#least they change and become a part of you

[aliceinborderlandsquidgame]

An old feeling (and obsession) | In-oh x Fem!Player!Reader | PT1

Summary: In-oh always thought the ones who ended in the games were nothing but parasites of society. But then he meets you and he starts to feel something he thought he would never feel again.

Warnings: S2 Spoilers - Canon violence - May be OOC - Slight!Obsess In-ho - Player 095 lives!! - Anxiety - Sad!Reader - Soft moments

Notes: Mixed two requests!! Honestly I think these two fits perfectly.

Divided in two parts but you dont need to read this one to read the other -

PT 2

Asks: 1 - 2 -

In-ho was not sure when or how you ended in his mind, passing from being just another face from the games, another piece for the system he had worked for years now. To being somehow important to him.

Maybe it was because you reminded him of himself when he first joined? All lost and confused but also showing a strong determination to survive?

Or maybe it was something even deeper, how you made him feel human and not just "The Front Man" , how you managed to awake feelings on him he thought he had become impossible to feel.

When did it start ?

"Uh, In-ho was it?" A voice that at first did not ring a bell to him. He looked at you a calm look on his face, he saw you offering him your own milk.

"I saw you giving this to player 222 and I dont really like milk so, here. You also saved our team back then" You said offering him your own milk and mentioned how he had moved his leg to make Gi-hun get the last kick.

He took it already thinking on why would you do this. He had a reason at least, a valid one in his opinion. But you ? Why would you give him your own food to him ? Someone who was alright, who was not carring a life.

"Are you sure? This may be the only food we get" He asked truly curious to understand your thinking.

But you just gave him a smile, a honest one. One that he had forgot he could get too inmmersed in his role.

"Im sure, besides its going to be more help to have someone like you well feed than me" You responded then turned around and went back next to Jun-hee who was getting sleepy no wonder after all the stress.

One thing that was clear, you were kind, and by what you said you were not stupid, but you still needed to think on yourself first.

He promised not to drink the milk but later as the lights were turned off he did. Thinking about you, he tried to remember if by luck he had read your file or how you acted on green light red light. But his mind could not find an answer, it would go back to the small exchange from earlier.

And he would find his heart beating just a bit faster.

~○~○~○~○~○~○~

The next day came, all players were a mix of nervous and excited for the next game. The guards as always made them walk the maze made of stairs and into the main arena.

"What game do you think its going to be?" Your voice filled his hears as you walked besides him. You kind of felt his presence as a protective one. Even if at first he had voted to continue playing. After listening the reason of why he was here on the first place you could not blame him. Your empatic attitude made you just feel bad for him and now you wanted to make up to him. Even if you never disrespected him.

In-ho felt your presence endaring, like you grounded him and took him back to how he used to be and feel.

A fear started to install inside him because of that, he did not want you to change in consequence of the games, like it happened to him.

"This may be mingle" the voice of Jung-Bae cut the train of thoguhts from In-ho.

It was Mingle, he knew it

"Like the game where we formed teams and hugged each other as kids?" You wondered now your attention on Jung-Bae who nodded back at you. 

"Well, I believe they wont make us hug each other" The cold voice from Gi-hun came along as the three of you and the rest of the group went up to the circle platform.

"If we need to form teams then we may end separated" You said as the platform started to spin making you lose sense of space and instinctively  went to take someones hand.

That just happened to be In-ho.

You blushed and went to quietly let go when he took your hand back giving it a firm grip, he did not look in your direction (something you thanked since your face was on fire) but you did give him a soft shake back.

"10"

The panic went in, your team still needed one more, luckly Dae-ho acted quick and took a player that was frozen in place and screamed at the rest to run to one of the doors.

Then all of you ran towards one door opening it and going inside, between the chaos In-ho never let go of your hand only when the door lock was secured he let it go giving you a look then looking away.

His heart was beating fast. He had made these games, even played before and yet he was feeling worry over you. Why? You were not supposed to be special. But when he felt your hand and looked to see your confused and scared face something in his heart hurt, he could not leave you like that.

He could not be cruel with you.

The next rounds followed each one making you more stressed specially when you almost lose Young-mi during the last round.

"Are you alright?" You asked her, voice full of worry.

She just nodded being a bit pale "Thank you, you pushed that other aside, if it wasnt for you..."

"Dont mention it" not only because thinking that you caused the death of someone else was a brutal hit for your moral, but because the fear you felt for her in these last moments made you want to vomit thanks to how nervous and desesperated you were.

You did not ever think about the other player when you went for her.

You walked slowly like a zombie till you felt a shadow over you, it was In-ho.

"Are you alright?" He asked, you two got separated last round and he (even if he wont tell you) was worried you would be one of the numbers mention as eliminated.

"Im fine, last round was a lot" You responded giving him a tired smile getting on the platform again.

He followed not beliving you but not saying anything for a few seconds.

"Stay besides me, next round may be the last one" He spooke to you not leaving room for another option.

"What makes you say that?" You wondered, too lost to even try and reason how many rounds were left or how many you already played. The only thing you could see was the blood on the ground.

"We are 126 standing and there is only 50 cabins, if they want to put pressure on us by losing others then this is the right moment" He explained making you purse your eyelash at that.

"Then how many would-"

"Two, two for each door" He was quick to answer. He looked at you directly to your eyes. It seemed that the spin stopped for him, he was lost in your eyes for a second getting suck by them. His heart felt heavy and he felt that need again,  the need of protecting you.

"Stay by my side for the next round" He said again extending his hand to you "Take my hand and dont let go, I doubt the others wont get desesperated and will end palying dirty"

Before you reached his hand you went towards Gi-hun and Jung-Bae who were also talking about what number would be said next.

"Two" you cut them off getting a look from them "Just listen, its going to be two, I cant explain but I need to ask you two for something. One of you please take Young-mi with you, please im begging" You asked them almost in tears not having time to process last round and your actions.

Gi-hun the one from the pair who had already played could imagine what could have happened and he nodded giving your shoulder a firm grip. "We wont leave her" He promised you.

You thanked them again and went back besides In-ho who this time took your hand in his without saying or asking anything.

"2"

The moment the voice announced the number In-ho ran with you, his hand holding yours in iron fist.

He would be dammed if he lost you among the crowd.

Most rooms were getting occupied, In-ho searched till he saw one.

"There, the yellow door" He screamed at you pushing you first into the room then just as a player was going in getting them out of the way.

However things did not end once inside.

In-ho looked over his shoulder as he tried to held the door and prevent anyone from entering.

"Shit" He cursed. He saw you froze in place looking at other player who was just as shocked as you.

"W-we got here first" The player sutter at you who only watched him, the sound of your heart filling your ears and the screams from outside.

"Hold the door" In-ho ordered in a very comanding voice pushing you and going towards the player, he reduced him starting to choke him. "Close your eyes" He said to you once he noticed you were looking over your shoulder at him.

No. He could not let you see him like this.

You did as told and closed your eyes forcing yourself to block what was happening around you.

I wanna go home, fuck I wanna get out of here.

The sound of a crack and then the alarm indicating time was off got you out of your mind. You let yourself fall against the wall near the door trying not to look over the dead body in the room.

"Hey, hey (Y/N) look at me" In-ho implored trying to bring you back.

"I- I wanna go home In-ho" You told him now crying, whatever bravery you had was crushed right there.

Much like his own heart.

He pulled you against him in a hug, letting you cry on his chest, he felt you shaking and hugged you thighter caressing your hair.

There was no way he would leave you here after this.

"Shh, shh it passed. We are ok, just breath now" He tried to calm you down

"What if the others-"

"Im positive they made it" He said even if he could not really tell you that. "Focus on yourself now, focus in my voice alright? You are ok, you are safe"

"Dont let me go please" You pleaded him holding his track-suit with force.

"Never"

And he intendeed to do that.

~○~○~○~○~○~○~○

After the tie of the voting he could see you were one step of breaking down. He could not take on how empy your eyes looked now, how you would shake from time to time, probably from the recent events.

He also took notice on how you havent touch your food at all.

Slowly he went towards you taking a seat besides you, not too close or too far.

"You need to eat" He started but got a shake from you.

"I feel like I will throw up anything if I try to eat now"

"Even if thats the case, give it a try you will need the streght"

"Why?" You asked finally looking at him "Why did we tie? Why does they want to keep playing after all of this?"

In-ho went quiet at your question, he could not give you an answer. Honestly maybe there was no answer to it, greed ? malice ? desesperation ? Anything could be the reason.

"I dont have a answer for that" He finally talked seeing how your face fall even more.

"But I can assure you something" He added "Look at me" He ordered softly and you did as told "I will assure your safety" He promised

You gave him one smile, one that did not reach your eyes.

"You cant assure that...but thanks. Thanks for protecting me in the last game and for what happened during last round..."

"You dont have to remember that" He said afraid you were going to see him different now

"No. Thank you" You cut him, looking at his face seeing the small suprise he got. "I know I should feel bad and god I do feel bad but, but you did it so we both could survive, thank you. I want you to know I dont see you any different from how I saw you before"

He did not respond to you, did not react at all. His mind was working like crazy, thinking how he could get you out.

How was he going to keep playing these games and using Gi-hun. How, when his heart now beating because of you. Because of how you saw him, how your eyes kept following him and how you expressed your thoughts.

Gradually he got closer to you, he moved in slow motion to not scare you, till he could pass his arm around your shoulders and pull you against his side. The two of you stayed there in silence for a few minutes each with their own thoughts, but In-ho had a strong objective now.

Protect you till the end.

[sleepymim]

Ok so this is going to be my attempt to put all of my thoughts about Silco and Vander and their relationship and how they might achieve reconciliation into one coherent post because I cannot! stop! thinking about them!

As we see in s2e7, reconciliation between them is definitely possible. However, I think it definitely wasn't easy, and it wasn't motivated by a single event like Silco finding Vander's letter or Vi dying. I think a million little things needed to perfectly align for them to find back to one another. As others have already said, and I agree with this, I think the "happy" timeline is a statistical anomaly for them.

So what was needed for them to find back to each other? And like, disclaimer that this is obviously only my own interpretation of events.

First of all, I think one of the prerequisites for reconciliation is that Silco doesn't start working with Singed and doesn't get into Shimmer, which is supported by his eye having healed normally in the alternate timeline.

I also think that Vander's letter could only ever be a starting point for their reconciliation, something that would get them in the same room to talk again. After that, I think they'd still need a long, long time to get back to how things were.

Vi's death imo has absolutely nothing to do with whether they reconcile or not, because in the alternate timeline she dies during what would be Act 1. Silco is already past the point of no retunr here, he doesn't give a shit about Vi or the other kids, he's deep into his Shimmer business. He's literally planning to kill all the kids in episode 3. He would not give a fuck if Vi died in that explosion. If Silco and Vander are to reconcile, it needs to happen pretty soon after the betrayal.

But I think the most important aspects for their reconciliation are violence and ideology.

Obviously the actual betrayal is horrifically violent and traumatizing. Vander actively chose to drown Silco which is just like, such a brutal way to die. He does this because he puts the blame for the bridge fight escalating on Silco. This is unjustified, and the show wants us to know that Vander was in the wrong here. Vander himself admits in s1e3 that he has regretted what he did to Silco since it happened. In general episode 3 in my opinion very clearly communicates that Vander overreacted and that what Siclo did (throwing the first molotov) does not justify Vander's reaction (violent murder).

However! Vander also clearly still thinks Silco is dangerous and despite regretting how he reacted still puts some form of blame on Silco.

In the apology letter, he says the blood is on both their hands. The letter in general is shit considering the weight of what Vander did, and what it shows is that even though Vander feels bad about what he did, he does still put the blame for the bridge fight on Silco.

In act 1, Vander also says there are worse things than enforcers in the Undercity while looking at his brace that covers the scar Silco gave him while escaping. This is, presumably, before he knows Siloc has been funding Shimmer development and getting into human experimentation. He thinks Silco is worse than enforcers based on whatever happened between them in past. With s2, this is explicitly Silco's escalation on the bridge.

So obviously despite the time that has passed and the fact that Vander can admit what he did was unjustified, he does still believe Silco is dangerous based on their differing ideology. Benzo, too, obviously still holds a grudge against Silco for what happened.

So really the crux is that even though Vander feels sorry, he does not change his stance on non-violence being the right way forward for the people of Zaun, and thus he can never truly forgive Silco for what he did on the bridge - he still believes that Silco is responsible and that his own way is the right way.

I think as long as Vander keeps his ideological stance, reconciliation between them isn't possible. From both sides, because Vander thinks Silco's ideals are dangerous, and from Silco's side because he thinks Vander is a coward and a sellout.

Then let's look at Silco's side of things a little bit.

I think there's two aspects to his forgiveness/reconciliation with Vander: the violence and the ideology.

Canon pretty much tells us that Silco is willing and able to forgive the violence Vander inflicted on him. We see this not only in the alternate timeline, where they're obviously close again, but I think s1e3 tells us the same. Silco kidnaps Vander, but still offers him the chance to join him in the fight against Piltover again. I don't want to talk here about Silco's methods at this point in time, but he's obviously willing to put the murder attempt behind them IF Vander is willing to switch to his side again. He even says that his hatred for Vander passed with time. I think this implies that, somehow, eventually, with time, in a nicer timeline Silco could really forgive Vander for trying to kill him.

However, and I think this is the much bigger issue for them, there's still the matter of ideology. Vander betraying their shared goals, turning towards a pacifist, more passive approach to revolution and ultimately striking a deal with Grayson is what really drives the wedge between them.

This is what Silco despises Vander for: For turning his back on violence. Silco encourages Vander's violent tendencies, he wants him to become the person he used to be again, wants him to embrace that part of himself again. I think this supports the assumption that Silco would forgive the violence inflicted against him much easier than Vander abandoning their shared dream. Until the end, he wants Vander to embrace that violence again.

And a Vander who is committed to non-violence is a Vander who stands in the way of Silco's goal of a free Zaun. So as long as Vander stays firm on his ideological stance, Silco is always eventually going to get rid of him. There is no way for them to find back to one another if they remain on opposite sides of the struggle they used to fight together.

This is, I think, the crux of my interpretation of them:

Reconciliation doesn't only depend on Silco coming back to Vander and forgiving him for the violence Vander inflicted upon him. It also depends on Vander coming back to Silco, internalizing that the bridge figth was not Silco's fault, and being willing to compromise his non-violent ideology and take action again for their shared dream.

It's about the two of them coming back to each other.

[goodolreliablejake]

I think part of the reason that Evrart Claire is able to outmanuever everyone else is that he sees the world in strict, materialist terms. I previously argued that beneath his sleezy and corrupt exterior, Evrart is a true believer in Communism, so now I'd like to add on to that a bit about his methods. Basically, Evrart has very clearly defined, material goals and a plan to achieve them that prioritizes results over process, and this is in stark contrast to Harry's highly conceptual and abstract understanding of politics.

Let me make my point by first making a detour; why does Evrart employ Rene as his night watchman? It's charity, right? Rene isn't really that useful, but he wants to feel useful, and he needs a source of income to survive, and he needs it in a way that protects his pride. But isn't Rene Evrart's ideological enemy? He is, according to Harry's political schema, the avatar of fascism, and a vocal hater of communism.

Well, no, because to Evrart, class isn't a matter of what you believe in your heart, it's a matter of your material conditions. Rene is a poor and vulnerable man, a working class fellow abandoned by the people who once exploited him, even as he romanticizes that past exploitation. And in that way, he is (in Evrart's eyes at least) no different whatsoever from Dros the Deserter.

I think this materialism is also what allows Evrart to lie so easily. He'll gladly call Harry a comrade, because words are wind. Words don't change the fact that Harry is a cop and the violent agent of the state.

Under this framework, I think there are really only two political positions that people can meaningfully take; they are what Harry would call Communism or Moralism. As a citizen of Martinaise, you can either accept the status quo of those in power, or you can work towards independence from your corporate overlords. Fascism is a delusion: drinking yourself to death while griping about women and immigrants, never changing your political reality. Ultraliberalism is ALSO a delusion: fantasizing about net worth and becoming the boot, meanwhile your overlords will never allow you to escape the economic status you were assigned at birth.

Now, it might sound like I'm being overly complimentary to Claire, but this framework is also what enables his worst crimes. Evrart defrauds the union, skirting its democratic process to install himself (and his brother) as permanent dictator/mafioso. His focus on results turns him into something of a perverse reversal of his own ideals. He exploits the people of the fishing village, conning and stealing their land because he believes it will be worth it in the end. He profits off a drug trade that leeches off of the hopelessness of the very working class people he claims to be working to better the lives of.

Yet at the end of the day... Harry's "political vision quests" are stories he tells himself in his head. They change the UI that the player sees but nothing about how it works. His conception of Communism is most defined by its impossibility and failure. Meanwhile, Evrart ACTUALLY seizes the means of production.

[inmyheaddd]

starry eyes sparking up my darkest night - averyjameson

a/n: heavy influenced by thinking bout you by ariana hehe, also trying out a new style sorta?? so i'm vv sorry if this is horrible.,, thank u tig gc/ liv for help with the quotes !! summary: (set in thl, pre coma) avery cannot stop thinking about jameson, and the thought that he may just be the right person for her. the fact that there even could be a 'person for her' is jarring enough, and jameson being at the centre of those thoughts does not help her predicament. wc: 2.8k

Avery tossed and turned in her bed, trying insanely hard to grasp some sort of control over her mind and her thoughts. She lay on her side and screwed her eyes shut. Two minutes later, her eyes flew open, and then she turned to lie on her back. 

''Picture yourself standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The wind is whipping in your hair. The sun is setting. You long, body and soul, for one thing. One person. You hear footsteps behind you. You turn. Who’s there?” Max had once asked her.

When she first heard that question, she felt like she was fully incapable of ever picturing anyone there with her. She was simply alone. But now, Avery hated that the picture was becoming increasingly more clear with every passing moment. 

That head of unruly brown hair, an ever-present wicked grin, and green eyes that seemed to look straight to the deepest parts of her. 

Jameson. She saw Jameson. 

Avery groaned and turned onto her other side and went through that process of turning fruitlessly at least 5 more times. Seriously, Avery, get a grip, she thought.

Why was he always there when she needed him? Why could she see that he had actually changed for her? Why was he... good? Avery once again squeezed her eyes shut like it would turn off those thoughts of Jameson and let her fall asleep, but of course, it didn't work. 

Love? Fear? Lust? She couldn't quite tell what it was, but all she knew was it was becoming harder to keep that one green-eyed Hawthorne out of her thoughts. She knew that for some reason, she wanted whatever they had going on to be more, and she wanted it to work out. 

That was it for her. 

She sprang out of bed and went to her closet, picking out her favourite sweater—the one Libby had gotten for her when she noticed the thinness of the old one Avery would always wear. That felt like a whole lifetime ago to her now. She wondered what her past self would think of her life now, think of the choices she was making. 

She made her way to her bathroom and splashed her face with cold water. There was no point in even attempting to sleep anymore; it was clearly not on her side this evening, so why not make the most out of it? 

She made her way downstairs, arms crossed over her chest in an attempt to combat the cold, not really knowing why she was going, but she figured once she was down there she'd figure out what she'd want. The house was eerily quiet—it was always pretty quiet considering the sheer size of it, but now, Avery could swear she could seriously not hear a single thing. She almost wondered if she went deaf. 

She made it to the kitchen, not even bothering to turn the big lights on. There were lights from underneath the cabinets and moonlight and various other lights pouring out from the windows. That was enough for her. She sighed and slouched on one of the chairs on the island. 

She ran a hand through her hair, trying so very hard to not think of the amount of times she and Jameson had sat here, how many times he had grinned at her when he would seemingly appear out of nowhere behind her and scare her half to death. 

And as if the universe was playing some funny trick on her, the boy who had been taking up her every rational thought walked into the kitchen. He didn't notice her at first, his black sweatpants hanging dangerously low on his hips, no shirt on, both hands rubbing his eyes as he walked towards the cabinet that held the glasses for water. 

Avery felt like she'd been caught, though she hadn't done anything wrong. Thinking of someone wasn't a crime, right? Surely her thoughts couldn't have summoned him. She couldn't take her eyes off of him, and her heart sped. 

She didn't move a single inch, and Jameson somehow still stayed completely oblivious to her presence a mere few metres away. Or maybe he was aware and just didn't show it. Avery could never fully tell with him. He blinked a few times, then set his glass down and stretched both his hands overhead, groaning ever so slightly.

Okay, I should seriously look away now, she thought. Or she should make her presence known, maybe clear her throat or something. But she couldn't. It was like she was entranced with the way the toned lines on his torso elongated, the way his arms looked, the way his hair fell into his face ever so slightly, the way his hands—

''Heiress.'' Avery's thoughts came to a halt. Her eyes snapped up to his face, and he had amusement sparkling in his eyes, mixed in with confusion. He managed a sleepy grin at her as his arms fell back to his sides. 

He phrased the word like a question, almost. There was sleep still laced in his voice, and Avery swore she could listen to him like this for hours and never get sick of it. 

He tilted his head. ''Why on earth are you awake?'' he chuckled lowly, not mentioning the way she had simply sat and stared at him for the past minute. 

Either he was protecting her sanity and didn't want to tease her right now, or he really just didn't notice the way she stared. Avery snuck a glance at the time on the oven. 3:42 AM. She'd been trying to fall asleep since 11. 

''Um,'' Avery cleared her throat, trying to sound as casual as Jameson did with a small laugh. ''Couldn't sleep. Why on earth are you awake?'' 

''You know what they say, Heiress,'' he narrowed his eyes jokingly, ''No rest for the wicked.'' Jameson flashed her a wink, finally filling up his glass of water under the tap.

His eyes didn't leave Avery once, not even looking at his glass as he turned off the tap and brought the cup to his lips. 

He leaned back against the counter, and Avery turned slightly in her seat without realising, facing him properly. 

''You think you're that bad, huh? Don't flatter yourself.'' Avery mumbled half jokingly.

''You almost sound like you think I'm good,'' he quipped with a tilt of his head, downing his glass of water in a second, and Avery 100% did not look at the way his Adams apple bobbed or the way his lips looked. Absolutely, definitely not. 

Avery managed a sarcastic smile, not showing any signs of being affected by his actions or words as he walked over and sat next to her. 

She snorted, ''You're probably the furthest thing from good in my life, Jameson. Doesn't mean you're necessarily wicked, though.''

He looked her up and down with a glint in his eye—he looked wide awake now. ''Furthest thing from good?'' He hummed, ''I think you would do with some recklessness in your life.'' He continued, his tone not really holding any humour in it anymore. Avery realised just how close he was now. 

''Maybe someone who lets you know it's okay to not do what others think is 'good.' Someone who breaks free from the reins with you but knows when to bring them back.'' He told her, a half smile on his face as he gently nudged her shoulder. 

''Not that you're not able to do all that by yourself; believe me, I know you're capable of many things.'' He said that last part in a way that made Avery break away from his gaze. ''The thing is, I think that you simply don't want to. You like to play it safe.''

Avery understood the other message he was silently conveying: He liked to play it dangerous. 

She felt like the part of her shoulder where he had nudged her was igniting. She could sense there was more to what Jameson wanted to say, so she brought her eyes back up to his. ''But?'' 

''But,'' he tilted his head, ''I also think you should. And, I think that someone would love to show you just how life can feel when you're free. They'd be a very lucky person to do so.''

''Let me guess,'' Avery smiled dryly, but her insides felt like they were on fire with how fast her heart was beating. ''You're that someone?'' 

''I'd be anything you'd like.'' He replied, flashing a quick smile that reminded Avery of the Cheshire Cat. ''You know, you're a very good guesser.''

''I don't like to guess.''

''Yeah?'' Jameson let out a breathy chuckle. ''I thought as much. You like to know.''

Avery pressed her lips together and fought back a smile; she did like to know. She hated feeling like there was something left undiscovered that she couldn't quite figure out. Which was partly why she loved the thrill of figuring things out. That moment when everything seemed to click. Jameson had picked up on that fact about her pretty damn quick. 

Avery didn’t look away, holding his gaze steady. "Yeah, I like to know," she admitted quietly, her voice even, "I know you're the same way. With winning, too. Is it weird that a part of me doesn’t like you knowing that about me?"

Jameson’s crooked grin grew, "Not weird at all." He shrugged, the casual movement undermined by the glint in his eyes. "You don’t like me wanting you, either. You don’t like wanting anything.''

He said the words in such a laid-back manner, while Avery's heart dropped. Her brows knitted together, it almost felt like a confrontation, but she got the sense that he wasn't judging her. “But you know what’s interesting, Heiress?” His voice dipped a degree lower as he inched his face just a fraction closer, the kind of proximity that always left her torn between feeling both cornered and wanting to break the space even more. “You and I—neither of us are that easy to figure out. And yet here we are.''

''Here we are,'' she repeated, her voice coming out sharper than she intended, ''knowing each other more than we'd like.'' She said, finishing his sentence for him.

And trusting each other with our lives. She thought, but she didn't dare say it aloud. She thought back on the Black Wood, the way he put his body over hers with no hesitation.

"I think that’s why you can’t decide if you hate me or not," Jameson added, his voice dropping a degree lower, "You like knowing, but being known? That’s a different kind of risk, isn’t it?"

He knew he was right. She didn't need to answer. He'd just summed up the way she had felt for years of her life in 3 sentences. She wouldn't let herself be known, yet a part of her yearned for it. Most people gave up trying to get close to her after a while, but with the few that stayed, Avery's walls slowly broke down, and she got comfortable. 

The risk Jameson was talking about, the one about people staying, he seemed eager to take it. 

Avery’s heart raced, but she gave nothing away, merely tilting her head with a wry smile. "You’re overthinking it, Jameson."

His grin widened, and he leaned in ever so slightly, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Perhaps you’re choosing to not think about it, Avery."

Oh, if he had any idea just how much she thought about it. Once again, he knew, she was choosing, or at least trying to not think about it.

Her mind lingered on the way he called her by her name. Not Heiress, not Mystery Girl. Just Avery.

''I've 'thought about it' enough.'' She told him, her gaze flitting between his eyes.

He casually brought his hand up and brushed a stray hair behind her ear, his gentleness nearly making her flinch. ''And what was your conclusion?" He asked innocently, his voice a low hum. 

Avery nearly sighed in frustration. She knew Jameson was simply trying to get her riled up, but she still sarcastically quipped, ''Why don't you use your guessing skills?"

He hummed, like he was seriously thinking about it, but the teasing smile on his lips said otherwise. ''I'd rather hear you say it.''

Jameson's hand that tucked her hair behind now fit right where her jaw met her neck, and his green eyes looked nearly black in the dim lighting of the kitchen.

''Tough luck, then.'' Avery mumbled, unable to look away.

Everything had seemed so cold just minutes earlier, but now, Avery felt like every nerve in her body was on fire. She wondered if Jameson felt the same. 

Avery tried to keep her composure, but the way he held her made her question everything. She was used to keeping control, but with him, control felt impossible, unnecessary even. There was something about his touch that made her feel like she could let go and still be safe.

"Jameson…" she breathed, her voice barely a whisper. She wasn’t sure if she was trying to pull away or bring him closer. His hand slid lower, resting at the base of her neck, and the heat between them intensified.

"You want me to stop?" he asked, though it seemed he knew her answer. 

Perhaps he wanted to hear her say that too. 

Avery’s mind was racing, her heart thudding loudly in her chest, but her answer came without hesitation. "No." It was barely audible, but it was enough.

In the next instant, his lips were on hers, and everything else faded away. The kiss was soft at first, slow, as if he were testing the waters, but Avery wasn’t about to let it stay that way. She leaned in, arms wrapping around his neck and pulling him closer.

Jameson responded instantly, one arm sliding around her waist, then he stood and brought them both out of their chairs as they stumbled around the kitchen, not breaking from the kiss.

They continued walking blindly until he gently backed her up against the counter. Avery’s breath hitched, but she couldn’t pull away.

She didn't want to pull away. She didn’t want to doubt her choices. Not anymore.

Click.

Avery had suddenly felt like everything fell into place, like the very first step she had taken in the Hawthorne House had led to this, to uncovering the mystery of what she and Jameson Winchester Hawthorne were. She once thought they were only confined to adrenaline, attraction, and the thrill of the moment. No strings attached. No messy emotions.

Now, she found herself feeling every messy emotion, like there had been a string attached right from her heart to his, pulling them closer and closer and closer.

'You long, body and soul, for one thing. One person.' Jameson.

'You turn. Who’s there?'Jameson Winchester Hawthorne. He was there. 

He was here. And he was kissing Avery and holding her face so gently in a way that no one ever had before, like she was precious to him. Like he truly cared, and not just about the games.

And after all the times Avery spent thinking about the different ways her life could've been, she found herself not wanting to be anywhere else but here.

If possible, Avery's heart started beating even faster as her hands travelled down his chest, feeling every rigid bump and dip. Her hands quickly found their way back up and slid into his hair, pulling slightly. She felt him grin against her lips, which brought her back to reality. 

She was the first to pull back, her hands lingering around his neck for a second longer before they slid down to his chest.

“I should... I should go to bed.” She muttered into the small space between them, looking at her hands and bringing them back to her sides before looking straight up into his eyes. 

Jameson tilted his head, his pupils blown out as he gazed at her. His lips were parted as he caught his breath. ''Right.'' He nodded breathlessly, their lips still unbelievably close. ''It's late. Busy day for you tomorrow, yeah?'' 

Avery nodded as she breathed out a small, ''Yeah, you know how it is.'' 

Recently, all her days were busy, considering the Skye and Toby business.

His lips curved inwards into a thin line as he stepped to the side, giving her space to move. His expression was something that looked like understanding—or maybe it was disappointment. Either way, he didn’t push. He just nodded. 

“Alright,” he said, managing a grin, seemingly out of the daze he was in earlier. “Goodnight, Heiress.”

Her stomach twisted, ''Night, Jameson,'' she let the words fall as she stayed looking into his eyes. She forced herself to look away, because she had a feeling if she didn't, she'd be there all night.

She finally stepped away. She wasn't clueless; she felt him watch her walk away. But she kept herself moving before she could let herself change her mind. 

And this time, when Avery lay in her bed, she actually fell asleep. 

taglist: @x-liv25-jamieswife @wish-i-were-heather @thecircularlibrary @whatsamongus @littlemissmentallyunstable @anintellectualintellectual @lovethornes @maybxlle @sheisntyou @emelia07 @midiosaamor @sweetreveriee @charsoamerican @hxress23 @imaseabear @clarissaweasley-10 @off-to-the-r4ces @thelov3lybookworm @graysw1fe @lanterns-and-daydreams @hermesenthusiast @elysianwayy77 @that-daughter-of-hephaestus @apollosmusee @hijabi-desi-bookworm @goldi-1-graysons-version @saigonharrington @peppapigsposts @thoughtdaughter3 also special thank u to @apollospoem for the beta read!! 🙈 she saw it first!!!

[livwritessometimes]

Can you please do a part 2 to “a footnote will do (for me)” with Charles Leclerc?

Perhaps, something like this: She moves on with someone else (one date), and he sees them, gets jealous and chases her. Apologising and grovelling all the way till they make up?

I loved that fix but it was heartbreaking

If The World Was Ending

: Charles Leclerc x Reader

: If the world was ending, you'd come over, right?

: Part 1

: Main Masterlist

: Author's Note - Here you go! Hope this heals the heartbreak from part 1 :)

...

I was distracted And in traffic I didn't feel it When the earthquake happened But it really got me thinkin' Were you out drinkin'? Were you in the living room Chillin' watchin' television

It's funny how life works—why is it that when you're in a rush, you find yourself stuck in endless traffic. Charles let out a sigh; he was exhausted. The past few months had not been the best for him. The season was finally over; he should have been out there relaxing but all Charles could think about was how they lost the constructor's championship. He knows it's not his fault—not entirely, at least—but he couldn't help letting his mind wander. Things had been good for a while; the constant hustle bustle had made his life better. The calm now left him with too much time on his hands to think. It had left him with time to think about his brother's engagement. He still remembers how happy he was the day he got the call from Enzo. It gave him time to think about Arthur—how he got to race with his little brother by his side. That memory brought a smile to Charles' face. It also gave him time to think about Alex; his Alex. Before he could think of anything else, Charles was brought back into reality by his phone ringing. It was her.

"Hey, I was just think-" Charles said before he got cut off by Alex.

"Are you okay?" She asked, voice a little panicky.

"What-ya of course, why?" He questioned, confused by her sudden panic.

"We just had an earthquake, did you not feel it?" She questioned.

"Oh...no not really. I'm stuck in traffic, i didn't feel much," Charles answered.

"Oh good! Alright, I'll see you soon, yeah?" She asked.

"Ya, I'll be there in 15, hopefully," Charles said before he hung up.

Setting his phone down, Charles looked out of the window once again, waiting for the traffic to clear up. As he waited, his mind went to one person—someone who had been on his mind for a while now. He knows he shouldn't think about her, he has a girlfriend and she has a boyfriend—or at least that's what he assumes based on what Arthur had said. Charles had no business thinking about Y/n. It was his fault they drifted apart. Had he not completely ignored Y/n after her confession, they would still be in touch like they used to be, instead of become strangers who only see each other now at big celebrations.

Finally free from the traffic, Charles made his way towards his house. It was a Friday, which got him thinking: Was she out drinking? He wondered if Y/n felt the earthquake. Or was she at home, chilling and watching television with her new boyfriend? As much as he did not want to admit, the thought of that left a bitter taste in his mouth. Which was weird, because Charles was clearly happy with Alex. Why would the though of Y/n being happy with someone else hurt his heart? Not wanting to think further about this, Charles finally got out of his car and headed towards his apartment, to his girlfriend and dog waiting for his arrival.

It's been a year now Think I've figured out how How to let you go and let communication die out

Life was different now for Y/n. She had different goals, and different priorities. It's funny how so much can change in the span of a few months. Y/n had moved to a different house, one that was closer to her best friend, Arthur. She liked this house a lot better than her last; good lighting, a great neighborhood, and living super close to your closest friend—what more could she ask for? However, the real reason why Y/n liked this house so much was that it was in a location far away from him. She wouldn't have to worry about bumping into him every time she'd make a grocery run or go to her favourite coffee shop. Things had been good. She hadn't thought about him in a long time. It's weird how quickly you can go from talking everyday to barely seeing each other at all these days. Y/n preferred it this way. It honestly felt like a year had passed since she'd last seen Charles' face in person. Of course she still saw him on TV, but it just wasn't the same. Y/n even started seeing someone, all thanks to Arthur. This guy was good and clearly into her. It felt nice to finally be wanted. After chasing something for so long with no result, it was refreshing to feel wanted. Y/n figured that if she gave this guy a chance, maybe that would be her ticket to forgetting about Charles. And so far, it had worked. Y/n finally felt like she could move past what had happened between her and Charles. She had finally figured out how to let him go.

I know, you know, we know, You weren't down for forever and it's fine I know, you know, we know We weren't meant for each other and it's fine

Y/n stood in the kitchen, helping out Arthur's girlfriend with the snacks. It had been Arthur's idea to host a game night after watching a couple of reels about college kids hosting annual game night. 'I'm starting a family tradition,' is what he'd said when he invited Y/n and her boyfriend to his house. Rolling her eyes at the memory, she looked at the man in question, laughing at something Y/n's boyfriend had said. Slowly, she trailed her eyes to the left towards, the older Leclerc, only to find him already looking at her. Y/n quickly turned her head and focused on what Jade was talking about. Even though she had moved on, seeing him still felt strange. Every time she looked at Charles, she saw the face of the man she had loved at one point in time. It was also the face of the man who had rejected her. But that's okay now. She had accepted that they weren't meant for each other, even if it was a hard pill to swallow.

But if the world was ending You'd come over, right? You'd come over and you'd stay the night Would you love me for the hell of it? All our fears would be irrelevant

Hours had passed, and the entire group was now sprawled in different corners of the living room. They had spent the last few hours playing a variety of games, which had led to several heated arguments between the Leclerc brothers. Who would have thought they could get so competitive over board games? The night slowly died down and Enzo was the first one to leave. Arthur had dragged Y/n's boyfriend into a different room to show him something she didn't care enough to pay attention to. Making her way outside, she could see Alex and Jade in the kitchen cleaning up the aftermath of such intense game night. As she stared outside, she felt a presence next to her, followed by a soft, 'Hey'. Turning slightly towards the sound, she found Charles standing next to her, staring at the sky. "Hey," she murmured, glancing back ahead. "It's been a while...," said Charles, his gaze fixed on her. "It has. How have you been?" Y/n asked, keeping her eyes ahead, avoiding eye contact. "I've been good, I think," Charles said, his voice a bit uncertain. "How have you been? I see you're dating someone new now," He added, a hint of bitterness laced in his tone. Turning to face him, Y/n said, "Yeah, I have. He's a good guy. In fact, Arthur was the one who introduced us." Charles felt betrayed. How could he not, his own brother was responsible for this. "How is Alex? Oh, and how can I forget about little Leo?" She added. Upon her question, Charles glanced towards the kitchen where Alex was laughing at something Jade had said. He should feel happy—he has a girlfriend who loves him; he should be over the moon. Yet, for some reason, his mind wandered back to the lady in front of him. He could see the sincerity in her eyes—it was the same as when she had first offered him a lift to Arthur's party. The moon cast a soft glow on her face, and it took everything in Charles to not reach out and caress her cheek. Y/n raised an eyebrow at Charles, waiting for him to answer her. "Oh, yeah, things have been good. They're good," Charles said bashfully, rubbing the back of his neck. "Good," Y/n replied, watching as her boyfriend make his way into the living room. "Well, that's my cue. I should get going. It's—it's been nice catching up after such a long time," Y/n smiled at him as she walked into the living room towards her boyfriend. Charles stood there for a moment, watching her leave with her boyfriend. Glancing back at the sky, he muttered to himself, "Good...but not the same without you."

I tried to imagine Your reaction It didn't scare me when the earthquake happened But it really got me thinkin' The night we went drinkin' Stumbled in the house And didn't make it past the kitchen

Y/n slowly made her way to the bathroom, taking off one earring at a time. She felt her boyfriend press a gentle kiss to her forehead before heading off to change his clothes. Staring at the mirror in front of her, she let out a sigh. Tonight was harder than Y/n had expected. Seeing him again shook the very foundation she had spent months building. It baffled her how Charles still held so much power over her. Talking to Charles after such a long time brought back so many memories, but one in particular stood out. She wasn't sure if it was the starry night that had reminded her of that day, or if simply being in Charles' presence had sparked that memory.

*flashback*

It was after a particularly rough Grand Prix that Y/n and Charles found themselves getting absolutely wasted. It was a quiet bar near Y/n's house, one that didn't have many visitors—especially considering it was 3 a.m. Slowly getting up, Y/n stumbled, losing her footing. She fully expected to smack the floor when a strong pair of arms broke her fall and steadied her. "It's okay, I've got you," Charles said as he led her out of the bar towards her house, not once letting go of her. It took them exactly 8 minutes to get the lock to Y/n's door. She remembers it because that's how long Charles kept on hugging her, leaning into her for 'moral support,' as he liked to call it. Slowly the two stumbled into her house. As they walked inside, Charles lost his footing and fell to the floor, pulling a drunk Y/n down with him. Worried, Charles quickly sat up, looking at Y/n to check if she was alright. His worry soon eased as the room was filled with Y/n's laughter. Seeing her laugh, Charles couldn't help but join in. He laid back down besides her, still smiling. "I love you Y/n/n," said Charles as he pulled her in for a hug. Unbeknownst to him, Y/n instantly sobered up when she heard him say those three words. There lay a drunk Charles, happily snuggling with what he assumed to be a drunk Y/n, forgetting about all the worries in the world and just being content lying there with her. Alternatively, there lay Y/n in the arms of the boy she realized she saw as much more than 'just a friend,' thinking if the world were to end tomorrow, she'd be happy to die like this—in his arms.

*present*

Finishing the last step of her nighttime routine, Y/n made her way to her bed, into the arms of her boyfriend. She knew it was wrong; she shouldn't think like this. But one thought lingered in her mind—It's not the same.

Ah. it's been a year now Think I've figured out how How to think about you without it rippin' my heart out

The drive back home was a silent one for Charles and Alex. For the first time in a long time, Charles felt happy. Not once did he think about racing or losing the championship. Not once did the negative thoughts that had plagued his mind for months resurface. He'd like to think it was because of the game night, but no matter how much he wanted that to be true, he knew that wasn't the reason for this happiness. It made him wonder if he had made a mistake—getting together with Alex so quickly, adding Leo into the mix. It made him wonder what would have happened if he had given her a chance, if only he had waited to see how things might play out. Charles thought he had matured. He figured it had been months now, it wouldn't affect him as much. But he was wrong. Even now, after all this time, thinking about her, about them, still breaks his heart.

I know, you know, we know You weren't down for forever and it's fine I know, you know, we know We weren't meant for each other and it's fine If the world was ending You'd come over, right? You'd come over, right? You'd come over, you'd come over, you'd come over, right?

Charles just couldn't fall asleep. No matter how hard he tried, he lay there, in his bed, wide awake. He looked to his side to find Alex passed out with Leo by her feet. As much as he hated to admit, he did not find the sight as comforting as he used to. Looking back at the ceiling, Charles could not bear to let his thoughts run wild for another second. Quickly, he got up and changed into his tracks. He figured a jog would help calm his mind down. And so, that's what he did: he grabbed his keys and made his way out of the house at 2 a.m. for a late-night run.

The second Charles stepped onto the street, he ran. He ran for as long as his feet could take him. After running for what felt like hours, Charles stopped by a park. He took a moment to look at his surroundings and realized he was far away from his neighborhood. Instead, he realized he was much closer to the place he had just come home from a few hours ago—he was near Arthur's neighborhood. Making his way inside the park, Charles spotted someone sitting on one of the benches. As he walked closer, he realized that it was the one person he wanted to get out of his mind. "Y/n?" said Charles in a confused tone. Looking up at the sound, Y/n came face to face with Charles. "Charles! What are you doing here?" She asked, confused by his sudden presence. "I could ask you the same," he paused to look at his watch before continuing, "That too, at 3 a.m.?" Not knowing what to say, Y/n scooted a little, inviting the boy to take a seat next to her. "I couldn't sleep," she said in a quiet voice. For a while, neither of them said anything. The two sat there in silence, enjoying the peace and quiet.

"Do you ever wonder what would have happened if things had gone differently?" Charles questioned, breaking the silence. "Huh? Differently, how?" Y/n asked, confused about what the boy in front of her was getting at. Charles knows he shouldn't say it, but he couldn't help himself. In his mind, it was either now or never. "Do you ever wonder if things would have been different, had I—had we, um..." Charles hesitated. "Had we what, Charles?" Y/n asked, now turned, giving him her full attention. Taking a deep breath, he continued, "Had we gotten together? Had I reacted differently to your confession? Do you think things would have been different then?" Stunned at his question, Y/n was taken aback. "I don't see the point in bringing this up now, Charles. It doesn't matter anyways," she said, slowly turned away from the boy. In an instant, Charles grabbed her hands, stopping her. "It matters to me, Y/n, please," he pleaded. "I don't know, Charles...I don't know, maybe?" Y/n said. Letting out a sigh, she continued, "Why now, though? Why now, when I have a boyfriend and you have a girlfriend...and a DOG, for fuck's sake." Y/n suddenly felt anger towards the boy. Why was he having these doubts all of a sudden? And why now, of all times? She had finally gotten used to living without constantly having him in the back of her mind. So why now? "Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I'm aware of how wrong all of this is? I tried to forget you. I tried really hard to forget every single thing about you, and for a while, it worked. I was happy; I was so happy with Alex, and then we got Leo. I felt complete...but it only lasted for a while. Every time I had a bad day, you were the first person I thought about calling. Every time I won a race or got a podium, your eyes were the ones I searched for as soon as I got up there. Do you think I wanted this to happen? Do you think I enjoyed breaking your heart back then? I hated myself for the way I reacted," Charles said, finally letting go of every single thing he had been holding onto for such a long time. "WELL THEN WHY DID YOU REACT THAT WAY?" Y/n said, losing her cool after Charles' outburst. "I—I don't know," he said, ashamed of the way he handled things. "I just assumed, if we became a couple, things wouldn't work out, because let's be honest I know my luck—they never do, and then we break up. So, I not only lose you, I also lose a bond that I held so close to my heart," he continued. Y/n was at a loss for words. It felt like a fever dream. All she wanted was for Charles to want her. And now that he did, she wasn't sure what to do. Somehow, amidst all this chaos, Y/n's mind drifted to Alex. She wondered if Alex was aware of this, If she had her doubts. She thought about how happy Alex looked earlier today. Snapping out of her thoughts, Y/n got up. "Charles...I'm sorry but we can't—I can't do this. Think about Alex. How can you do this to her? I have a boyfriend now, and for once, I don't have to hope that he feels the same way I do. For once, I don't have to doubt the feelings that we share—whether they're real or not. I'm sorry, but there will never be an 'us,'" Y/n said as she started to walk towards her apartment.

"You said 'feelings.' Does that mean you don't love him?" Charles questioned. Turning back to look at the boy, who was now standing as well, "What?" Y/n asked. "You just said 'the feelings you share,' and not love. Does that mean you don't love him? Is it because, deep down, you know, you still love me?" Charles questioned, taking a step closer. "I'm sorry, Charles," Y/n said as she walked away, leaving Charles all alone in the middle of the park.

I know, you know, we know You weren't down for forever and it's fine I know, you, know, we know We weren't meant for each other and it's fine

The next time Y/n heard about Charles was a few months later. She had decided to spend the day with Arthur and Jade. The trio had spent the majority of their day lounging and watching movies. As the day progressed, they slowly got comfortable on the couch and started to talk about a variety of things, with a glass of wine in hand. Somewhere in between, the conversation about Enzo and Charlotte's wedding came up. "Hey Y/n/n, do you have a date in mind?" Jade asked. Y/n had broken up with her boyfriend not long after that night in the park with Charles. Arthur gave Y/n a sad smile. He knew about Y/n's crush, and Charles' rejection. He also knew about that night in the park. "Umm...not really, I don't have anyone particular in mind," said Y/n with a little hesitation. "Ahh, you know what? why don't you go with Charles? I always thought you two would make a cute pair," said Jade as she got up to get some more snacks. Upon hearing this, Y/n shot Arthur a look. "What?" she asked. Taking a sip of his drink, Arthur said, "He broke up with her." He continued, "He broke up with her a while ago...A few weeks after the park incident." Y/n didn't know how to react. "I didn't say anything because I didn't want you to feel guilty over their breakup," said Arthur. A soft 'Oh' was all Y/n could mutter. "Just know it's not your fault. He chose to break up with her. This has nothing to do with you," said Arthur. Getting up to go get another bottle, he turned around and said, "I know things are complicated between the two of you, but for what it's worth, don't let this guilt stop you from going after what you want. That is, if that's what you still want." With that Arthur left Y/n alone with her thoughts.

But if the world was ending You'd come over, right? You'd come over and you'd stay the night Would you love me for the hell of it? All our fears would be irrelevant If the world was ending You'd come over, right?

Everything about tonight was perfect—the lights, the decoration, the location; it was all perfect. Y/n felt honored when Charlotte had asked her to be one of her bridesmaids. She still remembers how she could not stop crying and how it took both Enzo and Charlotte to calm her down. Standing in front of her was Enzo, a man Y/n considered to be her older brother, looking as handsome as ever. Locking eyes with her, Enzo smiled at Y/n. 'You've got this,' she mouthed to him. Diverting her eyes, Y/n made eye contact with him. Standing tall in an expensive suit was none other than Enzo's younger brother, Charles. The two had not spoken even once since that night—not when they arrived at the wedding location, not at the family dinner, and not even when they walked down the aisle together as the groomsman and bridesmaid. It was clear that Charles wanted to talk to her. He made many attempts to convey that. Y/n, however, wasn't ready to have that talk. Doing so would mean the two would have to come face-to-face with the fact that they unintentionally sabotaged their relationships for each other—something Y/n was not ready to accept.

The ceremony was beautiful. Y/n even shed a few tears at the couple's vow's. It was finally time for their reception. As everyone was making their way to reception venue, Y/n was pulled into the corner by someone. Before she could say anything, she heard "Shh, It's me," and then the owner of that voice came in view. "Charles," she said, although her voice came muffled under Charles' hand. Smiling at her, he said, "I wanted to talk to you, which I think you have noticed by now, considering you suddenly vanish the moment I make my way towards you." Removing his hand from over her mouth, Y/n said, "What do you want Charles?" "Isn't it obvious by now? I want you, Y/n. I know what I said in the park was stupid and selfish. I shouldn't have unloaded my feeling onto you like that. I know I should have figured things out for myself before I did anything. And I've learned it the hard way. I know I hurt a lot of people in the process, and I genuinely regret that. If I could go back in time and reverse things, I would. But you also have to know I have never been more sure about anything else in my life than I am about you since that night in the park. I love you, and I have loved you ever since I met you. I want to be the person you call after a long day, the one you think about every time something good happens in your life. Most of all, I want to be the one you think about, no matter what," said Charles, holding nothing but sincerity in his eyes. Y/n let out a few tears she didn't know she had been holding in. "How are you so sure things will work out? How do you know we're not going to wake up in a year or two's time and realize how big of a mistake this was? And how things would have been better had we let them be just the way they were? How?" Y/n questioned Charles. "I don't, and I can't be sure that this will work out," said Charles. Taking a step forward, he held onto Y/n's hand before continuing, "But I know that you're worth the risk. I had to learn it the long way," he said with a smirk, upon which Y/n smacked his arm. "Charles!" she said in a tone of warning. "I'm sorry, mon amour, but you should know, if the world was going to end tomorrow, you'd be the only person I would want to spend the night with. No matter what happens I want you, Y/n. You're worth the risk," said Charles.

No, there wouldn't be a reason why We would even have to say goodbye

"Are you sure about this, Charles," said Y/n as she looked at him. "I'm more than sure, mon amour," said Charles, his eyes gleaming with nothing but sincerity and love. And so Y/n nodded her head. "Yes," she said as she looked at the boy kneeling in front of her. Jumping up in joy, Charles let out a scream, "She said yes!" All of a sudden, their friends and family came out from where they were hiding, all excited to congratulate the couple on their engagement. Y/n was pulled into an embrace by none other than her best friend, "You knew, didn't you?" she asked. "Of course I knew, who do you think helped him pick out that ring," said Arthur, still hugging her. "I'm happy for you," he said as he pulled away. "Me too," Y/n said smiling up at him.

As Y/n looked at Charles, she knew no matter her fears and doubts, she would never regret this decision—ever.

...

[megamagimugi]

It's finally 2025 where I am. Since I only joined Tumblr in June 2024, this is the first New Year's celebration I get to share with you guys. I hope it's okay if I say a few words on this special occasion.

Real talk: I can't say 2024 was a particularly good year for me, though like any year it certainly had its ups and downs. My mental health hasn't really been good since 2017, and it seemed to only be getting worse as my life kept falling apart over the years. The consequences of my bad decisions along with some things outside my control not working out in my favor kept eating away at my hope bit by bit, slowly killing my normally optimistic nature. In the first half of 2024, I had an increasingly hard time finding reasons to even keep going.

But then I joined Tumblr for one reason only: to read some cool Mario fan comics as Tumblr kept telling me to sign in. Annoyed, I eventually caved in and created this little Mario themed blog. Little did I know it would be my best decision of the year.

Turns out, while there are certainly things I don't like about Tumblr just as I initially thought, they all pale in comparison to one of the first things I found here: a surprisingly wholesome and supportive community full of joy, kindness, creativity and camaraderie. It proved me wrong when I thought it wasn't possible to find and maintain true friendship online, especially without ever meeting in person. It also proved me wrong when I thought I was unlovable and unworthy. It has also validated me a lot as an artist, welcoming the fanart I've shared with a level of enthusiasm I never expected to see. And finally, it has been changing me as a person, inspiring me to be a little gentler and more caring.

As I recently noticed, ever since joining Tumblr my mental health has significantly improved. It's nowhere near perfect (ha! I wish it was that simple), but I'm overall significantly less lonely, quite a bit happier and it's not as hard to find the motivation to keep going anymore. I'm more thankful to you all for this than I can express with words. I'll still say it: thank you for everything, guys!

Some people I'd like to tag here, that I can think of off the top of my head (if I'm forgetting anyone, then I'm really sorry!): @silenzahra @bberetd @vulpixfairy1985 @peaches2217 @itsavee4117 @stripetkattelalala54-gf @coffeecat1983 @multicolour-ink @jelly-fish-wishes @pepperycar @supergay-64 @roscolate @doodleydoo101 @drones-of-innocence @elitadream @akiiame-blog

I just really love this community that has become such an important part of my life. I also love the Mario franchise for leading me to it, and for always bringing me joy and fun even in the darkest of times❤️

Say what you want about 2024, but I think we can all agree that at least it was a great year for Mario!

Happy New Year, everyone!🥳🎉🎉🎉

[angelinthefire]

Okay! Let's talk about how this is objectively wrong! Step-by-step. Because it's fun!

Intro

Right from the get-go, the first sign that this guy hasn't critically evaluated what the show is trying to do: He frames the story as being about "the battle between Piltover and Zaun".

That was never the point of the show. Political inequality was always the backdrop for the story, never something that was meant to be solved.

If you look at season 1 critically instead of with rose-tinted glasses, you'd notice that there was never a fully coherent political ideology at work. This was never going to have a coherent political conclusion.

Another thing that's clear is that video guy is labouring under the impression that there is little to no continuity between the writers from season 1 and season 2.

Which is incorrect. The same creative leads are still at the head of the project. Six of the nine episodes were written by the same people as season 1. Five of them were by one or more of Alex Yee, Christian Linke, or Amanda Overton, the main creatives. Compared to only 4 episodes in season 1 being written by one or more of them.

Having more writers in the writer's room does not necessarily mean that they are all doing whatever they want. Of course different writers rooms work in different ways, but a season is broken by the writers collectively, what's going to happen is planned first, then they decide who's going to write what. There are levels of script supervision and re-writes. Often times in TV shows, a writer might have sole credit for writing an episode, but there are parts that are re-written by others.

He also claims that season 2 wasn't planned out. The idea that a show like this, with this budget, that is *animated* and therefore *needs to be story-boarded* was not planned out is wild. It's impossible for a season of high-budget animated TV to be created the way he imagines it was.

Therefore you have to approach the show with the assumption that everything there was done with a specific purpose in mind.

Let's get into the substantive points:

Point #1: characters

He starts by making the point that there are certain fundamentals about characters that cannot be changed.

It's true that there needs to be continuity in characters. But in most (though certainly not all) stories characters undergo change.

Anything about a character can change if they're pushed in just the right way, and if there's something else providing continuity. For example, a dearly held belief can change, while the character's main priority stays the same, or vice versa.

You know that the video's analysis is going in a bad direction when he starts talking about Batman as an example of good characterization.

Comic book characters have good characterization for the medium of comic books and related media. They need to remain recognizable over the course of decades, over various story lines, created by different people. Therefore they are largely static. They meet a challenge, they're knocked down, and then they overcome it by being true to themselves or their principles or whatever.

This is not the only way to do character-building and character arcs. The way a character arc functions depends on the type of story that's being told. Arcane is not a comic book story.

Arcane very clearly states its themes, repeatedly over the course of the two seasons. "A story of opposites" "two sides of the same coin" etc. Duality is a massive theme. (Another one is consequences and breaking cycles) Especially in season two - the idea that love is the source of humanity's greatest good and greatest evil is stated at least twice.

That duality is expressed in the characters, and explored by bringing them to their lowest points, by pushing them to turn into their opposite in one way or another. The first season setting up the characters so clearly means that it's interesting to see how they can be turned around.

This is very long! More under the cut.

Starting with Vi becoming an enforcer.

I already made a post about it here. But to restate. Her hatred of enforcers was a very clear belief of hers, but it was never foundational. What was foundational was her love for her family. And her sense of responsibility towards them.

In season 1 it was already shown that she was willing to throw in with the enforcers and topsiders to deal with what she thought was the greater evil, which at that time was Silco. Vi's hatered of enforcers was never going to be a permanent fixture of her character - as we know from league of legends, she was always going to end up in a uniform. The question is: what does it take to get her there?

She starts out with this very strong belief, and it is chipped away at over the course of season 1 and the start of season 2.

She meets an enforcer (Cait) who she can bond with, who sees the good in her, and who Vi can see the good in.

Vi is faced with a problem that she sees as a moral imperative to fight (Silco) and to her, the fault of the council is it's inaction against the problems of the undercity, not that it upholds a system of oppression. So she believes it's acceptable to use enforcers against Silco.

Then Vi, to her mind, loses her sister, who was really the one she was fighting for the whole time. To her, Powder is dead, but Jinx is still her responsibility. This is stated in the show. Jinx has killed people and committed an act of war.

Vi is entirely detached from her roots, she thinks everyone she knew is dead.

Caitlyn presents her with the badge. Vi refuses.

Once her initial anger dies down, she then meets some other enforcers who seem like okay sorts, and moreover, who look up to her - which again speaks to her well-established sense of responsibility. People look up to her, it's her responsibility to lead them. This lowers the ramp to entry for her.

Then, there's an attack on the memorial. It seems like something has to be done, or people will keep dying.

Moreover, Caitlyn, the only person Vi has left, is upset, and Vi tries to step into the role of helping her.

Finally, she puts on the uniform.

There is a clear step-by-step progression leading to Vi becoming an enforcer. Her sense of responsibility is set up against her hatred of enforcers, and her sense of responsibility wins out. She becomes something that seemed impossible when she was first introduced, precisely by remaining true to character.

The guy in the video shows that he is substituting his misread of Vi for the actual characterization that the show presents him with by calling Vi's relationship with Caitlyn contrived.

You can't shrug off a major relationship, which itself is a method of developing character, and still try to speak with authority on that character. Yes, Vi bonds with Caitlyn quite easily, even though she's an enforcer. Because she gets to know Cait as a person first and foremost, instead of an abstract concept.

It's worth noting that when Vi joins Caitlyn's squad, the other team members are people that Vi is at least somewhat familiar with - they're the ones who she knows as individuals. The ones that she can see as "good apples". It's not a stretch to imagine that one of the conditions of Vi joining up was that the rest of the team were people she could trust, not random enforcers.

Video guy makes the point that Vi putting on the uniform was just formalizing a situation that already existed of Vi being willing to work with enforcers. And yeah! That's exactly it! She was on the path towards becoming an enforcer, and taking that final step of putting on a uniform was always the destination of that journey.

Video guy also says he "thought the show was setting Vi up to be the next Vander".

Which a) is exactly what would happen if this was a Marvel movie. Comic-book brained take. And b) has no actual support in the story.

Vander can play the role that he does because he earned the respect of the Lanes over years of struggle. Vi just showed up after being gone for 7 years. She has no real connections left. And that's a really important part of why she does what she does.

Also: what does Vander do? He works with enforcers!

Video guy keeps saying "there's no way Vi would go along with gassing the city, there's no way Vi would be fine with Cait's behaviour." etc.

But she is doing it. And if you think for half a second, you can very easily see what's happening. Vi is out of her depth and rudderless. She's trying to orient herself by a) following through on her responsibility (kill Jinx), b) helping someone she loves (Cait), and c) providing leadership to those who look up to her (the little group of enforcers).

But not only is that not solving her problems, she's not actually playing the leadership/protector role she's so comfortable playing. She's feeling lost, she's sinking.

This is the key tension for her in the first arc of the season.

No we get to video guy dismissing the CaitVi kiss as "inappropriate" and "fanservice". Which is outright ridiculous.

The kiss is a storytelling beat like every other storytelling beat. Vi reveals how lost she's feeling. Cait comforts her. The kiss demonstrates that the characters are each on certain paths, but they haven't diverged yet, they are in fact trying not to diverge. It will take one more big event for them to part ways.

If anything, the kiss is tragic, if not foreboding.

To video guy, every character is behaving in a way that's "antithetical" to who they are.

The fact that it's every character should be an indication that the writers are doing something very deliberate here. It should also raise the question of whether his initial understanding of the characters was too simplistic. Which it was!

Point #2: so-called "lack of commitment"

Video guy claims that "so many things happen and none of them matter" which really indicates that he is confused about what the story is about. Which is strange for a show that explicitly says what it's about multiple times.

He says that season 1 was all guided by the development of hextech, everything tied into that somehow. So far, so good. He says that season 2 had no such focus. That's not true at all.

The main plot thread in season 2 is the Arcane waking up. And more broadly, chaos.

Jayce and Ekko's conversation about wild runes is an explanation of this.

Jayce does his "pass me a tome" thing, and gets a tome. Cause and effect, action and consequence.

But then, at a certain point, there is something else that comes along with the direct consequence. Ekko being frustrated with Jayce. The anomoly sucking them into other worlds. Viktor merging with the Arcane.

What's happening is: action -> consequence -> action -> consequence -> action -> consequence -> action -> CHAOS.

Some plot threads are directly tied to the Arcane, others are more abstract. The Arcane was waking up in Mel too, which is why the Black Rose came after her. Isha coming into Jinx's life is the result of the chaos she unleashed when she killed Silco. Warwick/Vander is a certain embodiment of chaos.

This chaoticness gives season 2 a different feel. One could reasonably argue that the concept of capturing chaos in a structured narrative is too ambitious, but I'm not going to argue that, and that's not the point that's being made in the video.

What you absolutely cannot argue is that there's no narrative through-line in the plot.

Video guy then lists what he calls abandoned concepts. Caitlyn becoming a dictator, Vi wanting to kill Jinx, Jayce "going crazy", Powder becoming Jinx, Mel wanting to take down Salo, Jinx becoming a hero. Which shows a very shallow understanding of the plot and characters, to the extent that you have to wonder if he was actually paying attention.

Caitlyn's arc wasn't about her becoming a dictator, it was about testing her sense of justice, which in season 1 had provided very clear guidance for her. In season 2, coloured by grief, it leads her astray.

The idea isn't "Caitlyn's a villain now! What does that mean and what does that look like?" It's about putting her in a position where she's in charge, she's the one deciding what flies and what doesn't, and getting it wrong.

Vi wanting to kill Jinx was never meant to be more than a point along the way in Vi's journey. It represented her low point.

It also represented a role reversal between her and Jinx. Another theme that the creators talked about in season 1 is "is it possible to forgive a monster?" In season 1, Jinx was the monster. In season 2, Vi takes on that role. Which gives the theme a lot more depth than had it been one-way.

Thinking that Jayce "going crazy" is worthy of an entire plot arc on its own rather than just as a side-effect of him witnessing the horrors of the alternate reality is just silly, I don't even know what to say to that.

I'll talk about what video guy thinks "becoming Jinx" (he means "be like Harley Quinn) means in a bit, but Jinx continuing to grapple with who she is and what she's capable of is one of the main elements of Arcane, why would you stop that short? Jinx either embracing becoming a villain or becoming a hero are both very flat outcomes that don't actually touch on her core trauma of destroying her family.

Video guy saying "Mel wants to take on Salo" was a dropped plot was one of the several points when I wondered what he was even watching.

Mel's efforts were never about Salo, it was always about Ambessa.

And while Mel being kidnapped by the Black Rose was sudden when looked at from the perspective of Mel's individual storyline, it was very much foreshadowed in season 1, fans were already expecting Black Rose to make an appearance. If you're not familiar with the lore, I think it was clear that whatever Ambessa was dealing with would rear it's head in Pilltover.

Most importantly, Mel's kidnapping and what she finds out in the process are a continuation of what Mel was doing, in substance. She was digging into what was going on with her mother, and then she found it. She was looking for a way to counter her mother's influence, and she found it.

Video guy claims that all the story threads are dropped for the final battle. A claim that I think is bridging the gap between media illiteracy and just straight up lack of comprehension.

The final battle is the culmination of what all the characters had been going through. It's the climax of all their key conflicts. It feels stupid and obvious to even have to go into detail on this.

Caitlyn has to confront the result of the injustice that she allowed to be carried out in her name. Mel has to confront the mother who she never felt good enough for and stand up for the city that represents her principles. Jayce has to confront the end-point of the progress he was chasing (according to the logic of the show), as does Viktor. The undercity joins the fight, but they fight on their own terms, and they would have beaten the Noxians. Jinx and Ekko embrace the idea of fighting for a new story. Vi and Jinx confront the fact that they can never return to the past, as embodied by Warwick/Vander, but also that they'll always shape each other's lives. And in the end, Jinx lets go of Vi so that they can both live freely.

The final battle doesn't override all the plot threads, it embraces them.

Video guy complaints that there was a big scene of Vi and Jinx fighting to the death and then a couple of episodes later they're "hanging out and quipping as if that never happened".

Which is really emblematic of the problem of his approach. He doesn't consider what the fight represented, how it ended and what that meant for each of them, what happened in between episodes 3 and 5, and why the sisters came together again.

He's considering plot points as absolutes in and of themselves instead of part of a bigger picture.

Again, Vi and Jinx's fight was their low point, but it was just a point in their overall journey.

Before the fight, as Jinx tells Smeech, she sees herself as a doomed individual destined to bring death to everyone.

After episode 3, she has reason to hope that she can have a family. She has Isha. She rescued people from Stillwater without blowing anyone up in the process. People have confidence in her and she feels that.

Vi, meanwhile, is just kind of ground down and direction-less. She's not in a place where she can save anyone or look after anyone. She has to engage with Jinx on her own terms, not as someone to save, not as the villain who killed her sister, but as a flawed person who is capable of love and care.

They had to hit that low point first in order to get back up. It was a kind of reset button.

The complaint is made that Caitlyn betrays Ambessa too quickly.

Again, with Caitlyn, the point of her being a dictator isn't for the audience to see her dictating around.

It's to put her in the most morally tenuous position possible. It's to take this character who had a very clear sense of righteousness, and have her stumble, have her grapple with her morality. Which we very much see her do.

I've said this in other posts, but the point of the chest pounding etc. was to push her to take Ambessa's offer. It was ominous because it was Caitlyn falling from grace.

But she was still Caitlyn, she still has a sense of right and wrong, and she knows she's doing wrong, even with the excuse of the greater good.

Seeing Vi again gives her the clarity she'd lost. Caitlyn always wanted to help people, and taking up the mantle of commander was framed as a way to protect the city, and consumed by grief and revenge as she was, she allowed herself to fall for that pitch.

But then she still needs to deal with the reality of her position. She's not happy with the police brutality that's taking place, but she lets it continue, in her name. She's conflicted the entire time.

So Vi asking her for help is an easy choice.

Moreover, the whole time, Caitlyn has seen the undercity as adversaries. Vi reminds her that's not the case, and the monster is just her dad.

Video guy said he expected Caitlyn to be like Darth Vader, and that, along with every comic or super hero movie reference, is very, very, very telling that he's just approaching the season with the entirely wrong framework. Instead of trying to understand what the writers are doing, he's trying to force the story into a Hollywood blockbuster structure, and of course he's going to be disappointed that it doesn't fit.

As the video goes on, the criticism just keeps getting lazier and more bad-faith.

Like with Ambessa, the criticism is that she goes after hextech but then stays in the city after the scientists are gone.

When the show makes clear a) she's still trying to weaponize hextech, and b) that she's been stripped of her assets in Noxus. She's staying in Piltover because it's the strongest point of support for her.

Then there's the criticism that Viktor's deathless army wouldn't be any different from the Black Rose, when there is a very clear difference - that Ambessa would control the deathless army.

Regarding Jinx, and Jinx's identity apparently being abandoned.

The comparison is made with Joker 2 (which I haven't seen), saying that in both, the main character abandons an identity that was supposed to be liberating and empowering.

Saying that about Jinx is nothing short of bonkers.

I don't know how you can watch Jinx firing on the council in s1e9 and see that as anything but an act of resignation. Jinx is accepting in that moment, but she's also defeated. She's doomed to kill the people she cares about, so okay, let's kill some people on purpose. Watch the scene.

Does she look liberated?

Does she look empowered?

He says that in season 2 he expected Jinx to no longer be "held back by Vi, Silco, or anyone else". Again, what the fuck. Silco never held Jinx back, he enabled her. What are you talking about dude?

He says he wanted her to be a Joker-like character. Again, comic-book brained. Nothing short of ridiculous. Arcane saved Jinx from being a Harley Quinn ripoff. Why would you want to see her be that?

Jinx is not chaos personified. She is a fully fleshed-out character. Moreover, she's one who is profoundly shaped by trauma and the belief that she fails and hurts the people she loves.

The writers chose to keep treating her as a deeply conflicted character, instead of flattening her. Absolutely nuts to complain about that.

The show is about breaking cycles. This is explicitly stated. Jinx's arc is about trying to find different ways out of the cycle of destruction she feels caught in - she tries killing her sister, she tries hiding, she tries rewriting the past, she tries killing herself. In the end, she saves her sister, and walks away, she gets on an airship and sets out for something entirely new. That is a very worthy arc imo.

There are just so many ways that the video guy misunderstands Jinx. The way he talks about Jinx vs. Powder continuing to be a thing in season 2, as if Jinx hasn't decided who she is and is now grappling with what that means. The way he says that the writers were trying to make her into a revolutionary hero, when they very clearly are not - Jinx explicitly rejects that. The revolution was Silco's dream, not her's. Her being seen as a hero serves two functions - it keeps the forces of Piltover focused on her, and it shows her that she's not cursed and she can do something right. It's not about her actually playing the role of a revolutionary.

I've talked about the complaint that the revolution never happened in other posts. Inequality in Arcane is the backdrop, not the plot.

Point #3: so-called "revisionism"

This is where things really start to go off-the-rails.

He compares Arcane - which has had consistent creative leadership - with the Star Wars sequels, which kept switching to different directors who didn't agree with each other.

Video guy complains about Silco and Vander knowing Vi and Powder's mom, and claims that this re-writes Vander and Silco's motivations for taking in one or both of the sisters. Which does not follow at all.

He says, "rather than realizing the devastation his violent rebellion brought to the innocent and choosing to give it up for them, all he's doing is fulfilling a promise" Like WHAT? I don't even know how you come to that conclusion.

If you rewatch the prologue, it's clear from the way that Vander and Vi look at each other that there's some recognition and familiarity there. Even not knowing their backstory, the fact that Vander and the kids' parents were on the same side, and that the Lanes seem pretty close and everyone knows eachothers business, and the fact that Vi wasn't afraid of this big guy who just beat a man to death, you can come to the conclusion that they knew each other.

Vander having promised to look after the kids changes none of the significance of his decision. He's still realizing that the rebellion killed the family of these kids, he's still renouncing violence to protect them. Literally the only thing that changed is that he knows who they are and that he's comfortable taking them under his wing, knowing that he's their closest family.

Video guy makes a similar argument regarding Silco adopting Powder, saying that instead of relating to Powder, now he's just fulfilling a promise he made. Which likewise has no logic backing to it.

Silco was fully prepared to kill all the kids, regardless of whatever promise he made. Past promises clearly meant shit to him. If anything, the possibility that Powder might have known Silco before just explains why she wasn't scared of this disfigured man with a knife looming over her. That's it.

Video guy also argues that it would be out of character for Silco, who seems to value loyalty, to try to kill the kids in the first place if he promised Felicia to look after them.

First of all, he's already someone who kills kids, breaking promises doesn't top that.

Secondly, I think loyalty is pretty clearly a mutable concept to him. He talks about loyalty, but he doesn't actually do anything to foster it. His number one guiding principle, especially at that point in time, was the ruthless pursuit of power. He only starts talking about loyalty years later when the undercity he controls and shaped turned into a dog-eat-dog kind of place.

What the flashback scene *does* actually recontextualize is Vander and Silco's relationship. Or, more precisely, it fills in the outlines that we already knew were there.

Now we come to the mage!Viktor retcon. Which video guy accuses of not making sense.

And yeah, you can CinemaSins the fuck out of it.

But does that matter?

The reveal of mage!Viktor makes emotional sense.

It allows Viktor to have gone on a journey where he sees the emptiness of perfection, and to do something to try to fix his mistakes. Which I think is really important, since it's kind of ambiguous what kind of impact the Arcane had on Viktor's state of mind. Having mage!Viktor returns some agency to him.

It also avoids needing to work another character into the narrative to resolve that bit of mystery from Jayce's past.

Most importantly, it creates a very powerful conclusion to Jayce and Viktor's story. Their shared dream ran away from from them, but the relationship they forged in pursuit of that dream saves the world, and it's the only thing that saves the world. It's fantastic stuff.

The complaint that "all Jayce is doing is enacting Viktor's will" throughout season 1 likewise does not follow and has no logical basis. Viktor saved Jayce's life and gave him the crystal. Everything else was up to Jayce.

Point #4: "missed opportunities"

One of the more annoying things about the video is that the commentator keeps talking about "good writing" as if he's speaking objectively, while revealing that the extent of his understanding of good writing is Star Wars and Batman.

While if you watch other commentators who are more well versed in actual film and story telling, they understand what the show's doing 100%. There's even a video I watched recently where some guys predicted a bunch of things that fans commonly complain about (mage!Viktor, Caitlyn's authoritarian turn, the course of Vi and Jinx's relationship), because they're actually putting thought into the characters and themes.

So to see the guy in this video talk about "good writing" is honestly kind of embarassing to watch.

One absolutely wild bit is when video guy says that Heimerdinger's problem had always been inaction, and he should have gotten back into inventing and actually helping people, but instead he did nothing and just died.

Like??? The arc you described is what happened! On screen!

Heimerdinger becomes integrated with the Firelights, and then integrated in the AU undercity, actively helping them.

He agrees to help Ekko, abandoning his caution, having learned from how he treated Jayce before.

He tells Ekko that in the time he knew him, he's truly lived - because he stopped being inactive and was using his skills to make people's lives better!

Also, he's not really dead, he's a Yordle.

I've made a post before about Sevika allegedly being left out of the story. You can read it here.

In brief, her presence on screen always depended on it being relevant to more major characters, so it doesn't make sense to expect her to have an independent arc. The fact that stuff keeps happening with her off-screen, that we can see bits of, helps the world of Arcane feel more alive.

The complaints about Warwick turned into Charlie Brown adult noises to me if I'm being honest.

It's a bunch of story ideas that have no connection to the main themes of the show. It just shows that, once again, video guy is mistaking the conflict between Zaun and Piltover, which is the backdrop for the story, for the actual plot, which is hextech/the Arcane.

But look, Warwick served a very specific purpose in the story. He brought Vi and Jinx back together, and he symbolized their past. There is no going back to that past, there's no saving it. That was the point. Whatever neat idea someone might have for Warwick, Vi and Jinx's story is primary.

All the wah-wah about Warwick is interesting though because it shows that video guy does know LoL lore. But somehow didn't know that Vi was going to become an enforcer? Or that Viktor was going to be the Machine Herald? Or that Yordles respawn?

Point #5: "useless characters"

So he complains about the existence of Loris, Maddie, and Steb, as if they're a painful imposition to endure.

When in fact they are barely on-screen, and when they are, they're entirely functional for their purpose.

They give a face to the enforcers for the big battle scenes.

They make it easier for Vi to join the enforcers in the first place by being people she can sort of trust.

Loris is someone who believably keeps Vi from dying in a ditch during her pitfighter era, but isn't someone we're sad to see her leave behind for large chunks of the plot. It's also kind of interesting that she bonds with someone who's vaguely similar to Vander.

As far as the complaints about Maddie go - the fact that she was prompting Caitlyn to call off martial law can very easily be understood as a) maintaining her cover, and b) gathering information for Ambessa on how committed Caitlyn is. Maddie was the first one to start beating her chest for dictatorship, you know she wasn't being sincere about calling it off.

The things we know about Maddie are that she is impressed by authority, and that she's kind of easy to frighten for an enforcer. Her betrayal is entirely believable.

Then the video gets into Isha slander.

Which I have very low tolerance for.

There's a great schnee video about Isha, I recommend you watch it.

But it's ridiculous to say Isha has no purpose, or worse, that she's a mere "self-insert" for the writers (!!!? insane.) when her purpose is very obvious as a foil for Jinx.

She gives Jinx the chance to experience love in an uncomplicated way.

She reminds Jinx of herself as a child, allowing her to love herself in a way she couldn't before.

Jinx very clearly develops through her relationship with Isha. She allows Jinx to see herself as someone good.

And then Jinx loses that.

Another way of looking at Isha is that she's like Powder if Powder succeeded at everything. Isha dying shows Jinx that she can't hide from the world, and that there's no recapturing the past.

It also brings her to a kind of low that she hasn't experienced before, which is explored in her hallucination of Silco.

Never before was Jinx ready to give up.

She wants to break the cycle by walking away, but at this point that means suicide. It takes Ekko to show her that she can walk away into an entirely new life.

Point #6: the "music videos"

At this point, I think video guy is just being disingenuous. Every musical segment serves a purpose. Oftentimes, it fills in a time skip, creating a certain mood and giving a sense of a wider context than they would have been able to otherwise.

Point #7: "wasted time"

The claim is made that the Salo subplot in act 1 goes nowhere and is a waste of time.

That's not true. Strictly plot-wise, Mel's spying on Salo is what leads her to Amara, which allows the Black Rose to hitch on to Elora, and kidnap Mel.

More broadly, it's part of Ambessa's whole scheme. She uses Salo as long as he's useful. She would not have been able to manipulate Caitlyn the same way. Ambessa's use of Salo gives her the opportunity to kind of ambush Caitlyn with her proposal.

This is so obvious it feels silly.

What is Caitlyn connecting while Jinx is in hiding? If you were paying attention to the music video, you'd see that there's a lot of stuff going on with Jinx's supporters. Again, obvious.

What's the point of the scene with Mel and fake Kino?

Wild thing to say. There is so much exposition there.

It also shows what Mel is actually like with Kino, it offers a window into their relationship. Whether he was real or not, Mel's emotions were real.

Her exile and her brother's death are both really important plot points, but the scene with fake Kino gives them much more emotional weight.

And saying the Black Rose didn't contribute to the main plot? A) it contributes to Mel's plot and sets her up for a spinoff. B) it's another expression of the arcane waking up.

But the most jaw-droppingly crazy thing to say is that episode 7 was pointless.

I'm going to recommend another schnee video on this, it's really good.

But you don't need to watch an in-depth analysis to understand the importance of episode 7.

Pacing wise, it's both a bit of a breather, and contributes to building tension by making you wait to see what happens next.

It's incredibly important to Ekko as a character, showing him that there's potential in the undercity and that the solution is not to go off and build a little anarchist commune on the sidelines.

It also results in his signature time power.

And it's also a really necessary elaboration on the themes of the show. On forgiveness. On the many-sidedness of humanity, showing different sides of characters in ways that they don't exist in the main universe.

It shows the potential that exists within Jinx, which is pivotal for Ekko to be able to connect with her and convince her to fight.

Video guy says that Ekko's challenges in episode 7 were entirely external. Which again shows that he wasn't paying attention. Ekko explicitly says what he learned from the experience on the rooftop with Powder. Absolutely nuts.

In conclusion

Video guy says that the season was meaningless. I think what that shows is that he was looking for a specific meaning based on his experiences with pop culture, and when season 2 did not fit that mold, he was confused.

The thing with art is that you do need to think about it. And if you approach season 2 as a piece of art with something to say, that was deliberately crafted with care, and deserving of engagement and serious thought, then it becomes very clear what the show is doing. But you need to approach it on its own terms.

Are there flaws in season 2? Sure. More than in season 1? Probably. But what flaws exist are minor compared to the thematically and conceptually rich story that we got.

If you don't like season 2, okay whatever. All that I ask is that you don't mask your subjective disappointment with claims that are objectively false.

I did enjoy writing this reply, because I enjoy thinking about Arcane, and I think this endeavor did help me understand the show better than I did before. That's one of the great things about it, the more you return to it, the more rewarding it is.

If you feel dissatisfied from season 2 but can’t put your finger on it, I would recommend this video.

[lets-try-some-writing]

It's so tragic how, in your Twins AU, Optimus had to do the Cybertronian version of plastic surgery to look more like his brother. He could have gone through his primely transformation and said he, as Optronix, got a new frame because of the Matrix. Instead, he went all out and changed his body. I can only imagine what the Decepticons will think when they see Optimus again and notice his different yet familiar frame. Megatron might think he's having work done to "wear the face of his brother" instead of work being undone so Optimus can be himself again.

More for the Twin Au? Aight. Parts One and Two here.

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━

Wearing Optronix's face was not easy at first. It ached. It burned. Insults and slurs, hatred and constant attacks... if not for the Matrix, Optimus would have given up long ago and let someone kill him. But he had his duty, and he would have to be cut down before he let himself fall away from his purpose.

He allowed Optronix to become as cruel as he did. He failed to stop his twin when the war grew worse. This was merely a natural consequence. The constant ache of his spark from the lack of its other half was ignorable. The never ending discomfort with his frame was negligible when he was busy planning or engaging in battle. And as centuries passed, he honestly noticed less and less. Optronix's frame grew to be his own. The bulky and boxy build became second nature to him, his spindly frame from the archives all but forgotten. The eternally in place battle mask was something he grew to cherish as it allowed him to hide his expressions when the pain in his spark grew too great. The heavy set blaster he carried, as his brother was known to do prior to his death, became a memorial of sorts.

He was Optronix, a corrupt mech who changed upon becoming Prime. Every single cycle he repeated his mantra.

"I am Optronix turned Optimus Prime. I am the leader of the Autobots. I was once a tyrant, but no longer."

Every time he saw himself in the mirror, repeating again and again... it grew easier to believe the lie. He stopped missing things from his time as Orion, at least dulling the ache. He missed the archives, but that void he filled with reading reports. He lamented the loss of his mentor, but that too he supplemented through teaching Ultra Magnus throughout the war. It only really hurt when Ratchet and Jazz fought him, but even that was easy enough to work around if he reminded himself of what he was.

He was Optronix. He was once wicked. And this was his penance.

Then, of course, the truth had to come out swinging. One wrong poisoning attempt and suddenly his reality was broken. He'd been poisoned countless times. It shouldn't have been as dangerous as it was with his immunity. But Ratchet on synthetic energon was nothing to scoff at, and simple fuel line drainage wasn't enough. They had to remove his mask to have him purge whatever was in his tanks as well. And that was when it all fell apart.

The team had their reactions. Optimus tried his best to be neutral throughout the whole process, letting them figure themselves out and acting accordingly. He continued his mantra, having had it long since become second nature. But one thing led to another, and Ratchet, ever Orion Pax's most loyal friend, was determined to bring back the mech he thought lost.

"We are giving you a reformat." Ratchet's servos were firmly planted on his hips, his expression dead serious. Optimus could only find it in himself to frown.

"We do not have the resources for such an endeavor. It would be a foolish waste of material." A hint of bitterness entered his tone, training to mirror his brother returning with a vengeance in the form of backhanded commentary. This was who he was now. There was no Orion Pax. Nothing to reformat back into.

"Sure, we don't have enough for a complete frame overhaul, but we can fix some things. Your face, your optics, maybe even your shoulders." Ratchet scanned Optimus's frame, his optics running with calculation. Optimus shied away from it instinctually, prior experience warning him against giving too much room for a potential attack.

"Ratchet... I'm not him anymore. I know I said I was Orion Pax, and I'm sure somewhere deep in my spark, he yet lingers. But that is not me. Not anymore." Ratchet, unlike how Optimus's anxious predictions portrayed him in dreams, did not scoff or come off as cruel. His expression softened as he came closer, reaching out to cup Optimus's face, the one thing he'd left unchanged as he gave the rest of his frame up reformatting to match his brother. The doctor's digits brushed over pristine faceplates, not a scar to be seen below the optics. It was... comforting.

"I believe my friend is still in here. And if I have to drag him out again, then so be it." In an act of intimacy Optimus had not had with anyone other than Bumblebee since he was but a mere archivist, Ratchet brought their helm crests together. The touch was simple, but the way their fields mingled and melded was divine, a cube of energon to a starving mech in Optimus's mind.

He couldn't fight back if Ratchet was this gentle with him. How could he?

"Let me do this for you." Those gentle words were all it took for Optimus to cautiously agree. And from that moment onward, Ratchet took his duty to spark.

"Mask off, Orion." Constant but gentle reminders rang out through the base frequently. Ratchet made it a point to use his old name, constantly urging him to grow comfortable showing his face again. Optimus scared himself more than a few times when he passed a mirror and saw himself.

He politely ignored the pitying looks he earned from the team after such reactions.

"Hold still. You don't need to be wearing this slag all the time now, so it needs to come out." Having tweezers in his optics wasn't all that fun either. But again, Ratchet was devoted. And to be fair to him, the moment the thick optical glass was removed, Optimus found he could actually see things he'd long since become used to having to squint at to view. The optics of an archivist were meant for data collection and analysis. Having them back was overwhelming at times.

He spent three whole earth days standing around simply watching things, learning to recycle his optics for optimal data collection. One night he spent up on the roof, admiring the stars for the first time since his arrival on Earth. As much as his instincts screamed at him to put the glass back in place, he found himself content to leave his optics alone.

They were familiar. He hadn't realized how much he missed them.

"You welded your data ports closed?" Ratchet gawked at him and the welds along Optimus's sides. He nodded without any additional reactions. It was yet another augmentation.

"I had to play the part not just in appearance and presentation, but also in functionality." Arcee winced as she saw the damage. Bumblebee looked concerned. Bulkhead, Primus bless him, seemed a bit sick to his tanks as he looked at the welds. It wasn't as if they weren't cleanly done, but every mech knew that there were certain components to various castes that made them unique, and often tended to be sensitive. Having those parts removed or damaged was abhorrent to them.

It was to Optimus once, many long vorns ago.

"We're fixing this. There is no way you haven't been going through mood swings without access to your datacables." Well, Optimus couldn't exactly deny that. Sometimes it felt like he was about to die if he didn't hook up to the console. During such moments, he tended to lean on the Matrix.

Ratchet, not having gotten any sort of retort, promptly got to work. Optimus marveled at the feeling the moment he found himself able to reconnect to his cables. They were difficult to manage after so long with them locked away, but just having them free was a relief he did not know he needed as sorely as he did.

"Not much I can do about your frame shaping considering our circumstances. But these, we can get rid of." Ratchet looked Optimus up and down as he hooked up to the console, restoring his long dormant archival subsystems through dutiful training through monitoring human websites. He hardly noticed Ratchet at all until the doctor took one of his servos and promptly began delicately removing the armored plating he had welded onto each individual digit.

The whole affair did not hurt. But when Ratchet was done, Optimus looked at his servos and saw... himself.

He saw Orion in the long and slender digits meant for swift typing, not battle or the handling of a sword. He saw Orion in the gentle tap of his digits as he typed again with them for the first time in eons. He saw Orion in the speed in which they moved, graceful in a way he had not been since he slaughtered his brother before their slumbering god.

Perhaps there was some Orion Pax left in him after all.

"OPTRONIX!" Megatron's shriek of outrage rang out across the battlefield as Optimus strode forward, hesitating only a moment as the warlord's sheer wrath. He was seething, his armor flared and his field a wild whip of anger and grief all wrapped into one burning wave. His blaster blazed with energy begging to be unleashed, his denta clenched so hard Optimus could almost hear them grinding from a distance.

"You dare wear his face! You dare take pieces of his frame as your own! Is this another way to torment me, you pit spawned heathen!?" Every word stung on a spark deep level. Optimus had long since learned to look past whatever Megatron said on the battlefield. it had been easy with his mantra because Orion was hidden. Orion was not the one being insulted or hurt.

But now? It was different.

"I will tear you limb from limb and rip that face right off your frame to lay my brother to rest! Do you hear me!?"

He heard.

He heard every single word.

And Primus, did it hurt.

[adhd-fandom-hyperfocus]

Perfection

Pairing: Perturabo x Reader(f)

Arthur's Note: What is this? A little continuation from the Perturabo x Reader thing I did a while ago? Yes. Yes, it is. Also again, I am sorry if this is really OOC of Mr. Turbo, never thought I would be writing him, lol.

First part, technically

Warnings: General Grimdarkness, pregnancy, depression. Light NSFW at then end

Tagging @kit-williams because I know he is your boy.

+18 Minors DNI

★。------ ＼｜／------。★

A ship was no place for an expecting mother-to-be, and Perturabo desperately hoped to hide what this crusade asked of him from you. For you to have some illusion he was not destroying. Even if it was clear you knew, he wanted to just think of what he would be when this was over. But the other option was to risk missing such a glorious and wonderous thing; you growing fat with his child, and that he couldn't allow. He was missing much as it was, having to siege and handle so much on his own. At least this way, when we returned to his vessel you were there waiting.

And Throne your smile and gentle touches kept his soul from becoming cold like the rest of him. You kept him human, what part of him that was. However, he could sense something dark overtaking you. The light in your beautiful eyes seemed dulled. A nasty malaise was taking you.

Wanting to rectify his lack of knowledge in the area of reproduction Perturabo delved head first into all knowledge he could find. The Lord of Iron will not fail at any task, especially being a good partner to the woman giving such a gift! He knew of the hormonal changes, and what they bring, but he had no idea they would be this bad. How your mind turned against you and him!

Perturabo was sure there was some comparison to be made about creating and nurturing life and doing such for creativity, but he would not simplify the sheer wonder you were doing.

He had been away a week, and last he saw you, this cloud was growing over your head, and he wished nothing more but to return to you and vanquish such thing with the appropriate amount of affection, within reason of course. Oh, how he wanted nothing more than to touch you, feel every new curve. The primarch growled and barked demanding the rites of removing his armor move quicker, he did not have time for the tech priests to be so lazy in their tasks. Sending one into a wall made his point clear enough.

As he entered his chambers, Perturabo could feel his cold and unrelenting demeanor start to melt. His footfall was not as heavy and angry. His jaw was not clenched. Even his anger about getting out of his armor faded. A thought occurred to him, his rage; outbursts, would he lash out at his grand creation? On the great design that brought it into this world? You? A sickening fear.

The Lord of Iron looked down at his hands stopping short of his bedroom door. What expectations would he push? No, he couldn't. Wouldn't. The babe would be flawed, weak and cry, and he would love it. No one but you ever made him feel seen and he would return that love to you tenfold and he would make sure his child would not have the same pathetic childhood he had. His child would have one, where he had none.

Done lingering in his thoughts, he cracked his door open, hoping to find you reading in bed or playing with one of the many puzzles he had made for you. But what he saw was your naked form before a large mirror. He wasn't one for such vanity things, but he got it for you, and he did like looking over and seeing how breath-taking you were being taken by him.

Sadly, the rising heat in his chest quelled quickly when he noticed you were crying. A mix of fear and rage took him, were you injured? Who hurt you?! He would raze his own ship to find out. Destroy all his sons for this grave mistake!

"My great treasure, why are you crying?" he asked, trying to keep his mounting fear and anger contained; hidden.

You turn with a start, how did a man so large manage to go unnoticed? More the fool you were, and further proved the malicious thoughts in your head. You were flawed, stupid, gross. Not only physically unsightly now, but what little intelligence you had, faded.

"Perturabo!" you shriek, frantically reaching for your robe to cover your body.

The primarch frowned, "Why do you cover yourself? No need for modesty, I have seen this finely crafted gift to me before." he mused trying to raise your spirits, assessing you were not injured physically at least, and did not seem ill.

When you lower lip quivered and you flinched at his words, like they wounded you, his hearts sank and knotted. The mental darkness that had been seeping into you had worsened it seemed. Curse this crusade and the damnable jobs his father sent him on. You should be planetside on Olympia with him living a life of sunshine and ease, while he worked on the nursery. He should be creating while you created the greatest thing of all.

"Please do not lie to me, Perturabo." you whimper so meekly he wasn't sure a baseline would have heard or understood.

Perturabo closed the gap between you two, gingerly taking a knee before you and taking a hand into his, "I do not lie, you know this. What have I said to make you think such? Tell me, so I can fix this."

He waits as you try to collect your breath and steady yourself to speak, "I am not pleasing anymore," you sob, your body trembling violently from your cries, "My body is bent and ugly. It is why you won't love me anymore!"

Oh. Oh Throne take him. It would seem the standards he pushed onto himself and his gene-sons had made this illness worse. Not to mention his information about expecting mothers and sex was now painfully clear to be incorrect. Here he thought he was doing what you desired, and instead, he made you feel undesirable.

With all the gentlness he could muster Perturabo guided your hands down and thus the robe exposing your body to him once more. He could feel how uneasy you felt. his own wife thinking she was not worthy of him, or his touch? This was a grave insult he had cast upon you and it hurt more than any torture or wound.

"Bent and ugly?" He repeated in a murmur, "How so?" his fingers trace your stretch marks, and his kisses your belly, "I see something so marvelous it takes my breath away. I see the woman who is offering her body to create something so beautiful and precious with me. Oh, I think there is nothing more beautiful in all creation." he mused planting more kisses on your belly, smiling as he does.

"I quite like these marks, shows how enduring and strong you are. No simple woman could carry my children! Only the right one; you," he kissed up your bump and his lips grazed over your milk-swollen breasts, "As for love making. Again I have failed, not you. I was under the impression sex would be...unpleasant for you right now and I did not wish to hurt you or the babe. Nor make you do something you would not enjoy..."

The primarch took one of your tender nipples into his mouth, and when your whimpers turned to moans that fire in his chest roared back to life and consumed his body. He dearly missed hearing that sound, been dying to have you make such music for months.

"My diamond, my great treasure, let your foolish husband fix this. I long to work your body, to meld into you." he cooed as he moved up your chest and neck.

As you moan his name his lips catch yours and you melt into his embrace. You felt foolish for doubting his love, but he would not give you time to be upset over it; already he was carrying you to bed, his eyes hungry and blown out.

"Not to be heretical, but allow this arrogant man to worship at your alter," the primarch rumbled as he hovered over you, his lips kissing over your body, leaving little fires where his lips touched, "And I will be gentle."

You didn't reply, merely whimpered his name, and rocked your hips as your lips begged for his; wanting his fire inside you. By all that was good, you had been craving this for months. Perturabo chuckled breaking a kiss, "I do not think I have been so pleased in all my years to have someone so needy for me. Do not worry, my wife, I will make up for my error."

[ridenwithbiden]

President Barack Obama

"For decades, you could walk into Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia on some Sunday mornings and see hundreds of tourists from around the world crammed into the pews. And standing in front of them, asking with a wink if there were any visitors that morning, would be President Jimmy Carter – preparing to teach Sunday school, just like he had done for most of his adult life.

Some who came to hear him speak were undoubtedly there because of what President Carter accomplished in his four years in the White House – the Camp David Accords he brokered that reshaped the Middle East; the work he did to diversify the federal judiciary, including nominating a pioneering women’s rights activist and lawyer named Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the federal bench; the environmental reforms he put in place, becoming one of the first leaders in the world to recognize the problem of climate change.

Others were likely there because of what President Carter accomplished in the longest, and most impactful, post-presidency in American history – monitoring more than 100 elections around the world; helping virtually eliminate Guinea worm disease, an infection that had haunted Africa for centuries; becoming the only former president to earn a Nobel Peace Prize; and building or repairing thousands of homes in more than a dozen countries with his beloved Rosalynn as part of Habitat for Humanity.

But I’m willing to bet that many people in that church on Sunday morning were there, at least in part, because of something more fundamental: President Carter’s decency.

Elected in the shadow of Watergate, Jimmy Carter promised voters that he would always tell the truth. And he did – advocating for the public good, consequences be damned. He believed some things were more important than reelection – things like integrity, respect, and compassion. Because Jimmy Carter believed, as deeply as he believed anything, that we are all created in God’s image.

Whenever I had a chance to spend time with President Carter, it was clear that he didn’t just profess these values. He embodied them. And in doing so, he taught all of us what it means to live a life of grace, dignity, justice, and service. In his Nobel acceptance speech, President Carter said, “God gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace.” He made that choice again and again over the course of his 100 years, and the world is better for it.

Maranatha Baptist Church will be a little quieter on Sundays, but President Carter will never be far away – buried alongside Rosalynn next to a willow tree down the road, his memory calling all of us to heed our better angels. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to the Carter family, and everyone who loved and learned from this remarkable man."

[delulustateofmind]

OMG, your fic "This is Love, Right?" was really good. I have a feeling that Geto never truly loved Y/N, at least not as a lover, and neither did Gojo, because it seems to me that Y/N was only important to him until Geto came into the picture. After Geto's arrival, their whole dynamic changed, and Y/N ended up becoming a third wheel and broodmare in the relationship, where they hardly respect or love her as much as they do each other. I just want to know your point of view on the dynamics of their relationship and your perspective on my thoughts about them.

TW: Toxic Relationship, Abuse of Power Dynamics, Discussion of Yandere Behaviors.

Ahhh! thank you! Good question, your perspective is pretty spot on!

Okay, so... long story short, they think they love the reader.

Like, they legit believe this is what love feels like. But their version of love? It’s nowhere near healthy. It’s suffocating, built on possession and this obsessive need to have the reader rather than actually supporting or understanding them. The whole dynamic is super toxic. Satoru and Suguru on their own? They never really could click (Awful at communication). They were always missing that bridge to hold them together—and that’s where the reader comes in. But instead of just letting things naturally work, they basically force the reader into their lives, shaping them to fit their desires and deepen their bond with each other.

Suguru didn’t even think he’d love the reader at first. In the beginning, it was all part of the long game (getting Satoru to kill the higher ups or convincing him to defect). I mean, his daughters were executed just so he could crawl back into jujutsu society (thanks to the higher-ups, who basically had him "finish" the mission of the night he defected). So, at first, Suguru was just talking to Satoru, saying he couldn’t understand how he could date a non-sorcerer, blah blah blah. Then Satoru invited him into the relationship. Suguru figured, why not use this as a way to make the reader’s life hell? He couldn’t wipe out all non-sorcerers, but he could make their life miserable while getting his boyfriend back.

But then… he started to fall for them—or at least, his version of love. Over the years, though, he’s gotta remind himself at night that he does love them. His love is all about manipulation and control. He’s sneaky about it, isolating the reader emotionally and planting little seeds of guilt and doubt to make them more compliant. He’s so good at twisting things that the reader ends up questioning their own thoughts and decisions. Suguru’s "love" isn’t about genuine connection; it’s about dominance. It’s his way of keeping a piece of Satoru through the reader, not because he’s actually emotionally attached to them. Oh, he knows he can’t have kids with Satoru, so you’re spot on about the reader basically being a broodmare in his mind.

I think though once the reader pops out a few kids, he does grow to love them, especially if they produce sorcerers for him. So good luck ever trying to leave the clan estate, because when he does actually love he's literally insane (the type of insane to clip your Achilles tendon, not permanent but may affect your walking ability)

Satoru, on the other hand, does love the reader—but in this super selfish, messed-up way. Originally, they were just a rebound for him. (In part one, the reader had met Suguru before and had a tiny crush on him��it’s mentioned briefly.) When Satoru should’ve been working on himself, maybe going to therapy or dealing with his issues? Nah, he was pouring all that emotional baggage into the reader instead. His love is intensely possessive. To him, the reader isn’t their own person—they’re more like an extension of himself, someone who exists to make him feel better and meet his emotional needs.

This whole thing started way before Suguru joined the picture. The reader actually almost left Satoru once, and honestly? They probably should’ve, probably would have had a better ending. But Satoru used his charm and playful personality to reel them back in, all while hiding this super manipulative streak. And yeah, he cares about them—like, when the reader ran away, this man was ready to hollow-purple the entire airport. Suguru had to step in and talk him down, suggesting they go back to the clan estate instead. But at the end of the day, Satoru’s love is still selfish. It’s all about making himself happy and avoiding his own pain, with the reader’s needs coming in second—if at all.

And just for fun, I don’t think the reader even understood what love was. That’s the thing with a lot of people who end up in toxic relationships like this—they convince themselves that this is the love they deserve. So, while the reader is being manipulated and undermined, she has to keep telling herself, “This is love.” She’s not being openly abused—she’s still allowed to go to school (a little ounce of freedom), and it’s not like they’re yelling at her or anything. Arguments would’ve been relatively calm, with Suguru usually taking the lead and doing most of the talking.

Because of all that, the reader may be confusing dependency for love. She relies on Satoru and Suguru for financial support, for safety (even if it’s a twisted kind of safety), and for emotional stability. In her mind, she’s thinking, “This is a good relationship.” That’s why it was so hard for her to leave, even when she had a real shot at it. She keeps justifying staying by focusing on the good times instead of the bad ones. It’s less about actually feeling love and more about clinging to the idea of it.

So, in summary: Do they love the reader?

Yeah… but it’s not the good kind of love. Like most toxic relationships, their love is super conditional and unhealthy. It’s not about the reader’s happiness, growth, or well-being—it’s about how the reader fits into their lives and fulfills their needs. To them, this is love, but it’s a love that lacks a lot of fundamentals like respect, freedom, and equality.

Sorry! I rambled quite a bit lol

[pomefioredove]

I really liked the advice for writing about Rook ;u; I was thinking if there was one for writing about Vil's character too?) :'0

I can try!

I think what you want to avoid is making vil a stereotypical "mean girl", for lack of a better term. he has a low tolerance for bullshit but he's not a bully. he's just... german...

he's also not perfect. like, that, to me, is a huge part of his character. when I write him, I give him a sense of humor, I give him flaws, I make him a little... uglier, so to speak, because that's who he is to me. especially with yuu

what makes him an interesting character (to me) is his relationship with morality. he definitely has insecurities about his appearance, he's very meticulous and critical of himself, he has an eating disorder, to me, at least, but... like, that's not what makes him tick. vil is extremely insecure about his morality. he thinks he's a bad person, an irredeemably bad person, an intrinsically bad person, and he believes, in some way, that he's unlovable. he hates who he is, he hates that he can't be good enough, or innocent enough, or nice enough, like neige. it's not about looks, not really. it's also fucking insane to me how all the adults in his life profiled him as a villain and put him in that role again and again, both on stage and in real life. being told that you're a bad person really fucks you up as a child

so, feeling like he's inherently evil and unlovable, he pours all of his effort and time and care into his appearance, because, unlike his morality, that can be changed. he needs that control. of course, the result of this is that he becomes really insecure about his body, and is always looking to improve, because it's never enough to heal what actually needs to be healed

he puts on this mask of indifference and perfection, he acts like he think he should (or how other people assumes he should), he makes himself untouchable because he feels like he doesn't deserve to be touched, but god, is he scared. and so, so lonely. and jealous. and sort of resentful of everyone for making him that way, but dependent on their comfort and approval all the same

people don't really look at vil as if he were human and I think that bothers him. even though he makes himself inhuman, godlike, he doesn't really want that. he wants to be loved for who he is, he wants to be reassured that he's not broken, he wants a break from being looked at, he wants to be felt instead

I read a post once, forgive me for I do not remember the OP, that said that it wasn't jealousy or rage or bitter ugliness that had caused vil to overblot. it was when he realized that he was about to hurt neige, and that he had become the villain everyone already saw him as. his conflict with his morality is the most interesting part of his character and it's rarely explored, he's rarely even humanized

tldr, uhhh, vil is a person, he longs to be seen as a person, he is not a mean girl. got emotional writing this bc I love vil so muc,

[foreststarflaime]

I became fixated on Sephiorth’s hair while doing my own. Will you share your Sephiorth hair headcanons with me?

It would be my pleasure!

When he was young and in the labs, Sephiroth had no say over his hair. Hojo always made sure it was kept cut short, if not entirely shaved, for convenience—he didn’t want to have to be constantly moving it away while he was operating/working and constantly be having to clean up shed strands of it.

Closer to the time of First Soldier, Hojo is ordered to ensure it grows out a little, so he’ll look better for PR. Sephiroth accepts the change as neutrally as every other thing out of his control in his life at first, but upon further inspection of his emotions he finds that he very much likes it. It’s so soft, softer than anything he’s felt before, and the color—he loves the color! It’s like the moon, or the seemingly wondrously infinite amount of stars that hang in the sky above Rhadore, where he sees them first. Lucia even remarks one time that his bangs make him look like his mother. He could have died right there with delight.

He starts letting it grow even longer—he likes how it looks, and the longer it is the more he is reminded that he is not as controlled by Hojo anymore. It’s a little act of defiance made physical, him making a choice for himself. Genesis and Angeal encourage this greatly once they discover at least the ‘making a choice for himself’ part, even if he doesn’t let them in on the true depth of Hojo’s cruelty. He keeps growing it longer and longer because, well…

Genesis continued to hold his hair back, running his hands through it soothingly ever so often, as Sephiroth alternated between breathing unevenly over the toilet and nearly turning his insides inside-out. At some point, Genesis began braiding the strands together, murmuring something Sephiroth didn’t have the presence of mind to decipher. The fingers against his scalp felt wonderful. He resolved never to cut his hair again if its longer length encouraged this sort of attention.

Valued Presence by me

Because he is a cat begging for attention by putting himself noticeably in the way. He also discovers that he can tilt his head to hide his face behind his longer bangs when he wants to, giving him slightly more privacy than previously—and he’ll take all he can get. Also, he looked in the mirror once while tying up his hair and jumped a little because the face staring back at him was his mother’s. Slightly different in the details, sure, but he looked so much like her. That was one of the rare times he found himself crying.

He is allowed to keep his hair at its longer length because the public seems to love it, and also it opens up plenty of marketing deals with hair product companies. Sephiroth dislikes the further press, but he tolerates it because it ensures Hojo is not allowed to take away something Sephiroth has become so attached to. Plus, he’s good enough at fighting now that it doesn’t post too much of a risk in combat—he moves too quickly for any opponent to have the chance to grab onto it, and even if they did they would soon find themselves lacking a hand or two. It’s more than worth the slight risk, he thinks.

Genesis and Angeal are the only people he allows to touch his hair (since team Glenn is long gone…Zack eventually earns the privilege, but only after he calms down). Actually, it’s strange…when anyone else tries to touch it, even when Sephiroth is facing away and seemingly unaware, his hair seems to move out of the way of whatever creepy fan is trying to lay hands on it. Like a breeze brushed it aside at just the right time, except…the wind that day was pretty much nonexistent? And blowing the other direction whenever it did exist? Weird. Almost as if it moved by itself.

Genesis used to have long hair, and he secretly misses it a little. Not enough to grow it back, but he does. He loves playing with/taking care of Seph’s partially because of this, and Sephiroth happily obliges him. He practically melts when he gets his hair brushed (does he purr? Probably), and Genesis is wonderfully skilled at complicated braids. The more bored and/or sentimental Genesis is feeling, the more braids appear in Sephiroth’s hair.

Since he helps Sephiroth with his hair so much, Genesis has discovered some…rather odd things about it. It’s unnaturally shiny, sometimes seeming to keep its silvery glow even for a few minutes after Sephiroth has come away from a light source, especially that of the stars/moon. It doesn’t glow quite as bright as his eyes, but it’s still noticeable to the enhanced eye. It is also noticeably harder to cut than normal human hair—it’s more like clipping fingernails to trim the ends of his hair.

His hair seems grey more often than silver after Genesis leaves. It’s messy and unkempt. He finds he has much less energy to take care of it when every brush of his own hair reminds him of what he’s lost.

After Nibelheim, his hair takes on an almost purplish-grey sheen, marking him even more with Jenova’s heritage. The moving on its own thing happens much more often and noticeably now—it sways dramatically when there is no breeze, and curls towards Cloud as if it were threatening to wrap around him.

[quirkwizard]

So I know that quirk usage for jobs isn’t allowed especially if it does all the work for you but would small usages be allowed ? Like if a night guard had a quirk that made them glow in the dark, would they be allowed to use it in place of a flashlight? I suppose certain mutant type quirks would be fine like a janitor with multiple arms using them all to clean faster

So when it comes to the usage of Quirks, it is illegal. However, it's only about as illegal as jaywalking is illegal. It's something so common, is done by any competent adult, and is so half-heartedly enforced that it'd be impossible to really stop anyone. It is not allowed, and it's a law meant to ensure everyone's safety, but no cop is going to give you anything more than a stern talking to about it. Because most Quirks are more of a convenience and aren't really going to change the world or be an active threat by just them being used. For example, a night guard using his glow-in-the-dark Quirk to see better? I don't think anyone is going to care about that.

At least when it comes to more casual uses of the Quirk. It's only penalized when the usage of your Quirk is reckless or endangering others around you. Or rather, if you're using your Quirk to break the law in other ways. Villains aren't villains because they're using their Quirks, it's because they're using their Quirks for crimes. Like in Vigilantes. We see in the first chapter that a bike cop chastises Koichi over using his power to get around. It only becomes an issue when Koichi starts trying to fight crime with it or Pop Step uses it for her shows. Something neither of them have any experience in and is going to be potentially harmful, both to themselves and others.

And while it isn't directly stated in the series, I don't think people are allowed to use their Quirks for their jobs if that is the main usage of the Quirk. Part of the laws is to enforce a kind of normality on the world. Like the nightguard's Quirk isn't giving him any distinct advantage in his job, but what about other, more powerful Quirks. Because if Quirks were allowed to be used for jobs, it would destroy the economy. It would be so easy for people to monopolize certain jobs because they have one or multiple Quirk users that make every other person and business obsolete. Why hire dozens of people for construction when Cementoss can put up a whole neighborhood by himself? By restricting the usage of Quirks, it helps keep everything in line.

[silurisanguine]

Rook Codex Writing Prompts Teleri De Riva: 26. A letter to Rook from a family member or close friend 12. Rook’s daily schedule 10. Note found in Rook’s pocket

OOH these are great!!!! (Note there are spoilers in these responses to story beats in the game.) 26 A Letter to Rook from a family member

Teleri I am writing this on the knowledge that you will find your way out of this Fade prison and read this, rolling your eyes at my every word I’ve written down. For once i will happily join you. But perhaps writing this brings you power where ever you are, as the Fade is a strange thing that listens to the thoughts of us, or so the mages of our House tell me. You have a distinct ability to pull yourself out of any situation. It has always confounded and impressed me in equal measure, so if writing this helps you, then i freely give it. It was Lucanis that brought me the news of your predicament. I know you have become close to him and I know you worry what i might think of such an arrangement. If you’d asked me months ago, i think you’d have known my answer. He is a Dellamorte and you a De Riva. But Teia pointed out not long ago of our own uniting of Houses and how that has only strengthened the Crows as a whole. Perhaps the knowledge that our name sake birds do work better as pairs fits us too. So now, if you were to ask me,I would give you my blessing. As your Talon, as a De Riva and your brother in bond. Just don't tell him that when you see him until i am in the vicinity. I want to see his face when you do. Now, Teleri. Survive and get out, that’s an order from your Talon. Viago.

12 - Rook's daily schedule. A page from Rook’s journal, hastily torn out due to a stain of coffee that has spilt over the bottom of the paper -

Another day in this strange sanctuary that I call home. Asked the Caretaker if my room could be changed to something I want, or at least drapes put over the large aquarium walls. It gave a cryptic answer about a strong presence there and nothing’s changed yet. Will try again when I get back from Nevarra. I'm sure the Lighthouse will provide this Professor Volkarin with a room suitable for them, and bets have been placed with everyone on where it will be. I’m thinking to the left of my room, but Harding is sure one of the unreachable floating buildings will suddenly have a portal to it. Speaking of the rest of the gang, Neve is still in Minrathous. I honestly don't know how long she’ll be away and part of me wonders if she will even return, considering her last words to me ~~wer~~~ the ink fades a little from some clear liquid landing on the paper, that’s been swiftly rubbed at. Lucanis is grateful at least for my choice, but what else could I have done? Treviso is my home. But we both feel the pain of the choice. Lucanis feels things deeply I can tell and I try to help where I can, considering the stress he is under. It’s funny, all this time I'd heard in hushed whispers around the Crows of the fabled Demon of Vyrantium being this cold calculated killer and Lucanis is that when in a fight. But out of it, there is this gentle, funny and rich soul that I have become dearly fond of. If Viago finds out, he’s going to kill me. I need to tell Teia first so she can handle damage control, she has a way of getting through to him that I cant. I’d best leave that thought there before it runs away with me and I go and show some initiative again that I might (not) regret. I have work to do, but first I need a new coffee as this one has gone col~~

10 Note found in Rook's pocket. This note is placed on the table in front of her that she finds when she wakes up. There is a single crow feather on top, black and shimmery purple iridescence against the reflected light of the aquarium -

The ink is purple that no one in the Lighthouse admits to owning, and the words are scratched into the paper by a hand not used to holding a quill. But the letters of the words are carefully laid out and legible. Languid LIGHT Fade and water DANCE over your FACE NOT Your place You SLEEP as he does Fitful and RESTLESS But YOUR cage is OPEN You Choose to Leave. We will protect. Below is a geometric set of lines that match the pattern of the tattoo sleeve on Teleri's arm. They are drawn in loving detail.

[shatcey]

Wreck the halls (Victor)

A few screenshots with my thoughts on this. Both endings and an epilogue.

But first... non related to Vivi.

I just realized… If he helped Victor last year… this means that she and Jude joined the Crown at least a year ago…

It's even more cute than I understood in Japanese. Sweet, teasing, and a little reproachful. "Alfons, you're such a naughty boy!" Don't flirt in front of me! I'm jealous… I haven't decided which part though…

And one joke about Vivi

We're not so sure about that, honey… Maybe he is…

And now about Vivi… a lot of speculations.

Are you teasing or expressing a suppressed desire?

Even in his thoughts, he referred to himself in quotation marks. It's like Victor is a role, not a real person.

And the feeling that Victor isn't his real name is becoming more and more obvious.

So… Has he made a deal with Death and won't be released until Death decides he's no longer needed? But the latter indicates that he is actually Death itself. I… remember only one mention of Death as a real person. In Terry Pratchett's Discworld. In fact, I love Death in these stories. But it's a pretty new story even so Sir Terry is also based on fairy tales…

And this part from BE is actually a very strong one. Do not forget… Kate is very good at understanding people and situations. She… another girl with an innate talent for psychology (Mai the first).

Again… God. The God of death. But the contract and be binded to it… suggests that he wasn't like that from the beginning…

In the same scene from the his POV (PE)

I LOVE how complicated and beautiful his thinking is. It's not as lacy as Ally's way of talking, but it's a different type of complexity. AND I ADORE IT!

But back to the meaning…

He feels that Kate is enchanted by the darkness, but he wants her not to follow this desire. Where was it? I think on Willy's route, he mentioned that Kate has always been fascinated by the darkness. Maybe she did. It really feels like fate.

And the second part already looks like a puzzle. First he talks like he's death itself, and now he's darkness itself. It's not the same thing. In Sir Terry's books, Death has a pretty ordinary job. He didn't judge, he didn't change anything. Each person had an hourglass that showed when they were supposed to die. And he came and took their souls. Nothing else. In my opinion, it's a pretty boring job, everything is so predictable. If he wouldn't meet Rincewind… But… This is a completely different story.

So… Darkness suggests that there is light. The light in this game is usually associated with pure souls who don't do evil. Most of the ordinary residents of London.

And darkness is someone who commits evil deeds, regardless of the reason. And this means that they live in completely different worlds that cannot be mixed. So he thought he didn't want to stain her… This means that he was afraid that he would affect her pure white soul so much that she would become as black as his.

And in the epilogue…

So… on Vivi's route, we should expect something like a confrontation between our sweet straightforward (and, in my opinion, extremely white) fox and Vivi. And the last line already sounds like a love rivalry. After Dark IF event, it is quite difficult not to see this in Harry… And I was hoping for Willy's help… I still hopping. And now I'm almost sure that Harry will interfere… So much drama! Ally, prepare jokes!

Besides, Vivi thinks this dark part of his…

And again… He used death and darkness side by side. But, in my opinion, death is either just a stage of life, or a job, an absolutely normal job. How it became bad or dark… beyond my comprehension.

And here he hints that his real personality is not what everyone used to think. I like his real personality! Greedy, manipulative, calculating, controlling, and… absolutely overwhelming. What's not to like?

But like I said when I was thinking out loud about Jude's story in the Dark IF event. That story was written a year ago, and Vivi's route was just a draft back then. But judging by how many hints they've given us, they already have pretty clear ideas about who he is and how they plan to use that information.

In addition… I LOVE this snow animation! It's so simple, but so beautiful. And it has two layers… in front of and behind the character. Such a nice touch.

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🔝 𝕊𝕋𝔸ℝ𝕋 ℙ𝔸𝔾𝔼 🔝

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