#like of all of the hostage situations she could have referenced

[maplesyrupbloodfeud]

On episode two of Money Heist and I think the negotiator is in on it SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE she used the Moscow Opera Theater incident as an example

[caffeiiine]

I read the tags on your Kunikida post… go ahead and explain, my liege

JUST SAW THIS SOMEHOW ABYWAYS TYYY

OKAY so probably going into detail about how kunikida can be considered passively suicidal since i have the most coherent thoughts on that aand warnings for stuff of that nature under the cut :D + length

[also small disclaimer, i have been procrastinating reading dazais entrance exam and so far have only seen the anime adaptation which apparently left a ton of stuff out so feel free to correct me on inaccurate details and/or missed examples or just downright incorrect information]

[note: idk if passive is the correct term bc i was thinking about it and hes not exactly like oh i hope this kills me yk, so whatever that term is lmk <3]

This stuff also sorta ties in with his ideals and their potential self destructive-ness. they tend to cause him to either negligently often risk his life with there being an apparent “other way”, or just outright risk his life with barely a second thought for his ideals.

so kunikida has very strong morals and that’s the core of his character. the main ideals referenced in the show being his infamous “ideal woman”, “how to make dazai ideal”, and the ideal that basically tells him to save people. [i forgot what that one is referred to as]. If we’re talking timeline wise i think one of the first examples of his ideals causing him to negligently risk his life would be in Dazais Entrance Exam, or The Azure Messenger arc if you’re an anime watcher.

First example off the top of my head in dazais entrance exam would be when him and Dazai first see the hostages, specifically the ones in the room

after the gas came down dazai has to actually wrestle kunikida away from the room because otherwise hes gonna die. kunikida repeatedly shouts about how “people shouldn’t die like this”. This might be a bit of a tangent but later on in the episode he remarks how he “may as well ahev set the bomb off himself” when Dazai asks about Rokuzou’s dad, implying he blames himself for Rokuzou’s dad’s death. This is of itself isn’t enough for me to say “oh yeah he’s passively suicidal” so moving on to the main manga where there are several other instances of his tendencies to throw himself directly in harms way.

[there may be examples before this i just skipped to chapter 40] and starting off strong we have the thing with Aya. This could be written up to circumstance but he had the opportunity to avoid death himself so im counting it. he’s basically hugging death. that’s all i have to say for this.

of course he ends up surviving it because of deus ex machina yosano. After the fact, Aya asks him what he would’ve done if Yosano wasn’t there. To which he replies basically he would’ve done the same thing he just did except died and basically would have been fine with the outcome as long as she didn’t die in front of him. [he would’ve been dead as well and not had to deal with the guilt] i should point out as well, he does this because of his ideals. he specifically cites his ideals around these parts usually. The not letting anybody die before his eyes is one of ideals and the most common one he uses.

[im pulling that from the fact he had no backup plans or anything to actually stop the bomb aside from Yosano, since his words could imply he would’ve tried to save Aya. and the guy with the bombs was using the fact Kunikida holds his ideals very close to him, taht he wouldn’t have allowed Aya to die if he could’ve prevented it.]

aaand i think our last example and best example for tonight

context for the scene: they’re in the getaway helicopter and tecchou is trying to take it down via his sword and Kunikida decides to take matters into his own hands and take down Tecchou. First off, HE DID NOT HAVE TO, CHUUYA IS RIGHT. THERE. HE LITERALLY SHOT TECCHOU WITH GRAVITY BULLETS EARLIER.

HE DID NOT HAVE TO RISK HIMSELF BUT HE DID. also additional context, in this arc and the previous arcs, he’s been faced with situation after situation where his ideals have failed him and he’s been unable to exercise them and save the people he thinks he should.

point being, he feels like complete shit! he probably is thinking like if he should do anything then, it should be he makes sure he gets his friends out of there. regardless of whether he’s dead or alive because he jumps out of the plane and full body tackles tecchou while being in direct contact with fucking chuuya.

chuuya “has to stay out of the fights and arcs half the time because he’s too good at his job” nakahara.

chuuya “just shot tecchou and did a decent job at keeping him back a few pages before” nakahara. you see my point.

oh and then he just attempts to blow the both of them up.

he does not care for his life at all here. not one bit. also he did not need to blow the both of them up. he could’ve made a fucking stun gun or anything else that wouldn’t KILL the BOTH of them??

my whole point is he does not care for his life here and it’s gets worse the more you progress through the manga.

anyways anyways ending off, kunikida repeatedly puts his life in danger either for his ideals or neglectfully and/or without need. this has been a ramble. this man is not okay.

also kinda funny is he’s partners with dazai of all people, actively suicidal princess bungou himself. i really enjoy their differences and how similarly different they are.

^ not actually related to anything but i almost started laughing so hard with my family in the room at this piece, junichiro looks so concerned

[quitealotofsodapop]

So can we get more context on this situation for the Tang River Water au?

referencing this au.

Literally one of the first things Peng does when they get released from the Scroll is to try and kill who he thinks is Tripitaka [Tang]. Peng presses on Tang so forcefully that the stone around him cracks. Tang doesn't be looking so great afterwards either.

Only reason Tang isn't passing through Diyu after this scene is Azure mentioning that he's just the monk's reincarnation (which 100% must have tickles Peng pink since they of all people know how embarassing it must have been for Buddha's teacher's pet to fail to break the cycle of rebirth). I have seen aus where Tang does die in this scene and his Golden Cicada powers have to come in clutch to keep his soul there. (link to a really cool animatic)

But in the "Mother Child River Tang" au?

Peng immediately takes one look at this *obviously* pregnant monk and just starts screeching with laughter! You know that sound peacock's make thats like a strangled laugh? That is all Peng is doing for their first five minutes out of the Scroll.

Yellow Tusk has already given Azure a warm welcoming hug and gotten caught up on the most recent millenium by the time Peng manages to catch their breath.

Peng: "The- [peacock cry]! The monk is- [more peacock cries!] ahhhhh! I can't even be mad at him right now! It's so funny!" Tang, still a little hurt, now offended: "Rude. A pregnant man isn't that funny." Peng: "But a pregnant monk is! Looks like that vow of chasity didn't stick eh?" Azure: "Peng, they are not the monk." Peng, laughter stops: "...then who the Diyu are they??" Tang, emboldened: "I'm Tang! Reincarnation and/or decendant of the Great Monk! And this is my husband Pigsy, our son MK, and our friends." Peng, tears in eyes: "HE MARRIED THE-!" [peacock cry!] Azure & Yellow tusk: *both sigh tiredly*

On a more serious note, since Sandy was forced to push Tang out of the way of Yellow tusk's attack + Peng pinned him to the ground, the Monkey King's part of the Scroll is damaged, MK is having a mental breakdown, and if we combine this with "Slow Boiled Stone Egg" au - the Brotherhood has taken Yuebei Xing hostage? Tang is in a lot of physical and emotional distress rn.

Like... enough to trigger early labor-level of distress.

Bodhisattva Guanyin is summoned immediately to Subodhi's temple before any actual training can occur. She's (and many other buddhist deities) so preoccupied in making sure that the Golden Cicada and his baby survives that they are distracted from the threat sieging Heaven at that moment...

Pigsy has to be held back from trying to tear the Brotherhood apart himself. Zhu Bajie wasn't *just* "some demon". He used to be one of the most powerful Marshals in Heaven - commanding 80 thousand heavenly sailors/soldiers. In one mythology, Marshal Tianpeng was even a son of Doumu - the mother of constellations (making him the Queen Mother of the West's brother oddly enough).

Whos to say that Pigsy doesn't accidentally tap into the powers of that life? The whole naval power of Heaven is suddenly at Subodhi's school, waiting for the orders to turn the Brotherhood into a fine red smear on the wall. It's only Tang's own pleading that Pigsy doesn't act rashly.

The chaos does lead to an odd conciencidence occuring though...

Nezha, post-s4: "I do wonder... has the Jade Emperor broken the cycle of rebirth? If not, then that means the location of his soul could prove dangerous if left unchecked. I must contact the Underworld." *starts mediatating* MK: "What do you mean?" Nezha: "The Emperor was eons old. That amount of acculmilated divine power needs a host that can handle it. Like-" Tang & Pigsy's baby: *snorts/burps loudly* Nezha, realising: "-the child of the Golden Cicada and of the Doumu herself..." Yama, King of Hell, astral projecting: "You guys are not gonna believe where the Emperor ended up! He's in a half-demon piglet somewhere- oh there she is!" Tang & Pigsy: ( 0_0) (0_0 ) "uh oh"

[viiisenyas]

Honestly, Rhaenyra is in for a series of unfortunate events starting with Daemon causing a political backlash for the blacks.

Oh, for sure. Everything that's going to happen to Rhaenyra and her family given the choices she's made thus far is 100% deserved (although, I do feel bad for the babies - namely Aegon III, that really sucked for him)

I'll be referencing show canon considering a lot of book and show stuff don't match up (glares at the Laenor situation) but starting off strong here, Rhaenyra managed to:

Alienate Alicent, the ride or die friend who had been on her side prior to episode 6 by lying to her, and dragging her dead mother into it to make the lie believable (just a reminder, Alicent lost her mother, too, so I can imagine how deep that deception must have cut) and completely ruin Alicent's support system by having Otto thrown out of court for being correct just to save her own skin.

Alienate Criston Cole by telling him that his honour was worthless to her in so many words, and that becoming queen was more important (well, look how that turned out.)

Give birth to visibly non-Velaryon children, not once but thrice, weakening her own claim to the throne.

Alienate Laenor, her own husband by stating that her kids are HER kids until it's convenient to her (i.e. she needed him to stick around for the shitshow that she created for herself despite his wishes to return to the Stepstones to avoid the turmoil that she caused)

Completely sever familial ties with her brothers by not making her bastards apologise for maiming Aemond, and instead, boldly make the implication that being called a bastard is somehow worse than being disfigured for life, therefore enabling her sons to act on violence against an insult (despite said insult being fucking true)

Piss off the Velaryons by plotting Laenor's death

Marry the bloodthirsty walking red flag who was subsequently disinherited in favour of Rhaenyra in the first place

Not bother to do PR for herself for six straight years by not showing up at royal court

Expected dead men's oaths to hold weight

Allow Daemon to kill Vaemond for spitting facts, further pissing off the Velaryons (I caught that little head nod when Daemon looked at her, she's not slick)

{I will add that in my opinion, the sole reason the Velaryons supported Rhaenyra in the first place instead of sitting this out is because Baela and Rhaena were at Dragonstone, therefore they could be held hostage until Corlys and Rhaenys areforced to give their support}

Send her children as messengers about the realm in spite of Aegon II being publicly crowned king (thus putting a target on their backs for high treason)

Like seriously Rhaenyra, spare us all the surprised pikachu because Luke turned up dead. What did you expect? And with regards to Blood and Cheese (whether she's complicit in it or not) WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? You married the walking red flag, remember?

[thoughtportal]

Ruwa Romman, who is a Palestinian American and the first Muslim woman to serve in the Georgia House of Representatives, had hoped to give a speech on Palestine at the Democratic National Convention. 

“I was incredibly honored to be considered,” she told Rolling Stone on Thursday. 

But on Wednesday night, the Uncommitted Movement learned that the DNC would not be offering them a chance to speak on the main stage. The Uncommitted Movement represents more than 700,000 voters who voted “uncommitted” during the Democratic presidential primary campaign in support of Palestine, demanding a cease-fire and an end to U.S. arms shipments to Israel. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel declared war on Hamas, in the wake of the October 7 attacks on Israel.

The movement’s voters could be especially crucial in Michigan, where more than 100,000 Democratic primary voters checked “uncommitted.” The DNC has provided several untelevised forums to the Uncommitted Movement this week, but refused to allow the group to put a speaker on stage — not even Romman, a Democratic state lawmaker in Georgia, a key battleground state. 

“The reality of the situation is that we genuinely are asking for the bare minimum,” Romman said. “This was a symbolic gesture. This was supposed to be something that we could take back and say, ‘Look, the party is listening.’”

Before the Uncommitted Movement learned that they would not have the chance to speak, its leaders were “heartened because we saw that families of Israeli hostages were invited onto the stage,” Romman said. “So we thought, okay, this is it.”

On Thursday, Mother Jones published a draft of the speech that Romman had hoped to deliver. In it, she talks about the devastation of being “moral witnesses to the massacres in Gaza.”

“But in this pain,” she writes, “I’ve also witnessed something profound — a beautiful, multifaith, multiracial, and multigenerational coalition rising from despair within our Democratic Party.” 

Editor’s picks

She continues: “For 320 days, we’ve stood together, demanding to enforce our laws on friend and foe alike to reach a cease-fire, end the killing of Palestinians, free all the Israeli and Palestinian hostages, and to begin the difficult work of building a path to collective peace and safety. That’s why we are here — members of this Democratic Party committed to equal rights and dignity for all. What we do here echoes around the world.”

Part of Romman’s frustration was that former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan spoke on Wednesday. Duncan, a Republican, has opposed abortion.

“He’s a Republican, an anti-choice Republican, and in this big tent that we were building throughout the week, there was no room for me in it,” she said.

Romman intended to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in her speech. “Let’s commit to each other, to electing Vice President Harris and defeating Donald Trump who uses my identity as a Palestinian as a slur,” she says in the draft.

Referencing President Barack Obama’s most famous slogan, she hoped to say: “To those who doubt us, to the cynics and the naysayers, I say, yes we can — yes we can be a Democratic Party that prioritizes funding our schools and hospitals, not for endless wars. That fights for an America that belongs to all of us — Black, brown, and white, Jews and Palestinians, all of us, like my grandfather taught me, together.”

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

Chapter 1

Summary: After the attack on Piccadilly Circus, Sgt. Rory Sinclair hopes to get back in the fight, seeking justice for what happened in London at the hands of Al-Qatala. An OC POV on the events of the first COD: MW reboot game

Warnings: Minors DNI - canon typical violence, referenced terrorism, swearing, military inaccuracies

Pairing: Captain John Price x Fem!OC (3rd person POV) *they are in a secret relationship as she is an enlisted soldier, not an officer*

Word count: 1.4 k

A/N: A continuation of Rory's story, highly suggest reading "All Along the Watchtower" first to understand her character. Follows the canon events of the game, but told from Rory's POV as she gets dragged into things. The first few chapters follow her emotional turmoil after the attack on Piccadilly Circus.

[AO3]

October 25, 2019 - SRR HQ, Stirling Lines, Credenhill, Herefordshire UK

Chaos.

Sheer and unbridled.

Total calamity. 

Phones rang non-stop like sirens and alarm bells wailing, information passed along like a piss poor game of tag. Nothing solid. Fragments. Bits and pieces scrounged together as more radio calls came in from ground zero. 

Piccadilly Circus. London. 

Home . 

Bodies rushed around the pool of cubicles, raised voices barking. They had run drills regarding this sort of circumstance, but it could never truly prepare them for the real thing – a terrorist attack on home ground. They were meant to be safe, complacency having set in, all to keep the image of protected borders at the forefront of everyone’s minds. These types of things didn’t happen here, certainly not in England, attacks like this happened on foreign soil and the war machine could keep running, chugging forward to flatten its enemies and make someone, anyone pay for what happened. But not now, not today. All sense of control had been utterly thrown out the window. 

Rory’s breath froze, held in her chest and burning her lungs, that same imprisoned breath she would take before firing her weapon, held hostage but with no sign of the exhale coming any time soon. In a situation like this she couldn’t step away from her desk and catch it, getting fresh air and a cigarette. Time was of the essence. She had to grit her teeth and carry on, pushing her way through it, forcing the emotions that wanted to rise to the surface into the background, even as her brain tried to drift into a total fog. She had to separate her own personal anxieties from the work at hand, collecting and navigating the intel, sorting out what was conjecture and what was fact – the only thing that held absolute was that this was the work of Al-Qatala. 

Filtering the radio chatter from the police on site, reports of men screaming about ‘The Wolf’ made her stomach twist. Stabbed by a dozen stinging blades, the flaming hot heat of a bullet cutting through the body and the blood that would bloom forth from the seeping wound. Searing . She saw this coming, knew an act of aggression like this was a certainty. A shot fired to start a war for so-called independence , revenge for a nation that had been ravaged by “civil war” for twenty years, an attack on one of the foreign powers that had stepped foot into Urzikstan years ago as an ally. She had put in the work to prevent it from happening. Two years . Two years of her life focused on AQ and it had mattered for naught. 

CCTV footage played on the monitors in front of her, drones sent in to track enemy movements – but it was too late. It was all too late . Sitting there from the safety of her desk, Rory was forced to watch images of terrified people freeze or drop to the ground, while others ran, all of them forced to take part in the evolutionary reaction to fear at the first sight of a suicide bomber stepping out of a van, strapped into his vest. It should have been a normal Friday night, people traveling home from work, the bustling streets full of pedestrians, the lights and sounds of the West End. Alive . Instead, it was a war zone, blood and bodies. Her heart squeezed, crawling up into her throat in a lump as she reviewed the feed of the first moments of the attack, working with facial recognition software. Witnessing the faces of men, women and children caught in their final moments – the looks of desperation, fear, regret – lives both long and short flashing before their eyes. Civilians trapped in the middle of it all – the casualties in such a populated area would be immense.

Casualties . Such a dehumanizing word. A term she had come to both loathe and make a constant in her lexicon. Numbers and names added to a list, made into statistics rather than face the real cost of war: the families left behind, the suffering they would face in the aftermath. Mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, children – some of them wouldn’t be coming home that night. Despite having learned to cut the emotion out of things as a soldier, a death toll like this, having to watch the footage and see the faces of those actually affected, seeing their names and information appear on her screen from the database, the detachment simply wasn’t possible. She knew better than to make this a personal responsibility, to carry the burden of lost lives, her mind could only take so much, and yet that need to find justice coursed through her. Justice , or was it closer to vengeance? The lines were blurring now, especially as she found herself checking the footage subconsciously for one person she knew was likely caught in the middle of it all. 

Dad – her father might have been counted amongst those numbers; he still took the time to walk from the office to the Tube each day. A flurry of images flashed across her mind’s eye, the worst horrors she could picture until she knew otherwise. Things that made her blood run cold. There would be no word as to whether he was alive or dead until the fighting was over and the threat dealt with. 

Even a soldier in her position got left in the dark.

Her thumb tapped against her desk, her leg jittering underneath it, her nerves firing at a mile a minute. She couldn’t think straight even if she wanted to, no amount of training helped to prepare her for this. Diving headfirst into a fire fight was less nerve wracking than the fear of the unknown. Not knowing whether – as of ten minutes ago and that first bomb going off – she was an orphan or not. 

She wouldn’t make it another minute without knowing. 

Slipping the mobile from her fatigue pants, she scrolled past the five missed call notifications from John and swiped through her directory to reach her father. Raking her hand through her hair as she rested her elbows on her desk, she squeezed her eyes shut in silent prayer to who-knew-what considering she had never once been religious in her life. The phone held to her ear rang, each one feeling like an eternity in between. Once. Twice. Three times. Voicemail .

Fuck. 

Biting at the sore hangnails that hung on the side of her fingers, red and raw. She had been on high alert since the message was passed through SRR HQ by MI6 about the Russian gas that had gotten into terrorist hands a day prior, leaking the info to Price the moment she heard. It was all she could think to do on such short notice, and it still wasn’t enough. It hadn’t stopped a damn thing. She’d been left to flounder while everyone else in command seemed to have their heads shoved up their arse about the threat – they couldn’t bury themselves any longer. 

Her mobile dinged, and a text popped up in her notifications: Know ur busy with shit hitting fan. Heading in. 

Rubbing her hands down her face, her chest tightened further. She knew Price could handle himself, he had entered the fray often in the two years they had been together and yet, every time, it still caused a cold sweat to overtake her. A part of her wished she could be there with him. More complications added into the mix, more fear of the unknown settling in like a bony, clawed hand sending chills down her spine. There was something to be said for soldier’s superstitions however, he had never skipped texting her before heading into an op, he also never added a note about loving her, and as far as they were both concerned that was enough to make sure he kept coming back home. The sentiment was always implied anyhow in the simple fact that he had sent the message to her in the first place – thinking of her as he faced constant danger. 

That didn’t stop her from texting back with her heart on her sleeve, however. Come back home to me in one piece, love. That, or call her in for the fight. Having to sit at her desk, unable to serve the way she knew she could best – it made her anger swell like a venom coursing through her constricted veins. 

Wolves were territorial beasts and her home, her family, had been threatened.

tagging @efingart

[rimupon]

While I wouldn't say I'm new to Youjo Senki, I'm not particularly deep into it either. (Watched the anime a few years ago, rewatched it every few months, only recently started the manga) However, I would still like to ask for fanfic recommendations, because I'd like to see everyone's favourite child soldier in Situations. So yea, recommendations?

Omg I’m sorry it took so long for me to answer I completely forgot this was in my inbox aaaa

So, a long while ago I actually did write up a fic rec list. but I think by now I have a few more things I could add to it…? I don't really have a lot more, so I’d recommend checking that one if you want more than what I have here.

Ok first, I wouldn’t necessarily say this is one of my personal recommendations, but literally since I saw the name 'necromancerfan' in my notifications, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was like 'Do they know? Are they referencing it? That couldn’t possibly be the case, but…' So, purely because of your name:

The Necromancer by LeviTamm The author is a really good writer, Tanya’s inner dialogue & reactions are absolutely fucking hilarious, she’s so sick of everything. But I can only really 'recommend' this with a HUGE warning and disclaimer that this fic has some pretty heavy and graphic descriptions of gore and violence. I’m talking five whole chapters of mutilation and torture. Quite disgusting descriptions imo. I personally did not finish it, but I also have friends that swear it’s good and the gore isn’t that bad. It's a matter of taste and sensitivity, I think. I really recommend you read the full author’s note at the beginning so you know what you’re getting into and from there decide whether it’s something you can read.

Ok, that was probably a bit of a weird one to start with, but I couldn’t not mention it, y'know. Moving on!

This would not be a fic rec list if I did not expound the virtues of my dear friend Tan. (Ao3 Link)

You should read all their fics really, they’re great. If you’re looking for a place to start, a non-exhaustive unordered list of my recent personal favorites: Paradise Praxis, Keychains, How I Met Your Uncle, Those Who Dare, Just Guys Being Dudes, The Ending You Desired

There’s more but if you let me continue we’d be here all fucking day and by the end I would’ve just linked their whole account.

The Devil on the Throne by springpoweredtoaster In summary, the whole Commonwealth royal family dies, leaving the government to scramble to find a still-living blood relative. This leads to Tanya becoming the Queen. I don't believe I’m fully caught up anymore, it’s been updated since I last checked in, but I remember really loving the first book.

A Young Girl's Delinquency Record by GremlinJack I think this is one that gets put on a lot of rec lists, but I didn't include it in my previous recommendations because I hadn’t read it at the time. Now that I have, I’m doing so. In summary, Tanya becomes a wanted international criminal on the run, and starts picking up many successful business ventures. Also Visha/Tanya is the focal ship.

Hostage by TheVideoGamer This is another one I kinda hesitate to recommend, but this time it's because of the subject matter. I really do feel like it’s a good fic if you’re looking for angst, but I have to recommend it with a huge trigger warning. This fic covers the topic of child sexual abuse, absolutely don’t read it if that’s a trigger for you.

The only reason I can recommend this fic is that it is NOT written as a lolicon rape fetish to get off on, it’s treated as the serious and delicate matter that it is. Summary for this one is that Tanya ends up taken hostage by Loria.

If you’re (rightfully) concerned, here are spoilers below if you want to know how it ends to determine whether you want to read it.

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While it is attempted, sexual abuse is stopped before it can happen. Physical abuse does happen in this fic, though. In the end, Tanya does end up rescued and brought back to the empire, and Loria is killed.

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Alright, I think that's the end. In the end I didn't really have much to add, I suppose? Thank you for asking though!

[allie-campbell-bradshaw]

Chapter 12: Water

A/N: Welcome to another chapter! I hope you all love this one as much as I do. I now have a playlist for Allie & Bradley that you can always find on my masterlist. It will be updated as chapters with songs are posted. I also sometimes have a “wardrobe” that I post with the chapters that they correspond to if I’m referencing a specific outfit and want to give you better visuals. I mention this in my notes for every chapter, but just in case you missed it– I do not give permission for my work to be re-posted without credibility. If you do want to post this story to your page, please be sure that you tag my account or at least mention its original source in your post. 

Also: This story is sequential…please go back and read my other chapters, in order, for the best results!

Again, thank you for being here and I hope you enjoy :)

Warnings: Swearing (it is the navy after all), brief mentions of errotic content (nothing explicit)

Chapter 12: Water

AUTHOR’S POV

Allie and Bradley had made their way down the entire shore line of Acton Cove, giggling and asking every “get to know you” question that you could think of:

Favorite Color:

Bradley: Red

Allie: Navy Green

Favorite Season:

Bradley: Summer

Allie: Spring

Favorite Breakfast Food:

Bradley: Eggs and Bacon

Allie: Waffles with strawberries

Biggest Fear:

Bradley: Failure

Allie: The Unknown

Favorite Animal:

Bradley: Seagulls

Allie: Dolphins

The list went on and on. When  they were halfway back to the bar, Bradley stopped and sat down on the rocks. Allie took a seat one to his right that was a little higher than his. The moon light illuminated both of their features. The slight breeze was blowing Allie’s hair every which way. Her curls were starting to fall apart, and Bradley loved it. He loved every moment that they spent together tonight.

Allie took off her red flats and put them next to her on the rock, burying her toes in the sand. Bradley watched her in admiration as she looked over at the waves that were crashing on the shore of the cove.

“God, I love the water” Allie finally said, breaking the silence. 

Allie kept her gaze on the water, and Bradley kept his gaze on Allie. Bradley smirked at her, his lips forming a smile that any person would find charming, including Allie. “What?” Allie asked flirtatiously.

“Nothing, nothing,” Bradley said, looking down for a moment to sniffle before looking back at her. Her hazel eyes were twinkling at him. 

“Well,” Allie said, looking down, “You never were too keen on telling the truth”. Allie looked back at the water, fighting back her smirk, but failing miserably.

Bradley became insecure for a moment, remembering all the events that had led to this moment. There was a pause that Bradley knew he had to break, “It’s just that,” he went on, struggling to find the words, before he caved and decided that his true thoughts were best played in this situation:  “I’d really like to get to know you more”.

She was blushing hard at him, loving the back and forth that they had going on. “And what exactly do you want to know”? She asked flirtatiously.

“Everything” Bradley said slyly, which caused Allie to blush even harder, so much so that she had to bite her lip to contain herself. 

“And how exactly do you plan on doing that”?

“Well, I was thinking about taking you out on a proper date”. Bradley stated, with a slight tone of questioning in his voice. They had made it this far, but Bradley lacked confidence in guaranteeing that he would ever see her again.

“And if I say no”? Allie flirtatiously questioned back.

Bradley looked at her, pondering his next move: “Then I’ll just have to hold you hostage!” Bradley yelled loudly as he got up and took Allie in his arms, swooping down to her and wrapping his arm around her stomach, holding her up as he made his way to the water.

Allie was kicking her feet, laughing and screaming for him to stop, but obviously not wanting him to.

Before she knew it, they were in the water. Bradley’s legs were completely drenched as he knelt down to his knees, the water stopped at his hips. He turned Allie around so she was facing him, her legs and bottom cold from the liquid that encapsulated her lower body as he held her up by her back. She was wrapped around him and laced her hands in his hair, playing with the strands that were on the nape of his neck as they looked at each other's features through the moonlight.

They were silent. Bradley was breathing heavier than Allie, mainly due to the strength that he mustered to get them both into the water, but also because he was slightly aroused. This woman, that he had been chasing for half a month, was right here, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist. Her hands were warming his neck as their skins touched.

After a few breaths, Allie broke the silence, “What would you like to know next?” Allie asked airily.

“What’s your middle name?” Bradley asked, as he looked deeply into her eyes.

“Elizabeth,” Allie answered softly, “Yours?”

Bradley’s face dropped for a moment, “Peter” he answered, looking upset, 

leaving a few seconds of silence between them.

“What’s the matter?” Allie asked, catching on to his expression.

Bradley wanted badly to forget about him at this moment. Wanting to only  

focus on her.

Before he knew it, both of them were completely submerged under water. 

Allie was in a state of shock and fear as she was not expecting that to happen! She started to hit around the water and came in contact with his shoulders a few times. It felt like minutes, but within seconds, they were back up, Bradley still holding on tight to the woman that made him feel a way he had never felt before. Allie, on the other hand, was annoyed, “What was that for?” She screamed at him, pulling her hands back from his neck and adjusting her hair. Bradley felt a slight disappointment when her hands left the comfort of his skin. 

“I’ve always gotta keep you on your toes.” He responded, wanting to be flirtatious, but he could tell that Allie was angry. Truly, he just didn’t want to bring up all the shit in his life right now. Not when she was here, wrapped around him.

Allie was most definitely angry, because she unlocked her legs from his and stood up on her own, pacing back and forth and catching her breath from the fright that he gave her. “Ugggggh” she screamed, as she splashed him with water.

Bradley had the look in his eyes, the one where someone had started a game with him that he was sure to finish. Allie had an instant look of regret in hers, realizing that she just challenged a hungry cheetah, who was aching for the chase. She turned her body and held her hands up to shield her face, preparing herself for what was about to come.

But it never did. 

Instead, Bradley slowly walked over to her, grabbed onto her hips, and turned her around. He took his left hand into her right hand and placed his other one on her hip, beginning to sway.

“What are you doing”? Allie asked him, dropping her other hand onto his arm, confused as to why he was dancing with her in the water.

Bradley didn’t answer, instead he watched her with admiring eyes as their bodies swayed from side to side. He dropped his hand from her hip that was underwater and lifted his other hand, allowing her to spin in a circle. She was beaming from ear to ear when she faced him again. “What?” He asked her gently.

“We don’t have any music” she replied to him.

“Oh yeah,” He responded, “That’s a big problem isn’t it”.

“And we’re both terrible singers”. She shot back, flirtatiously commenting on the show she had seen earlier today, but knowing full well how talented he actually was.

“The worst” he said, resuming their swaying.

There were a few moments of silence before he began singing acapella. 

And I

I'd play the fool

For you, I'm sure

You know I don't mind

(No, you know I don't mind)

And yes

You mean the world to me

I know I've found in you

My endless love

Allie watched him, her lips parted, completely flabbergasted. For the first time in her adult life, she was completely speechless. A million questions were flooding through her head. What was this man’s motive? Did he want to break her heart as much as other men had wanted? Was he going to ruin all of her plans? Did she even have the slightest time for it? 

Why isn’t she angry at him anymore?

That was the biggest question Allie was pondering over. Here she was, dancing in the water with a man she hated 24 hours ago and now she had no ugly feelings towards him. Every wrong thing he had done to her had been completely forgiven. And here they were. Smiling at each other.

Bradley’s grip on her tightened as she stepped closer to him, locking the space that they had created. Their faces were inches away when their romance was broken by the sound of laughter coming from Missing in Acton. Someone had opened the back doors, which were shut again seconds later. 

Allie reached back for Bradley’s right hand, examining it to see if there was any swelling. That was when she noticed he had his Tactixs watch on, glimpsing at it for a moment before letting go of his hand and watching it fall back under water.

That’s when it hit her! “What time is it?!” She yelled as she grabbed his hand again, pulling it out of the water and tapping on the screen 11:15. “Shit!” she yelled loudly, turning her body and running out of the water.

Bradley followed slowly, watching her wet body rummaging around the rocks looking for her shoes. She grabbed them and ran towards the door. Before she could get it, she froze and began to laugh.

Bradley was only a few feet away from her when he froze in his tracks, watching her as she was losing herself in laughter on the deck of the bar. “What”? He curiously asked.

Allie was in a fit! Here she was, running away from a man she didn’t want to run from to get home to a man she wanted nothing more than to run away from. She was laughing so hard that she fell down onto her backside on the deck.

“What?” Bradley asked again, smiling and joining her in small bits of laughter, bending down and plopping onto the deck next to her.

“Nothing,” Allie responded, resting her forehead on his shoulder. “This was fun”, she said, as she was coming down from her laughing fit. She looked into Bradley’s eyes smirking hard, knowing she was blushing deep as he looked at her, sparks in his eyes.

“Want to do it again?” Bradley asked her.

Allie let out a few laughs before airily answering him, “Yes”, she said quietly.

It took Bradley a moment to comprehend what had just happened. This woman, this beautiful woman, had agreed to go out with him. If anyone would have told him a week ago that this would have happened, he would have told you that you were crazy, but here he was, sitting on the deck of Missing in Acton, watching a girl he was crazy for smiling at him.

“Good” was all he managed to muster before adding, “Because I need to take you on a proper first date. So I can show you how romantic I truly am”. Allie’s eyes went wide. How could he possibly be any more romantic? She thought to herself as he reached out his hand and slowly helped her up.

ALLIE’S POV

I held onto Bradley’s hand as he opened the back door to get back into the bar. Why we came this way, I’ll never know, because within seconds, the whole place went quiet. Obviously while we were out, everyone that wasn’t familiar with my reputation at the Academy had been filled in.

I dropped his hand and stepped in front of him, wanting to die from embarrassment as military men and women had their eyes glued to me. That all too familiar feeling of annoyance had hit me and I looked around angrily at all of the people staring, some of which I had rejected in the past.

I suddenly realized why they were so shocked, Bradley and I were soaked. Head to toe. I looked over to the booth I used to be at and was disappointed to see that a group of midshipmen had taken it over, my whole group was gone.

The look of annoyance hit me and I quickly took off my sweater, throwing it at Bradley, showing everyone that he now has me. There were whispers after I did that, but I didn’t care. I made my way over to the booth and leaned over the table, “I believe you have something of mine!” I snapped as I grabbed my Kate Spade and walked towards the entrance. Before I made my way out the door, I took one final sweep of the room, annoyed and angry at the talk that went around.

***

I didn’t even bother racing home. I was still so shaken up with everything that had happened within the last hours to even comprehend the trouble I would be in with my missing curfew. All I knew for sure was that there was a bar full of naval men and women that were whispering about me. I had to hope that Bradley wasn’t giving into their inquiries, but who was I to trust that? I have had zero faith in people ever since…

I slammed on my breaks! Not realizing that the person in front of me was at a complete stop. After that, I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to think about it, so I turned up my radio and started listening to the 80’s music that was playing. That was my thing. When I was really losing my grasp on reality, I could always rely on 80’s hits to bring me back to my senses. 

Before I knew it, I was home and pulling into the driveway. We lived in an all white detached single-family home, one of which you would expect to see in the suburbs of queens. The shutters were a navy green, my favorite color, and also a play on my daddy’s job. There was a three piece window at the front that housed our living room in the interior. In the living room there was a fireplace in the center of the left wall, with brown bookshelves stretching the rest of the wall. Then there was our family couch that mom and I shared and my daddy’s big brown chair.

There were two windows on the second floor that just illuminated the living room when they were opened. My parents renovated their second floor before I was born. When you go up the stairs, there is a “balcony like” railway that you can use to get to the windows that house an armchair and table for decoration. On the left side of the house is my room that has a small window and on the right side of the house is my parents' master room. We have no spare rooms and the basement is unfinished. No one really goes down there except to get holiday decorations that we use for storage as well as to do laundry. My bathroom is also the community bathroom that is located right up the stairs of the second floor. Apart from that, we had the kitchen in the back of the house and a small dining room to the right of it. We didn’t have much, but we had a lot.

I slowly walked up the stairs, leading to the front door, stealing a glance at the American flag that was waving in the breeze. It had picked up slightly after I left. 

I opened the door and shut it behind me, turning to the right aiming for the stairs before I was stopped by my old man, who was right where I knew he would be, in his big brown chair.

“And just why are you so late young lady”? He asked as he got up, freezing in his tracks when he saw my state. I had a look of complete impatience on my face. He looked stunned. “What the hell?” was all he could manage to muster, eyeing my wet frame up and down. 

I let out a breath and shrugged my shoulders before starting for the stairs, his voice making me abort my second attempt. “I asked you a question Allie. Where have you been?”

“I was,” I started, looking for the right words to say, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to lie to him, but I wanted to avoid the truth as much as I could. For now. I gave him an ‘I don’t know’ sort of look before making my way to the stairs again. It was no use because he stepped in front of me.

“God damn it Allie, don’t you ignore me!” He started to look annoyed, that’s when the door to my parent’s room opened and my mom came out.

“What in the hell is going on?” She asked, tying her black silk robe to her body. Her brown hair was up in pink curlers. Obviously they had something going on tomorrow that I wasn’t aware of.

“Mama,” I started before I froze. I looked over at daddy and then at mom, “I’m sorry I’m late. I was having fun. I will be sure to call next time if I’m running late.” I said all of those sentences like I was listing off a grocery list, not a care in the world…because I truly didn’t.

I walked up the stairs as my daddy yelled back; “You won’t be going anywhere and having any fun if you don’t clean up your act young lady!”

I rolled my eyes as I opened my door and closed it behind me, leaving my hands on the handle, leaning back on the white wooden door. My mind was swimming. I had all sorts of thoughts flowing through my mind and my emotions were all sorts of unsteady. I knew tomorrow that I owed my daddy a huge apology, but for now, all I was focused on was Bradley, and admitting to myself that I wanted nothing more than to see him again.

[thebladeblaster]

I was just reading some Apocalypse thread while looking up something and found this

This is peak gaslighting and Apocalypse copium ‘change my mind’.

It has the same energy as:

Like what do you mean no retcons or major contradictions?! Here’s a short list off the top of my head on retcons and contradictions: (Spoilers duh)

-In IV they acted like Flynn was the only messiah. If Nanashi Aka Akira’s reincarnation and the second messiah exists why is he NEVER mentioned by anyone?!

-Toki was supposed to assassinate Flynn, but she does nothing while Flynn annihilates Tokyo during the law route. I’d imagine upon learning that she’d want to kill him quickly especially since Flynn trying to destroy Tokyo was known.

-Gaston and the Crusaders are not only never mentioned, but don’t try to stop you when you attack Mikado in the chaos route. If they were a thing they would have tried to stop Flynn.

-Nozomi became Danu her spirit wasn’t hanging out inside her

-The Kinschio underground district materialized out of thin air. It’s never referenced and Flynn can never travel there in IV for no reason. It’s next to the Sky Tower where Flynn entered Tokyo yet he somehow never goes there and somehow misses an entire district right in front of him until Apocalypse.

-Merkabah and the angel’s behavior is off. They would never seriously allow an unclean one to be their champion and they would never even humor the idea. Also him and Lucifer haven’t given up on having Flynn join them like they did in IV.

-Why does Merkahbah announce the angels plans in the open? In the law route he informs the people of Mikado through a shared dream they all had. It would make more sense for them to find out this information from Gaston rather than an infiltration mission.

-Burroughs is completely ignored when you have two Samurai on your team. This is relevant because she would have been able to detect Hallelujah and imposter Flynn being demons. Even when demons are hiding in human form Burroughs can still detect them (example: Issachar). Heck, both Nanashi and Nozomi can detect demons too with their powers and they somehow don’t notice (though that’s not a retcon just bad writing).

-Probably the biggest one (and most plot breaking) is Flynn’s reaction to a hostage situation. In IV Nozomi is taken captive by a Wickerman similarly to Asahi, but the situation is worse because she’s inside the Wickerman and in danger of being burnt alive. Flynn’s response to this situation is to kill the Wickerman and save Nozomi which works out for him so it’s very strange that he doesn’t do the same in Apocalypse. We know he can speed blitz the Divine Powers literally in the same scene Odin can’t even touch him till he allows himself to get hit. Later an exhausted Flynn literally strikes Krishina before he can even react. Even from Nanashi’s pov Flynn practically looks like he’s teleporting. An exhausted Flynn two shotting Krishna who is way stronger than Matrieya is some pretty good proof he could do the same to Matrieya (or at least cut his arms off or something else to make him let go like jabbing him in the stomach). This one is particularly bad because it reveals just how horrible Apocalypse’s writing is. It’s a story that literally can’t and shouldn’t happen.

Honestly there’s probably a lot more I’m not thinking of at this moment.

[drreidsphds]

Love Affairs - SR x Reader

Summary: You, Spencer, and JJ are held hostage in a jewelery store by an Unsub. You hear what JJ has to confess to Spencer in a truth-or-dare game played between the Unsub and JJ.

T/Ws: Normal CM stuff, spoilers for S14 E15, angst, jeid love confession, mentions of a miscarriage, mentions of prison

A/N: This isn't one of my first fics i've written but it is one of my first i've publicly released so if there is any errors I apologize in advance. Also this is a 3 part fic but this is just a short version of the 3 parts. I should warn there's no fluff for this so if your looking for angsty fluff or just fluff then you'll probably have to look the other direction. Let me know if you'd like me to post any more fics and I'll gladly take suggestions!

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

Hours had passed although it felt like forever. Melissa was taping them to wherever they could be restrained at. The tape on your wrists felt uncomfortable but it was gonna be like this for the next couple hours or so. There wasn't much hope that they were getting out any time soon.

"Dont worry.. we're gonna be okay." Spencer whispered. Thay felt reassuring but he knew deep down that he didn't know that. Anything could happen beyond this point.

"Hurry up. Get over here!" Melissa flinched. Luckily, she had just finished up so she rushed to Casey as quick as she could.

"This is all your fault," Casey said while gesturing his head around the room, obviously referencing the intense hostage situation they were in the middle of. "I told you. I told you it was an accident, that Mark was the one who forced me to do it. But you wouldn't listen."

"You just sat there.. looking all smug and superior. You think your so much better than me but your not. You're just as capable of hurting someone as anybody is." Melissa looked ashamed. It wasn't until Casey dropped the hostage and pointed his gun at Melissa. He handed the gun he gave to Melissa back, saying;

"Well, here it is, Judge. Your moment of truth." She grabbed the weapon in hesitation but she knew it was her or the gun. The agents watched the situation like a movie, calculating their safest way out of this. Of course just because it's safe, doesn't make it easy.

"Shoot her. Or I'll kill your daughter." Casey ordered Melissa. She stared at the poor woman. You could tell she felt so bad for her.

"Come on.. she's got nothing to do with this, okay, just let her go." JJ reminded him. Although they weren't sure if what she said to Casey was effective or not because he demanded her to shut up. Usually this meant that JJ got through to Casey and wanted her to stop.

"SHOOT HER!"

You spoke up, "Casey, you know she has nothing to do with your arrest. So don't make her a part of it. Let her go, okay?"

Casey stared at you and smirked. He pulled the gun out of Melissa's hand and crouched to level you and grabbed you by the hair. You stared at Casey like a stone cold statue and didn't let up. Spencer tried to jump towards Casey but didn't get very far due to the restraints. Spencer's face looked calm but you could tell it was fueled with anger. He watched Casey like a hawk on it's prey. Spencer wasn't the only one, JJ wanted Casey to leave you alone so bad. God knows what Casey was gonna do. He was unpredictable.

"I wasn't talking to you." He said with tight lips. Casey threatened his gun at you and backed away. The relief on your face was immeasurable. He grabbed the hostage and threw her towards a countertop causing everything on top of it to collapse. Spencer leaned to see what happened but was stopped by Casey threatening his gun at him. Casey pulled Melissa towards him and stared.

"New deal," He handed the gun back to her. "I need you to kill one of these three."

She took the gun with a stern face and looked towards them. She pointed the gun at them, her hands shaking as she waves it around, trying to decide who's gonna kick off today.

"Who's it gonna be?"

"Please.. I don't want to do this,"

"Focus, Melissa!"

"Please.."

"Judge, you got to decide. That's what you do, right? Decide LIFE or DEATH with a flick of your gavel."

It only took that much pressure for her to finally choose. She pointed the gun at Spencer, almost ready but hesitant to pull the trigger. She then waved it at you, then JJ. It was the same circle all over again.

Their focus was inturrepted by the phone ringing. He pulled his attention towards it, constantly glancing back to make sure Melissa wouldn't try anything.

"Answer it. Casey, answer it." Spencer pleaded.

"SHUT UP!" He urged. "Pull the trigger!"

Melissa whimpered. She was so hesitant to kill any of them because she didn't want to pick the wrong one with a family and ruin the lives of their loved ones. She was so afraid. Either way, she didn't want to kill anybody. They all had lives and it's one hell of a thing to take that from them.

He pulled the phone and threw it. I suppose he got irritated by the constant ringing so he ended it.

"Focus, Melissa. Pull the trigger!"

They looked at eachother, concerned and scared, not knowing who was gonna go out first. JJ panicked so she insisted that she replaced Melissa if she wouldn't play.

"Casey.." JJ hesitated for a moment, "Um, if Melissa won't play, I will." She started to stand on her knees. She slowly made her way to standing up, reassuring Casey she wouldn't try anything.

Melissa looked confused but relieved. Casey moved his gun from Melissa to JJ and kept an eye on her like a hawk.

"Truth or dare.. that's your game, right? I'll play."

You and Spencer looked at eachother, putting their trust in JJ that she'd be able to defuse the situation.

"Melissa, the weapon, now!" Casey demanded.

"Casey, I know what it's like. To be wrongly accused, sent to a prison for something you didn't commit."

You backed him up, "He's right. In fact, I remember it like it was yesterday. Funny, how we can remember the bad experiences but can barely memorize a single thing they teach us in school, isn't it?"

"Shut up!" Casey waved his weapon at you. He stepped towards Spencer, doubtful what he said was true.

"Yeah, right. You went to jail?"

Spencer nodded. To be honest, he wishes that sentence wasn't real either. Or that you ever had to go through that with him.

"I'd like to see that, pretty boy." Casey directed his attention back to JJ and circled around her.

"Okay, Agent.."

"-Jareau."

"Agent Jareau," He left his voice to trail off, "Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"If I think your lying or stretching the truth in the slightest, I'll kill them."

"Yeah." She nodded.

"You ever shoot anybody before?"

"Yes, I have."

"-You enjoy it?"

"No."

Casey looked at her for a moment and trailed off. He then glanced back, shooting a warning bullet and scraping your arm.

"Liar!" He screamed.

JJ flinched. She glanced at you to see you groaning in pain and Spencer looking tense.

"No, no, no, I'm not lying. Okay, I'm not lying." She panicked, "The people I shot, I had no choice. But I did not enjoy it. I did not." She assured him.

"Okay, you asked the truth. I told you the truth. So, now it's my turn. Right? That's how this game's played. We take turns. Truth or Dare?"

...

"Truth."

"What's it gonna take for all us to walk out of here alive, for this to end peacefully?"

"I ain't going back to prison! My turn. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"I want you to say something that you're afraid to say. Something that you wouldn't tell anybody. And you better make it good. 'Cause if it's not, it's gonna be the last thing you ever say. What's it gonna be?"

"There are only 4 people I trust in this world."

"Boring!" Clancy shot Melissa's leg. She groaned in pain.

"Next!"

"Um.." JJ said, trying to think of something, "My.. my baby I lost, I um.. mmm. I wanted to name her Maggie."

"Wrong! Come on, you know you can do better than that!"

"Casey." Spencer said.

"Shut up!" He responded. He kicked JJ on her knees.

"Ok, ok, ok."

"Last chance. Something that you would never say aloud. Not even to your friends here." He waved his gun to them, "Your deepest, darkest secret. Impress me or I kill them."

They looked around at eachother. You could tell whatever JJ was gonna say it wasn't gonna be good.

"Come on!"

JJ looked at you and smiled before it went away two seconds later. "I'm sorry. You'll understand." She whispered. She then glanced at Spencer and that's when you caught some wind on what she was gonna say.

"JJ, no." You begged.

JJ gulped. She was gonna burst into tears any minute.

"Spence, um.."

"No.." You mumbled. Spencer looked at JJ confused.

"Um.."

The more JJ let her voice trail off the more nervous You and Spencer got. It was nerve-wrecking.

JJ glanced at you and directed her attention to Spencer and sighed, "I've always loved you."

For some reason hearing that felt painful. It felt like somebody punched you in the stomach and you couldn't breathe because the air felt so tight. Spencer glared at you, noticing the frenzy you were about to collapse in. He looked back at JJ and gave her that look of "Why would you say that?"

"-And I was too scared to say it before, especially now that things are too complicated to say it now because.. I'm with Will and your with Y/N." JJ started to sob. "And I know it's not fair to you, Y/N, and I'm sorry-"

"Just stop." You pleaded. Spencer looked like he stepped into a fever dream. He didn't know what to do with what JJ said.

Casey looked shocked. "Hot damn! That's what I'm talking about. Now those are some last words right there." He waved his gun back to JJ, "But not good enough to save your life."

He was interrepted when Spencer shot Casey and collapsed. JJ looked at Spencer to notice the empty holster on his ankle.

Spencer ran towards you to untie you. "Hey, are you okay? How's your arm." He finished untying you.

"I'm fine." You muttered dismissively. You crossed your arms and walked away from them. Spencer went to untie JJ.

"I think I made a mistake." JJ cried.

"It's too late." Spencer glared back.

---------

"Ow." You groaned as the medic put gauze on your arm to disinfect the wound.

"Stay still, Agent." The medic continued to treat your arm. "Alright your all good, try to relax it, okay? And change your bandages every now and then. At least until the wound is healed."

The medic walked away to assist another patient. Reid glanced at you, you looking back at him. That's when you heard JJ's voice in the distance and saw her coming towards you.

"Hey, you okay?"

"Go."

"Y/N-"

"Just.. go. Please. I can't even look at you right now, why should I even talk to you."

"Y/N, just listen-"

"JJ!" You raised her voice loud enough for everybody to hear and look at the situation. "Please. Go before I say something I'll regret."

JJ walked away, realizing there'd be no point in trying to talk to you.

Emily and Rossi walked over to check on you.

"What was that, you alright?" Emily was pretty concerned.

"I'm tired of people asking me that. But yeah, I'm okay. Just hurt." You gestured to Reid and JJ. Of course they didn't get the reference, but maybe that was for the better.

THE END.

[whumpwillow]

False Target 3 | villain whump

Our whumper now has a name! I got it by combining the names Viren and Silco so there ya go 

warnings: past beating, implied past abuse, blood, torn lip, bloodstained teeth, referenced kidnapping

//

“What should we do with the girl?” one of the guards holding Lea asked.

The girl...oh that’s me, she thought.

Virco waved a hand noncommittally, as if to shoo away the pointless question he couldn’t be bothered with. Logically, it did make sense if he were to use her as a hostage, but well, Lea wasn’t going to point that out to him.

“I don’t care,” he said. “Maybe she can capture True Target since my own men can’t seem to follow basic orders. Now come with me.”

The two guards released Lea’s arms and she stepped back to rub them, glaring daggers at Virco’s back as he walked away.

She heard a groan and turned to Kaiden, still a bloody mess on the floor. He lie there, writhing, a shattered form. He wrapped his arms around his midsection and curled in on himself, gritting his teeth. He breathed in shallow gasps and his face showed a mask of pain.

Lea made her way over to him now that she was free to move around. She knew she should try figuring out a way to make her escape, but there was nothing to be done about it when she was situated at the very heart of Virco’s base and likely surrounded by any number of his guards. Instead, she decided to focus on what she could do in the moment, which was to comfort a beaten man. Even if he was the one who got her into this mess in the first place.

Kaiden. That purple-haired freak.

He’d dogged her and True Target’s steps all throughout the past few weeks, driving them from one safehouse to another. Always on their heels, casting tension onto their shoulders.

Yet Lea felt no bitterness now, looking down at him. Clutching his bruised sides, his jaw drenched in blood, he looked worse than she’d ever seen him. And she knew he’d been in more than a few scuffles, having observed a new scratch or bruise on his face every time he appeared while trying to capture her and her brother, True Target.

Thinking back on it now, maybe those weren’t due to fights, but beatings.

She crouched down and set her hand on the man’s shoulder. He flinched at the contact, but only stared at her with bleary eyes and did nothing else.

“Hey.”

“What?” Kaiden snapped.

He narrowed his eyes at her. The action caused a few tears to fall and Kaiden turned his face away, covering it with his hand and aggressively swiping at his cheeks. Lea didn’t comment on it.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Kaiden sucked in air and coughed, though Lea thought it might have been meant to be a laugh. He turned back to face her, hands falling into his lap, tears and embarrassment forgotten in his bewilderment.

“I kidnapped you.”

Lea rolled her eyes. She sat down unceremoniously, feeling like this was going to be a long conversation.

“Yea, I know,” she replied with a droll tone. “But you deserved a punch. Something to knock that arrogant smirk off your face.”

Kaiden cough-laughed again, smirking at her. It looked odd and distorted with his torn lip. The blood staining his teeth was not helping matters either.

“Not…this,” Lea finished, gesturing vaguely at Kaiden’s battered body.

Lea reached out and Kaiden flinched slightly, but she kept her motions slow and visible as she placed a hand on his face. She gently tried to wipe away some of the blood before he abruptly turned away.

“I—I was…afraid,” he said, haltingly. “I thought he’d kill me.”

The shame was thick in his voice. Lea said nothing.

“...I’m sorry,” he continued.

Lea sighed and her shoulders sagged.

“I don’t forgive you,” she said,

Something happened then that Lea never thought she’d ever see. Kaiden squeaked. It was a pitiful sound, shrill and fearful. He began shivering again, and Lea realized he’d never really stopped after the beating, his body wracked with small tremors that ran up an down his spine. His chest rose and fell with his rapid inhalations.

“P-please—” he said with a sense of urgency.

Lea sat there and stared at him. She’d never heard him beg before today, and she’d never seen him beaten so mercilessly either. Seems the day was just full of firsts.

“Please,” Kaiden tried again, noting her lack of response. “I’m sorry, I really am, I’m sorry. I know—I know I did wrong by you—I’m sorry, just—just please—”

The words tumbled out from his bloody lips, trembling and breathless. His eyes were wide and wet. His trademark smirk was absent, and Lea found herself missing his snarky attitude, even when she’d hated it before. She hated this submissive creature in front of her even more.

“Hey,” Lea said. “Shh.”

Kaiden quieted.

It unsettled her how easy it was to get him to obey.

“I don’t forgive you, but...I understand. You have your reasons, and they just happened to get in the way of mine.”

Kaiden turned his face up. He looked like hell, but Lea smiled softly at the burgeoning hope she saw in his eyes, glistening along with his tears. She held out a hand to him and he stared at it for a second, surprised, before settling his own onto it.

“You don’t have to worry,” she continued. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

And Kaiden broke.

—

@shydragonrider @turnthetablesonthem @wolves-and-winters @kira-the-whump-enthusiast

[robinofgothamcity]

♡ prompt: “i thought you were dead? for years, i thought you were dead! and i hate that i still love you and never moved on!” 

♡ pairing: tim drake (red robin) x fem! reader

♡ lyric inspiration: “you’re riding high in April, shot down in May but I know I’m going to change that tune when I’m back on top in June. I said that’s life and as funny as that may seem, some people get their kicks stomping on a dream.”

♡ note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes / please check the pinned tweet please! since i’m very low on inspiration.

Tim Drake stared at you, mouth wide open, not knowing what to say or do. he felt like he saw a ghost. you were standing across the room, talking amongst others as they instantly crowded around you. everyone had thought the same thing Tim did and only a selective few knew about your whereabouts. 

you were giving Dick a hug, whispering in his ear about how much you missed him as Damian stood there dumbfounded. Jason was not in the room or else you knew that he would be giving you an earful about the entire situation. Jason always did think of you as a sister when you first started dating Tim. 

“what the fuck happened to you?” Damian screamed, finally coming into the realization of the situation, “you were dead! we saw you die! all of us did!” he continued. you bent down, giving him a hug as he didn’t bother to try and deny it. 

“it’s a long story. i was under secrecy for a long time and couldn’t tell or say anything without me getting caught,” you told him. you looked to Dick who still couldn’t believe what was going on, “it must’ve been a monumental mission if you were technically dead for three years and I couldn’t know about it,” he replied. 

you nodded, whispering to him that you’d tell them the details later, “is...he around?” you asked, referencing Tim. Dick moved a bit to the left, revealing the man you were still madly in love with. you felt yourself gulp, scared on his reaction, “oh god, I never realized how bad this is,” Dick whispered to himself, sensing the tension immediately. 

+

you swinging around the Batcave, Batman clearly annoyed with your antics as you finally plopped down next to him, “aww c’mon Bruce! live a little! this Batcave is so depressing and need I say, dark?” you said, hearing the door jingle open. 

“great, the boys are here,” he murmured, realizing that introductions had to happen between you and his sons. Bruce had taken you in a few months ago, under the guise that you needed a better mentor, “you haven’t met them, right?” he asked. 

you shook your head no, “course I haven’t! it’s my first week in Gotham!” you exclaimed happily. you did hero work out of the west coast and happened to finally land in Gotham for the first time ever, “although I did run into Damian earlier in the week so I think he’ll recognize me!” 

Tim and Dick were the ones who walked in, conversing about some Gotham football game. you smiled at the two boys as they stopped dead in their tracks, “uh....Bruce, who is this?” Dick asked, pointing at you. you stood up, shaking their hands, “I’m ( your name )! Bruce’s new apprentice!” you explained. 

the two sighed, Dick’s first thought being if Alfred knew about you. Tim on the other hand didn’t exactly respond as quick. you were oddly excitable, not exactly the personality that ran rampant across the ‘family’, “apprentice or daughter?” Dick asked, a bit playfully. 

“she’s an apprentice. no need to adopt someone who’s already an adult,” he replied as he stood up himself, “she came from the west coast so she doesn’t exactly know her way around here. it’d be helpful if one of you showed her around. I don’t trust Jason or Damian enough,” he said, walking to another one of the computers. 

“Stephanie isn’t around?” Damian asked, walking inside of the cave, “she’s already acquainted with her and she isn’t available to do it right now so it’s up to Dick or you Tim,” Bruce repeated. Dick looked to his brother with his eyebrow lifted up, “well?” he asked Tim. 

the two of them went to look at you who was already not paying attention to what was going on. you were nose deep into a computer with music blaring inside of your headphones, “I swear that girl has ADHD or something,” Damian murmured to his brothers, “but I think Drake should do it! you just love getting to know people, don’t you?” Damian pressured. 

Bruce nodded in agreement, “it’s settled, you’re showing her around!” Tim stared at Damian, ready to attack the gremlin with his bare hands, “appreciate it Tim!” you yelled from your seat, surprising the three who thought you couldn’t hear what they were saying. 

+

it was already a few months into your internship with the Batfamily. you had gotten closer with Jason, Stephanie, and because of your relationship with Dick, you befriended Starfire as well. even though your work was constantly surrounding you around Tim, you weren’t around him much unless it had to do with work. 

“where you heading off too?” Jason asked, seeing you all dressed up, “Star, Barbara, and Steph wanted to go out for the night since we aren’t on duty so we’re going to get drinks up the street,” you told him. he nodded, looking to Tim and seeing the way he was checking you out, “why do you go with them, Tim?” he asked. 

Tim looked at Jason with a bewildered expression, “why would I be the only guy in the group?” he asked sarcastically. you on the other hand jumped up in joy, “you should!” you exclaimed, “come on! it would be amazing! you know you want too!” you poked Tim’s side in anticipation. 

he sighed, slipping a bit on the couch, “fine,” he muttered, making you excited all over again. you gave him a few minutes to get himself together, “you know he likes you, right?” Jason told you. you laughed out of genuine shock, “who? Tim? yeah right!” you let out another laugh, not believing he was lying to your face, “fine, don’t believe me but it’s pretty obvious.” 

you couldn’t say much else as Tim walked out, hair restyled and threw on a different jacket, “ready?” he asked, hands deep in his pockets. you nodded, throwing Jason a scrap piece of paper before heading out the door as Dick walked inside, “meeting the girls?” he asked. 

“yeah and I’m taking your brother as a hostage,” Dick was surprised, “did you finally?” he started to ask before Tim screamed at him to shut up, “how about we leave,” Tim told you, discreetly hitting Dick on the back of his leg as retaliation. 

the two of you walked out as you told Tim that the place you usually went out with the girls was in walking distance, “I think they’re going to be surprised you even decided to leave your apartment,” you joked as he rolled his eyes playfully, “I don’t think they’ll mind. at least Stephanie can stop saying that I never go out,” he said. 

you laughed softly, “yeah you might be going out with a bunch of girls but it sure beats being stuck inside playing video games or doing work,” you replied, “yeah, guess your right,” you two walked inside of the restaurant, already seeing Steph, Starfire, and Barbara sitting at the usual table. 

the three girls had their mouth hanging as they saw you walking in with Tim, “he actually came out?” Barbara screamed, not believing Tim was actually out, “yeah, figured it was better than staying in for the night!” you said excitedly. 

“I couldn’t even get him to come out with me at times and I dated him,” Steph murmured under her breath to Star. she laughed as you pulled chairs for you and Tim, “I’m getting first round of shots!” you told the group excitedly. Star and Barbara had followed you to the bar, leaving Steph and Tim in a small awkward silence 

“you like her don’t you?” she asked. Tim nodded, figuring it was better to just tell the truth than to lie, “that’s cute! she’s a great girl. I’m happy you finally found someone else but I will say one thing, I think you better get a move on with your feels with her because I know a few others who have an interest in her and one might be on your team,” she said, not so subtly hinting at Connor. 

Tim was taken back by what Stephanie was telling her but remained silent, “and I think she’d say yes on Connor so you better be quick,” she laughed, seeing Tim’s slightly jealous eyes. you returned to the table, giving everyone their glass as you raised yours in the air, “to Tim! for actually leaving his house for once!” you screamed as they all raised their glass and took the shot down.

throughout the night, Tim saw the way you were singing and dancing with Steph and Star, your terrible drunk singing voice getting louder as they played ‘poker face’ by lady gaga towards the end of the night. 

+

you stared at Riddler, seeing that he was ready to attack Tim with full intentions to kill him. you debated for a moment, saving a few civilians from getting mildly hurt or seeing your boyfriend get killed? you chose the latter and ran to Tim who was not paying attention in the slightest at what Riddler was doing. 

“Red!” you screamed, your feet moving as fast as they could and pushing him out of the way. you felt the slice of the knife into your stomach as you had successfully pushed Tim to safety, “fuck,” you whispered, seeing the blood already pooling underneath you. 

although you getting hurt was already pre-planned, you had no intentions of getting hurt this badly, “fuck, fuck, fuck,” you continued, trying to grab your cape to stop the bleeding, Tim stared down at you, seeing the blood gushing at a rate too dangerous for his liking, “hold on, please hold on!” he screamed, moving you out of harms way. 

Bruce had saw you giving him the signal, weakly but you still gave it to him. it was your only chance for your pre-planned mission to actually succeed and the start of that plan was to make you die in front of everyone. Bruce had swung down from the stairs, seeing the way your eyes closed. 

“she needs to go to the hospital,” he told Tim, making him rush you to the hospital himself. he knew this was the only time he would be able to say his goodbyes to you and he need to make it count, “go now!” he yelled. 

Tim dragged your almost lifeless body to the nearest hospital, screaming at the staff that you needed help immediately. the nurses grabbed your body, hauling it to the OR as Tim sat there, blood all over his uniform as he watched you get wheeled into the hallway. 

it felt like hours by the time they gave an update to all of them. Bruce, Tim, Dick, Jason, Steph, Barbara, and Damian, were sitting in the waiting area, munching on food nervously as the nurse came out of the hallway, eyes bleary with tears. 

“she didn’t make it out of surgery. she passed.” 

all of them (for the exception of Bruce), immediately bursted into tears. Tim more than anyone had fell to the ground, having no control of his body as he screamed that it couldn’t be true and that you weren’t actually gone. a part of Bruce’s heart broke seeing his son having a mental breakdown but he knew for their safety and yours, he couldn’t say a word. 

the following days were left to plan your funeral as the nurses who relied your wishes stated that you wanted a closed casket for no one, not even Tim, to see your dead body. Tim hadn’t spoken a word to anyone as he only spoke up when it came for him to plan your arrangements. 

they buried your casket with your uniform laying on top of it as they all saw your casket get lower and lower to the ground. Tim was by this point sobbing as he couldn’t have cared who saw and who didn’t. 

+

Dick grabbed Damian, moving themselves to another part of the room as you walked slowly to Tim. he had yet to say anything but as soon as you locked eyes with him, you both let out sobs to each other. Tim grabbed you by the arms, bringing you into a hug as he sobbed into your shoulders. 

“what the fuck is going on?” he yelled, not knowing what to say, “I’m alive Timmy. I didn’t die that night,” you practically sobbed back to him. he released you, now anger and sadness crossing over him, “what the fuck do you mean you didn’t die?” he screamed, scaring Dick and Damian in the process. 

you sat on the ground, trying to compose yourself, “I went on an undercover mission for league. I had to die in order to protect not only myself but all of you and the entire league. which explains why I look different,” you murmured the last part. 

“I thought you were dead. for years, I thought you were dead! and I hate that I still love you and never moved on!” he exclaimed, seeing the way you stared at him heartbrokenly, “you think I wanted this to happen? it was for the betterment of the league if I took on this mission. I never wanted to leave you or Steph, hell I didn’t want to leave any of you but I had too! it broke my heart knowing what I had to do!” you yelled back. 

Tim bent down, taking you into his arms, “what the hell are we going to do?” he whispered in your ear, not knowing how to respond to any of this rationally. you shrugged as the two of you tried to calm yourselves down from the hysterics you both were throwing, “I just need you here with me,” you whispered back. 

Tim nodded, not releasing you from the hug you were giving him. “I won’t. I won’t let you go! not anymore!” he replied. you laughed through your tears as you heard someone else walk into the room. 

“what the fuck.....” you heard Steph and Jason’s voice scream through the Batcave, “what the FUCK is going on?” they screamed in panic. 

hehehe a cliffhanger 

[reginarubie]

I like your brutally honest thoughts on ship. Reading your thoughts I wanted to say something. You can disagree with this. I felt show Sansaery wrong in other ways. Sansa(14) and Sophie(16 I guess) were minor in s3. Marg might be 18-20 while Natalie was in her early 20s something. It was clear that Marg was manipulating Sansa more in lines with Olenna but she also was fond of her. Her line about Sansa could enjoy Tyrion in bed feels wrong to me even she said in good intention. Sansa was seen naive in the whole situation. Basically reminding me of how Cersei told her periods, babies and bedding. Then later Marg was shown to seducing Tommen with sex was icky to me. Many started shipping Sansaery because of the show. I feel it will have some grooming aspects considering Sansa age if they go along with it. Sorry for this long rant. I hope I don't sound rude. It's just I wanted to share opinion.

Ciao anon!,

First of all thank you! I am happy you like my brutally honest opinions!

post being referenced to, this one. In which I explained why I think Sansaery works only outside of canon, and not inside of it. It's true that most have started to ship them because of the show, tho, as I've said Sansa's book quote of “Margaery's kindness had been unfailing and her presence had changed everything” it's pretty potent one, but it also showers light over the fact that it's all a manipulation on Margaery's part for however fond of Sansa she may have grown, because Sansa had been treated like a social pariah after Ned's execution, and she is finally able to spend time outside of the Red Keep thanks to Margaery as well as being welcomed in a circle of girls around her age...

...even though even that is soured by her “they have no interest to know me” vibe, which is right, as it is all part of Margaery plan to give Sansa what she had lacked since she had been alone, an hostage in KL after Ned's execution.

Margaery's manipulation is a gentle one, but a manipulation it still is, no matter if the Tyrells actually grew fond of the Sansa, especially since Olenna had no problems framing Sansa for Joffrey's murder, no matter the consequences that could've taken place if LF had not been obsessed with her and Cat.

And even then, Olenna is a smart woman, I have no doubt she might have had a inkling of LF less than savory intentions toward her and what more she would not have relinquished the hold of the key to the North so easily. Possibly she had planned to use the Tyrell's influence to get Sansa to walk out of the trial innocent, at that point with Tyrion taken out of the equation the key to the North would be again free for the taking, and the Tyrells would have been looked at favorably as they had helped the girl and that would've meant gaining Sansa's gratitude and loyalty.

They treated Sansa as a coveted piece of their board game, they wanted her but had no remorse in using her as they saw fit. They may have grown fond of her, but were always ready to sacrifice her if it came to that.

Kindness can be a weapon as much as any other, especially when wielded for one's purposes, which is what the Tyrells (Margaery included) did. Never forget they had been aiming for the Iron throne long before Ned even stepped in KL, to the point Renly showed him a painting of Margaery asking him if she bore any resemblance to Lyanna Stark, in hope they might manage to uncover Cersei's lies and put Margaery on the throne representing a willing Lyanna Stark in Robert's mind.

The fact that they use kindness on the people they mean to use, sours all the more any genuine fondness that may have grown. Also, I don't doubt they would have treated Sansa well if she ever became a Tyrell and she might even fall in love with Willas and she would be the wife of the Lord of the Reach, so it was scarcely in those times a bad match especially in that context, still if we're talking of shipping there are too many shady points imo.

Also, I had not considered it that way, but yes...grooming in a way could also be applied as a definition to what Margaery did to Tommen in the show and to what she could've done to Sansa. In the books it's more nuanced, but still Cersei worries that Margaery is doing exactly that...Tommen is even younger in the books and Cersei realizes that Margaery manipulates him way better than she could have Joffrey, because he is more pliant and less dangerous.

So yeah, icky.

Don't worry! I enjoyed reading your opinion and never worry about expressing your opinion. I want my tumblr to be a safe heaven for anyone (whatever they ship and whatever their fav character) as long as we are polite and you certainly were. Nothing rude about your opinion, don't worry!

Anzi, thank you for sharing, nonny!, I had not considered that angle but it fits.

I hope you have an amazing day!

[fndmxreader]

fandom: harry potter. pairing:  remus lupin x reader | the reader simps for lupin because isn’t that all what we do daily ?  summary:   connected to the self indulgent series where the reader is a slytherin muggle born witch working alongside the teachers at hogwarts.   note: this series will bounce around a lot involving timelines, but a lot of them don’t really have a coherent story line anyway.  movie setting:  prisoner of askaban.  pov:   she/her pronouns.

you were looking off into the distance in a daze, end of pen in mouth as your writings came to a halt and instead getting caught up in thoughts.  your summer hadn’t been great,  if you were being completely honest :  your muggle friends were getting on your case regarding being missing for a year,  you knew at some point you had to pick : the wizarding world or the muggle one,   living two lives was absolutely exhausting,  living them meant being two types of people - like one example,  you had accidentally used a levitating spell to put a cup back and last minute your friend walked in, smashing on the floor as your hand flinched down to your side.

“ what was that crash ? “  “ i put the mug too close to the counter, “ you had laughed nervously, quickly walking towards the glass to pick it up “ it fell off as a result ”  “you’re clumsiness is going to be the death of you “    

that was only one of the close calls,  there were far too many to keep track of,  including dropping hints to the wizarding world in conversation, only to stutter and try and say you were referencing a bizarre indie movie from overseas. at this point you were trying to pick would it be even possible to choose a side ?  it seemed impossible just to pick one over the other,  especially knowing that no matter what route you take it would result in an empty, hollow feeling left inside of chest.    you’re not sure who you could go to for guidance,  you weren’t familiar with any muggle borns your own age,  and talking to a pureblood or half blood would go in vein,  the latter would understand to some degree,  but ultimately it’s not the same and with it being so complicated,  listening to people who barely got it would be a waste of time and only twist the knife in gut. 

 “ everyone,  i would like to introduce you to remus jo - “     that was all you really heard dumbledore say before ears blocked out the world like static,  everything beyond the screaming in your head made everything else seem like a distant hum with no tune,  a crackle of a tv that can’t quite catch signal.  your pen tapped against your bottom lip,  perching against it as you eyebrows knitted together in deep thought.   

maybe professor dumbledore could help,  he wouldn’t get it but maybe he could shred some light on the situation ? he was always good at that. 

“ miss l/n - “

perhaps it’s all just being blown out of proportion,  work leave would surely be something the muggles would understand that.  even if they are after photos, work gossip and other details - 

“ y/n “  between the firmness and the sudden block of your view as the men stepped into eyesight causes you to flinch,  reeling away from nothing in panic as you try and grasped your surroundings once more,   blinking up in a rapid succession that causes concern to flash on the two men’s faces.  it takes a moment to register where you were,  the surroundings,  what the hell was going on in general... 

“ huh ? “  your tongue pokes out to roll against your bottom lip,  eyes wide as you stared up at dumbledore,  only for sight to break away from the one your most familiar with to the new guy...    you won’t lie to yourself,  you weren’t ready for seeing someone like him,  especially in your state.  his eyes were beaming with life,  amusement dancing behind dark hues as a faint smile tugged at lips,  hands pushed far into pockets as eye contact seemed to lock,  your lips part to say something,  anything but much like before your brain seemed to short circuit,  this time for an entirely and much more embarrassing reason,  “ huh ? “ you repeated again,  cheeks coming to life with colour as you kept looking at the new guy.

“ this is professor lupin, y/n.   the new defence against the dark arts teacher - “  speaking slower now,  and you’re rather grateful for the approach because you really needed things to stop going by so quickly,  the whole world seemed to flash in front of you at lightening speed.

“ oh “ a pause,  then it really began to register “ OH ! “  it was the most beautiful example of a pin drop ever to grace hogwarts’ walls  (  yes,  dumbledore will be thinking about it years to come  )   -  you jump up rather clumsily and hold your hand out to the man  “ hi,  sorry  -  i was just ... never mind,  hi  ! “ you repeated again,  the embarrassment settling deep within bones,  making itself at home in the creases of mind that would take weeks to weave out.  but regardless of the mocking in head, you do your best to not feed it and give it anymore attention... at least for the time being.   lupins much bigger hand wraps around yours,  a firm but gentle grasp as he finally takes the moment to speak himself. 

“ that’s quite alright,  i can tell that we disturbed you.  in fact i believe we should be the ones apologising, however professor dumbledore here insisted on the introduction - “ it came easily,  between tone of his voice and the warmth of his hand, you’ve never felt safer, it was like being in a warm hug beside the fire on the night of winter;   you mentally slap yourself for acting like a teenager towards a complete stranger.   your eyes however, narrow towards dumbledore,  in a way blaming you own pathetic display on him.  a faint smile on his lips as he made up some excuse to leave the pair of you alone,  not at all hiding the way his eyes twinkled with amusement at the scene that played out. 

your hand flexed around remus’,  far too busy sending daggers at dumbledore walking away than the fact you were still holding the older man hostage,  not helping the murmured   “ ugh,  he can be such an arse sometimes - “ 

“ i believe that’s apart of the charm “ remus chimed,  your eyes moving back to his as you smiled up at him once more,  less tense than what your face was previously  “ um,   miss l/n ?  your hand - “ 

“ oh, fuck, sorry - “   instantly your arms folded across your chest,  the blush only darkening your cheeks “ i promise i’m not this socially inept,  well,  at least to this extent - “ 

“ oh,  don’t fret.  i’ve met much worse people,  i myself tend to panic in social situations.  they’re not my forte “   you shoulders relax,  though you can’t help but note that he seemed surprisingly at ease even with the confession. your eyes dance around the staff room,  much to your own relief they seemed to be back to focusing on their own work. 

“ well,  you’re doing much better than me if that’s any help.  so,  you’re teaching dark arts -  ? “ then the conversation seemed to spark to life without much spluttering after that,  eventually both sitting on the couch and bonding over lessons;  including how you got your position in the first place,   your arm rested on the back of the furniture as your body turned fully to him,  the longer the pair of you were sat there,  the more they progressed beyond work and more into personal ones, about experiences outside of hogwarts and within the walls, not helping the fits of giggles that bubbled in your chest. 

“ being a slytherin comes with the natural title of ‘dark pranks,’  most of us tend to live up to the name.  people demonise us,  so we give them a reason to continue it.  that certainly doesn’t end at our humour, i think it shows more than ever in that aspect - “ you giggled again, head shaking  “ i remember my friends putting a real snake in one of the gryffindors bed covered in animals blood, the girl panicked for weeks  -  but they started it  ! “   

“ i must say being a gryffindor myself,  i feel like i should be offended on behalf of them.  then again,  my friends here were trouble makers as well.  their pranks could... “  wrist rolled in the air,  and while there’s a hint of pain twisting in features and a haunted look that seemed to cover bright eyes,  there was still a fondness in how he spoke  “ extremely, well and truly out of hand ? “

“ ahah  ! “  it’s like a triumph,  finger pointing at the others face   “ you can hide behind the fancy wording all you want, professor.  but you gryffindors can be just as over the top as the rest of us,  if not more so ! “  he knocks your hand away from his face playfully,  grin widening as mock offence does its best to take over features.

“ firstly,  you may call me remus,  second of all,  i will agree with nothing you say,  i would never stoop so low. “ 

your heart skipped a beat at the notion. 

“ you may call me y/n, only when you admit i’m right - “ 

a nice joke to push down the giddiness of calling him by his first name the short hours of knowing him. 

“ how very slytherin of you - “ 

“ how very gryffindor of you to point that out, remus “ 

the back and forth banter eventually came to a halt, as minutes ticked by it was time to go to the great hall for food and to sort out the new years. you and remus walked in a comfortable silence,  a lightness surrounding you both as it showed in your steps, and showed in the way his lips remained locked in a subtle smile.  you were left with one feeling...  finally, dumbledore hired someone worthwhile. you would also give him a hard time for that awkward bow that he did at dinner. 

[wombathos]

I really like your take on jgy, and letting himself go in his performance during his "villainous" scene. You mentioned that in Guanyin temple he is purposefully distancing himself from lxc, which is an interpretation I haven't seen before. If anything, jgy seems to be betting on lan xichen to save himself. He prevents him from going to the burial mounds and brings him with him, he appeals to his forgiveness... Where do you think he is distancing himself?

the ask is referencing this post, in which I said “he goes above and beyond in his efforts to pick apart everyone’s relationship even as he’s purposefully distancing himself from lan xichen” in a post about how jin guangyao is playing the villain in guanyin temple. so I wasn’t really precise in that post about a few things which I’m going to dig in now, basic summary below and then more extended discussion under the cut because this got… uh. long, I actually have a lot to say about this sorry

the overarching point here is that his performance and behaviour in guanyin temple isn’t a one-note affair and changes pretty drastically in terms of who is currently in control of the situation (as you’d expect, really) - and this affects both a) how much he’s drinking the villain juice and b) his behaviour towards lan xichen specifically. jgy - as ever - has several competing motivations, goals and fears throughout the whole ordeal of guanyin temple, which affects how he acts as well as what persona he decides to present to other characters. so with lxc as you rightly point out, he absolutely does have scenes where he’s entreating towards him, in part because he’s relying on lxc to help him, but there’s also other scenes where he’s… almost encouraging lxc to think the worst of him, or just acting quite coldly towards him. to get at what’s going on, I think it’s useful to make clear a few distinctions:

so first off I think for this it makes sense to not treat guanyin temple as one uninterrupted stretch - rather you have the run up to guanyin temple (from where wwx/lwj leave to burial mounds and jgy getting ‘injured’ to them going to guanyin temple - here how he treated lxc is really anyone’s guess), followed by,

jgy is in control, the other characters gradually show up and add to his hostage count and he has an unpleasant run in with a mistaken identity tomb but like, generally he’s in charge and thinks he’ll be able to execute his plan (this is a really long one)

lxc gets his spiritual powers back and holds jgy at sword point, the balance of power completely shifts. this is when jgy does most of his confessing, from incest to patricide to miscellaneous crimes and misdemeanours, the whole shebang

jgy takes jin ling hostage, lxc takes su she hostage. this is when jgy thinks he may be able to get away again

jgy’s arm gets chopped off and then it’s a chaotic free for all with wen ning joining in on the fun

everything has calmed down, lxc tends to jgy before stabbing him and watching him die

- followed by guanyin temple aftermath. especially for those first two, I’d say there’s a pretty clear change in behaviour on jgy’s part (afterwards it gets a bit murkier since the phases are also like… shorter), which makes sense because… well, personally I would certainly behave differently if I’m in control with multiple hostages as compared to when someone is pointing a sword at me. and I also think it makes sense to distinguish between the sets of concerns jgy is balancing throughout the guanyin fiasco, which I’m going to broadly delineate as a) practical (anything that has to do with him achieving his material goals) or b) emotional (not as in goals with an emotive component, but specifically his concerns for the emotional wellbeing of himself and others, by which I mean mainly lxc and possibly jin ling a little bit??)

one of the things you mention is jgy keeping lxc from burial mounds and I want to make clear when I spoke of him “distancing himself” from lxc, I didn’t mean he no longer cares about lxc. rather, he’s preparing himself for the end, for the increasing likelihood that lxc’s opinion of him is about to change drastically, fast. the practical concern here is keeping lxc alive, which he does very effectively by keeping him away from burial mounds and then making certain no harm comes to him as a hostage, the emotional one is… well, steeling himself for their likely separation? fearing more rejection from lxc once he hears everything jgy has done? hoping it will be easier if he can just keep playing his role and not wanting to be vulnerable in front of lxc? whatever the case - the argument that he’s ‘distancing himself’ from lxc, as well as the idea of him playing up being the villain, comes with a heavy asterisk:

this is only really true for when he’s in control in guanyin temple. in a nutshell, when the practical aims of ‘staying alive’ and ‘making sure lxc is all right’ and ‘getting the hell out of there’ look like they’re going to be achieved, are in fact still likely and he has concrete control over working towards them, he has a lot more space to act out in accordance to his emotional concerns, whether it’s preparing himself for his imminent separation from lxc or telling jiang cheng what a terrible brother he’s been for, idk, I guess the drama of it all? so in phase (1) of guanyin temple, it’s villainous monologues and barely looking at or talking to lxc, but in phase (2) his position is suddenly way more precarious. emotional distancing is fine and all up until the moment when you’re directly relying on this person to survive and like… at this point he can’t exactly afford for lxc to hate him? topic for another post, this, but in the post you reference I did also mention him enjoying picking apart his hostages’ relationships, which for obvious self-preservation reasons he does a lot less of in (2)

the danger of this interpretation is that it kind of makes it sound like I think that he’s putting on an act in (2) when he’s appealing to lxc and dropping the facade whenever he’s actually in charge, which is a fairly natural interpretation? and I think he’s dropping a facade in those scenes, even if he’s still playing up certain parts of himself and presenting another persona that might be… more honest than some but still not necessarily truthful? okay this is like. messy, but what I’m saying is it’s personas all the way down - and personally I reckon the one he shows to lxc when he’s begging for his life is actually one of the more honest ones. it fits in with a long-running theme of jgy and lxc’s dynamic that jgy shows lxc genuine emotions and vulnerabilities that are absolutely there, but still chooses which ones to show in a way that ends up being… cumulatively dishonest, or at least somewhat manipulative, I guess. at this point he knows that he can’t afford to distance himself from lxc and he confesses to all that because he’s quite right in thinking that this is what’s most likely to convince lxc to spare him, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less true. whereas when he’s in control, he has the choice to reveal certain parts of himself that he usually wouldn’t, but also has the power to hide ones he doesn’t want to show to lxc - because he knows he’s going to lose him

so that’s my general thesis: jgy was playing the villain and emotionally distancing himself from lxc when he could afford to do so from a practical standpoint but does so considerably less when he’s put in a situation where he’s reliant on other characters’ goodwill to keep him alive. he continues caring about lxc throughout and does so right up to his death but would like to prepare both himself and possibly lxc too from the coming separation by creating emotional distance between the two of them. also as with everything jgy does, fear is a huge driver: everything in his life has led him to expect lxc’s rejection once he knows all he has done and because lxc has played such a special role in his life that rejection is a truly terrifying thing. showing your vulnerabilities to anyone is scary even when you aren’t in the sort of situation jgy is in. so anything to avoid confronting it directly, anything to mitigate the pain, would be I imagine very much welcome

but the ask also is about actual examples of when jgy purposefully distances himself from lxc so… see under the cut for that

I’ll just focus on (1) here and do a close-read of their interactions because that’s where I think most of that emotional distancing (and also most of the more outright ‘fun’ villain energy rather than, like, sad villainous confessions), briefly touching on the shift afterwards to provide a contrast. also, let’s start with the run-up to guanyin temple because I think it’s fairly important to offer my best guesses as to what his mindset towards lxc is like going in. jgy taking lxc with him can be read in terms of both the practical ‘well he makes a real good hostage’ plus convenience of ‘he’s not at burial mounds anyway might as well’ as well as the emotional ‘this may be the last time I ever see him’. and yeah it’s probably mostly the former but let’s not forget that the only reason jgy does a pitstop at guanyin temple is to pick up his mum’s corpse, so it isn’t unreasonable to suggest he’s not only acting in terms of sheer rational self-interest in making these decisions

we don’t really know what happens here and how jgy acts towards him - he certainly tricks him and most likely fakes an injury of some sort to catch lxc off guard (which in the book wwx compares to an earlier book-moment where jgy faked suicide to get away from nmj and thinks he might have done something similar again) and manages to a) keep him away from burial mounds and b) either in the same act or later on takes lxc as a hostage (not sure which one it is? like surely it wouldn’t make sense to take lxc hostage if you still think burial mounds might succeed?) - and then they show up at guanyin temple with lxc’s spiritual powers sealed. as lxc says:

I’m ashamed. I got tricked by someone. I fell into a trap and lost all my spiritual energy.

now I don’t want to over-read into this or anything (yes we may be past that) but it did strike me how jgy doesn’t look at lxc when he speaks and doesn’t respond, but does turn to wwx and respond to him after wwx speaks and gives us a solid villainous smile:

I would argue that he finds it a lot easier to engage with wwx, banter a bit, than deal with the horrible messiness that is his relationship with lxc at this point. also… jgy doesn’t refute lxc’s point in any way. even when wwx gives jgy the chance to engage with him instead, he disregards wwx’s words about jgy’s penchant for lying and instead talks to wwx about underestimating him

if he were trying to endear himself to lxc at this point, surely you’d expect him to engage with lxc saying jgy fooled him? he doesn’t try to explain himself, instead he smirks at wwx (incidentally this is why I think jgy spends so much time poking at wwx and jc’s relationship - it’s not that he’s been a secret yunmeng siblings stan all these years but that this is way less personally painful territory for him than engaging with the others in the temple who he’s more personally close with (apart from lwj obviously and wangxian is something jgy did get in a bit of commentary on in the book, but let’s be real lwj is simply not as rewarding a target as jiang cheng is)).

this is pretty much conjecture and analysis based on vibes, but to me lxc and jgy’s behaviour doesn’t suggest they spoke a lot on the journey, or if they did their conversations were painful and most likely short. the only real evidence I have for this is that jgy at the very least didn’t confess to anything he had done, which is why lxc has to interrogate him about it later. also, jgy feels the need to tell lxc that he’s not going to try to remain chief cultivator later on - past deeds and future intentions would be the most natural conversation topics I would think? personally, looking at their coming interactions, I’d suspect that their few exchanges were along the lines of jgy telling lxc not to worry and that he wasn’t going to do anything to him and then… both of them opting out of anything more substantial

the first time he does directly engage with lxc is one that really fascinates me, aka the moment when jin ling arrives. they have this exchange:

Lan Xichen: “Clan Leader Jin, a-Ling is just a child.”

Jin Guangyao: “I know.”

Lan Xichen: “And he’s your nephew.”

Jin Guangyao: “Er-Ge, what are you thinking? Of course, I know he’s a child and my nephew. What did you think I would do to him? Kill him to silence him? A-Ling, did you hear that? If you recklessly run away or make any noises, I might do something scary to you. So you better watch your actions.”

now if I start talking about this scene we’ll be here all night, but for now I’d just like to note that I don’t think jgy is trying to make himself look sympathetic in front of lxc? he’s actually playing into lxc’s worst fears - in reaction to lxc expressing them, sure, and to my eyes covering up a lot of pain over lxc’s suspicion, but still going along with it and letting lxc believe the worst of him (and jin ling… topic for another post). look, he does the smirk:

then there’s this moment where jgy actually addresses lxc without prompting (but, hey, look it’s ‘Zewu-Jun’):

“Zewu-Jun, it’s going to rain. Go inside to take cover.”

this moment was somewhere between funny and bizarre to me, seeing as jgy is very much taking the time to tell his favourite hostage to not get wet. now the book translation I’ve read translates it as follows,

“Zewu-Jun, it’s raining. Let’s take shelter in the temple.”

- which regrettably makes a lot more sense. anyway, still doesn’t really look at lxc (as far as I can tell) -

- and then says “don’t worry” but adds a villainous smirk or two for good measure -

so let’s take that together with another interaction -

“But don’t worry, Er-ge, you know how I’ve always been towards Huaisang. When the time comes, I’ll definitely let you two leave without any harm.”

this is like… the warmest interaction in (1) we get? and again he’s telling him to ‘not worry’, which… another theme throughout is that I do think that for all that jgy avoids actually looking at lxc, he is acutely aware of the latter’s emotional state and is trying to manage it. not necessarily by making him feel good… and part of managing lxc’s emotional state is this increased distance, preparing for the separation of “when the time comes”, but it is also trying to assuage lxc’s fears. of course then that’s followed by this, which is a gut punch all round (including for jgy):

and jgy does this… cross between a smile and a grimace, this slightly resigned expression (he does also look a bit like he’s about to cry)

followed by this:

so yeah it’s… I really like this moment, because jgy is telling him essentially the truth but does so in a cruel way (and it’s obvious it lands with lxc). I can’t really read this moment as anything else than jgy distancing himself from lxc; yes he was somewhat prompted here by lxc, but he isn’t appealing to lxc to regain his trust - he explicitly says that it’s lxc’s choice but also that it doesn’t make any difference (or that lxc can’t do anything about it. whether it matters to jgy is another question). and then he turns to lxc and gives him this look -

and it’s… yeah, personally I read the entire thing as resigned, as well as a little cruel. it’s jgy knowing (or thinking he knows) exactly what lxc thinks of him and playing into that, of barely interacting directly with lxc but when he does enforcing lxc’s worst fears - the whole ‘playing the villain’ thing is nowhere near as blatant as it is with say wwx and jc, but it’s still there, in the interaction with jin ling and this one, in the coldness of it, in how jgy refuses to ask for lxc’s understanding because he isn’t about to admit either wanting or needing it

speaking of jc, when we get to his arrival and jgy starts picking on him, lxc tells him to not listen to jgy -

what can you say but yikes, really (though I do think there’s an interesting running thread of like… lxc looking at jgy and sometimes jgy looking at lxc but not at the same time? it’s like they’re both shying away from facing each other head on). to which jgy responds -

again, it just stands out to me how jgy isn’t refuting anything lxc just said. the words sound kind, but the implication isn’t, right? because the idea was always that lxc knew who jgy really was, unlike what the rest of the world sees him as (like lxc has himself said), and now jgy is identifying himself with the worst parts of what lxc sees - this is the meaning he’s choosing to attach to himself by going “you really understand me”. jgy is as good as telling lxc what understanding him entails, and it’s nothing about the deep bond they share but is instead something as painful as this. it’s less angling for reconciliation and more twisting the knife

back to jgy taunting jc, jgy says “It’s so difficult being your senior brother.” then we get this interaction -

the first part jiang cheng says and we only really get lxc’s heartbroken reaction, because jgy immediately brings the topic back to the yunmeng sibling angst, which he is like… playing for full drama. I actually think this is a nice example where playing the ‘villain’ goes hand in hand with the whole distancing from lxc, because he might be enjoying himself but it’s also very much used as a way to distract from all his own tricky emotional issues? can’t be talking about lxc and jgy’s shattered relationship if they’re instead talking about golden core transferrals, right??

so then there’s the whole jgy injures his hand thing.

I don’t have a whole lot to say to that because jgy’s dealing with other issues and he’s interacting more with su she, though… ouch at that little moment where lxc reaches out, as if by instinct

and when they come across a surprise corpse, it’s again that thing of… lxc looking at jgy, jgy not looking at lxc (he is distracted)

this isn’t really relevant to this post but since I’m already there, just after that you get a similar shot with jin ling:

(actually reminds me of nmj and jgy’s last conversation too) it’s a whole thing

and like… I’d argue it’s one form of creating distance, right? not even looking at him? trying to escape from any of these more emotionally intimate moments? and when it comes to the fratricide charge, again when he actually faces lxc, he’s not trying to garner sympathy. like the jin ling-related “what are you thinking?” or “you can’t do anything about it. right?” moments, it’s jgy shutting down conversations rather than starting them, resisting any chances to explain himself, (”is it necessary to ask” not “I didn’t do it” or even “please understand”)

and then wwx says something and jgy veritably jumps on the opportunity (and shoves poor su she aside in the process) to go over to wwx and monologue him for a bit instead -

this pretty much covers all(?) of their interactions in (1) which… it’s a fair few but it’s not actually all that many? I’m fairly certain jgy talks directly to both wwx and jc more than he does to lxc. their interactions become a lot more frequent from this point onwards - if nothing else, jgy becomes a more willing participant in them when it is in his (practical) interest to do so. but, to summarise, when jgy is actually in control he distances himself from lxc by:

a) avoiding interactions where he possibly can, including by avoiding eye contact and jumping on any chances provided by not-lxc to change the subject

b) not explaining himself to lxc and resisting openings to do so

c) playing into lxc’s worst perceptions of him, including playing the villain in lxc’s direction through coldness or smiles or cutting remarks

I do want to briefly go over the moment where lxc points his sword at jgy because it does illustrate the shift quite nicely. they start out pretty much the same way, jgy mostly talking to wwx and looking away from lxc -

- but that does change -

- and then eventually we get to the actual pleading. but the switch is slow and… it feels like there’s a lot of hesitation on jgy’s part. to me it doesn’t feel like something he wants to do, like he’s still calculating in those initial moments but gradually comes to the realisation that this approach is no longer going to cut it, that he’s going to have to appeal directly to lxc to save him. but then, eventually, he falls to his knees - and it’s quite a gradual motion, he really takes his time with it. are all those shots with lxc’s hand on the hilt of his sword that moves away when jgy falls to his knees implying that he was thinking about killing him?

so. yeah. I could go into more detail about how jgy does directly appeal to lxc in the following phases or what he is going on with him in the lead-up to his death, but that’s a topic for another post. for now, I think I can’t really read his phase (1) interactions in any other way than jgy preparing himself for the fact that this is the end - this is goodbye. jgy is scared of a rejection that is already unfolding; he is trying to shield himself from the pain and goes through a range of defence mechanisms to achieve that. it’s not an unreasonable fear, exactly, because it’s not like lxc reacts positively exactly to the revelations. and if jgy could have had his way, they never would have had this conversation to begin with, for better or for worse. maybe he thinks he’s doing a kindness to lxc, maybe he just doesn’t want to hurt him any more. either way, when he’s enough in control of the situation to allow it, he does his best to not engage with lxc at all. when he does, he does his best to distance himself from lxc - all the while merrily playing the villain with other characters he has less conflicted feelings about. it doesn’t work in the end and jgy ends up having to make himself vulnerable in front of lxc, but it’s a valiant attempt if nothing else

[bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture]

Okay, so the brain’s a bit caught up in one of my other writing projects, but I refuse to abandon this entirely. So I’m gonna just power through this and then get back to Vibing™. 

Actually, it’s kinda cute that the hero Thirteen is introduced in chapter thirteen. I wonder if Hori did that on purpose or just managed it as a fun coincidence. 

[No. 13 - Rescue Training]

So we start off on Wednesday morning (which would be April 12th/11th) at 7:35 AM. There’s a hostage situation by a villain who looks like a goddamned pokemon (my brain has made the ‘buff ditto’ comparison and now I am Shook) who is, according to Mt. Lady, a serial robber and murderer by the name of Habit Headgear. Kamui Woods, whose wood bindings have apparently been broken trying and failing to contain the guy, is tossed back on the ground as he notes the villain is strong and a quick strategist.

Seems like she and Kamui Woods have teamed up together! Or at least responded to the same villain attack again. Also, who’s this dude?

Random Mii Blaster escaped from Smash Ultimate and is now in BNHA, when will the madness end. 

Naturally, the hostages are not handling this situation super well, though the crowds watching don’t seem as worried? IDK hard to tell from far away. The buff ditto villain uses double team, no wait I mean agility, actually his high speed to show how outclasses the heroes on the scene are. 

As he announces his plans to escape, we see All Might rushing in loud enough for the stomps to be heard. He announces his arrival mere moments before he fucking snaps the villain’s neck with a handchop - or, well, not really, but damn that had to be a hard hit. All Might also managed to grab the family out of harm’s way in the process, announcing that he’s on his morning commute. 

The crowds cheer for All Might, while Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods are somewhat put out - they appreciate the help, but also worry All Might will put them out of business.

(I guess this is where all those fics that do bring up how All Might cuts down the hero job market on his own pull from? Or just coincidence, who knows.)

The police thank All Might with salutes for the help, and All Might give his own quick responding salute before he declares he needs to head off so he won’t be late. Of course, that’s when he hears about a hit-and-run (that super hearing lol) and takes off, just so coincidentally in the direction of said trouble. Despite that fact that he needs to get to work. This man.

While he’s in the air, he considers how his speed has dropped, and that he’s been weakening since he passed on his power. Not to mention that after his rescue of Izuku and Katsuki from the sludge villain, his maximum time went down. Which is not at all referencing him about to overdo it again and lose more time, no siree.

We descend into a flashback to right where we left off after the battle trial, with All Might confronting Izuku about telling Katsuki about (some of) One For All. All Might is surprised and a bit nervous? Worried? Or that bead of sweat in the flashback might be from the strain of holding the form when he’s about to run out of time. 

In any case, Izuku in the past apologizes and says he hasn’t even told his mom, but that he had to tell Katsuki something… All Might determines this might be a consequence of not being explicit enough about keeping the secret, since Izuku isn’t the type to brag or boast. Also calls Izuku too sincere, hah, isn’t that the truth. All Might says it’s lucky Katsuki thought he was joking, so All Might can forgive the slip this time, but that Izuku cannot tell another soul. 

(Stares at this.) (Looks at recent manga events.) Whelp.

Anyways, All Might catches the car of the hit and run guy (and man, that face the dude is making) while thinking about how, suitable successor or not, Izuku’s still just fifteen, so All Might had to make things clear. Of course, then All Might overhears about a hostage crisis the next town over, and, well.

We transition to right after lunch (12:50) with Aizawa announcing that that day’s hero training plans - something supervised by himself, All Might, and one other teacher. Izuku realizes it has to be a special class, while Sero raises his hand to ask what they’re doing. Aziawa’s reply?

I swear this is exactly the same shit All Might did before the battle trial, gimme a second-

Bahahahaha incredible. Though then again, I wonder if those are security cards keys to certain locations. It would make sense, though then I wonder how Katsuki and Izuku were able to get into Training Ground Beta without one… hrm…

Anyways! Kaminari, Ashido, and Kirishima end up talking about it; Kaminari says it’ll be a rough day, with Ashido pumped as she agrees, and Kirishima also pumped as he says that it’s what being a hero is all about. Asui notes that she’ll be right as home in a flood. Aizawa silences them with a glare, saying he’s not done. He presses the button to unveil the costume lockers, telling the class that it’s their choice whether or not to wear their costumes, since some of them are ill-suited for this kind of activity.

Oh boy, will this put you on the path to the hero you’ll be come… but not for the reasons you think, buddy. The joke here is trauma.

It seems like most of the class does still choose to go in costume, barring Izuku - whose costume is still being repaired after the damage done to it in battle training. However, he still has his belt, gloves, knee pads, and mouth guard (with the mouth guard being new) on him. 

Golly, I wonder why your costume needed to be replaced, Izuku.

(thonk.)

Also Tenya jkfdkjdgfkj Oh My God You Dramatic Egg. He’s got a whistle and he’s directing the class to line up by ID number so they can fill the seats in an orderly fashion. 

I’m love this boy so much. And it’s even funnier because the bus has an open layout, meaning it was pointless. Poor Tenya is in Despair, with Ashido teasing him for his efforts being wasted. 

Savage. But yeah, looks like it’s Sato, Izuku, Asui, Kirishima, Tenya, Ashido, Aoyama, and Kaminari in the front seats. And Asui - sorry, Tsuyu - just outright says she says what’s on her mind, which startles Izuku since he didn’t expect her to talk to him I guess? She tells Izuku to call her Tsuyu, then turns to him and just says his quirk resembles All Might’s. 

Izuku, being the sincere boy he is, stutters and stumbles out something that almost looks like a denial, before Kirishima, bless his himbo soul, points out that All Might doesn’t get hurt by his own quirk, so they’re already different in that way. He then goes on to state that that kind of simple, strength enhancing quirk is awesome and that a lot of cool stuff can be done with it. 

Kirishima then goes on to show off his hardening, saying that it’s good for a fight, but otherwise boring. Midoriya ‘holy fuck I love quirks’ Izuku thinks otherwise, actually sparkling as he proclaims the quirk to be neat and more than enough for going pro. Kaminari notes that heroes also have to worry about popular appeal. Aoyama says his navel laser quirk is both strong and cool, and thus perfect for heroics. Ashido then kneecaps him by adding in that that’s as long as he doesn’t blow up his own stomach.

Ashido’s Savagery: The Sequel.

In the next panel, we see Katsuki’s been paying attention to this convo, which has me wondering if this is when he was first starting to piece together OFA from Izuku’s mention of ‘getting the quirk from someone else’ and ‘like All Might’s’. However, when he is brought up in the conversation (alongside Shouto) as examples of ‘strong and cool quirks’, he feigns disinterest and looks away, trying to play cool.

(Also, he doesn’t seem to have his gauntlets on him here, though I know he’s brought one with him as seen a bit later. I wonder whether he chose to leave one of them behind or if he might have been restricted from bringing more than one by Aizawa… interesting either way.)

Tsuyu then brings up how Katsuki being so unhinged means he’ll never be popular. Katsuki, naturally, takes offence and slams his hands on the rail in front of him, demanding to know what she just said. Tsuyu sticks out her tongue as she points at him making her point. Poor Jirou, having to be seated next to someone so loud.

And the moment literally the whole discord was waiting for, Kaminari’s brutal vocabulary takedown of Katsuki, something cut entirely from the anime. Friendly reminder that Kaminari is, in fact, a major lit nerd! He’s Not Dumb! Stop Making Him Dumb In Fics! He not only has the most verbose vocabulary in the class that isn’t from the rich kids (and in some ways is even more so), he also has Katsuki absolutely pegged despite only knowing him for a few days. He Earned His UA Spot.

While Katsuki snaps back at Kaminari, Izuku is hunched over in disbelief that Katsuki’s the one getting bullied for once, but he supposes that that’s UA for you…

To the side, Yaomomo declares the conversation vulgar, while Ochako is laughing and saying it’s fun. Offscreen, I’m assuming that it’s Kaminari mock-marvelling at how he didn’t think Katsuki’s mouth could get any fouler. 

The last panel on the page is Aizawa interrupting them to announce that they’ve arrived at the training grounds, and to look sharp. The whole class (I guess?) snaps to attention.

And that’s the halfway point, so I will leave the USJ proper for next time! This has been a Savage Mina and Smart Denki appreciation post, so appreciate them, or else.