#meta human reader

[fl3shm4id3n]

Hello again! It's me the person who requested the hybrid reader! Before I go on I just wanted to say that I absolutely adored what you wrote and loved how you added ninat as the readers mom and I really appreciate your hard work! Since you wrote the reader to be omatikaya can I request a metkayena hybrid? It's the same as before scientists abandoned reader but this time ronal finds reader passed out and takes reader to heal them and see what happened to them, after that she asks reader why they're like this so reader explains everything and ronal adopts reader, after that the sully family arrives and they're really surprised to see a hybrid like that, hopefully I didn't write too much and I want you to take as much time as you need and remember to drink water and rest!!! :D, also Im gonna put this star 𖤐 so whenever I request something you know it's me, hope you have a great day!

ₐbₐₙdₒₙₑd by ₜₕₑ ₛₑₐ

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐚, 𝐨𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐚 𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐮𝐥𝐤𝐮𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞. 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮.

ᴍᴇᴛᴋᴀʏɪɴᴀ ꜰᴀᴍɪʟʏ x ᴍᴇᴛᴀ-ʜᴜᴍᴀɴ! ʜʏʙʀɪᴅ! ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ! (ᴘʟᴀᴛᴏɴɪᴄ),ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴜʟʟʏꜱ x ᴍᴇᴛᴀ-ʜᴜᴍᴀɴ! ʜʏʙʀɪᴅ! ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ (ᴘʟᴀᴛᴏɴɪᴄ)

Tw: child abandonment, child neglect, mentions of experimenting on a fetus, reader has a bit of PTASD and thalassophobia.

A/N: I'm glad you liked the first fic! I was actually planning on writing another one of these, but a Metkayina hybrid XD did we think of the same thing? Anyway, thanks you for your kinds words and for sending in your other request! I did know how the emoji anon works, but now I do, thank you again.♡

Have a nice day/night and have a good rest, you deserve it :)

Masterlist

The Tulkun had returned, after the small welcoming ceremony, the Tulkun had gone off to roam around the sea around the Village. Ronal had finished her duties, so she went to go see Roa and catch up with her. Ever since the birth of her children, Ronal has been talking to Roa about both Ao'nung and Tsireya, she really loved her children and she wanted to share that love with Roa.

When she arrived to where her and Roa normally med up, she noticed something laying on Roa's right eye. Ronal thought that she must have been hurt, but when she saw what it was, she was beyond shocked. "I see you sister" Ronal sighed to the Tulkun, who had also greeted her sister. "I found a child on her own out here" she said towards the Tsahik, who was now sitting on her right fin to look at the so called child.

But this child wasn't any ordinary child, she was a particular child. Ronal got a better look at her. She was a human child, or was she? Ronal noticed how her skin was marked with darker lines, similar to her wavy stripes, her little arms and ankles were a bit wider, similar to fins. Then she saw her little pointed ears, along with more dark marking on her face and cheeks, her feline like nose and for sure her eyes must be wider. Her tale was similar as well and she had a little queue coming down from her short hair.

Ronal couldn't tell because she was asleep, she also noticed a white hospital gown on the child and a small band wrapped around her left arm, it had some kind of serial number on it and a small titled 'Project Pandora 001'. "Sister, you must help this child" Roa begged Ronal who was still looking at the unconscious child. Should she really? This child was a human, but also a na'vi of her kind. She stopped to think, but finally came to a decision. "I will" Ronal signed to Roa. In which the Tulkun thanked her sister.

On the way back to the village, Ronal had you cradled close to her chest. You very small compared to a na'vi child, it would make sense due to being human but you were also a hybrid of a Metkayina. Ronal also noticed how you got closer to her warmth and shivered a bit, it must have been due to you being cold.

When she arrived, she carried you in her big arms, while she made her way back to her marui, she was greeted by some villagers, but they also couldn't help but noticed the small child in her arms. They had grown curious on why the Tsahik had a small human child. She finally made it to the small home, and was greeted by her children and her husband. Just like the other villagers, they were surprised when they saw you in Ronal arms.

Ronal had laid you down in a matt and got to work checking on you. The whole time, Tsireya and Ao'nung watched their mother do her ritual but they were also looking at you, studying your features. Tonowari didn't interrupt his wife's ritual, just like his children, he studied you. Seen how you were a human, but also had Metkayina features, he knew right away that you were the creation of humans.

Finally you were responding, they watched as you slowly opened your eyes, exposing that you had a third eyelid and the color of your eyes were similar to the Metkayina's green and blue. "Doctor?" that was all your tiny voice had manage to say. Then you saw up, and noticed how you weren't in the lab. You noticed the family that was now staring at you, you felt small due to them being bigger, even the kids that looked around your age were bigger.

Tonowari was first one to speak. "Who are you?" he asked, he sounded kind of scary since his voice was loud and a bit demanding. Then Ronal gave him a look, a little warning to show that you were obviously scared and confused. "I'm sorry about him, what is your name?" she asked, almost too sweetly. You shyly looked at the Tsahik, but responded. "I'm Experiment number 001" you said, this make Ao'nung scoff. "What kind of name is that?" Tsireya then gave him a light smack on the back of his head, causing him to glare at her.

"Where are you from?" Ronal asked again. "From the lab" you said, playing with the trim of the hospital gown. "A Human lab?" Tonowari asked, less demanding this time. You nodded. "Where are your parents?" Tsireya asked, looking at you, very tempted to go over where you were. "I don't have parents, I'm with the doctors" you said, making the couple look at each other, with concern. "You don't have a mother or father?" Ronal asked and you shock his head. "No, I was made in the lab."

"How!?" Ao'nung yelled, now very curious on how you were created, but he received a glare from his mother which made him nervous. "I don't know how to explain, but I was told that I made in a tank. A lady placed an egg in the tank and then I grew. I think the egg was me" you explained, this kind of made the couple worry. "How did you end up here?" Tsireya asked again. "I don't know, I was instructed to to swim a mile, just like every day, but when I went back to the ship, it was gone."

This made Ronal and Tonowari's stomach's drop. The same humans that had created you had abandoned you on your own, in the middle of the ocean, one of the most dangerous bodies of water. The couple then look at one another, as if they were having a silent conversation between one another. Tsireya had got closer to you, looking at your markings and other features with curiosity. You showed her your little arms, seeing that you had the same wavy marking on your skin.

After the couple had their silent conversation then turned to you. "How would you like it, if you had a family?" Tonowari asked, this made your ears perk up by the question. "Really, but who'd take me?" You asked, making Ronal respond to your question. "Us, we'll take you in" she said, this made your small tail kind of wag, lightly tapping on the wooden floor. "Promise you won't leave me?" you asked, this almost made Tonowari's heart break. He picked you up and placed you on his lap. "We promise, that we'll never leave you." You wrapped your little arms around his huge torso, hugging him tightly.

It had been announced that the Olo'eyktan and the Tsahìk had adopted a child, they village was told that they must treat you the way they treat their children, since you were now their daughter. Just like every na'vi, you received a Songcord and a First Breath Ceremony, this was to show that you were now born again as one of them, and later on in life, you'll be a Metkayina. Sure, you were already late, but it was still done.

Ronal had began to teach you how to properly swim and breath underwater, you did know how to swim and hold your breath, but you'd only last a couple minutes under the water and your swimming looked a bit odd. Since she was teaching her children you were taught the same. You learned how to dive, breathe and how to swim from side to side.

Tsireya was already caring towards you since she first met you, she'd take you everywhere and introduced you to her friends. She was also your second teacher when it came to learning how to weave, ride an ilu and so on. She really loved calling you her sister, spite being a human, she really loved you. At first Ao'nung wasn't sure on how to treat you since you were part human, the stories he had heard of those demons really stuck with him. As time passed, he grew to also care about you, he treated you like his sister. Just like Tsireya, Roxto already liked you, he treated you like one of his many sisters and female cousins.

As much as you loved the ocean, you were also scared of going further the small beaches. You, Ao'nung and Roxto were on the canoe, rowing around the village, but Ao'nung wanted to further then you guys normally did, you weren't sure at first, but Ao'nung convinced you into going. When you were getting further and further away from the village, you began to freak out and begged to head back. But Ao'nung tried to calm you down and tell you that you were okay, but you freaked out even more to the point of crying. Roxto was the one to calm you down while Ao'nung rowed you back.

When you arrived back, Tonowari saw how bad you were crying and asked what happened, while Ao'nung explained what he did, Roxto continued to calm you down and that you were safe. No one got in trouble, Tonowari explained why you reacted the way that you did. Ao'nung felt bad and promised to not do it again.

You had grown attached to one of the ilus, you liked all of them, but their was one that you had been around since she was young. She did let others ride her, but you and her were practically made for one another. She basically knew you very well, she knew how you'd get when you'd get scared if she was heading a bit further from the village, she'd quickly go back so that you don't freak out more.

Years had passed and you just like the rest of your brothers and sister were already in your teen years. You were all getting prepaired to become adults you, Ao'nung, and Roxto had become good hunters, meanwhile Tsireya was going to begin her Tsahil training, life was going great.

Then something unexpected had happened. A family from the Forest had come to the village, seeking for Uturu, it was the one and only Toruk Makto with his family. He was done with war and wanted to keep his family safe. Your father had allowed him and his family to stay, with the condition that they'll learn to adapt like them. Ao'nung, Tsireya and you were in charged in teaching the children what to do. You could tell how surprised they were when they saw a human hybrid like you living with the Metkayina.

You and your sister where kind enough to show the Sully family around the village and take them to their now home. You also noticed how you'd get glances from them here and their, but you didn't mind since you were used to getting that kind of attention when you first arrived.

When the teaching began, you'd get asked a bunch of questions on how it was possible for you to be with the reef na'vi. Was one of your parents human and the other a Metkayina Na'vi? is their more like you or are you the only one? So on. You answered their questions honestly so that they understood you more. They had seemed to like you like they liked Tsireya.

[buqbite]

My thoughts here mainly revolve around YSA as the mary sue/female lead type character:

She goes from being this perfect woman to. just being a woman. And my idea is that the weight gain isn't there to make her "unconventionally attractive," or whatever other dumb phrase you wanna use to avoid calling someone ugly, but to make her conventionally attractive, yet realistic.

Instead of looking like a skinny waifu character, she looks like a skinny human woman. Her hair swaying in the nonexistent wind isn't as perfect, her magic blush is missing and she has eyebags. She's still hot, just more human.

[notenderhands]

Ok this is not completely thought out but I do think it’s interesting that in the first chapter of TWP, Medraut mentions that people fear his skill because he could easily poison/hurt Lleu and then he goes on to mention how he hurt Lleu but in ways no one noticed.

Also I think it is interesting how he mentions in this section that Lleu’s fear of being touched when he is unconscious is unfounded but remarks on his own SA by Morgause. I find it interesting how Lleu fears Medraut’s hands when he first meets him and also doesn’t know who he is. Medraut’s hands are the object of Morgause’s desire for Medraut. Moreover, Morgause uses his hands to touch her body. Also, There’s a similarity between Medraut’s SA by Morgause and Medraut’s first scene/healing scene with Lleu in TWP.

Also some of the same body parts involved in both scenes, i.e., the throat and the back. Morgause puts Medraut's hand against her chin and throat so he would recognize her, but he doesn't. Lleu freaks out when Medraut touches his throat and also doesn't recognize him. Morgause uses her nails/hand to tear open Medraut's back. Then Medraut rubs Lleu's back to help him breath.

Like you guys see the similarities too or am I just trying to make an ocean out of a puddle?

I am not even going to get into Morgause and Medraut’s relationship involved her poisoning him/lacing his food with drugs and what I think that means when discussing Leu's and Medraut's relationship.

[gofancyninjaworld]

Dancing with capybara, swimming with sharks

I know that a frequent tedious gripe of some fans is that they wanted to see Amai Mask showing his stuff in front of the other heroes. You know, punching monsters and reattaching bits of himself, and that sort of thing.  Like we see below.

When it came to looking good in front of his peers, things did not go well for Amai Mask in the manga. 

Coming back to how the manga differs from the webcomic, this last chapter has made me realise why Amai Mask couldn't be centred on the field like he was on the webcomic.

His not looking good has been a huge blessing in disguise. He'd be dead or in Metal Knight's monster holding cells. The heroes in the manga are seriously on the case of monsters masquerading as humans.

It’s not that the heroes in the webcomic are more stupid or less concerned with justice. However, they are very self-absorbed units. Like capybara. If it’s not a capybara issue, why should they take notice.

The heroes in the manga are not little self-absorbed units the way they were in the webcomic -- and they compare notes. It’s like swimming with sharks... safe until they change their perception of one into food or a threat. No way jose could he have been seen to do something like this and go unchallenged.

There’s no fault in Amai Mask’s strength in the manga. The casualness with which he lifts a large piece of reinforced concrete one-handed and tosses it away attests to that.

His regenerative abilities in the manga, are if anything, far more impressive.  No clean cuts required! It just wasn’t his day for looking good.

As it is, Child Emperor might have seen him dismembered -- if he wasn’t entirely preoccupied with what happened to Zombieman -- but it looks like he's too ill at the moment to cause issues. He’ll get better though.

Amai Mask faces other threats.  From Iaian and his fellow disciples smelling a rat and looking to start digging into his background.  The destruction of the Council of Swordmasters and the consequent time Atomic will need to sort out their affairs will buy him some time, but it won’t last.

And, unbeknownst to him, Do-S is still alive... and very, very keen on blackmailing him.

The sharks are beginning to circle our shape-shifting hero. Right now, the scent of blood is very faint but the trail only leads one way.

The danger he’s in is real: we’ve seen how much stronger the S-Class heroes here are than their webcomic equivalents... and they’re on edge after the way things went down. He’s not unaware of it: he’s been looking for a hero to lead the way and he’s surely aware he needs to find that person fast.  His words to Zombieman and Child Emperor carry an entirely different weight already.

Before it’s too late for him.

[valeriehalla]

I am so utterly fascinated by “Saki”, the 18-year-running mahjong manga in which you, the reader, become gradually, frog-boilingly aware (over the course of nearly two decades’ worth of mahjong tournaments) that none of these girls are wearing underwear and most of their boobs are slowly expanding.

I need you to understand that I have, like, an anthropological level fascination with this comic. From the perspective of someone who is also a comic artist and writer, two things delight me about it:

the fact that I understand completely how an artist gets from “the fans can have a little hint of skirted asscheek” to “the pussy is completely out on center page” over the course of 18 years; and

the way in which the pussy being out is treated by the characters and diegesis as being utterly unremarkable.

Okay. Point 1. The frog-boiling.

Let me put this in perspective for you. There was already a meme about how the characters in “Saki” don’t wear underwear when I was in middle school. I am thirty now. Okay? And it’s still going.

In the time since, this has stopped being a joke. It is now indisputable canon. This is not because anyone outright says it at any point. It’s because the underwear ran out of places to hide. I’m obsessed with this thought: somewhere in the over 20 volumes of “Saki”, there is a panel in which underwear was objectively deconfirmed. And it would be so hard to figure out where that panel actually is. Maybe the artist didn’t even realize it when she drew it! The frog? Boiling!!

And of course there is also the breast expansion. I don’t know how to put a spin on this. They are just expanding. Like, this happens a lot with artists: you define a character as being, in your mind, “the one with the big boobs”, and over the years you emphasize that trait further and further so that the signal doesn’t get lost in the noise. It’s just that normally—in like a wildly popular manga series about mahjong published by literally Square Enix, for example—normally there would be a point at which the boobs stopped getting bigger. Like, an editor would step in or something. Or you would get to the point where you cannot draw the character in the same panel as her mahjong tiles without her breasts spilling over the tiles, and you’d go, “Well, this is now untenable.”

That did not happen. There is no ceiling. The frog is soup.

Point 2. The complete and utter mundanity of all of this.

It’s like this, okay: there’s no shortage of trashy ecchi manga out there. There’s a million other comics doing wildly bawdier things with wildly more improbable bishoujos.

The vibe with “Saki” is different.

It’s hard to explain this, but it feels like the world of the comic is fundamentally uninterested in the fanservice happening on the page. I cannot describe it as “leering”, because I cannot conceive of a person in the story from whose point of view one would leer. I think the artist is probably into it—I can’t imagine anyone is making her do this—but “Saki” the comic has no opinion on the matter.

There are essentially no male characters in “Saki”. Like, there was one guy? Kind of? At the very beginning? But he is gone now. They put him back in the toybox. He does not exist. It appears to be some level of canonical that in the world of “Saki”, almost all humans are women. Those women are sometimes romantically into each other. According to comments the artist has made on Twitter (which I cannot source), they have lesbian baby technology, so it’s no problem. It’s so much not a problem that the story is about mahjong, instead of any of that.

So, like, the fiction here appears to be this: this is the, like, meta-narrative of the fanservice of “Saki”, right: it’s just normal that they don’t wear underwear and their boobs are arbitrarily big. It’s been normal. It was normal before the story of the manga began. It’s just how things are. Nobody bats an eye about it, and if they do, it’s in sort of a lesbian kind of way so like what’s the problem, we love lesbians here. This is literally normal for girls.

The fanservice simply diffuses into this all-encompassing aura of disembodied, ambient sluttiness. The framing of the panels demands you acknowledge it, and the story demands you already be over it, because it’s mahjong time now, and we’re playing mahjong.

Do you get??? why I’m so fascinated??? Are you not a little enraptured???

Anyway, I have no idea how to end this weird post. I guess the conclusion is that women stay winning????

[abyssurvived]

hi im here and thinking about ivy fresh out of the fae realm 💕

having to relearn/remember how to be human again 💕

having to remind herself that humans ( at least a majority ) don't welcome each other with syrupy comparisons of how the sunlight pours out of their friends skin 💕

having to remind herself that she can't just open portals to hop & travel about 💕

having to remember that getting into fights with people can't be solved by biting at whatever flesh is closest 💕

that you can't jokingly turn ppl into random animals or plants after they pissed you off cause they can't turn their self back 💕

[lord-squiggletits]

Decided to add in my own tags because they elaborate more on some good ideas:

#prowl feels like one of those characters where people trust what he says at face value when like. he's very much not a reliable narrator#prowl SAYS that he does the dirty work no one else is willing to do but. is it really dirty work?#or is it just him authorizing dirty work and hiding it on his own and justifying it in the name of 'it's for the autobots'?#to draw on an old fandom of mine: 'what is the difference between you and the decepticons now?'#'isn't it obvious prime? i serve the autobots'

I also feel like another reason we need to remember that Prowl isn't a reliable narrator is because his attitude towards waging war is frighteningly realistic to real life. The amount of times people in real life want to shrug off senseless brutality and deliberate cruelty/gambling of lives as "just how war is" is a bit frightening. Maybe I'm naive and don't know how war actually works, but I'm pretty sure "someone has to do the dirty work in war" begs the question of what exactly you call dirty work and why you're so intent on justifying (or hiding) it.

The thing about Prowl is I don't really think canon was ever trying to frame him as a "necessary evil" or anything along the lines of "he's a shitty person but his work was necessary" like mmm.... That feels very much like something Prowl wants to believe about himself, not something that's actually factually true in reality.

I can't really make a good argument about it because I only remember like a handful of standout Prowl Moments in IDW1 but like... Prowl dropping a bomb on a neutral city and blaming it on the Decepticons is not "a necessary evil," that's a war crime. Prowl trying to destroy the space bridge to Caminus to keep Starscream from getting power over it, dooming the entire planet and its inhabitants to extinction by starvation, is not "a necessary evil," it's a fucking war crime. I feel like trying to frame such drastic measures as him "doing the dirty work of the Autobots" feels way too much like an excuse for actions that actually aren't justifiable. Especially since Prowl himself is far from being the 100% rational guy he thinks he is, considering how often he bases his decisions on things like his anti-Decepticon bias and his general refusal to follow any orders that contradict what he thinks is The Right Thing To Do (TM).

But also I think this is kind of the fault of the narrative of IDW1, since very few Autobots besides Prowl are given the chance to actually be morally gray even when the worldbuilding implicates them in some very morally gray things. Like, for example, JRO adding in the existence of MTOs which implies that the normally squeaky-clean leader Optimus was willing to approve the creation of new soldiers just to throw them into combat (and even the attempts to humanize the MTOs by giving them "an education" were eventually cut down to nothing but combat optimizations). And there's also the fact that Optimus knows about the Wreckers and has been known to call them on missions at least once (Stormbringer), meaning he's very much aware of the Wreckers and their tactics and is willing to call them in for fights when it's necessary.

I don't think you need to use Prowl as a crutch to make the Autobots morally gray. I think the Autobot leadership (or at least, Optimus, since few people besides him or Prowl seem to have major tactical command over the army as a whole) is plenty morally gray enough on its own, because the nature of war is inherently morally gray no matter how righteous your cause is. Reducing the lives of your own people into numbers on maps, harvesting resources, bringing MTOs to life just to die in a war they practically have no stake in, those things are enough.

And tbh it kind of bothers me when people try to saddle Prowl with the "dirty work of the Autobots", not just because it frames Prowl's blatantly evil actions as some sort of savior act taking the blame from the rest of the Autobots (which isn't even accurate, because the blame for war crimes falls on the entire army as an institution rather than one person), but because it downplays the moral grayness of the Autobots and pretends that no Autobot BESIDES Prowl ever participated in morally gray actions, which simply isn't true.

TLDR: Prowl isn't as much of a hero as he thinks he is because committing atrocities in the name of your cause doesn't change the fact that they're atrocities (and may not have even been justified). However, painting Prowl as the "token evil teammate" of sorts also places too much blame for the atrocities of war on him in particular, when in reality that's a burden shared by Optimus Prime and any other members of the Autobot military command structure.

[edlucavalden]

Man one of the most important things to me in dunmesh is when kabru cuts down mithrun's story to be more digestable

Not only does he cut things out to make it more coherent, but he also cuts out the personal parts

it shows that kabru not only listened to him but empathized with him to know that he was being unnecessarily vunerable for his own good. And by doing so, he gives mithrun something that makes you human, back; his privacy

He understood him enough to know which parts were personal and which parts should be said. Twisting it enough so that mithrun can get the benefits of opening up while also keeping things private. You dont need to say everything in order for them to understand. It's ok to protect yourself.

Kabru really didn't need to do that. He really didn't. He was only given the role to take care of Mithrun, but he chose to be more. Him helping mithrun wasn't one out of responsibility or obligation but one of choice. This subtle act is proof of that.

People who love you take care of you. even when you dont ask for it, even if they didn't need to. They do it because they want to, and they choose to take care of you. Thats whats so important to me

I love the meta touch to this too. While thistle's and Marcielle's intentions for being the dungeon lord (and by proxy, their personal motivations) were explained in the narrative in detail.—

Mithrun didn't. His fears, wants, insecurities are never explicitly said to us the audience throughout the entire story, even in the extras. (The only reason we were able to understand is bc of subtle hints and context)

The scene where Mithrun fully opens up. It cuts to Kabru's thoughts and starts talking over his monologe, only leaving the parts we need to know. This is the narrative's way of respecting mithrun's privacy. And by proxy, the audience respecting mithrun's privacy. Again, the narrative couldve easily gone more in depth, it couldve shown more—it will change literally nothing. But it chooses to do that instead.

We arent immune to boundries just because we are an omniscient reader. Courtesy is not conditional.

Which is really telling when you realize the most direct personal information we receive out of mithrun was from the information page about the winged lion

How violating...

[mychapel-004]

watching people fight over how canon the book of bill is while completely mischaracterising bill is such a strange experience

yes he’s a liar. yes he’s a manipulator. yes he is so distant from any semblance of humanity that he is literally incapable of regret, empathy or remorse, or at least admitting to himself that he feels it.

but he’s also TERRIBLE at it. he’s a total loser. he’s objectively bad at the one task he’s spent lifetimes on. throughout history he attempts to sweet talk many, many different figures into building his portal and it rarely goes down well. multiple civilisations are aware of his existence and the sole reason we know this is because they hated him and invented their own ways of keeping him out. he has been consistently rejected by humanity at every turn, only coming close to completing his goal when he literally possessed a dead man and formed a cult.

ford is the only person who really, truly fell for the act. not just that, but bill didn’t even have to pretend to physically be someone else to get him hooked. ford took him as he was.

all this to say, bill is absolutely a grifter who will say anything to get what he wants, which means a lot of BOB is just sweet talk, carrot and stick, he’s just saying what the reader wants to hear. but that’s not the important bit.

bill is a liar but he wraps the truth up in layers of misdirection, doublespeak and lies. a monster really did destroy his homeworld. him and ford really were going to change the world. he even addresses this in the book, he lies until it becomes the truth. a lot of bill’s characterisation is shown in the gaps between his lies, it’s all in the fault lines, in a similar way to stan. he’s a very meta character, but ultimately he’s still a character and he still behaves in ways that are designed to convey meanings to the audience.

of course he’s lying in the book of bill, but he’s also telling the truth, in addition to bits of info from other sources that he is unable to edit like the theraprism section. it’s fun to have a character who lies a lot, but it would be a pointless exercise to have an entire book be non-canon and false, especially when we get much more interesting character work from the parts where he runs out of lies and his only options are desperate truths.

anyway. people wanting to enjoy canon info in a canon book isn’t just them “being easily manipulated” or stupid, and you aren’t a better fan for not believing it

[asidian]

Alright. It is time. Buckle up.

Why you should be watching Dead Boy Detectives: the targeted-specifically-at my-readers edition.

Meet the leads, our two ghost boys:

Edwin Payne: Fussy, repressed intellectual type from the Edwardian era. Exceedingly gay for his partner and best friend. Tortured in hell for seventy years on a technicality because he was ritually sacrificed as a prank gone wrong. Endearingly awful at people and dealing with emotions or his own wants.

Charles Rowland: Impulsive, people-pleasing wildcard from the 80s. Heart eyes 24/7 at his best friend but has zero self-awareness. Badly abused by his asshole of a father. Beaten to death because he saved a kid from bullies. Endearingly awful at sorting his own emotions or talking about his problems.

Some highlights:

/slaps hood you can fit so much trauma in these two

Both leads get sobbing breakdowns that happen on screen. The actors are incredible at crying

Both leads get much-needed hugs

The absolute devotion between the two of them. The shared history that lives in their dialogue and how they work together like people who have been each other's Most Important Person for literal decades

I mean, I'm talking in-canon Orpheus and Eurydice reference level of devotion here

The protective way Charles puts himself physically between Edwin and damn near every threat in the show

They're just fun together. Their interactions and banter and how they work as a team is a delight

Their shared plot arc literally involves them learning to talk to each other and communicate more so that they can be there for one another about their respective issues

The symbolism. God. They are metaphorically and literally one another's light in the darkness

But what about stuff that isn't the main duo? Just wait, there's more:

This show is unabashedly, unapologetically queer. It's there in the text and the subtext. The whole show lives and breathes it

So many good, complex, well-written female characters. The Bechdel test gets blown straight out of the water in episode one and they never look back. Headstrong amnesiac psychic learning to be a better person! Quirky meta commentary matchmaker! Cynical lesbian butcher! Delightfully sadistic witch! They are all amazing.

[audience voice] But I'm here for the hurt/comfort. How can I whump ghosts? Worry not, my friends. Canon has you covered. Not only are there ways, there are ways that happen on-screen. The hurt/comfort and rescue are also on-screen. Yes, it is amazing

Absolute chaos, really cool supernatural cases and creatures, a surprising amount of humor, charming writing, and a cast that absolutely nails it on the acting and chemistry

There is an extremely suggestive trickster type who is also the king of cats. He's a cat in human form. He hits on Edwin nonstop. Charles gets blisteringly jealous

All of the leads have well-thought-through, fully developed, emotional character arcs. They're all messy and flawed and sometimes lash out in their pain, but at turns can be incredibly supportive and kind and loyal

A character who is a crow who is also a boy, who is tortured by his witch/creator and also is crushing hard on one of the leads

There are so many incredible details in the setting, costume choices, prop decisions, etc. that you only catch after you know what it's laying the groundwork for. The level of care that went into this show is phenomenal

It's only eight episodes. The time investment barrier to entry could not possibly be lower

Anyway, tl;dr, if any of this sounds appealing to you, you should give this show a watch.

Dead Boy Detectives is well worth your time. It's easily my favorite show in years.

[purple-obsidian]

I loved your post about sleepy sex with dick. I'd love to see more soft moments with him in bed, pretty plz I need him to smother me 😪

nonsense (18+, dick grayson x gn reader) wc 900

⭓ this post contains sexual content and is not suitable for minors.

"I have a theory."

"A theory?"

"Yeah."

You can't see the grin on his face, but you feel the upturn of his lips against your neck and the soft shaking of his body as Dick chuckles at your sleepy musings.

"Well, lets hear it, babe. Don't keep me in suspense."

Your fingertips graze his scalp, toying with his thick, dark hair that tempts you every time you're together. Its just begging to be pulled at and played with, really. It isn't your fault.

"You and Bruce, your whole gig is that you don't have powers, right? You're just ordinary people, regular humans."

"Well, I wouldn't say ordinary." He chides back with playful defensiveness. His voice is muffled from his proximity, but you can understand him just fine.

"Exactly." You mumble back, staring up at the ceiling of your bedroom. You can just barely make out the outline of the ceiling fan, dimly lit with the meager light emanating from your digital alarm clock on your bedside table, accompanied by an inconspicuous bottle of lube and a half-empty water bottle. "I think it's bullshit. You're meta, one hundred percent. I think you've been fooling everyone all along."

"Huh. Is that right?" He mutters against your warm neck, his soft breath fanning over your skin and sending a sharp tingle down your spine.

"You're telling me I'm wrong?" You whisper breathlessly, struggling to take in a full breath with how his body is crushing you, keeping you pinned between him and the mattress. Dick senses your discomfort and shifts his weight around to take some pressure of of your diaphragm. You cling to him reflexively when he moves, scared that he might try and get up.

"Aww, baby, someone feeling needy?"

You ignore the teasing in his tone, but allow your fingers to grip his raven strands that much tighter, keeping his head in place next to yours. "Don't change the subject."

Dick shifts his bodyweight again, wiggling his hips and grinding them against yours not-so-subtly. There is nothing separating your bodies, all clothes were forgotten hours ago when the two of you first came to bed. The evidence of your time together dampens the bedding below you and lingers in the still air of the bedroom. And still, his arousal that's pressed against your stomach stiffens once again while he slowly moves against you, teasing you, toying with you like he was made to do so, as if the gods sent him here specifically to be your undoing. He's good enough at it that you wouldn't be surprised.

"What superpowers do I have, then? Since you got me all figured out."

You grin, releasing your firm hold on his hair and nuzzling his cheek to get him to look at you. Dick reluctantly removes his face from your neck and blinks the sleep away from his eyes to focus on your face in the dark.

"Isn't it obvious?" The tip of your nose brushes against his, lips almost touching. Your breath is synced up to where you're inhaling as he's exhaling, your chest deflating slightly while his expands, back and fourth, slow and steady.

"Indulge me." Barely a whisper, his gravely voice tickling your eardrum.

Sapphirine eyes slowly come in to focus in the dim light. You snake your hand down between your bodies to grasp his hardening length, which is still sensitive from his earlier performance. The broken moan that chokes him upon contact is like a shot of dopamine to your brain. To you, there is no greater ego boost than being the source of this man's pleasure. With a gentle touch, you stroke his cock languidly, letting out a soft exhale that lacks enough air to fuel a full laugh.

"Stamina." You tell him, letting your mouth brush against his chin as you speak, his stubble feeling harsh against your lips, which are chapped from the endless kisses and fervent promises exchanged in this very bed hours earlier.

He ruts into your hand with another pained groan. "Sh-shit." A tremble shakes his large frame before he braces his forearms on either side of your body, baring more of his weight so he can lift himself off of you and give you more room to stimulate him where he needs you most. "Just like that… dammit, babe, you have no idea what you do t'me."

You lick your lips, chasing him as he pulls away, the few inches of space he put between you far too much for you to tolerate.

"Tell me I'm right." You demand, but you capture his lips in a heated kiss before he can answer you. The sound of his moans mingle with your own as the two of you make out, slow and sloppy, his cock now painfully hard and heavy in your palm.

"Right about what?" He mutters between urgent, feverish pecks to your lips.

"Y-your super-human stamina." You stutter after a beat, almost losing your train of thought. It's so easy to get lost in him. His taste, his smell, his warmth, his love. Its nothing short of addicting.

"Dunno what you mean…mmmm… You're talking nonsense, baby."

Dick swallows up any further comments from you, deepening the kiss and humping your hand with increasing desperation. It doesn't take much longer until your theory is forgotten, cast aside to make room for the love Dick pours into you with every lazy kiss and needy touch.

if you enjoyed this, please consider reblogging or leaving a comment!

please don’t steal my work. don't upload it to another site, use it to train ai, or claim it as your own.

⭓ masterlist ⭓

[fl3shm4id3n]

I know this is kinda long and it’s okay if this looks annoying but if you can an au where neteyam doesn’t die and when the ship is sinking him and tuk are trapped in the ship instead and find y/n who has been expiramented from the moment she was born, she has never once been outside or has been told anything about what’s outside, the last thing she sees before she runs out of air is neteyam, the next day she wakes up in complete confusion not recognizing anything and doesn’t speak Navi, when Jake realizes and tries to speak to her she points outside towards the sky and ask what it is because she’s never learned about anything outside the rooms she would stay in, and him and his family are confused on how she can’t recognize anything, she then later latches on to neteyam because she knows that he saved her, and she just asked questions on things that people would normally know about like what a family or parents are

ₚᵢₙₖ Wₐₗₗₛ

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 ��𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐤𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢�� 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐛 𝐚𝐭 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐧, 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐤𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐛𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐧, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮. 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐚 𝐧𝐚'𝐯𝐢 𝐛𝐨𝐲.

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: ɪᴍᴘʟɪᴇᴅ ɴᴇᴛᴇʏᴀᴍ ᴛᴇ ꜱᴜʟɪ ᴛꜱʏᴇʏᴋ'ɪᴛᴀɴ x ꜰᴇᴍ! ʜʏʙʀɪᴅ! ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

Tw: experiment, sinking ship, passing out, reader is 15-16, imprinting, mentions of small spaces, fear of drowning, near death experience.

A/N: I wrote this on my phone, my back is killing me and I'm too lazy to get my computer.

Masterlist

You had been an experiment kept in isolation, they feared that something may happen to you if you ever go out, so they kept it within the base. All your life you were kept in a room, a pink room. You did learn to speak, count, walk and everything a child should learn growing up. At the same time you hated it, being cooped up in a place not being able to see the outside was the worst.

You referred to the scientist who put in your care as 'Dr.' or 'Ma'am' and 'Sir', that's what they have taught you to call them. You also felt different from everyone. You looked human, but at the same time you weren't a human. You had striped skin, wide eyes, a feline nose, a queue, big ears that move at any house, a tail, and was a bit later than everyone, you reached up to 7'7 feet. The only clothes you ever wore was a hospital gown.

This time was the first time you ever left Bridgehead, you went on a ship along with some humans, scientists, and a group known as Deja Blue, they were part of a program called 'Project Phoenix' or something. You came across a boy who was a human, he looked around your age, but then you were placed in another room, again. This time the walls were white. You really hated being alone in a room.

Everything was bad, the ship began to sink. You were still in your room, trying to find a way to get out of it, you began to panic not being able to open the door. Then you saw two people outside, you didn't know who they were but you banged on the door to get their attention. It was what seemed to be a boy and a young girl, they seemed to have hesitated at first but they managed to get the door to open.

"Thank you!" You screamed, but before he could reply, he got a hold of yours and the girls hands, getting you both to climb up, the water continued to rise up. There was a door that was half open, the boy attempted to pull it open, but the door closed due to the water. The girl screamed something, as the boy continued trying to open the door, but there was no use.

You were all silent In the dark water and small space you were in. Your freckles along with theirs were glowing. The boy held the small girl close to him, mumbling to her, trying to keep her calm. You were all scared for sure, was this how you were going to die? In a small isolated space? You began to tear up, not knowing what to do. The emotion was so tense, that you began to feel dizzy, the boy seemed to ask you something but you didn't understand. The last thing you saw was him looking at you with worry, then everything went to black.

You had been unconscious for a while, you had been placed in Sully's home once they returned back to the village. Neteyam had taken you with them when Kiri had come to rescue him and Tuk. He explained to the adults that he and Tuk found you in the ship locked in a room, and they helped you out of it. They thought it would be best to take you with them then leave you to die.

Ronal had come to help you wake you up the next day, she didn't seem found seeing someone like you in the village, it was enough that the Sully's were here and the war that happened yesterday, she was stressing at this point. She performed the same ritual she performed on Kiri, after a couple minutes, you opened your eyes.

Jake was the first to approach you after seeing you ever awaken. "Are you okay?" He asked, but you only stared at him in confusion. You then turned to look outside, seen the now blue sky along with the sounds and smell of the sea. "Hey kid, how are you feeling?" This time he spoke in English, you say up from the mat, then looked at Jake. "What's that?" You asked, pointing at the sky. Jake looked confused but answered "a sky?" He said, then your amazed expression, but he decided to ask more.

"You've never seen the sky?" He asked while you shook your head. "No, I've only seen the pink walls in the small space" you explained, now this was making sense. Once Ronal had made sure that you were okay, she left to go attend others who were injured in the battle."You've never seen outside? Ever?" Jake asked, you again shook your head. "No, just the pink walls, sometimes the walls would be white" you said shyly now, feeling embarrassed by what you were explaning to the male.

Jake gave a look to Neytiri who had been listening to everything that you have been explaining to them. She had a look of horror, hearing this made her sick to her stomach. Then Neteyam walked in to see if everything was alright, while the others were outside the Marui. As soon as you saw Neteyam, you got up from the mat and quickly went over, hugging him around the waist tightly. He didn't know what to do at first, but decided to awkwardly hug you back, after feeling you shiver a bit.

After that small altercation, Jake explained to him, Kiri, Lo'ak, Tuk, and Spider about your situation. It was decided by Jake that he'll be responsible for you. You stayed with the family, they were fluent in English so they spoke to you in English. The whole time you were basically hugging Neteyam's arm, scared that he may leave you. He didn't really seem to mind since his father was explaining about your situation. It seems as if you must have now got attached to Neteyam since he did help you get out of the room you were trapped in.

Outside the Marui, you were still latched onto Neteyam. He explained to Ao'nung, Tsireya, and Rotxo about you, they weren't fluent in English, but they learned a few words and sentences to talk to you. When it came to Jake and Neytiri, you'd refer to them as Sir and Ma'am, same with the others. They thought it was weird and would often tell you to refer to them by their names instead. Neteyam was the only one who you'd call by his name. Not only that but you often would ask questions about basic things that someone your age should know.

Since you basically imprinted on Neteyam, he thought it would be best to teach you Na'vi and the way to live in the reef. You picked up on speaking Na'vi pretty fast, but you preferred to speak in English. That was you and Neteyam were walking down the beach holding hands, you didn't let off his hand at all.

"The adults, who are they to you?" You asked Neteyam, who looked at you. "They're my mom and dad" he said seeing your confused expression. "What's a mom and dad?" You asked again, taking Neteyam by surprise and stopped to face you. "You don't know what a mom and dad are?" He asked again. You shook your head. "I've only known what Doctor is along with Sir and Ma'am, not a mom and dad." You explained. Neteyam felt his heart clench by this.

He looked into your eyes, seeing them filled with curiosity. "A mom and a dad, are people who take care of you and love you. They'd do anything to keep you from harm's way. Just like how my parents did when we were in trouble." He explained and you listened. "I understand now, the doctors are very different" you said, turning away from his gaze. "What do you mean?" Neteyam asked a bit worried. "They kept me locked away for so long, the pink walls in my room have become suffocating. The only time I ever left was when I went on the ship and now." You said shyly, you never really spoke about this.

Neteyam then pulled you into a hug, you hugged him back right away. "I promise you that you will never feel trapped again. I promise" he said while stroking your hair. You felt safe in the hug, it didn't feel suffocating at all. It felt nice.

[sebastianswallows]

The Little Death — 2. A dream of life

— PAIRING: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Bene Gesserit!Reader

— SYNOPSIS: A Bene Gesserit gets left behind in the Arrakeen palace. When Feyd becomes the Planetary Governor, he finds her there in hiding. The Harkonnens don't traditionally keep them as truthsayers or concubines like other Houses do, but Feyd might have a use for her. After all, he's never had a Bene Gesserit of his own before.

— WARNINGS: a bit of voyeurism

— WORDCOUNT: 2.4k

— TAGLIST: @elf-punk

The best art imitates life in a compelling way. If it imitates a dream, it must be a dream of life. — Darwi Odrade

She confessed with regret that she did not, in fact, have one of those pain boxes. A Gom Jabbar was available in the palace and in fact was in the Harkonnen's possession as far as she knew, but that was just a poisoned needle tipped with meta-cyanide. What he was after was the… active part of the humanity test. That was only at the disposal of those sisters qualified to carry it out.

She was certain Feyd would do away with her once she explained how and why she didn’t have what he was after and prepared herself internally for death. But it never came. He paused in thought and nodded, and his cool eyes moved away from her with a shadow of sadness to them. Then he turned around, his broad shoulders clad in black exposed to her, and walked toward the table.

“You will come with me.”

He picked up a shigawire reel and shoved it in a compartment of his suit, a small pocket at the side of his chest, then walked right by her on his way out of the room. She followed obediently.

The palace was quiet, free of the usual fuss that filled it during the day — servants scrambling, scraping like traumatised automatons just trying to survive — but as they walked past the way she came she heard a violent sound from the direction where her old room was. They’re destroying my things, she realised.

Her eyes turned to Feyd-Rautha’s back once more, the smooth black of his clothes and white of his skin, and she wondered what plans he had for her. Would he be more subtle with his killing than his brother was, or… more creative? Would she be able to use the stunning word and paralyse him in time to get away? Would she have to kill him instead?

“Am I going too fast for you?” he asked over his shoulder. It was not an honest question, as she could tell from the smile in his voice.

“No?”

“Funny. I can hear you breathing.”

She bit her lip and glared at the back of his head.

They passed from the most shadowed places of the palace into the well-lit ones where snow-white lamps hung in the air. There were more guards in this area too, and she gradually realised they weren’t going to the prisons. They were going to his quarters.

“After you,” he said, stopping in front of a jaundiced pair of double doors guarded on each side by armed guards as still as statues.

She looked up at him warily as she stepped forward. He was still smiling in that cocky, boyish way, but something was incongruent. His awkward pose — not quite facing her, not quite to the side — the bent of his back as if he tried to make himself seem shorter, his arms somewhat aimless at his sides… He was trying to be polite and he didn’t know how.

She stepped inside. His room was nothing like what she imagined. The natural pale yellow of the Arrakeen stone gave it a softness that was at odds with the black linens on the massive bed. Moonlight streamed from the twin window slits on the opposite wall, and on the smooth tables lay an array of little boxes, pots, and cases left half-opened. There was a scent of ink there that cut through the modest smell of disinfectant. He’d only just moved in… He hadn’t had a chance to make the place his own yet.

As she analysed these new surroundings, Feyd stepped in and the doors closed behind them, leaving them alone. The palace seemed all the more distant now.

“My lord na-Baron?”

“Hm?” he muttered as he walked right past her, going to place something inside a drawer by the bed — the shigawire reel.

“W-what… what would you have me do?”

“You can do whatever you like.”

Her eyes slid toward the door. “Can I leave?”

She didn’t expect him to say ‘yes’, but she expected even less what he said next.

“Leave?” he chuckled, looking at her over his shoulder. “Where would you go? You’re my Bene Gesserit now.”

And he continued preparing himself for the night as if it was the most normal of circumstances. A part of her, the most human part, felt offended, but from the periphery of her mind, her training whispered to her what was really going on.

Feyd-Rautha kept his back turned and his attention on the objects in his possession — diskettes of reports he sorted for later reading, the daggers at his belt, the signet ring around his finger — and he spoke to her most dismissively and distantly. He was treating her like a stray cat he had just found and brought into his bedroom. Now he was letting her explore her new home, but he still did not dare to look at her directly, to watch her as openly as he desired. In his every move, however casual, there was nervous self-awareness. Completely opposite to how confident he’d been before he met her.

She’d served the Fenrings before, and the Atreides after them, but until now she had never quite felt owned. Still, if it was a kitten the Harkonnen wanted, that was what she would provide.

Without addressing him, she stepped sideways and turned, letting her posture loosen. Her head tilted back in a light stretch to relieve the tension of expecting death. She moved in a wide arch, slow steps, small sounds, while her fingers traced the surface of the wall for no reason in particular, just to absorb its texture.

“Why do you want me?” she asked in a low and silky voice. Seduction seldom failed with arrogant young men.

“I told you,” answered Feyd rather too quickly, his head bowed as he pretended to clean one of his blades.

“You’ve never had a Bene Gesserit of your own…”

“And it’s about time to have one.”

“Would the Baron approve?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, finally looking up at her. He smiled at the sight of her slinking across the room, dark dress trailing behind her. “Things can change, even in House Harkonnen.”

She paused mid-step to smile back at him. “Changes awaken something in us…”

He gave a noncommital hum and started walking to her, his head tilted in a thoughtful way.

“What sort of things do they teach you?” he asked. “At your… Bene Gesserit school?”

“Many things,” she said with an inviting tone. “Control of the self, the mind, the body… Understanding of history. Political strategy.”

Feyd came to a stop before her, a trepidation into his step. He walked until he cornered her in a darkened divot of the room. Standing a full head taller, he looked down into her eyes.

“What do you want to know?” she whispered.

He frowned, that strange smooth brow ridge wrinkling quite innocently, and his eyes betrayed transparent thoughts. He didn’t know what he wanted to know, but he knew he wanted something.

“What does… a Bene Gesserit do?”

“That depends on what our master wishes.”

“But what do you usually do?”

“We teach. We advise. When asked, we serve.”

“Did Paul Atreides have one?”

“Yes. His mother, Lady Jessica.”

The hints of jealousy were faint. There wasn’t much to envy in the dead… But he looked at her with that strange look in his eyes again, that speck of a little boy lost, and something in her instinctively wanted to cup his cheek, to pet him, and hold him close. She did not doubt that something inside of him wanted it too, and her body was just responding to the subconscious observation.

“Can you kill?” he asked.

“If I have to.”

“And have you?”

“Not yet.”

“In that way, I’m better than you, Bene Gesserit,” he chuckled.

And suddenly, his hand came up to grip the back of her neck. She was startled by how quick the movement was, how his body gave no tells that he would make it. A true predator. He pulled her closer, strong fingers tightening against her nape, pressing her against him. Beneath his armour, the plates of his body were strong. Every feminine part of her responded with a cascade of lust — not at the hidden hint of beauty but at the symbol of his pride. He wasn’t just a pampered princeling living through his allotted years of beauty. He brought his body to the peak of its potential. The motion pulled the veil off her head, and his eyes went to her soft mane of hair. His grip stayed firm, but his gaze traversed this new part of her as if it were a landscape, with hills and dales and quiet streams, all flowing down.

“Na-Baron,” she whispered, hand coming up to grip his wrist.

“Shut up,” he said, blue eyes still focused on her hair. “Go to sleep.” And then he let her go.

He turned from her and walked away with the energy of someone ready to run off — but there was nowhere for him to go, and his steps slowed. She watched him as she rubbed the sore back of her neck, watched how his head bowed for a moment as if he’d just woken up, how he walked toward the large square bed, how he started taking his clothes off…

He was a strange sight indeed. A broken psyche that reflected the duality present in his features — cold and frightful, soft and gentle, brutal but not so much from the absence of affection as from the presence of cruelty on top.

“Where shall I sleep?”

“Hm? Oh…” He looked around as if only just considering that fact. “Whenever you like,” he said, giving up quickly on thinking about it. “But here, in this room. You don’t get out of my sight, little witch. Not until I decide I can trust you.”

He pulled the layers of clothes off. First the armour on his back and shoulders, then the belt around his hips, and the second skin of the black suit that hugged his body.

“And… what shall I wear to bed?”

He paused and turned to look at her. His chest was as white as his face, but strong and chiselled, far less delicate. It shone with the sweat of a long day beneath the yellow light.

“Wear?” he rasped, his lips twisted in a quizzical smile. “Why should you wear anything?”

She settled for sleeping in a chair in a corner of the room. Feyd had gone to sleep completely naked, and he’d not been shy of parading his body around. She watched without fear, without shame, taking note of all the ways his muscles worked, the stretch and give of the skin, the scent of sweat, of blood.

Noting how much he seemed to like her hair, she did not cover it again, and after he fell asleep she quietly took the top layer of her clothing off. The Harkonnens were used to having their servants quite exposed, but she was not about to give him cause to think that that was what she was. If she wanted to survive, she had to walk the tightrope of perception. She had to be above him, as well as below. A knowledgeable Bene Gesserit sister, with all the guileless charm of a kitten.

She remained in her shift, a long grey piece held up by two thin straps, and used her dress as a blanket. She did now sleep but instead pretended to as she entered a state of Prajna meditation.

The secret pathways out of the room became known to her, faint currents invisible to the conscious mind. A spy hole existed in the western wall, covered on both sides by thin material. To the north, a doorway with no handle led into another room. Beyond it, sounds of restless sleeping. Three figures — feminine? Outside, the guards stood watch, but one was close to sleeping.

She was almost at the point where exhaustion caught up with her too, and like a slow receding wave her meditation ended. Her body lay relaxed and limp, head resting on her shoulder, hands folded. But with the last thread of her extended senses, she caught the taste of struggle in the room. Rapid heartbeat, frantic breathing, shifting eyes behind closed lids. Feyd-Rautha was dreaming.

Soundlessly, she slid off the chair and left her dress on it. The floor beneath her naked feet was cold as ice, it made her want to shiver, but she maintained control of every muscle as she walked toward the bed. Feyd’s body was twisted in the silken sheets, twitching, tense. Jolts disturbed his restful state as if in his mind he tried to get away from something. She could almost see the phantom trace of touches on his skin.

He slept on his front, arms thrown above his head, legs spread. His tossing made the sheets slip off his back to reveal a taut, tense expanse that ended in soft cheeks. Beneath them, the faintest hint of hairless, purpling swells and a limp length. He was so vulnerable…

As she got closer, she could hear him mutter words in a foreign language. Was that what they spoke on Giedi Prime? She could make out influences of galactic language all the way to those of the old Earth, but it was just enough to only guess what he was saying. The tone, nevertheless, was clear. He’s afraid, she thought.

She crouched at the edge of the bed where his naked foot hung off the side, her brow crested with worry. He was dangerous, she dared not touch him, and however much she wanted to wake him as a simple human kindness she wanted even more to see where his nightmares led.

With a long and frightful wail muffled by the pillows, Feyd dragged his strong beautiful body upwards, curling like a snake. He pulled his knees up to his chest and started shaking. Every now and then, his foot would kick. The sign of running in a dream. The whiteness of his body, pure and pale as chalk, the hairlessness of even his masculine parts, it made him look so fragile, so defenceless. A fascinating specimen. To think, the step just before the Kwisatz Haderach would look like that...

She let her body fall down to the floor and propped herself against the mattress, her cheek upon the bed. And she watched him, following the shadow of his dreams, for as long as the night went.

[gofancyninjaworld]

A twist most pointless

There's some readers who love the idea of ONE betraying his premises -- really being all about 'the twist' at the expense of any coherence. Goodness knows there's many writers who love a twist to get out of exploring the story premises they set up. So I'm going to pick one of the most troublesome ones and consider what it'd mean for the story. Let's set aside our reactions as readers. What if ONE betrayed one of the core settings of the OPM story and revealed that Genos was actually a robot all this time rather than a cyborg? Yes, a robot. A very well-made, sophisticatedly-programmed machine not materially different from Dr. Bofoi's Metal Knight.

I think that from all we've seen to date, it would utterly devastate Saitama in a 'go mad' sort of way.

The sense of having been deceived that would fall on Saitama would be great indeed. The reason Genos grounded him was that he saw in him a fellow human being who was also suffering and struggling to hold onto his humanity. Yes, a weird person with an odd body who confused, exasperated, and concerned him at times, but a human being. If that's a lie, I can't think of many things that would anger and upset Saitama more. He certainly wouldn't have been blowing up Jupiter for the sake of a robot, however well made. Or racking his mind for lessons to give. Or rushing over to see if all was well with it. Once again, he'd be utterly alone in his struggles. Saitama would be gutted. It's not feeling utterly alone in his struggle that made so much difference to him, and that stopped him from going mad when he was so close to it.

this scene would be meaningless

Not to mention, how deceptive would Kuseno have to be to come to his house in person bearing presents as one does to the master of an apprentice, sounding like a grateful parent? You know how hurtful it is when someone you thought well of and trusted turns out to be someone totally different from what you believed and how that can rock peoples' belief in the world for years? Imagine someone you've never met playing a cruel deception on you, manipulating your feelings for no reason that you can discern and that does not profit them in any way?

this would be an incredibly cruel deception

Who else would feel betrayed? What about Bang and all the other people who at one time or another have reached out to help Genos? They'd feel very foolish too, for they would have made very different choices had they known. Like, Bang and Bomb would have taken Genos up on his offer of self-sacrifice, left him to Elder Centipede and gotten away with the heroes. Tomorrow, there'd be another Genos, probably using the lessons gathered from the former one.

I'm sure that knowing that he risked his life for nothing and getting burned in the process would make Bang feel better.

Not to say that you couldn't tell a good story of a human-like, and even human-feeling robot, even one that is convinced it's a person. You sure can. There are many good sci-fi stories like that.

But for it to work, the premises would have to be honest. Genos's story will no longer be that of a young man making a horrifying choice faced with the reality of an evil that would go unchecked. It's not about his struggles, how he comes to see himself, how he affects others, none of that.

Instead, there's a bored old man in hiding who has sent out an android that looks like a cyborg for reasons. Why he sent it, where he sent it, who interacts with it, why they do so, what they get out of it, whether it makes sense to see successive versions as part of a continuous AI or if they're worth considering distinct and individual, all of those would be good questions to ask and explore. But that's not where One-Punch Man has gone.

Given who Saitama is, I don't think that he'd relate as meaningfully to a machine as he does a person. Some people totally would! But Saitama doesn't seem that sort of person as he really responds to who people are at core rather than whatever they surround themselves with. That ability to see beyond the exterior is a key charm point of Saitama. If there's no person within, there's nothing there for Saitama.

the primacy of the human experience over all

Of course, the end of OPM might actually be a super-bleak one in which Saitama decides that nothing has any meaning and erases Earth, as he can't trust anyone, no matter how warmly they smile or well they appear to relate to him.

it'd have been better if Saitama had been left like this, slowly losing his humanity

But that's a very Evangelion sort of ending. Probably not ONE's bag.

Not that I'm afraid that ONE would do this. Other than ONE being historically committed to his premises on principle, he's done a lot of work exploring the idea of cyborgs. We have a lot of them in the story, getting body modification to different degrees for different reasons. He's gone so far as to show that 'impossible' cyborgs like Genos do exist. And of course, we've had a look at that little brain of Genos's. But just in case we're doubtful, we have someone like Fubuki (who has no incentive to lie), healing his biological parts, with ONE very emphatically picking the words to ensure there's no doubt that this is a living being who Fubuki healed.

A truly depressing number of people asked Vib if there wasn't some mistake about healing. No, there isn't.

The story as written doesn't make sense if both Saitama and Genos aren't real people. The story works because it's rooted in their joint struggle to keep their humanity and find a way to be that's worthwhile in a world where everything seems pointless.

every day, they struggle on

Not that anyone reading this is likely to fight me on this, but it was interesting to me to consider the role of the core premises in the story. There's so much to lose for so little gain (a bit of shock).

[downthe-f4ndom-rabbith0le]

Always Been You (Dick Grayson x Reader) - Chapter 1

Always Been You (Dick Grayson x Reader)Reader Insert: she/her pronouns Word Count: 3631 Warnings: death, violence, fighting, bloody wounds, angst, infuriatingly oblivious love interest, slowburn Spoilers: Young Justice Seasons 1-3 plot partially, but it ended in 2022 so catch up.

Y/N Prince - miracle daughter of Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor - and Dick Grayson - first adoptive son of the Batman himself - have been best friends since day one. They went to school together, trained together, kept each other's alter ego secret from everyone else, and they founded the Young Justice alongside their friends together. 

But as time progressed, Y/N and Dick grew up and Y/N found herself wanting more than friendship with Dick. But he never seemed to indicate that he reciprocated her feelings. And when Wally died and Dick abandoned the team, Y/N realised he never would. So she heads to the one place she knows will help her become a stronger warrior so that one day she can take her mother's place: Themyscira.

Two years after his leave, Dick reaches out to his old friends to help him with a mission. But when he finds out Y/N left too, he chases after her in the hopes to bring her back.

However, when the two finally reunite, it isn't as warm as he hopes. Not to mention Themyscira becomes under siege as they go to war against Echidna, the Mother of Monsters in Greek Mythology, and her army of monstrous children.

Will Dick and Y/N be able to put their past behind them and save the Amazonians' homeland? Or will they fall, unable to tell one another their true feelings?

~~~

(21 years old)

'All right, team,' Y/N Prince addressed her small group of young heroes. 'Good work today. Now go hit the showers and enjoy a nice quiet night in. You've earned it.'

'So crash!' Bart cried with an energetic jump. If anyone were to guess how the team's week had been solely based on Bart's energy, they would've said it had been cruisy. Not that Y/N had led a covert task force over the past week into Bialya to take down meta-human trafficking outposts.

Y/N watched with pride as Bart and Jaime bantered on their way out, followed by Stephanie and Cassie chatting excitedly about something, all the while Tim and Cassie held hands quietly. It had surprised the team a little how, out of the blue, the two of them were dating. But if Wally's death had taught them all anything, it was that time was too precious to waste in their line of work. They'd been together ever since.

Two years, Y/N mentally noted, and suddenly the adrenaline she'd been running on for the past week died as the last of the team exited the entrance chamber of the Watchtower. Exhaustion weighed down on her spent body, but an extra weight now sat in heart. Has it really been that long already?

So much had changed in that time. Like how the Young Justice began working out of the Watchtower alongside the Justice League, having both the Hall of Justice and Mount Justice destroyed by the Reach and the Light respectively. M'gann and Connor were back together, having finally gotten over their differences and accepted their mistakes. Also, Kaldur had been offered a position in the Justice League following the retirement of his king, and so Kaldur took his place as the new Aquaman in the Justice League. M'gann was promoted to new team leader, with Connor and Y/N assisting her as senior members of the team.

Some things had remained the same, however. Like the team's energy and slight dysfunction that always made Y/N feel at home. They weren't perfect, but what family ever is?

Dick was still gone. So was Artemis. She'd, understandably, retired as Green Arrow's protégé immediately after Wally's death, assuming her undercover identity Tigress instead and going off on her own. Neither had stayed in touch with anyone on the team.

You're my best friend. Always have been, always will be...

'Yeah right,' Y/N mumbled bitterly as she made her way to the conference room. No doubt that'd be where M'gann and Connor were waiting for her to debrief the mission.

Upon entering the room with the long table, she was immediately embraced by M'gann. 'Welcome back,' she said, squeezing Y/N tighter. 'We're so glad you're okay.'

Y/N smiled softly as she embraced M'gann in return. 'You ever doubted me?'

'No,' Connor answered, 'but you can never be too cautious right?'

Y/N let go of M'gann to hug Connor as well. Since getting back together, Connor wasn't as emotionally suppressed as he'd initially been. It was nice seeing him this way, more happy and free. The same effect had happened to M'gann, who (only around the team and the Justice League) revealed her white martian self proudly instead of pretending to be something she wasn't.

'You're right,' Y/N said as she released him, then the three of them took a seat to discuss the mission.

The debrief didn't take long, there wasn't much to report on as all out-posts had been hit successfully, putting Queen Bee's meta-human trafficking at least a little behind.

'It's not much, but it's the best we could do with the little information we got,' Y/N admitted. 'I dislike Queen Bee and her minions as much as the next person, but I've got to give it to her, she knows how to keep things under wraps.'

M'gann reached across from where she sat and closed her hand over Y/N's. 'Y/N, the mission was a success,' M'gann insisted. 'And what's most important is that you brought everyone home. Alive.'

Y/N heard the underlying fear in her words, the memory she was thinking of as she spoke them. Y/N twisted her hand over to clasp M'gann's in return. 'I know,' she said softly. 'But I just... we haven't so much as put a dent into the underbelly of meta-human trafficking in the two years it's been running. Somedays... Somedays I just feel so useless.'

'I know, Y/N,' Connor reassured. 'But we've just got to trust that our hard work will pay off eventually. I know it doesn't seem like much now, but every mission counts. Don't be so hard on yourself.'

Y/N withdrew her hand at the comment, hastily standing up. 'Don't be hard on myself? My mother is Wonder Woman, is the Champion of Themyscira, a World War II hero, and had already saved the world once by my age now. My father was a fighter pilot in the Iran-Iraq war and died fighting for his country,' she said angrily. 'And what am I doing? Hiding under the protection of darkness, taking out small outposts that will just be rebuilt elsewhere just as quickly? How can I not be hard on myself?'

At M'gann's taken aback expression, Y/N felt slightly guilty for raising her voice. But they just didn't understand. All her life, she'd been training and fighting for her supposed "destiny". Surely this wasn't it.

'I'm sorry,' Y/N said, forcing herself to calm down. 'I just...'

'You don't have to a apologise,' M'gann interrupted, standing and walking over to Y/N to clasp their hands together. 'After all we've done together, I understand that what we do now doesn't seem like enough. But I can tell you were made for more.'

Y/N offered her a grateful smile and M'gann let their hands drop. 'I should go. Mother and I have patrol in Washington DC tonight.'

'Already?' M'gann asked, face dropping with disappointment. 'But you just got back. Surely she knows that.'

'Unfortunately, even in the country's capital, crime never sleeps. I'm just grateful it's nothing like Gotham,' Y/N said.

'I agree,' Connor said. 'Visited there once with-' He paused for a moment, eyes growing wary as he looked between Y/N and M'gann. But Y/N already knew what he was going to say and gave him a slight nod to continue anyway. 'With Dick. We did patrol once there together. To put it simply, they're all nutcases there.'

Y/N managed an amused half-smile. 'You're not wrong there,' she said, then made her way to the door. Before she reached the doorknob, M'gann called out.

'Maybe when you're free next, you can join us for dinner at home,' she offered, her eyes hopeful as she waited Y/N's answer.

'Yeah,' she eventually answered though it wasn't as enthusiastic as she should've been. 'Yeah, that'd be nice. I'll talk to you guys soon. Don't stay up here too late.'

It had to be close to 7pm in Washington DC at least, so there weren't many people still left in the Watchtower. Just those from the League and her team that were rostered for overnight supervision. Y/N made sure to greet each person she walked by on the way to the Zeta-tubes. But just as she was about to dial in her code to leave, a resounding voice made her pause.

'Wonderess,' Kaldur called. 'Not even a hello before you head off for another mission?'

Y/N smirked as she turned back around to face the new hero of Atlantis. 'I'm sorry, Aquaman,' she said in an exaggerated tone. 'Not all of us can sit around having team parties with our Justice League buddies.'

To anyone else, it would've been taken as an insult. But Kaldur saw her humour and smiled. 'Oh is that what this is about? You know the League do more than just chit chat.'

Y/N shook her head. 'I don't know. The mess you guys left behind in the conference room before I left tells another story.'

As Kaldur approached Y/N, the sarcastic banter dropped as they both embraced each other. Kaldur had grown into a fit, muscular man, and now stood a good head taller than Y/N. His uniform was more or less the same as it had always been, except now both his arms were covered from shoulder-to-finger in gold armour. He certainly was no longer just a young lad, but the man his predecessor saw he could become.

'It is good to see you, Y/N,' Kaldur said softly as he pulled away.

'And you, old friend,' Y/N replied, a genuine smile splitting her lips.

'I heard you went into Bialyan territory,' Kaldur continued. 'I am glad to see you and the rest of the team are unharmed.'

'Well, the team are no longer just children' Y/N said, 'but it was a simple enough mission too. Nothing too dangerous.'

Kaldur's brows furrowed together as he looked over Y/N. 'I sense you are not happy with something. Wasn't the mission successful as I have heard?'

Y/N let out a soft sigh. 'It's not that I'm not happy with the mission's success. Of course I'm happy we all got home okay. I just...' She didn't really feel like explaining herself again, but Kaldur nodded in understanding.

'You feel stuck,' he finished, to which Y/N nodded in confirmation. Kaldur turned so he could look to the giant windows of the Watchtower's entrance chamber. They framed Earth in a way that made it seem both ginormous and insignificant at the same time. 'The League is in a similar position, I am afraid to admit. Some days there is progress. Other days, it feels like I wait so much I am afraid I will freeze in one spot.'

'How do you combat that?' Y/N asked.

Kaldur turned back to Y/N, his face softened with a small smile. 'I train.'

'That's it?' Y/N asked, not quite believing her friend.

He shrugged his shoulders. 'Amongst other things, yes. I train, I go home, I see my family, I laugh with my friends. I do all these things to remind myself why I am here. Why I do what I do. It sounds to me like you need to remind yourself why you are here.'

'Because of the team,' she said without hesitation. He hadn't asked a question, but she felt she needed to justify herself. 'Because I can't just desert them, not when they're working so hard.'

'And yet you feel you are not doing enough,' Kaldur countered, his teal eyes gazing hard at her. 'Why?'

Y/N opened her mouth to answer but no answer came.

'Y/N,' Kaldur continued. 'Why do you feel the need to stay when you don't want to be there?'

'I do want to stay-'

'Don't lie to me, Y/N,' Kaldur interrupted.

Y/N swallowed thickly as she looked from Kaldur, to the conference room door where M'gann and Connor still were, and back to Kaldur. Seeing no escape from his fierce questioning, she caved.

'It's not that I don't want to stay,' she admitted quietly. 'I love the kids, I love the team. I'm just... so tired, Kaldur. Of doing the same thing week in and week out and getting nowhere. But if I leave, I don't want the team to think I'm abandoning them. Not like-'

Y/N bit her lip at the thought of him. No, she wouldn't leave. She just wouldn't.

Kaldur pressed his lips into a firm line. 'Dick needed to reforge his own path. He was grieving in his own way.'

'Well I was grieving, too,' Y/N countered, a sudden surge of anger flaring up inside her. How dare Kaldur defend Dick. 'And I had to get on with my life because the team needed me. We needed him, Kaldur. I needed him, and he just left.'

Y/N bowed her head to collect her thoughts and calm down. That's two friends she had yelled at for no reason. Before she could apologise though, Kaldur placed a hand on her shoulder, and she raised her head to find him looking directly into her eyes.

'I cannot say I am not also disappointed in our friend,' Kaldur admitted sadly. 'I did not expect him to become so closed off for so long. But you've helped rebuild this team from the grief and pain it experienced when Wally died. I think you've earned the right to decide where you go from here, Y/N, without feeling guilty or selfish if your wish is not to stay with the team. In my opinion, you were made for more than this.'

'That's funny,' Y/N said in a flat voice. 'You're the second person today to tell me that.'

'Maybe because it is true,' Kaldur said sincerely. 'You know you still have a place in the Justice League whenever you'd like to join us. I would be honoured and happy to fight alongside a warrior such as yourself again. It would be like old times.'

Y/N offered a grateful smile as she patted Kaldur's hand that still rested on her shoulder. 'Thanks Kaldur, but I'm not ready for that just yet. Besides, you don't need two Amazonians running the show. And let's be real, we would so be in charge of you boys.'

The two shared quiet laughter as Kaldur's hand retuned to his side. 'Very well, then. So what will your decision be, Wonderess?'

Y/N looked to the Earth and space beyond it once more. Her heart and head were tearing her in two. She truly loved being a part of the team, but something inside her agreed with M'gann and Kaldur. Surely she was meant for more. But what exactly that was, she had to go find out.

'I think you're right, Kaldur,' she finally said, turning back to face her friend. 'I think I need to remind myself why I am here in the first place. And that comes from knowing who I am to begin with.'

Kaldur's face pinched in slight confusion. 'I'm sorry, but I do not follow.'

Y/N didn't answer straight away. Instead, she turned to dial in her code to exit the Watchtower. 'B-00: Wonderess,' the computer announced as the Zeta-tube activated.

She then finally turned back to Kaldur. 'I need to know where I've been to then know where I will go,' she said. 'I need to go back to where it all started.'

'And where's that?' Kaldur asked.

'With my mother,' she answered, then spared him one last sweet smile. 'Tell M'gann and Connor and the team I'm sorry.'

Kaldur looked as if he wanted to say something, ask more questions. But Kaldur was always more insightful than the rest of their group. He didn't always need an explanation. He just somehow knew, and so Y/N was grateful when he accepted her words with a simple nod of his head.

'Be safe, dear friend,' he said in farewell. 'May destiny be kind to you, wherever it leads you.'

Y/N nodded her appreciation and entered the Zeta-tube. It was always a weird sensation travelling by Zeta-tube, like a million light pricks into every part of the body. Thankfully the trip was quick to the Zeta tube depot in Washington DC, with Y/N walking out of an abandoned janitor's closest in the post office down the road from her apartment.

She smiled and waved down to civilians as she flew over the busy streets, but she flew as fast as she could to the meeting point.

Her mother casually sat atop the Washington Monument as Y/N approached, floating just in front of her. 'I was starting to worry you had gotten caught in Bialya,' Diana joked as she stood to greet her daughter. 'Welcome home, my daughter.'

'Good to see you, Mother,' Y/N said, and the two briefly embraced.

'Now that you're here,' Diana said, prepping to take off for the usual patrol, 'why don't we get going.'

'Actually, Mother, there is something I wanted to talk to you about first,' Y/N interrupted.

Diana raised an eyebrow. 'Really? And what would that be?'

Y/N took a deep breath in before she spoke the words. But when she did, she had never been more sure. 'I want you to take me back to your home. To Themyscira.'

~~~

Since she was a little girl, Y/N had heard hundreds of stories from her mother about the homeland of the Amazons. How beautiful it was with its architecture, its nature, and the women who ruled the island. She'd always dreamed of someday going there, but her mother said it was impossible to find it.

Except she failed to mention that despite leaving the island and forgetting where it was located, Diana had been gifted a compass that would always lead her back home, but only if she used it. It would not work without Amazonian hands.

So after all the storytelling and all the dreaming, nothing came close to actually witnessing Themyscira in the flesh.

Y/N stood speechless on the beach, looking up at the steps that led up to the first level of the city that seemed to climb higher and higher towards the sky. It was something out of the Ancient Greek text books Diana used to make Y/N read as a child, but even more fantastical and wondrous.

It wasn't just the visuals, though. Since the Invisible Jet broke through the barrier that hid Themyscira, Y/N had felt a pull of sorts towards the island. Now that she stood on its soil, she felt a warm energy wash over her, strengthen her, pull her into its embrace as if to say, Welcome home at last.

An entourage of women in red leather slitted skirts, plated tops, and armour while holding spears followed behind a woman dressed in white and purple robes. Ebony hair billowed out behind her golden leaf crown, the grey strands in between looking more silver as they caught the midday sun.

Y/N knew immediately who she was. Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Her grandmother.

As Hippolyta approached Y/N and Diana, she opened her arms to take her daughter's face into her hands. 'Diana,' she said, bringing her lips to her daughter's forehead in a simple kiss. 'Welcome home.'

'Thank you, Mother,' Diana said, and Y/N could tell by her mother's smile that she was joyous to be home. 'I'm sorry it took me so long.'

'Do not worry about that, child,' Hippolyta reassured. 'You are here now.'

She then looked over to Y/N, and for some reason Y/N straightened up, flattened out her Wonderess uniform, made sure her hair was tucked behind her headband. Y/N was briefly taken back to the time she (consciously) remembered meeting her grandparents on her father's side. All dressed up so as to make a good impression.

Y/N held her breath as Hippolyta walked slowly over to her, grey eyes scanning every inch of Y/N's figure in silence. When she'd done a cursory glance, she then stepped closer and took Y/N's face into her hands. Y/N was unable to look away from Hippolyta as the older woman caressed and poked and prodded at her features.

At last, Hippolyta stopped and her hands dropped to Y/N's shoulders. A kind, joyous smile graced the older woman's features. 'You have my daughter's eyes,' she said quietly, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. 'So kind and forthright. What is your name child?'

'Y/N Prince,' Y/N managed to get out once she caught her breath. 'Daughter of Steve Trevor...' Her gaze flickered to her mother, and the two shared a smile. '...and Diana Prince, Princess of Themyscira.'

Y/N looked back to see Hippolyta tearing up as realisation finally hit her. 'I have a granddaughter,' she said as she finally embraced Y/N completely, to which Y/N reciprocated and the entourage of Amazonians cheered and smashed their shields with their spears in celebration.

Hippolyta let go of Y/N to clasp one of her hands as she went to grab her daughter's hand. She then turned the three of them to face the crowd. 'My daughter and your champion, and my granddaughter have come home!'

More cheers erupted.

'Let us prepare a feast in their honour,' Hippolyta continued, and when the crowd began to disperse, she turned to Diana and Y/N to speak more quietly. 'I am sure you have both come here for a reason, and not just to say hello.'

'You are correct, Mother,' Diana said. 'It seems as though I have neglected our origins as Amazonians for too long and can no longer teach Y/N our ways.'

'I wish to learn who I am,' Y/N added. 'I wish to know where I come from, so that I may know where I must go next.'

'And how long do you believe that will take?' Hippolyta asked.

'As long as it takes,' Y/N answered, more certain than ever before. 'I don't care what I must do, Your Majesty. I will follow your guidance, as my mother once did.'

Hippolyta considered Y/N for a moment, then spared Diana an impressed smirk. 'Well, you taught her one thing, Diana.'

'What's that mother?' Diana asked.

'Your steadfast stubbornness.' Hippolyta looked back to Y/N. 'Very well, granddaughter. You will train among the other warriors. I just hope you know it won't be as easy as you might think.'

'Trust me,' Y/N replied, 'I'm hoping it isn't.'

Hippolyta's smile widened and her eyes sparkled with excitement. 'That attitude is already a good start. Come, we will talk of this later. First, let us celebrate this homecoming.'

That night Y/N ate and drank and danced among women like her, some older, some younger, some taller, some stronger. And she had never felt more at home, more recognised and celebrated. She'd had her doubts if she had made the right decision, but now she had no doubt.

She was where she belonged.

[nightcolorz]

I would love to hear your thoughts on autistic Armand, if you haven’t already spoke about this! Imo he’s very autsitic coded, and it’s very precious to me as an autistic iwtv fan :]

OMG!!! RUNS AROUND. Yes lmao I talk about this a lot actually it is one of my favorite Armand things to meta about bcus I’m also autistic and he is my special interest🙏I was trying to find some of the stuff I’ve written about autistic Armand but tumblrs search engine makes it near impossible to find anything so I gave up 😭, but believe me they r out there. Even tho I talk about this a lot I would love love love to talk about it some more for u anon because I can never get enough of armandtism.

I first figured Armand was autistic when I was reading the vampire Lestat because when he is first introduced he is completely non verbal and only communicates through the mind gift. through further explanation it’s very much implied that he does this because he finds putting his thoughts into words hard and he considers just projecting them into peoples brains much easier. Armand speaks out loud for the first time like more than halfway through the book, and lestat is surprised to hear him lol. This is super autistic I feel like that’s obvious 🙏 it’s basically the vampire power equivalent of using a non verbal communication device. Armand having trouble with connecting with people, understanding how to “fit in”, and talking r prevailing parts of his character throughout the whole series (not just tvl) which solidified my headcanon into basically a canon fact in my mind lol.

When Armand is first introduced in iwtv his strangeness is chalked up to his vampirism, but it’s soon revealed throughout tvl and qotd that Armand is considered a strange outcast by other vampires. The things he struggles with r unique to him and r not representative of vampires in general. His otherness/strangeness can also not be chalked up to his trauma or his age turned because Armand was also an outcast as a young child. It’s described in the vampire Armand that Armand was not understood by his parents or his community because he was obsessed with and freakishly good at painting. His community interprets his unusualness as a sign of some divine intervention, the priests believe he is a saint or a prophet sent to earth, even at times saying things implying that he is “not human”. Unusually high quickly developing skill in childhood is an autistic trait, as is hyper fixation on an activity/topic that becomes a core identity factor and prevailing obsession. The affects of Armand’s trauma only worsen the severity of his autistic traits. C-ptsd and autism often overlap and coexist in autistic people who were traumatized in childhood, which seems to be Armand’s case.

in queen of the damned Armand is at his peak autistic lol, I feel like this is when most book readers gain that head canon. The Devils minion chapter revolves around Armand using Daniel as a guide to help him learn how to be “normal” and to blend in to the modern age. Armand can’t seem to figure out how to blend in on his own because he is unable to understand social norms of any time period enough to integrate himself into society. Armand is in love with technology and what most would consider monotonous sensory experiences. He stares at his own reflection for hours, he loves kitchen appliances and watching ingredients whir in blenders, cameras, he watches the same movie over and over again and never gets bored of it. The way Armand fixates on technology really reminds me of how a lot of autistic people played as children. He enjoys repetitive, sensory behaviors over “fun”. For Armand this means watching the same things repeatedly, which is a form of visual stimming. There r moments where Armand is trying to understand his world, but is so blind to what he is trying to understand that he goes about his discoveries wrong. Such as in qotd when he tries to interrogate strangers to gain information on societal norms but he only gets uncomfortable glances. Armand is desperate to understand and to connect but he is consistently inherently alienated, whether it be from humanity or from other vampires or from himself.

Armand also can not process his memories comprehendingly. This is part trauma part autism, but autism is def a factor. Because of his repressed trauma induced memory loss Armand finds it difficult to talk about himself to people. This is worsened by Armand being unable to comprehend the aspects of story telling that he needs to be able to tell people about his life. Armand explains to Daniel that he vividly remembers small details, such as dates and weather, but he could not tell Daniel what “things were like” because he “doesn’t know what that means”. Literal thinking, the inability to grasp vague, fiction based concepts like narratives and metaphor, and strict fixation on minor details like numbers, are all autistic traits!

Armand also struggles heavily with emotional regulation. He is described as often having intense and extreme meltdowns where he cries and screams and breaks things. Armand is easily bothered, in tva he mentions that he covers his ears when he is overwhelmed. The vampire Armand begins actually with Armand becoming overwhelmed in public and trying to escape to an attic so that he can be alone in silence. Armand copes with his intense emotions by putting on a mask of neutrality. He is often described as expressionless and blank, uncanny. But this is a mask, and when Armand can no longer mask and his disguise lapses his facial expressions r described by lestat as being so over the top and emotional that they are disturbing and weird. Over the top unnatural facial expressions as well as blank unreadable ones are both autistic traits. For Armand he is naturally overly emotive to the point of being considered horrifying, and he hides this by taking the opposite extreme. Either way, either expression Armand puts on causes him to be socially outcast.

Armand often describes feeling like there is something wrong with him that causes him to be isolated from others and he’s not sure what it is. In prince lestat he tells Gregory that he doesn’t know why it’s so hard for him to have relationships when other vampires are fully capable of doing that. In the vampire Armand he explains to David that he’s crazy because his mind isn’t built right and his senses are tripled so he shouldn’t bother trying to understand him. I rlly relate to this as someone who felt like I was from another dimension as a child bcus i didn’t know the unspoken life rules everyone else did.

Armand is often treated like a child by the other vampires and assumed to be emotionally immature and too fragile and insane to be helpful. Armand says in the vampire Armand that he doesn’t consider himself an adult because he can’t function like one. This could be due to the age he was turned, but it’s shown to us that characters like Benji and even to an extent Claudia r able to self regulate and function appropriately despite being turned even younger then Armand was.

in conclusion, book Armand is an autistic person who was never given proper support or understanding because the environment and the time period he was born in decided to alienate him further rather then work to help him socialize and learn appropriate skills, and because of the necessities he has been deprived of and the horrible trauma he endured Armand is never able to learn to function in the way he was likely capable of. this recessive quality in pair with his autism caused Armand it be unable to cope or self regulate or learn ways to understand himself since he wasn’t given a chance to in his formative years. He’s a great representative of what many autistic people who experienced intense child abuse experience.

Im rlly happy with the shows portrayal with Armand so far partly because he is omg, so autistic. Show Armand shares so many of book Armand’s autistic traits. inability to understand himself or others, fixation on small details but inability to understand the big picture, etc. even his iPad is autistic asf! My ipad is my comfort item that I carry around with me to self sooth, and this is def the vibe Armand’s iPad gives me in the show. Even assads performance is autistic! He is able to play Armand masking and Armand unmasking, the stilted expressions he gives and the blank stares, the uncomprehending earnestness. AGHHHH!! Assad stims with his fingers when Armand is nervous too which is just an amazing touch. I hope the show explores Armand’s autism, because that would literally be a dream come true. Even still, for now I’m satisfied.

thank u so so much anon for the ask this made me so happy 🙏❤️ autistic Armand means so much to me and has gotten me though some tough times. Understanding and analyzing Armand helps me understand myself better and feel more comfortable with how I am. Earlier this year I gave myself a concussion because I was harmfully stimming during a meltdown, and while I was in the emergency room I was holding the vampire Armand and imaging that he would relate to what I was going through. So yeah he is very special to me too! And once again it makes me so so happy that u got me to talk some about it. I hope this was coherent or interesting lol I felt like I was all over the place