#like he’s just guilty about killing her

[random-arcane-fan]

transcriptions below the cut

Arcane's relationship with League lore

I really don't know anything about LoR. The intent was to fill gaps in lore with Arcane, but stay mostly consistent. There's exceptions, certainly, we did have full support to tell the story we wanted and we wanted our characters' actions to feel consistent within Arcane.

Vi & Caitlyn

reply to AnComAlice: Ever since Vi came out in the game, I've always thought, "Why are you a cop?" Do you ever feel constrained by the source material?

Not in Arcane. I love telling difficult stories. Those are the best kinds.

reply to deebriedee: Will there still be "aww" moments between Cait & Vi even if a romantic relationship is established? So many shows have that one couple everyone ships but the moment they get together or the relationship is solidified by a kiss etc, nothing happens afterwards and I'd hate that.

I can't say anything about what may or may not happen. We are trying to tell believable stories based on characters' "lived" experience. That doesn't sound very believable to me?

reply to caitcupcakelyn: I have a question: Did Caitlyn falsify the release order on Jayce's behalf? Since when Marcus mentions it to Jayce he looks surprised, and also Mrs. Kiramman tells Kait that she has violated several rules...

Yes! She used the knowledge Jayce just told her about him becoming a Councilor, and the offer he made to become her "head of security" to falsify a release order.

not replies:

There are several moments in the season where Vi is surprised by Caitlyn and looks at her differently. The animators did a phenomenal job tracking that subtext with her expressions, but the storyboard artists also had a hand, giving Vi closeups in those key moments.

Vi mentions it in her first scene with Caitlyn, but the Warden was implying that they would beat Vi to punish her every time she would beat up one of Silco's goons that ended up in Stillwater.

reply to skyllianhamster: I was a bit taken aback by Vi's callousness at the kid Jayce killed. I imagine the context was regarding exposure to death, which Jayce hasn't seen much of, but I read it in the context of death as normal collateral damage, which sounded cold for Vi. Thoughts on that scene?

Vi doesn't show her real feelings about the boy's death because it doesn't help her make her point to Jayce. But when he's not looking you can see how upset she is.

Vi & Jinx

They were all children, even Vi. It was traumatic experience [sic] and no one can blame children for their trauma. What Jinx says is her own warped perspective. Honestly, they all need therapy.

Vi has put all her hope of saving Powder into defeating the villain she believes created her: Silco. She takes out years of pent up frustration and rage on Svika, whom she thinks is the only thing standing between her and Silco.

On why Marcus took Vi

Marcus felt guilty for how his dealings with Silco lead to the death of Grayson, and wanted to do something to make amends. Vi would've died if she went after Silco in that moment and he knew it.

On the words "god" and "hell" showing up in dialogue

I know there are beings in Runeterra that are revered like gods or goddesses so we are ok with characters using that terminology. That example wasn't in the script so it must have been added by Hailee and left in because the team liked what it brought to her performance so much.

On English being used

Practically, their writing is not English because our global viewers won't hear the show in English. Creatively, Piltover is a melting pot of cultures, the reason some things are written in it is similar to how we recognize words in other languages that have universal meanings.

How the hextech weapons work

The gemstone powered the rocket with Hextech augmented acceleration (similar to the Hexgates). It's not consumed, just like Vi's gauntlets and Jayce's hammer don't consume their gemstones.

Silco

Silco grew up working in the mines and has a little tolerance to the gas. He also knew it was coming, and the others didn't.

reply to Darkri97: I only have a few if thats alright 1) If the water itself is toxic and open wounds react the way they do like with Silco what happened to Vander's arm since it was cut? 2) Is there any concept art listing everyone's height? 3) could we ever see concept art of the whole cast?

1) The eye is a delicate organ, which is why Silco's reaction was so strong.

[nothing missing; if there were other answers, they're cropped out]

reply to thelittleworms: After Silco met and talked with Vi in ep 6. Did Silco really believe Vi didn't come for her sister. Or he told Jinx like that because h didn't want to lose her? Or another reason?

He lied to her to manipulate her feelings.

not a reply:

Silco wears make up in Act 2 & 3 to cover his scars. One way he tries to bury his trauma.

reply to TearsOfaStay: Hi Amanda. First, a bog [sic] thanks to you and all arcane staff for this fabulous show. I don't know you can still answer questions. Have you considered silco's character in kind of a father love for jinx or he just raised and kept her bcs of his aims for having zaun independent?

Silco has his own fear of abandonment issues and uses those to manipulate Jinx. Even though it comes from that twisted place, I think Silco believes what he says when he tells Jinx she's perfect and he loves her like a father.

Trauma

reply to miliamalae: Hi Amanda! The writing for Arcane is stunningly observant in terms of mental health, trauma and how difficult experiences shape people. Did you rely on some pre-writing research, or is it mostly your own intuition? Either way - it is absolutely incredible! Thank you so much.

This was a big team effort of both research and intuition. It's certainly not everyone's experience with trauma, but hopefully believable in the heightened reality of a fantasy world? Glad you thought so, anyways.

Vander & the kids

Vander knew the girls before. Mylo and Claggor's parents also died on the bridge and Vander took them in like he took in Vi and Powder.

Vi and Powder snuck out when they weren't supposed to and followed Vander and their parents. I don't know their ages, but I think we were going for Vi being about the same age here as Powder is in act one.

Viktor

We have a backstory for Viktor that wasn't made canon to explain how he got into the Academy. His parents saved their money to buy him a uniform and he pretended to be a student until he gained Heimerdinger's attention. Instead of punishing him, Heimer made him his assistant!!

Jayce's opinion on Heimer

reply to ELWINDS: hi amanda! when jayce decided to push heimerdinger off of the council, how much of that decision was based on what he ACTUALLY said in the council room (his inaction on fixing issues with zaun, etc) vs heimerdinger wanting to destroy his only hope for saving viktor?

This is my opinion, but in that moment Jayce was using all those things he mentioned as a tool, but all he really cared about was saving Viktor. If Heimerdinger wasn't going to use his power on the Council to destroy the Hexcore, I don't think Jayce would've done it.

not a reply:

Jayce has been dealing with the council through Mel to get his Hextech approved and to build the Hexgates for a long time. He's been frustrated with their inaction for longer than we see onscreen in the show.

Ekko

Ekko is a little older than Jinx, I think he's like 19–20. After Vander died he went around helping Silco's victims until they had a little rag tag crew of people like him who wanted to help. They found the tree and were able to slowly expand into the Firelights.

I think Ekko beat Jinx in that fight because he learned from his mistakes in the childhood game, and was able to predict and dodge her moves.

reply to Ronie_6: Hi Amanda! Here is a question that I think I haven't seen: Ekko's parents are alive in Arcane? Or is he an orphan? (In the Universe page he has a short story called Lullaby that mentions them, but in Arcane he seem [sic] to live with the firelights) Thank you so much for everything! 💖

Sorry, I can't answer this for many reasons. None of which I can share.

Just a collection of what I feel were the more interesting tweets from Amanda Overton’s AMA: 

Arcane’s relationship with League lore: 

(emphasis mine)

(I read the “consistent within Arcane” as “please stop bugging us over very minor nitpicks”)

Vi & Caitlyn:

(no offense but I interpret that as cop!Vi is absolutely coming)

Sounds pretty straight forward to me that yes of course Vi and Cait would still be romantic if they became a couple as she would consider the opposite to be not believable behavior. 

Vi & Jinx: 

On why Marcus took Vi: 

(LOL, no offense to Amanda, but I still think that that is a terrible reason/character motivation, to translate “he felt bad” to “I’m going to put a teenager in prison without a trial for 6-7 years” )

On the words “god” and “hell” showing up in dialogue: 

On English being used:

How the hextech weapons work: 

Silco: 

Glad to hear it, I was kind of worried they might rewrite him into somebody who was privileged somehow and hence being a hypocrite. 

(I read that as a “no” on “he was just using/keeping her for crime stuff” but on a “yes it is unhealthy because he is manipulating her because he clings to her due to his own abandonment issues”)

Trauma: 

Vander & the kids: 

Viktor: 

Jayce’s opinion on Heimer: 

Ekko: 

Just a list of topics she went “sealed lips” on: 

- people asking about how the League character of Camille intersects with the story of Arcane - people asking about more details on Ekko and Powder’s relationship

[911actually]

THE FIRST RESPONDERS of L.A. County return to duty following the drama's midseason break with a tense two-parter that finds 9-1-1 dispatcher Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) caught in a madman's crosshairs. And like most 9-1-7 cases, it's rooted in reality. "There was a serial killer who was calling 9-1-1 after he killed people, crying on the phone, 'I feel so guilty,' and 'Oh, I did it again and I can't stop mvself!'" previews showrunner Tim Minear, referencing the 1980 case of Minnesota's Weepy-Voiced Killer. "The whole thing is [based on] that true-crime story. A guy calls Maddie and she realizes he hasn't just killed someone. He's about to [again, because] he has abducted someone" Things take an unsettling turn as Maddie is drawn deeper into the investigation, raising concerns for firefighter husband Howard "Chimney" Han (Kenneth Choi, above, with Hewitt and Bailey Leung). "He's very worried about her, but he also trusts that she knows what she's doing." says Minear. The story really kicks into high gear by the end of the first hour, when it becomes clear that Maddie too has gone missing. "There's some twists and turns in there that I hope you won't see coming," Minear warns. "And it's not going to be readily apparent that she's been taken." -Damian Holbrook via TVGUIDE Magazine (original scan credits to @cloexbrosluvr)

[haveuevermetme]

men are seen as animals by men themselves and their defenders.

i’ll tell you what i mean. when man violently attacks a woman, the questions are always addressed to the woman. people ask her what did she do, how did she provoke him, what was she wearing and so on. the man himself, however, does not receive any questions like why did he do that, why did he think it was a normal reaction to a rejection and so on. this line of thinking is usually attributed to how we talk about the attack when the victim is a human and perpetrator is an animal.

if you went to the forest, met a bear and her cubs, and she attacks you, no one would question a bear. no one would think why bear attacked you, everyone knows why - she thought you were a threat. the bear did what she must, you will be the one questioned. what were you doing in the forest? why didn’t you turn around when you saw a cub? how did you provoke her? what did you do? you will be harmed in this situation and you will be blamed.

if you went to swim in a river that has crocodiles, and a crocodile bit off your leg, no one would question the crocodile, it’s easy to understand, crocodile’s hungry, it wants to eat, you’re the acceptable prey, hence crocodile attacks. you will again be guilty, why did you go into the river? you knew there were crocodiles, then why did you? there is no one else to blame but you, crocodile just want to eat, bear just wants to protect her own, that’s it. it’s your own fault.

however, this is exactly how we talk to victims now. this is exactly what victims hear.

what did you do to provoke him? = what did you do to provoke the crocodile?

you went to a man’s house, you knew what was going to happen = you went to a river with crocodiles in it, you knew what was going to happen

what did you expect, it’s a man, he has instincts! = what did you expect, it’s a bear, it has instincts!

could you blame him? = could you blame it? the animal?

but when you realise that men are people, when you treat them like people, like yourself, all of this sounds horrifying.

why did he rape her? i don’t know, i would never do that to someone, i never felt like raping someone, even if i liked him, even if i thought he liked me back, even if we were married, then why did he?

why did he beat her? i don’t know, i never felt a desire to beat someone up until he is bleeding and struggling to breathe, even if he didn’t want to give me his number, even if he laughed at me, then why did he?

why did he kill her? i don’t know, i never wanted to kill someone, even if he cheated, even if he wanted to take full custody, even if he wanted to leave me, then why did he?

men are not animals, they have full consciousness, they have thoughts and feelings, they understand what they are doing, they are people. that is why this is so terrifying, this is why we could not turn a blind eye to their violence.

[calex-sk]

Rant about how stupid people are on the arcane fandom when it comes to understanding Zaun😷

People on tiktok/twt are SO stupid. That fact that they say Viktor committed genocide bc he hates disabled people??? Do they know that he was getting manipulated by the hexcore or…? CUZ HE JUST WANTED TO HELP CURE ZAUN. He even made a place where he tried to fixed what piltover did to his people. He didn’t know he was killing them in the process!!! But oh well, sometimes I forget that tiktok and twt assume that you calling the council classist and bad is you calling everyone and their fav from piltover bad. Like if you watch arcane with your eyes open and have a bit of understanding about politics you know they never cared about Zaun until something happened to them.

People hate on Viktor for being “rude” to Mel (even called him being racist? which has nothing to do with the conversation they were having😭?) but you guys have to understand that Viktor was always seen as an assistant and couldn’t have a higher position from how the people from Piltover treat him and his disability (the disability thing for the people who didn’t see it at first, watch what Salo says when he gets a wheelchair and how disabled unfriendly Piltover/the council is), he hates the council with reason and we know that even though she later tries to help a bit (by supporting Jayce’s proposal on the council) we also she’s been in the council from long before, making her part of the problem, and therefore, making Viktor difficult to “manipulate” and make him trust her since he knows how the council was.

Viktor had every reason to be at least a bit rude, especially after Jayce left science for politics (in my opinion what made a lot worse), Viktor knew he didn’t had a lot of time and with Jayce leaving their partnership to become something he never wanted to be made it worse, he didn’t have his support. Viktor fusing with the hexcore and taking shimmer points that, how desperate he was to cure himself. And yes, he was selfish to do that BUT when you have basically a death date, you would be selfish to stop it too. When he accidentally kills Sky with the Hexcore, he realizes that, realized his selfish actions and felt guilty from killing someone who had nothing to do with his problems. The way he told Jayce, in a guilty way, was so that Jayce also understood how bad the hextech was.

Viktor wasn’t bad like people on tiktok and twt make him look, he was simply desperate for a cure, for someone to help him and understand him. And the people who water down Viktor to being “rude” is just pathetic. Like this is more of my opinion but the council had every reason to be hated and to be shown how classist it was BUT the huge problem was that they made them look like they had the same problems as the characters from Zaun. Yes, they all had their problems and ptsd’s but saying that they suffered the same as the people from Zaun??? Not to talk about how they didn’t show how everyone on the council was classist and didn’t care one bit for Zaunites, and the people who ignore it too 💀, like you can like a character or even have one of the Piltover characters as your favorite AND STILL UNDERSTAND HOW THEY WERE. If you ignore why Zaunites hate piltover and the council it’s also partially because they made Piltover not your typical classist council / government, because I understand not noticing that Mel was manipulating Jayce into politics, or how it was a way of her getting something from it because they didn’t made it easy to understand to others, but that’s what she did, obviously she thought it was what was best but it did made damage.

Also saying that Jayce wasn’t affected by it is just stupid since he literally crashed out and left her once he realized he was a political chess piece. (People saying he wasn’t manipulated but simply is a dumb puppy boy is so stupid and shows the double standard that men can get manipulated and hurt by it as long it’s a pretty woman doing it)

Not to talk about how Christian Linke called Zaunites svengalis, to me this just shows how they also couldn’t care less about Zaun and only cared about the rich people from Piltover💀🤡

[hansolen]

greetings, i shall be going insane utc 🤍 also thank you for tagging me in this beautiful piece of literature that i WILL be engraving on my forehead moving forward. i’m glad this popped up in my notifs so that i didn’t miss this absolute delicacy 🫡 ALSO I FINALLY GOT TO USE THE GIF LOLL

Needless to say, Shin tries to keep you at the register as much as possible.

this made me laugh so hard 😭😭 keep the money up 🗣️ not the funny up 🗣️

(Yes—Shin slept with you. It was an accident, through and through, and he routinely feels bad about it. He'd been meaning to ask you out, treat you to dinner, maybe even get you flowers depending on the vibe. The type of thing that Mr. Sakamoto did for Aoi, when they first started dating.

SOMEONE HOLD ME IM ABOUT TO CRY AND THROW UP... the way he holds sakamoto and aoi as the benchmark GODDD THIS IS KILLING ME 😭😭😭💔💔💔 FUCKKKK AND NOW WITH THE ADDITIONAL PAIN OF HIS OWN BACKSTORY ..... MY HEART IS LITERALLY IN PIECES I HOPE YOU CAN HEAR THE CRACKS 😭😭💔💔 sakamoto truly is his real father 😭 benchmark of how love ought to be 😭

You've had explicit fantasies about deepthroating him while he works the cash. He'd die if you ever tried that, actually.

tumblrina reader at it again 🫡🫡 so very real. also love this rollercoaster that i’m riding. perfectly encapsulates their dynamic

Not that that bothers Shin. Not at all. Not one bit.

mhm. whatever you say, gorgeous.

[ alright so the ones bellow are just a compilation of my thoughts while i was reading them going at it — and since there were a lot of paragraphs, i know it would be better not to quote the whole damn thing since i’m partially sane ]

wow need me a guy like shin who can read my wants without having to say them 🫡 that’s actually so. perfect. LIKE DAMN that’s so hot

SHIN IS A CERTIFIED YEARNER look at him go 😭😭 the way he feels guilty about a quickie 😭 he’s so real for that... a true advocate of aftercare !

“but you're both punctual workers” WAGE CAGE AT IT AGAIN 💔 let my boy yearn in peace .

OMG SEE HOW I SAID ADVOCATE OF AFTERCARE EARLIER?? OMG HE CONVERTED THE READER INTO LOVING IT TOO MY HEARTTT... he might as well add a successful advocate of aftercare into his resume.

[ pertaining to their first time ] LMAO i can just imagine reader sitting there trying to choose between breakfast or blowjob like that one meme.. okay wait. pause i’ll brb

THIS ONE LOL

[ back to the present ] oh god 😭 the way the reader is so confused with her feelings 💔 the clear struggle of seperating fantasies that she uses to cope with reality from the said reality............yeah........ i fear you just hit the nail of the coffin with that one 💔

but to add onto that i’m really glad shin understands her feelings so well (i mean i know he deals with other people’s feelings very well, considering his years of experience with others and dissecting their thoughts apart. plus he’s naturally like that. very isfj coded indeed. his Fe is prevalent throughout his character growth, such a core part of him) but i digress.

i just love how he doesn’t immediately take it personally, instead he attempts to understand reader at a more fundamental level — beyond her surface thoughts.

he knows reader has a lot to address and so much to sort through. yet he also knows she’s unable to do so alone. it actually melts me how he’s so willing to help her with it and gives her hints later on so that she finds out by herself (+ he’s too embarrassed to say it himself lol bc c’mon now this is SHIN of all people) but seriously they’re so adorable it’s killing me

Eventually, you ask him to come over in the evening, and he scrambles to agree, desperate for a do-over.

MY GUYYY IS SO DOWN BAD I'M SCREAMINGGG as he should be !!!

He isn't familiar with dick appointment etiquette, especially not appointments involving a friend. Was he meant to bring a gift? A Netflix movie recommendation? It would have felt wrong to show up completely empty-handed

im actually laughing so hard A Netflix Recommendation ....... A Gift ...😭😭😭 shin the man that you are 😭😭😭😭😭 probably not the right way to use the phrase but oh well ! dick appointment etiquette.... BAHDHAHAH

ok but reader and shin discussing the quality of visuals 😭😭 reader saying she’ll adjust them next time like it’s a youtube video resolution 😭😭😭 BAHAHUAGS JDOWLE STOPPP

Some ten minutes later, you make a small noise of protest when Shin pulls out of you, and it turns into a look of outright betrayal when he gets up. Shin’s heart clenches immediately.

BOY YOU’RE IN LOVEEEEEEEEEE

“Don't be sorry. You can't help it. That'd be like if I were sorry for breathing.”

i know this broke him. he would’ve 100% gotten into his head in hands position if only an ultimate bad bitch wasn’t opening her heart to him rn. bro must’ve had tears threatening to come out for sure 😭 truly though this must’ve been like a bullet through his head .... someone really needed to say this to him 💔

Why am I nervous? Tell me, Shin.

I AM SCREAMING ON THE TOP OF MY LUNGS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA SOMEONE STOP THIS STOP STOP STOP THIS MADNESS IM DYING DROWNING EVERYTHING STOPPP

“I wouldn't know.” Except he’s got a good guess, and he'd rather die than say it out loud because it would be embarrassing for you both if he were wrong.

OH GOD oh lord. i . i just. THEM. JUST THEM!!!!!!!!

guys. im tearing up

oh god they’re doomed by the narrative aren’t they 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 i need to physically get into sakadays universe and rearrange everything so they end up together and none of that soulmate bs ever happens 💔💔💔 infact i will go fight the fates themselves and rearrange the threads myself idc idc

them possibly not being endgame might just be my final straw YOUR HONOUR FUCK YOUR SOULMATE BS LET THEM BEEEE LEAVE THEM ALONE AAAA 😭💔 they will heal each other #Trust

“Aw,” you say, “that's too bad. I bet forced orgasms with ESP would feel amazing.”

1. reader is so fucking real.... i bet it would be god tier.. thinking thots.. 2. THIS AS A RESPONSE IS FUCKING SENDING MEEEEEE i love your timing

Mr. Sakamoto sees the two of you as you make it to work just on time together and immediately figures out what's happened. Shin gets a mental reprimand for not marrying you first, and the disappointment from Mr. Sakamoto is so strong that he briefly considers resigning out of disgrace.

RESIGNING FROM DISGRACE 😭😭😭 LMAFAOAOAOAO no actually i need to stop laughing cuz ...poor guy has been going through it. not only is he dealing with an extremely complex situationship with zero previous romantic experience to look back at, but is also able to read the thoughts of disappointment his idol feels for him regarding the said situation 😭💔 poor guy .... he looks up to you sakamoto!! i swear he wishes he could marry or ATLEAST get a date before but 😔 things are not that simple!! and i really don’t think SAKAMOTO of all people should be speaking on this . like he has has no idea how to deal with complex relationships 🙄 not everyone is lucky enough to have aoi pop into their lives like an angel and stay 🙂‍↔ sakamoto would never survive in this situation ... but again, sakatmoto would never get himself in this situation. WHATEVER! shin you’re one strong guy with an even stronger stroke game. keep your head up king.

You want to kiss Shin all the time now, and it's making him feel like the horniest person alive.

OMG THE ROLES GETTING REVERSED AT THE END WAS SO CUTEEE I SEE WHAT U DID THERE MAO OMG IM DYINGGGGG theyre perfect and made for each other no one can tell me otherwise i will . i will combust.

end. thanku for coming to my ted talk

SITUATIONSHIP | asakura shin x f!reader

You are both the most diligent worker at Sakamoto's Store and the most hypersexual person that Shin knows. Overhearing your thoughts and accidentally seeing your fantasies routinely leads to profound psychic damage for him, as well as the most poorly timed boners in the world. All of this only gets worse when the two of you start hooking up.

6k words. comedy, smut. all the sex scenes are vanilla; however, the reader constantly reads and thinks about horny fanfiction tropes including: free use, omegaverse, and breeding. these are all mentioned but not discussed in detail. warning: the reader has a warped/unhealthy relationship with her sexuality, this fic is about shin fixing her with his stroke game lol. credits to @/cafekitsune for the dividers and @hansolen for the fic brainrot <3

You are the worst coworker that Shin has ever had.

This is saying a lot, given that he's worked with countless two-bit assassins who could barely a handle a gun (no one he worked with in his late teenage years could hold a candle to Mr. Sakamoto, truly), as well as Lu, who can barely orient herself within the store. You are, in contrast, brutally efficient with your work, incredible with the customers, and very cooperative with Shin. You even know how to handle a gun, and you do it with such pinpoint precision that it's always nonlethal despite being brutally debilitating. (Your skill level does hold a candle to Mr. Sakamoto in this respect, and Shin wonders if his boss has given you some kind of private training—a thought that fills him with such jealousy that it makes him want to chew on the sale stickers in his hands.) There's just one problem.

You are probably the horniest person alive, and Shin is about to lose his fucking mind listening to your thoughts.

Now, Shin is used to hearing the unfiltered stream of consciousness of the average human being. This naturally includes carnal desires here and there. He’s desensitized to most people’s erotic fantasies about their favourite gravure idol, memories of their last sexual encounter, intrusive thoughts about their friends, et cetera. He habitually tunes it out. But whereas a regular person might have these thoughts once or twice a day, you seem to have them once or twice an hour. And none of your thoughts are ever brief or underdeveloped. They usually last at least ten minutes each, with detailed internal monologuing and accompanying 8K UltraHD visuals, and you really only ever stop when you're trying to remember a code at the till or doing some quick mental math with the accounts.

Needless to say, Shin tries to keep you at the register as much as possible.

You used to tell yourself (in your head) that your mental fixation on sex was a natural consequence of your dry spell. After quitting the assassin life, you'd been celibate for the first time in at least a decade, forced to attain sexual gratification with nothing but masterfully written fanfiction and your vast collection of vibrators. (Your favourite one is hot pink, seven inches, rabbit eared. You sometimes have trouble getting it to fit, but it’s worth it for the way you cum when you do, and this knowledge makes Shin want to die.) You were convinced that getting laid would bring you enough relief to stop thinking about sex every hour of the day. You had thought that you'd go back to “normal” after that, though Shin doesn't know what “normal” entails for you. (One free-use fantasy a day instead of twelve? Daydreams strictly featuring humans rather than tentacle monsters? It's hard to say.)

Regardless, Shin had to agree: surely, there would be a limit to your sex-obsessed thoughts. It made a lot of sense that you were simply frustrated and in need of an outlet. Naturally, after sleeping with you, he'd expected your thoughts to quiet down.

(Yes—Shin slept with you. It was an accident, through and through, and he routinely feels bad about it. He'd been meaning to ask you out, treat you to dinner, maybe even get you flowers depending on the vibe. The type of thing that Mr. Sakamoto did for Aoi, when they first started dating. If everything went well, then you two could consider getting intimate. His interest in you has nothing to do with sex, after all—no, not even the fact that you've had explicit fantasies about deepthroating him while he works the cash. He'd die if you ever tried that, actually.

The plan was always to take things slow and maybe even start a relationship if the two of you really hit it off. He'd even asked Mr. Sakamoto for advice on what a civilian romance should look like! But then Shin walked you back to your apartment one night when you were feeling down, and you invited him upstairs, and one thing led to another, and, well… it turns out that you aren't the type of person to take things slow. Or think about relationships. Shin’s never overheard any thoughts from you about actually dating him, come to think of it. And no, before you ask—that doesn't bother him. Not at all. Not one bit.)

To both his surprise and yours, getting laid somehow had the opposite effect on you. Rather than being calmed, you're somehow even hornier—and now all your horny thoughts are about Shin.

It's nonstop. Shin can't believe it. Whereas you used to think about all sorts of people in your sexual fantasies (mostly your fanfiction men, but also some BL characters, occasionally Keanu Reeves, and very often that Nagumo guy), you now think solely of Shin. You're thinking about him right now, pausing as you finish restocking the onigiri.

Shin can hear every single thought from across the room, the way you feel the edges of your sanity fraying with the memory of his touch. The whole day, you've been remembering how it felt to have your pussy stretched around his cock, how it felt to have his hands on your curves, how he seemed to know exactly how to touch your body to make you keen. (Shin admits he cheated; a little ESP goes a long way in bed.) You soaked the sheets when you finally came, and he kissed you relentlessly through your orgasm. It made you so horny that you had to immediately go another round.

No other man’s ever made you cum like that, you keep thinking. You've fucked more people than you can count, but not a single person has ever felt so good inside you. The realisation is driving you crazy, and Shin feels like he's about to go crazy with you. In the absence of a cold shower, he wants to shove himself into the freezer right now. There's no other way to get rid of his raging boner.

How did it feel so fucking good?! you keep thinking, oblivious to his struggles. I need his cock inside me again. I need him to hit it raw this time. I need him to bend me over the counter and cum in my pussy right now—

It makes him want to die, listening to your thoughts. It also confuses him, somewhat: he isn't that experienced, and objectively he’s a little clumsy in bed. His performance is probably mid in the grand scheme of things, which makes him wonder why you feel like his dick is heaven-sent.

But more than anything, Shin wonders if you ever think about anything other than his dick. Sex isn't the only thing the two of you have done together. The first time you hooked up, he'd spent the night at your place. You clung to him in his sleep and you drooled on his chest and he thought it was kinda funny. He was careful not to wake you as he wiped your chin. You’d cooked him breakfast by the time he'd woken up: homemade miso, fresh rice, tamagoyaki. He made you burnt coffee after. You gave him a goodbye kiss, which somehow turned into a goodbye blowjob, which then escalated into wasting the day together in bed. You were really cuddly the whole time, and Shin could hear you think, how weird, I hate it when people hold me, and I hate it when people kiss me, but you liked it from Shin. You liked it so much that your pussy started dripping, and then what else could you do but suck him off again? (He returned the favour, of course.)

There was a lot more than just fucking, but you never think about any of that other stuff. You only ever think about his stroke game.

Not that that bothers Shin. Not at all. Not one bit.

By noon, he reaches his limit.

Shin considers himself a responsible guy and dedicated employee. He'd ordinarily never want to take off in the middle of the day to fool around with you—or anyone else—but it's his lunch break, and he has to get you to stop fantasizing. His dick is so hard that it's painful, and even with the apron it's getting tricky to cover up. As soon as the clock hits 12, he's throwing it off and making a beeline for you.

“We need to talk,” he says, grabbing you by the hand, and the face you make is so giddy that he can't help but sigh. You’re practically beaming as you take off your apron and say bye to Lu. We’ll be back in 30! you tell her in a sing-song voice, because you’re a very conscientious worker even when outrageously horny.

“You heard my thoughts?” you ask as the two of you climb the stairs to his room, and he snorts.

“How couldn't I?” He gives you a miserable look, cheeks flushing. “Were you doing that on purpose the whole morning?”

“No.” He raises a brow. “I'm serious—I wasn't trying to cause any trouble for you! It's just…” You bite your lip, and it takes all of Shin’s self-control to stop himself from staring at its glossy sheen. “I really just need to be touched again.”

“I don't believe you,” he says as he pulls you into his room.

“You're an esper! You should know I'm telling the truth!”

“I also know you like to torture me with your thoughts.”

“Well, yeah…” You smile at him, sheepish. “But I really just need a bit of relief. Want me to prove it to you?”

There's a sudden glint in your eye that makes Shin nervous, out of his depth. Sometimes he gets the feeling that you want to eat him alive, and he never knows how to handle it. He’s never gotten this level of attention before, and never in his wildest dreams did he think he'd get it from someone like you.

(Yeah—you're way out of Shin's league. For all his plans of a civilian romance, he wasn’t sure if he could actually score a date with you. He still isn't sure if he can score one. He's also not sure he’ll survive this encounter.)

He swallows. “Prove it…?”

“Uh huh.” You look so pretty right now, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Let me show you.”

You read too much hentai. Shin knows this firsthand (you read a lot of it on the clock, and all the images get blasted right into his prefrontal cortex), but he can also tell from how you act. It’s just way too fucking outrageous when you spread your legs for him, pulling up your skirt, and he's greeted not by the sight of your panties (you wore a lacy pair to work and kept bending over in hopes of flashing him—you had not been shy at all in this thought), but your bare, glistening cunt.

No fucking way.

“You’ve been working like that?!” he blurts out, mildly horrified even though his dick is jumping at the sight of you. You laugh, and you conjure up your panties from somewhere. They dangle from your fingertips, sheer and drenched.

“Took them off as we came up here. They're useless now anyway, see”—they’ve been soaked through for hours, and my thighs are all sticky—“and besides… I wanted to give you easy access.”

He thinks he's going to pass out.

“Easy access,” he repeats stiffly, bright red.

“Uh huh. Wanted to be efficient—we only have, what, twenty minutes?” Before he can even react, you're already turning around, bending over for him, ass up. From this angle, he can see just how wet you are—and how you're clenching around nothing, your cunt empty and needing to be filled. You glance over your shoulder, give him a teasing smile. “What are you waiting for?”

It’s a wonder that Shin doesn't cum on the spot, really. Like he said—he isn't an experienced guy. He's never slept with anyone so forward, or so—well. Smoking hot, for lack of better word. Half of him has a mind to just stand there and say that he can't believe you, and half of him has a mind to fuck you like you've been hoping all morning. Thankfully, this latter half of him wins out—probably for the better. If he helps you work this out of your system, you'll probably stop assaulting his mind with all your horny thoughts and his dick can exist in peace for the rest of the afternoon. Right?

Right?

(He ends up being extremely wrong.)

By the time he's pulled down his pants, put a condom on, and started pushing inside you, the two of you have seventeen minutes left. He worries briefly that it won't be enough time to get you to cum (nor him, though that isn't his goal currently), but it turns out to be a non-issue. Your pussy swallows his cock easily, stretching around him so perfectly that he nearly chokes. He always hears you talking about how sex with him feels leagues better than with any other person, but he’s not sure if you know that the same is true for him. No one's ever felt as good as you, and it takes every ounce of willpower in him not to cum immediately.

You're already close to the edge, too. Probably pent up from squeezing your thighs together all morning and thinking about his touch. You moan in a way that is obscene, like something out of an AV—but Shin knows that it isn't a performance. He can feel your body and hear your thoughts, all the genuine bliss you get from being filled up. When he starts moving, it's with intent. He fucks you like you’ve been fantasising all day, all week—with a relentless pace, focused on giving you nothing but pleasure. You tighten around him like you were made for him, and—

—apparently you feel like you're being used? Like a hole? The fuck! Shin almost stops mid-stroke to balk at you—he wouldn't do that to you!—but then you moan and he feels you getting wetter at the thought, and then he has no choice but to keep going. He's not about to kill your high.

Nine minutes left. Your clit is throbbing, neglected, and as soon as you think about touching yourself, Shin’s fingers are circling it instead and making you keen. He hits the spot inside you that has your eyes rolling back and your spine arching beautifully, and you can’t speak with your mouth, but he hears you anyway: the begging, the neediness, right there right there you're doing so good Shin you feel so good don't stop don't stop don't, don't—

“Oh fuck,” you whimper, pressing your face into the sheets, and then Shin feels you pulsing around him, drenching him. He gets dragged over the edge with you, gasping sharply as he finds his own release. You collapse as he twitches inside you, spilling himself inside the condom, and he almost snorts when he hears you thinking, wish you were cumming in my pussy instead. Do it raw next time, okay?

“You know we have to use a condom,” he says between pants.

“But I'm on birth control! Read my mind—you know I'm telling the truth!”

“And I also know that birth control is only 93% effective,” he says, rolling his eyes. He glances at the clock. “C'mon—we only have five minutes until our lunch break ends.”

It feels a little weird, rushing you. He’s never had a quickie before, but he understands that you can't exactly take your time with cleaning up afterwards. Still, he thinks about what it was like the last time the two of you did this—how slow and soft it was after, how he stayed inside you for a bit, how he kissed you long and cleaned you up carefully. It just felt like the right thing to do after sleeping with someone, especially given that that someone was you. He'd much prefer to do that right now.

But you are both punctual workers, and anyway Shin’s heard enough of your idle thoughts to know that you’re fairly apathetic to aftercare—you never expect it, and you’re never particularly sad when you don't get it. Sometimes you even fantasize about being used roughly and then discarded (a thought that he finds so unpleasant that it instantly kills his boner every time).

So it's probably fine to rush back downstairs, he figures. He throws you some wipes, lets you clean yourself up. You do it without complaint. You're not upset. He can even hear your mind humming with satisfaction, coming down from the highs of sensory pleasure.

Which is why he's confused when he hears you think, Huh. That didn't feel as good as I thought it would.

It's not like it felt bad.

This is what Shin hears all afternoon: You had a good time. You generally like being treated like a hole. You hadn't thought that Shin would have it in him to do that (neither did he, he admits), but it was kind of thrilling that he did. You want him to do it again for sure. He hit your g-spot with the kind of precision that only an esper can manage, and your vision nearly went white as you found your climax.

And that's what matters, right? You came. You had an orgasm. The little death. The ultimate goal of sex. You used to have a hard time with it, but after so many missions your body started to enjoy sex and now you cum very easily. And you came very easily with Shin, so that means you must enjoy having sex with him too, right?

But it was better the first time you had sex. Objectively better. You came way harder. You even squirted during your second round with him! Your orgasm was so intense that you felt blissed out for the rest of the night, and even the morning after. When you woke up and realised that Shin was not only still there, but also holding you, it made you so horny that you nearly woke him up with a blowjob. It was only with great self-control that you woke him up with breakfast instead.

You don’t feel like that right now, though. You don't feel horny and you don't feel like cooking and the euphoria of your orgasm melted away a while ago. You just feel sort of… empty.

You don't feel bad, though. It's a beautiful day. The char siu bao in your hand is incredibly fragrant. Piisuke is on your shoulder and chirping in your ear. Shin looks really handsome in his apron—did you know that, Shin? you ask him in your mind—and he goes bright red at this thought and looks away. You don't feel bad, you mentally reassure him. You just don't feel as good as you thought you would.

But Shin does feel bad. He feels miserable, actually. He's not a very experienced guy, but even he can tell that you’re the type of person who needs to be held after having sex. It seems like you probably don't realise it, but it's clear as day to Shin, and for the rest of the afternoon he hates himself for not having done it. It wouldn’t have had to be for very long.

Lu could have covered for an extra fifteen minutes, he keeps thinking. Fuck!

Eventually, you ask him to come over in the evening, and he scrambles to agree, desperate for a do-over.

Shin’s not really good at this hook-up business.

Now—he isn't exactly good at relationships either, but he feels exceptionally awkward about coming over to your place with the express purpose of having sex. He isn't familiar with dick appointment etiquette, especially not appointments involving a friend. Was he meant to bring a gift? A Netflix movie recommendation? It would have felt wrong to show up completely empty-handed, so he ends up bringing your favourite snacks and two bottles of Pocari Sweat. If this is anything like the first time he stayed over, you'll probably both need it.

You're delighted by the snacks and amused by the drinks. He wrestles with himself over what kind of small-talk to make—there’s a PS5 out right now, and your TV screen is paused on Leon Kennedy’s face, so maybe he can start a conversation about the horror genre? He watches a lot of films—but you're dragging him into your room before he can overthink it.

“I missed you,” you say, voice all sweet with affection as you straddle his lap.

“It's been two hours,” he points out, somehow managing not to stammer.

“Eight hours since we fucked.”

“That's not very long at all.”

“Felt like forever to me.” Your whisper is so tender in his ear, incongruent with the absolute filth you're thinking about right now. You need his cock so, so bad—you’d have it inside you 24/7 if you could have it your way, though he's also free to help himself to your body at any hour of the day. Sure, he can't smoke on the premises, but there's no rule against hiking up your skirt and pushing your panties to the side so he can—

“I wouldn't do that in the store!” he squawks, and you giggle.

“Then you should start taking me up to your room more often.”

Shin would be more than happy to host you, actually. He’s been thinking lately about having you over for dinner—Aoi’s been teaching him how to cook—and getting to know you better, in a non-Biblical way. But Shin knows that's not what you mean. You want him to carry you upstairs without asking and to throw you onto his bed and to fuck you into the mattress. You want to go back to your shift without your panties, his cum dripping out of your pussy and sliding down your—

“You really want me to finish inside you,” Shin remarks, bewildered at your sheer obsession over it, and you tilt your head.

“Don't you?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean—we shouldn't. It's, uh. Risky. I don't want to get you, y'know… pregnant…” His dick twitches in a way that makes him grateful that you don't have ESP. He's realising something about himself that he absolutely cannot think about, and which you would absolutely exploit if you figured out. He clears his throat, hoping he looks normal. “Like. You know. It's better to be on the safe side.”

You study him carefully. “I dunno, Shin.” You smile knowingly. “I don't think I'd mind it if you wanted to breed me.”

Shin is going to die.

The next twenty minutes pass in a horny blur. The two of you spend it all over each other, his cock sliding along your opening—dangerously close to pushing in. You beg him for just the tip, both verbally and mentally—pleaaase Shin please please please it'd be so easy, I'm still stretched out from before, you know it'd feel good—and he's watched enough adult films to know that this is a blatant trap. He somehow pulls away, and immediately feels bad at the crushed expression you make, so he decides he has no choice but to make it up to you by putting his head between your thighs. Within minutes he’s sucking on your clit and making you keen, his fingers curling inside you. He knows your orgasm is intense both from the way you gush all over his face and how your mind goes pleasantly, blissfully quiet for a moment.

It doesn't stay quiet for long.

The most debauched image possible comes to his mind—you, underneath him, your legs folded into a mating press as you take his cock. He’s giving you another load, pumping you full. It's filling up your womb, and you'll definitely get pregna—

“You’re fucking evil,” he groans. “And you read way too much hentai. Those visuals were so goofy.”

You laugh, unbothered. “Sorry, I'll adjust them for realism next time.”

“Please don't,” he begs, even though he knows he's going to spend the next week being mentally assaulted by your breeding kink fantasies. He just hopes they stay relatively normal and don't devolve into the weird omegaverse stuff. Or the monsterfucking stuff. Or the gangbang scenarios. Please, God, anything but the gangbang fantasies. He’ll scream if you imagine another threesome with him and that invisible asshole who kidnapped Lu. He’ll simply resign if you add Nagumo.

To your profound disappointment, Shin ends up using a condom. He doesn't give you much time to feel sad about it, settling quickly between your legs and practically knocking the breath out of you as he thrusts into you. He’s left kind of breathless too. You weren't lying—you are still stretched out from earlier in the day, wet and pliant for him, and there's hardly any resistance as he starts pumping into you. He watches you carefully, laid out underneath him—your eyes squeezing shut as you're made to take his cock. Your mind goes a little quiet again, overwhelmed by pleasure. It's simultaneously a blessing and a curse: Shin’s finally getting a break from your psychic teasing, but the knowledge that he's fucking you dumb is doing something horrible to him.

He changes his angle, and a whimper leaves you. You tighten and gush around him in a way that makes it obvious what he’s hitting; he doesn't need ESP to know to keep doing it. Still, your thoughts are going haywire, a tangle of desire, and it's impossible for him to ignore. I need, he keeps hearing as your thighs starts to twitch, as you start tearing up, I need I need I need I need—

Your eyes land on his lips, and Shin hears you.

His kiss is open-mouthed, clumsy, but you’re hungry for it anyway. You’re panting into each other’s mouths when you start pulsing around Shin’s dick, and you end up cumming so hard on his cock that it's dizzying for you both. He fucks you through your orgasm, and it's only when you're glassy-eyed and limp beneath him that he finally lets himself finish. He pulls back as he does, gasping sharply, but not for long—you draw him back in quickly, clinging to him as you seek out another kiss. The two of you stay like that for a long moment—still connected, breaths heavy with exhaustion, lips slow and lazy against each other.

“Enjoy yourself more this time?” Shin asks, and you hum sweetly against his mouth. You’re still too mindless from your orgasm to form any real thoughts, but Shin can tell that you don't really want to talk. You want to keep kissing him. And you want him to hold you while you do it, which he happily obliges.

Some ten minutes later, you make a small noise of protest when Shin pulls out of you, and it turns into a look of outright betrayal when he gets up. Shin’s heart clenches immediately.

“Just getting stuff to clean up,” he explains, and you relax visibly.

“Oh,” you say. “Right.”

You seem antsy. You feel antsy. You're antsy because you just realised how much you like kissing Shin. Specifically, you've realised that kissing him elevates your orgasms into mind-blowing experiences, and now you're questioning every other orgasm you've had. Maybe I don't actually enjoy sex that much? you wonder. Or maybe I always needed to be kissed to enjoy it more? Wait, no. I hate it when people kiss me. It's gross. Except for when it's Shin. Why Shin? Hm… that apron must really be doing something for me.

Your head hurts. Shin patiently watches you replay your past experiences in your head, comparing all those nights with this one, and he can’t help but frown. Deeply. Your eyes go wide when he gives you an alarmed look at one particular memory.

“Shit, sorry! I forgot you’d see all that.”

“No, I'm sorry,” he says, feeling—not for the first time—guilty about his powers. “If I could turn it off, I would.”

“Don't be sorry. You can't help it. That'd be like if I were sorry for breathing.” But despite your easy words, you’re watching him carefully, and your mind is stirring in an unsettling way. I'm nervous? you realise. Your heart is beating in a way that suggests a flight or fight response. It gets worse the longer you stare at him. Why am I nervous? Tell me, Shin.

“I wouldn't know.” Except he’s got a good guess, and he'd rather die than say it out loud because it would be embarrassing for you both if he were wrong. He'd have to resign. Nevertheless, he tries to guide you in a specific direction: “Have you really never liked it when people kissed you?”

“No,” you reply immediately. “I don't see the point of kissing during sex.”

He gives you a long look. “What if it’s not just sex? What if it's just a regular kiss on a regular day with, like, a partner? Someone you're really serious about.” He blinks at the confused stare you're giving him. “You mean you don't like that either?”

It's suddenly very noisy. Shin can hear your mind buzzing as you stare at the ceiling of your room, not with coherent sentences so much as shapeless confusion. His skin crawls with the echo of your discomfort; it's a wonder you aren't slipping out from the sheets to run away.

“...I don't know,” you finally decide. “I don't have much real dating experience.”

“Huh? You’ve said before that you've dated lots of guys.”

“Um.” You’re careful not to look at him. “Yeah, I guess. They all sucked though. I, like, wanted to kill every single one of my exes.”

“Like they were shitty boyfriends?”

No, like they were assassination targets, you think, and Shin has to keep a straight face as you reply, “Yeah, something like that.”

You rarely lie to Shin. You did it somewhat frequently until you figured out that he was capable of ESP, and then you stopped because you didn't see a point anymore. You only do it now when there's something you really don't want to talk about, so Shin relents. He focuses on cleaning himself up, and he interrupts the tense hum of your thoughts when he turns his attention to you. By the time he's finished and slid back into bed, your more complicated emotions have vanished, and you're back to marveling at the quality of the orgasm you just had. Apparently you like to keep things fairly simple in your inner world.

When Shin puts an arm around you, he can hear your pleasant surprise—and your immediate desire to press into him.

You're so happy just being held by him, it's shocking. And painfully endearing. Shin tries to pretend not to notice the warm glow of your thoughts, as well as your confusion over them: surely the simple act of being close to someone can't feel so good. Maybe the whole kissing thing was just a coincidence and Shin happened to be hitting it just right when your lips met. Or maybe he used his ESP on you to make you cum extra hard and he's still influencing you, and that's why you feel so tenderhearted right now.

“My powers only allow me to read minds,” he tells you. “I can't control other people.”

“Aw,” you say, “that's too bad. I bet forced orgasms with ESP would feel amazing.”

“...”

Shin realises something else about himself that he absolutely cannot let you know. Thankfully for him, you're none the wiser. Your mind’s somewhere else entirely when you climb on top of him, smiling neatly. Mind you, what you're thinking is still making him feel nervous. He's always a little out of his depth with you.

“Shin…”

You lean in, breath sweeping over his lips. His heart jumps.

“Y-yeah?”

“I'm still confused about how that felt so good.”

“I’ve noticed.”

You hold back a laugh. “Yeah, I guess you would have.” Then you give him an apologetic look. “Sorry I'm so stuck on it. I just thought I knew my body, y'know? I felt like I had tried everything worth trying. Sex was starting to feel boring, including the freaky stuff. But this is very new to me.”

This close up, Shin can feel the brush of your lashes when they flutter. See the glossy swell of your lips from all the kissing. Take in the fragrance of your hair. He starts to feel dizzy. “I-is it? I don't think we've been doing anything, uh. Crazy.”

“I didn't think so either.” Your thumb traces his lip. You're thinking about kissing him again, and you're also thinking about riding him as you do it. “I can't help but want to try it a few more times, you know? Just to make sure it wasn't a fluke.”

“A few more times,” he repeats, and you smile.

“You don't have anywhere you need to be tonight, do you?”

The two of you get two hours of sleep that night, and you end up going through both bottles of Pocari Sweat and all the snacks. There's no time for breakfast or burnt coffee the morning after; you make the executive decision to just eat something at the store instead. Shin leaves behind a toothbrush and you tell him he should also bring an extra set of clothes next time. He tries not to get too excited about the fact that there's going to be a next time. He fails.

Mr. Sakamoto sees the two of you as you make it to work just on time together and immediately figures out what's happened. Shin gets a mental reprimand for not marrying you first, and the disappointment from Mr. Sakamoto is so strong that he briefly considers resigning out of disgrace. But he stays on, and the days pass, and your relationship with him remains the same. Sort of.

Because, see. Now that you're regularly getting laid, your horny thoughts have finally (finally!) calmed down. You now have one free-use fantasy a day instead of twelve, and your daydreams only occasionally feature tentacle monsters. You do like to torture Shin with breeding kink scenarios, but that's only once a day, and they never involve any other guys. Shin considers this a victory, respite from the psychic agony that he was previously experiencing.

There's just one problem.

You want to kiss Shin all the time now, and it's making him feel like the horniest person alive.

He can't believe it. He doesn't have a particularly strong sex drive, and he rarely ever has sexual fantasies. But holy shit is he having them a lot now, and he can't say it's strictly your fault.

You spend most of the day now thinking about what it felt like to kiss him in bed, and what it felt like to hold his hand as he moved inside you, and what it felt like to be in his arms afterwards. What it would feel like if you were to do those things that you used to hate—kissing someone, linking fingers, embracing them—with Shin. Not just in bed, but on a regular day, out in the open. In a secluded park somewhere, or maybe at the top of a Ferris wheel, or even on a random street corner if the mood is right. All of these daydreams are usually followed by very explicit fantasies about public, unprotected sex, but the kissing is the most important part of it. The subsequent creampies are pretty significant too, but not nearly as much as the bits where you make out.

And somehow, the thought of cumming in you is not the part of the fantasy that's driving Shin crazy.

You give him a meaningful look. A week ago, this would have been a sign that you wanted him to bend you over the counter and give you backshots. Now it means you want to sneak away to kiss him and hold hands, and this makes him want to do things to you that would get him fired immediately.

Shin sighs, and he contemplates shoving himself into the freezer.

END

I wrote this with one hand and did not proofread it. my apologies if you see any errors. I just needed to be free of these thoughts asap. release me...

PS - I know the Resident Evil/Leon Kennedy mention must have felt very random, but it's set-up for potential future sequels haha.

[mandy-asimp]

When She Calls

Lilia Calderu x Life!reader (she/her)

Warnings: language, deaths, sprinkles of angst, fluff, smut (but that's for waaay down the build up), whole lotta friendship, I'm like 87% sure that's it

Summary: when Life is asked to make a promise, she doesn't seem to be able to say no.But that promise was going to be served out so much longer than what she could see.

Chapter 2

Story masterlist

chapter 3

It was tense. The air. The people. Everything. 

Life had stayed on her own as she examined the room. Delicate fingertips running over everything and feeling the nitty bitty textures. She stood by the record player and kneeled to be eye level with the wood. Although her thoughts on what to do were clouded by the feeling of prying eyes. Even as her head snapped directly to stare at the booth. Agahta and Rio were speaking while looking directly at her. She only returned a harsher glare before standing up and continuing. 

“She won't expose either of us for the truth. She has too much to lose just like us. Like that Lilia character. Over four hundred years by her side as a cat. She’ll be too busy trying to fix what little time she has left with her to even focus on what we’re doing.” Rio reassured, already knowing how this goes. “She knew Nicky.”

The name caused Agatha to whip her focus to the words that were spoken so quietly she almost missed it all. “What…?” Her blue crystals glittered in the light, but as soon as the grief filled her eyes, it was all gone. “What if The Roads like Switzerland?”

Life turned her head once more back to the two, seeing how they got closer. She knew that it was either going to lead into a nasty makeout or something nasty. So she turned away, going back to examining everything. Stealing guilty glances to the oldest witch. However, she kept her distance.

Even when Rio’s voice came over the speakers. “Kill everyone around you. You get your power, I get my bodies.” The ‘coven’ moved together at her words, crowding in the center and watching through the glass.

“Hey that's my coven you're talkin’ about!” Agatha feigned her concern, although she hardly fooled anyone. 

The room erupted into complaints, but instantly drowned out by the screeching of the record. Dragging the attention to the record player as Teen fell back from it. Shouts to make the horrid noise end layered over each other. It wasn’t till Agatha took matters into her own hands after the boy's many failed attempts. She picked up the machine and slammed it into the ground, pieces flying over as she stomped with her heeled boot. Gasping a few times as she finally backed away. 

“We’ve been cursed.” Lilia stated. Her big brown eyes jumped all over, even to Life. There they stayed trapped in the storm clouds. How they rolled in and darkened the entire room. Only to be pulled back by the ticking of the metronome. Tick. Tick. Tick. 

~

Life and Death stood at the foot of the boy. A glass shard had cut him deeper and he had lost blood. Lots of it. The ‘coven’ stood around and did what they could. But it was when Agatha looked to them, begging with her eyes to Rio to not take him and pleading with Life to be fair. So neither did anything, they let the witches do their work. Observing the moment where they were actually looking like a coven. 

Even as they all sat around the fire as Teen rested. Well…Life hadn't joined them yet. She was from afar analyzing Agatha and her dynamic with the boy. She knew that the witch had figured him out just slightly, but she needed one more thing to be sure. Although, the funny thing about being life itself is always knowing who someone is without a second look. She knew who the boy was, and he wasn’t Agatha’s. But that wasn’t her knowledge to share. For all she knew, they didn’t know she knew of Nicky. She disappeared a century before Agatha was even born.

The woman was asked something that set her off clearly as she abruptly got up to leave. Giving Life her chance to go speak to the boy. “She’s always shot that topic down. He’s not one she likes to bring up…especially with Rio here now.”

“And I take it you know what happened to him?” Teen had sat up a little more, wrapping his arms around his knees as he grew curious to know so much more.

“I knew him. He was such a sweetie. Cutest little boy made from scratch I had ever been given the graces of curating. But…his time wasn’t meant to happen. They broke so many rules together.” She started her explanation, mimicking his pose right across from her. “I know who you are as well. I’ve known your path since your mother first knew.”

His brows furrowed as his eyes grew full of hope. “You…you know my name?”

“Of course I do. I’ll tell you a little secret, a token to show I mean no harm to you here. I’ve been hiding as Lilia’s familiar for years, all because I didn’t want to be Life anymore. It’s so demanding…having to see everyone into the world, to know when they’ll meet my counterpart.” She spoke so carefully, like if she was too loud everyone on The Road would hear her. 

The boy softly smiled, “so you’re the embodiment of life who hid as a cat?” A brief nod. “So…do you know then if-”

“Yes. I do know. I am not allowed to clear it for you though. That is a question of your life path that you’ll discover on your own…but like Agatha had said, you don't need to know someone's name to know who they really are. You’re a strong survivor too, I know you’ll figure it out.” She was so delicate with him. After all, she watched him escape. 

Life had gone out for a little bit. Lilia had left the front door cracked to ventilate out the air and get a cool breeze inside. And something within her told her to go out and observe the new lives that were coming in. It had been a while since she had done it and it was nice to see some of the positive lives that would be used wisely and greatly. 

Yet, there was a heavy pull towards Eastview that day. She followed it as well, finding the car smashed against a tree. A family, the Kaplan’s. Her heart ached at the sight of the lifeless boy in the back. His life managed to alter from what she knew. He was going to do wondrous things in his future, but alas…life is a funny thing. Never predictable to the fullest, even for herself.

The air around grew cold, a feeling she knew meant Death was on her way to collect the body. Life wished she could do something, anything to help him but it was against the laws of her nature. And unlike Rio, she had yet to bend them for anyone…but who would know it was her? 

The red anomaly in the distance began shrinking, and she suddenly wasn't watching. Instead she was acting and luring the soul of the voice that had just whispered a goodnight. “This way.” She would hum into the air, letting it travel all the way to the other. “Survive.”

The lifeless boy in the back of the crashed car suddenly gasped. “Tommy!” His eyes were everywhere, trying to find his missing brother. All he found was an unfamiliar woman pleading for him to be ok, and a soft glowing warmth behind her. 

Life stared with comfort, trying to ease his rushing heart. Only to give him a curt nod before disappearing.

“You…you were the one to lead me..” He had pieced the face together to the voice. He had played it to bring the shock, a guardian angel even. “I heard you. What about Tommy? Did you lead him out too? Do you know where he is?” The questions seemed to flood over the damn. 

Life sighed, “even if I do know where he is, you’d still have to find him. You’re on a set path, keep pursuing it.” And with that she had stood and left him to his own thoughts. Giving him just a brief moment before he would have to return to the group. 

Returning, the group had just finished sharing stories. Rio was getting ready to follow after Agatha as she walked away to catch her own breath. Lilia had grabbed at her wrist, a subtle hue of knowing as she stared up to the green witch. “Don’t think for a second I forgot what you said in that booth.” She had such a harsh undercut to her smooth words. 

Rio scoffed, letting her eyes widen as she hissed down to the other. Only Life was right in her way when she stepped again. Grey eyes burning into her and speaking without a single word. They held a silent conversation until the brunette groaned and rolled her eyes. Stepping around her and continuing to chase after Agatha.

Life didn’t bat an eye as she took a silent seat near the fire, keeping her distance still as the feeling of uncertainty followed her. “Ok, and what about you? How do you play into all this?” Jen’s voice cut straight through it all. Bringing the natural being into reality. “How do you know those two?”

“I’ve known Rio for as long as I can remember. We’ve been tied together for so long honestly. But I had made a commitment once, and she didn’t like the fact that I was going to uphold it. I eventually disappeared from her and anything to do with what our jobs were. I met Agatha when she was on her own. I didn’t help with what she had asked me that day, even when Rio asked…they were going to break more than what I wanted to be a part of. So, I kept myself hidden. Then suddenly I was brought here.” Life had kept the story short. There was so much to actually dissect that there was clearly not enough time now.. “I promise I’m no harm here. I never was.” She was sincere in her words. 

“How do we know we can trust you though? If you're telling us you knew those two, they’re full of tricks and lies. What makes you any different? After all, you’ve been lying for centuries.” Lilia was harsh. Her narrowing glare, her sharp words, they cut like a perfectly sharpened knife. “What if you’re just here to also collect bodies, just like Rio?”

“She has no purpose for bodies…” Teen had finally joined the group, taking a seat right next to Life. “She’s here to help us.”

“And what is her name?” Jen crossed her arms and quirked a brow. Everyone was suddenly expecting an answer.

It dawned on Life she never chose another name. She never needed another name the way Rio did. She was just known as Life, but it felt heavy suddenly. Like it wasn’t the proper choice to have everyone refer to her as such. “I don’t know…”

~

Chapter 4.

[godmodebeginswithlesbians]

a woman gets isekaiied into a fantasy world as a heavy armor knight, finds her long hair is too tedious to care for and gets in her face way too much and cuts it short, and slowly collects a group of friends from this world that in typical isekai fashion, form a guild with her. however- her voice is deeper than the average woman's, her figure is generally pretty androgynous even without the armor, and her behavior is read by these people as more masculine than how the same behavior would be read in her home world, so all of her friends think of her as a man. she finds that she doesnt really mind, which is helpful as the government in this fantasy world is like, really weirdly fascist, and if she revealed her gender there is the chance she would be reported and then killed for crossdressing. as she grows closer to her guild, bits of her backstory are revealed, she was killed/isekaiied the normal way (hit by a car or van or smth) while on her way to visit her terminally ill sibling in the hospital and feels really guilty about "leaving her parents to deal with that alone" or some shit. all things considered though, she's pretty ok otherwise. now, she's also pretty genre savvy, and realizes pretty quick what happened, and notices that the cast of characters around her tend to be flirty women, tho sometimes they arent flirty, and sometimes they arent women, and somethings they're neither, and kinda panics about it. she considers her options, which prob consist of like. a catgirl, a mage girl, a healer dude, a warrior guy and warrior girl (twins?), a knight in shining armor girl, a rogue/theif girl, a regal woman who's totally not a deposed princess from somewhere or another, and a younger brother type figure, and figures, y'know, she probably would've known by now if she were attracted to ladies, and they all seem to have eyes for each other rather than her, anyhow. so she decides to go after healer dude, he's cute and kinda nonassuming, and she won't be getting in the way of whatever kind of situationships the rest of her guild have found themselves in that way. so, she starts to act on that, and over the story realizes that hey maybe she should've cared more about politics in her old life, this fascist regime is killing children and people who were nice to her all because they didn't fit the mold of what they were supposed to be, and hey! maybe "she" didn't really fit either, and only thought of a future that was pushed on "her" because there wasn't really another option that immediately presented itself - an easy and nonconfrontational future with a "normal" husband and "normal" kids working a "normal" job and, and, and.... and he comes to a few more realizations along the way, learning to be happy as himself, with the people he cares about, and discovers that maybe there is some truth to that old trope that queer people tend to converge around each other and exist in groups after all, and subtly helps them get together (or apart from people/futures they don't care about) all while making plans with them to overthrow the fascist regime so that everyone in this world can live safely and happily. i figure the eventual get together between our armored protagonist and the healer is in the last couple chapters before the endgame, and has some statement about finding love and belonging and happiness, and moving on from old grief over his sibling and worry for his parents - there's nothing he can do to change the past, after all, he can only work to improve the future - and idk how it ends except that healer dude says he'll wear a dress at their wedding because he generally just loves being a feminine guy, and happily ever after and whatnot, reinstallation of a citizen-decided government or smth like that.

[yearofthesnape]

Appendix: Grief or Guilt? Engaging with Lorrie Kim's Reading

@snapecentric first pointed out the similarities between my meta above and Lorrie Kim's reading of the same scene in her masterwork Snape (A Definitive Reading). Kim and I both argue that there is, in fact, more going on than Snape's dislike at being called a coward, citing the "long pause in the sentence" as evidence (Kim). We also refer to the panic of being inarticulately trapped in a catastrophic world (Kim, paraphrasing Hilary Kovar Justice). Both of us read the scene as Snape reacting to Dumbledore's death, not just James's. Both of us speak of Snape's pain communicated via Fang and of Snape's great isolation. After this, however, our interpretations begin to diverge.

Kim's work fleshes out aspects of the scene that my meta doesn't handle; for instance, she brings up Buckbeak's attack on Snape as evidence that Snape is so isolated that even the world of beasts is not a safe refuge for his emotions (a brilliant and heartwrenching point). Also, she reads Harry's words as Harry intending to reveal to Snape that he now knows Snape betrayed James. As far as Harry's concerned, I'm now inclined to agree and stand corrected; for Harry, the most impactful part of his statement probably is intended to be "like you killed him," as in primarily James (but partly Dumbledore), which causes fewer narrative complications about how Harry switched entirely from the topic of James in Snape's last line of dialogue.

I think, however, that Kim too readily assumes that Snape and Harry are on the same page. For Snape, the crux of Harry's statement is the moment Harry solidifies his similarity to Dumbledore — "Kill me, then," the same request Dumbledore made. Harry repeats it twice, cementing his role as Dumbledore in this situation, and by the second time around, I don't think Snape's emotional focus is on James at all.

Because I think that Snape is not dealing with James here (although Harry thinks he is), I can put forward a thesis that does not involve James: This scene is about Snape's grief. Kim does fleetingly bring up grief ("There is no time yet to grieve"), but she does not centralize that grief. Since she keeps James in Snape's mind, Kim promotes a thesis that more plausibly refers to James: This scene is about Snape's guilt.

I maintain, however, that looking at grief gives a more complete engagement with all aspects of this passage. Kim's reading provides no explanation for the adjectives inside the narrative pause. While my reading of "inhuman" could be seen as a stretch, I think "demented" does require an explanation at this point in our familiarity with Dementors — and if "demented" does, "inhuman" might not be so much of a stretch after all. Granted, Dementors likely prey on feelings of guilt as well as sadness, but the narrative has always presented Dementors as bringing up "the worst experiences of your life" (PoA ch. 10), not the worst things you did.

Guilt is certainly a pain-inducing emotion, and Kim ties Snape's emotions to Fang in this way; but if Fang is connected with guilt, we lose the connection to Fang's grief-motivated howling later in the same chapter, and I think the two instances are so close together that the connection is likely important. Reading Snape as primarily guilty here breaks off that connection, and it also jeopardizes the connection between the present scene and Snape's "DON'T!" in the Prince's Tale — the only other time in the series he shouts this word. In the Prince's Tale, also, Snape is described as sounding "like a wounded animal," a possible callback to Fang in the present scene. Yet Kim makes no comment, either in her reading of the Prince's Tale or this scene.

From a psychological perspective, also, I think it unlikely that Snape is feeling primarily guilty here. He had qualms about killing Dumbledore in the past, yes; but the Killing Curse requires certainty, and Snape delivered. He knows that what he did was at Dumbledore's (reiterated) request. He knows that Lily and James died despite his best efforts; he knows that endangering them had never been his intent. Snape does not seem the sort of person to shout "DON'T!" if what he means is "DON'T BRING UP MY GUILT!" — when faced with accusation, he generally responds to it in some way, even by denying it, rather than trying to get out of its existence. The "DON'T" scene in the Prince's Tale shows Dumbledore trying hard to make Snape's "DON'T" into guilt (an action-spurring emotion) rather than grief (an emotion to sit with), but we see that his "DON'T!" was provoked by Dumbledore describing Lily's eyes, and it is followed by "Gone... dead..." which seems far more grief-filled than guilty. Snape is not afraid to face and debate the possibility of his being guilty, but he is profoundly uncomfortable with the action-opposed emotion of grief. His "DON'T" here, I argue, means "DON'T MAKE ME REMEMBER HIM, I CAN'T STAND THE PAIN YET!"

If Snape is trying to keep Harry from bringing up his guilt, Kim herself states that this is clearly not something he can legitimately request in any circumstance, since he did do the things for which he is feeling guilty. It would be tantamount to saying, "Don't tell me the truth." Even if he were not a spy, then, he would have to reframe this statement to a more appropriate one, so he would end up still saying, "Don't call me coward." ("Don't call me coward" is also an indirect way of refuting his guilt; if he is sufficiently detached to give this indirect refutation, I would imagine him to also be sufficiently detached not to look inhuman at the very thought of his being guilty.)

If Snape is trying to keep Harry from making him experience grief-laden memories of Dumbledore, though, this would almost always be a legitimate request to make... just not here, not as a spy. Snape's cover as a spy is the only thing holding him back from saying what he means in this instance, which increases the stakes and the pathos of this scene.

To conclude, then, while Kim's explanation of Snape's reaction does more easily explain the presence of James in the conversation, I still think that grief, not guilt, best accounts for all the complexities at play.

Meta: "DON'T CALL ME COWARD!" as Grief Response

"Kill me then," panted Harry, who felt no fear at all, only rage and contempt. "Kill me like you killed him, you coward —" "DON'T —" screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house behind them — "CALL ME COWARD!" -HBP ch. 28

This scene is not, primarily, about Snape's dislike for being named a coward.

I'm not saying there's less going on than that very real and warranted dislike. Many excellent metas have been written about why Snape doesn't like being called a coward, and that does make sense; he has just performed a feat of moral courage, after all, and it has to hurt to have that attributed to cowardice. He has also just been provoked by Harry's trauma-triggering attempt to use Levicorpus — but, interestingly, that isn't what tips him over the edge into uppercase instability. Nor is it, I argue, the term "coward." McGonagall and Harry both call Snape a coward in their canonical last words to Snape, but Snape doesn't react this way to McGonagall. Nor did Snape absolutely lose it the first time Harry called him a coward in this scene. While there is a cumulative effect from the repeated insult, the extremeness of Snape's reaction gives one pause. The most obvious conclusion is that something else is going on. In this case, I argue, that "something" is Snape grieving.

Snape is not usually permitted to openly grieve, and this scene is no exception. He is a double agent; he cannot let it show that he misses "those whom he could not save." Therefore, we have to read between the lines, avoiding Snape's careful misdirection of his feelings into allowable ground (upset over an insult) and away from dangerous territory (grief over people he isn't supposed to care about).

The dialogue is also party to some misdirection. If you read only the dialogue in this scene and the preceding pages, you might assume that the "him" that Harry is talking about is Harry's father. This makes no sense, as Snape didn't kill James. The narration, on the other hand, explicitly sets up Harry in this scene to look exactly like Dumbledore before he died, making it clearer that both Harry and Snape are thinking of Dumbledore now, not James, despite Snape's attempts to keep the conversation on the (ironically) safer ground of James Potter. (Snape was the first one to bring up James in this interaction, and I think that's intentional.)

The narration is also pointing us to a bigger picture in its use of reporting and interrupting speech. Snape's paragraph splits what could have been a straightforward sentence ("DON'T CALL ME COWARD!") into two parts, with so much narration in between that we are invited to speculate on what Snape doesn't want Harry to do. The effect gives Snape a little pause, a breath, so that he probably says "DON'T — CALL ME COWARD!" That breath in the middle gives Snape a hairbreadth space to change his initial reaction to something appropriate to his cover. This is the closest we ever see Snape to blowing his cover, but (eminently capable as he is) he salvages it regardless, so thoroughly that many fans can't see past it either. I didn't, until recently.

But the narrative does. We'll see confirmed in The Prince's Tale in the next book that "DON'T" is Snape's automatic grief response; he cannot bear to hear his loved ones spoken of:

"Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the shape and color of Lily Evans's eyes, I am sure?" "DON'T!" bellowed Snape. "Gone... dead..."

In the HBP scene, Harry has just mentioned Dumbledore's death; Snape is being confronted by someone else about it for the first time. Furthermore, Snape knows at this point that Harry must die, and we know that being told that by Dumbledore agitated him deeply. So the parallels between Harry and Dumbledore here are even more heartbreaking for Snape. Snape is actually having to work towards Harry's death for the same reason he had to kill Dumbledore. In this scene, he has to watch Lily's son looking up at him with her eyes, looking up the way Dumbledore just did, and he has to hear that son yelling at him about how he must bury every last vestige of everyone he most loved, while that son simultaneously reminds him that the whole world, including Lily's closest representative, will hate him for it. No wonder he's reacting with "DON'T." I would too.

Even without knowing what "DON'T" means in Snape code, however, we have other narrative clues. Snape's face is described as:

demented

an unusual word, linked in the Harry Potter universe to the Dementors, who prey on despair. Being demented could just mean being deranged or unstable... or it could mean being the subject of a Dementor-like sadness so crushing it threatens to take your very soul.

inhuman

This adjective recalls a scene from OotP, another case of all-caps shouting, where Harry is torn up by grief for Sirius:

"Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man! This pain is part of being human —" "THEN — I — DON'T — WANT — TO — BE — HUMAN!" Harry roared, and he seized one of the delicate silver instruments from the spindle-legged table beside him and flung it across the room. -OotP, ch. 37

Lastly, the HBP scene compares Snape's pain to that of Fang stuck in Hagrid's burning hut:

as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the burning house behind them

Dogs are symbolic of loyalty, and Snape really is in a similar situation, trapped in an utter catastrophe in which he is collateral damage for his loyalty (in his case, to Dumbledore). The next time Fang howls, at the end of this chapter, is in grief for Dumbledore's death, drawing the parallels still closer:

Harry crumpled the parchment in his hand, and his eyes burned with tears as behind him Fang began to howl.

Unlike Fang, Snape is not allowed to express his true feelings. Even Dumbledore, the person who understood him most, redirects him to act and not lament, and Dumbledore is dead. A metaphorical tie to a nonhuman character who is able to grieve later is as close as Snape gets. He cannot go to the funeral, just as he could not for Lily; he cannot talk to anyone; he will later be confronted with a horrifying specter of Dumbledore at Grimmauld Place. In light of all this, when Snape gives Harry the memory of himself crying over Lily's letter, it's not just him giving Harry back the correspondence. It's Snape reclaiming: I, too, grieve.

[roseraintears]

I Loved the season 6 finale with dark Willow and everything!

But.....one thing that bugs me is Taras death and its effects on her friends Not being explored much ....

I know they have to Stop Willow and obviously Tarras death is her whole breaking Point but i would have liked a few scenes between Buffy , Xander and Anya where they Just grief one of their best friends , who they knew for years

Does Xander feel guilty for Not stopping Warren from firing his gun? Does He feel responsible for what Willow turned into because he failed to prevent Tara ( and Buffy ) getting Shot ? ( They kinda touch uppon that but Not much)

Does Buffy feel guilty for not wanting to kill the Guy who murdered the Woman that comforted and supported her in her darkest moments?

I know they may talk about this stuff in season 7 but i would have liked to see it in the finale aswell

[into-the-milgramverse]

Regardless of our stances on characters, I think we should vote them all Innocent, since this is the last trial and it's very likely the guilty vote will result in death (the images for dead prisoners are labeled as "guilty")

I'll only mention here the characters I feel like people really wanna vote guilty now

First, Muu.

So what if you see her as just stereotypical bully? So what if you consider her to be responsible for Haruka's death all because she was the one who brought him food and then expected a pat on the back? We knew he'll kill himself if Muu gets voted guilty, and we knew Muu was supportive of that "because that's what friends do". Our own choices lead to Haruka's death. Sure, being further encouraged by Muu and Kotoko didn't help. And also, what if T2 Guilty vote he received too felt like further encouragement? He basically had only one person tell him not to do it, vs 2 people + entirety of the audience tell him to go ahead.

Her being voted guilty this trial will not bring back Haruka.

Second, Fuuta.

No, he didn't kill Shidou as some claim just to paint him in bad light. And also, so what if he turned to religion? I'd like you to go through constantly feeling like you're watched and hearing voices judge every single thing about you, not being able to sleep properly for a year and longer, and have constant pain from an untreated injury, all the while guilt over your past actions that your friend group also participated in is weighing heavily on you. Let's see if you wouldn't latch onto first thing that promises relief from all of that. Can you seriously blame him for that?

I'm gonna be honest tho, given he has an untreated eye injury, I feel like he'll die regardless (eye infection can be very dangerous if left untreated and its a short way from eye to brain). At very least, he should be allowed to go home to see his family for last time.

Third, Amane.

Even Jackalope, who's painting her as this evil brat who's out to murder everyone who's against her beliefs, tells us that it's just a domino effect of Kotoko's actions. I'd also say her current beliefs are heavily formed by our own voting. First MV showed her simply helping a cat and then getting punished for it. And what do we do? We voted her guilty. We punished her. After seeing her help a cat. I think it's clear here that this results in strengthening the "You deserve to be punished for practicing medicine" belief.

I get it, you're sad, you're hurt, you're angry, you need someone to blame, which is Amane T2 Inno voters and Amane herself, but Amane being voted guilty will not bring back Shidou and Mahiru. Voting her guilty this trial will just result in her getting killed.

Fourth, Kotoko.

Yes, her actions caused this and if we voted her guilty T1, they wouldn't have happened. But, look back at her actions during T1: do any of them give a very clear signal that she sees all crime equally, that voting her inno would have given her a go ahead to do as she pleases and that she'll just beat up anyone to brink of death? They don't. We might look back now and see some signs, but given we didn't vote her guilty back then, that tells you those signs weren't very clear. Also, plenty of people didn't take voting seriously at that time, and many voted her simply because she looked cool. Even if you were somehow able to see into the future, she'd still get inno, maybe just at smaller percentage. Also, her crime is indirect murder, not the one we see in first MV. The murder we see her do in her MV was already judged outside of Milgram.

Her being voted guilty will not bring back Haruka, Shidou or Mahiru. And I don't think it's fair to vote her based on our assumption that she will just go back to killing people once she's out — even if she does, she still hasn't actually done that. How different does that make us from Amane if we simply killed her now in advance to prevent her from interfering with other people's lives?

[sturniololuvz]

Could you do a effect where the little sister is like 16/17 and she is a singer and she opening act for some really, really popular singer, (like Sabrina or Madison or Taylor Swift, or something ) and the triplets say that they can’t show up to see her thing because they have some important stuff happening in Boston, but they surprise her and show up there anyway to cheer her on while she’s singing on stage (like she lives with them in LA and they live in LA but she had her concert in LA but they had something to do in Boston so they went there and then they flew back to come surprise her )

Please tell me if this doesn’t make sense. English is not my first language 

no it’s good!!!

“A Surprise from Boston”

Sturniolos x sister

Y/N stood backstage at the sold-out arena, nerves buzzing in her veins like static electricity. She had done shows before—plenty, actually—but tonight was different. Tonight, she was the opening act for one of the biggest artists in the world.

It was a dream come true.

The only thing missing was her brothers.

The Sturniolo triplets had always been her biggest supporters, but when she told them about this show months ago, they had broken the news that they wouldn’t be able to make it. They had something important happening in Boston—some business meetings, brand deals, things they couldn’t reschedule.

“It’s not like we don’t want to be there,” Chris had told her over the phone earlier that day. “If we could be in two places at once, we would.”

“It’s just bad timing,” Matt had added. “We’ll FaceTime you before you go on, though.”

Nick had been quieter than usual, which Y/N figured was his way of feeling guilty without saying it. “You’re gonna kill it,” he had told her. “We’ll be cheering from Boston.”

She understood, really, she did. But as she stood in the wings, staring out at the massive crowd, she couldn’t help but wish they were there.

“Y/N, you’re on in one minute,” one of the crew members told her.

Taking a deep breath, she adjusted the mic in her hand and shook out her nerves. You got this. You don’t need anyone here to do what you love.

As the lights dimmed and the crowd roared, she took her first step onto the stage. The energy was unreal, the screams vibrating in her chest as the music kicked in. She launched into her first song, letting the adrenaline take over, moving across the stage effortlessly.

And then—

In the middle of the second song, she spotted something in the crowd.

Three figures, standing near the barricade, screaming their lungs out.

Chris, Matt, and Nick.

Her brothers.

For a split second, she almost messed up the lyrics. She was so shocked that she nearly tripped over her own feet. What the hell?!

Chris was waving his arms wildly, Nick was holding up his phone recording, and Matt was grinning up at her like a proud dad.

They had flown back just to be here.

Y/N felt an overwhelming rush of emotion, her throat tightening, but she forced herself to stay in the moment. She powered through the song, feeding off the energy of the crowd—and the unbelievable high of seeing her brothers there.

By the time she finished her set and ran off stage, she barely made it three steps before she was tackled into a hug.

“You guys are idiots,” she choked out, laughing as Chris and Matt squeezed her tight.

“Surprise, bitch,” Nick smirked, ruffling her hair.

“I thought you were in Boston!” she exclaimed, still breathless.

Chris grinned. “We were. But then we got on the first flight back. No way we were missing this.”

Matt nodded. “We told you we’d be cheering for you. We just didn’t say from where.”

Y/N blinked rapidly, trying to fight off the tears forming in her eyes. “I hate you guys.”

“No, you don’t,” Nick said, wrapping an arm around her. “You love us.”

She rolled her eyes, but the massive smile on her face said it all.

Best. Surprise. Ever.

[wisteria-lodge]

Part 2 of the continuing adventures of Harriet "Harry" Lily Potter!

So Voldemort is back. He and Dumbledore are actually both in slightly better spots - Dumbledore has a head start on tracking down the Horcruxes, and Voldemort has Barty. Dumbledore's priorities are:

Destroy as many horcruxes as possible

Lure Voldemort out into the open so the Ministry won't be able to deny that he's back.

That second thing, Dumbledore is going to accomplish by second thing treating the Prophecy as WAY more important than it actually is. The last line "Neither can live while the other survives" doesn't actually matter. (It's actually kind of obvious.) But if Dumbledore can make Voldemort think it's important, put guards on the Department of Mysteries day and night, then it might be possible to lure Voldemort into Ministry.

Restarting the Order, goes pretty much the same - except only this time Dumbledore's got Percy, pulling double-agent duty at the Ministry. And Sirius... is still on the run after killing Peter. I do think he tried to reconnect with Remus (since he now knows that Remus wasn't the spy.) But it didn't go well. Without Peter there as proof... Remus just didn't believe him.

Sirius is back in England, after hearing that Cedric is dead and infering that Harry is in danger - but he's really just hanging out in the wings as a wild card. He's too burned to go near Dumbledore or any of the old guard. So far, this has not been a great AU for Sirius.

Harry is stuck rotting at the Dursley's. She is NOT in a good place, and does NOT appreciate Dudley calling Cedric her "boyfriend." Then she gets in trouble with the Ministry for doing underage magic, saving Dudley from a dementor.

Things are looking up a little when Tonks, Moody & Co show up to bring her the Order's safehouse (probably just the Burrow with added protections, since they can't use Grimmauld Place without Sirius.) Ginny and the twins are there, but Neville isn't. Augusta Longbottom is certainly aligned with Dumbledore, but she's a cooperative asset, not part of the Order. I honestly don't think she'd want to put herself or Neville anywhere near the organization that couldn't protect Frank and Alice. (Augusta 100% has not been able to come to terms with that happened to them.)

Ginny would get a little fiery at CAPSLOCK!Harry (not guilty and uncomfortable like Ron or placating like Hermione) - but I think this response would actually work pretty well, and paradoxically calm Harry down. She and Ginny spend the rest of the summer playing Quidditch, and Harry's trial and experience with the Ministry plays like in canon. Probably, she bonds a little more with Lupin in the absence of Sirius.

Canon!Harry gets on the train with Neville and Ginny at the beginning of Book 5, which is kinda fun. So, when the three of them sit with Luna, Harry meets her, that goes exactly the same. Neville tries to show them the new mimbulus mimbletonia plant he got over break, and ends up squirting all of them just as Cho walks in.

Harriet does still have a crush on Cho... but also has just enough heteronormativity left over from the Dursleys to be unable to apply that particular word what she's feeling. Her feelings about Cedric, and about Cho, are very raw and very messy. She thinks maybe she and Cho were rivals competing for Cedric? But she also blames herself for Cedric's death, and feels terrible that Cho is sad. Harry wants Cho to think well of her... and isn't totally sure why. She's actually just kind of uncomfortable about dating in general - she's just been confronted with the reality that Ginny is a year younger than her, and has just started dating Michael Corner. Harry thinks that maybe she's supposed to be dating? Should be dating?

That's definitely a tension here between the three of them. It only gets worse actually gets worse when it turns out Hermione and Neville are the Gryffindor prefects, and he gets called away to the prefect's cabin, and Ginny goes to say hi to Michael. (Canon!Dumbledore made Ron a prefect because he was Harry's friend, and wanted to give him a confidence boost. I think the same reasoning would apply to Neville here.)

They get to school, Umbridge starts her take-over, none of that changes. Draco is still sucking up to her, trying as hard as he can to be big and impressive. But he's still very taken with Harry, so I don't think he provokes her into starting a fight so Umbridge bans her from playing. He *wants* her to be impressed by his flying. Unfortunately, I'm sure it will only be a matter of time until Umbridge just finds a different excuse to ban Harry, and Ginny will still take over as Seeker. Harry finds herself more and more at loose ends this year - Ginny is with her boyfriend or playing quidditch, Neville is doing prefect rounds... so Harry finds herself hanging out more and more with Luna.

The next big thing that happens is Hermione starting the DA, and it absolutely is Hermione starting the DA. She's still going to worried she'll fail her OWLs because Umbridge isn't teaching them anything, she'll still going to come to the conclusion that she needs a teacher, and decide that Harry is her best bet. She knows Harry gets Outstandings in DADA, and Krum (who Hermione still writes too) was *very* impressed with her. "He said Harry knew how to do stuff even he didn't, and he was in the final year at Durmstrang."

Convincing *Harry* to commit to her plan would be a little harder, but definitely not impossible, especially if she gets Neville on her side - who Harry trusts - and Theo, who knows how good Harry is, and probably has a lot of the same concerns as Hermione. Theo will also be value added when it comes to keeping the DA *secret.* Instead of meeting everyone at once, he has Harry approach small groups of potential members (accompanied by either him or Hermione) and only lets them into the main group when they've signed Hermione's enchanted sheet. He's VERY impressed with this bit of magic... and this might actually end up being a Hermione/Theo universe. But Theo's involvement means that they're able to hide the formation of the DA from both the Order and from Umbridge a lot more successfully.

So the gang meeting up in the Chamber of Secrets because Harry can easily access it. The basilisk keeps watch - Hagrid made it a pair of goggles. Ron, Dean, Shamus, Parvati, Lavender, Luna, the Hufflepuffs, the Ravenclaws are there... but Cho. I don't think she joins. A big part of why Canon!Cho was interested in Harry was because she wanted someone to emotionally process Cedric with. She wanted to know if Cedric talked about her, if he talked about her when he was dying. If she thinks Harry potentially loved Cedric too... the dynamic wouldn't be the same. They're too similar, it wouldn't work.

But DRACO joins. Why not? He hears about it from Theo, and at this point Draco hasn't really caused any problems for Harry in like, two years. His father is a death eater... but so is Theo's, and he's okay. Draco is still looking for ways to get close to Harry, and keeps trying to impress her. AND... he does learn how to to summon a Patronus. And this is my meta and I get to pick what it is, so I say his Patronus is a pigeon.

Like. A fancy pigeon. But a a pigeon. Draco's not a fighter, he's a survivor, and he survives by keeping to the background, running when he's in trouble, and finding ways to live even when the situation is toxic. Also he would hate having a pigeon as a patronus, and it would be really funny.

Neville doesn't actually manage a corporeal patronus in canon, but he does make leaps and bounds forward, for the first time goes from feeling like "almost a squib" to actually competent. He exists at the heart of their friend group sure, but he's always felt like second fiddle to magical powerhouses Harry and Ginny. And I think it's natural that he'd start to get a crush on Harry too. I mean Ginny's dating Michael... it just makes sense.

However. There is a breaking point. Harry sees Nagini attack Arthur Weasley through her mental connection with Voldemort, she and Ginny go to visit him at St. Mungos... and run into Neville visiting his parents.

Now. Neville doesn't talk to anyone about his parents. In this AU I think he probably lied to Harry and Ginny early on. Said that they were dead, so he wouldn't have to talk about them, or dwell on them. Harry knows. She found out while watching Death Eater trials in Dumbledore's pensieve in Book 4. But Canon!Harry didn't tell anyone, and I don't think Harriet will either. Her perspective will be that - Neville can tell them in his own time, when he's ready.

Ginny will not have this perspective. She will hate that Neville lied to her, wasn't honest with her. She'll also feel torn up and guilty... every time she gave Neville a hard time for that stupid plant, and he had this hanging over his head? It's going to make her confused, and uncomfortable, and she's going to say "I need to be with my family right now" and storm off.

Then, over Christmas, we get the news that there's been a mass Azkaban break out. (Fudge blames Sirius, like he does in canon.) What that means for this AU - is that Barty, Bellatrix and Lucius are locked in competition to see who will rise to the top as Voldemort's Number 2. And (very quickly...) it becomes clear that this is really a showdown between Bellatrix and Barty. Lucius is both much less powerful, and much less unhinged, and his bona fides frankly suck. He's out of his league, and he knows it.

However. This is kind of a problem for Voldemort. He needs to control Lucius, because Lucius has the house and the money. But... if Lucius realizes that he's not going to get anything out of this scenario, that there's no way to win... Lucius defecting is a very real possibility.

Which is why I think Voldemort gives Draco a Dark Mark six months early - halfway through Year 5, rather than at the beginning of Year 6. If Voldemort's got Draco on a magical leash, then Lucius is his. Problem solved. Voldemort frames it as a way for Lucius to "prove his loyalty" - but Draco is his hostage. He also gives Draco a semi-impossible task to carry out at school. This time, it's "Bring me Harriet Potter."

(Voldemort's actual favorite during this period... is starting to be Snape. It's flattering that Snape chose him over Dumbledore, and the way he's staying out of the Bellatrix-and-Barty show... it's actually making Voldemort kinda respect him...)

Back at school, Ginny will have apologized to Neville, and is probably making a point of being extra nice him - which Neville will honestly hate, because it'll make him feel pitied and broken. This is also the point where Harry's "Remedial Potions" (Occlumency lessons) show up, so no one is having a good time.

Newly-Marked Draco is isolating himself, like he did in Book 6. He quits the quidditch team, starts spending a lot more time alone. Probably just casts his Patronus over and over again to make himself feel better. He knows his family needs this, and that he has to do this, but he doesn't want to.

He tries a few half-hearted attempts to lure Harry out-of-bounds and away from her friends (at which point he'll cast petrificus totalus and, um. Summon Voldemort with the Dark Mark? he doesn't like to think about that part.) Draco will do things like - forge a letter from Hagrid asking Harry to meet him in the forest, or Polyjuice into Snape and tell Harry that Remedial Potions is being held at a new time, and in a suspicious location. Harry begins to smell a rat. Her best guess is that they're clumsy sting operations set up by Umbridge's goons, trying to catch her in the act of rule-breaking.

Luna offers to run Harry's side of the story in the Quibbler, and Harry goes for it - which results in Umbridge banning the Quibbler, and banning Harry from Hogsmeade (making things more difficult for Draco). But unlike in canon, Harry doesn't name Theo and Draco's fathers as Death Eaters. Harry thinks Theo is smart, and practical, and very good at staying out of trouble. Draco she thinks is a little blustery and ridiculous. But she can't help it - she loves teaching the DA, and she's getting protective of the people in it.

(this makes things even MORE difficult for Draco)

And so I think... this time around... there's NO snitch. Draco justifies it to himself by saying - I can't let Umbridge and the Ministry have Harry. Lord Voldemort wants her.

On Harry's end, Occlumency lessons are going very badly. She accidentally witnesses Snape's worst memory - and then puts on her Invisibility cloak and sneaks down to use the Floo fireplace at the Three Broomsticks, because she has to talk to Lupin about this. Lupin (solo) will be able to feed her a narrative about how Sirius was a terrible influence on her dad, which Harry will be extremely motivated to believe.

Meanwhile. Draco gets a letter from his father, telling him that things are bad, and the Dark Lord is displeased and frustrated because of many failed attempts (what attempts? Draco doesn't know.) Lucius says that's it's very important that Draco keep Neville Longbottom away from Harry - at a certain time, on a certain date.

It turns out to be extremely easy. Neville needs to be away from Harry (Draco has no idea why) during their History of Magic exam. So he just gets a hold of Neville's daily planner, and sends him to the wrong location, a little too early. And then Draco just wanders around, boxing him in with portable swamps. He feels sick about this decision, but he doesn't know what else to do.

Harry falls asleep during her History of magic exam - and has a vision. Of Neville, in the Department of Mysteries, being tortured by Bellatrix. Like his parents.

She is *not* okay. She tries to find McGonagall - in St. Mungos after taking stunners protecting Hagrid (canon reason.) Dumbledore - gon. He found the Locket-Cave... and he took Snape with him...

Harry is absolutely freaking out. Ginny, Luna are coming with her - and Ron was in the testing room when Harry collapsed, and he's not letting his sister go rescue Neville alone. I honestly think Hermione could go either way - but in this I think she stays behind with Theo. They're going to contact the rest of the DA on with the master coins, and see if they can get in touch with - Lupin, Ginny's parents, Tonks and Moody, anyone.

And I'll leave it here for now, and write the exciting conclusion next time :D

What do you think a genderswapped Harry Potter (Harriet Potter?) would've been like?

So to start... I actually don't think life at the Dursleys would be all that different for Fem!Harry. Maybe there would be less *violent* bullying from Vernon and Dudley... but they honestly don't manage all that much as it is, and Harry's "normal" abuse mostly consists of being shouted at, locked up, treated as a scullery maid, and just generally made into a scapegoat + inferior/problem child that the rest of the family can unite around. If anything, Fem!Harry would have just reminded Petunia even MORE of Lily, and stirred up even MORE complicated emotions. And we'd get even more of live-in chef/maid Cinderella!Harry. It would all feel very Matilda.

The first big change I see happening... is I don't think Ron would have bonded with Harry on the train nearly as easily, if she were a girl. Young Ron is honestly pretty uncomfortable/awkward around girls... unless he's able to put them into a category like "little sister" (which doesn't count.) Or "know-it-all" (which doesn't count.) It's kind of a plot point in Book 4 that it takes him a while to realize Hermione and Ginny are girls he and Harry could potentially ask to the dance. Ron grew up around a bunch of guys, and you can tell. I think he'd try to *impress* Fem!Harry on the train, and probably put his foot in his mouth.

Harry would be at kind of loose ends on the Hogwarts Express, and get sucked into the search for Trevor the toad as something to do. So in this version, she actually ends up bonding with Neville. Hermione would be there too but well - Hermione rubbed Harry the wrong way at first in canon, and it would be even more the case here. They're both (functionally) muggleborn girls - but Hermione is SO much better prepared, and has SUCH loving parents, and won't shut up about any of this. In a way that Canon!Harry kind of fixates on Draco for ending up with his Ideal Life, it's possible that Fem!Harry might fixate more on Hermione.

11-year-old Draco would have treated Fem!Harry exactly the same, meeting her at Madame Malkin's and later on the train. He'd still have his obsession with her, and yeah, it probably does read as more of a crush to his Slytherin buddies... but I really do not see that stopping him. If his father can't get him to be normal to Harry, then that's just how it's going to be.

Harry will still get Sorted into Gryffindor, but I don't see her being close with any of the the other Gryffindor girls. Lavender and Parvati just have very different personalities, and Harry and Hermione... are very intense people who work best when they're able to take breaks from each other. In Book 4 when Harry is exclusively hanging out with Hermione, he comments that she's not as *fun* as Ron. And we see that dynamic again in Book 7 when it's just the two of them in the tent. Like they're incredibly effective, but seem to be wearing each other down a little. I think that forcing young (less emotionally mature) Harry and Hermione to be roommates would just end up with them getting on each other's nerves.

Hermione might get pulled into the friend group when Harry and Neville need help researching Nicholas Flamel, but she could easily stay more of a supporting character or even a frenemy in this version. Fem!Harry would still be the youngest seeker in a century. (Draco would be even more motivated to steal Neville's Remembrall if Neville is Harry's best friend... so that face-off would have gone down exactly the same.) Once she's actually on the team, I could see her falling in more with the upperclassmen, and hanging out with Fred, George, Lee, and Angelina (especially if they put together that she's a bit lonely.) It could be Harry, Neville, maybe Hermione, maybe the twins solving the puzzles at the end of Book 1. They'd still suspect Snape, who... would honestly be just a slightly different flavor of antagonistic and weird towards Harry, if she were a girl.

But in second year, Ginny would be Sorted into Gryffindor and I do think that Fem!Harry and Ginny would get along great, absolutely be bros. They could bond over quidditch, and Harry would get more of a sense of Ginny's actual personality (funny, cool). I have to think 11-year-old Ginny would be much less awkward around Harry if she were a girl.

Which would be really intense actually, because Ginny would have shown up to school with the the Diary, and it's... sort of important to the plot that she's isolated and has no friends. If she shares it with Harry as a cool thing - then Harry is ABSOLUTELY going to get obsessed with it. And since Harry's a much better *get* for Tom (Tom talks about being *so* pleased when powerful, important, future nemesis Harry starts writing to him instead of Ginny...) I think you just get Possessed!Harry opening up the Chamber of Secrets.

Also, would Harry have a crush on Tom? We know that Tom Riddle tries to impress Canon!Harry, which doesn't work... but Fem!Harry he might try to charm. Tom can be very charming if he wants to be. Harry also thinks he's very handsome. Either way, Tom is going to work VERY hard to to get Harry to distrust her friends. Really, you'd just get Harry's plot about being isolated and possessed by Voldemort in Book 5 moved to Book 2. Tom would get Harry to write "her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever" on the wall, and lure her down to the Chamber of Secrets.

However. I do think that Lily's magic, which makes it impossible for Voldemort to physically touch Harry, would also make it impossible for him to properly drain her life and take over her body. I'm thinking of the moment at the end of Book 5 where Voldemort tries to possess Harry, but Harry fights him off. So... I think Harry just wakes up in the Chamber of Secrets with an intact Diary and a basilisk she can control, since of course she's still a parselmouth.

The question is... what happens to the Diary, now that Harry knows it's dangerous? I'm thinking that when Harry disappears, Ginny freaks out and tells one of her older brothers what's going on, who tells Arthur, who tells Dumbledore. Which leaves Dumbledore with a Horcrux that still works... and it seems like if you've got school-age Tom Riddle right there, that would be a much easier way to get an answer to the question 'how many horcuxes do you plan on making?' So Dumbledore gets a head start on that project.

Harry now effectively just is the Heir of Slytherin. She can go to the Chamber whenever she wants, and the basilisk is her familiar I guess (Hagrid would LOVE helping her take care of it.) I could also see a Harry who gets more *interested* in Salazar Slytherin after this. She definitely wouldn't talk to Draco - he spent Book 2 being an asshat and calling people slurs. But Harry might try to pick Theo's brain or something.

Now Hermione. At first I was thinking - does Hermione just die, in Book 2? Would she have known to look around corners with a mirror, and so survive her basilisk attack?

I do think she'd still figure it out... and it's because of Lockhart. Hermione is a Gilderoy Lockhart *fangirl,* and without Ron and Harry poo-pooing her crush (and without first hand experience of Lockhart causing issues for Harry...) I think she's able to geek about about this with her roomies. I mean, Lavender and Parvati read Witch Weekly. They know he's won the Most Charming Smile award. Hermione likes a project, and without Harry and Ron providing one, I think her new thing is impress Lockhart. And what would impress Lockhart? Well, he's a monster hunter who is trying to find the Chamber of Secrets and identify what's inside. How cool would it be, if they were the ones who helped him? He'd write about them in his next book.

So I think the Polyjuice Potion plan (Hermione's idea) is still a go. She might even talk Lavender and/or Parvati into helping out. (I mean, they joined the DA. They're up for some rulebreaking.) Hermione would still turn herself into a cat, which would actually massively humanize her in the eyes of her roommates, and I think they all end up much better friends in this AU. Eventually, one of them does manage to Polyjuice into Pansy, which is a much more effective way of interrogating Draco. And by this point, Hermione has met Myrtle, and has enough info to solve the mystery, and even bring her findings to Lockhart. Who ah. Finds an excuse to just run. There's a very fun portion of the year where Dumbledore teaches DADA.

I don't see all that much about Book 3 changing until the climax - because the crew Harry takes down to Hagrid's after dark *would* be different. Neville, Ginny (not the Twins - I think they give Harry the Map and peace out, they've got their own stuff going on and don't want to hang out with their much younger sister.) Maybe Theo? I could see him taking on a very Hermione-ish support role by this point.

But this also causes a problem, because if Ron isn't there, Scabbers isn't with him. And if Scabbers isn't with Ron - I don't think Remus notices Peter on the map, and so just stays inside and drinks his Wolfsbane, which means Snape doesn't go down. And since Sirius' target was never *actually* Harry... I think this is just a universe where Sirius first-degree-murders Peter, and doesn't have a confrontation with Harry at all.

I do think Voldemort still comes back though. Trelawney would still have made her prophecy ("His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight... the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master.") In this universe, that prophecy would refer to Barty jr, finally throwing off the Imperius curse for the first time.

Bertha Jorkins still goes on her trip to Albania, and... Voldemort probably just possesses her the same way he did Quirrell. I bet that's easier to do after someone's been sort of fried by a memory wipe. Also, being in her head, I have to assume he's eventually gets some inkling of the fact that Barty is still alive, and so goes looking for him. Harry still goes to the Quidditch World Cup since she's friends with Ginny, her scar is still hurting (she probably writes to Lupin about this, instead of Sirius, but Lupin gives her pretty similar advice. He will have still left Hogwarts, because Snape would still have outed him as a werewolf at the end of the year.)

Harry still ends up as Champion. I think Big Sister Fleur would be a little more protective of Fem!Harry than Canon!Harry. And also... Harry just straight-up has a crush on handsome, nice, good at Quidditch Cedric. Rita could write about the Harry/Cedric/Cho love triangle, instead of Harry/Hermione/Krum.

The Yule Ball would actually be kind of a big deal for Fem!Harry. Up until now, she's been kind of a tomboy who wears Dudley's hand-me-downs... and is occasionally forced into some terrible 'party dress' when Aunt Marge visits. Harry's best friends are a boy and a tomboy, her quidditch teammates are feminine role-models but very much athletes: 'girly' hyper-femininity is something she associates with Aunt Petunia.

But, fourth year roles around. Mrs. Weasley buys her a set of emerald-green dress robes that actually look really nice, and she needs to find a date for the ball. I think she thinks about asking Cedric... but chickens out at the last minute, and asks Neville to go with her as a friend. Between her much more girly roommates, and Fleur taking pity on her and giving her some tips... I think Hermione's big Yule Ball glow-up is also Harry's first experience with wanting to look pretty, and succeeding.

I think it would be fun, and make sense, if this lead into a little secret admirer subplot. Someone is leaving her little gifts and messages, and she's thinking - is it Neville? Theo? Cedric?

(it was Draco. Instead of the blast-ended skrewts, Hagrid has them all taking care of Harry's basilisk, and like... she has a basilisk... she's the Heir of Slytherin... she asked Longbottom to the ball when she could do so much better... she was wearing green and looking perfect. Draco's Harry obsession has sorted itself out into a very serious crush.)

Back to the main plot. With Peter dead, I'm not sure Barty would be able to take care of Voldemort AND prep the ritual to bring him back to life AND impersonate Moody. He's going to need a man on the inside. I think at first he tries to use his father - but as we know that is going to get very risky very fast, because Barty Sr is remarkably good at fighting the Imperius curse, and also just knows way too much. He's a huge risk, because if he goes rouge, he'll tell Dumbledore everything (which is very nearly what happens.)

So I think Barty Jr. targets Barty Sr.'s assistant Percy Weasley, after he can no longer control his father. Uses him as a way to affect things in Hogwarts. He might imperius him, but he also might just like... Polyjuice himself into his father for short periods, and manipulate Percy in a non-magical way to make sure he helps Harry, and gets her through the maze to the cup first. Once Percy realizes what he's done... I think he re-commits to his family in penance, and stops being a such a Ministry man.

Voldemort rising works as kind of a reset button, so things would start looking a lot more canon again, only with Ron and Hermione swapped out for Ginny and Neville. Main difference being, Voldemort has Barty now. I absolutely think he would have survived Book 4.

So I'm going to leave this what-if here for now. Thanks for the ask, this was a lot of fun to think about.

[rei-ismyname]

Xavier saves his loser husband from death

At the end of Messiah Complex Charles Xavier was shot in the head. Exodus and his Acolytes absconded with the body to try and fix him and a depowered Magneto arrived to help. Exodus put his pulped brain together with telekinesis, but it was the sound of his loser husband's voice that woke him up (DW I'll cover that another time.)

While Exodus was off doing weird shit and monologuing, Frenzy decided that Chuck should die for being a bootlicker and collaborator. Mags shot her in the eye with a laser to protect him and earned himself a death sentence. Uh oh!

Chuck woke up just in time to see his loser husband choking to death and decided to stop it. Keep in mind Exodus had to remove Chuck's memories to save his psyche, so Chuck knows next to nothing about himself and his foe knows everything. It's a psychic duel!

Exodus comes in swinging, hammering Chuck with his many shames and failures. He is like 'oh shit, I was a bit of a bastard wasn't I?' Danger, his two sons - all failed in different ways.

He hits him with a failure that doesn't come up very often - completely fumbling the Bolivar Trask situation. A lot of people paid for this one. He adds some fear of persecution and powerlessness on top. It's probably unfair to blame Chuck for every bad thing that happened to mutants, though he positioned himself as the saviour of his people. He seized the narrative and was completely certain his path was the right one.

Woof. Graphic images of the Genosha genocide hit Chuck pretty hard. It's difficult to assign blame to anyone but Cassandra Nova for that, but Chuck would certainly feel guilty for it. If anyone else's actions contributed to it, it's Charles Xavier. Exodus is giving him these memories for what feels like the first time and accusing him of not using his powers proactively enough. It's a valid point. Failure of inaction is a charge that gains more validity each year. Failure to change.

Of course Exodus makes the point in the most ridiculous way. There were plenty of actions Charles could take that didn't involve murder. A very wide middle path between liberal superheroics and supervillainy. Emma senses their battle from across the planet and clues Scott in while the spectators observe worrying biological happenings in both men. This duel could kill them.

More guilt, more failures. The revelations of Deadly Genesis and the death of Moira's wards on Krakoa. Charles' justifications for doing what he does.

More X-Men who died as his soldiers and others who just died. Ilyana from the Legacy virus, Piotr from the cure. Banshee, Thunderbird, Cypher. Not sure who the others are meant to represent. A lot of kids died at the school and Emma's held too many as they breathed their last. Chuck is on the ground in tears.

Exodus thinks he's won, but Chuck just gets up and blows him away. He offers no immediate explanation except to make sure Mags is safe. Then the two of them and Karima leave, after Xavier refuses to lead the Acolytes.

Once they're outside he explains that the man who made those mistakes is dead and he has the chance to be something better. A cynical reading would be that he's very good at dodging accountability and justifying his actions. A generous one would be that he's earnestly approaching his fresh start. The truth is somewhere in the middle, I think. The people he's hurt aren't especially inclined to forgiveness or trust and he doesn't really change his modus operandi at all.

I'm of the opinion that this was a really good opportunity for growth that wasn't taken. As I write this he's willingly in Graymalkin prison, though he's going to escape very soon in X-Manhunt. The amount of trust and love he has from mutants not named Rogue is at an all time low and he torched his position in the human world. It's not a fresh start, but the opportunity to grow is there.

[d3ad-squid]

This is NOT what sky looked like, his ass does not know her at all

[ashton-ryder]

"Do you?" Because that doesn't feel like love. Nothing she's told him about them felt like it was about love, it felt like it was about control. A question with just enough doubt uttered caressing over the surface hooking onto a crack in her foundation of the declaration thrown back at him.

tw: choking, self induced vomiting, abuse

That was all he could say before his jaw was held and his mouth was forced open, thrashing about what he could to pull away from what she was about to infect him with. His tongue did what it could to block the passageway from the liquid going down his throat, effectively blocking his own airway as long as he could while he continued to resist. But with her aiding to cover his mouth and airway, there was only so much he could hold his breath and hold back.

The moment she called for his release, Ashton fell over to his knees, spitting out whatever he managed to keep out from swallowing, sticking his fingers as far into his throat as possible to induce some way to get it all back out. He retched and gagged but there was virtually nothing in his system to even throw up. The panic settling into his bones at the very reality she forced upon him. He's faced death so many times before they probably were friends at this point, but to face death this way? He rather she just kill him now. His gaze was widened but distant, when he realized trying to throw it all back up was not working, he simply stays kneeled on all fours, until the coughing fits reduced to wheezes and panicked heaves.

Ashton refused to look up from his tear-stricken gaze boring into the floor, Sada once again listing her demands, more cruel than before. He will not control whether Jeremiah would ever touch him or talk to him or look at him. And there it was again. The toxic control masked as sickening love, the gross gloat that he was hers, Ashton hasn't forgotten the way she once called him her plaything. Even if she brought up Ruth's name, it was an immediate flinch of Sada even dare dragging her name into it as his bloody and bruised hands curled into fists. But Ash said nothing, throat raw from bile trying to vomit back out the infection of liquid death, because, he knew he had some kind of upper hand. Someone, somewhere with power over Sada wanted him alive. There could only be one - that was enough of a comfort. She wasn't going to kill him right now, not if he had anything to say about it, and there's a tiny flicker of warmth in knowing that Jer did.

And even if she did kill him, like she said before, no one would care, right? So what if he died, people's lives would still move on without him, so why was he trying to hard to stay alive? It'd be so much easier if he was dead. Jeremiah wouldn't need to waste his energy on him and he'd have one less problem in his life, Ruth wouldn't be crying over an outcome she couldn't choose. Charlie and JP don't need one more thorn in their side when he'd only make them feel guilty for choosing others over him. Death didn't seem that bad when he looked at it that way, remove himself from people's lives if all he does is cause them pain.

And so he will not comply. He refused to beg. He'd rather gamble with the reaper than say the things he'd never follow through with. He's said it multiple times before and accepted it in his core since he was a marine - he was ready to die. Doesn't mean he wants to. Doesn't mean he wasn't scared. But he was ready. "-fuck you."

Her insides bristled at his declaration, a dark pallor falling over her her as she watched her two henchmen struggle to hold him down, the pair seemingly knowing enough to get rougher afterward. Perhaps reading the danger in her expression. The murder in her eyes.

Nails tapping on the glass of the vial as she made her way over, Sada popped the cork and gave it a little swirl as she came over to bring her lips once more to Ashton's ear, tone low like the warning rumble of a broiling volcano. "Guess what... I love him, too." Leaning back just enough to see what she was doing, Sada took a hold of his jaw once more with a nails in grip and with the help of James, yanked his mouth open.

"Say ahh..." Tilting the vial over with a little 'oop' she watched as the contents of the infected wine tumbled over and down his throat, her hand pressing over his mouth to stop him from spitting it out. "Let him go." Speaking once she was sure he'd swallowed it back, the trio released his bonds and stood back, the two men staying on either side to prevent attack, while Sada turned and headed for the syringe.

"Now. Let's try this again." Vaccine in hand, tantalizingly out of his reach, she watched him with a smile that said she felt that she'd won. "You will never let Jeremiah touch you, ever again. You will not look at him, or speak to him, or I will let you turn into one of those things... and I'll sick you on your friend. Doctor Ruth? Say it, and I'll give you the vaccine, right now. Say it, that he's mine and that you will never try and rise up against me. Then top it all off with: 'I'm sorry, Sada'."

[saturnniidae]

I already kind of talked about this months ago but think it'd be really funny if a lot of Hiccup's kills in rtte are unintentional in the sense that he's so focused on freeing dragons he forgets that (if they don't die in the initial explosion) blowing up a ship and leaving people stranded miles away from any land is a death sentence and also that plasma blasting people is 99% of the time fatal.

What if the other riders all thought they were operating under the knowledge of they're killing dragon hunters to free dragons and Hiccup was the only one who wasn't fully aware of this because of his funny habit of prioritizing dragons over people, like he'd rather not kill people but also the safety of anyone but the dragons they're saving is Not at the forefront of his mind so it's not like he's careful.