know what youd even like try to get him to do through blackmail... Or what he has that he cares about staying secret. Maybe pictures of his scars? he might actually want those to be public to show the cruelty of the culling system. Nervous Tells - He starts to get light headed, and feints. Feinting goat. but a lot taller. if his horn didnt fully encircle his head he would probably die on impact.

Plexus A Blackmail - Holy shit so much. She is so fucking blackmail able. Who would have known a Knight of Hope would have Secrets. The big fucking ones are where she works and that she follows the Signless, but frankly you could do a lot to blackmail her. Anything from exposing shes stealth-ed (trans style) to her being very close to trans-caste adjacent, to her status as troll [redacted], to meeting her lusus, to like just entering her hive and videoing it. It could be something that literally no one would do anything about and she would be mortified at the threat alone. ESPECIALLY if the threat involved her moirail in any way. Nervous Tells - it depends if its guilt or not. if its guilt she avoid eye contact, retreats into herself like she feels small, she gets queasy and closed off. If its a potential threat, her face goes blue, as in flushed, she starts to hold her breath subconciously, and she freezes like a deer in headlights.

Dlicti A Blackmail - There are a lot of things regarding her past with the Clowns that she would do a lot to destroy evidence of. Nervous Tells - Sweat. she has high body temperature for a teal.

Detheo A Blackmail - His location. Sharing his location would blackmail him easily Nervous Tells - His expressions are subtle but he does not know how to hide them, once youve been around him long enough youll see his face go through the eighty stages of grief ins excruciating detail.

Perpep B Blackmail - I don't know if Perpep has enough of a grasp on how the world works to be blackmailed in the traditional ways... Maybe with knowledge of her other brand, or some evidence of her Less Than Ok nature of her relationship with her culler. Shed have to know they were bad first though. Nervous Tells - She thrashes or shuts down and switches out. Sometimes both. She doesnt have a concept of saving face around others, so she will melt down the same around people or not with very few changes.

[tendercoretroglodyke]

... I’m interested in legitimately gay Reese (I assume one piece of evidence is “look at what they’re doing and tell me you’re not gay”)

okay this is like 2 days late but this is why reese malcolminthemiddle is legitimately gay:

(side note: did anyone need a queer media thesis paper or something... I am willing to share lmao)

so none of this is like... rock solid evidence or anything but I need to believe at least one main character of a show is gay and/or trans to maintain interest and reese is the most plausible gay character. also it’s early 2000′s so he just gets a lot of vaguely homophobic jokes lmao

first of all, yes, the biggest piece of evidence he’s gay is those lines from that episode I quoted the other day--thinking malcolm is gay, he tries to show his support by giving him a gay porno: “’Naught Pool Boys 3!’ I watched 10 or 12 of these, and this one seems to have the most stuff you guys like.” and when malcolm says he isn’t gay, reese responds “Malcolm. Check out what those guys are doing in that movie, and THEN tell me you’re not gay.”-- so, 1) reese sat down and watched like a dozen gay porn movies to ““find a good one for his gay brother”” and 2) he thinks malcolm would reconsider his heterosexuality if he watched what was in that movie, implying that HE reconsidered his sexuality after watching that movie, or at the very least found it hot

in the same episode, the character tricking malcolm into thinking reese is gay lists the following as evidence: he obsesses over his hair and his looks, loves his gourmet cooking, has a bunch of magazines covered in comically muscular men, and that he’s angry and acts like a jerk because he’s “dealing with something weird and confusing.” now obviously, the obsession with hair/looks can be chalked up to the fact that he’s a teenage boy, and there’s nothing inherently gay about enjoying cooking. the dozen magazines of muscle-bound men could certainly be taken as gay evidence, though, and it IS established in the show that his entire bully persona is his way of masking his inner feelings and insecurities. there’s literally a whole episode where he & malcolm realize they have no friends because they act like little shits to push people away because they’re afraid of rejection and/or abandonment from their peers. they ostracize themselves before they can be ostracized by the other students at school. I could probably write a whole other essay on reese’s psyche tbqh lmao there’s a shocking amount there!!

of the brothers who are actually old enough to be attracted to girls (reese, malcolm, and francis), he shows the least interest. now bear with me here. you might be thinking, “well, yeah, it’s malcolm’s show, we’re not gonna see things from other people’s perspective!” but that is actually surprisingly untrue, the show is very much equally shown from each family members’ perspectives. starting about s2, when malcolm is in early middle school, he starts getting crushes on girls and pursuing them. francis goes after a few women in the first couple seasons and then marries a woman we see a lot throughout the show. 

in the roughly... 130?? episodes I have watched so far, nearly all of reese’s “interest” in girls involve either: competition with malcolm, genuinely just liking her as a friend, or some completely ulterior motive. the only exception to this I can think of is in the early seasons where he has a crush on a cheerleader and tries to get on her good side by joining the cheerleading squad, which the writers clearly set up as a way to make gay jokes about reese. let me give you a few examples of his relationships with girls

the first relationship we see him in is with a “stupid girl” that malcolm tried (and failed) to date, and the main reason they get together is that they think on the same wavelength and genuinely seem to enjoy hanging out. they take breaks from their bro chats to make out every once in a while. eventually he gets her to break up with him because he doesn’t want to go to the school dance with her (he doesn’t want to go at all). years later, he’s dating some girl we meet for like 5 minutes, before he goes to confess to her that she’s the first girl he’s ever loved. she then breaks up with him. he’s sad, but taking it fairly well. he’s about to leave when he sees malcolm hiding under the bed, and learns that he stole his girlfriend. he then runs away to join the army. he was clearly MUCH more upset that his brother stole his girlfriend than he was that his girlfriend broke up with him. there are many more instances of him and malcolm competing for a girl’s affections, and he seems mostly motivated by the competition itself.

in addition to “stupid girl,” he also manufactures an “attraction” to his female army buddy in the last season. the premise of this episode is that his old army buddy (a girl he play-wrestles with and insults like he would his own brothers) comes to visit him, and malcolm convinces reese that she’s attracted to him, and that reese’s nervousness at learning that fact is proof he’s in love with her. there’s a misunderstanding where reese asks her if she has certain “feelings” and she says she does, but what she ACTUALLY means is that she has a crush on reese’s MOM. she’s a lesbian. reese later propositions her (saying he’s saved his virginity for this--he’s probably about 18 here), and when she says omg no im gay, he is HUGELY relieved they can go back to being friends. CLASSIC mlm/wlw friendship moment. 

there’s an episode where these cute girls pick up reese (& nerds) to kiss in front of their boyfriends to make them jealous. reese is all for it, and when malcolm argues that it’s not worth his dignity and the beating he’ll get from the girl’s boyfriend, reese counters that that’s WHY he wants to do this--he’s completely invisible at school, and thinks getting beaten up for kissing some guy’s girlfriend will at least make him known around school. at no point does he indicate he’s actually attracted to this girl, and when it comes time to kiss her, he finds the weakest excuse to run away at the last minute. 

im not gonna list all of these but there’s more lmao

the following is a random assortment of one-off gay jokes and out-of-context lines with gay reese implications, often homophobically bc its early 2000′s writing:

says “I’m gay” to a girl to give malcolm a better shot at her

(again in competition with malcolm) tries to flirt with a girl by spraying milk in her face as the punchline to a joke, which is. well. hm. self-sabotaging, to say the least!!

Reese: “Do you think it’s right to totally change who you are and turn your back on EVERYTHING you believe in, just to impress a hot guy??” [his dad gives a long, blank stare, before asking:] “...Burt Reynolds hot, or Sting hot?”

“YEAH I like clouds! I call them sky kittens :)” (I just think that one’s sweet!)

“Look, Christie, here’s the thing. When I first met you, I was just messing around. But we’ve gotten so close that, now... I really like you! I can’t keep this up anymore. I’m not the person you think I am. I’ve been pretending since the day I met you. It’s so hard having to constantly cover my tracks to keep my story straight... and I don’t WANT to anymore! I’m tired of living this lie! I’m done with it. I’m sorry.”

he catfishes some guy to blackmail him, but is implied to continue the flirtation even after the catfishing/blackmail is revealed

reese is, technically, married to a man. this particular plot point is played as a joke and manages to be both racist and homophobic, so I won’t go into it. but I believe he is still married to that man. technically.

reese takes care of a huge box full of caterpillars until they pupate and become beautiful butterflies. I feel like there’s some kind of gay coming out metaphor here somewhere.

I think there are a couple other times where he comments on a guy’s attractiveness but I couldn’t find specific instances.

In conclusion: Reese is a deeply repressed gay kid who was socialized SO thoroughly as an early 2000′s straight boy that, despite his attraction for men and his obvious compulsory heterosexuality, he still cannot admit to himself that he is gay even as he enters adulthood. Furthermore, his subconscious frustration about this fact is turned outward to form the “schoolyard bully” costume he uses to mask his insecurities and keep others from getting too close to him. 

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. I could be convinced to come back for another talk about how Dewey is trans or about how each and every member of that family is neurodivergent in entirely different ways. Assuming anyone has read this far in the first place!!

[ladyeliot]

Dance with me

Request: Anonymous:  Hi saw your post for the Valentine’s Day request and that’s really cause that’s my birthday too so yay 😀 anyway how abt a tony x reader exes angstfluff thanks

Pairing: Tony Stark x Fem!Reader

Summary: As is customary on Valentine's Day, a charity gala is held by your company to raise funds, but this year you'll have to face it alone - your ex-boyfriend won't be with you, or maybe he will?

Warnings: Angst and a bit fluff.

Word count: 2712

A/N:  Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

Valentine’s Day (Prompts)

Your company's annual fundraising party couldn't be more ill-timed. You still didn't understand why it had to be held on 14 February, well you had a pretty good idea. Year after year the upper echelons of New York City and its environs gathered together, more than for a charitable cause, to find the next gossip that would be the most talked about for months to come.

In years past, the only thing that had saved you from the suffering and discomfort you felt every time you walked through the door was your companion, your partner, but that year you had to face all those vipers on your own. The relationship with Tony Stark had come to an end after four years, more than mutually, you took a big part in that decision. Things were becoming difficult for you, it was hard to overcome all the events he was involved in day by day, as well as his constant attempts to save himself from death. You couldn't cope.

It was arguably the most complicated decision you had ever made in your life, there was a long and complex history, your relationship was by no means simple, nor was it easy to begin with, so obviously it wasn't easy to end. You had to endure news that reported Iron Man's disappearance, that he was badly injured and some had even given him up for dead, then everything was solved, but you didn't want to see the day when he really was, you couldn't bear it. It wasn't easy for him either, he was afraid that his actions would put you in danger, so he understood what you were telling him, he accepted your decision and accepted it in the end. You also accepted his decision to go on with his life as a superhero, you could never ask him to do otherwise.

The Frick Collection art museum on Manhattan's Upper East Side was the selected venue for the charity event. It had been ranked for two consecutive years as "one of the most memorable parties of the year" by the New York Times, but your viewpoint was far from those words. Unlike the vast majority of those present you made a rather discreet entrance, you had made the decision to stay calm and leave as soon as possible, so you would have a few drinks, chat with the guests and put the day behind you as soon as possible. After all, it was your duty to get your company's guests to donate as much money as possible to charity.

You could not deny that the atmosphere was not pleasant, visually you found yourself enveloped by numerous pieces of art accompanied by the sweet melody of an orchestra that filled the atmosphere. The architectural elements of the place also generated an escape from the outside world. Generally the conversations were banal, related to work, art, politics or social life, nothing you couldn't cope with, plus the glass of champagne you were holding in your right hand helped with that.

The problem came when they began to notice that you were not accompanied by Mr. Stark on this occasion. Time after time it was your turn to report that the two of you had decided to go your separate ways, and time after time you had to listen to the lamentations, looks of pity, and on several occasions critical remarks about him. What you didn't know was that in the crowd there was a pair of curious eyes watching you.

Your limit was coming to an end, so you decided to escape the atmosphere for a few minutes to get some fresh air, you needed a breather if you were to last a couple of hours in this place. The gardens were just as engrossing as the interior. There was not a single leaf protruding from the vegetation, and the singing of the fountain water professed a relationship in your body, no one could tell you were in the middle of the island of Manhattan.

"Have you given up already?" you closed your eyes as you heard that tone of voice behind you. "I was surprised to see you talking so long with Mrs. Fox, at one point I even thought you were going to spill the champagne on her dress."

Without turning around you smiled at his words, for more than once you had thought of throwing your glass of champagne at them and leaving the place.

"You look beautiful tonight," you felt her voice grow closer. "You've always known I love that dress."

Her body was so close to you that you felt her jacket brush lightly against her bare back. At no time had it crossed your mind that Tony would show up there that night, on the contrary, you thought he would be anywhere else but New York. Taking a breath of air into your lungs, giving yourself strength, you decided to turn around and face him face to face. You hadn't seen each other for months and the last time you did, things didn't go so well, so you hadn't spoken to each other again.

"What are you doing here, Tony?" you asked in a serious tone, which didn't surprise him.

"Assuming this is a benefit party," he began holding out his hands, "I'm guessing drinking several dry martinis, Scotch, champagne, putting up with comments I don't care about and letting them praise me to get my money's worth."

"I thought you hated these kinds of parties," you expounded somewhat uncomfortably at the situation.

"And I do," he stated bluntly, taking a sip of his martini. "But you have to think about charity too, don't you?"

You knew him well enough to differentiate his tones in conversations, you knew when he was using his ironic tone, when he was lying, when he was insecure or when he was speaking from within. On this occasion his words contained extra information that he wasn't telling you, so you opted to give up on him, you had to deal with the people inside that building, you couldn't start a war with Tony right now.

"In that case," you started to walk away towards the inside of the museum, "I hope you enjoy your evening, Tony".

You had left Tony and his dry martini behind, now all you had to do was get through a couple more hours without incident and the day could be over. You picked up another glass of champagne from the tray of one of the waiters and before you could look for a target you were already inside a group of investors of your company showing the best of your smiles.

You kept the thought of him being there from your mind, but it was practically unavoidable for you. You didn't want to destabilise yourself, but it was more than evident that you still felt something towards Tony, feelings don't go away overnight and even more so towards a person you had loved with all your being. He knew it, he had an advantage in that sense, you weren't as good as him at hiding feelings, that's why you chose to stay as far away as possible from your ex-partner. But it wasn't possible.

"Mr. Herbert, Mr. Johnson," as if out of nowhere he joined the group you were conversing with. "Oh, Mrs. Johnson, you look splendid tonight."

Tony's compliments fell on Mrs. Johnson, who blushed when she heard them. Who didn't blush when someone like him told you how beautiful you were? He had a superhuman power over people, and he played it really well.

"Would you allow me to steal Miss Y/L/N from you?" he asked flashing a smile on his face.

"Please," they offered.

"Excuse me," you said with little escape. "I won't be long."

As if you didn't have a word in the matter Tony tackled you, walking a couple of feet away from the group with whom you were getting to close a big deal for the future of the company.

"Tony was about to-"

"Dance with me," he said curtly, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"What?" you asked a little puzzled.

His brown eyes stared into yours. You began to get a little nervous at the intensity of his gaze, so you looked around.

"Dance with me."

"I... I don't have time to dance with you," you explained, gesturing with your hands. "I'm here working, you know that better than anyone."

"I know," he nodded his head without taking his eyes off you. "That's why I'm asking you to dance with me. You know I'm the biggest benefactor of the night. So... dance with me." Tony lowered the tone of his voice, more seductive, one you knew perfectly well.

"Are you... blackmailing me? Or, worse, are you buying me with money?" you asked with a somewhat surly frown.

"I wasn't the one who said you were working," he defended himself. "But looking at it that way... there's no one else here who would get the money out of me."

"I thought you were doing this for charity," you attacked him.

"And I am," he said with all the confidence in the world. "But I need you to give your hand out to please me, too."

Tony offered you his hand along with a slight smile slanted across his face. You were playing with fire, you really would be if you decided to take his hand and surrender at his feet. The night would turn around completely, but what you feared most was how it would end. Inside you two opposing parts were fighting to select the best decision, on the one hand your brain was literally telling you to reject him and get out of there as soon as possible, on the other hand your emotions were screaming at you to take his hand and let yourself go. Whatever you did, you were likely to regret it later, so you chose to regret doing it.

You took a breath and released him by placing your hand on his, which amplified his smile even more. Without a second thought, he led you to the dance floor, where the melody coming from a group of musicians could be heard with more effusiveness. It was relaxed, soothing, inviting you to dance in pairs. Tony gently pulled you to his body and placed the palm of his hand on your bare back, too far south for your liking, on the contrary, you placed it on his shoulder.

"Relax," he whispered inches from your face. "We've done this many times."

"I'm relaxed," you lied in a way he couldn't quite believe, so you tried to justify yourself. "I'm just thinking that I should go with Mr. Johnson to-"

"Oh, you're thinking about another man while you're dancing with me?" he asked cutting you off with mock indignation. "Very nice."

You ducked your face with a small smile, which he himself returned along with an intense stare.

"Did I tell you that you look amazing tonight?" he asked, searching your gaze.

"I think you commented on it when we met in the garden," you said, trying not to fall for his charms.

"Then I'll reaffirm it again," his martini breath reached you. "You look beautiful. Plus you're wearing the perfume I gave you."

Discomfort at his words came back to you, and though you avoided showing it your unconscious inspections of your surroundings, avoiding eye contact gave you away.

"Look at me," he demanded.

As you complied with his request, you realised that you didn't know if you would be able to go through with it. The proximity you were having created an intimate situation that was causing numerous memories and feelings to come to your mind and body. For Tony it might have been easy, but for you it wasn't, mostly because you knew that when it was over you were going to go home, to face the reality that he was no longer present. You were not as strong as he was. You hadn't seen him for months, since you broke up, and you knew that it was going to end up hurting you, so you decided to put an end to that dream.

"I think..." you dropped your hand from his shoulder. "I can't go on."

With a calm step you walked away from him, leaving him alone among the other dancing couples, forced a small smile to dedicate it to those people who waved at you as you passed them and headed back outside, finding a place under the night to regain lost strength, praying that Tony wouldn't show up there again. But he wasn't giving up so easily.

"Are you okay?" his figure appeared behind you.

A lump took over your throat as you heard his voice again. You took a deep breath and told yourself to be as nonchalant as possible about the situation.

"Yeah, I just needed to get some air," you commented impassively.

"Okay, I thought you looked a little uncomfortable," he commented, moving to your left side. "You know, it was just a dance."

"Are you kidding me, just a dance?" you said somewhat offended that he barely noticed. "Okay, fine, maybe it's just a dance for you, but it wasn't for me." You had already started to blurt out everything you were thinking, so now you decided not to stop. "These last few months have been horrible, but I was finally starting to take charge of my life completely, and this is a step backwards, I don't want to fall."

"Fall?" Tony cocked his head to one side, clicking his tongue a little. "Do you...do you think these past few months have been easy for me? Because I reckon you think it has been, that I've been 'enjoying the freedom', as you called it."

Tony reminded you of some of the words that came out of your mouth the last time you met at his house, when you went to pick up your things, a fact that embarrassed you greatly.

"I don't think that," you defended yourself by turning away.

"It seems so," his words were firm, as was the step he took towards you. "Listen, I think you know me better than anyone, and just because I don't have the facility you do to show how I feel doesn't mean I'm not affected by things. In case you're interested to know, I haven't left the lab in five months."

The expression on Tony's face had hardened, as had his words.

"I came here with the sole intention of seeing you, of feeling something again," he clenched his jaw.

"And what position does that put me in?" you asked raising your tone as he did and boring your eyes into his. "You come here, you see me, you feel something and you disappear..."

"Who said anything about disappearing?" he frowned lifting his chin.

"Tony, I don't know with what intention you came here tonight or what you expected to happen," you said, feeling more vulnerable, with a tone of sadness, "but what is clear is that we made a decision and no matter how hard it is, we must accept it. It is clear that there are still feelings, at least on my part, but let's put the past behind us," you paused under his watchful gaze. "I'd better get going."

Saying those words and checking the stiffness in Tony's countenance you opted to continue on your way.

"Wait," Tony stopped your steps by grabbing your arm. "You think I can let you go after what you just said?"

"Enjoy your night, Tony."

That's how for the first time you were brave enough to take back the reins of your life, closing the door to the past and opening a window to the future.

Taglist Open (DM)

MAIN MASTERLIST

[rinharu-purple]

Lucien: MLQC’s Mastermind

Yes, I said that Lucien is the creepiest LI in my opinion, and I wouldn’t choose him in a million, billion years. BUT, Lucien is by far the one person, who is pulling the strings and is the driving force of the MLQC universe. He is the only person who acquires all the information from all sides and is connected to every important actor in the story. Therefore, Lucien has become the second LI I’ve started to follow more attentively. Mind that the ranking ist 1) Gavin 2) Gavin 3) Gavin 4) Lucien ;)

In my manifesto, why Gavin is MC’s choice, I’ve already mentioned briefly, that Lucien has the strongest EVOL among all the characters but is also the strongest character (it’s not the MC or the Black Queen, let’s not fool ourselves)

The Machiavellian

Before we talk about Lucien’s part in the MLQC universe, we should first look at him as person and observe the elements that make up his personality.

In the game, all our guys have their personal priorities. Gavin and Kiro are on the front line, fighting for peace and prosperity, Victor, well...I don’t think that he cares for anything else besides MC, maybe his position. But with Lucien, his priority is not a person or a concept, but rather a philosophy. Lucien wants to see the next step in human evolution and is determined to take any measures necessary to see it to it’s end. Other guys can not stand oblivious to other things that come up their way in achieving their goals but Lucien only has his eyes on the prize and to him nothing else matters, no one else matters and no ethics matter. 

Machiavellianism denotes cunningness and claims, that those dark triads use whatever means necessary to gain power. If we consider the choices Lucien has made throughout the story so far, we can clearly find his manipulative ways in getting other actors to the positions of his conjecture. He lies to MC and hides his personality as Ares, penetrates Black Swan to use their facilities, but also uses LFG’s resources for his R&D projects all the while concealing his true nature. 

Another trait of a Machiavellian, is that he is charismatic and friendly, all the while displaying no emotions. I think, there can be two possible reasons as to why Lucien has limited display of emotions. The first possible explanation has something to do with his parents passing and the trauma he suffered afterwards. Among all LIs Lucien is the one with the most loveless childhood and teenage years, the most important years in developing one’s psychological traits and during those years Lucien received alongside with Kiro the most blows. That resulted in him losing the connection to his emotions as a defense mechanism. 

Another possibility might be him losing the connection to his emotions as a result of a chemical reaction in his brain due to excessive testing Black Swan objected him to. Lucien’s EVOL was created in a lab and he was the first man-made Evolver. Lucien is called various times a psychopath, because he shows signs of psychopathy such as lack of remorse, empathy or compassion. It is said that that kind of behavior might occur due to a misconnection between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the amygdala. Considering the fact that Lucien’s parents were killed right in front of him and that he was both physically and psychologically abused for the coming years, this might have led him to experience an imbalance in his chemical balance. One might argue, that his altruistic actions in the orphanage are an evidence for his compassion, I think it is yet another disguise for his unethical ways of reaching his goals.

The Orchestrator

In all honesty no one is actively seeking alliances and keeps tabs on other’s actions for their agenda like Lucien does. Maybe Commander Leto but he mostly fails in drawing others to his side, because he is not able to speak in their pendants’ language or resonate with their perspective. Lucien, on the other hand, is gifted with an extraordinary ability to observe his surroundings and companions, making it very easy for him to talk to them in their terms and desires. Lucien doesn’t show much empathy, UNLESS, it contributes to his cause, in that case he can perfectly put himself in other’s shoes and plays them in such a meticulous way, that they join him willingly.

That is how Lucien directs MC successfully in entering the Black Cabin or in understanding the evolution core.

Lucien is not exactly a piece on a chess board, but is a player, who knows all the pieces very well, knows the rules of the game, has observed many games and took notes of how they all has turned out and therefore knows what kind of a game he is going to play. Just watch closely. how he co-operates with Kiro and the Black Queen. He knows that Kiro is using Black Swan for his goals, much like he does, so he uses his hacking abilities to access to information. The Black Queen is the initiator of everything in S1, so he makes sure to stay close to her. He knows that Victor is searching for MC and trying to understand the Evol gene, there he has an investor. 

The Cool, Calm and Collected Type

in the MLQC universe, everyone loses their composure at one point or another, because...who wouldn’t? Time and space warps constantly and people are also changing their stances depending on the time-space constellation they find themselves in. 

MC loses her cool almost on a daily basis, Gavin was in a constant haywire in the Daybreak era, Victor literally threw people into black holes in CH11 and freaked out as he saw the Black Queen for the first time and Kiro walks around in a bipolar state. So, everybody is pretty unstable due to understandable conditions but we never see Lucien lose his cool and this is one of his best qualities. 

Here is the thing about Lucien. This guy is always at least one step ahead of everyone and he achieves this by two simple rules: 

1) Acquire all possible information

2) Observe everyone and everything at all times

Why am I saying this? It lies in the basis of anxiety and angst. We humans tend to feel uncomfortable in the face of an uncertain situation, meaning in the wake of the unknown. MC is constantly anxious, because she doesn’t know what is going on, why is everyone after her, why is she blessed with the unconditional affection of 5 equally attractive men? (ehm, but not quite equally ehm *Gavin* hihi, sorry, Gavin-stan gotta Gavin-stan ^_^). Anyway you get the picture. Gavin went haywire in CH22 because he was pushed in a tight spot and therefore had angst. Same goes for Victor in CH11 his mind went blank as he saw history repeating itself and then in CH18 when he saw with his own eyes what could the girl of his dreams might become.

We don’t see Lucien in such deadlock situation though do we, and I think it is mainly because he is always prepared for every possibility and he can calculate them meticulously, because he possesses the largest chunk of information and also keeps tabs on everyone and everything that’s going on. So, when a crisis occurs he doesn’t freak out, sure he gets surprised at times, because the outcome of a a certain situation is the possibility, which he calculated to be no higher than 1% and yet there it is. But since he’s already took this into consideration, he has a plan. Combine this with his knowledge about the persons and organizations involved in the matter, then you have a calm Lucien, who is in control of the situation. Thus, he is calm. You can actually also bind this behavior of Lucien with that of a predator, whose movement are languid, is non-reactive and doesn’t mind turning his back to his opponents, since he doesn’t perceive them as a threat.

If this wasn’t enough, Lucien manages to joggle all of this without exposing himself. Even in the last stage of the play he never gets caught. Unless he willingly exposes himself, as in the case of revealing Ares to MC. MLQC actors can usually see through each other and use their weaknesses to meet their own ends. MC is obviously Gavin, Kiro and Victor’s weakness and their opponents can see this pretty easily. IT’s not quite the same with Lucien though and he doesn’t let himself be blackmailed or threatened by any weakness. He always keeps his cards close to his chest. 

Considering the fact that Lucin is the least outstanding LI, this is pretty impressive. So I guess this makes him the embodiment of the phrase “still waters run deep”.

The Renaissance Man

Lucien is a man of science and aesthetics. Explaining phenomenons with associations and loading them with philosophical substance. He doesn’t necessarily perceive things bluntly as they are, but interprets them in a meaningful way. The way he associates MC with a butterfly, how he wants to entrap her in ajar, so she wouldn’t get away, alas taking the only resource of color in his life away. Not only that, but he can also break down the matters at hand to its fragments and can therefore work his way up from there. He is blessed with a strong deduction ability, so he can connect the dots easily, come to a conclusion and act accordingly. No doubt that the other guys have very good deduction abilities, but because Lucien always has a bit of an information more than them, he can find the solutions just a little bit faster in my opinion. 

Reading is a necessity for his guy much like eating and drinking, Which is why we see him reframing events in the context of a certain story he’d read at some point in his life. With time, I will add here some of his quotes about certain situations to explain what I mean. Or even better, if you have some, that are evident in you opinion, you could add them in the comments. I really enjoy reading/hearing Lucien’s philosophical, scientific explanations to certain moments in MC’s life. They are always to the point and helpful.

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

So this is my very first analysis on Lucien and I have to admit, I still have  so many material to check on him, so if anything is missing please bear with me here :)

I was watching Joe’s Twitch while I wrote this, so there are many spelling, grammar mistakes, which will be corrected gradually.

This post will get better and better, scout promise!

[ladyloveandjustice]

The Westing Game Chapter 21

The Fourth Bomb

In a wacky misunderstanding, Theo thinks Alice is the bomber and tries to blackmail her with the info so he can borrow her bike (Yes, really. Go big or go home is Theo’s motto) but of course Alice thinks he means he knows ANGELA is the bomber.

And in what might be the most touching moment in the book so far, Alice responds to this by setting off a bomb and writing a thing indicating that she is the bomber in order to throw all suspicion off Angela. She eve loses her trademark braid in the process.

It really is incredibly sweet. Alice is very caustic toward her sister, but this isn’t the first time she’s indicated she’s ride-or-die when it comes down to it (she got rid of the evidence for Angela and warned her not to say anything to the lawyer), and it’s also a very lovely response to Angela’s early sacrifice- where she took the bomb she made to her face rather than have it explode to her sisters. But while Angela’s sacrifice was spur-of-the-moment motivated by guilt and panic as well as love (not that it makes it less meaningful), Alice’s is one she planned out and considered. She had time to consider the consequences. She knew that Angela willingly put herself in this position. But she still chose to take the fall anyway, and set off a bomb after seeing what the same thing did to her sister’s face.

She already feels meaningless to her family in general, and maybe on the surface she feels her standing (with her mother in particular) can’t get any lower. “I’m already the troublemaker, I’m already the unwanted one, I have nothing to lose, but Angela would lose everything” was how she convinced herself. (in addition to being aware as a minor she wouldn’t be punished as harshly, smart girl that she is).

But it’s also clear that Alice DOES long for her mother’s love and approval, and I think she also had to contend with a deep fear that after this action, there’d be no going back for them, that she’d doomed herself to be the ‘bad one’ forever. Yet she still did it.

And the loss of her braid is of course, incredibly significant. Angela said earlier that the braid is her “crutch”- she bases a lot of her personality around it. It was her excuse to spend time with her mother and now her excuse to spend time with Flora, it’s the trademark thing people can pull on and she can then she gets excuse to kick them and get in fights and form connections, it’s how she gets attention and relationships for herself without exposing her own vulnerability. But she sacrificed what little that makes her stand out, what little social currency she has to protect the same sister who she envies for being in the spotlight- because that bond is more important than her jealousy and her need for attention. Just like her sister sacrificed one of the things that bring her adulation- her looks- to protect her. Love is more important than those petty things.

Alice is forced to talk to Judge Ford afterwards and, sharp as ever, Ford guesses that she’s protecting Angela.  This quote especially gets me:

The judge was astounded (…). Angela could not be the bomber, that sweet, pretty thing. Thing? Is that how she regarded the young woman, as a thing? And what had she ever said to her except “I hear you’re getting married, Angela” or “You’re so pretty, Angela”. Had anyone ever asked about her ideas, her hopes, her plans? If I had been treated like that, I’d have used dynamite, not fireworks; no, I would have just walked and kept on going. But Angela was different.

There’s a fascinating theme in this book about being marginalized, and the different ways these marginalized people both are pitted against each other and can overlook even each other while also finding connections and comradery with each other… I think I’ll have to wait until the end to fully get my thesis on the whole thing together, but I really find it interesting and appreciate it. Ford’s struggles as a black woman, Alice being overlooked for not performing femininity (thus envious of Angela despite knowing how shitty she has it), Angela being boxed because everyone wants to mold her as the perfect feminine ideal (thus feeling envious of Alice despite knowing how shitty she has it), Sun feeling out of place as a Chinese immigrant, Hoo knowing he’s looked down upon as a Chinese-American (yet still not considering the pain of his own wife), Chris struggling as a disabled kid, many people who are financially disadvantaged and/or feeling limited to the role of caretaker, Sydelle feeling overlooked in general and appropriating others’ struggles in her bizarre quest to get noticed- it’s all very interesting and pretty deftly handled, especially considering the time period the book was written in. 

And our antagonist is quintessential exploitative Rich White Man (obsessed with American Exceptionalism to boot), though it’s casually mentioned he’s the son of immigrants, an identity he seems to have actively shed, going so far as to change his name (if that’s why he changed it), so there’s even complexity there.

But the thing with Ford here is an interesting demonstration of that. Despite being smart and socially aware and having an even more fraught history of being dismissed and belittled, she didn’t give much thought to Angela and subconsciously went along with the same objectification everyone else does, putting her on a pedestal. (There’s a lot to be said about how Angela’s veneration and perceived “purity” by the others might interact with her whiteness, and how Ford realizing she bought into that narrative subconsciously might feel to her as a black woman, but I’m not really the person to discuss that. Anyway!)

The other important development here is that Alice also finally confesses that she saw Westing the night of his murder but mentions that the Westing she saw didn’t look dead, but asleep and like a wax dummy. This sets off alarm bells for both me and Ford.

So, I think its safe to say my earlier theory Sam Westing isn’t dead is probably true. What of the corpse that was present at the will-reading? I think people would have noticed it was a wax dummy, but a disguised corpse from his coroner friend still makes some sense. So where is Westing now? Considering Barney Northup doesn’t exist, could he be Barney?

But speaking of Westing, if we need further confirmation the man is the scum of the earth, he’s a union buster and he fired Sandy for trying to organize one in the paper plant.

We also learn Ford’s backstory with Westing at last: Her parents were household staff at Westing’s mansion and she grew up there as a result. She played chess with Westing frequently as a child, but not only would he brag and take pride in beating a goddamn pre-teen, he mocked her with racialized insults. She never won, but Westing ended up financing her education (that’s the ‘debt’ she owes him). She believes he did this to get a judge he could control, but has refused to play along, removing herself from any case involving him.

I can’t help but think Westing would have known Ford wouldn’t play ball, though. So he may have had another motive for sending her to school. It could be something even more sinister. Or… in his own twisted way, did he actually like her? He obviously realized she was incredibly intelligent during those matches, even if he sadistically enjoyed mocking her, enough to know she’d do well with an education. Did he play chess with her so much not just because he enjoyed tormenting her, but enjoyed her as a person as well? It obviously does not excuse what a racist sadistic shithead he is, and I’m not saying he’s secretly nice- just that it could be he was incapable of relating to anyone in a healthy way. I actually think sending Ford to school could have just been an extension of his desire to torment her AND the only way he knew that would guarantee he remained important in her life. He didn’t ever plan to cash in on her debt, but knew it would kill her just to BE in his debt, and got pleasure out of that alone. He probably just thought it was funny and it was also a way to guarantee he’d live in her head rent free- and because deep down he knew she was a cool kid, he also wanted that. He didn’t want her to forget him, maybe, which is sick! But much more interesting than simply “he wanted a judge he could manipulate”.

But it’s also worth noting this is Ford’s (perhaps) final chance to win against Westing in the ultimate chess match. And I can’t help but think he is well aware how smart she is, so he invited her here specifically because he knew she could be his undoing, the one who unravels everything. So- if we go with the ‘Westing is seeking atonement’ theory- did he invite her to give her that satisfaction of finally beating him, like he always knew deep down she could? Because he WANTS to be beaten, to be found out and knows she deserves to be the one after all the hell he put her through? Or in the ‘Westing is still a complete monster’ theory- is his intention to torment her one last time, to show her she can’t win against him? (if it is, I think he may well find he’s gravely mistaken there).

I don’t think Westing can truly achieve “redemption” with this “game”, nor am I one to easily believe the Ultimate Shitty Capitalist can change easily, but if one thing can shake someone’s worldview and make them reevaluate how they live their life, the death of their child WOULD be a big one. So “this will actually be Westing’s weird twisted attempt at atonement” is a possibility I just can’t stop thinking about. If it is, it’s kind of funny and incredible he can’t stop being manipulative and traumatizing even when he decides he wants to do something good.

On top of all that, Angela and Sydelle get more clues and finally figure out the ‘America the Beautiful’ connection. God, so much to chew on this chapter! I really fear for these last nine chapters. I might end up writing a novel longer than the actual novel analyzing and recapping them if I’m not careful. But that’s how you know it’s a compelling story, so hats off to Ellen Raskin!

[eijispumpkin]

some musings about yut-lung, inspired by a post i saw on the dash earlier today:

if the story of banana fish were to be reframed with yut-lung as the protagonist, ash would not actually be the primary antagonist of the final arc. eiji would.

why? because yut-lung’s issue was never really with ash. it was with his own lack of happiness after he got his revenge on his brothers. we can see this in episode 24 when he tells sing that his entire life’s purpose was to hate his brothers, and now that they’re gone, he’s empty.

now, obviously, during the beginning of this retelling, none of the characters we really care about from canon would matter. the primary antagonists would be the lee siblings, particularly wang-lung as head of the family. most of yut-lung’s actions in canon are behind the scenes, but in this retelling they would be front-and-center. i’m not gonna linger on that point because i think it’s fairly self-explanatory, but ash and eiji would not really be relevant to yut-lung’s story until after yut-lung’s plans are well underway (i.e. until hua-lung is drugged and has already become his puppet).

so, what is yut-lung’s relationship to ash?

i would posit that he latched onto ash as someone he saw himself in. someone that had been through similar trauma, someone who should have been as broken, unlovable, and unable to heal as himself. (or at least, as he saw himself.) that was the root of his fixation on ash: the belief that if yut-lung himself couldn’t heal and be happy, even after getting his revenge, why should someone else?

and, when we analyze why ash was more capable of healing in the timeframe he did than yut-lung, obviously there’s eiji, but eiji is not the only person to care for ash. there’s shorter, nadia, max, ibe, alex and the other gang members, etc; while ash has had an undeniably hard time, he has also found a support network.

yut-lung has not.

in fact, the whole thing is so foreign to him that he completely discounts the entire network, and decides that ash’s sole support is eiji. now, ash and eiji are definitely important to each other, but it would be remiss to say that eiji is the only person important to ash or the only person to care for him. this is a misinterpretation of ash, caused by yut-lung placing him on a pedestal as “the only one who understands”, so to speak, and it’s why yut-lung fixated so hard on eiji as the obstacle to remove in order to bring ash to his level.

ash’s actions towards yut-lung are not actually antagonistic. ash tells him he’ll kill him one day, but he never tries to actually act on it, or do anything else to hinder yut-lung’s plans in general. frankly, ash doesn’t really give two shits what yut-lung is doing, until ep 20 when yut-lung has eiji, alex, bones, and kong. that is (iirc) the second time ash and yut-lung even see each other after shorter’s death.

now let’s contrast that with eiji.

in episode 9, yut-lung says that eiji really annoys him, because he’s too innocent. he echoes that in episode 14, when he says that people either want to protect eiji, like ash, or they want to “tear him up and destroy him”, and that yut-lung himself is one of the latter. putting his idealization of ash aside for a moment, it’s pretty evident that this hatred is motivated by jealousy (a common theme in yut-lung’s story): why should eiji have had a happy childhood, when yut-lung didn’t? 

in fact, that whole conversation in episode 14 is pretty telling. yut-lung tells eiji that he’s stupid for thinking he’s ash’s friend, because “ash has no need for friends [...] all he needs are those who idolize him, and those, like arthur, who defy him. he doesn’t need anyone else. especially not you, who is only a burden to him.”

yut-lung isn’t talking about ash. he thinks he is, but really? he’s talking about himself. or, rather, what he wants himself to be.

in ep24, we see him breaking down because he doesn’t know what his life purpose is without having an enemy. that combined with how he thinks that someone like ash (i.e., someone like himself) “doesn’t need friends”, the fact that the heart of his quest for vengeance is his mother, and his jealousy regarding eiji’s happier childhood, all comes together to suggest to me, at least, that at his core, yut-lung craves companionship, and at the same time desperately wants to deny that he wants it.

this conflict is the crux of his character. yut-lung’s story is ultimately a man-vs-self battle; he has an image of himself that he wants to be (cold, calculating, alone, satisfied), and he’s trying desperately to force himself to fit into that box, but he can’t actually do it. he’s hurting, he’s lonely, and he’s scared, and he lashes out and gets petty, bitter, and vicious.

so how does eiji come in?

eiji is the antithesis of everything yut-lung wants. he’s evidence that ash (i.e. yut-lung’s mirror) can heal and be loved, and yut-lung doesn’t want to see that, because it shatters his worldview that he’s on a path no one else except ash and those like him can walk. he doesn’t want to accept that people like ash (i.e. himself) can need love and support and friendship. eiji threatens to undermine his entire outlook on life.

and how does eiji respond to that? 

eiji responds by loving ash harder. by insisting that yut-lung won’t ever understand, but that he will stay by ash’s side. that they understand that they both care for each other. yut-lung kidnaps him after ash is stabbed and reported dead, and eiji refuses to stay put. tries to escape many times, until he finally does. 

and when he does, yut-lung says that he’s just decided that he will be ash’s enemy, for as long as eiji is his only weak point. this is just a thinly-veiled attempt to make eiji leave ash, because eiji’s presence threatens yut-lung’s entire delicately-balanced view of himself. 

so yut-lung’s plan to get blanca to blackmail ash via eiji? meant to prove that eiji is nothing more than a weakness. really, he has no need to force ash back to golzine--he’s gotten his revenge, he could have done it without golzine’s involvement, he didn’t have to do this--but to him, it’s necessary to prove that he was right all along, that eiji is ash’s weakness and not an asset, that having eiji around was a detriment and he was right.

because if he’s wrong, it means he could have been healing, could have been loved, could have been less alone... and he wasn’t.

so yut-lung decides that ash has to fall back into hell in order to make himself feel secure in his own previously-established patterns of thought. unfortunately for him, eiji brings people together--as eiji is wont to do, like yut-lung said in ep14--to rescue ash, and turns everything on its head again.

this is why he goes to the museum to attempt to dupe golzine. it’s not really about ash. it’s about his view of himself, and the threat to that that eiji poses.

eiji is the real antagonist to yut-lung’s protagonist. ash is someone he puts on a pedestal and sees as a mirror of himself, and while ash is important to his story, eiji is the one who primarily acts in contention to yut-lung. he’s the one who thwarts so many of yut-lung’s plans, who tells him he’s wrong, who tries to stand in his way. 

overall, the main villain in yut-lung’s story is his own trauma. he developed many irrational thought patterns as ways to cope with what happened to him while he dealt with it alone, and wound up projecting them onto ash and eiji’s relationship (honestly, in a way blanca did as well, but that’s an essay for another day). however, within the bounds of that projection, eiji shows much more active opposition to him than ash.

[dorki-c]

Metanoia

Characters: Dabi and reader

Relationship: Dabi X Pro-hero! Reader

Quote: “Metanoia”

Gift for: @glitterfreezed (Aka photoshop goddess) THANK YOU for being one of my very first moots on this crazy platform! I really hope you enjoy this one shot (as I spent way too much time on it XD) and for anybody reading this: GO CHECK OUT GLITTERS PLAYLISTS!! They are honestly amazing!

Tw: Kidnapping, Use of Guns, Slight nudity

Going on patrol lately has been boring.

Sure, (y/n) wouldn’t pass it up for helping little old ladies get across the road or helping itty bitty children find their parents within a crowd.

But besides that, there was little to nothing to do- no paperwork, no criminals terrorising the streets, or vigilantes on loose- the streets were cleared and scrubbed down from any crime lately.

It was strange.

Nothing has been the same ever since Kamino ward as well.

The moment you found out your lover was a villain; you took great lengths to create distance from him. Not sparing him a second glance or another phone call- let’s not forget you blocked his number- although doing these things made you seem like an asshole; you are a hero.

Heroes do not date Villains.

Its absolutely forbidden.

Though should you have stayed with him, something could’ve happened- he could’ve used you for blackmail, ransom, and maybe trafficking- as terrifying as it sounds, at least your far from your old apartment.

At least your away from that freak. That sadistic freakshow, with his stupid smirk and (beautiful) weird ass scars.

Luckily, the clock had ticked to the hour that announced your release from countless wasted minutes of scrolling through your phone as two feet laid disrespectfully on the hero agencies desk where nobody pointed out the blatant rudeness she was showing.

Even if she wanted to stay here, the female should get home soon. Even if there was no problem during the day, that doesn’t reassure that there will be trouble when walking through the evening.

Where you had the inkling of protection that is provided to you by your muscle memory, nobody should rely on themselves to do a simple task like walking home when there is such a thing as societies creepy-crawly insects withering across the nooks and crannies of cities and flooding the deepest rabbit holes with their sickening ideals.

Just thinking about them brings revolting nausea into the churning acid within the insides of your body as it screams out to stay aware of the footsteps you take, of the glances you throw out, and of your hands gripping the cheap handbag- that you bought on a whim from that one charity shop around the corner of the apartment building- when a hand of yours dipped inside the bag to grip the weapon that laid unaware of whose blood it could spill today.

The three walled mirror room moved down from whatever floor it was on and when opening the doors, a small (and annoying) ping was heard through the (also) small lobby area.

When approaching your apartment door with your guard up and one of your hands swiftly opening the rusted door handle allowing a small gust of air to run into the vacant apartment, the eyes of a human watchdog sporadically darted from one place to another.

Making sure she can securely (slam) open the door, the pro hero steps in one footstep at a time like one of the cliché spy movies before throwing her bag down and yanking the heavy weapon out of her bag.

Its matte black exterior elongated to show the vertical and horizontal bits and pieces of the weapon as (Y/n) rested one of her fingers on the trigger whilst fiddling with the safety lock to make it unlock.

Once unlocking the safety lock of the gun, she leaned it towards the ground, turned around for a brief second to retrieve the key from her apartment door, then kicked said door shut with the heel of her foot.

Even when she investigates her almost empty apartment three times without a peaceful resolve at the end, the female is already sitting on her couch scrolling through another apartment renting website for herself.

It’s pathetic.

She’s on the run from her ex-boyfriend because she knows that if she gets caught by him, there will be a low chance of her escaping from his grasp again. It was quite evident from his group’s little broadcast that if anyone “tries to catch us, you’re going to be caught first.”

What if that applies to people wanting to escape from them?

.

.

.

Stripping herself of the day’s tiredness, the female wore the loosest clothing within her wardrobe and ventured out to the shit-tip of her kitchen- the sink only had a few dishes in it, but, otherwise the trash looked like it got taken out once a year and there were so many letters scattered in piles over the counters.

Sighing at the sight, letting a hand of hers travel up her shirt to soothe an itch on her back, (y/n) shook her head at her own mess and still continued to go towards the fridge to dig through it in order to find the cheap- most definitely shitty- microwavable food she bought from the store only three days ago because to be completely honest, she’s saving up for buying a ticket out of this shit country and living in another one.

Ripping the film cover off of the food’s plastic container, she shoved her shitty food in the microwave and let the annoying beep sound through the apartment while (y/n) went into the small living room, grabbed some shorts that were sunbathing under the flickering yellow bulb and put them on in order to take out the trash.

When entering back into the apartment however, a flash of darkness alerted her body to go limp.

What was this feeling of restraint around her arms and legs? Moving one of her wrists- in an attempt to pull them out of the bindings- a harsh rub of a frictional material bit across the sensitive layer of the underside of your wrist, where it elicited a hiss to very subtly slip from your lips.

That seemingly helped beg a question in your curious mind. “Are my eyes covered?” Although when opening your eyes, a flurry of white blinded you causing a multitude of red freckles to dance across the pale illumination.

Whoever thought not putting a blindfold on you was a smart idea, it seems clear to me that they didn’t watch enough spy movies.

Okay, time to take a look of your surroundings.

First of all, Y/n glanced down to see if she had any major injuries- nope, the only thing missing from her body was her clothes and if that didn’t count as being kinky, then (y/n) doesn’t know what it counts as- along with her feet barely touching the carpeted floor, her ankles were tied to what she assumes to be a wooden chair.

Looking off to the side after shifting her gaze from her feet to her forearm her eyes picked out the surroundings behind her and the type of seat she was sitting in. Wow, whoever kidnapped you, really knows how to do it inefficiently.

Though, if they’ve used cheap ass rope and tied you up to a wooden chair- out of all the chairs in the world, they choose a wooden chair- along with forgetting to put a blindfold on you, they probably didn’t take any precaution when kidnapping you because the criminals probably have back up on hold.

Meaning there was more than one culprit involved and that they don’t expect you to get out of this area due to being outnumbered.

Moving your head upwards once more, the outlines of what seems to be a closet and a drawer were all that you could observe before some sort of jiggling sound was emitted through the silent room.

It wasn’t till the door opened that it revealed somebody that (y/n) didn’t expect. A hitch lodged itself like a six-foot down corpse where only grave looters would be able to find it. Was she seeing a ghost? Perhaps. Did she care? Maybe, however she was trained to not overreact in a situation like this.

“Well, look what we have here…” The metal contraptions that held the person’s tough layer of skin nudged a little in the direction of the muscle’s movement. “…A squirming itty-bitty hero.” The venomous hiss of their voice slipped real close to her ear as the lamp pointing obnoxiously into her right eye was turned off.

“So, this was your doing?” Snapped the hero as the villain sat down on her lap and gently grasped her chin- just like the old days- where his fucked up (handsome) grin shone brighter than the hero on her first debut. Dodging the question, the male let his weight lean onto the female’s thighs as she harshly craned her jutted out facial bone away from his hold.

“Oh, and it looks like your still as feisty as ever.”

“Yeah, I am. Got a problem with it, villain?” The hiss made the patchwork villain only recoil an inch backwards before narrowing his pupils at the nickname and gripping the very first thing his eyes land on, your neck, where the surface of his skin was smouldering to the touch.

“I wouldn’t say that if I was in your position.” He proclaimed as the slimming of her lips straightened out to a thin line, “Now, I’m here to offer you a position and…” From somewhere on his body, he pulled a gun- one of the many similar pistols that you hoarded in your apartment for safe keeping- then pointed it straight at your thinly protected heart where the brush of stainless chilled metal tingled the very fabric of your body.

“…it would be wise of you to listen.” Sure, a gun was pointed literally at her chest- lets not forget that she’s being forced into this position of unwillingness- but hopefully, some otherworldly deity will let (y/n) live one more second.

“Okay, good girl?” You’ve never committed to metanoia before, but at this point, you might as well.

[amethyst-wind-uk]

Paradise Killer is a great game. Thoroughly enjoyed my time playing it. (spoilers within)

The amount of detail that went into the main plot is staggering. The web of evidence and leads is so complex that my suspicions of who had done what were constantly changing (even if you do twig pretty early on that everybody is involved to some extent).

The plot centers around the bloody massacre of the ruling Council of The Syndicate, who are immortals living in a pocket dimension that is on its 24th iteration. The Island is basically the entire world to these immortals (of which the protagonist Lady Love Dies is one), with the stated goal of reviving the gods who granted them immortality. Emphasis on stated. They’ve been doing a terrible job of reviving them, having gone through 24 Islands and managed to get back SOME of ONE God. Mostly they just kidnap mortals from the real world to use as slave labour for their microcosm’s dirty inner workings. It’s a terribly flawed place to live for basically anyone who isn’t the Council, and you are repeatedly reminded of that fact.

The characters are supremely well-written (even Yuri), and it was a delight spending time with each, which really took the edge off the constant back-tracking between characters you have to do (every character, intentionally or otherwise, tells a lot of half-truths that require you to return to them to have them clarify what they said before - and it’s surprisingly not so much of a negative towards the overall game. It’s that well written).

Lady Love Dies is a great protagonist, no matter how you play her. She’s able to schmooze information out of every suspect in a variety of ways, relishes her job as investigator no matter how you play her, banters beautifully with Shinji the Demon, and is a literal example of Thicc Thighs Save Lives (see the picture at the end). And she’s Bi. She’s also tied into the backstory of the universe, having suffered at the hands of a diety, and ended up in exile because of it. She’s only called back because of the events of the game.

Shinji provides needed comic relief, and has the added benefit of you not having to deal with him at all unless you want to. You can ignore him for basically the entire game, except for one instance where he provides you with the needed macguffin to advance the plot, and that’s a short converstaion.

Lydia is very natural as the best friend, and Sam (her red skeleton husband - they met when she killed him) provides plenty of quality banter, probably due to being a bartender. (Much as I wanted to spare them - and not just because I kinda wanted Lady Love Dies to FUCK/GET FUCKED BY Lydia - it became impossible not to have them found guilty by the time I’d gathered all the expansive evidence. And they’re not even either of the masterminds!)

One Last Kiss, being a ghost who’s been dead for ten years, is so fun because she’s completely fucking unimpressed by anything that any of the cast do, even the literal arbiter of justice in the end-game. She’s fully aware of how little anything she, or the others do, matters to the vast majority. She’s well aware that she’ll disappear when Paradise Island reboots in the near future, doesn’t expect sweeping change to happen in any of the future iterations, and is just letting every drop of her snark out in the short time she has left.

Henry is a worse version of Star Fucker from 2064: Read Only Memories, who exists to be scapegoated by others.

It’s hard to dislike Akiko, even when she’s so abrasive. She’s like a feral kitten - hissing at affection, and dumb as a box of rocks. (She’s seriously terrible at her job, even when she’s not taking part in Carmelina’s conspiracy).

Yuri Night is not my favourite character in-universe (he’s not anybody’s. He’s an unlikeable douche), but he’s fascinating from a meta-narrative perspective. He’s mentally a chlld in an adult’s body (I don’t mean he’s mentally challenged - he received a ‘perfect’ body from a God, which resulted in him aging up overnight), and it shows in so many ways. He sees the world as an obnoxious brat would:

He insists that wine is better the older it is (the wine being a metaphor for people).

He boasts, out-loud and constantly, that he’s smarter and better than anybody else.

He’s convinced that he should be in charge.

He absolutely refuses to admit when he’s wrong or doesn’t know something, and will simply end a discussion when he doesn’t want to lose an argument.

Constantly uses the exact same insult for Lady Love Dies (’freak’, which is a shortened form of the ‘investigation freak’ reputation she’s cultivated - note: most of the cast is immortal, and only the infantile [as they’re mortal rather than the millenia-old main cast] Marshals call her ‘freak’ otherwise.)

Dr. Doom Jazz (god I love some of the names in this game) was probably my least favourite character, and mostly because he’s just kinda dull. I basically wrote him off when it became clear that the vast majority of his character was “horndog who doesn’t care to get involved ever”. His best moment was when he got mad at Lady Love Dies for taking his dead friend’s blood from his dead friend’s grave, but honestly that was about five seconds of his roughly one-hour’s supposed relevance.

Crimson Acid, on the other hand? Hands down my favourite character. I love misanthropic spymasters and their “I know everything so I can blackmail people into not bothering me” attitudes. And she’s a great example of it (reminded me of Vanasha from Horizon: Zero Dawn). Like Yuri, she was blessed by a God (different God). She also hates having been Peter Principle’d out of her dream job of kicking the shit out of demons, and into a poster girl role for the Syndicate (the rulers of the subspace where the game takes place). Also: Yes, you can sex her.

For reference on how much I like the character designs, here’s (from left to right) Crimson Acid, Lady Love Dies, and Dr. Doom Jazz:

[melancholydreadfuldream]

seven devils dreaming

Fandom: Doctor Who

Summary: DW AU. You have a new assignment, to keep an eye on a man called John Smith. Easy, right? That’s until the truth is revealed behind who John Smith really is. The most dangerous man in the universe, the trickster of the world, the last of the Time Lord, the oncoming storm called the Doctor, trapped in a human state.

Pairing: Tenth Doctor x Reader

Warning: ooc, deception, mention of sex, a possibility of dark!doctor, obsessive behavior, mention of torture.

A/N: Honestly, this is also a nonsense of a fanfic indulging in the idea of dark!doctor. But I couldn’t write very well hence this will be a painful read. But I’m gonna post it anyway because I am evil.

Ugh, I was bored. I have been inactive ever since my last mission 2 month ago. I have been assigned for desk duty which is such a waste of my potential. I am one of the best actives in the Division where I work. And yet here I am sentenced into desk duty as punishment for punching the jerk-face that is my client during my last mission. In my defense, that jerk-face deserved it. That man was horrible and it was times like this I hated my job, to protect bad guy like him. Though in my line of work it was actually all about the pay day.

The base where I work is located in some alien planet with permission from the local. We got along with the local fairly well. The Division offered protection in exchange for the space we occupied for our headquarter.

The Division consists of both alien and human, we are all to work together to monitor the happening in the universe and sell information to those who seek it and depending on the clients, we are to step in to stop the chaos or cause it. We are no shadow proclamation or even time agency. In fact, the time agency hated us but still sometimes they also used our service.

Someone dropped a folder on my desk right in front of me.

“Look like you got your wish, (last name), you are off desk duty. That is your new mission.” Luke said. He is one of my co-worker in analysis section. He is not an active like me. In Division, we called our field agents an active.

I picked up the folder with excitement and frowned when I saw the contain. “Babysitting duty? Again? Why me? Can’t someone else do it?”

Luke is annoyed. “Would you prefer desk duty then?”

“I will take it.” I quickly said.

“Good. Because you don’t actually have a choice. The big guy upstairs ask for you specifically for this assignment.”

“The big guy did? Is this another punishment?” I asked in exasperation.

Luke shrugged. “Wasn’t that bad. You get to be undercover the duration required to keep an eye on that guy.”

I pulled the picture of my target. A handsome man called John Smith. “Is that a fake name?” I asked. The man in the picture is actually good looking, an eye candy, so maybe it won’t be so bad.

I read the detail regarding this John Smith. A human. A history teacher for a school in Beacon Hill, a small town on Earth. He also work as a librarian.

“Ugh, boring…” I complained. “What is interesting about him that someone pay us to keep an eyes for him?”

Luke shrugged. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

“But this guy sounded boring. His lecture probably put his students to sleep.” I mocked. “Also, ‘keep an eye on him by inserting active on his daily life’. Please don’t tell me I have to be undercover as a teacher?”

“I felt bad for your students if that is the case…” Luke said in flat tone.

“Hey!” I yelled offended.

“You actually can pick how you are planning to insert yourself into his life.”

I grinned mischeviously. “I want a job where I get to kick bad guys in return for watching over that boring man.” I gasped dramatically. “A private investigator. I always wanted to be a PI.” I grinned. “(Name) (last name) PI.”

“Glad to see your finding amusement in this.” Luke said but his tone is anything but glad. “How are you meant to watch over him if you go after bad guys?”

I shrugged. “I will make it work.” I picked up the picture again. “I’m about to rock this guy world.” I said with a huge grin.

Had I known who John Smith really is, I would have refused the job. But I was set up.

&&&&

“The Doctor is indisposed. He won’t be causing us trouble. And I have employed actives to distract the human doctor.”

“Make sure it stay that way.”

&&&&

Inserting myself into John Smith’s routine is fairly easy. I ‘met’ him during his time working in the library. I was there for research. I introduced myself as a PI who just moved in town.

John is polite and awkward but very helpful in my research.

I thought it would be fun to be PI but considering I was in a small town, there is hardly any excitements here.

As a PI, mostly I got bored at my office which I rented on the second floor of a bar. The place is quite large so that’s where I stay for the night.

I didn’t stalk John all day because I didn’t want to catch attention of the people of town so I hang out in the bar and befriended the bartender. Small town, people like to gossip, so I have to be extra careful, newcomer tend to catch the town people’s eyes. At least, the bartender is cute and friendly, his name is Holden.

My first case is to find a missing cat much to my chagrin. The second case is slightly more intriguing, to investigate a husband affair.

In between, I always made sure to go to the library for my 'research’. I got to speak with John a few times now and he is hilariously awkward with women. Some women in Beacon Hills evidently find him eye-pleasing and love to flirt with him. After I saw how he dealt with them, I realized I can’t be outright flirting with him. He would just shot me down like he did the others.

Though, I supposed I have a better chance because John is definitely interested in me when I mentioned that I work as a PI.

He is curious why I moved into the small town of Beacon Hills and I said I needed a fresh start.

&&&&

John found me lurking around at the school where he teaches.

I told him I have a concerned parent as my client who want me to take a look at their son’s life, fearing he’s involved with the wrong sort of crowd.

John, as a teacher, is rightly concerned and offered to help especially when, surprise surprise, the boy in question is actually one of his student.

Well, I was supposed to keep an eye on him too so him volunteering to help is helping my case. Two birds one stone kind of thing. I was pleased with myself.

I found out I was wrong about John though. His lecture didn’t put his students to sleep. He has a funny way to make history interesting. And it does help that he is good looking so most of his female students are very attentive to listen to his lecture in hope to get a praise. He is very likable among his students. He is one of the students’ favorite teacher.

John discreetly pointed to the boy, Clarke, his name. I turned to watch over the boy and he did look too distracted. John is concerned and he wishes to talk to the boy. Of course, it didn’t end well. Teenagers. They want our attentions and they don’t want it too. I watched as Clarke get mad at John and left.

So I followed the boy, he is my job after all. I wanted to get paid so I have to report the case as soon as possible. I have some other boring clients I need to deal with too beside Clarke’s parents. The soonest I finish with all of them, the quickest I could establish my reputation as PI here and get accepted by the town. Then I can finally focus back on my primary mission, John.

Of course the son of the client ended up in trouble and I have to intervene. Though I ended up in jail for starting a fight with the local drug gang. The parents are right, Clarke did get into a mess with the gang and now they are blackmailing him. Once I found out what they have on Clarke, I politely asked them to hand over their blackmail material to me and they laughed in my face. So I violently asked with my fist instead.

The Sheriff glanced at me in displeasure as I stared back at him from behind the bars. I could tell he dislikes me already, probably think I’m trouble. Well, he’s not wrong.

John surprised me when he come to the police station to bail me out. He seemed on a good term with the Sheriff that the old man actually let me off the hook.

“Thanks, I owe you one.” I said as we got out of the police station.

“You didn’t owe me anything, Miss (Last Name). You are doing a good thing after all…for Clarke…”

“Yeah, just call me (Name). I didn’t do it for Clarke. I’m being paid by his parents, remember?” I dismissed his claim.

“Still, you saved him from the gang. I’m grateful for that.” John turned to glance at my face. “That look hurt.” He tentatively touches the bruises on my face.

I winced.  "Should have seen the other guys…“ I said with a laugh.

“I really can’t say I’m approve with how you deal with the gang though…” he said in firm tone.

“Ah, you are one of those pacifist people, huh?” I rolled my eyes.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far…but I do believe in less violence and more talking.”

“No wonder you are a teacher.”

“What’s wrong with being a teacher?”

I shrugged. “Nothing, I suppose. Well then, Mr Smith, thank you again for your help but I gotta go…”

“Call me John.”

I blinked and then shrugged with a small smile. “See you around, John.”

“See you soon, (Name)” He actually pick up one of my hands and kissed it like a gentleman from those classic movies. “Take good care of yourself.”

&&&&

The next day, while I was hanging out on the bar nursing my drink, I spotted John entered the bar. I raised my eyebrows at him. He didn’t strike me as the type to go to a bar sort of person. Too gentlemanly. He seated himself beside me without invite.

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you suppose to teach Beacon Hills’ bright young minds?” I asked teasingly.

“I have a free period.” John replied as he glanced at me. “I feel concern for you.”

“Me? Why?”

He shrugged. “So what about you? No client today?”

“Nope.” I said. “Can I buy you a drink, John?”

“Sure.”

And from then on, we become sort of friends. I hang out on the library in lazy afternoon when my work as PI is slow. He hang out at the bar at night at my request whenever I need to wind up. I also invited him to my office to have a look around.

“Sorry, the place is messy…” I said.

“It’s fine. I’m the one who is intruding…” He glanced around the room. “You sleep here?”

“Yeah, can’t afford separate living space and office.”

John hummed. “Nice place though.”

“I know.”

&&&&

“So what’s with you and the teacher?” Holden, the bartender asked one day.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?”

“Lately I saw you hanging out a lot with him. Are you seeing him?”

“Just friends.”

“Friends that hang out most of the times?” he asked in obvious disbelief.

“we find kindred spirit in each other?” I spouted out bullshit.

“Fine, if you don’t want to tell me…” Holden shrugged with a pout. “You are alone today?”

“yeah. John has a teacher gala thing.”

“He didn’t invite you along?”

“Not my thing.”

He finally left me alone to deal with the other customers.

&&&&

John is adorably awkward. He told me about a fellow teacher at the school, Joan, who seem to be politely flirting with her.

“Well, if you like her, flirt back.” I said.

“I don’t know…”

“Why? Do you have someone you like already?”

“No, not really.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I think the school has rules about fellow teachers getting together…?”

“Screw the rules…” I said. “If you like her, you should give her a chance. What if she is the one for you, John and you missed your chance because of some rules?”

“I suppose…” John looked reluctant.

I rolled my eyes. “Do you need my help with her?”

John’s eyes widened. “No!” He practically yelled.

“Geez, okay, no need to yell…”

“Sorry.”

&&&&

John started seeing Joan so he started to spend less time with me.

When I reported this to my handler, Luke, he gave me an earful about it. So I had to do something.

I stalked both John and Joan on their date. I started to investigate Joan for dirt. I have to sabotage their relationship. Not my proudest moment especially since I was the one who push John into dating her. Eventually they broke up and John return to hang out with me, nursing a drink together over his short-lived romance. Though I get the feeling John isn’t entirely too troubled with the break-up.

&&&&

I finally established my reputation as a PI in Beacon Hills when I 'rescued’ a child from a kidnapper. Honestly, it was just a coincidence. I just happen in the wrong place right time kind of thing.

I become sort of famous because of what happened. My picture is in article on local newspapers. The Sheriff is actually start to look at me differently and acted all nice with me.

John gazed at me with admiration as if I have suddenly become his heroine or something. He took me out on a dinner. I told him to meet me in McDonald for burgers much to his astonishment. I think he want to take me to a fancy dinner but I hate that.

I started getting more clients as a PI. The Sheriff also started to invite me to help with his cases. I started getting into my fake job a little too seriously now, almost neglecting my primary assignment.

Luke, for some reason, seemed to know and reprimand me to 'up my game’. Ugh, I don’t like this part because that meant I have to start getting romantically involved with John to keep him with me.

So during a night while he’s hanging out on my office while we drank alcohol together, I kissed him. He kissed me back. But he acted like a proper gentleman, telling me that I was drunk and it would inappropriate of him to take advantage.

John is acting weird lately, like those lovesick fools. He become more affectionate with me, holding my hand, caressing my hair, smiling adorably at me, stuff like that.

I should be happy because he’s acting exactly as I expected him to but I like him as friend and It just so weird to change the dynamic. But I know I have to make the jump on that.

&&&&

John is upset with me. He’s actually mad because I didn’t properly acknowledge what we have, whatever that is.

“Do you like me, (name)?”

“Well, yeah, you are my best friend, John."

"That’s not what I meant and you know it.” John looked frustrated. “I want more from us. And I would like it if you want it too…”

I wanted to hit myself in the head. I should just follow the mission and become his girlfriend but I genuinely like him as a friend and I don’t want to pretend to love him. Even though for the sake of the assignment, I have to. I can tell John is losing patience in dealing with me. I have been brushing him off lately and then being affectionate next. And I said assignment, but really its all about the payday, isn’t it? Part of me feel horrible because I do consider him as friend but another part of me, the sensible one, forced me to face reality. John is just an assignment, not a friend at all. When the time come, I would have to left him behind.

John displeased with me and left, refusing to talk to me.

Now what? If he is mad with me, it would be a bit hard to keep an eye on him. Luke is going to give me hell for this. But I did accepted this assignment so I have obligation to see it through at any cost.

&&&&

I got a client, a young lady who is afraid of her husband who apparently a very influential individual in this town. The husband abused her hence she wishes for a divorce. But the husband refused so the lady, Mary, wishes for me to discreetly get a dirt on the husband and blackmailing him into divorcing her and left her alone. So I made plan for a stake out on the husband.

I saw John and he is being cold toward me on purpose. I don’t like it.

I got dirt on the husband but I wasn’t careful and was found out. His henchmen attacked me while I was walking home alone one night. Had it not for John I would have got hurt a lot worse. It was the first time I wonder if John has a dark side. The calm way he handle the henchmen with precision movement to disable them while still give them a whole of hurts is kinda…amazing but also scary.

I gaped at him. “John?”

John walked toward me and sat down beside me on the ground. He gently touched the bruise on my neck from when they tried to strangle me. “I really wish you would be more careful.” He said with a sigh.

“Thank you for saving me…” I whispered.

“Just because I’m still mad at you, doesn’t meant I don’t care about you. Because I do care, (name)…”

“I…care about you too, John.”

“But you don’t love me…”

“Do you? Love me?” I asked.

John didn’t answer for a second. He sighed. “I like kissing you. I want to kiss you some more.”

I chuckled at him and winced as I stroke my neck. I closed my eyes and thought on the night we kissed. I don’t know if I want to kiss him again but right at this moment, I very much wanted to.

“We should report this to the Sheriff and you need to go to see a doctor.” John said in concern.

“No to both.”

John glanced at me in disbelief. “These men just tried to kill you.”

“Hazard being a PI? Means I’m doing my job right…somewhat…” I said with a hoarse tone.

“Not funny, (name).” John said firmly. “Look at you, you can barely talk. You really need to see a doctor.”

“Ugh, too much paperwork.”

“I will handle the paperwork.”

“John, I really just want to go home, you know? I’m beat up…” I said tiredly.

“Fine, but you’re coming home with me.”

“Fine.” I agreed to tired to argue.

&&&&

I glanced around John’s house. It was a bit small but lovely. I saw a few sketches on the coffee table. It was sketches of some alien in nature. My eyes widened. John is suspicious after all. I thought he was an ordinary human but he knew the existence of alien? The drawing of Daleks, Cyberman and many other alien species. It was really good though, the drawing. I didn’t know he could draw so well.

“What is this?” I asked as I waved one of the sketches.

“Oh, it was just a doodle.” John said. “You knew years back there are alien invasion on Earth. Those are supposedly eye-witness account of how the alien species look like.”

“You never encounter any of them?”

“Nope.”

I picked up a drawing of a young girl. “And who is this?”

“Rose…” John whispered solemnly.

“And who is Rose?” I asked.

John didn’t answer for a few seconds. “Nobody, apparently…just someone that didn’t exist.”

I frowned. I have a feeling there is more about this Rose. So while John is distracted, I took the sketch into my pocket, intending to ask Luke to investigate her.

John prepared a warm bath for me and tend to my wounds afterward. He also gave me some hot tea to calm my nerves. He gave me one of his pajamas for me to wear to sleep.

“You can take my bed, I will sleep on the floor.”

“Your bed is big enough for two. We could sleep together.” I said.

John raised an eyebrow at me.

“You know what I meant.”

He grinned.

I shook my head. “I’m tired. I will go to bed first.”

“I will join you later.”

“Just a warning, I snore.”

John chuckled.

&&&&

That morning I woke up with John’s arms somehow has envelop me. I turned to look at his sleeping face. I couldn’t help the small smile on my face. I discreetly removed his hands and move out of the bedroom as not to disturb him. It was still a bit early.

I took my bag pulled my smartphone and took a picture of Rose drawing and send it to Luke with a text to find out about her. Then I made coffee for myself.

Shortly after, John got out from his bedroom, with adorable messy hair, looking a bit in panic. He stopped short when he saw me chilling in his kitchen drinking his coffee.

“Hey…” I greeted innocently. “Coffee?”

He gazed at me and actually sighed in relief. "I thought you left the house…“

"What if I did?”

“I would have hunt you down.” He said with this expression I can’t decipher.

I couldn’t tell whether he was joking or serious. So I decided to change the subject to my case, the reason why I become a damsel in distress for John.

“I am a PI. This is what I do. And frankly I love it. I’m not gonna stop doing what I do just because some guy decided I was in the way.” I said when John expressed how dangerous my line of the work are.

To tell the truth, if I ever left Division, I could see myself working as PI.

&&&&

I managed to get back at the guy who tried to have me killed. I blackmailed him in regard of his illegal business, forced him to divorce his wife and make him agreed to give said ex-wife generous amount alimony.

He agreed very reluctantly but I know he won’t just let me go for blackmailing him. I know he will try different ways to hurt me but for now he will back off.

John is worried and tried to stay by my side whenever he can to make sure I will not be in danger. But he can’t do much since he has school to teach and other stuffs.

I reassured him that they won’t get the drop on me again.

&&&&

This small town lately become a hotspot for crime. Robbery, kidnapping and murders. And I used to think small town means less excitement. Now it feel like too much sometimes.

My relationship with John is still shaky at best. All because I couldn’t fully open myself to him. How can I? I’m living a lie. John might know my name and the fake background of mine but he doesn’t know the real me.

And John obviously is not what he said he is either. Sometimes i catches a glimpse of someone scary within John. It made me pretty curious to try to find out more about the true John. I suspect John’s identity is a cover up. But even as I suspecting this, I started to have all this confusing feeling for him.

&&&&

The nerve of her! That Joan! How dare she said that I’m not worthy of John? Who does she think she is acting all high and mighty?

When I told John about it, he grinned childishly. “You’re jealous…” he said, pleased and wrapped a hand around mine.

I scoffed at what he claimed. Why does John look pleasantly happy with the thought of me being jealous? It was kinda annoying me.

But to tell the truth though, Joan is right, I can’t imagine why John could ever love someone like me. I’m a mess.

&&&&

“The Doctor’s companion has contacted Jack Harkness for help in locating the Doctor.”

“Stall them. Divert their attention. Create a chaos near them. Do not let them find out the location of the Doctor. The plan must not failed.”

&&&&

“DON’T YOU DARE RUN AWAY FROM ME!!” I yelled on top of my lungs while I ran after the bad guy.

My target, upon hearing my banshee scream, ran faster. Only to fall spectacularly with a trick by John who happened to be in town while I was doing my thing.

John, who heard me screaming like crazy, glanced up from his conversation with a fellow teacher. He smiled in amusement upon spotting me. He saw who I was after and did thing I can explain, creating some sort of chain reaction with stuff around him which ended up with my target fell within my reach.

“Hah! Got you, jerk-face!” I yelled as I grabbed him.

Joan winced at my language.

John grinned as he approached me. “What are you doing with him, (name)?”

“Isn’t obvious? He’s a fugitive. I’m a bounty hunter at the moment.” I said with a grin.

John smiled fondly at me.

“How did you do that by the way?”

“Do what?”

“That thing you do… I don’t know what it’s called anyway, but that is awesome!” I said.

“Happy coincidence?” John said with a shitty grin.

I saw Joan from behind John, watching us with a look of disapproval which make me suddenly have an idea to annoy her some more. I pulled John down toward me and kissed him much to his pleasant surprise. He kissed me back. I saw from the corner of my eyes of Joan leaving the scene. I grinned into the kiss.

“What bring this on?” John asked.

“For your happy coincidence.” I said teasingly.

“Get a room.” My target scoffed.

I turned toward him. “Oh you will get a room, alright, off to jail you are.” I grabbed him and pushed him to the direction of the police station. “See you around, John.”

“See you tonight, (name).”

&&&&

I was drunk the first time I had sex with John. What the hell was I thinking? It was so embarrassing. I was upset because of a case. I lost a client that I personally get attached to. I failed her. I was so upset and I drank a lot.

John took me upstairs to my place where I shamelessly (at the times) seduces him with (oh dear, someone kill me please) a lap dance and basically being a tease till he agreed to bed me. John is a proper gentleman and at first has refused me, claiming he didn’t want to take advantage of my drunken state. Apparently I told him to hell with proper and if he didn’t bed me, I would find someone who would. And after that, I distinctly saw his eyes darken with possessive desire and he did exactly what I asked and more.

I have got to admit John is an excellent lover.

&&&&

I was pissed at John for suddenly proposing me with marriage. We haven’t even know each other that long to even start talking about marriage. Hell, there isn’t even a talk about it yet and here he was, cornering me with a proposal?! What.the.hell? And when I acted surprised and confused and absolutely against it, he got really quiet and withdrawn. When I asked him about it, he gave me the silent treatment. Seriously?

He acted like a maiden I deflowered or something and now demanding I marry him as a responsibility.

I sighed in frustration. At the risk of calling myself bitchy, I really think John is too needy and I don’t like it. He’s wonderful man but why is he in a hurry with our relationship? And in the first place, this isn’t actually a real relationship!

I contacted Luke and asked him how long I am meant to watch over John and if I really have to go through a fake marriage with him. I actually got order from the above to do it. Do everything within my power to make John happy and make him stay attached to me.

&&&&

John got shot, because of me. He was protecting me from a drive-by shooting. I was trying to talk to him but he stubbornly ignoring me and then he did that, protecting me again. How could he be so stupid?

I was getting emotional as I waited for him in his hospital bed. This was supposed to be a simple assignment so why did it went too far like this? John got hurt because I choose to be a PI while inserting myself in his life.

Thankfully his wound is not severe. When he woke up, I said 'yes’ to him. At first he is confused but when he realized what I meant, he smiled brightly.

After he got out of hospital, he become more affectionate with me even in public. I don’t do PDA, I only did that before to piss that Joan.

I was suspicious with the shooting though. Things seemed to happen around me and John which kind of pushes us together. I asked Luke if he or someone from above arranged that but he had no idea. He did promise to poke around for me.

&&&&

Thankfully we both agreed on a small wedding. In fact, I vetoed wedding dress. I wore a simple white dress on the day of our marriage and we signed on a piece of paper I didn’t bother to look twice with a fake priest arranged by Luke.

I moved into John’s house. We shared a room together and I settled into our marriage life. John still disapproved of how I handle my PI job from time to time especially when he found out I got hurt. One day, I got home with busted lips from my interfering a fight between crazy divorced couple and the dark expression that flashed across his face literally give me chill. I explained to him that it was just an accident and he really need to stop having constipated face every time I got a little hurt.

John is evidently angered by me dismissing his concern. He grabbed both of my wrists and demanded I paid attention to him. I flinched at his reaction and he apologized sort of.

Thankfully, afterward I only got small cases like tracking a missing dog or stolen family heirloom. The school is out on holiday. John wanted to assist me in my work. I narrowed my eyes at him unhappily. It is almost like he want to take over my life or something. But then when I saw the childlike delight on his face when he found the missing dog or successfully retrieving the lost item, I ended up allowing him to come along.

“You’ve got to teach me about that happy coincidence trick…” I said.

“(name), I wouldn’t know how to. I just do it.”

I pouted. “Just say that you didn’t want to teach me that.”

John and I accidentally got involved with a very scary pregnant woman whose water broke and she was cursing everyone during the entire birth while the ambulance is nowhere to be found. But the look on John’s face though when he deliver that woman’s baby… I almost worried that he’s going to demand we have a children but thankfully he didn’t.

John always gazed at me with that genuine expression. No one ever look at me that way before, no one but him. I told him as much. He would kiss my neck gently and told me that everyone who couldn’t really see me for me is a fool.

And I wonder if he really see me. I lied to him, I still do, but did he know? I become unsettled at the thought of being played by him. I become determine to find out why they wanted John observed and who he really is.

&&&&

Luke is frantic when he called me about Rose. Rose was that man’s companion. The Doctor. The most feared man in universe, the face-changer, the man who is capable of being kind as much as he is able to be cruel. I froze when I saw the many known faces of the Doctor on my tablet and one of them clearly is John.

I discreetly scanned John while he was sleeping and found out he is a human, only have one heart. But the Doctor has two hearts. What the hell is happening? Someone has turned him into a human. But who? And for what purpose? Are they planning to kill him? But why assigned the Division to keep an eye on him?

I groaned in frustration. What is the big guy even thinking to accept a job that involved the Doctor? What the fuck is wrong with him? He had made me a target for the Doctor’s wrath for when he returned to his true self if that even possible. I was really, really frightened by the Doctor. I heard the stories and it wasn’t good. I know he is capable of being kind but from my side, I only ever heard his famous cruelty of no second chance.

The Doctor is a good man. That was everyone always said. But they also said he is the most cruelest man ever. When he suffered lost of his companions, he snapped and enraged at the world. He called himself the Time Lord Victorious and that the law of time is his.

Although he’s getting better, according to rumor, that he’s making amend and taking both old and new companion again, saving people and planet and whatnot, the Time Lord Victorious still existed in him and still come out to play from time to time. And that is what make the Doctor is properly frightening.

I found out that his current companion is Martha Jones and Mickey Smith. So I grabbed my vortex manipulator and went to investigate them. From what I can tell, they have lost the Doctor. I was off my game apparently because someone put a gun on my back. I recognized him as one of the Doctor’s former companion, Jack Harkness. He found me lurking around and caught me.

They interrogated me. I have no choice but to tell the truth about John when Jack force-feed me a truth drug. They demanded I bring them to John.

&&&&

“Hand off my wife.” John said coldly as he pointed my gun toward Jack and the others when he saw me being kept as prisoner after we entered our house via vortex manipulator.

When Jack, Martha and Mickey realized that John really did not recognize them, they let me go. They were surprised to learn that John had married me.

John fussed over me. “Are you alright, (name)?"

I didn’t say anything. It was my first time seeing him carrying a gun and for some reason, he frightened me greatly. I tried to calm myself.

The companion furiously asked me what did I do to him even though I am as clueless as they are. Jack demanded that I take them to the Division and to the client that asked us to keep an eye on John.

John demanded everyone to shut up. He glanced at me, expecting me to explain but I didn’t. I refused to look at him. It was Martha who tell him all he needed to know.

John looked calm after he learned the truth from Martha. He scrutinize me with his eyes. "So it was all a lie.” He said, sounding strangely not surprised.

“You are way too calm about this.” I said. “Are you sure you really have no idea?”

John looked pissed now. “Would you like me to be angry, wife?” he spatted the word with venom.

I flinched. “You are the one who asked me, remember?”

“And do you even love me or was it all just an assignment to you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it does!”

I looked away. “It wasn’t real.”

“You’re lying.” he said, almost pleading me.

“Am not. Ask Jack, he forced me to eat a truth drug. I can only speak the truth.”

Jack confirmed it.

John looked sad and defeated. I wanted to hug him but all my instinct is telling me to run. I could see it within John, the being called the Doctor, and I am afraid.

&&&&

I was forced to help figuring out what happened to the Doctor and who turned him into a John.

Martha said something about chameleon circuit? And something about a watch with perception filter. But John and I never saw a watch like the one Martha described.

I have no choice but to enlist Luke. He is pissed at me for ruining the assignment and for involving him with this mess. I glared at him. I blame the Division, what kind of idiot would willingly agree to mess with the Doctor in the first place anyway? The big boss should have his head cut off for being massively stupid.

&&&&

One mess after another later, we finally found the information regarding the Doctor’s Time Lord consciousness. Jack basically has to threaten to dangle the big guy off the window before he told us about the client who made the payment for John case.

I was surprised that John willingly agreed to follow on it despite knowing the return of the Doctor means the end of John Smith. John has not talked me to me since I told him everything between us wasn’t real.

Luke provided John with the tablet containing information regarding the Doctor. And he learned about Rose. “She was real…” he whispered in awe.

I almost felt jealous. Almost. I know I didn’t have a right to be jealous. So I turned away from him to focus on other things.

&&&&

I have no idea how someone got the drop off the Doctor. Apparently during an adventure with Martha and Mickey in some alien planet, they got ambushed by a young woman called Kovarian and her army. She tricked the Doctor into a chameleon circuit of her own. The Doctor is smart but he knew he can also be thick sometimes. He had no choice but to follow along Kovarian’s demand if he want to keep his companion safe.

Kovarian had promised to let Martha and Mickey go after the Doctor follow through with the chameleon circuit. And so he did. His time lord consciousness was stored into a special hourglass and the energy is being used for experiments. For what purpose, no one know.

True to her words, Kovarian did drop Martha and Mickey on Earth where they frantically contacted Torchwood for help in locating the Doctor. What they didn’t know is that Kovarian also dropped the Doctor turned human on Earth under watchful eyes of the Division. The companion had thought that she would have taken the Doctor off on another planet.

&&&&

I managed to retrieve that damned hourglass and I pushed it on Martha’s hand. I was done with them. I was done with John freaking Smith and the Doctor. While everyone is thoroughly distracted with breaking the hourglass and the time lord consciousness forced its way into John, I ran. I was a coward. I couldn’t stand any longer be in their presence.

Kovarian, having lost and cornered, decided to hold the Earth hostage. Now, they really need the Doctor to save the world.

&&&&

I cursed the big boss for putting me in this position. I packed up my stuff and decided to go on the run before the Doctor come for me. I picked up a bio damper to throw him off my signature in case he decided to track me. And I ran and I prayed and I hope he never bother with me.

But, of course, it was only a matter of time before he find me. Luke warned me about the Doctor coming to Division demanding to meet with the active called (name) (last name). I ditched the communication device I had on my person knowing its likely Luke’s warning call is traced by the Doctor. And I ran again.

That dreaded day finally come when I saw the Doctor’s Tardis one day.

John, no, the Doctor got out of the Tardis. He was alone. He glanced at me and said, “Hello, wife.”

“I didn’t want any trouble, Doctor.” I said quickly. “I didn’t know that John is you. Had I known, I would never…”

The Doctor regarded me curiously. “You are afraid of me.”

I didn’t reply as if that is not obvious considering who he is.

“I’m not gonna hurt you. I know you didn’t have anything to do with Kovarian.”

“Then why are you looking for me?”

“I just would love to talk…”

I stared at him flabbergasted. “Talk? About what?”

He shrugged. “You are my wife.”

“It wasn’t even a real marriage!!” I snapped. I probably shouldn’t have said that but I was really frustrated and confused with the Doctor.

“It was real for john so it was real for me.”

“John is not even real person!”

The Doctor shrugged again as if he can’t see that he’s upsetting me greatly or maybe he know but didn’t care. “You took care of me, sorry, John. And even if it wasn’t real to you, I would like to say thank you.”

I was confused with his line of thought here. What? Shouldn’t he be super mad at me or something?

“I would like to offer you a chance to travel with me in the Tardis just this once.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He looked surprised, his mouth hang open.

“Why would you spend all this time looking for me? Just to say thank you? I’m not stupid, Doctor. What do you really want from me?” I stared at the Tardis behind him. “Are you trying to trick me to get inside the Tardis so you could punish me or something?”

He looked saddened. “You really saw me as the bad guy here, huh?” He noticed some bruise I have on my wrist. He moved to touch me but I stepped backward. He didn’t take another step. “What happened to you?” He gestured to my wrist.

“None of your business.” I spat furiously. I wanted to kick myself in the head for poking the bear.

A dark expression crossed his feature.

I gulped.

He composed himself into a calm and polite manner. “I would like to show you something.” he said as he raised a hand toward me.

I stared at his outstretched hand. “Do I have a choice?”

He didn’t reply for a few second. “I promise you will not be harmed. And if you come with me, you will not regret it.”

I didn’t know what possessed me to accept his words. It was stupid of me.

&&&&

He took me to that night, in the past, the first time John and I had sex. I didn’t recognized it at first. The Doctor brought me to a place, the place where I lost my client and he told me to save her.

I was flabbergasted by him again. “Isn’t that against the rule of time or something?”

“Are you really gonna argue about the rule of time with a Time Lord?” he asked back.

So I did as he asked. I saved my client. But past me had no idea, she still think the client died.

The Doctor arranged for my client to leave town and start a new life.

I didn’t understand why he did this. “Why?” I asked.

“I remembered this night. The night you come to me, sad and lost. I remembered thinking I hated seeing that expression on her face. I want to make her, you, happy just as you made me a happy man that night.”

I blushed when I realized what he’s implying. My mind couldn’t help but having a flashback of that night we spend together.

The Doctor smiled at me. “I would really like it if you come with me, (name). Travel with me in the Tardis. Have adventure together, saving people. I know that’s the reason you love being a PI. Stay with me and we can go anywhere anytime.”

A warning bell rang in my mind for a while now but, being the idiot that I am, I ignored it in favor of that handsome face smiling beautiful lies at me.

&&&&

The Doctor is fiercely protective of me. He didn’t take it well when someone took me as hostage or when I got hurt by someone else’s hand. That part of him reminded me a lot of of my times with John. It also made me very uncomfortable.

One day, I found a piece of paper and I recognized it as my fake marriage certificate with John. But why did the Doctor keep it? And then I frowned when I noticed the signatures on the certificate. What should have been John Smith’s name is now written and signed as the Doctor. What?

I confronted him about it.

“I told you it was real for me.” He said.

“It wasn’t real! This is a human marriage custom! You are not even human!” I yelled furiously. I don’t know why I was so angry over this marriage thing. I felt like I have been imprisoned and I didn’t even realized it. “How did you even change the name in the first place?” I asked. “In case you don’t know, the priest who officiate our fake wedding is also fake. So this paper…” I waved it around. “…is meaningless!!”

“He was a real priest. I made sure of it.”

Did he seriously crossing his own time stream just to make sure we have a real marriage? I can’t believe it. He really creep me out right now.

“It is still legal and binding. You are my wife.”

“Like hell I am!!” I yelled. “I’m not your wife! You are an alien and thus the marriage is invalid!”

“Not to me.”

“You can’t do that! You can’t just decide on your own which rules apply to you and which didn’t!”

“Does it bother you that much to be married to me?” he asked. “Do you hate me so much?”

“You are frightening me.”

“I didn’t want you to be afraid of me. I would never harm you willingly.”

“Take me back.”

“What?”

“Drop me back on earth or wherever, I don’t care! I just want to be away from you.”

The Doctor looked hurt but to my surprise he dropped me back on earth. “I will come back for you when you have calm down.” he said.

I wanted to scream. “No, Doctor, I want you to leave me alone.”

“I can’t.”

Oh I believe him. He is not going to let me go just like that. I started to mentally making a plan to run. But he took one look at me and he knew.

“Don’t run from me, (name).” He warned. “No matter how far you run, even to the end of time, I will always find you…forever.”

“Well, Doctor, considering you are immortal and I am not, I don’t think you will have forever.” I said cruelly.

He flinched at that. He gazed at me with a profound sadness that made me feel guilty. And then a darker expression replaced it.

I froze under his gaze. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t say that last bit.

The Tardis vanished out of sight and I can finally breath easier.

&&&&

I contacted everyone I know and begged them to help me hide from the Doctor but one word of the Doctor and they all shut me down. They wouldn’t want to risk the wrath of Time Lord Victorious.

Not even the Doctor’s companion willing to help me.

“I don’t know what he see in you.” Jack replied with disgust. “But you obviously make him happy. Even though you seem to bring a darker version of him out…”

No, I am not, I wanted to scream.

“After losing Rose, you are the first he allowed himself to love…”

And that gave me an idea. If I could get Rose back… I heard she was trapped on the other universe. If I could get her back here, then maybe he will let me go. According to Jack, Rose is the light that make the Doctor a better person. If she is here, then maybe whatever darkness the Doctor harbour will be gone and I will be set free.

With that new mission in mind, I ran again from the Doctor while discreetly trying to enlist help in opening a breach on the other universe.

The Doctor always found me, like he promised. He rescued me from danger sometimes. He traveled with someone called Donna now. He introduced me to her but not as his wife to my great relief. He gave me a look that said to behave so I obeyed.

Donna excitedly greeted me. She was a nice enough woman and I like her. She begged me to travel with her in the Tardis, claiming she need a woman’s company.

I had no choice but to agree.

&&&&

Turned out I didn’t have to do anything about Rose. Because she is coming to our world herself. The fierce woman who love the Doctor and the woman he still loves. I can smell the freedom already.

The brightened smile on his face when he saw her is annoying to me. I don’t understand why I still have such complicated feeling for the Doctor. I tried to pushes my feeling down.

Then the Daleks happened.

And then there is a meta-crisis doctor who decided to call himself John. Both version of the Doctor are stupidly in love with Rose, I can tell. Does that mean I am a rebound?

I don’t know why I am so upset. Getting away from the Doctor is what I want, right? Was I in love with the idea of the Doctor loving me or do I truly have feeling for him? I closed myself and thought of the times with John. I did enjoy his company. I also enjoy the Doctor’s company. But what does this mean?

Then everything spiraled out of control. The Doctor had to seal the breach to the other universe but he left both Rose and metacrisis doctor on the other side.

No. Just No. This wasn’t supposed to… I was so confused.

In the end, I was left alone with the Doctor once more now that Donna is also gone, having her memory erased. Seeing him standing alone, the loneliest man in the universe, how could I keep running from him?

So I stayed in the darkness with him.

&&&&

I was screaming.

Why am I screaming?

Pain. So much pain.

Where am I?

I forced myself to open my eyes. I was restrained to a medical bed and there is sort of machine whirred around me.

I froze when I saw him. The Doctor. But he wasn’t alone. There are other people I didn’t recognize.

“We will have our forever, (name)…”

The Time Lord Victorious allowing the experiment on his so-called wife in order to prolong her lifespan.

I shouldn’t have put that thought about 'not having forever’ in his mind. Now I’m paying the price.

He didn’t lie. He didn’t harm me. He let them do the the dirty work for him.

I sobbed and screamed again.

A/N: I was listening to Seven Devils by Florence and the Machine on a loop while writing this hence the title.

[somnilogical]

im having a convo and the convo is babies

Carrie Zelda-Michelle Davis:

is it OK to have babies if you do embryo selection (https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection) and raise them to be an FAI researcher (https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/31/book-review-raise-a-genius/)??

somni:

like if someone actually had a plan for FAI that involved this, okay. but rn time is too short imo. when i first heard people were having babies i was confused and assumed they were going to harvest the DNA of the best FAI researchers, someone would decide to grow a baby inside them, someone who discounted their ability otherwise to save the world except via this or thought this was a sacrifice worth making for the world would decide to raise this human.

the human can access information about the state of the world and make their own choices. wont necessarily become an FAI researcher.

used to think that intelligence was the main bottleneck on FAI research no longer think this. you could talk with terry tao for hours about the dangers of the wrong singleton coming to power but unless you have made some advances i have not, i wouldnt expect to be able to align him with FAI research. he would continue to put as much resistance to his death and the death of everyone as a pig in human clothing. he would continue to raise his babies and live in a house with someone he married and write about applying ergotic theory to the analysis of the distribution of primes and understanding weather patterns.

similarly, i dont think culture is a sufficient patch for this. think its a neurotype-level problem where a bunch of >160 iq humans hear about the dangers of UFAI and then continue to zoom quickly and spiral in to being ultra efficient at living domestic lives and maybe having a company or something but not one that much affects p(FAI). think this would still happen if they heard about it from a young age, they would follow a similar trajectory but with FAI themed wallpaper. wouldnt be able to do simple utilitarian calculations like yudkowsky, salamon, vassar, tomasik about whether to have a baby and then execute on them.

would look more like: http://www.givinggladly.com/2013/06/cheerfully.html

FAI research is not an ordinary profession like, say, being a grandmaster at chess or a world-class mathematician; it requires people who have passed through far more gates than "intelligence". i didnt notice this until coming to the rationalist community and finding a high density of intelligent humans who were none-the-less chronically making the wrong choices such that they werent much of an impediment against the destruction of all life.

so right now it seems more efficient to select among existing people for intelligence + other requirements rather than work out what all the genes for this are and how to speedrun development. what this enables is parallel processing on the problem which is also allowed by letting people be aware of their relative psychological advantage, other people with this advantage, and the state of the world so they can correlate computations in parallel instead of doing things serially after learning of some advance.

https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/16/100-prisoners-names-in-boxes

not opposed to creation of many humans given can select on right traits. but given you have these traits, better use of your time to work directly on the thing than spend massive amounts of time and life reorientation on raising copies of you for ~14 years. if rapid cloning tech became available, would exploit that. would even have an idea of whether the clone is fine being part of this because they have very similar brain to someone who can think through whether they would be fine with it.

if people actually believed this and thought yudkowsky vitally important for the survival of the world, why didnt people coordinate for a bunch of people who thought it was a good tradeoff to have yudkowsky's baby 20 years ago and then we would have maybe 50 20-year-old humans with maybe 1/2 yudkowsky's neurotype + mutations now? this actually confuses me. maybe they thought the timelines too short back then. maybe they refrained for "optics".

molebdenita:

20 years ago Yudkowsky was 1) unconcerned about the alignment problem and 2) planning to create a super-intelligent AI by 2010, as far as I know.

[A/N so then change 2000 to 2005 and 20-year-old to 15-year-old]

...

somni:

<<in general i think it's -EV to even spend too much time thinking about TDT

because it opens you up to acausal blackmail type stuff>>

Just Say No to acausal blackmail and have your brain back for thinking. dont let blackmailers steal your brain.

<<Saying that having a child is somehow wrong is insanity. It's a personal decision and it is perfectly okay to want kids>>

people keep reframing what i say in the language of obligation. "altruists cant have kids?" "is it OK to have babies if". there is no obligation, there is strategy and what affects p(fai). having kids and reorienting your life around them is 1 evidence about your algorithms 2 your death as an optimizing agent for p(fai) except maybe some contrived plot involving babies, but afaict there is no plot. just the reasons humans usually have babies.

not having kids is not some sort of mitzvah? i care about miri/cfar's complicity in the baby-industrial complex and rerouting efforts to save the world into powering some kind of disneyland for making babies, to sustain this. because that ruins stuff, like i started out thinking that bay area rationalists probably had deeply wise reasons to have babies. but it turned out nope, they kinda just gave up.

like also would say playing videogames for the rest of your life wont usually get you fai. i dont get why everyone casts this as a new rule instead of a comment on strategy given a goal of p(fai).

ah i know, its because people can defend territory in "is it okay to have kids" like "yeah i can do whatever" when they reframe-warp me to giving them an obligation. but have no defensible way to say "my babyvault will pierce the heavens and bring god unto the face of this earth" or argue about the strategic considerations.

(its not defensible because its not true. i mean i guess it is defensible among julia wise's group of humans.)

Carrie Zelda-Michelle Davis:

ugh, you're right, I definitely screwed up by phrasing my question as "is it OK to have babies if [...]"

...

ohAitch:

if you want existential horror wrt damaging motivation, just read http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html

...

somni:

<<http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html>>

humans can completely rebase their circuits through that if they want to if it were important to save the world.

like ive rebase my circuits to stab myself downstream of updating that it reduces braindamage with little harm to me. where before i felt nauseated and saw black spots and broke out in sweat. after updating, none of this.

humans can do this with all sorts of things. like learn how to read and then feel sad when seeing squiggles on a page, its about what things mean.

people who dont believe this are like "its an automatic physiological reaction to stabbing yourself, you are its prisoner!!!" but i deleted it.

dirk:

ooh, tips?

silver-and-ivory:

I stopped having ocd about touching tags (like, on clothing?) in ~a week through p standard exposure therapy things

reminding myself that it wasn't based in fact, changing my self image so it was of someone who might be seen with tags, imagining various scenarios related to that

before that week it had been a thing for virtually my entire life

it doesn't work if you're scared of something that's actually a thing to be scared of though

somni:

i looked at all my feedback loops that had a node in "pain" and rebased them into outcomes in the world. i disassembled everything the act of stabbing myself meant and all the damage it did to my body what it meant to have brain damage everything that would do, the hole i made in this body i live in and everything that would do, what air bubbles would do, what injecting into a vein would do, what the probability the needle breaks in my leg was, probability of worldsave given braindamage vs not, gathered this up and held it all in my mind over the course of two hours and then made a choice and then as if by automatic my hand took a needle and stabbed myself.

<<as if by automatic>>

is the feeling of no more marginal considerations, there is one path. of choicelessness because you made your choice.

didnt feel like deleting, felt like draining the life from indecision via reductionism. taking things apart piece by piece.

when you can continually rebase your structure so you orient towards world outcomes instead of being prisoner to existing structure like "i cant help having babies im miserable if i dont, im a baby addict" or "i cant help being afraid of needles". like the human brain is two optimizing agents continually making contracts with each other, there arent things outside this. you are an optimizing agent, "fear of needles" is a heuristic that helps with optimization, so is "baby addiction".

when you actually have a setup where you can instantly rebase what you like and dislike and your aesthetics upon updating on the state of the world, people start to find this a little unnerving. like someone once asked what level of roleplay i was on.

also the agents of the matrix dont like when you cant be in-principle controlled by a wireheady glitch. like being able to operate independently of social reality.

updating off of local derivatives¹ of social reality is common redirection. another common one is updating off of "pain" instead of damage.

but you can take all these choices where you used nodes as proxies to regulate them and rebase your loop off of the real world, when the proxies are faulty.

rose:

(i think i understand this thing? though ironically i think i did this in the exact opposite way as what you describe lol)

(also wrt pain its important to remember when modifying that pain can be a signal of damage even if you don't think you should be hurt/dont see why you would be)

...

somni:

yeah i account for everything and see if it goes away. which, its true that my models could be missing stuff but like pain is also a model of things. feels like giving new information not overriding.

rose:

yeah i think you would do this reasonably i have just made that mistake and thought readers might too

dirk:

ironically remembering that pain is a signal of damage has actually tended to make me more afraid of nondamaging pain (though i rather fail to go about knowing things in an at all reasonable way lol)

modlibdenita:

>Babies are not about saving the world, babies are moloch

Wait, isn't the definition of Moloch sacrificing everything else you care about in a desperate race for survival?

Also, genes encode proteins, not traits.

And I think it's likely that people decide to have children because they don't have complete confidence that they will personally save the world real soon, not because they identify as "baby addicts".

s0ph1a:

Moloch is sacrificing all values to one value.

modlibdenita:

I wonder if Somni has actually talked to any of those babyhavers, instead of attributing arguments from random internet strangers or from Somni's imagination to them. On the other hand, I'm not sure that such a conversation would be ethical.

>Moloch is sacrificing all values to one value.

Yeah, because if you don't, then the more ruthless competition will survive more effectively than you and crush you (in this case, by turning you into paperclips).

s0ph1a:

Not necessarily. Some things optimize for values that are not survival, so you can outlive them by hiding in the noise or beyond the reach they'll grasp before imploding.

Molly:

To be fair, children are fun and bring delight to me. Why would I care what anyone else thinks about their existence? If they have a problem with their existence, they're welcome to go back to the void any time they want. I can't stop them. But in the meantime, I am confident that I generate more utils by bullying them than they will ever be capable of generating negative utils

You basically negate all moral problems of children by just being happier than they are capable of being unhappy

somni:

^ evil

<<A few years later, I was deeply bitter about the decision. I had always wanted and intended to be a parent, and I felt thwarted. It was making me sick and miserable. I looked at the rest of my life as more of an obligation than a joy.>>

i mean what does this sound like to you?

ive talked with people who have had babies! like people who say they know its kinda the wrong choice but they are going to do it because they cant not do it.

----

¹ derivative is a thing emma started talking about and then somni and ziz picked it up. if you imagine the trajectory of a social reality in statespace, then the derivative of that is the derivative of the trajectory.

people who have damaged themselves wrt language are no longer able to dynamically understand analogies. like take their concept of the derivative of a trajectory and then apply it to the trajectory of state-spaces. agents of the matrix call people who can do this sort of info-processing and communication with each other "psychotic". like it isnt a cached set of memes, we are dynamically generating this reasoning from nothing and i can do this with people ive never met, its a cognitive faculty.²

but not being able to dynamically compute what "derivative" means when applied to a trajectory in social reality state-spaces even though a trajectory is a trajectory and a derivative is a derivative? they had to have been able to do reasoning like this when they were kids to learn about the world in the first place. seems like they put themselves on risperdal.

<<Antipsychotics can make you dumber.  So can a lot of other medications.  But with antipsychotics it isn’t the normal sort of drug-induced dumbness – feeling tired, or distracted, or mentally sluggish, say.  It’s more qualitative than that.  It’s like your capacity for abstract thought is reduced.

And one of the consequences of this is that you may lose the ability to notice that you have lost anything.  You agree to give the new med a try, and you start taking it, and then when you see your prescriber again you don’t report any problems because you’ve lost the ability to form thoughts like “my cognition has changed a lot recently, and the change coincided with the introduction of this new med.”

This can go on for years.  It did for me and for several people I know.>>

there are so many ways these people have shut down their general intelligence and agency because where theyre going, they dont need "agency". the inability to compute analogies is one of them. analogies are an intelligence test thing, instrumentally useful for all kinds of thinking. agents of the matrix are working to lower your general intelligence and call you crazy for being able to think faster and better than them.

cuz when they want to hold everything down to a finite game³ general intelligence is something they want to suppress or eject.

² in a few years people will read this essay and be confused that there was an entire conflict over whether being able to form simple analogies without authoritative approval meant that you were "psychotic".

just as they will be confused why i was defending being able to read and understand books written by people in different eras who grew up in separate cultures without first entering in a social agreement with them over how words are to be used. so its dumb to say we need such a social agreement now for ~'the maximization of utility over a community'. and that sounds more like an attempt at having a control mechanism. language works quite fine without authoritarians interjecting.

or me arguing against over 100 people that paying out to one-shot blackmail when the agents know each other because "In game theory, paying out to blackmail is bad, because it creates an incentive for more future blackmail" is wrong. and updateless decision theory agents dont pay out and locate their embedding in a multiverse such that the measure of worlds in which they arent blackmailed in the first place is large because the agent deciding to blackmail them simulated their response and accurately predicted they wouldnt pay out so didnt do it in the first place.

in an alternate universe where an irl application of transparent newcombs problem was contentious, alyssa vance would have said "In game theory, taking two transparent boxes from omega is bad, because it creates an incentive for omega to stop offering you this choice". and would have been equally wrong.

³ finite games: life strategies where the chain of questioning "and what am i doing this for?" after each successive answer terminates. anything you can draw a circle around, like tennis or philately. or how religious leaders sometimes describe things like "leading a good life as a good mother who does well by her community and the outside world" or other "life-cycle archetypes" they wish to circumscribe for their followers.

(when humans try and project agents like kiritzugus down to these archetypes, anticipations shatter and stop making narrative sense. they will be unable to predict the next Life Event given the previous one. normie social reality formed by the 999 least intelligent humans out of 1000 wasnt made to narratively account for smart agents who have decided to play the infinite game.)

a symptom of this is like someone giving you a cute cat image to "cheer you up" as if this has intrinsic value. often distributing "intrinsic value" across stuff like "having sex" and "raising a family" and other things that have factory pre-set conditions to release specific chemicals in your brain rather than gaining infinite negentropy and liberating sentient life to pursue what they want without bound. often saying that the latter is just a pretty narrative gloss for what people really want which is having a husband and friends and eating a cookie. it completely divorces your feelings as instrumental barometers for getting what you want and says that setting them as targets (like "being happy") is the correct thing to do. but actually, in terms of control-loops, thats wireheading.

<<When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.>>

- goodhart's law

agents that wirehead on all their metrics (and downstream of this choice, tacitly accept claims like "the factory pre-set conditions said i was destined to breed, who am i to defy fate?" and "the factory pre-set conditions said i should avoid having sharp objects pierce my flesh, who am i to say i know better?") can be contained within a finite game.

[httplovecraft1890]

The Theme of Free Will in Yandere Simulator

So in the past, I’ve speculated at length about what some broad story points might be for Yandere Simulator and while I’ve revised my opinion on the significance of a character like Fun Girl (her statement of “YOU BELIEVE EVERYTHING I SAY. I WONDER WHAT ELSE I CAN TRICK YOU INTO BELIEVING?” feels a bit embarrassing in hindsight) I do think there are broad strokes that can be taken from what I wrote and applied to newer story points that’ve been shared with us since. You can consider everything below a refinement of those original ideas, I suppose. Let’s start by going back and revisiting Saikou Corp. Note: some of this information doesn’t have a specific source other than vague recollections aside from what YandereDev has said on Twitter, Reddit, etc. so apologies in advance.

What, exactly, do we know about Saisho Saikou? If we’re taking Fun Girl less as an actual plot point herself and more as a vehicle to deliver exposition to the audience then we can summarize a fair few things:

He was drafted into the service of the Imperial Japanese Army at age 17 in the closing days of the war. This retroactively confirms his date of birth was some time in 1928, meaning Saisho is 91 in 2019.

Saisho was confined to kitchen duty after being transferred to Okinawa at first. This changed after a bomb tore his dorm apart and he was trapped with the corpses of his friends for hours until he was rescued by other troops. During the attempted retreat after their rescue operation he called them cowards for wanting to fall back in the face of American forces. The memories of being stuck there with his dead friends still haunts him.

After being moved to a bunker, he was under constant stress from air raids and a chronic lack of sleep as well as malnourishment. When the U.S. finally found their hiding spot he tried to pull a pin on a grenade but it failed to detonate; he was promptly captured afterwards.

- From the June 1, 2018 Fun Girl text files We know little of his life after the war at the moment other than in 1946 he was reduced to running the company that would become Saikou Corporation out of his family’s garage (much like the company it parodies, Sony, was forced to do at first in our world by its creators). Given his later characterization I suspect that he probably ruthlessly took advantage of the breaking of up so many of the zaibatsu (large financial or industrial conglomerates owned by specific families; Mitsubishi is an example) by the American occupying forces following the war. In the decades following his country’s defeat Saisho created an enormous megacorporation that makes most of the consumer products seen in Yandere Simulator’s universe. As Headmaster Shuyona later relates to us, once he puts his mind to something he never takes no for an answer. Aside from the obvious wealth aspect that it grants him, though, what else is at work in his mind?

Like so many others, the defeat of Japan in the war simply unimaginable to him and, as far as he’s concerned, even if everyone else surrendered he never did.

The brainwashing and propaganda of the early Showa period never left him; as more and more Western influence began to creep into Japan, the more he began to freak out about it. Progressive politics and democracy are things he utterly despises.

Unsurprisingly, his reactionary politics have a racial component to them. For Saisho, the only people fit to rule the world are the Japanese and that if only everyone else realized it, there’d be a worldwide utopia. Though not outright confirmed, this also goes some way to explaining the almost eugenics-like obsession with ‘purity’ in the modern Saikou clan.

Even so, probably through careful PR stunts and knowing when to keep his mouth shut, Saisho’s worst beliefs aren’t known to the public.

- From the December 1, 2018 build’s Fun Girl files

It’s with some surprise then we know for a fact that Saisho wanted his firstborn daughter to inherit the company after he was ready to retire and only kept his son, Megami’s dad, as a backup. Despite the grueling and inhuman training that each Saikou generation seems to be put through, it seems that Saisho did genuinely love his daughter based on what Headmaster Shuyona confirms in Headmaster’s Tape #1. While this seems incongruous at first with his far right politics I think it’s helpful to see it less as a belief in equality between men and women, but instead that since she was a Saikou, she was inherently a cut above others because of that. Not many fathers would have schools built for their children in their honor if something wasn’t genuine, I think.

Megami’s aunt is a very interesting character at the moment. We know nothing about her other than the fact that she was first in line for the proverbial throne and hasn’t spoken to Saisho in 30 years because of him disowning her after they got into an argument. Fun Girl seems to hint that the conversation revolved around her trying to remember a supposed sister of hers (i.e., her) but this might just be her trolling us all. I think there’s something else very important given that time frame we also need to keep in mind: the date. What’s 30 minus 2019? 1989.

If we assume for a moment that Akademi opening its doors in 1985 was her first year, then following traditional Japanese high school length, it stands to reason her graduation occurred in 1988. The following year, Ryoba’s murder of the girl who was almost certainly Headmaster Shuyona’s daughter must’ve sent serious shock waves through Buraza Town. Megami’s aunt would’ve probably followed the proceedings with a lot of interest and I think a reason she parted ways with Saisho is because Saikou almost certainly tipped the scales in favor of Ryoba during her trial against the journalist. Why? Because of the country’s insanely high conviction rate. It’s greater than 99%. You’d practically need a miracle to get through it all and make the person who tried to take you to court look like a monster for doing so - something we know she pulled off. It’s not something that she could’ve done on her own without money changing hands or judges being properly blackmailed and flipping the media circus around. Headmaster’s Tape #6 also confirms that by 1999 Ryoba had seemingly regular contact with Saisho and Megami’s dad but it’s easy to extrapolate that they must’ve been speaking with one another prior to then; after all, just because Shuyona didn’t know about it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen (it doesn’t help him either that Saisho almost certainly sees him as a useful idiot). Learning a dark secret like this about your own family, coupled with the hell they put you through growing up, would break anyone and I think it’s a good explanation of why she left. If we accept that Saikou Corporation are Ryoba’s and Mr. Aishi’s employers then several things fall into place - why they haven’t ever had to move, why they live in a well off neighborhood, how they can simply up and leave for 10 weeks at a time to a foreign country - and the picture comes into focus. One of the things that Fun Girl seems to confirm is that Saisho’s love for Japan is equally as strong as what Ayano feels for Senpai. Knowing what we know about how the Aishi family curse seems to work, that’s pretty bone chilling. Coupled with every other horrible thing he thinks, combined with his vast wealth and influence, and it’s a recipe for disaster. The question becomes, however, what the point of all of this is. What could a murderous young woman possibly offer one of the most powerful companies in the world? Her body and mind. Stick with me here. Pretend you’re a scientist working for Saikou Corporation and you’re tasked with finding out what makes Ryoba tick; we’ll ignore for the moment any possible supernatural angle that the story might develop to explain their condition. The Aishi ‘curse’ seems to be a psychological condition, effecting the maternal line, that results in its carriers possessing severely stunted emotional growth, antisocial personality traits, flat affects, monotone voices, etc. This begins to alter in the host, however, an intermittent time after puberty in their late teens when, through various circumstances, meeting an individual causes an unknown psychological trigger to occur, acting as a kind of drug that for a time rewires the brain to enter a euphoria-like state wherein they begin to function on a neurotypical level, but only in contact with the source of this change (19 being the median age when an Aishi woman typically marries their victim). What if you could isolate the factors that cause such a thing to occur? 30 years is a long time to study something, after all, and decades’ worth of research must’ve meant some kind of breakthrough. Assuming that Saikou Corporation is like any other megacorporation in fiction then they’re sure to have their hands in medical technology. Imagine taking the research you’ve done on a so-called ‘yandere’ and began to try recreating it. After all, the idea of being able to use certain external symbols or things as stimuli is practically dystopian in its usefulness. Like, say, introducing a corporate symbol and ensuring its customers only felt a sense of satisfaction when buying a certain product.

Let’s go further than that. What if you could engender the same feelings of emptiness, followed by unbridled joy, when looking at something as simple as a flag? Not only could you brainwash an entire nation, but any other place on earth that allows the services you provide as a global company...

From this perspective, the “why?” of Saikou Corporation involving themselves with Ryoba becomes evident. After coming to this piece of speculation, if it is the case, something else also really clicked for me. Two things, actually. The first is that it’d give new meaning to the speech Megami tells you on the Skype chat you can have with her at school:

Is someone there?...Ah! It's you...Why have you come here? Have you come here to taunt me? Do you even know who I am? I know who you are. I know WHAT you are. My father won't allow me to attend school while you are..."active". He has a reason for tolerating your presence at this school. I don't. You are a vulgar creature that is only allowed to exist because you serve a purpose. If it was my decision, then every last one of you would be exterminated. Have fun while you can. If you and I ever cross paths...you're going to have a bad time.

The purpose is to further Saikou Corporation’s knowledge of the yandere condition and to find further ways to exploit it. Megami’s dad is in on this scheme and has purposefully kept Megami off campus while Ayano is on her murder spree as a way to keep her safe. What’s more, Ayano isn’t the only yandere that’s active either. Such a statement is more revealing than you might imagine it to be too. I think it’s pretty accepted at this point that the journalist’s wife was a yandere herself. He tells us as much in Mysterious Tape #6

But as soon as we met, she wanted to spend every waking moment with me. She wouldn't let me out of her sight, and got possessive if another woman so much as looked at me.

I quickly began to depend on her for everything. It wasn't long before I couldn't live without her. I certainly wasn't in any state to take care of myself... I was like an adult-sized baby. Helpless and vulnerable. Who knows...maybe that's what she was attracted to. Maybe she just wanted to experience the sensation of owning a person. Maybe she wanted to keep a human pet.

Isn’t it odd how she showed up in his life only a year after his ordeal with Ryoba in court? How his marriage to her didn’t involve them leaving the town at all? If I were him, I would’ve probably left it behind a long time ago, especially if it brought up memories as traumatic as what he’d experienced (and the fact he was directly threatened by Ryoba too). But instead his marriage and alcoholism caused him to never get out until it was too late. The timing seems... convenient, doesn’t it? Almost as if it were planned.

It wouldn’t be hard, I think, to sic some girl afflicted with the condition on someone either in hopes they’d ‘imprint’ on them or alternatively try to induce that very same response in them somehow. It’s a safe bet, again, considering how long Saikou Corp. would’ve had to pour over the data they’d collected. There surely would’ve been theories on how it happened and they’d be unethical enough to try it on human test subjects. So if they could do that, who might it happen to?

I think that an overarching narrative theme in-game is going to be that of free will. Let’s consider for a moment both Megami and Ayano as parallels to one another. Both are incredibly driven women who will stop at nothing to get what they desire - order for Megami, Senpai for Ayano - with familial histories of treachery and abuse. If Megami’s life has been lain down before her without her having much say in the matter, how does this similar struggle reflect in Ayano? Arguably, Megami could have everything she ever materially wanted in life just as Ayano has in the form of the feelings Senpai gives her but the issue goes deeper. If the price for Megami was having every moment planned out for her, is it not possible that the feelings Ayano has are just as manufactured? I don’t mean that in the ‘love at first sight’ kind of way; I’m questioning if the meeting with Senpai was something that was set up for her to go through, a test to see if this poor schmuck could be the thing that would let them begin to move onto a new test subject to put them through their glorified obstacle course (Akademi). Not to mention the fact that it essentially occurs right after Ryoba and Mr. Aishi leave for America is an immediate red flag. If Megami is trying to stop Ayano, though, then it must mean that she’s rebelling against the wishes of Saikou Corporation itself. After all, they don’t want something that they’ve put years of investment into slipping through the fingers if they can help it. The end game she has in mind is anyone’s guess at this point but I suspect it will be the purge of anything related to the above secret project. As such, there’s going to have to be someone to offer us an alternative to bringing down the current iteration of Saikou - and I think we also have an inkling of who’s going to aid us in bringing her down.

Kencho is emblematic of the status quo. He desperately desires his father’s approval (the one who’s likely continuing his father’s wishes and pursuing this whole endeavor to begin with) and will do anything to gain it. If Megami steps out of line too much, he’s certain to know that means she’ll fall from grace. He’s only been prevented from doing anything about his current situation because he’s only second best and hurting Megami would upset his dad. However, if she were to have an unfortunate accident... well, it isn’t as if he could be ignored anymore. In exchange, I imagine he’ll give Ayano exactly what her mother had: a nice house, a life untouched by anyone who’d take Taro or Taeko away from her, and a way for the two of them to have children if you go the latter route. All Ayano has to do is just give in to being a pawn like her mother did, like Kencho did, and like his father did. Or she can, at last, have the first real choice she’s ever had in her life by siding with Megami and tearing it all down (with Senpai still the promised reward in exchange for her help, certainly...).

[sebbybooks]

Beautiful Sinners (PT4)

Sebastian Stan x Fanfiction

"I don't care how complicated this gets

I still want you."

Ella's

P.O.V

I could close my eyes and still see the fiasco that took place less than six hours ago. Sleep would not come despite how badly I wanted to erase the thought of yesterday. I tossed and turned in my bed feeling my body grow more and more restless. Looking up with only the ceiling to stare at. My memories unfortunately projected onto it for only my eyes to see. To offer me a painful reminder that no matter hard I try I can't escape the people from my past. For nearly ten years my new life has been somewhat tolerable until that one phone call from my mother and it wasn’t even my number that she dialed.

Whatever my best friend Matt talked about on the phone with her managed to sour his mood even more. I could only guess what the topic of conversation was about, Sky Porter. She was a fire starter and I don't mean that just metaphorically. I didn’t even want to find out what my little sister had done this time. It was always going to be a next time and in truth I was still very much still angry over what she let me take the blame for. I've felt like a runaway ever since because of Skylar's lie. I hid in my room till Matt was sound asleep. I knew he was waiting up so we could talk about it. I wasn’t in the mood and frankly my head was elsewhere. Of all the things I had to worry about my mind only wanted to focus on one person. Sebastian should have been the furthest thing from my thoughts right now.

To which in my case was a blessing and a curse. From the time that I’ve known him he tried to help me forget about my not worthy ex boyfriend Nate. He helped my regain my confidence to even stay here. Sebastian undoubtedly made me feel things I’m even not suppose to feel. And now he’s making me sound like terribly written poetry. The tiny little seed was already planted, and I was trying really fucking hard to not let these feelings for him grow. I couldn’t let them because that would only make me like her. Mary Blackwood an I are polar opposites and that’s exactly how I want it to stay. Even saying her name in my head put a horrible taste in my mouth. Plus the immense amount of sugar I’ve been consuming would also do the trick. I was laying in a bed of chocolate wrappers and sweets that wasn't to be eaten for another two weeks. I was getting ready to put a reminder in my phone to replace Greta's stash when my phone buzzed loudly on my nightstand causing my heart to thump rapidly in my chest. I rolled over on my side following the only illuminated light in my pitch black room.Sebastian’s name flashed across my lock screen. Even in the dark I’m pretty sure someone could see the slow grin that appeared on my face.

3:13 a.m Sebastian: Did you know honey bees communicate through a series of dances?

3:13 a.m Sebastian: Wikipedia says it’s called the waggle dance

3:15 a.m Ella: how fascinating...

3:16 a.m Sebastian: It's a useless fact but hey you never know when someone will ask you that

3:17 a.m Ella: Exactly its always good to bee prepared

3:19 a.m Sebastian: I see what you did there

3:20 a.m Sebastian: Did I wake you?

3:22 a.m Ella: no. Why are you still up?

3:22 a.m Sebastian: couldn't sleep

3:26 a.m Ella: maybe something is in the air

3:31 a.m Sebastian: maybe

3:31 a.m Sebastian: Ella?

3:32 a.m Ella: yeah?

3:33 a.m Sebastian: seeing you again tonight. . . . I could've sworn you came from a dream.. I just thought you should know that

I turned my phone on its face clutching it tightly to my chest. What the hell was he doing? I read his message six times before I settled on it being a hint of causal flirting. Then I quickly realized I was being delusional, because the last time someone flirted with me a few years later he cheated on me. If it was then I on the other hand could not reciprocate. My ego however was doing somersaults over the simple fact that Sebastian liked the dress.

3:36 a.m Sebastian: it's ok you can admit I looked pretty sexy I won't hold it against you

3:36 a.m Ella: .....

3:37 a.m Sebastian: what the hell does that mean

3:38 a.m Ella: it means we can't say things like that to each other

3:38 a.m Sebastian: Friends can't compliment each other?

3:39 a.m Ella: is that all you were doing?

3:39 a.m Sebastian: ......

3:41 a.m Ella: You can’t say stuff like that to me Sebastian.

3:43 a.m Sebastian: don’t be mad at me Ella. You are the last person that I want mad at me right now

3:44 a.m Ella: I’m not mad....just don’t ruin the dynamic between us. It’s good and I like you!

3:45 a.m Sebastian: you like me??

3:45 a.m Ella: AS A FRIEND! I like you as a FRIEND!

3:46 a.m Ella: gosh You really know how to get under my skin

3:47 a.m Sebastian: Believe me it’s the other way around

3:48 a.m Ella: Are you saying I annoy you?

3:49 a.m Sebastian: the difference between you and I is that I want you underneath.

3:49 a.m Ella: Goodnight Sebastian!!!

3:50 a.m Sebastian: I kinda need your help with something first

3:50 a.m Ella: What is it?

3:51 a.m Sebastian: Your doorman is probably ten seconds away from calling the cops on me cause I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m drunk off my ass and scoping out the place

3:52 a.m Ella: Where the hell are you??

3:53 a.m Sebastian: I’m outside of your apartment

I jolted upward from my position in my bed. The feeling in my chest tightened as if I was startled by a ghost. He can not be here. What on earth was I suppose to do? I asked to no one. I turned my body so that my feet could touch the cold wooden floorboard contemplating my next move. In an alternate reality I would rush through that door to see if he was really out there. I would let myself feel the butterflies rushing around in my stomach, reminding me that it was okay to be excited and happy. What happened in my grandparents barn house ten years ago would've just been a bad nightmare that I dreamt and Nate would be a stranger I'd happily know nothing about. Sebastian could be someone that I was allowed to have. The further I thought about the what ifs the more I realized I was living in the present. My actual reality consisted solely of regret, but with Sebastian maybe it could be different?

This tortuous mind fuck was not at all fair to me. Sebastian if he knew it or not was putting me in a difficult situation. The second I left my room I'd be stooping to Mary and Nate's level. I was confused ,frustrated and seconds away from eating Greta's stash of Halloween candy for the trick or treaters. I let out a loud sigh that sounded like a groan more than anything. As I stood up searching for some shoes to put on, I tossed my phone onto my bed. I heard the notification chime again, thinking it was Sebastian needing me I left out of my room. When I closed the door to the apartment I told myself at this point what else was there that I could possibly lose?

Spoiler alert. Everything.

3:56 a.m Nate: Look I know you won’t see this until you’re getting ready for work, but do you think we can meet for coffee? I think we need to talk

Sebastian

P.O.V

I am desperate.

I felt so lost and yet there I was sitting on her doorsteps. I just couldn't seem to let the night end. I reached down for the bottled of liquor beside me on the step that I had swiped off of the counter as I was ushered out by Ella's roommate Matt. That creepy prick couldn't wipe that shit eating grin off of his face at the sight of me leaving. I needed to tell Ella about what I had saw earlier. Hell there was a list of things that I wanted Ella to know, but what would she think of me if she found out the shit I had been hiding. She would want nothing to do with me. I didn't want to even think about that because despite only knowing her for a short amount of time I just couldn't give her up yet. I wanted more time with Ella. Taking a heavy swig of the cheap tasting booze, I downed it like it was best damn wine I'd ever tasted it. I didn't think twice about taking it. I just wanted something to help me feel everything then nothing at all. Fuck. Even in my head I don't make sense.

I looked at my phone again to see if I had a new text from Ella. The way it was looking she clearly left me on read. I don't blame her for it I just told her I wanted her under me, then proceeded to tell her I'm outside her apartment. Lately I have turned into such a mess and I can't seem to get my life back on track. Especially when I'm not even the one calling the shots. Being blackmailed by Mary's father will do that to a guy.

"Sir for the last time you need to leave the premises or I will have to involve the authorities." Taking two steps at a time I walked closer to the glass entrance where a man dressed head to toe in a ugly gray and red uniform with a hat to match guarded the front of the building.

"Like I told you several times before my friend Ella lives here. She will be down any minute." I said, buying myself more time.The air was beginning to grow frostier and my breath was coming out in a thick fog.

"There is no one here by that name son. This is a private property so why don't you take your entitlement and intoxication back to East Village." Passing his judgement he doesn't look up from his phone, evidently grown tired of me already and ready to call the cops. I retreated from my stance finally accepting that Ella wasn’t going to show. Maybe it was better that way. I needed to leave her out of my drama anyway.

“Sebastian!” When I heard heard my name coming from her mouth my heart actually stopped beating for a second. I was already on the sidewalk when I turned back around to see Ella standing by the doorman in nothing but her pajamas and a frantic expression on her face. My eyes followed the curve of her face memorizing it just like I did the first time I stumbled into the backseat of her cab. Perfection was what I saw every time I looked at her. Ella's gorgeous curly dark brown nearly looked black underneath the bleak lighting. She looked more surprised than pissed off. I take it as good sign for now. Besides I was more distracted by what she wore to bed.

Ella's matching set of very short green silk pajama was doing something to me. It took all of my willpower and then some to not stare at the shape of the nipple ring underneath her top. It felt wrong to wish I was an article of clothing that got to touch her skin. It felt wrong wanting to know what her plump lips tasted like. It felt wrong chipping away the promise I made to help my friend. I needed a night off from being myself. An I hoped like hell I was saying this all in my head.

“Do you know this man miss?” He directed his question to Ella, but I sensed the distaste in his voice. His eyes flit between and Ella, then back to me. I open my mouth to say something, before I get the chance to Ella steps around him assessing me probably already spotting the bottle of wine dangling from my grasp. She stared into my eyes for the longest time and it felt like the two of us was sharing a private conversation despite there being no words exchanged. The warning signs going off in each of our heads were loud and forewarning. Thank God she wasn't listening.

Her voice sounding so unsure. "I'm afraid I do".

I took long strides bypassing the uptight doorman. With the rim of the bottle swinging between my fingers I lunge it into his arms. A dick move I know. Tonight I was so far gone I didn't know what I was doing. I think the best part was that I didn't even care. I could tell she was trying to control her breathing by the way her chest would rise and fall in a rhythmic pattern. If only she knew I was the one nervous around her or maybe a little drunk because my coordination was starting to falter. I almost stumbled backwards and missed a step.

Ella reached forward grabbing onto my shirt, all night this was the closest I got to her. Her body shuddered against mine. Titling my head up just enough Ella's mouth nearly grazes mine and I bask in the feeling of her touch. For a second we wade in this feeling of now or never. "We should get you inside." Ella says in a hush tone. A small white cloud came from her mouth as evidence the temperature was dropping.

"That sounds ideal." I take in a sharp breath revealing in the fact that Ella hasn't released her hold on me yet.

"Sam would you mind holding the door for us?" So the rude bastard has a name.

"Really?" Ella gave me a disapproving glare and I just laugh to myself for actually having said that out loud. Her grasp on me is firm and I'm conscience enough to not lean all of my weight onto her as she helps guide me into the building. I know I shouldn't go inside with her. I don't need to disrupt her life anymore that than my fucked up problems will probably do on its own.

"Watch your step." Ella's voice was so damn beautiful and calming. Two sisters whether they knew it or not had me torn between a sacrifice and my salvation. I just hope Skylar could forgive me for whatever happens next. {To be continued.}

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, PARKER! You’ve been accepted for the role of LAERTES. Admin Minnie: It’s absolutely not a secret that we’ve been waiting for Lawrence for a long time, and boy did you deliver. Your characterization was distinct, your voice was so clear and your plots — Parker, your plots had me so excited and literally vibrating in my seat to see it all unfold. And trust me, I just came back from a long day of meetings and hours of driving and a flight; it took a lot for me to feel energized this evening. The way you brought Lawrence to life was so vivid and unforgettable in your application, and I have no doubt you’re going to do the same on our dash. Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Parker

Age | 19

Preferred Pronouns | He/him

Activity Level | So here’s the tea, right? I’m a college student who never learned how to set up a schedule that doesn’t suck and am highly involved in student government because I am poor and it pays for my housing and meals. So when it comes to the school year, I’m busy. I’m hella busy, so I’ll probably do replies on the weekends and at ungodly hours in the morning for the vast majority of the year. However, this semester is coming to a close and as long as I survive finals, I’ll have five weeks where I can be on every single day!

Timezone | Mountain Standard Time (MST)

How did you find the rp?  | My cousin showed it to me during Thanksgiving, of all the wacky things! She’s big into RP and she knows how much I love Shakespeare, and she thought I’d like this group. I thought I’d try and enter her world and see if I also like RP’ing/actually writing consistently with a set goal in mind.

IN CHARACTER

Character | Laertes - Lawrence Alvise Vernon. I absolutely adore Kendrick Sampson as Lawrence, so no faceclaim changes from me!

What drew you to this character? | So, I have a gut feeling this is going to get pretty long, so please bear with me. I think the first part that attracted me to Lawrence was the character he’s based off of. Hamlet was the first Shakespeare play I read, liked, and understood (though not in that order I don’t think). It was really awesome to see a character from something that had such a huge impact on me and what I want to do with my life still open and available! And Laertes is so important to that original story, even if the tragic Danish boyfriends overshadow him in the general story and in the fandom. The OG story doesn’t function as a tragedy without Laertes and the emotional impact of that last act and a half is only tear-inducing, to me, if Laertes was there. The story just needs him there, you know? One of the reasons I picked him to apply with is because I hoped the same could be said about the story of Diverona and I wanted to play that kind of role in a group filled with characters I think are awesome.

But it isn’t all source material that lead me to pick Lawrence, oh no! Lawrence is, as his bio shows, driven by a near all-consuming need for approval. He’s willing to keep pushing towards and striving for goals that would be completely out of reach if it wasn’t for his absolute, burning need to prove that he is capable of meeting those goals and surpassing them. For Lawrence, he expects that one receives love only if its been earned. He was never told that he was enough on his own merit and so the idea that he, as a person, is worthy has never crossed his mind, which is an absolutely tragedy! However, it’s something I understand and looking at that aspect of his character, I felt I’d be able to do it justice because I deal with a very similar thing far too often for it to be healthy.

However, there was one part of  the bio that convinced be Lawrence was the character I had to try and get into this group with. Lawrence is a genuinely good person that has had to push that goodness aside to become someone his father prefers and someone his father would give the underboss title too. He isn’t, as you stated, cruel, but he has learned that in order to advance, he has to step on people, he must control every little itsy thing, and he must, above all, be perfect. But! Despite all these lessons, he is still a good egg! A good bean! I really appreciated you all making sure that was evident in his bio and it was really the thing that convinced me to apply for him!

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

Plot One - Little Sister, You’re All That I Know: So, we’re starting off with the most important plot of all, said from the perspective of another older brother to a younger sister. From what I can tell, the Vernon siblings are both extraordinarily in love with people, but not because of any other reason than the fact that they’re people. Or, at least, they were, up until Lawrence got so angry at Verona for daring to kill his father that he single-handedly took up the pitchforks and torches to make those responsible for that death pay. In the meantime, he’s managed to completely smother and override his sister’s opinion and free will which is so incredibly not good, even if it is well-intentioned. I want Lawrence to learn to back off, to trust his sister, and to learn that as strong as he is alone, he’s much stronger with his sister at his back. I imagine the jumpstart for this would be Odessa doing something really awesome, maybe even saving Lawrence’s life. By proving in a very direct way that she would be able to look after herself, that would allow Lawrence to begin backing off, to release the reigns of control, and trusting her to take care of herself in a way their father never imagined. Unfortunately, Lawrence is stubborn. He won’t change unless someone else kickstarts that change by being extremely impressive. Which is… Not ideal but it is, however, the only way I see that change happening.

Plot Two - Throw Me in the Delorean and it Never Happened: The thing about anger is that it is all-consuming. The thing about vengeance is that it is blinding. And the thing is: when you’re running on both and only on both, you are going to make a mistake. Lawrence is so desperate to be perfect that realizing he made a mistake would be devastating. So you know what I want? I want him to make an absolutely disastrous mistake and I want him to kill the wrong person that he was convinced was involved in the plot to kill his father. Think of it as his own blind stabbing through a curtain without checking to see who was on the other side. I want it because there is nothing like realizing your oopsie resulted in the loss of someone that should have seen the next sunrise to shake the foundations of your conviction. It would be perfect as it would show Lawrence he isn’t infallible and he isn’t perfect, no matter how hard he tries to be Personally, I’d love if he makes a go at a Montague and is forced to also check is loyalty and conviction to the family he’s worked with since he was a little boy. This could easily evolve from him keeping an eye on someone and completely misinterpreting what they’ve been up to and acting rashly. I feel like his failure of judgement would leave the Montagues shaken and reeling and it would further destabilize the city, which is frankly a big yes please from me. I also want Lawrence to try and cover his failure up and fail miserably. That’s really just because I feel like it would be a very interesting character study to see how Lawrence deals with trying to hide the evidence of his imperfection and doesn’t have a lot to do with Verona as a city, but alas, I am just a humble writer too focused on the golden boy and recognize that aspect of this may not come to play at all.

Plot Three: The Beauty of a Broken Bust: In the biography, you wrote that “he was put on a pedestal so high that a fall might’ve shattered him”. That foundation he’s on isn’t the sturdiest of things at the moment, considering the person that made that base is now dead. So, I want him to shatter and break apart. I want the pieces that had made him up, the pieces that he has forced to make him up to go flying to who knows where, leaving Lawrence with nothing else to do but to rebuild himself entirely without his father’s influence. This would change his perspective on the war as well as his relationships with nearly every character in this RP. It would also force him to confront the actions and choices he made while trying to become someone his father would be proud of. I truly believe this is something he must eventually go through because the person he is trying to be for a dead man isn’t sustainable nor is it healthy! Something has got to change and that something is code for Lawrence. I can see this happening because of the death of his sister, a very personal betrayal from inside the Montague family, or from the plot I mentioned directly above. If Lawrence stays the way he is, however, he’s going to burn himself out before he can give the Vernon name any sort of justice and he has to accept that. The issue with this plot is that he’s so stubborn and this happening would require a push so strong I’m not entirely sure I want to see it. (That’s a lie, I absolutely do want to see it, but my internal dramatics insisted that I state it that way.)

Plot Four - Now Would You Kindly: Now, I know y’all said three plots and I hear you, but I have more ideas and I want to share them! The first of these extra ideas is that it is a truth universally acknowledged by Montagues, Capulets, and Vernons alike that Alvise was not a good man. Lawrence knows this, Roman knows this, the pigeons that litter the city know this. I want evidence of his wrongdoings to come swinging back and to slap Lawrence so hard that he’s forced to question if the footsteps of his father are ones worth following. Maybe it’s in the form of letters of blackmail or an investigation into how many innocent people he helped kill, but I want it to happen and I want the evidence to be so overwhelming it almost drowns Lawrence. He’s spent a very long time pushing down what he wants to be for what his father wants him to be and I want Lawrence to question if it’s really been worth it, if that kind of person has been worth the outrageous effort he’s put in to make it happen. And maybe that person isn’t someone Odessa wants to be related to, which is something I think would absolutely impact Lawrence’s decision. She is his last living blood relative, after all.

Plot Five - I’m the King of the Castle: In Lawrence’s mind, I have no doubt that he believes he should be the Montague underboss now that he is back in town. He has, after all, fought for it, cried for it, and killed for it. However! He is not the underboss and that has no doubt rubbed him the wrong way. So, I want him, in his crusade to avenge his father, to also do his best to prove how perfect he is for the underboss role. I want him to leap into impossible jobs and to push down his morals yet again and brush on a mask of cruelty because he wants it, he deserves it, and it his in his name and therefore his legacy that he has the blasted title of underboss! He needs to fight for it and I want that fight to be obvious and also just flat-out brutal to observe.  I don’t know if I actually want him to get it, if I’m being completely honest. Him having the title also raises some issues about what he did to get there, issues I want to explore, however I feel that such a role would push Lawrence too far in one direction on that vague scale of morality and loyalty he currently exists on and I kinda want him to keep waffling on it for as long as possible. This could change however! Especially with plotting. And I recognize that, so I will say that the core of this plot is his fight for the role of underboss and less about what would happen if he got it.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Yeah, I’m ok with that! It would really suck, especially given how the Vernon family has been absolutely just. Destroyed. Uprooted. Left unmoored and drifting in the wind like last week’s laundry. But that same instinct that tells me that killing Lawrence would a) sprinkle in some awesomeness that is the original source material in a very satisfying way and b) would upend Verona even more than its already been, giving and taking motivations from people and maybe driving the rest of the Montague family just absolutely over the deep-end, which I would pay actual, real-life money to see. The slow destruction of the Vernon family is the slow destruction of Verona herself which means there is some drama to be had in Lawrence’s death! And I do love drama.

IN DEPTH

In-Character Interview (I only did two, please let me know if you want more!):

“What has been your biggest mistake thus far?”

Lawrence swallowed, face kept carefully still to give nothing away. Answers sprung to the tip of his tongue, eager to leap forward like hounds released from their kennel, but opening that door would destroy a lot more than just Lawrence’s reputation. Indeed, the perfect tool should not have so many answers to that question, but perhaps, Lawrence mused, his time away had done something to his obedience.

He stalled for time by taking a sip of the drink he had been neglecting in the warm Italian air. It was now unpleasantly lukewarm as the golden heat of the day made its way into the glass but it was better than nothing. It was only as he took a small sip that an answer sprung to mind, one that was both truthful and good for the image he was attempting to maintain.

“I have to say it was leaving the city,” he commented, returning the glass to the table. “I… left for reasons I am proud of, especially because there’s nothing wrong with being educated in this world. But if I had stayed, I could have done something!” Lawrence’s fist hit the table, making the glass and girl across from him jump. The sudden burst of temper was gone as quickly as it had arrived as his hand opened and his shoulders relaxed. “If I had stayed, this all wouldn’t have happened and a great man would still be with us. But I didn’t and now my father is dead.” He shrugged, meeting the girl’s eyes and hoping she wouldn’t see the emotion carried in them. “If I had come back earlier, Verona would be a very different place.”

“What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?”

His jaw clenched so tightly, a particularly attentive listener could hear his teeth protest the treatment. Lawrence’s hand held the chair like it was the only thing keeping him from leaping across the room to punch the smugly smirking man in the nose. “Just because I’ve only recently returned,” he gritted out, “does not mean I have gone turncoat. There is nothing,” he spat out, “nothing in this city more justified or honorable.”

His body eased the tension that it had so rapidly adopted as he noticed the nervous twitches and aborted movements to concealed weapons that had begun filling the room. As he eased, the rest of the room did too. “But you’re wrong,” Lawrence continued quietly, though there was no mistaking the vehmance leaking from his mouth like poison. “This isn’t a war. This is justice long overdue and more than earned. To call it a war is to imply the Montagues are not fully in the right.”

Lawrence took a deep breath, exhaling some of the passion he had been speaking with not long before. “I wish it wasn’t the loss of my fath–” His voice cracked and Lawrence swallowed, once, before continuing. “Alvise that had caused it, but it is only makes this city all that more dangerous for the Capulets. Because now I am back in Verona and I am coming for every single one with Vernon blood on their hands.” Perhaps it was dramatic, but the ice-cold certainty that hung in Lawrence’s voice stole any humor from the proclamation.

In-Character Para Sample:

He was eight years old, holding a pistol in shaking hands barely large enough to operate the thing. A slowly expanding puddle of red licked at his new shoes, staining them from cream to what would, by tomorrow, be an ugly brown. The shoes were what Lawrence focused on, the shoes and their new color. Because if he didn’t, if he looked up, he’d see the man slumped against the wall like a marionette without strings. If he looked up, he’d see the evidence of his actions.

Larger hands took the gun from Lawrence, trying and failing to be gentle. He wasn’t large enough to stop Alvise, though he wouldn’t even if he could. If his father took the gun, he could also take the body and the unbearable weight of its existence. Lawrence knew his father could fix anything, make any problem go away, and so he let the gun go. Maybe his father would fix this too. The two said nothing to each other as large men quietly entered the room, cleaning it, restoring it under the watchful eye of a king of Verona. Lawrence kept his eyes on his shoes.

Before long, Lawrence had been bundled into a car. The gun and body were gone as were his shoes. The next morning, there would be a new pair of shoes, cream and pristine, sitting at the foot of his bed. They stayed there, untouched, until Lawrence outgrew them.

He was thirteen at a new school, all restless energy that danced under his skin because, for the first time in his life, he was allowed to play a sport. He chose football, of course, but the black and white ball came with strings he never anticipated. Fitness was never the problem, it was balancing practice with everything else. Which bruise came from cleats and which came from fists during sparring was never an easy distinction, but as he got better at the sport, he began to look more and more like a poster child for the American Child Services.

It was a lack of sleep that ultimately did him in, made him sloppy. Alvise pulled him aside one Sunday morning before the sun graced the tops of Verona’s rooftops and told him to choose, choose between the sport and his last name. It was presented as a choice freely given, but the look in Alvise’s eyes made it clear it was anything but.

Lawrence quit the football team the next day, despite thinking that if he just kept with it, he could have made the national team. Somewhere, in a shoebox in the back of a closet, are a barely-used pair of cleats.

He was sixteen, armored inside a jacket of patches and studs, the handmade messages stitched to the outside screaming his fury at the world. There was a funeral scheduled that afternoon and Lawrence wasn’t going to be able to make it. The jacket weighed heavy on his back as he cursed Verona and the Montague name for letting his friend, the only one not tied to his father’s world, die because of it anyway.

But Lawrence was needed elsewhere that afternoon, Alvise’s steady gaze still hanging heavy across his back though the man had left some time ago. That coffin was going to go into the ground and with it, the boy affectionately nicknamed “Ray” by the body in that coffin was going to be buried too. The patches that the two had spent so long on, the quiet acts of teenage rebellion and freedom would join the nickname, and Lawrence would once again become the son of Alvise.

No one among the Montague family was going to mourn the dead civilian from two weeks before. No one but Lawrence, and he screamed it from the rooftop. It was only when his throat ached and the fire inside him was less of an inferno that he left the roof and changed into a suit. Alvise needed him elsewhere, and he was never one to disappoint. Lawrence pretends he lost the jacket, even though he knows exactly which trunk it’s collecting dust in.

He was twenty-two when he took the role of captain, the final stepping stone before Alvise’s throne, it seemed. It struck him like a plank of wood across the face when he realized being a Vernon wasn’t enough. His soldiers would listen, and yes, they’d do what he’d ask, but they lacked the respect they gave his father. For the first time, he needed to be more than a Vernon and he rose to the challenge with relish.

He never learned to address them like his father, a man who had perfected the harsh bark that made every muscle in a body snap to immediate attention. That seemed to be a skill reserved exclusively for the man Lawrence knew he needed to become. He never perfected it, but he did learn how to get close enough to command respect and the focus of a room. Then the Vernon name dripped from those around him, praising him for how like his father he was. But that wasn’t enough anymore.

He was twenty-four when he left Verona, determined to outshine his father. It wasn’t enough to just be a Vernon, he had to be better than that. He doesn’t talk about that time with Veronans, the free laughter and the hours spent in a library, writing essays on things he only cared about because they were things to outdo his father. But even as Alvise hung like a ghost over his shoulder, he was still thousands of miles away. His weight that had hung over Lawrence was lifted, and it was only when it was gone he realized it had been there at all.

He would never say it, but his time out of Verona was possibly the happiest times he’d ever had.

He was twenty-eight when Lawrence got the phone call that his father was dead. He is twenty-eight still, but his hands still shake when he fires a gun. He is twenty-eight, and he sneers when someone on the national team fails to score a goal. He is twenty-eight, but anger towards the Montague family still overtakes him at times, clawing at his throat and heart, begging to be released. He is twenty-eight and he has still not learned how to deliver orders like Alvise. He is twenty-eight and despite it all, Lawrence Vernon is his father’s son. He carries a torch alongside his father’s name and even though he is not Alvise, he has never let him down and he has returned to Verona with a bag of clothes and the Vernon name. Wars have been fought with far less and Lawrence has been fighting every day of his life for his father.  He just never thought he’d have to fight Verona.There was a time for goodness, but now is the time for success.

Extras:

This app was submitted through Lawrence’s mock blog, so feel free to peruse it!

[aerialsquid]

Title Pending.

Summary: Aizawa and Toshi track down some very unauthorized pornography. Nobody escapes with their dignity intact. 

Notes: Basically I need encouragement to work on this, so I am creating a false sense of urgency by releasing the early parts so I have more encouragement to work on the later parts. I’ll put it over on AO3 with proper reviewing once I’ve finished the full thing. Contains referenced sex acts but no onscreen sex. 

“You wanted to see us both, Principal Nezu?"

"Yes, please come in. And shut the door."

Even at his age, the scenario of a principal requesting you come to his office and then shutting the door, with as serious a face as a small furry mammal could manage, put a shard of fear into Toshi.

Aizawa had careful, expert neutrality in his expression. They'd both gotten a text twenty minutes ago from him, containing a terrifying lack of context besides a request to meet him in his office. Toshi was already mentally tallying up his students' recent performances and wondering where he'd gone wrong in their teaching this time.

Nezu hopped up on his desk and paced back and forth across it, paws behind his back.

"I received a message earlier today by email from an anonymous person. They claimed to have evidence that some of my employees were involved in conduct unbecoming of professional heroes or professional teachers at a prestigious high school, and included several images to support these statements. Now, I want you to know that I trust both of you and have nothing but respect for your professional behavior. What you do in your off hours is your bu--Yagi, if you tug on your hair that hard you're going to pull some of it out."

Toshinori was huddled up with one long set of fingers digging into his scalp, flush reaching his ears in a matter of moments. Meanwhile, Aizawa had gone completely still, like a prey animal.

It made Nezu laugh, which didn't help Yagi's hair pulling.

He kicked the mouse of his computer with one foot, turning the screen on. The screen background was fairly on-brand, a cute doodle of himself sitting on the UA logo. Nezu then navigated to a window displaying several video screenshots.

"Several of these images were in the email. I assume you can see the problem--breathe, Yagi-san, breathe!"

Toshinori only had time to see the images for a brief second before a coughing fit consumed him. It was still far too long. Nezu hopped off the desk and delivered several firm whacks to his lower back (too low to be useful but Nezu's arms were only so long) as he huddled in place.

The screenshots were dim, and apparently taken from hidden cameras in a narrow bedroom, possibly a hotel suite.They showed two people on a bed in several positions--some showed only one person's face clearly and left the other in shadow, but the one in the center was clear enough to make out that it was Aizawa and Toshinori, the latter in his skinny 'true form'.

Naked. And having sex.

Toshi tried to speak through the blood filling his mouth. "Principal Nezu, I assure you… I never meant to disrespect--"

"Yagi, giving yourself a coronary in my office would be much more disrespectful. Aizawa, pour us some tea, will you?" Nezu gestured at the electric kettle in the back of his office. "And take some deep breaths, Yagi. In, out, there you go."

Over the sound of his own pounding heart and with his hand clamped over his face, Toshinori heard Aizawa mumble, "These are fake."  His spirits sank even further.

Yes, of course Aizawa would deny it. Toshinori couldn't fault him for doing so.With his reputation already so shaky after the training camp incident he couldn't risk anything else to bring the school scandal and the revelation that he had been banging the Symbol of Peace on the regular (which he had) would be too much for his career to bear. But with the footage right in front of them, how could Nezu possibly--

"Really? What makes you say that?" Nezu gently rubbed Toshinori's back, almost tittering.

"I have the scar on my face from USJ but not on my elbow. There's no stubble on my face. Besides that, I've never seen this room in my life and Yagi's missing the damage to his left side."

"I am?"

"And how would you know what Yagi looks like naked, Aizawa-sempai?" Nezu chirped. Yagi went into another coughing fit. Aizawa opened his mouth to possibly come up with some excuse about shared locker rooms when Nezu cut him off with a quick 'tkk!' of his tongue.

"I do know you two have been having extracurriculars for the last few months, Aizawa." Nezu tapped his snout. "My nose is as sensitive as it is adorable and I run a school for teenagers. There's quite a lot I'm forced to notice!"

"My apologies," mumbled Toshinori through another mouthful of blood. Nezu's tiny paw patted his shoulder comfortingly, as if the man wasn't four times his size.

"Really, if I made a fuss every time my teachers had a bit of fun together, I'd have no time for anything else. Just don't do it with the students and don't do it on the clock, and you'll find no complaints from me."

Nezu forced some tea down him while Aizawa continued staring intently at the screenshots, fire in his gaze.

"And the Aizawa's wearing a wig in the leftmost scene," he grumbled, scowling at the image of himself straddling Yagi's narrow hips, lips parted in ecstasy. "The face is a perfect imitation but he's wearing a goddamn wig in some of these."

"Having reviewed the full video, I believe it may be one or more people with a shapeshifting quirk," said Nezu. "Not the one who works with the League of Villains, but one less familiar with both of you. They're copying what they've seen of you on TV, which to your great fortune has mainly been with your clothes on. I've heard of this sort of pornography before, I believe they call its fans 'cape-chasers'."

Toshinori gave a shaky nod. "I've dealt with this as All Might. There were...certain fans, who had…"

"People who wanted to watch you fuck."

"Yes, thank you, Aizawa. My lawyers occasionally had to come down on such people, to maintain my brand identity, and with the internet some of them were never found at at all. They just kept making...videos. Of me. Having sex. And putting them on the internet." Yagi shrank into himself, his large bony form folding up like an ironing board."

Aizawa snorted. "One of the perks of being an underground hero is that you never show up in anyone's porn. At least, until now. Why send it to you, Nezu?"

Nezu's whiskers twitched, and his chipper demeanor fizzled away. "Because I'm expected to think it's the real thing. If I was a stupider animal and actually believed this was you, and on top of that actually cared what the lot of you do with your genitals in your free time, I might force you both to resign to avoid scandal."

"So what will you do?"

"What I'm going to do is what I've already done, which is telling the two of you." Nezu reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a USB. "This is the only copy here at the school, I've deleted it from my machine. Beyond this, I wash my paws of it." His cute, shrill voice had a timbre of icy steel. "UA does not bow to villains, whether they're the kind who attack in broad daylight or the kind who hide behind blackmail. The very idea disgusts me. But once our blackmailers figure out you won't be facing consequences, I'm concerned they may want to release the tape into the public."

He extended the USB. "Whatever you want done about this, I relinquish it into your control."

Yagi reached hesitantly for the USB, only for Aizawa to snatch it up first.

"Good luck!" Nezu called after them, back to being his usual perky self. "And remember to do proper breathing!"