#might have a bit of a God Complex and Victim Complex at the same time

[sosa2imagines]

Broken Hearts. Part 5

Warnings- Cheating, manipulation, possessiveness, angst, revelations.

Lloyd's patience started to wane as he cleared his throat, “Are we going to get to the point anytime soon, Levinson?” His voice carried a hint of irritation and anticipation, echoing the collective desire for some clarity.

Ari, his ever-present charm still intact, replied with a sly smile, “I was just getting there, Lloyd. Patience is a virtue, as they say.”

Ari reached into his bag, extracting a manila folder and handed it to you, his eyes darting around the room as he shared his findings. “Well, I dug into their past, and it turns out Steve and Bucky have been friends since childhood,” he stated emphatically. His words hung in the air for a moment before he continued, “And get this, Steve has been in constant contact with Bucky ever since you left him. They've been talking frequently.”

His revelation sent a chill down your spine, the realization that Steve and Bucky had been in close contact adding a new layer of complexity to the situation. Lloyd's grip tightened around you, and Andy leaned forward, his brow furrowing in concentration. Clearly, the mention of Bucky's involvement had piqued their interest.

Ari's voice turned solemn as he continued, “And here's where it gets interesting, Steve and Bucky have a history of sharing women. They've both had a habit of pursuing the same woman, often simultaneously.”

The revelation hit you hard, and a wave of nausea washed over you. Your voice trembled as you uttered weakly, “Oh God, I think I'm going to be sick.” Lloyd's grip on you tightened, and you could practically feel the tension in the room skyrocket. You exchanged a glance with Nick, both of you silently contemplating the implications of this revelation.

“Steady now, Sugar,” Lloyd's voice carried a soothing tone, his touch offering a sense of stability. His arm wrapped protectively around you. You sunk into the cushions, still reeling from the sickening revelation, the pieces of the puzzle beginning to fall into place.

Ari's voice broke through the heavy silence, “Ah, and when I dug deeper, I discovered some interesting links to Tony Stark.” The mention of Tony Stark immediately piqued everyone's attention.

“Tony is not only a significant finance partner in Steve's company but his wife, Pepper, runs a renowned charity dedicated to protecting and supporting abused women,” Ari explained. The revelation of this connection sent shockwaves through the room, and you felt a shiver run down your spine.

“With Pepper Stark being highly vocal in the fight against domestic abuse and the wrong doings against women, your separation from Steve can undoubtedly get her attention.” Ari added. The implications of this fact weighed heavily on the group, and the atmosphere grew more fraught as the web of connections became increasingly tangled.

Your voice trembled as you voiced your thoughts. “I can't believe this... Is Steve trying to save his reputation, just because he doesn't want to lose Tony as a finance partner?” The realization that Steve's motives might be driven by financial self-interest rather than genuine concern added a new layer of disappointment to the already tangled situation.

Ari shrugged nonchalantly, his expression hard to decipher. “The timing seems a bit convenient, doesn't it? I mean, considering the fact that Pepper Stark fights for domestic violence and other crimes for victims through her charity. Steve must have feared it would look bad when news of your separation spreads.”

His words left a bitter taste in your mouth, confirming your suspicions.

Ari's voice deepened as he considered the situation further. “There's something else to consider, though. We only have half the picture here because Bucky's involvement complicates things. We can't be sure if Steve's primary motivation is saving his reputation or if there's something else at play.”

The uncertainty surrounding Bucky's role in this web of connections further clouded the path forward.

Nick's voice piped up, seeking further insight. “Can you tell us more about Barnes?”

Ari nodded, his eyes narrowing as he recalled the information. “Barnes has been in London, overseeing his family's assets. His last known relationship was with a woman named Dot.”

A flicker of confusion passed over your face, as Lloyd's chuckle echoed through the room. “Dot? Seriously?” he manages to get out, his laughter barely contained. Ari nodded, confirming the name, which only seemed to amuse Lloyd further. “No exclamation or question mark?” Lloyd finally burst out laughing, struggling to contain his amusement at the name.

The tension in the room eased slightly as Lloyd's laughter broke the tension, providing a fleeting moment of levity in the midst of the heavy discussion.

“Ah, that would be Dorothea, not just Dot,” Ari clarified, his voice dripping with amusement. “So, we're talking about a full-on Dorothea situation here, not just a simple Dot.”

The revelation prompted Lloyd to release another burst of laughter, the seriousness of the situation momentarily forgotten as they all grappled with the absurdity of the name.

Andy's voice broke through the brief laughter, swiftly redirecting the conversation back on topic. “Right, enough with the laughter. Let's focus on the case, shall we? We need to understand why Bucky gave Steve the video and why they're in constant contact. And most importantly, what does Bucky want?”

Lloyd's laughter ceased immediately, and the room fell quiet as they all waited for Ari's insights.

Ari's expression turned serious once more, his earlier amusement quickly replaced by a determined resolve. “You're right, we need to figure out their motives. Bucky's involvement opens up a whole new can of worms.” he conceded.

The intensity in the room grew palpable as they all shifted focus, ready to dissect the next piece of this perplexing puzzle. Ari takes your hands, gently squeezing them, to make you feel better. Lloyd glares at him with venom, Andy and Nick share a glance, trying to figure who Lloyd wants to kill first, Steve or Ari? Looking right now, Ari is winning.

“Tells me about Steve and Bucky…” Ari tells you and you nod, glancing at Lloyd, you feel your heart flutter. The way he looks at you, eyes soft, but jaw set, as his eyes are looking at Ari still holding your hands, just tells you, he's jealous and as you know Lloyd never gets jealous.

Ever since you left your house, Lloyd has been extra protective and caring. Always trying to cheer you up. Protect you at any cost.

You take a deep breath and tell Ari, what you shared with the boys earlier. “I swear, I don't know when he recorded us. Please believe me, I really don't know about it.” you cry hiding your face in your hands.

Nick grabs your hand, “Hey don't you worry, we have got this. Ari and I will find out more about Steve and Bucky, okay? Leave all the planning to us.” You smile in return forever grateful to them. 

Time had passed, few days later, the group had gathered in Lloyd’s office, the air heavy with anticipation. Ari stood before them, his eyes gleaming with a new found idea. “I think I have something that might help,” he began, his voice filled with confidence.

Lloyd, Nick, and Andy turned their attention to Ari, silently urging him to continue.

“We can search Steve’s house and office, in his absence.” “That is illegal!” Andy reminds him.

Ari nodded, “True, it's not strictly legal,” he conceded. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and if we want to find some evidence against Steve, searching his office and house might be our best bet.” Ari explained, conviction evident in his voice.

Andy shifted uncomfortably in his seat, still uncertain about the implications of such action. Nick, meanwhile, leaned forward, intrigued by Ari’s suggestion.

“We need to remember the risks involved…” Nick finally interjected, his voice a mix of caution and determination. “What if we get caught? We could get into serious trouble. We need to think this through carefully.”

The group exchanged uneasy looks, each weighing the options. While desperation clawed at them, the potential consequences loomed large, making it a difficult decision to make.

A wave of unease washed over you as Ari's gaze fixed onto you. You could sense his cunning mind formulating a plan, and you braced yourself for what was to come. With a sly smile, Ari began to explain, “We need to find a way to distract Steve, and I believe you're the key to that, gorgeous.”

His words sent a shiver down your spine, a mix of fear and curiosity swirling within you. Lloyd, Nick, and Andy all exchanged knowing look. “What are you planning Levinson?” Lloyd asks.

“But…”

Ari continued, undeterred by your attempted interruption. “You call Steve and convince him to meet you in a public place, like a restaurant. He won't try anything in public. I trust that he will cooperate.”

The group fell silent, contemplating the plan. Nick and Andy both nodded in agreement, while Lloyd raised an eyebrow, skeptically.

“Alright, so Steve takes the bait and meets me in public. What happens next?” You posed the question to Ari, your voice trembling slightly. Ari's eyes sparkled with the thrill of the plan, and his lips curled into a mischievous smile.

Your heart raced as Ari explained the plan. “Jake, my hacker, will place a tiny, hidden camera and microphone under the table during your meeting with Steve. Your role is to engage him in conversation, and we hope that he'll implicitly confess his threats. Meanwhile, Nick and Jake will discreetly search his house, and Lloyd will search his office. This way, we cover multiple fronts and hope to uncover the full scope of the situation.”

Lloyd's protective instincts kicked in as he protested the plan, “Absolutely not. I'm not letting her go alone with Steve. It's too risky.” His voice was filled with concern, the thought of you being vulnerable in Steve's presence clearly troubling him.

However, Ari stood his ground, reassuring Lloyd with a firm tone. “It's the best way to draw Steve out in public. We'll have everything in place, she'll be perfectly safe. Mr and Andy will be there too.”

Your heart raced with fear, the thought of calling Steve and meeting him filling you with dread. “I don't know if I can do this,” you whispered, your voice trembling with uncertainty. Lloyd, sensing your unease, reached out to comfort you. “You won't be alone,” he assured you, his voice filled with conviction.

“Please, I need some time to prepare. Give me a day,” you requested, your voice filled with apprehension.

“Of course, Sugar, take your time.” Lloyd said, giving the guys a look.

After two days… okay three days later, you decide to call Steve. Ari invites his hacker Jake Jensen. 

With a deep breath, you finally picked up the phone and dialed Steve's number. Your heart was pounding, your palms were sweaty, and you could barely focus your thoughts.

For a fleeting moment, you considered hanging up, but then Steve's voice came through, his deep timbre piercing through the tension. “Hello, baby doll.” he answered cordially.

Summoning all your strength, you responded with a calm voice, “Steve, we need to meet. I have something important to discuss with you.”

Steve's laughter echoed through the line, his ego inflating at your request. “You think you can just call me and invite me to meet? That's cute,” he sneered, his words dripping with condescension. “Why would I bother meeting you, baby doll?” His demeaning remarks fueled your resolve, and you steeled yourself to stand your ground. “Just come back home like a loyal wife and we'll talk as much as you want!” He orders.

“It's important, Steve. Please, meet me. It won't take long...” you pleaded, keeping your voice steady despite the turmoil within.

After a moment of hesitation, Steve finally relented. “Fine, I'll meet you at that Italian restaurant downtown,” he said gruffly. “And make sure you're there on time. I won't wait around for you.”

Once Steve hung up, you closed your eyes, taking deep breaths to steady your nerves.

Lloyd, Nick, Andy and Ari, all huddled around you, their expressions filled with encouragement. “You did great,” Lloyd praised, a hint of pride in his voice. “We know Steve can be a handful, but you managed to get him to agree to meet.” Nick said in agreement, offering a reassuring smile. “Just focus on your plan, we'll be watching every move, remember that.” Andy chimed in; his eyes filled with concern. “Stay strong, gorgeous.” Ari tells you.

Later at night you were sitting on the kitchen counter, eating a huge tub of ice cream, when. “Hey Sugar.”

You look up and see Lloyd leaned against the wall.

“Hey you… ice cream?” you offer and instead of getting a spoon he simply opens his mouth for you to feed him, which you gladly do.

“Thank you for helping me so much Lloyd, you, Andy, Nick, Ari, Jake all of you.” you tell him, as you keep eating and feeding him, ice cream.

Lloyd chuckles, till he notices the ice cream smudged around the corner of your lips. Lloyd reached out and gently brushed his thumb over the spot, his touch sending a shiver down your spine. The casual intimacy of the gesture caught you off guard, and you found yourself blushing slightly. Lloyd smiled at you, his eyes filled with warmth and affection.

The air between you crackled with tension, the atmosphere growing more intimate. Lloyd's eyes darkened with desire as he continued to stare at your mouth. You could feel the heat radiating between you, the pull of attraction becoming harder to resist.

Leaning closer, Lloyd caressed your cheek gently, his touch sending shivers down your spine. “These lips…” he whispered, his voice husky with emotion. “They drive me crazy.”

His confession hung in the air, the raw honesty of his words sending waves of excitement through you. You reached up, gently tracing your fingers along his jawline, going up his lips, feeling his moustache.

You could feel his breath hitch as your touch sent a jolt of desire through him. The proximity, the intimacy, the unspoken longing between you grew.

Without a second thought, your lips suddenly met in a fervent kiss. Your hands instinctively found their way to his hair, fingers tangling in the soft strands as you surrendered to the intensity of the moment. The taste of his lips was like a forbidden fruit, leaving you craving for more.

He grabs you by the hips, standing between your legs and you straddle his waist, pulling your face up with the same roughness, because you need to be closer, need to taste deeper, need to make up for whatever that was missing or not.

“Finally,” he groans.

The kiss deepened, and you became acutely aware, of the sensation of his moustache as it brushed against your upper lip. The feeling grew incredibly intimate. His moustache added a unique texture to the already passionate kiss, heightening the intensity of the moment.

You savored the way it moved against your skin, the prickly yet soothing sensations flooding your senses. It was a distinct reminder of his masculinity, adding an extra layer of desire and heat to the connection between you.

He whimpers, grinding his hips against yours, pressing his hard cock firmly against your core. “Fuck” Lloyd growls, bringing his mouth back down to yours, using his hands to push against your skin, underneath your t-shirt, cupping your breasts.

After some minutes he pulls away, “As much as I want to take you right now Sugar, we need to wait and trust me, I'm not regretting this, but you need to be prepared for me. I'm not going to take advantage of your vulnerable state.” You pout at him and he kisses you again, your brain still buzzing from the high, of finally knowing what his mouth feels.

Part 4- Part 6

Taglist- @imyourbratzdoll @blackhawkfanatic @ordelixx @sapphirebarnes @ilovetaquitosmmmm

@differenttyphoonwerewolf @vicmc624 @thezombieprostitute @nekoannie-chan @emerald-writes

@redbloodedgurl @cjand10 @chemtrails-club @slutforchrisjamalevans

@ghostlythinggoingaround @princezzjasmine @3xclusivemariii @ephemeral-oasis

@geeky-politics-46 @dexter99 @calwitch

@whore-for-chris-evans @caplanreblogsfics

[hannahssimblr]

At the house, I am conscious of the mess. Nobody has made an effort to clean up properly for weeks, and now dishes and miscellaneous bits of rubbish litter every available surface. The bins are full. Tangles of chargers and cables pile up on the table, and water damage has well and truly set in on the oak flooring under our feet. The same patch of floor that Evie’s hair is dripping on now, but while it’s too late to save it, she might as well add to it. 

“Wow, this is a beautiful house,” she says, and I have to check her face to see if she’s taking the piss out of me. She looks genuinely charmed. I frown.  

“I’ll get you a towel downstairs.”

As we descend to the living room, I find myself holding my breath. It seems even dirtier than the kitchen there, and I wonder how and when this happened, how it is even possible. Yet here we are, and it is. I pray there are clean towels, at least let there be clean towels…

Oh, thank God. 

I hand her one from the hot press. It is old and scratchy, and likely a victim of my mother, back when she used to dye her hair at home, evidenced by the big, bleached patches all over it, but at least it’s clean. I show her the bathroom. 

“Feel free to take a shower if you want to. The water is hot.” As it constantly is, because I turned it on at the beginning of the summer and found the system so complex that I never risked turning it off again. I’ll be hearing about it when my dad gets the bill, but that’s an issue for September. 

Evie peeks in. “You don’t want to go first?”

“No, go ahead.”

As soon as I hear the hum of the shower, I pounce into action and tear into my bedroom. I yank all the dirty clothes off the floor and fire them into my already heaving hamper, then kick a pair of shoes under the bed, followed by a mucky football and some art magazine Jen thought I���d like, but I never read.

There are chocolate wrappers on the floor. What kind of creature am I? Was I sitting on the floor at some point, feasting on a family packet of dairy milk bars, or did these just fall out of my pockets? I rush around, picking them all up, then reach the wastepaper basket to find it full. I curse under my breath and yank the bag out, tying it in a hasty knot, then carry it and the two handfuls of coffee mugs strewn about the place up to the kitchen. There is nowhere for them to go, so I shove the mugs into the sink and toss the bag on the floor. 

She’s showering for ages. Good. 

Next, I tackle the bed, straightening out the duvet and pillows, which are, mercifully, clean. I could tongue-kiss the past version of myself that ran them through the wash two days before. To make extra sure, I give them a good, long sniff. They still smell like detergent. The clean clothes from that same wash go from the armchair to the wardrobe, and books on the bedside table. The tennis racquets… they’ll be fine, leaning against the wall. When I step back and examine my work, I determine that it’s barely passable, but time is surely running out, and she can’t shower forever. The dust on the floor can stay another day. 

Lastly, I toss my sweaty clothes onto the pile and peel off my sodden shorts. Once I have changed into something clean, I carry all the laundry out and heave it into the washing machine, right by the door of the bathroom. Evie hums tunelessly in the shower, and for a moment or two, I stand and listen. I wonder whose shower gel she is using, and shiver inexplicably at the idea of her choosing mine. 

I arrange myself in a casual position when she comes back into the room, hanging out on the end of the bed. She’s rosy from the hot water, and her hair lies flat against her head, so straight and fine that her ears poke out the sides. 

“You don’t have to wear the same wet t-shirt,” I inform her. “I can put your clothes in the dryer.”

She pulls at the hem and looks down at those two, damp, triangular patches. “It’s okay,” she shrugs. “They’ll dry on me.”

“You can leave all your wet stuff on the floor. I’ll sort them out after my shower and I’ll just find you something else to wear.”

“But I won’t fit in your clothes.”

“You’ll fit in a t-shirt, won’t you?” I saunter over to my wardrobe and lift a t-shirt from the stack. It’s old, and has a hole in the armpit, hence it’s permanent relegation to the beach house wardrobe, but like everything else in this house in its current state, it will suffice. 

“Thanks,” she says. I leave her to change and head for the shower. 

“What are you looking at?”

She jumps and turns around. I’ve caught her nosing around and looking at my notice board. She points at it. “Your ticket to a music festival.”

I hesitate, trying to gauge whether Claire has blabbed to her about what I said or not. “Oh yeah, are you coming?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should. All of us are heading up to it.” I pull a pair of socks out of a drawer and plonk myself onto the bed to put them on. 

She sits with me. “I’m not sure. It’s kind of a bit complicated.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” she hesitates before deciding to divulge. “Kelly and Claire are in a big fight about it. Claire wants to go, and Kelly doesn’t want to, even though it’s Claire’s eighteenth birthday the same weekend. It’s… it’s all a bit silly if I’m honest.”

I frown. “She doesn’t want to celebrate her friends’ birthday in a fun way?”

“No, it’s more than that. It’s that she doesn’t want to hang out with Shane for the whole weekend. She’d be too embarrassed to. She’s weird about that kind of thing.”

I should proceed with caution. I say, “sounds a little selfish to me.”

“Kelly’s a complicated person. I think she means well, she just… isn’t great at expressing herself. She gets angry at people instead of telling them how she feels in a normal way.”

I could talk a lot of shit about Kelly Healy, but I‘ll save it. I know that teenage girls’ friendships are strange and nuanced in ways my brain will never fully comprehend. Things never seem to be simple enough to just end the friendship. It must drag on for eternity until one of them is irreparably damaged in its wake. “So what, she’s forbidden you both from going to the festival?”

“She hasn’t said that we’re forbidden.”

“But you’re not going because you think she’ll be angry with you.”

“Pretty much.”

“So what about Claire? It’s her birthday.”

She groans. “I know. I hate this. I hate when people are fighting, and I feel like I’m in the middle of it. I don’t know what the right decision is.”

Tell me about it. “The thing that you want to do more, that’s the right decision.”

“I knew you’d say something like that.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Something wise.”

I laugh. If only I could take my own advice. 

She heaves out a sigh and slumps over her knees. “I can’t talk to either of them about it. Kelly is impossible, and Claire hasn’t been around. I’ve barely seen her at all since they fought. I don’t even know where she’s been.”

I blink. “Oh, she’s been here.”

“What?”

“Yeah! I thought you knew. She’s been coming here every day for ages.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“And did she tell you why?”

“No, I didn’t ask. I thought it was just to hang out with Shane.”

“With Shane?” She straightens to look into my face and I grin.

“Yeah, they’ve been hanging out.”

“Go ’way.”

“I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but they hang out a lot, go for walks together and watch TV in the living room. I usually just leave them alone, but…” I tap my nose.

“Oh, I knew it!” She throws herself back on to her elbows and shakes her head. “I wonder what this is going to mean for Kelly.”

“Kelly can grow up. She doesn’t have a say.”

“Ugh. I know. It’s just impossible not to worry about it.”

“Evie, how often do you let that girl live inside your head? Forget about it. Let Shane and Claire deal with her.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

It’s not lost on me, the juxtaposition between this conversation and the one I had with Alison this morning. These two girls are only a year apart in age, and yet somehow their lives oppose so diametrically. Am I the same boy with them both, or have I somehow split in two? How can I be worrying about Alison and all that she’s been through, while hours later coaching Evie through friend drama? I know the turmoil and stress is real for her. I can tell by the things her face is doing, how she nibbles on her lip, the way her brow furrows, but I am comforted by it, by how simple it is. Maybe it would be good for my soul to spend more time with Evie. 

Regardless, I move on from this specific theme and bring the conversation back to where it began. “And as for the festival, I think you should come.”

“Hm.”

“Will you?” She doesn’t answer, so I assume she hasn’t heard me. I nudge her. “I want you to come. Will you come?”

“You want me to?” She echoes, like she doesn’t exactly believe it.

“I do.”

“Okay then.”

Perhaps someone else would find it worthwhile to read into the fact that she seems to want to do everything that I do, but I’m not really that bothered. I’m just glad that she agreed for the sake of herself. I suspect it may be a rarity for her. 

Beginning // Prev // Next

Corresponding LG Chapter [2]

[zwoelffarben]

Whelp, I've gon don did it again, and had thoughts tangentially related to a serious post that were to complex for the tags, so I've gone and made my own post.

So, disclaimers

Mespyrian is not a Greek goddess contemporary to 'The Helenistic Period,' which is an anachronic era name applied by archeologist to the period of time around ~300~30BC¹.

She is a character created for some persons high school (or college ?) entry-level creative writing course which they then published to wattpad and it spread from there, as far as I'm aware of the origin. Anyone with clearer details feel free to provide them.

The nature of the origin of Mespyrian and the fact that people were being wrong and misinformed idiots on the internet when they started espousing her as Greek goddess contemporary to the helenistic period are not in dispute in this post. I'm not trying to goncharov mespyrian. Mespyrian goncharoved mespyrian before goncharov was a thing saavy.

What I am instead going to do is argue that she's more interesting to me than just 'people being wrong on the internet.' To do that, I need to establish what her story's core components were, as best I remember them because searching for anything on tumblr is like pulling teeth, and I'm caine-insensitive.

So Mespyrian.

The daughter of Persephone and Hades,

Pretty girl goddess who made aphrodite jealous

Aphrodite burned half her body with a comb and the sun somehow?

Now she's a split between two aspects

As a nurturing goddess who helps the victims of violence

and a vengeful goddess that punishes the perpetratosrs of violence in the afterlife.

That's it, that's the canon text, as best I can remember.

Now, to me, she looks a lot like Hel from Norse mythology. She's definitely NOT Hel; but you can see the idea of Hel in her if you squint yeah? A goddess of the afterlife, whose in a support group with Harvey Dent for characters who had half their body burnt in their origin story, and who punishes (forgive the christian undertones in the word) the damned of the dead. They're not singing the same song on it, but they are sharing the harpsichord.

This interpretation of Mespyrian as a mutated and transplanted variation on Hel (which is probably not what the author had in mind, but the author is dead and wrong anyway) makes Mespyrian an interesting case study into what a cross-pantheonic transplant might look like in the moment that it happens.

And her story-zero has some interesting things to say about the reinterpretation of mythological figures in later stories in and off itself, because Aphrodite ain't like that in any contemporary Greek myths I'm aware of. Like, maybe if she lost the golden apple instead of winning it, she'da been like that about it, but I'm not aware of any stories that characterize her as jealous of the beauty of another to the point of attempting to mar that other's beauty. It doesn't say something about Aphrodite so much as it says something about the process by which Aphrodite (and other gods) can take on new personal properties in later reinterpretation of their character.

She's more than just people being wrong on the internet; but that's just my opinion, man.

...

Also, as a goddess, she kinda slaps. Like yeah, she's a bit edgier than I'd personally worship; but, a goddess of trauma who's kind to victims and cruel to victimizers with a deliciously ironic black and white motif to accent the black-white mentality people like have about this despite how nuanced victimhood as an institution and experience is. There's something there worth worshipping.

No: She's not contemporary to the helenistic era's Greecian pantheon; but, she slaps the same.

[refriedrambles]

unpolished notes on mysterious mysteries (why am I starting here? why not)

It gets long

the conspiracy theorists are odd balls I need to rewatch first episode they're in to see if the whole "alien said to listen to the blob" means anything

The host is at the end of his rope and desperate to keep his job (I'm kinda wondering what was going on behind the scenes here)

Pig foot drives him to look back into the archives despite the scar he received "last time" (god this is fic bait. I might need to write something for eventually. Just have Dib give this man ptsd)

HC: MM Host tried to sue for his injuries but the same network owns both the stations MM and Membrane's show run on and they persuaded him to settle out of court. He only got his bills covered cause the rest of that money could go in REAL science.

There is so much in the Dib archives. It's bigger then the room they started in.

Host immediately see the potential in the video. (Senpai noticed acknowledged you Dib!)

Host is VERY quick to make his thoughts about Dib known despite trying to stay professional.

HC: Dib totally sent in that clip of himself as a toddler. Probably years ago with some sort of fucking fan mail. "I wanna be like you when I grow up! This show is my favorite! Praise me! I'm so young and I've been doing this so long. Pretty cool, right? I know." (Verm's on the money about the Zim and the Tallest parallels to Dib and Host)

Baby Gaz only gets frustated when the blocks read aliens. So I'm gonna assume Membrane was already making comments about it at this point.

Dib's so full of himself in his retelling. He's trying to sound so serious and professional/smart yet humble as he narrates into it. Full blown boasting. He's failing the assignment.

Whether his hero complex is fogging his recollection of things and he geniunely believes this is how it when down or he's embellishing is an interesting question. (Dib is kinda one of my blindspots) It's likely a bit of both.

I do believe he views Gaz as a sidekick. I wonder if he actually views Gaz as a scared little girl despite how terrifying she. It's actually pretty likely that he doesn't really know her at all despite living with her and being family. It's a very Membrane thing. Could be part of the reason Gaz is how she is. She has no reason to trust Dib if he's too busy with his paranormal shit to even know her by now.

He's obviously making Zim out to be a bigger threat. I do think he's purposely embellishing here. Mostly about Zim shooting at him.

Emphasizing things through redundent rephrasing. (don't look at me)

Really getting into the straight up lies now. "But I was too much for him." You were not.

He's so fucking sure of himself. Nothing else has worked Dib. Stop trying to be cool infront of your idol it's not gonna do anything.

Dib's day has been ruined.

Zim's so quick to look into the camera as he acts. He flinches at alien, has his tiny tyraid and then snapping quickly back to acting.

I reiterate. Dib's day has been ruined. The sad look he gives to host, when he's talking to Zim.

It's interesting that when he says he's playing "like a human earth larva" he's up in the tree with Gir. Were you just fucking around trying to keep the robot distracted Zim? Or was that the actors just getting ready for the next shoot?

We know Zim's bullshitting to some degree. Very clearly about the lunch monzies. But I do think on some level he just sees Dib's bullshit as bullying.

The little cowaring and sobbing, love Zim's lies here. He's absolutely playing the victim for sympathy cause it's a strategy that normally works for him (on earth), but damn if Host wasn't the perfect target for it. Like the man clearly views Dib as a menace. It wouldn't take alot to sway him.

Day further ruined. Dad's not even here and he's still killing your dreams, Dib. (How'd you get the world's most famous scientist as your expert, huh, Host?) I bet Membrane fucking jumped on the oppurtiny to debunk something on Dib's favorite show. He loves to be seen. He's correcting "misinformation" with REAL science. And his son is going to be watching! Even better. I bet he didn't even know Dib was on the show.

"He told me my daddy is a yeti." Starts to breakdown. "My daddy's not a yeti! HE'S NOT A YEEETTTI!!!" Those were some strong thumps. How much did Dib harass this kid?

"Well, Dib," distain clear in his voice.

So full of himself. Also repetition.

Zim was so ready to eat that thing.

I think Host's fear of Dib extended to Gaz, but he's more open about it cause she's more outwardly aggressive. It's not that he got shit thrown at his head. But the fact he's fully expecting to get hurt again while filming this episode and he feels like he's being forced to do this.

Also the budget's getting pretty low, huh? Hosts typically aren't camera men.

Gaz being very clear about how she views most people. I do think the view that she's smarter then everyone else is also a Membrane trait. And she maybe right in the show, but she also just sees nothing but stupidity in everyone else.

"Restrain him!" AAAAAGGHHHAAAAH!!!! It almost sounds like he's being punched.

Stacy: WITNESS. GIR isn't even bothering with a disguise. Zim called him in and he's just like Ookie Dookie! Waves at camera.

"LET HER TALK! Can't you see she's upset." Zim quiets without a fuss.

Is- is that a zombie in the squirrel suit?

"I feel bad for the ugly green kid," you were primed to sir. You were primed to. But like Zim did make the best case here. In isolation perhaps Dib's would be as strong, but with his mischaracterization of Gaz his story takes a major hit. (Dib can't make a compelling case to save his life. He was only staying to cool at the begin because of who he was talking to. He didn't want to come off badly. If he took that adittude into more of his arguement I think more people would be willing to hear him out at the very least.)

"But not an alien." I absolutely love the delivery of that line. I love it!

Tiny yeeee! and he walks off with gir.

HC: Host is the creator of Mysterious Mysteries and has basically bankrupted himself keeping it a float. The man is deep in debt and the network has him by the balls.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I feel like Zim was giving Host a similiar amount of respect to what he gives Ms. Bitters.

This is definitely one of my favorite episodes. From the delivery of the lines, to the staging of the story, to host's slow crumbling until he just breakdown on set and of course an appearance from the Professor.

[solardick]

So what cards to use?

Serpent comes back. Dove is flying.

Mission impossible.

Mother, i’m afraid.

It’s the cir_cle🎶 the circle of li_fe.

Is this what you need dear?

What is it that i owe?

A crow is where violence ensues. Harm. Death. The distant is closed in the now. With it all intent from the external. It means loss. Ravens well. Are a little more human. We say that its time. Prepare yourself. Its a hit. But when it happens with complexicity. You know extra attention is paying name. And i always fail. I don’t listen. The external wont leave me be. Im sorry if your trying to help me. You are the best moments of my life. And i look to you. And i know theres love. Its too bad that word is so god damned contaminated with bs. That one is afraid to say it. It not being hyped. Its always hyped. Its always spelt with a capital letter. People are stupid.

And im an alien.

As is the dragon. Not American. It’s not attached to all that sin bs that american dragons are. Its more of a Japanese dragon. A mix of creatures. As is the spirit. Here less formed to that of an image of man. Same goes for the hindu’s description of life. Foe whatever that god’s name is. I like it.

The dove is tied with the dragon here as positive social involving strong and confident eye contact. Which creates a bit of a stir between two. And engages active participation. All unease is vacant. And trust on a leaF of fate. Not knowing where the wind will blow.

All life does. Is attack it. Attack attack attack. Attack. Bleed. Attack.

Randy’s Japanese toilet.

Ok so now im changing partners. With the little effeminate foreigner. I still lose. Still on script. Ugh.

Ok fine ill go full woman.

I font need to have any initiative i can be a lazy worker.

Il’ fuck the next guy that cums on to me. Go back to beign eight again. Maybe itll be his brother. I want a strong body pressed up behind me. Take care of me. Do nice things for me. And you can own me. Its all i know anyway. Being owned. They ain’t going to stop. Might as well. You’re no stranger. Give in to the lie. Maybe they’ll leave you alone. And stop hurting you. Give up the dream of ever having a family. Theres is no mother. There is no father. There is only childhood. Thats all its been for all these last years. Being shipped around. Owed. Beaten. To insanity and then passified. And raped.

May i get off this abusive fucken script now!? How many more peoplw want to line up and take their next turn?

In all those years. All fucken twenty or so only one person ever insisted and asked me what. One person. I. A way that wasnt aggressive or violent. Sll the violence is dtillt here. By ny fucken entourage. Leave me aline i cant fucken do it. Jesus fuck raoe your families.

Oh no! I got pressed and stressed at saying soemthig. Stupid again. Punish me. Build your own excuses.

What can one inject a chromozone into some one?

So i have to sabotage. Bye bye sunshine. Your a fake summer anyway. Still covid. Get out your mask and be conditioned to avoid everyone. And live the hermit.

Now i got some more cigs to smoke. Odd’y enough my lung isnt hurting. Chain smoked a pack. Scrounging butts. Alright. Oo card lets start my new life as estranged. While i wait on the in reasing depressiob to knowck me out of functionality again. Back yo square one and 20 more years of vegetation while being mistreated. Maybe ill goninsane again and i can get raped and passified again. For the miliionth time.

So the next p’ace i go to you gonna send other girls to sexuàlly harrass me and after i take the proper steps victimize me as the villain. Its becoming repetative. Where your imagination?

No stay home. What? Look dispointed im grttingg fucked with and now im sick. Look disapoited. What the fuck ever nan.

Im going back to bed and wait to see if im a member og the health and safety commity. Its its not just an insult. To have that posted now. The second i wàk inside i start choking almost puking little poor sleep coupelf with chain smoking an fthe recent griup endeavered fucking with me. Im out. Ok. Fyck off.

Consodering the union rep. Is best froends witha drug dealee. Doesnt inspire too mych confidence or trust. Oh no! Im intimidated. Or the drug dealer spazzing out and cowering everytime i raise my gand to through a peice of paper in the trash or the hippy mexican guy eho also told me he was a drug dealer. Both freak out. And engrandize my negaitve reactions. And yet. Im the one who gets hit by them. Yeah. Ok. Fuck you. Think im going to go all full core serioal killer violent on yous. What. Ao and then i get damage for the dame behavior others have done unto my all my life? Yeha ok. Sure why not. Its the guy driving hi s wife to the hospital that gets pulled over by the cops. While the drunk driver ahead of them. Keeps going. Serrounded by criminals victimizing me into being punished. Yap. Fuck life.

Of course im being herded. Who else whould i chose to work with. Within the limited options available. Its not me choice. It was already mande for me. Fuck rhe foreigners is probably a bigger criminal than the others combined gor all i k ow.

Born in a life serrounded by criminals. No wonder my dragon gets raped.

« As wise as a serpent. And as harmless as a dove. «  the bible. Uh, isnt that cool. I just saw that on greyhound. That was good movie. I watched it twice. Today. But thatd life. You find yoru way and then they rape it. And dump it out. Reaving with hatred. And rhen you need to be corrwcted while the laugh at you. Well that’s how i was raided atleast.

Im going to go massage my prostate with the hand’e of my toilet plunger. Later.

Oh no, easter id comming another holiday. Thats means another collective fuck you to me.

No iill try and go see Mother therapist once inknow i own my own life. And aint consistently p’aced with the criminal or the degenerate.

[proffbon]

It seems that I might be writing my Durge, Fawn, far more mildly than he's supposed to be in canon. I guess part of the reason is that Fawn is partially based on my Gorion's Ward, Anri, so I'm subconsciously writing Fawn the same way. And, well, Anri wasn't a Dark Urge, he was just a regular Bhaalspawn, so he didn't have such intense overwhelming cravings for murder as Fawn does (not counting the time of Irenicus' soul fuckery when Anri couldn't control his slayer form). It doesn't mean he's not drawn to violence, but it's not at the same level of intensity I believe. Anri still enjoys a good fight, he just doesn't have much of a hard on for the blood and gore part. 

What's more is that Anri views murder itself a bit differently. When Dorn asks him what he feels during battle, Anri responds that he feels relaxed, and he just lets it happen, because murder is basically so natural to him that the act itself comes to him as easily as breathing, it's usually the circumstances of the murder which cause any kind of emotion in him. And after Anri ascends, his sphere of influence doesn't change, but it shifts a bit. He becomes more of an artisan god who acts as a patron to people who choose killing as their tool of trade, mostly assassins and bounty hunters, but also executioners and mercenaries sometimes.

So I end up writing Fawn as more of an assassin than a rampant killer, who enjoys coming up with complex plans to corner his prey or to not get caught if he's after a high-status target. He does still enjoy the killing itself immensely, but I think he would get bored with going after easy targets if it was the only thing he ever did. Also, considering that Sceleritas apparently just brought him victims from time to time, I think Fawn would definitely get tired of sitting on his ass and not hunting people. He is a ranger after all, he can't shut up about how much of an apex predator he is. 

[baylardian-1]

Our Threshold kiddy designs all grown up. :D

[thegirlwhowrites642]

I saw a Tumblr post that says Ginny should destroy a horcrux. What's your thoughts on this? And if you agree which horcrux Ginny should had destroyed?

While I understand the sentiment behind that statement, I have to disagree, but let's see why.

In the first place, I would argue that Ginny might not have destroyed a Horcrux but she certainly defeated one, in the most contorted, darkest, complex way. Let's also not forget that if it hadn't been for Harry finding the diary, Ginny wouldn't have ended up in the Chamber. She was eleven and strong enough to win a mental war against Voldemort.

The only comparable show of mental strength regarding the destruction of a Horcrux is Harry walking to his death, but technically Harry was not a Horcrux. It's a different thing, I'm not going to count him in the Horcruxes.

Anyway, which Horcruxes were destroyed when Ginny was around?

The diadem, the snake, and the cup.

Ginny going to the Chamber with Harry to destroy the cup could've been interesting but very hard to justify narratively. And honestly, it was Ron and Hermione's thing, it was needed for showing Ron's strategic thinking, Hermione complimenting him, and their habit of discussing things alone and then bringing them to Harry that was kind of lacking for a while in DH.

For Nagini, the fundamental premise of Harry telling Neville about the snake is that Harry is not that emotionally attached to him. Plus, if Harry had tried to pull that stunt with Ginny, she would have understood what he was going to do in half a second. Also, the idea that Ginny, finding out that Harry is dead, would worry about a snake is a bit absurd.

This leaves us with the diadem. Ginny is around the Room of Requirements when it gets destroyed, the story could have been arranged for her to destroy it. But what emotional value it would've had for her? None. She didn't know what Horcruxes were. Sure, she would've found out after but it's not really the same thing. It wouldn't have brought her character development and growth.

And more importantly, Ginny has her own story. Making her just one of Harry's many helpers would've defeated the point of her being Harry's equal.

It's true that her relationship with darkness starts with a Horcrux but it's not the point, it's not the focus of Ginny Weasley's story. She doesn't even find out about Horcruxes until after the war.

I personally find so much value in the fact that her story doesn't need Harry's to gain legitimacy.

Ginny Weasley's story is one about shining brighter than the shadow other people put you in because they consider you too little, too young, and God forbid, a girl. Coming out of the shadow is the theme of her character, just as much a her association with light.

Ginny's story is the one of a girl who because she was ignored ended up a victim of unimaginable horrors and then grew up to be a defender of the mistreated. First with her friends, then with the entirety of Hogwarts during DH. And while I'm pretty sure that Ginny wasn't the official leader of the DA, the narrative, before giving Neville his moment to shine, and I'm not trying to take that away from him, makes quite sure to point out that the "frontman" (or frontwoman, I guess?) is Ginny. Something easily deductible by the personalities of Ginny, Neville, and Luna anyway. Harry continues to receive information about what happens to Ginny from Phineas Nigellius, it's only Harry who deduces that Neville and Luna are probably working with her.

“We’ve got a couple of questions to ask you— about the sword of Gryffindor.” “Ah,” said Phineas Nigellus, now turning his head this way and that in an effort to catch sight of Harry, “yes. That silly girl acted most unwisely there— ”

“Professor Black,” said Hermione, “couldn’t you just tell us, please, when was the last time the sword was taken out of its case? Before Ginny took it out, I mean?” -Chapter 15, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling

However, he did let drop certain snippets. Snape seemed to be facing a constant, low level of mutiny from a hard core of students. Ginny had been banned from going into Hogsmeade. Snape had reinstated Umbridge’s old decree forbidding gatherings of three or more students or any unofficial student societies. From all of these things, Harry deduced that Ginny, and probably Neville and Luna along with her, had been doing their best to continue Dumbledore’s Army. This scant news made Harry want to see Ginny so badly it felt like a stomachache; but it also made him think of Ron again, and of Dumbledore, and of Hogwarts itself, which he missed nearly as much as his ex-girlfriend. -Chapter 16, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling

But whatever Ginny has accomplished in those months is diminished by her being away for the last month. Protected, put in a corner, once again for who she is. And so once again, right before the Battle, she finds herself having to fight in order to be able to fight, which said like this sounds ridiculous.

She's, for one last time, put in the shadow, and for one last time forced to prove that she can get out of it, that she's brighter than the dark corner she is forced into.

And we see her again being the one that takes care of the forgotten, when just after her brother's death, she is on the Hogwarts grounds, caring after a half-dying girl.

It's this whole story that travels alongside Harry's one, and yet constantly connects with it. If Harry's story is more of a war of the flesh, starting and ending with a physical mark, Ginny's story is more of a war of the mind.

When there's the fight between the six for going to the Department of Mysteries, the fight between the three who are always involved and the three who want to be, everybody gets a word in, yet the one that matches Harry in being scornful and angry is Ginny. It's Ginny Harry's match on the other side.

Their stories are like parallel streets yet always in connection. This can be seen also in the fields in which they display their charisma and leadership abilities.

We see Ginny in the DA being able to call people's attention to herself with confidence and being able to bring people to her side, she's a charismatic person:

“Hem, hem,” said Ginny in such a good imitation of Professor Umbridge that several people looked around in alarm and then laughed. “Weren’t we trying to decide how often we’re going to meet and get Defense lessons?” -Chapter 16, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling

“Yeah, the D.A.’s good,” said Ginny. “Only let’s make it stand for Dumbledore’s Army because that’s the Ministry’s worst fear, isn’t it?” There was a good deal of appreciative murmuring and laughter at this. -Chapter 18, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling

Yet when it comes to DADA, it's Harry who truly shines, it's his territory. Ginny is a good duelist and, as the Bat-Bogey Hex lets us know, she knows how to handle the dark arts, but she is not Harry.

The opposite happens with Quidditch. Harry is the captain and he's good at it, he's a great seeker. But the life and soul of the team is Ginny (Harry's words not mine). She is the one who trains herself for years, can play more positions and clearly commands attention more than anyone else on the pitch.

They understand each other and have common interests while both having their own thing. They match each other without stepping on each other's shoes.

The enemy in Ginny's story is Voldemort too in the general sense of the war, but the ultimate enemy that brought the darkness Ginny fought against in DH and was consistent with the structure of her arc is the Carrows. In fact, Ginny is not associated for the first time with the Carrows in DH but in HBP. In the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, she's duelling against Amycus.

This was a very verbose way of saying that, thank God, Ginny didn't destroy an Hocrux because her story is not at the service of Harry's one, but it's her own.

.

If there's something I would've wanted to happen in the Battle, it would've been Ginny defeating one or both of the Carrows. I understand why it's not in the book, JKR probably didn't want to make Ginny a killer and also for us to see that, Harry should've been there but Harry couldn't see Ginny fighting or he wouldn't have been able to focus on anything else. He probably would've gotten a heart attack in the process too. But it would be something interesting to see if they'll ever do a tv series on the books. She doesn't necessarily need to defeat them by killing them herself.

.

If you're interested in the concept of Ginny's own parallel story, you might also want to give a look at this

[cqsuanla]

fury shakes the rafters

pairing: dark!nat/f!reader

summary:

Aside from the cannibalism, Nat is mostly the same. Still ridiculously strong and stupidly hardheaded. And that face — flinty, cold, mean. Nat’s always been mean. 

(inspired by jennifer’s body)

additional notes: mommy kink, dom/sub, bloodplay(?), dacryphilia, uhh pussy spanking, choking, unhealthy relationship, terrible aftercare

title from a song suggested by an anon: nobody by the crane wives

(ao3)

The light in the stairwell flickers, but it doesn’t make a difference, dim and dirty as it is. It buzzes distantly in your ears. You’re too focused on taking the steps two at a time to notice. You hold your groceries to your chest and fish your keys out of your pocket. If you were strong like Nat, you might just have knocked the door clean of its hinges with the force of your body. Instead, it crashes loudly into your wall, and you nearly fall on your face from the momentum. 

In a bid to gain purchase on your wall, you sweep your coat rack over, and you stumble over it. The clatter makes you wince — you hope she’s in a good mood. It’s hard for her to process stimuli when she’s weak. You scramble onto your hands and knees, shoving scattered boxes and cans into the grocery bag. 

Then, the rhythmic thud-thud of footsteps. You pause, exhaling as your eyes close. 

“Drink?” in a monotone. 

Yikes. You open your eyes, biting your lip. Steel-toed boots. You’ve told Nat a million times that this is a shoes-off apartment. She never listens, and you never argue more. Nat stays; she’s the only one who’ll stay. You can’t drive her away. 

Her right boot rises, scraping against the floor, and you flinch. It just kicks a cereal box away so it can nudge at the shopping bag. The way she says your name, evenly, firmly, has you blinking rapidly, has your hands automatically shooting to the bag, following her prompt. Thank god the bottles are fine. You don’t know what you’d do if they had shattered. 

You wiggle a beer out of the pack, and only then do you dare to make eye contact. 

“Hi,” you murmur. 

She gives you a brief glance, impassive, before snatching the bottle from your hand and returning to her spot on the armchair. “That fucking coat rack.” She flicks the cap off your side table, grungy and scratched up for this very reason. The cap bounces off the wall and disappears under the couch. “Just move it further in. You never listen.” 

You did, weeks ago. You don’t say so. 

The coat rack came with the place, and it was nice, so you refused to get rid of it. Nat hated it, hated that it was so close to the door in your already bite-sized entryway, but never enough to throw it out herself. But you did move it because her complaints were valid, and you wanted her to like being here with you, living here with you. Anyway, she stopped complaining afterwards. Not that you think she noticed — you supposed it was a minor inconvenience to her, the way a fly was, annoying when it was in your face but non-existent once it stopped bothering you. 

Quietly, you move your groceries to the kitchen island, putting everything but your new medical supplies away. There are dirty plates in the sink, which you’ll wash after you make yourself dinner. You wonder what she’s eaten – you’d just bought two new steaks, but Nat likes a bowl of strawberry ice cream now and then.

The TV channel switches in the background. Nat snorts, and you peek around the wall to catch a report on the gruesome series of murders that have been happening lately. People in the neighbourhood hardly went out anymore, too afraid of the dark now. It would scare you too if you weren’t well aware you’d never fall victim. Nat was with you, after all, and you were with her. 

You would be with her for as long as she’d let you. So, what if she was the monster in the dark? So what? It was Nat. Your Nat. She came back to you, talked to you, fucked you. It’s not like she was disembowelling you in some grimy alleyway. She kept most of the violence away from you because she cared. Anyway, like everyone else, she had to eat. You couldn’t fault her for that. 

You’re pulling the gauze out of its packaging when Nat scoffs loudly at the news. They must’ve insulted her because she clicks the TV shut, practically inhales half her bottle and flings the remote onto the couch. 

Then, she sets her sights on you, meek behind the counter, and raises an eyebrow. “Honey, the hall’s a mess. Clean it up.” 

You frown. “You’re still hurt.” 

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll eat tomorrow, and it’ll be fine.” 

You don’t think so. The longer Nat doesn’t eat, the worse it gets. It’s how she’s in this mess in the first place. Nat’s ethereal after a feeding, next to omnipotent. But the guy she picked to eat last week turned out to be some sort of track star because he had booked it at the first sign of trouble, and she’d been forced to retreat when the sirens started blaring. The day after that, she picked a local thug as her next meal, and she’d been caught off guard by the switchblade. So, here she is: slumped on your couch and stitched up sloppily. 

Her hair is limp, skin wane and dry, and in a bad enough mood that you can basically feel it every time you’re within a two-meter radius of her. 

Her physical weakness emboldens you a little, makes you think you can get away with a bit of stubbornness. You pick up the gauze and tape and round the corner. A car speeds by, high beam making Nat’s eyes glint a deep green in the dark. The green follows you the whole way until she has to crane her head around to watch you slip her tank top off a shoulder. 

Those eyes weren’t like that before when you first started dating. You don’t mind the changes, though. Aside from the cannibalism, Nat is mostly the same. Still ridiculously strong and stupidly hardheaded. 

“You don’t want to listen?” she asks, almost conversationally. 

You know better. You clench and unclench your fist. Shakily, you lift it and tuck a hair behind Nat’s ear, hoping foolishly that it will placate her. 

“Baby,” says she, like a gentle mother to a misbehaving child, “you should really listen.” 

You trace the bumps of her stitches, staring hard at her shoulder so you won’t have to see that face — flinty, cold, mean. Nat’s always been mean. 

“At least answer me.” 

“No, Nat,” you mutter, undoing the bandages on her bicep. “I don’t want to listen.”

To her credit, she lets you fix her up. Methodically, silently, you clean her wounds and rewrap them in new bandages. She doesn’t get in the way unless it’s to take a swig of her drink. 

When you’re done with her arms and back, you move to her front. She’s got an ugly gash on her calf, bruised midway from where the man had kicked her bleeding leg. You imagine this is causing her the most pain, not just physically. Nat’s not great with sitting still. She’s independent to a fault, enjoying control to the point that it’s probably some sort of diagnosable complex, and this restriction on her mobility has her restless and irritated. 

Looking down at her, at the space between her knees, you wonder if she’ll cooperate with you. The last time you tried to clean her leg, she’d torn your duvet in half and has since refused to let you look at it. But Nat tilts her head, coy, and gestures toward the space in front of her with her bottle. 

“Scared?” she whispers.

You glance at her face just in time to catch her tongue tracing the jagged end of a canine. Mutely, you shake your head. She smiles wide.

“Liar.”

Of course. You’re always scared of her. For her, too. But you don’t think it matters; it doesn’t change anything. You just want to help her, be good for her. Anyway, she’s trying to get a reaction out of you. You refuse to take the bait, raising your eyebrows and wiggling the bandages in your hand.

“Fine.” With a roll of her eyes, she parts her legs. 

As if dealing with a feral animal, you move slowly, cautiously, afraid to make sudden movements lest she starts getting violent. You squat down and reach for the cuff of her sweatpants. 

“Ah, ah.” She slides the leg back, staring down her nose at you. You pause. “Kneel, baby.” 

Her eyes — did the ring of green get thinner? Your lips part, anticipation beginning to seep into your body, and you comply. Once you’re settled, looking up at her, she makes that same careless gesture with her bottle. A go-ahead. 

As you work, she shifts to put her beer on the table and then combs a hand into your hair. You tense, eyeing her nervously, but she only watches you, imperious, intense, and remains silent. Nevertheless, you pick up the pace, tossing the antiseptic aside and winding the gauze around her pale calf. 

She’s startlingly warm under your hands. Ever since… whatever happened to her — she wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the details — she’s run hotter than ever. You can’t sleep under a blanket with her anymore unless you’re shirtless; the heat would be unbearable. Not that Nat has any complaints about that. 

“All done,” you murmur. 

The lack of reaction from Nat gives you the courage to lean forward and press a sweet kiss to the top of her knee. The hand in your hair rewards you with a gentle scratch, and you can’t help melting into a smile. She’s still got that air of arrogance about her when you look up at her, but she’s not glaring. Which is why it comes entirely as a surprise when she clenches a fistful of hair in her hand, yanking your head back, and slaps you clean across the face with her other hand. 

You take the full brunt of her palm with a cry, almost toppling over were it not for the grip on your hair. Your cheek burns, and so does your eyes. Mostly from pain, partly from the shock of it, maybe a little from shame when you realize you’re getting wet from the rough treatment. 

Nat tuts. “Crying already?” 

You imagine you look pretty pathetic on your knees for her, eyes glassy.

“Don’t give me those eyes, baby; you know I can’t help myself.” 

“I just wanted to help.” 

“I know,” Nat says gently, tipping your head back again so you can see the false sincerity on her face. “You can fix this, you know?” 

Your eyebrows furrow, thoughts racing a mile a minute to puzzle out what she means. 

“Don’t think so hard. You’ll hurt yourself. I’ll show you how, dumb baby,” she coos as she nudges your chin with the knuckle of her finger, and you can’t help flushing deeply at that. Then, she offers a hand, and you take it, and she tugs you up into a straddle on her lap. “Come here.” 

You instinctively wind your arms around her neck, clinging on. Beneath you, she tenses and lets out a low rumbling sound that resonates deep in her chest. You inhale sharply. 

Teeth. Sharpened to deadly points. Poised over your neck. Nat’s breath comes short and hot against your skin, and her tongue, when it peeks out, drags wetly across your skin. 

This has happened once before; the first night she’d come back changed. Like before, she noses at your flushed skin, teasing you with the possibility of damage, and trails her teeth down to your traps. Back then, she hadn’t bitten you. She won’t now, you think, you hope. 

She sighs again, hovering over the meat of your shoulder and prodding her teeth against you. Doesn’t break the skin. 

“Don’t make it worse for yourself. Are you scared?” 

This time, you nod. Nat’s lips curve into a smile, and her hold on your thighs tighten enough to bruise. 

“You should listen, sweetheart,” she says against you. The front of her teeth scrapes over you when she speaks, leaving red marks behind. “I hurt you less when you’re good. Don’t you know?”

“How can you be in the mood?” you wonder, burying your face into the crook of her neck. “You’re half dead.”

“Barely.”

It would take a lot more to kill Nat like this. Anyway, how could you be in the mood when your girlfriend’s cut up like this? 

Nat stands abruptly, ignorant to your yelps and complaints, and dumps you back onto the couch in quick succession. Before you can even register what’s happened, she’s yanked your bottoms down to your ankles and has climbed between your legs. 

Even after that, you don’t get the chance to speak. She wraps her hand around your throat and pins you to the cushions. You grab onto her wrist.

Her body bears down, and you break into a sweat, in small part due to nerves, some part because she’s shoving her hand up your shirt to grab roughly at your bra, but mostly because she’s near scalding. You’re convinced her blood runs at a constant boil now. You’ve grown to love the heat, though. With her, pleasure comes white-hot, and you’d want it no other way. 

“Nat-”

“No,” she growls, and you get an eyeful of her monstrous teeth. She flexes both hands, cutting off your airway and squeezing your breast painfully. You whimper, wound tight as a coil. “Listen to me, baby.”

You look at her through hazy eyes. 

“Those eyes again. God, I love you like this.” Foolishly, your heart clenches at those words. She rucks your shirt up and claws her nails down your front. Beads of blood bloom from the thin scratches she leaves behind. “You’re beautiful when I hurt you.”

Her hand nearly crushes your throat closed, but then she releases you, and you suck air in desperately. Your hands, shaken off her arm, reach for the sides of her head. “Nat,” you croak, tasting the salt from your tears on your lips. “Nat.”

She shakes her head, descending on your chest. It hurts – badly. “Be good for mommy.”

“Mommy,” you gasp out, arching into her mouth. She ignores your pert nipples, electing instead to lick and suck at the burn between your breasts. “Please, please.”

“Shut up,” she hisses. Oh, her teeth are still out. “Hands above your head.”

You obey, another sad sound crawling out of your abused throat. 

The dark pits of her eyes drink in the sight of you, face crumpled in pain and need. A thumb wipes up the last of your blood, and she delights in smearing it across your cheek. 

“Messy baby, clean up after yourself. It’s basic,” she chides, thumb still rubbing at your face as if she were fixing up some runny mascara. “Be good now.”

You don’t dare to speak, just nod and look pleadingly up at her. Your core aches from neglect. 

She makes quick work of that, reaching down to feel the slick between your thighs. Humming, she smirks and very deliberately rubs her middle finger over your clit. You jerk up into her, mouth falling open even as you strangle your moan. 

“I could do anything to you, and you’d still want me.” 

Again, you nod. 

“Where did my little liar go?” she baits. You shake your head. “Say ‘thank you, mommy, for letting me breathe.’”

It takes you a moment to gather the brain cells and say: “Thank you, mommy.”

Her smile widens, teeth back to normal. “Again, for the lesson.”

“Thank you, mommy.”

She brings her hand down on your cunt, full strength. You scream, jolting away from her. Well, you would have if she hadn’t pressed you down by the chest, entirely uncaring about the wound she’d left there. Tears leak out the sides of your eyes, trickling into your hairline. 

“Thank me for that too,” she demands.

“Thank you,” you cry around a hiccup. 

One more spank, and another, and another. Your legs kick uselessly against the cushions, body twisting after every awful smack.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Your hole clenches around nothing, slick leaking onto the couch. Then, two fingers dip into you, and Nat thrusts them up hard and fast. She’d shoved them in on a contraction, and it hurts for a second before she’s curling her fingers into the velvet of your walls. 

She makes a pleased sound. “Tight as always. Makes me want to tear you in half, baby.”

You stare up at the ceiling. “Th-” She starts up a fast pace, digging her fingertips into your front wall. “Thank you!”

Her cheek rests on your chest, listening to the thunder of your heart. “We should try that big one.” Impossibly, your heart rate quickens at the thought, and you manage to shake your head. She laughs, the sound sharp and cruel, and music to your ears. “Maybe another time then.”

She sits up then, still working her fingers into your cunt, and moves her other hand to your mons. She pets gently over your labia, a sharp contrast to the vicious pace she’s keeping up. Your head spins. 

“My baby,” she breathes, “good enough to fucking eat.”

But she parts your folds to press her fingers into your clit, circling them once, twice, thrice, and you’re so close. So desperately close. 

She leans down, near delicate in her movements, and licks into your mouth. You taste copper and beer and the faintest sweetness. Urgently, you try to kiss back. 

If she’s mean, she’d pull back and deny you the chance to come with her mouth on yours. 

She must think that you’ve suffered enough, though, because she rubs her thumb at your clit and drives her fingers deeper into you, and you push up as far as you can into her body with a scream. You’re swallowed in molten heat, pleasure stripping away at you until you’re just bones on the couch. 

When you come to, Nat’s pulling out some bandages for your chest. You’re too tired to do or say anything, forced into silence by her dominance. 

She smiles at you, still not kind, but it doesn’t look bestial like before. Maybe just self-satisfied. She strokes your sweaty hair as she fixes you up, shushing you if you moan quietly from aftershocks or pain. You are in a lot of pain, bruised and scratched up as you are.

“Good girl,” she says when she’s done. 

Finally, you muster the energy to grab her hand and say, “Thank you.”

She lets you hold on for a few seconds before pulling away. “Sure.”

You wish she’d hold you for a bit, but you don’t vocalize it. She’s been through too much in the last few days; you shouldn’t burden her—

“Don’t be fucking needy,” she says, suddenly and harshly. Your face must have given you away. 

“I don’t mean to be,” you mutter, bringing your arm up to cover your eyes. Feeling stupid, feeling mad that you feel stupid, you say: “It would just be nice if you’d stay for a bit.”

A hand grabs your arm, yanking it away from your head, and you’re treated to a view of her scowl. “Where would I go?”

You didn’t mean it that way, but you don’t know how to get out of this hole you’ve dug yourself. “I-I don’t know.”

Out of nowhere, her hand slaps your cunt again, overstimulated, sore, puffy. You groan, curling in on yourself and hugging your knees to your chest. 

“Fuck, Nat.”

She takes the opportunity to sit down on the end of the couch, where your legs once were. The TV turns back on, and you hear her take a sip from her can of beer. “Clean up the hall later.”

At least she stayed.

[sleeplessinspace]

Time to yell about Tall Egos, again. Men a foot taller than you at least.

YesImShort&HaveAHeight/SizeKinkShush

IAmNormalAboutIt, TimeToProject

I'm also working on a version of this with shorter egos so 👀

Big n' Strong.

Make you feel small and maybe helpless who knows ;) wink wink wink

Ohoho but what if we go into specifics-

Google 'Upgraded' his bodies when he realized that you like feeling small. Official Big Motherfucker Energy. He's already strong, so ;).

Dark's form is malleable, being an eldritch entity and all. He adjusted his height early on in his existence to spite Actor. When he learns you like em big, he adjusts accordingly. Man likes to loom over you before he starts anything kinky.

Wilford was always a big bitch. The Colonel had a vibe of 'Big Edwardian Boxer/Strongman' so it checks out that he's a big dude. Pink swirly chest hair. Loves to pick you up. Bear hugs.

Yancy has that bottom energy so getting to dominate a big boy is 👌 He loves it that you are smaller than him, but the size difference makes him want to brat so you gotta lay down the law. He also found it hot when you handed him his whole ass in the prison fite despite the size difference, so 👀

Heist!Mark finds his size to be a bit problematic in the more delicate thieving that you do, but it helps to have muscle for the dirty parts or if you have to 'negotiate'. He's cocky about it when he learns you like it. He's also into risky fun times so he likes to drag you to the side during heists and uh... ya know. ;)

Illinois uses his size and strength in a similar way to Heist, to 'negotiate' problems. He will absolutely grab you and carry you through dangerous traps, all the while teasing you about how small you are/essentially calling you a damsel of sorts.

Engineer!Mark forgets how big he is, sometimes. It's not a problem until he gets stuck in a vent or can't maneuver in a section of the wall when fixing something. Insert 'Step-Captain' joke here

He has switchy? soft!dom vibes, and will use that size against you to make you feel small. Smh Captain, can't believe you got out-maneuvered by your lead engineer. Don't think about the 'Don't.' with big Engineer. ;)

Actor... purposefully made himself taller at one point, once he gained a handle on the malleablility of his new body and command over the void. He's vain about it, but he gets proud once he notices that you like it. 'Perfect specimen' talk. Man is a switch and very weak to praise in both states so bring up the size difference.

Murdock. Woooo Murdock. Okay. Talked about him before. Big, Strong Motherfucker, you know my plans for the one thing. I AM NORMAL ABOUT IT. His size and strength makes transporting victims easier. Might have had a stint as a volunteer firefighter or an EMT so he knows how to move people. It also makes manhandling them easier, which was hotter than you thought it should be when you saw him do it the first time. He also wears the FUCKIN BOOTS still, so they add another 2 inches on his ass. This fucker is the one to use his size and strength against you because he knows that you like it. Chases, etc.

Big men you can dominate AND lift you into the air/against a wall to wreck you stupid. Heh.

i meaaan i can't judge you, i'm tall and i have the same kink soooo 🤝🤝🤝 let's bond i had this sitting in my inbox for a minute i am so sorry, it's been busy lately T_T

☆ google ☆

fuckyouuuuu BIG GOOGLE IS DOING SOMETHING TO ME i haven't thought about it a lot or anything 😳 but he absolutely upgrades his body to use it against you. and if you like him bigger to work alongside how he's already inhumanly strong??? god, you couldn't feed his superiority complex any better by doing this

☆ dark ☆

he does like to loom doesn't he? the best part about dark, i think, is his confidence. he was looming even before he adjusted his size, it's all in the looks he gives you. he's perfected the art of looking down at you and you could be right at his eye line and still feel like he's towering above you

☆ wilford ☆

one of the biggest boys, absolutely. ohmygod pink curly chest hair hggnjsdh wanna stick my face in it he fucking loves to pick you up, to spin, to carry, you name it and he's doing it for you or just doing it for the hell of it. also yes, agree on the strongman vibes, especially with the suspenders

☆ yancy ☆

my baby,,, god yeah, i'd like to think he's very aware of his size and is used to using it in prison to get his way so when you come along and kick his ass he's literally like 😳😳🤩 yancy was made to get dominated who said that

☆ heist ☆

the thought of him being bigger than you think—i like to imagine that before the two of you linked up for the heist, you had an entirely different picture in mind of him based on his track record, he does not look like the kind of guy that can sneak as well as he does—is hgnngg. he absolutely likes to use his size to drag you where he needs to if someone gets close to spotting the two of you

☆ illinois ☆

illi and his biddies,,,big ol' boy. god, hanging onto his back as he carries you across a strong stream, feeling his muscles flex beneath his shirt. i have not been swayed, i have NOT

☆ engineer/space ☆

PFFT what're you doing, step-captain i'm sorry i had to, anyway—my baby boy has some of the biggest switch vibes, i don't make the rules. i don't imagine him being super big, aside from arms i firmly believe and agree with the idea he's hiding away some absolute guns beneath his jumpsuit. and he has a couple of inches on you so when he's in a more dominant mood, he likes to crowd you against walls :)

☆ actor ☆

the bastard himself, he is so vain and absolutely lives for you to praise him over his looks. second biggest switch vibes and any compliments you pay him just fuel his need to be the best he can be

☆ murdock ☆

if you're normal about it, i'm normal about it 😏 fuckkk absolutely love the volunteer firefighter or EMT idea godd that's doing things to me shut up you didn't see anything chief manhandler for sure, he needs to be able to move his victims wherever he wants to, after all. can definitely pick you up, maybe even put you on his shoulders. fufcjccj getting chased by him, those fucking boots I AM SO NORMAL ABOUT THIS

[coco-goat-milk]

Yo, I hope you’re doing alright. May I request headcannons od Venti, Childe, and Hu tao with a Gojo Satoru reader?

Gojo! reader x Venti, Childe and Hu Tao

Pronounce: She/him/they, no pronounce mentioned so i won't either!

Warning: Slight spoilers for Gojo and Venti, violence (a little bit, nothing concerning), alcohol (it’s venti ofc)

A/n: Moshi moshi~ dear anon, I am doing great wbu? I hope you like this <3 And honestly this idea is great!!

Please check my rules before requesting!!

Venti

First time meeting:

You met him in Mondtstadt when he was performing, he was immediately interested in you. he wasn't the only one

Girls and boys alike were fangirling over some hot person with a blindfold. And they haven't even seen your eyes

He could also sense this strong power radiating off of you.

When you approached him and playfully flirted with him, he became even more interested in you.

He could see behind your playful and relaxed demeanor a complex personality, and maybe that's what made him even more attracted and curious of you.

When you two get together:

Menace to society, the both of you.

You are both very sneaky, pranking mondtstadts people, stealing wine from Diluc, and so on.

You both have lost a friend in your lives and you both have this playful and happy facade to hide the pain. When the pain really hits for one of you, you sit underneath windrise and just admire the view. Just peace and quiet with the two of you enjoying each other's presence.

Sweet songs being played on his lyre about you, you tease him about it but you secretly enjoy it. (he has several songs about you)

You don't like alcohol yourself, but you will buy lots of it for him.

Since you're rich, Venti is now your sugar baby.☺️

You both don't mind PDA and are really clingy, people are kind of disgusted by it but that just makes the two of you even more clingy.

If you use your powers, he will be shook...like are you a god? He has never seen so much power from one person!

But he, like all the others, worries that you might lose your mind.

When you took off your blindfold he was even more shook, like gawd dayum shawty(≖ ͜ʖ≖)

This relationship is very fitting and chaotic but also very cute!

Childe

First time meeting:

Meeting him in Liyue while you were buying souvenirs, he bumped into you.

He was like most people attracted to you, and when you flirted back he got even more interested in you.

Your cockiness and your smug smirk made him almost fall in love with you on the spot.

*insert fuck boy face*

When you two get together:

Sniff...that...that smells like a rich couple.

Buying a lot of gifts for each other, it sort of becomes a competition. Like who buys the best gifts and such.

Also a lot of flirting between the two of you.

You keep talking about how you are the strongest but now he really wants to fight you so badly.

But you don't want to fight him yet, you are waaaaay too strong for him. He will whine and cling onto you now because you were being ‘mean’.

He loves cuddling, and if you are as tall as Gojo (6’4 - 190 cm) then he will hang onto you like a koala, it's not like you two share the same height or anything 😐.

He really wants to go fishing with you. But zont zo it, zont zo it. It will just be chaos.

If you get into battle and use your skill, he will now really believe you that you are the strongest as he should peasant

Now that he found out about your abnormal strength he will want to fight you even more. (but if you two do that he will get his ass beat)

He appreciates that you don't hurt innocent people when in battle but he is worried about you losing your mind while in battle, he will do his best so that you don't lose it.

When he sees your eyes he will fall in love once again, he loves how your eyes sparkle...since his are just dull as he says.

Overall a stable and clingy relationship<33

Hu tao

First time meeting:

You were one of the people who fell victim to her pranks, but to her surprise you pulled a prank on her back.

She was very surprised and intrigued by you, so you pulling a prank on her meant war.

Hu tao: Finally, a worthy opponent, our battle will be legendary!

After that you two were very cautious since you two practically started a prank war.

When you two get together:

Chaos and pranks.

People hate the both of you, and avoid the two of you at all costs.

She will drag you into doing pranks on people, but you don't mind.

The people do though they banned you from some shops.

You both have this playful and joking personality, it's quite a similar personality.

The dates consist of pranking people, cuddling, picking flowers, and eating weird foods.

She really loves you and dotes over you and so do you, you buy her flowers and her favorite snacks everyday.

Whenever you miss your friend, she will hug you and tell you jokes.

She is only soft for you, and basically a big simp for you and she also talks quite a lot about you<3 Zhongli probably knows every detail about you by now

When in battle she is very amazed by your strength (not that she was that shocked, you often said you were the strongest) but she is also quite worried for you, she will try to get you to be more calmer and not let your determination to win get you in trouble.

She absolutely loves your eyes, she will ask all the time for you to take your blindfold off, and as the certified simp you are you ofc do it.

You are actually quite protective over her, ensuring she doesn't get hurt.

Hu tao actually writes poetry about you and leaves them anywhere for you to find.

She knows about your sweet tooth and always brings you lots of sweet candies and such.

It's a very wholesome and funny relationship, except for other people..they don't like the both of you.

[vidalinav]

I hate that Nesta’s protectiveness, the one quality in the narrative that even Feyre saw as Nesta showing her love for Elain, and the part of her that was again shown when she chose to die with Cassian, that was honored as she stood at Enalius’s passing, because she wholeheartedly wanted her friends to live, which can even be passed to the act of her wanting to tell her story and help the fae, because she wanted to protect the humans—to give them a chance, that part of her that started scrying because she wanted Nyx to be born in a better world, that sacrificed her powers for her sister and her nephew, because she wholeheartedly did not care about herself, she cared about other people’s well-being, that quality I never found bad or awful towards Nesta, that one quality I actually thought highlighted how good Nesta was, and how caring, is used by Elain as Nesta’s character flaw even though Nesta is only protective of Elain during three instances: one when they were human, which Nesta conceded on letting Feyre and the IC use the house after Elain says they should, one when Elain was lifeless for a bit and deeply traumatized, and once in ACOSF about scrying when the last time she scryed Elain was taken by the cauldron and Hybern.

This is why I can’t sympathize with Elain as a victim to Nesta’s ways as it’s portrayed in three instances: when she cries in the library knowing full well the current state of affairs, when she accuses Nesta of only thinking of how her trauma affects her and saying that she remembers Feyre rescuing her, and when she talks of the duke situation and says that she hopes Nesta channels all of “that” into something more productive. And then when Feyre agrees that they ALL coddle her, when Amren says that they shouldn’t underestimate her, and when Rhys again says that perhaps they haven’t seen what Elain is made of, and when Azriel is like we shouldn’t subject her to that darkness. Some of this I would understand Elain getting mad, but not for Nesta coddling, because Nesta at this point hasn’t even seen Elain for a WHILE, which makes all the difference, because how can she coddle someone she has pushed away? I can see her being angry for what Nesta says, the dog comment (actually that was never said out loud) or the father comment or what the IC do because they don’t give her tasks and kind of just let her be, but the context of the situation DOES matter, because these situations in which Nesta is saying something mean is a situation where Elain is really oblivious and not reading the context of the situation, and it comes at the end of the scene when it’s already been taken too far. She’s not mean for sport lol. I would even understand the anger based on feeling left out, but that’s not what she gets angry about. It’s directly and only at Nesta and for that one quality, and it has made this notion both in the book and the fandom that Elain is “coddled” specifically by Nesta as opposed to giving Nesta the validation that she is deeply afraid and her MO entirely is that she protects the people she loves. She has not told Elain she has no free will, she has not taken it away. That has NEVER happened. Elain consistently thrived for almost all of the book series, until she turned fae. There was no forever under Nesta’s thumb. 

It reminds me a little of when Elain says that her father could never say no to Nesta as if this grown ass man had no control and all of the control/responsibility was on this 14 year old girl. What? It’s also why I think Elain has much of the same skewed, problematic perspective as Nesta had in the beginning of ACOSF where she thought people sided with Feyre. I have such a problem that people in this fandom use that dialogue as a way that Elain is the rational one, or the one whose finally and rightfully sticking up for herself, or who is a victim of other people. Like no I’m sorry. I do agree that she is neglected in some sense, but there is more evidence that that is her choice than it is because of other people. She literally says that Nesta can’t hate her choice to live a simple life but also hate her getting involved. She locks herself away when Nesta is there. She pretends to garden for other people or whatever as Cassian notes it might have been a lie. She avoids Lucien. She is the one who though Feyre thinks she’s pleasant, they’re not extremely close, and that happened without Nesta involved at all. 

The mere act of saying it’s because of other people makes her a victim which is her whole character arc from the beginning, of her not helping even when she could just as much as Nesta. Nesta is both held accountable for her healing as in everyone pretty much pushes her to do it faster, and then also for that situation. Elain isn’t held accountable for either. Neither her own healing, Bc they didn’t push her at all even now. And also for that hunting situation.

We’ve seen literal evidence of Elain in ACOMAF where Elain is like softly being like Nesta we need to help and Nesta concedes. We’ve seen Elain stab the King of Hybern. We’ve seen her be pretty mean too in ACOSF, or at least biting back. She can help if she wants. That is not Nesta’s fault so I really really hope that that is her skewed narrative and it becomes an objective of character development as Feyre was to Nesta and it’s not used as another way that Nesta is criticized for something in the book as well as the fandom that is far more complex than “oh Nesta is mean. She hurts everyone. She’s an awful character. Blah blah blah.” But ultimately, I hope it’s used for Elain taking accountability of her own life. That it is not other people’s fault, she’s not happy or doing something or close with many people. Her narrative right now, even with the mate bond situation, is that she lacks control of her own life, but... uhh hate to break it to you. 

The evidence is there guys. Elain is having problems. Nesta is not THE problem, which for gods knows why I’ve seen on so many posts when they want to defend Elain. Defend Elain, she’s not a bad character. But not for this lol. This is one of her character flaws. 

[hopeymchope]

Oh man, I love Juzo and do think he's suitably complex, but he is a GIANT bully! He literally beat up Hinata for just trying to go into the main building if I remember right? And Hinata did that to prevent a MURDER. It makes me wonder how Natsumi got in the main building to be murdered. Is it just that Hinata doesn't come from an influential family so he gets to beat him up while letting Natsumi do the same thing? Oh my god, I hate Munataka sometimes too. I mean, I feel bad for him? I feel bad for him. But he literally told Makoto to k/ll himself. I mean sure, he thought Makoto might be the one who started the killing game—which is ridiculous and I'm not even sure he believes that at all, to be perfectly honest, because why would a traitor do what he suggested what's even the point in suggesting it, but even if we were going to take that claim in good faith, uh, still probably shouldn't say that. I will say I personally like Natsumi, even though her actions are inexcusable—I find her somewhat sympathic in the fact that a lot of her actions are rooted in insecurity. I mean, you could also be like, cool motive, still bullying to that and I think it'd be super fair, but I definitely sympathize with her a lot better than say, Hiyoko. I do think that since she's a kid (or was when she died I mean) she has the potential to grow out of it a bit, if she can just get her head out of her ass, since I don't think we should give up on kids, full stop. Like, obviously Natsumi isn't real so if you don't like her that's obviously fine, but I think I come at it through the perspective that, if she was real, she should be given a chance to change and get better. Which would mean an adult telling her off and inforcing real consequences, I think. While still remaining sympathetic and keeping a big eye out for abuse since a lot of bullies (especially elementary and younger) are just mimicking behaviors from adults in their lives. Teach the kid to be better and give them a real chance. But of course, this should be done by adults, not the kids in the situation because kids (especially the bullies victims) should not have that pressure and responsibility put on them. Honestly, I find the adult characters like Juzo who act this way way more upsetting, because they should know better. They're no longer a kid. I do still think Juzo's motivations make him sympathetic, but it in no way excuses what he did. Natsumi's actions aren't even excusable, even if I think she probably has the motivation I sympathize with the most. She definitely didn't deserve to die (and neither did Sato).

I don't know if you've ever tried to watch/read this, but I think you'd hate how BNHA handles Izuku and Bakugou's relationship. I know I do. It keeps putting the responsibility of making Bakugou into a better person on Izuku, his bullying victim. Not a great look, imo.

Note: The bit about Juzo is referencing this post.

Hajime was attempting to enter the main building to talk to Mahiru AFTER Natsumi and Sato were already found dead. But otherwise, yeah; he was trying to get into the Main Building, and Juzo beat the shit out of him and gave him a speech about how he needed to "know his place." He later claimed to Yukizome that he was just trying to protect Hajime from getting involved in the murder case and getting hurt as a result, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of people could've done that WITHOUT physically assaulting him while totally degrading and devaluing him. To make matters worse, his little speech would be the final tipping point that would make Hinata decide to sign on for the Kamukura Project.

UNHELPFUL.

I always kind of thought that Sato must've killed Natsumi in the Reserve Course Building, though. After all, we see Mahiru have no problem visiting the Reserve Course to see Sato, so clearly Main Course students could swing over at any time. Or, on the flip side, you could always assume that guests are allowed in the Main Course building so long as they were escorted in by Main Course students. That way, it's easy enough to assume that Natsumi was taken there by Fuyuhiko and Sato was taken there by Mahiru, and uh... events unfolded from there.

Hm. If we assume that the basics of what we're told in DR2 Chapter 2 regarding Natsumi's death are largely true, then I wonder how well Sato knew Ibuki, Hiyoko, and Tsumiki?

Munakata's basically the real antagonist of Future Arc IMO. The "mastermind" is ultimately irrelevant compared to Munakata's aggressive slide into — let's just call it what it is — despair. I don't mean the capital-D "I'm a remnant and a Junko devotee" kind of Despair, but rather, the lowercase-d "I'm devoid of hope of all hope" kind of despair. I suspect that Chisa was slowly working on his corrupting his way of thinking over their years together between Despair Arc and Hope Arc, and this is where all those chickens come home to roost.

He becomes very Black/White in his worldview, deciding that anyone who does aid or even could potentially aid the cause of Despair must be destroyed. Which is kind of ironic for someone who we’re clearly supposed to feel “gray” about by the end. .... And sadly, living in modern America has increasingly made me feel sympathetic to his worldview. I, too, am coming around to the idea that the only way we can deal with the hate and oppression of the other side is to give them no fucking quarter or forgiveness, ever. When shit gets THIS goddamn bad, and the other side is THAT fucking twisted, I guess that’s just how it starts to feel. 

Thankfully, Naegi was able to still see that the “Remnants of Despair” had the potential to be restored, redeemed... and maybe one day, forgiven?  

I guess Natsumi does deal with a lot of insecurity, but there are certainly plenty of other insecure DR characters who don’t lash out and create a toxic environment all around them. Shuichi, Makoto, Tsumiki, Chihiro, Mitarai, Seiko, Kazuichi, Hajime, and Ryoma aren’t making others feel like shit or threatening their lives, right? Uh, except for when some of them were still Remnants/brainwashed. :P 

However... I guess Natsumi has some like-minded company in the form of Ruruka. She, too, projects absolute confidence outwardly but is actually internally insecure in a manner that is utterly destructive and toxic to those around her. I wonder if there’s some kind of parallel to draw between these trios. Natsumi = Ruruka, Mahiru = Seiko (or is Hajime the Seiko?), and Sato = Izayoi? Those last two are both in the “twisted love drives them to take terrible actions” camp... and both situations are ultimately tragic for everyone involved. OH SNAP, there’s another “trio” we can parallel in this story - Munakata, Sakakura, and Yukizome! But in THAT particular trio, everybody involved is ultimately a toxic presence... so I’m not sure how that necessarily applies. I guess Chisa is probably the Seiko/Mahiru, and uh, Juzo is the aggressive bully so he’s probably the Natsumi/Ruruka? Which makes Kyosuke the Sato/Izayoi... OOHHH SHIT that totally works. His twisted love for his (unbeknownst to him) brainwashed girl ultimately drives him to his terrible actions! I think we have a winner here!

Cinematic Parallels?

But okay, back on-topic now: It’s definitely easier to accept these kinds of characters as inviting their own fates within the realm of fiction. With better communication and — as you suggest — an adult who could step in and steer the most toxic members into a form of treatment, things didn’t have to go as badly as they did for any of those people. A little understanding from someone in authority and the ability for them to self-reflect could’ve saved five or six lives here. The sixth one being that, if Natsumi hadn’t been killed, Hajime never would’ve received that fateful dressed-down and pummeling from Sakakura. Which might have given him pause about the Kamukura Project for long enough to bow out, but who can really say? Ultimate, in a perfect world, maybe none of them had to die.

And hey, none of this is me saying that Natsumi and Ruruka aren’t responsible for their own fates. They definitely invite what is brought down upon them in tons of ways. But I can blame them and say that they majorly suck without also saying they were beyond any hope, you feel? 

For that matter, I’m also not saying Natsumi and/or Ruruak would become good people all of a sudden if they were cared for and listened to. Personally, I’ve never seen bullies actually grow up into good human beings in adulthood. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen just because I haven’t seen it, and more importantly, this is fiction! Such redemptions are much more believable/possible in fiction, IMO. Just look at Fuyuhiko’s turnaround in DR2. 

As a final disclaimer: I am ALSO absolutely not saying that every vicious character is always potentially redeemable. Because, for example? Endeavor from BNHA is just so far past the Moral Event Horizon that there’s no point in even trying. The way he treated women/his wife and his children are just beyond the point of forgiveness. (Naturally, Horikoshi wrote him a “redemption arc” anyway. Motherfucker should be forced to walk the Earth alone forever, eternally attempting to find peace by aiding every person he meets, doing good deeds until the day of his death in a vain attempt to make up for the psychological, emotional, and physical damage he caused.)

Yeah, I did used to watch/read My Hero Academia before I couldn’t take it anymore. And there’s even a pretty healthy “Anti-Bakugo” tag on this Tumblr to prove it. :P So you’re right, I DO hate how that was handled. Although Horikoshi is supposedly FINALLY going to make Bakugo express remorse, I’m told.

Wow... it only took eight fucking years.

[lokiondisneyplus]

A review of “Journey Into Mystery,” the penultimate Loki Season One episode on Disney+, coming up just as soon as I paper cut a giant cloud to death…

Journey Into Mystery was the title of the first Marvel comic to feature either Thor or Loki. It began as an anthology series featuring monsters and aliens, but Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber were so smitten with their adaptation of the characters of Norse myth that the Asgardians gradually took over the whole book, which was renamed after its hammer-wielding hero(*).

(*) The early Journey Into Mystery stories treated Thor’s alter ego, disabled Dr. Donald Blake, as the “real” character, while Thor was just someone Blake could magically transform into, while retaining his memories and personality. It wasn’t even clear whether Asgard itself was meant to exist at first, until Loki turned up on Earth in an early issue, caused trouble, and Blake/Thor somehow knew exactly how to get to Asgard to drop him off. Soon, the lines between Thor and Blake began to blur, and eventually Thor became the real guy, and Blake a fiction invented by Odin to humble his arrogant son. It’s a mark of just how instantly charismatic Loki was that the entire title quickly steered towards him and the other gods.

But once upon a time, anything was possible in Journey Into Mystery, which makes it an apt moniker for an absolutely wonderful episode of Loki where the same holds true. Our title characters are trapped in the Void, a place at the end of time where the TVA’s victims are banished to be devoured by a cloud monster named Alioth. And mostly they are surrounded by the wreckage of many dead timelines. Classic Loki insists that his group’s only goal is survival, and any kind of planning and scheming is doomed to kill the Loki who tries. But this ruined, hopeless world instead feels bursting with imagination and possibility.

There are the many Loki variants we see, with President Loki, among others, joining Classic, Kid, Boastful, and Alligator Loki. There are the metric ton of Easter Eggs just waiting to be screencapped by Marvel obsessives (I discuss a few of them down below), but which still suggest a much larger and weirder MCU even if you don’t immediately scream out “Is that… THROG?!?!?” at the appropriate moment. And all of that stuff is tons of fun, to be sure. But what makes this episode — and, increasingly, this series — feel so special is the way that it explores the untapped potential of Loki himself, in his many, many variations.

This is an episode that owes more than a small stylistic and thematic debt to Lost. It’s not just that Alioth looks and sounds so much like the Smoke Monster(*), that it makes a shared Wizard of Oz reference to “the man behind the curtain” (also the title of one of the very best Lost episodes), or even that the core group of Lokis are hiding in a bunker accessible via a hatch and a ladder that’s filled with recreational equipment (in this case, bowling alley lanes). It’s also that Loki, Sylvie, their counterparts, and Mobius have all been transported to a strange place that has disturbing echoes from their own lives, that operates according to strange new rules they have to learn while fleeing danger, and their presence there allows them to reflect on the many mistakes of their past and consider whether they want to, or can, transcend them.

(*) Yes, Alioth technically predates Smokey by a decade (see the notes below for more), but his look has been tweaked a bit here to seem more like smoke than a cloud, and the sounds he makes when he roars sound a lot like Smokey’s telltale taxi cab meter clicks. Given the other Lost hat tips in the episode, I have to believe Alioth was chosen specifically to evoke Smokey.

Classic Loki is aptly named. He wears the Sixties Jack Kirby costume, and he is a far more powerful magician than either Sylvie or our Loki have allowed themselves to be. He calls our Loki’s knives worthless compared to his sorcery, which feels like the show acknowledging that the movies depowered Loki a fair amount to make him seem cooler. But if Classic Loki can conjure up illusions bigger and more potent than his younger peers, he is a fundamentally weak and defeated man, convinced, like the others, that the only way to win the game into which he was born is not to play. “We cannot change,” he insists. “We’re broken. Every version of ourselves. Forever.” It is not only his sentiment — Kid Loki adds that any Loki who tries to improve inevitably winds up in the Void for their troubles — but it seems to have weighed on him longer and harder than most.

But Classic Loki takes inspiration from Loki and Sylvie to stand and fight rather than turn and run, magicking up a vision of their homeland to distract Alioth at a crucial moment in Sylvie’s plan, and getting eaten for his trouble. He was wrong: Lokis can change. (Though Kid Loki might once again argue that Classic Loki’s death is more evidence that the universe has no interest in any of them doing so.) And both Loki and Sylvie have been changing throughout their time together. Like most Lokis, they seem cursed to a life of loneliness. Sylvie learned as a child that a higher power believed she should not exist, and has spent a lifetime hiding out in places where any friends she might make will soon die in an apocalypse. Our Loki’s past isn’t quite so stark, but the knowledge that his birth father abandoned him, while his adoptive father never much liked him, have left permanent scars that govern a lot of his behavior. The defining element of Classic Loki’s backstory is that he spent a long time alone on a planet, and only got busted by the TVA when he attempted to reconnect with his brother and anyone else he once knew. This is a hard existence, for all of them. And while it does not forgive them their many sins(*), it helps contextualize them, and give them the knowledge to try to be better versions of themselves.

(*) Loki at one point even acknowledges that, for him, it’s probably only been a few days since he led an alien invasion of New York that left many dead, though due to TVA shenanigans, far more time may have passed.

For that matter, Mobius is not the stainless hero he once thought of himself as. While he and Sylvie are tooling around the Void in a pizza delivery car (because of course they are), he admits that he committed a lot of sins by believing that the ends justified the means, and was wrong. He doesn’t know who he is before the TVA stole and factory rebooted him, but he knows that he wants something better for himself and the universe, and takes the stolen TemPad to open up a portal to his own workplace in hopes of tearing down the TVA once and for all. Before he goes, though, he and Loki share a hug that feels a lot more poignant than it should, given that these characters have only spent parts of four episodes of TV together. It’s a testament to Hiddleston, Wilson, Waldron, and company (Tom Kauffman wrote this week’s script) that their friendship felt so alive and important in such a short amount of time.

The same can be said for Loki and Sylvie’s relationship, however we’re choosing to define it. Though they briefly cuddle together under a blanket that Loki conjures, they move no closer to romance than they were already. If anything, Mobius’ accusations of narcissism in last week’s episode seem to have made both of them pull back a bit from where they seemed to be heading back on Lamentis. But the connection between them is real, whatever exactly it is. And their ability to take down Alioth — to tap into the magic that Classic Loki always had, and to fulfill Loki’s belief that “I think we’re stronger than we realize” — by working together is inspiring and joyful. Without all this nuanced and engaging character work, Loki would still be an entertaining ride, but it’s the marriage of wild ideas with the human element that’s made it so great.

Of course, now comes the hard part. Endings have rarely been an MCU strength, give or take something like the climax of Endgame, and the finales of the two previous Disney+ shows were easily their weakest episodes. The strange, glorious, beautiful machine that Waldron and Herron have built doesn’t seem like it’s heading for another generic hero/villain slugfest, but then, neither did WandaVision before we got exactly that. This one feels different so far, though. The command of the story, the characters, and the tone are incredibly strong right now. There is a mystery to be solved about who is in the big castle beyond the Void (another Loki makes the most narrative and thematic sense to me, but we’ll see), and a lot to be resolved about what happens to the TVA and our heroes. And maybe there’s some heavy lifting that has to be done in service to the upcoming Dr. Strange or Ant-Man films.

It’s complicated, but on a show that has handled complexity well. Though even if the finale winds up keeping things simpler, that might work. As Loki notes while discussing his initial plan to take down Alioth, “Just because it’s not complicated doesn’t mean it’s bad.” Though as Kid Loki retorts, “It also doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Please be good, Loki finale. Everything up to this point deserves that.

Some other thoughts:

* Most of this week’s most interesting material happens in the Void. But the scenes back at the TVA clarify a few things. First, Ravonna is not the mastermind of all this, and she was very much suckered in by the Time-Keeper robots. But unlike Mobius or Hunter B-15, she’s so conditioned to the mission that even knowing it’s a lie hasn’t really swayed her from her mission. She has Miss Minutes (who herself is much craftier this week) looking into files about the creation of the TVA, but for the most part comes across as someone very happy with a status quo where she gets to be special and pass judgment on the rest of the multiverse.

* Alioth first appeared in 1993’s Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective, a miniseries (written by Mobius inspiration Mark Gruenwald, and with some extremely kewl Nineties art full of shoulder pads, studded collars, and the like) involving Ravonna, Kang, and the off-brand versions of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor (aka U.S. Agent, War Machine, and Thunderstrike, the latter of whom has yet to appear in the MCU). It’s a sequel to a Nineties crossover event called Citizen Kang. And no, I still don’t buy that Kang will be the one pulling the strings here, if only because it’s really bad storytelling for the big bad of the season to have never appeared or even been mentioned prior to the finale.

* Rather than try to identify every Easter egg visible in the Void’s terrain, I’ll instead highlight three of the most interesting. Right before the Lokis arrive at the hatch, we see a helicopter with Thanos’ name on it. This is a hat tip to an infamous — and often memed — out-of-continuity story where Thanos flies this chopper while trying to steal the Cosmic Cube (aka the Tesseract) from Hellcat. (A little kid gets his hands on it instead and, of course, uses the Cube to conjure up free ice cream.) James Gunn has been agitating for years for the Thanos Copter to be in the MCU. He finally got his wish.

* The other funny one: When the camera pans down the tunnel into Kid Loki’s headquarters, we see Mjolnir buried in the ground, and right below it is a jar containing a very annoyed frog in a Thor costume. This is either Thor himself — whom Loki cursed into amphibianhood in a memorable Walt Simonson storyline — or another character named Simon Walterston (note the backwards tribute to Walt) who later assumed the tiny mantle.

* Also, in one scene you can spot Yellowjacket’s helmet littering the landscape. This might support the theory that the TVA, the Void, etc., all exist in the Quantum Realm, since that’s where the MCU version of Yellowjacket probably went when his suit shorted out and he was crushed to subatomic size. Or it might be more trolling of the fanbase from the company that had WandaVision fans convinced that Mephisto, the X-Men, and/or Reed Richards would be appearing by the season finale.

* Honestly, I would have watched an entire episode that was just Loki, Mobius, and the others arguing about whether Alligator Loki was actually a Loki, or just a gator who ended up with the crown, presumably after eating a real Loki. The suggestion that the gator might be lying — and that this actually supports, rather than undermines, the case for him being a Loki — was just delightful. And hey, if Throg exists in the MCU now, why not Alligator Loki?

* Finally, the MCU films in general are not exactly known for their visual flair, though a few directors like Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler have been able to craft distinctive images within the franchise’s usual template. Loki, though, is so often wonderful to look at, and particularly when our heroes are stuck in strange environments like Lamentis or the Void. Director Kate Herron and the VFX team work very well together to create dynamic and weird imagery like Sylvie running from Alioth, or the chaotic Loki battle in the bowling alley. Between this show and WandaVision, it appears the Disney+ corner of the MCU has a bit more room to expand its palette. (Falcon and the Winter Soldier, much less so.)

[mgsdays]

do u know any other comics/BLs like 19days? #🥪

Hey dear!

Ohh that's a good question. I don't know any quite like 19 days, an ongoing story that is ultra slow burn. I have read some other amazing BLs though. Here's some that I like:

.

Totally Captivated

• Complete | 49 chapters plus some extras

• General vibe: humor, romance

If you like the mafia background of 19 days, an amazing manhwa is Totally Captivated. Lighthearted, fun and very hot 🔥 One character gives me strong He Tian vibes, both in appearance and in attitude. Plus, the main couple has some fantastic chemistry.

Summary: Jung Ewon has always let his curiosity get the best of him, but even he could not have predicted that his latest venture would lead to him working for the mafia.

After cheating on his boyfriend and consequently being dumped, Ewon longs for the two of them to reconcile. However, his ex's new boyfriend, the handsome Eun Mookyul, begins to take an interest in him. Finding Ewon intriguing, Mookyul, a mafia boss, decides that he wants Ewon to become his underling—and that's just the start of Ewon's problems.

As the new errand boy in Mookyul's gang, Ewon must now learn to navigate the dangerous world of the mafia all while resisting the advances of his ex-boyfriend's new lover. Should he give in to his desires, he will risk more than just another heartbreak.

At the End of the Road

• Complete | 57 chapters plus extras

• General vibe: dark themes, romance, plot heavy

The summary makes this one sound pretty complicated so I procrastinated checking it out for a bit. When I finally read it I was blown away. The plot is incredible, the romantic interest is ugh so good. The entire story leaves me with a warm feeling of destiny and serendipity. It gets dark and it demands quite a bit of attention but it is definitely worthwhile.

Summary: After a car accident, Taemin finds himself in the body of Siwon, a victim of bullying at school. No longer a pushover, he starts standing up for himself but then meets Woojin, an old friend from the past. Somehow, Woojin immediately picks up Taemin's 'scent' from Siwon. What happened between these two in the past and how will it affect their future?

Walk on Water

• Complete | 62 chapters

• General vibe: romance, hot sex

Ok, this one is a delight to read. It's another one of those "straight guy goes gay for the right guy" kind of plot, but it's beautifully done. The characters' progress feels authentic. You're on the edge of your seat rooting for them. Plus, the art is amazing?? I'd stop reading sometimes just to admire it. @ the artist you didn't have to go this hard and yet you did dude!! Fantstic job.

Plus the sex scenes are just on fire. Phew 🥵

Explicit sex so don't check it out if you're under 18, stay safe, yadda, yadda.

Summary: To earn money, Ed decided to enter the pornographic industry. Secretly, he begins working under the alias of "Tommy". One day, it was suddenly decided that he would be filming as a bottom instead of a top and he's doing it with the famous Glen McQueen as his partner?

No. 6

• Complete | 9 books or 9 mangas (I read the books actually, but the manga is the same story)

• General vibe: social commentary, romance, plot heavy

My all time favorite on the list might be No. 6. No. 6 reads more like 'social political commentary ft. a couple that happens to be boys', rather than a boys love story per see. The plot doesn't revolve around their romance, their romance is also happening in the midst of the chaos. And it is beautiful to watch.

Story wise, No. 6 is a dystopic tale, and it brings up themes of consumption under capitalism, outsourcing of labor, outsorcing of inequalities and goverment control. It's not recent so you might have read it already - if you haven't I can't recommend it enough.

A PERFECT LIFE, IN A PERFECT CITY

For Shion, an elite student in the technologically sophisticated city No. 6, life is carefully choreographed. School, study, and the occasional visit with his friend and classmate Safu. One fateful day, however, he takes a misstep, sheltering an injured boy his age from a typhoon. Known only as Rat, this boy is a VC – a fugitive living outside the computerized tapestry of city control – and helping him will throw Shion’s life into chaos and start him down a path to discovering the appalling secrets behind the superficial perfection of No. 6.

Seven Days

• Complete | 2 volumes

• General vibe: school life, romance

No way you haven't read this, but just in case: seven days!! Go check out seven days!! Seven Days is the BL. School life plots peaked with this one haha It's just two volumes and the story is beautifully done. I re-read from time to time when I want a pick me up.

Summary: On a whim, high school third-year Yuzuru Shino asks out first-year Toji Seryo, who is notorious for being a weeklong lover—he’ll date the first girl to ask him out Monday morning and then promptly dump her by the following Monday! The boys start dating, and by Tuesday, the first inklings of attraction hit. Can these two put words to their feelings before Monday comes, or are old habits too hard to break?

Blue Sky Complex

• Complete | 23 chapters

• General vibe: school life, humor, romance

Another school life story for the list. Blue Sky Complex has some truly hilarious moments, with teenage fumblings that ache with how true to life they are. Zero drama, zero outside interference, just the two main characters slowly (but surely) figuring things out.

Summary: Narasaki only wanted a place where he could sit and read books in peace, but was blackmailed by his teacher into supervising a delinquent called Terashima while working at the school library.

As they spend their days in silent but close proximity, they begin to feel drawn to each other. And then...

Doukyuusei

• Complete | 2 volumes (second is called Sotsugyousey)

• General vibe: lightehearted fun

Fun fact: I went to Japan once and I wanted to buy a book in Japanese just to have it, you know? I don't speak Japanese, I just wanted a book as a souvenir. I bought Doukyuusei. Clearly I'm biased towards this story in particular haha

Everything by this author is gold. Their art style flows, the characters have a certain lightness to them that makes them almost dance in the pages. The author usually draw at least one of the leads with long hair and the hair is so well done, GOD. I could gush about the hair all day.

Perhaps one of the most realistic ones of the list, Doukyuusei is a school life story about when you meet someone at just the right time.

Summary: "A boy boy met a boy. They were in the flush of youth. They were in love that felt like a dream, like sparkling soda pop."

High school students Hiraku Kusakabe and Rihito Sajou are as different as day and night. But opposites attract and before they know it, they've embarked on a journey neither one can quite define but which anyone with eyes can see is "Love."

Mo Dao Zu Shi

• Complete | 126 chapters

• General vibe: slow burn, historical, epic romance

At the risk of being very cliche here: if you haven't read Mo Dao Zu Shi, you're wasting time. Go. This one isn't a manga, but it a fantastic book. It became uber famous for a reason, you know? All the attention is very much deserved. I can't emphasize enough how good it is.

You can watch the TV show The Untamed as well (and the acting is fantastic) but, to me, the experience is just not the same. The TV show removes all explicit romance references from the story, in order to comply with China's censorship. The book leaves nothing out. It is very much a romance, through and through, and it's an epic one. There's slow burn, pining, misunderstandings, fighting everything and everyone for your loved one and coming out stronger on the other side. Truly worth the read.

As the grandmaster who founded the Demonic Path, Wei Wuxian roamed the world in his wanton ways, hated by millions for the chaos he created. In the end, he was backstabbed by his brother and killed by powerful clans that combined to overpower him. He incarnates into the body of a lunatic who was abandoned by his clam and is later, unwillingly, taken away by a famous cultivator among the clans — Lan Wanji. This marks the start of a thrilling yet hilarious journey of attacking monsters, solving mysteries, and raising children. From the mutual flirtation along the way, Wei Wuxian slowly realizes that Lan Wangji, a seemingly haughty and indifferent poker-face, holds more feelings for Wei Wuxian than he is letting on.

[jikooksgirl19]

My Soulmates I 2

Genre: Soulmate AU, fluff,angst,eventual smut

Pairing: Idol Jimin x Lawyer Reader x Idol Jungkook

Warnings: mentions of death and abortion

AN: Thank you for your patience with this chapter. Not only did I delete it prior not once but twice, I had a personal loss happen that caused me to take some time away from writing. But I’m back on track and writing this story again. I hope you all enjoy this chapter. It’s short but I have some big stuff coming in chapter 3. Please let me know your thoughts and give feedback. I love talking to y’all.

*****************************************************

The three of you found yourself on the Top floor in Bang SiHyuks office. He sat across from you, hands clasped tightly just staring at you all. He hadn’t said anything in the last 15 minutes after you and the boys explained what happened, except to call on his personal secretary. The silence was deafening and you were so so tempted to tell a joke just to break the silence. Just as you were about to open your mouth his secretary Kim Hyunjae came into to office with a stack of papers with all the information about poly soulmates. He began to explain in detail about how the bond between you three is deeper than a normal soulmates, and it plays a huge part in the emotional side of things. Not only do multiple partners have a stronger connection to each other but their emotions, feelings, even moods can be affected by the other people in the relationship. It had been documented that on some occasions each party could physically feel what his or her mates were going through during moments of heightened situations. For example if one party had a headache or got hurt or even was sexually active the others could feel this both physically and emotionally. They also could not be parted from each other for long periods of time without it causing harm to themselves. Though extremely rare the pull of the bond would act as a tether and bring all participants back to each other, or risk crippling illness and the eventual death from the one that left or was left in the relationship. Unlike a normal Soulmate bond it could not be broken except through death as the universe had decided that these were the most sacred of bonded mates hence why they were so rare.

Only one case with no death of the separated mate has ever been documented, and that is in the case of Korean Soulmates Song Jungman, Jong Ara, and Im Jinna . The group had decided they wanted children so both Jong Ara and Im Jinna had tried to conceive but only Ara was able to do so. In a jealous fit Jinna claimed that Ara somehow caused her infertility and wanted to break the three apart. She played the victim so well and convinced Song Jungmin to leave Ara. Together they would start a new life with just the two of them leaving Ara behind. Ara was devistated as she was expecting their child and knew if they left her with the intention to not come back she could get sick, lose their child or even die. She pleaded with them both claiming her innocence but unfortunately Jungmin did not believe her and they left her to move to Japan. Ara waited to fall ill knowing that the separation would be too much but her overwhelming love for her child triggered a new bond that allowed her to survive the loss of both soulmates. After several years it was discovered by Jungmin that Jinna had once had an abortion before meeting her soulmates and as a result she became infertile. He was destroyed by this information because he didn’t try to listen to Ara and wholeheartedly believed only Jinna. He threw away part of his heart because he believed the other so willingly knowing that it would lead to the death of Ara. He believed Ara to have passed away after they abandoned her all those years ago. He left Jinna to go home to Korea and accept his fate wishing to be buried next to Ara and their unborn child only to discover that Ara not only survived but had twins, a son and daughter and was married to a man that had lost his soulmate years earlier. Though he tried to make amends with Ara it was difficult for her to forgive him as their bond had been broken beyond repair. They were both still connected but since they had been separated for over fifteen years it wasn’t as strong, in fact it was like meeting an old acquaintance instead of a lover. Unfortunately his separation from Jinna became too much and he succumbed to debilitating illness and died only three months after reconnecting with Ara and his children. It was later found out that Jinna died the same day in a hospital in Japan. Ara was of course sad at this news, but the love of her children allowed her to continue living and she was able to find peace.

You had tears in your eyes and noticed that you were holding on to both Jimin and Jungkooks hands during the story. You were so wrapped up in this that you didn’t even realize you three had unknowingly gravitated towards each other for comfort. They were both choked up as well. Someone cleared their throat causing you to refocus on the gentlemen in front of you. You sat up straight and decided to get straight to the point.

“So where do we go from here? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be feeling at the moment, and now you’re telling me I have this life altering, can’t change a thing, you now have not one but TWO soulmates, and oh yeah, you will feel all their emotions and feelings and you can’t even be away from them for too long or you might just up and kick the freaking bucket situation going on...this is what you are saying to us right now?” You couldn’t help the panic rising in your voice. Your professionalism was flying right out of the proverbial window. Jungkook just looked at you, and then Bang PD and said “What she said.” You couldn’t help it you started to giggle at his brief statement then the boys started giggling with you.

Bang SiHyuk cleared his throat and got right to the point. “First we get you moved into the boys complex. You will have an apartment on the floor below the dorm along next to Jins soulmate Yuna. This will allow visits between you three without risk for now. Only essential staff will be told about this arrangement. Y/N you will be hired on as a permanent staff member within our own legal team. Also because you are also multilingual you will assist with our translation team while the boys are traveling, as well as help teach English to to boys. This will help with the questions the public might have about you being around the boys all the time. This is going to take some preparation before we can put this information out to the public. We are also going to have to get you started on the path to Citizenship here in Korea.” Said Bang SiHyuk loudly while clapping his hands together as though he just solved all the problems in front of him. “Now I suggest that you three get to know each other and settle anything else you might need to attend to quickly. Y/N I will have your apartment ready in two days. Is that enough time to get you packed up and ready to move?”

You sat there with your mouth open like a fish trying to digest everything that was being said. This was going too fast and you needed to pump the brakes on whatever this was that was happening. Realizing you needed to answer you opened your mouth to vehemently deny any of his requests and spoke up with a resounding. “Yes Sir.” It came out of your mouth like it was nothing. You immediately slapped your hand over your mouth and thought what on Gods green earth is wrong with me? I have lost my ever loving mind. While you and your inner bitch-demon continued to argue in your mind, the others started making arrangements for you.

You noticed that Kim Hyunjae didn’t seem as though he was fond of you or this situation you had found yourself in. He didn’t out and out say anything rude or with tone but your gut told you he was not happy with this relationship between you, Jimin and Jungkook. You chalked it up to the amount of paperwork this was going to cause him so you tried your best to let him know you would be as much help as you could and you would do your best for the boys and the company. At this point you were giving Jimin and Jungkook your current address and contact information so you could meet tomorrow morning for a “ Get to know you meal”. You excused yourself and prepared to go home when Jungkook caught up to you. “ I know this is a lot Noona and we are all a bit overwhelmed and know absolutely nothing about each other, but please know that I am so blessed to call you my soulmate. You seem very kind and you are beautiful and smart and amazingly funny even when you don’t mean to be.” He smiled at you and your heartstrings tugged in the most peculiar way. You were already becoming attached as you could feel a pull towards the younger man. He took your hand and shook it in a very businesslike manner and said “Till tomorrow malady” and bowed in a funny way causing you to laugh again. Jimin came out and grabbed your other hand and said he was looking forward to breakfast and getting to know more about you as well. You said your goodbyes and turned and left the building hailing a cab to take you home so you could process the events of today. You had not been prepared for the absolute crazy that happened today but deep down you were getting excited at the prospect of having and loving two adorable soulmates.

As Jungkook and Jimin were getting ready to leave Jungkook looked at Jimin and asked “What are you going to tell Somi?” Jimin just looked back at Jungkook with sadness in his eyes and shrugged his shoulders and replied “I have no idea.”

To Be Continued...

Taglist: @mrcleanheichou @itsminniekat @dreamescapeswriting @seaoffangirling @4evahevah @sonderkook @bisexualmess007 @chxustuff @aviwasabi21 @skyys-universe @ally22042000 @ramblingsofawolfgirl @eunoiavante @angelic-lawyer @purpleheartsfortae @the-obsessive-fangirl